6 Underground

Even for a Michael Bay film, 6 Underground is a dumb action flick which isn't much more than problematic story used to tie together a series of impressive action sequences. Despite these limitations, the film offers some basic dumb fun largely due to a cast better than its source material and several lengthy stunts including parkour, magnets, car chases, guns, explosions, and lots of dead bodies.

Our heroes are a no-name team brought together by billionaire turned would-be savior (Ryan Reynolds) who operates a private group hoping to do good in the world by performing coup d'etat (apparently under the nose of every intelligence organization on the planet). His team includes a spy (Mélanie Laurent), hitman (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), acrobatic thief (Ben Hardy), doctor (Adria Arjona), driver (Dave Franco), and sniper (Corey Hawkins).

The group's mission, what we're told is the first of many, after a botched opening mission that left one of them dead, involves taking down a foreign head of state (Lior Raz) and replacing the dictator with his more moderate brother (Payman Maadi).

I'm always a fan of Mélanie Laurent who is fun here as the hard-ass former spy. Reynolds tones down the charm but otherwise keeps the smarmy dick role he's being doing in his sleep for decades. Hardy is fun as the acrobatic member of the team (although, to be fair, his stunt double is doing most of the work here). The rest of the cast is largely forgettable, although I did wish the script gave Adria Arjona more to do. Speaking of the script. Yikes. Nothing about the story makes a lick of sense, which is why the film likely cuts in several flashbacks, all featuring more action sequences, to keep you from trying to follow the logic of how a group like the A-Team, but only about 40% as competent, is going to remake the world.