I went into 6 Underground thinking "let's see who Michael Bay is mad at this year." Turns out the answer was, "the Walt Disney Corporation, for stealing his schtick."
There are many references to superhero movies in 6 Underground. Ryan Reynolds's character, One, is repeatedly compared to Bruce Wayne in the script. Also, the role he plays in the film is highly reminiscent of the version of Tony Stark we see in 2008's Iron Man: he's a billionaire who got rich off his own sci-fi inventions, he frequently makes sarcastic quips, and he's inspired to heroism by an experience with war in a central Asian country.
It wouldn't be quite accurate to call the characters in 6 Underground superheroes, but it would be less accurate to call them anything else. They're exceptional individuals who take justice into their own hands against villains that others cannot or will not fight.
But 6 Underground's focus is a little different from those of other superhero movies. The heroes may be interested in justice, but the movie is not. The movie is interested in their temperament and their capabilities. When they fight, the movie marks their accomplishments with slow-motion shots of teeth getting knocked from bad guys' mouths or bullets bursting out of exit wounds. What shines is the heroes' disgruntlement with not having been able to do what they really wanted, plus gratification in the level of damage they can dish out. It's in a similar idiom as that of superhero movies, but with a different tenor.
In this movie, the characters are angry and complain a lot, but when it dwells on violence, it's hard to see it as a punishment because the villains are always so nondescript. It doesn't matter to 6 Underground what the umpteenth henchman who spurts blood in slow motion did. It's the characters' ability to make these things happen which the film cares about, and the anger that motivated them.
This wouldn't work if the scale of what was happening wasn't clear, but the film does work on that level. The world moved by these characters' efforts must be big, significant. The pace of the film's editing must be impatient, striving to cut to the next thing. This is where the film gets its character, when it can't get it from the absurd script. Near the end of 6 Underground, a character gives a speech which incites massive public demonstrations, and it's utterly unconvincing. But the sudden boiling over that happens in that scene doesn't feel out of place in this film, among these crass, frustrated characters.
Politically speaking, this movie is even more absurd. Overall it's incoherent, but so are most movies. When it's not, it's close to anarcho-capitalist. If there's anything worthwhile about this, it's that it's about the same on that front as many current superhero movies, but much more obvious about it. But I know better than to ask people to like Michael Bay's films.
My goal is to highlight what's consistent and formally remarkable about this film. 6 Underground banks on a combination of visual sense and proactivity. The proactivity shines through because the characters can be crass and unreasonable, so that the sense of necessity which attends righteous actions is diminished. Many films since 2011 have tried this, but few have succeeded. They often don't have the attitude. The tenor of something like Avengers: Endgame is "isn't this great?" The tenor of 6 Underground is "try and stop me."
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