The culmination of the last decade was poor by Bay’s high standards. Transformers: The Last Knight resulted in over $100 million estimated loss for Paramount and Hasbro, proving to be his last directing role in the franchise. He is quoted to have agreed with Spielberg to stop at three but the studio begged him for a fourth and fifth, and regrets doing so. However, just in case you were worried, there’s a sixth release coming in 2023 alongside the spin-offs, so the franchise is still going strong and Bay will make tonnes as a producer. In 2019, 6 Underground became Netflix’s second biggest budget film totalling $150 million (25 million behind the Irishman) and also failed to set the industry on fire. Granted, the picture received 83 million watches from individual members (according to Netflix, who class two minutes as a view) but it wasn’t enough to justify a sequel, with Netflix chief Scott Stuber claiming the movie as a failure creatively. As someone who did watch 6 underground but didn’t have enough time to review it fully, it is Bay’s attempt at jumping on the superhero bandwagon. Ryan Reynolds plays a billionaire who rounds up a team of specialists to take out an all powerful untouchable dictator – sound familiar? An “adult” Justice League, it’s the worst film of his I’ve seen. Nonetheless, what we are discussing today is Bay’s latest feature, Ambulance.
Borne from COVID frustrations and a 2005 Danish film of the same name, Ambulance is a thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yayha Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza González. Will Sharp (played by Abdul-Mateen II, named after a Colonel in Armageddon) is a US Veteran who desperately needs money for his wife, her medical bills, and child. He turns to his adopted brother Danny (Gyllenhaal) for help, who’s followed their psychotic father’s footsteps of thieving. Will is only looking for a loan but Danny needs a wheelman, and Will is the best in the business. With no other choice but to accept the offer, they enact Danny’s plan to steal from one of the richest banks in L.A. Starting smoothly, it quickly spirals when a persistent officer called Zach (Jackson White) clicks onto the robbery and is shot on the premises, sparking a battle akin to Michael Mann’s Heat between cops and robbers. Unafraid of the danger, paramedic Cam Thompson (Eiza González) drives onto the scene and is promptly hijacked by our main characters, beginning a car chase across Los Angeles.
It’s this opening sequence that feels so cliché, as if Bay is going through his blandest hits. A simple premise that’s dragged out to 30 minutes, we can tick off a character that’s a veteran followed by an odd couple dynamic from the bingo card. In fact, there is a second pairing which fits into the buddy cop mould, self-referring themselves to Bad Boys. Alone, this may have been excusable, but in the same breath one quotes Bay’s 1996 film The Rock, the other confuses this for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Dialogue stolen from Facebook walls ten years ago continues into the next scene where the same officer insists on knowing the full name of a bank teller he intends to ask on a date and Gyllenhaal gives a stereotypical surname based on her ethnicity. When you add two strong “not like other girls” into the mix, at what stage should we consider it parody? The need to spell out exposition shows a lack of trust with the audience he has cultivated, replacing fresh personalities with the same traits from his previous work to avoid any strenuous creativity.
Although, once the film transitions into the ambulance, things start to pick up. The claustrophobic nature accompanied with the fast paced intense action leads to some very compelling scenes. Whilst many of the characters fall into basic tropes, Gyllenhaal’s wild-eyed performance foiling Abdul-Mateen II’s distressed good guy carries the picture forward. The set-pieces are still ridiculous but, on a Michael Bay sliding scale, are more grounded and believable, likely due to the restriction of only a $40 million budget. The extra act staple of each Bay film is present here but provides some of the more surreal stunts in the picture and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Once again, sound is Bay’s biggest strength and really elevates the anxiety the audience feels, especially when viewed at the cinema. The one technical point that let’s Ambulance down is the cinematography. Director of Photography Roberto De Angelis’ first non-documentary film shows his excitement by flying the drone camera erratically and overuses the up close shaky cam to the point of developing motion sickness. Zooming in close and holding on background graffiti showcases the city but also distracts us from the action. However, it does highlight Los Angeles as the fourth main character, crucial to the movie, which if you can get past the first thirty minutes becomes a fun, tense GTA V car chase.
And with that, comes an end to my deep dive into Michael Bay’s filmography. An interesting experiment where I’ve learnt about the Bay formula (getting the story out of the way before proceeding into non-stop action) and his tendencies to always speak his mind, even incorporating it into his character’s dialogue. He hates critics, therapy and is unsure about different sexualities, but loves cars, dogs, and including minorities in on the banter (as long as it’s aimed at them). Bay shows that consistency, trusting your process, having a massive budget, and being career focused pays off in cinema.