If they were superheroes, their power would be invisibility. Despite a running “Leave It to Beaver” joke, they are not a family, One insists, but an elite group of “ghosts” - super-skilled, ultra-lethal experts in their respective fields who’ve faked their deaths in order to “haunt the living for what they’ve done.” These characters know each other only by number, Reynolds’ “One” informs us, to better protect them from forming attachments. There’s Dave Franco, “the driver” Reynolds, “the billionaire” Mélanie Laurent, the (inexplicably French) “CIA spook” Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, “the hit man” Adria Arjona, “the doctor” (who never touches a gun) and Ben Hardy, “the skywalker” (a clever name for a parkour cat burglar).

While racing through the European city’s narrow streets in a nitro yellow-green Alfa Romeo, the 6 Underground are identified one at a time. Unapologetically R rated, “6 Underground” is probably the most action packed of his non-“Transformers” movies, which requires the attention-deficit hyperactivity director to cram most of his exposition in between explosions, starting with the crew’s maiden mission in Florence, Italy. But at home, what’s to stop you from bailing on a Michael Bay movie after the first dull stretch? So Michael Bay’s solution? Never a dull moment. When you go to a theater, you buy a ticket and chances are, you sit through to the end credits. As a critic, it’s my job to watch films from beginning to end, but if you were to check my Netflix queue right now, you’d discover five movies with less than a couple minutes viewed of each one. It’s minute-one mayhem (a strategy for which Michael Bay is unusually well suited), and it’s quite likely to become the new normal for Netflix originals - action movies at least - which need to rip your eyeballs out from the get-go or risk losing your attention altogether. James Bond movies, which virtually invented the pre-title tease, have a reputation for starting out at top velocity, but this is something new. In any case, moments later, Reynolds whips out the lawyer’s eyeball and uses it to access a retinal scanner, all while moving slightly faster than the speed of thought. I’m fairly certain that Ryan Reynolds - who heads up the film’s off-the-grid vigilante squad, for whom this made-for-Netflix action bonanza is named - also kills a high-ranking Mafia lawyer, although the action comes so fast and so furious that it’s hard to say. Within the first six minutes, Michael Bay destroys a plane, a motorcycle, three cars, countless pedestrians and the dignity of three Italian nuns.

If you’re planning to see “6 Underground” in theaters, be sure to get there on time.

Intitleindex of 6 underground 2019