If you have ever seen any Michael Bay movie, then you should already know what to expect from this one, lots of action and tons of explosions. This movie looked like it was going to be really good. It had an original idea, it had Ryan Reynolds in it, and it was being produced by Netflix. I truly thought that it had a lot going for it. Unfortunately it was directed by Michael Bay, so there were bound to be some flaws.

This is by no means a terrible movie, and I would have to say that it is actually one of Michael Bay's better films (Which isn't saying much) But it did have its fair share of problems. Most of the cast, including Ryan Reynolds, played very unlikable characters that were mostly one dimensional, and several of them had backstories that were very quickly glossed over. Much of the dialogue was very poorly written, and there were numerous attempts at humor, most of which fell flat. The movie was also two hours, which is the typical length of a film these days, but it felt like it was never going to end at times. This movie also did not need to be rated R, but Bay decided that it would be a good idea to insert horror movie levels of gore in to the film. You get to see all sorts of things like corpses with blown off heads, and limbs get ripped off of people, as well as much more. This was completely unnecessary, and it could have easily been PG-13, while still being pretty much the same exact film. The editing and pacing also really dragged the film down, as is the case in most Michael Bay films, as it is very choppy and poorly done, causing the movie to be extremely hard to follow at times.

There were a few redeeming qualities to the film however. Overall, the acting was fairly good, with a few exceptions. And of course, as you have come to expect from a Michael Bay film, the action set pieces and special effects were superb, and really made the film worth watching. They weren't just the typical action scenes that you would see in a generic film either, some of them were very clever and have not been done before. They made the film a lot more exciting and engaging, so at least it does a good job at keeping the audiences attention. There were a couple jokes that made me smile at times, but like I said previously, most of them fell pretty flat.

This is most definitely a popcorn flick that you should watch with a bunch of your friends on the weekend, and that is what it is meant to be. You are supposed to shut off your brain for two hours and have a good time, and if you can do that, then you will really enjoy this movie. There is a scene in the film that is literally meant to set up potential sequels, and I am interested to see what they end up doing with that if they do decide to make a sequel. They just need to improve on some of those things that I pointed out earlier and they may have something similar to the Fast & Furious franchise on their hands.