6 Underground

6 Underground, the new Netflix special starring Ryan Reynolds and directed by Michael Bay, is exactly what you might suspect that particular pairing would produce: In essence, this is Deadpool’s Italian Vacation, with the deft mix of action and comedy that title implies.

The trailer opens with a spoof of a “visit Italy” tourism video, replete with a narrator sporting a vague Italian accent and footage showing of Italy’s city vistas in a quasi-documentary style, including a mix of panned shots and shaky cam footage.

This initial setup is discarded, however, once a green supercar burst onto the scene; as the car does donuts around a water fountain, Reynolds calmly rolls down his car window, looking downright zen, if not bored.

“Yeah, we probably could have used the warmup mission,” Reynolds says just before the director’s title card. So far, the trailer doesn’t betray much that is particularly well differentiated from any other action movie, but this changes shortly.

Around 0:57 we here a distinctly clicky sort of ticking sound that is very popular in modern trailers over the past few years or so; this is complemented by a small-scale sort of “booj” sound, as the popular podcast 20 Thousand Hertz once called it. A synthesizer sequencer serves a base for these sounds as the green car again enters the picture.

Notice at 1:13, once we see the slow motion the booj is more pronounced and the ticking is cut into half time. At 1:17, we hear an oddly edited version of Reynold’s voice as he sticks his head out of the car. It’s very nearly comedic in nature, as sort of implied by those who recognize him as an inherently comedic character who has a growing reputation for such acting thanks to Deadpool and other such roles.

This odd sound is then followed by an equally odd sound for Reynolds’ title card—sort of a chiming sound that you might more likely hear in a video game. He then apologizes for yelling, compelling the audioviewer to consider the odd, slowed-down / distorted sound again.

We’re then treated to a sequence with rollicking, thunderous military percussion such as one is accustomed to in such action montages. This is juxtaposed again at 1:40 as Reynolds discusses comparing one’s anatomy to the statue of David, with a chiming, vibraphone-like / pitched percussion tone as one might hear in a cartoon when a character gets an inspired idea.

This sound turns out to be the return of the elevator music and the narrator heard in the beginning of the trailer, although this is placed into direct counterpoint against the ongoing onscreen action. The ending, again, isn’t what one expects for an action film, as florid flutes, glimmering pitched percussion, and clouds of synthesizer dominate the soundtrack.

The sound cues that don’t immediately fit the action movie milieu here are prepared for by the opening and closing “tourist video” conceit; by inserting a couple of choice, cartoony sound effects and some voice manipulation in the middle, the soundscape that results alludes to Reynolds’ sometimes-subtle sense of irreverent humour. As such, it marks an evolution from his work as Deadpool, and it marks a satisfyingly self-knowingness on the part of Michael Bay as to what a “Michael Bay movie” means and how those expectations can (and probably should) then be played with or subverted.

6 Underground premieres on Netflix December 13th, 2019.

— Curtis Perry