Synopsis: A group of six, intend on making the world a better place, go on a mission to free a nation from the clutches of a dictator.

Review: A bunch of highly-skilled individuals working together on something significant is a standard trope of most Hollywood blockbuster franchises. Take, for instance, Mission Impossible, Oceans 11, 12 and 13, or The Expendables, among many others. You get the drift, right. In principle, 6 Underground follows the same routine – six do-gooders, each of whom has a particular skill set that works well for the mission at hand. There’s a parkour expert, a getaway driver with insane driving abilities, a doctor, a hitman and an ex-CIA agent. When one of them falls, a sniper gets recruited. When you give this bunch into director Michael Bay’s hands, then, if you, like me, have seen enough of his Transformers series, you know what he brings to the table.
The six, who go by numbers and not names, are led by One (Ryan Reynolds) a mysterious billionaire, who, strangely enough can still bankroll their operations, despite having faked his own death. To the outside world, the rest of the team are also ghosts, free to operate the way they want. Their target is the evil dictator Rovach (Lior Raz) in the fictitious land Turgistan. The plan is to get rid of Rovach, who doesn’t bat an eyelid before executing gas attacks on his own people, with his more democracy-loving brother Murat (Peyman Maadi). The action leading to that goes on for about two hours and eight minutes, a good 20 minutes of which is the opening car chase in Florence. There are a lot of elements that one comes to expect in a Michael Bay movie, especially with regard to the action sequences. There are explosions galore and a lot of gun fights too. Since this is not the Transfomers, and there are people involved, there is a lot of bloodshed, graphic language, and fleeting moments of nudity. There are still cars, but most of the time they are either running over bystanders during chases or hitting something and flipping in the air. The only two highlights, if one can call them that, are sequences involving a swimming pool at a high-rise penthouse and a yacht.
The problem with 6 Underground is that despite all the bombastic action, there’s nothing in the plot or character development that is even remotely riveting. The film was, no doubt, made with the intention of turning it into a franchise. One sincerely hopes Bay is not indulged.