Michael Bay’s Netflix movie, 6 Underground, bears some strong similarities to Christopher Nolan’s Inception, but doesn’t fare well from the comparison. Universally derided by critics upon its Netflix release back in December 2019, Michael Bay’s return to his patented ‘Bayhem’ antics was perhaps better received by the streaming public, currently sitting at a 62% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Bay’s latest movie revolves around Ryan Reynolds’ billionaire-with-a-conscience ‘One’ deciding to fake his death, recruit a team of specialists (persuading them to do the same) and take down a particularly soulless dictator. The plot is just an excuse for Bay to roll (vehicles and in some cases, people) from one action set-piece to another.
Thanks to a $150 mil cash injection from Netflix, Bay goes all-out with every trick in his playbook - and some whole new ones - that 6 Underground feels like he’s aiming to produce his magnum opus. It’s very reminiscent of when Nolan went balls-to-the-wall with his own action epic, Inception. Unfortunately for Bay, he just can’t compete.
How 6 Underground Is Michael Bay’s Inception
Ryan Reynolds’ character, One, recruits a team of specialists who - because of the team - are able to exist outside the normal rules of society. A doctor, a driver, a hitman, a CIA operative, a thief; they all fake their deaths in order to operate unimpeded in service of their leader and their mission. With Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dominic Cobb recruits a team of highly-trained people in order to enter the dreams of a target and plant an idea within his head. The work that they do is so hi-tech and cutting-edge that they’re essentially able to operate outside of the boundaries of the law. The obstacles they face in the latter film stem from the defensive capabilities that exist within their target’s head - armed projections hailing from their target’s (Cillian Murphy) subconscious. It’s how the audience is able to enjoy gunfights in the setting of a dream.
In one particularly great Inception sequence, our sleeping, dreaming heroes are in a car crash - which results in gravity going topsy-turvy in their shared dream-within-a-dream. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Arthur, is then left to fight armed projections whilst protecting his cohorts’ unconscious bodies. Later, he has to find away to ‘kick’ them awake, without the use of gravity. It’s thrilling stuff, and was revolutionary for a blockbuster set-piece in 2010.
Towards the climax of 6 Underground, Reynolds’ character One uses his bleeding-edge tech in order to turn the villain’s massive yacht into one giant magnet. Using his cell phone as a remote control, he switches the magnet from Port to Starboard and back again, dragging every henchman wearing metal from one side of the yacht to the other. It’s a chaotic sequence, resulting in bad guys receiving metal bowls to the groin at 100 miles per hour, as well as other miscellaneous objects (mostly kitchen utensils like knives) to cause them pain.
Beyond that stand-out set-piece, 6 Underground echoes Inception in other ways. The team existing outside the law, doing what is essentially a big heist; in 6 Underground, they have to abduct the dictator’s democracy-friendly brother from his ‘gilded cage’ in Hong Kong. With Inception, it’s a reverse-heist, their goal instead to plant an idea in Cillian Murphy’s head rather than extract one. Even the music echoes Hans Zimmer’s score.
Ryan Reynolds’ sheltered billionaire suddenly demonstrates martial-arts skills seemingly out of nowhere in said heist, as he is cornered by three or four bad guys. He disarms and kills them all in one fell swoop, leading to Corey Hawkins’ Seven to remark, “You’ll have to tell us where you learned that”. He never does. At least in Inception, every character’s sudden proficiency in shooting and fighting can be explained by the fact that it’s all a dream.
The similarities even extend as far as the ending; with Inception, audiences are shown that Cobb is finally reunited with his children; his goal from the beginning of the movie (whether it’s real life or a dream will be famously debated until the end of time). With 6 Underground, One discovers that he’s had a child by his one-night stand earlier in the movie, giving him a reason to go on living, fighting and sending money to the young boy. The similarities between Inception’s family-focused ending and 6 Underground’s tacked-on surprise-son are obvious.
Why Michael Bay’s Inception Doesn’t Work
Simply put, Michael Bay is not as talented a director as Christopher Nolan. For example, Bay’s attempts at defying gravity are hard to stomach by virtue of how impossible it all is; Nolan’s attempt was at least grounded in the reality of the dream sequences he himself had invented (and all pulled off with practical effects). Bay’s sequences are pure organized chaos, compared to Nolan’s, whose action sequences all seem to play out with Swiss-watch precision.
Nolan’s ending for Dominic Cobb plays out equally earned or tragic, depending on whether you believe Cobb was back in the real world or trapped in a dream. Either way, Nolan and DiCaprio both earned it. Cobb walks away from his spinning top dream totem because he doesn’t care whether he’s in a dream or not; he gets to be with his children one way or another. One, on the other hand, manages to find himself the father of a child. He doesn’t attempt to bond with the boy in any way; he simply leaves him his fortune in the event of his death and returns to trying to take down dictators with his team. If Bay wanted this to be his Inception, he’d at least have One try and connect with his newfound son. As it stands, it’s unearned and forced emotion.
Michael Bay just doesn’t have the chops necessary to bring together this sprawling, globe-hopping, timeline-jumping story. 6 Underground’s jumps in chronology are unnecessary, and don’t serve the story well. He could’ve had a cleaner story without. When Nolan decides to play with time, it’s in service of the story; when Bay does it, it’s simply to keep audiences in the dark. The final major difference between 6 Underground and Inception, though, and one indicative of the two very contrasting directors, is that reportedly Bay wants to do eight sequels. Nolan doesn’t even want to do one.
Next: What To Expect From 6 Underground 2
