STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A tech billionaire (Ryan Reynolds) fakes his own death, in order to live anonymously and fight the forces of evil. Renaming himself One, he recruits various individuals from around the world, to join his organisation, and live as he does, with numerical numbers to each of their names, applying their various skills in his quest to rid the world of horrible people. Rovach Alimov (Lior Raz) is a brutal dictator in the Middle East, who has become the teams latest target. But everything is not as it seems.

Michael Bay is a director with a style as distinctive as any established Hollywood hack. Slo mo action scenes, sweeping visuals and stylised, brutal violence have come to define his films. Truth be told, the man has always been better suited to directing video games than movies, which require more of a solid foundation to make them succeed, such as strong writing, good dialogue and effective characterisation. 6 Underground opens in the heat of a close up car chase, frenetically moving along while characters bark dialogue to the screen, and ending with the death of one of them. But since we've established as much of an emotional connection with them as the others, it's a bit moot.

Bay's films have never been known for their L.A. Confidential style, labyrinth plots, but this is truly the flimsiest excuse for a plot I've ever known, further compounded by Bay engaging in some Bad Boys II style over indulgence, stretching at over two and a half hours, which the plot isn't strong enough to sustain. It wouldn't be so bad if there was an engaging story with characters you cared for, but it's just not the case. In the lead role, Reynolds applies his edgy, wise cracking style to the proceedings, but is not enough to lift it on his own, while a strong supporting cast including Melanie Laurent, Ben Hardy and Corey Hawkins is wasted.

It thinks it's funny, it thinks it's slick, but, it's just crap. *