The latest bet by Michael Bay, whose name is synonymous with excessive action cinema, arrives in theaters. His narrative is lost, buried by the abuse of frenetic montage and unbridled technique, in search of the great show
The premiere of the latest action craze produced and directed by Michael Bay, perhaps the only Western filmmaker currently seeking to innovate the genre in the face of Eastern supremacy, allows for an entertaining exercise in visual acuity that will especially dazzle open-minded moviegoers. ‘Ambulance. Escape Plan’ is a remake of a 2005 Danish film, available on Netlix. Watching both films in one go makes it possible to clearly observe the differences between a modest project, which is already old, with a European label, and its response made in the USA years later, with a budget multiplied by a thousand, that is to say, thanks to the wand director of the ‘Transformers’ saga, whose best film to date is still ‘Pain and Money’, closely followed by ‘The Rock’ and ‘Armageddon’.
The frantic initial twenty minutes of ‘6 en la sombra’, the previous bet of the well-known nervous camera director, premiered directly in streaming, used several formats, using current audiovisual language without prejudice with a custom montage. A pity that, after its brutal start, the show went on to become a trailer for many movies in one, reigning in the house brand zapping while the main characters matter rather little to the viewer and lack uniqueness.
Although Bay, personal in his own way, showed off for a while with the striking opening of ‘6 en la sombra’, one of the best that has been done in time in the West in the action genre, it is necessary to insist, the rest of the film fell into chopped without being able to overcome the rhythm of its ignition. In ‘Ambulance. Escape Plan’ aims to maintain this wild tension throughout more than two hours of footage that can be exhausting. The film starts from the same premise as the original film to stretch it to the maximum in pursuit of the spectacle, taking advantage of every technological advance imaginable in the field of moving images.
Director Michael Bay on the set of ‘Ambulance: Escape Plan’.
A bank robbery is truncated and the protagonists are forced to hijack an ambulance in their improvised escape plan. Inside the vehicle they do not go alone, with which the great escape becomes chaos. Pursued by the security forces that take over the city of Los Angeles, the objective is to survive police harassment, resolve their grudges and keep accidental passengers alive. Ultimately, they have to survive themselves. This approach is the perfect excuse so that the braking, explosions and accelerations are not lacking, facing the profitable franchise ‘Fast & Furious’.
‘Ambulance. Escape Plan ‘allows Bay to mount another of his unrestrained visual apocalypses in which he prioritizes not letting the audience breathe, over the narrative. What matters is not blinking, it doesn’t matter if the scenes are better or worse and the acting team is at the service of the tour de force with little room to expand in front of the -numerous- cameras. The seal is unmistakable, to the point that we are talking about auteur cinema. Series B hipervitaminado, eager to devour the box office. By the way, they star in the firecracker Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, (‘Candyman’), Jake Gyllenhaal and Eiza González (‘Baby Driver’). They hold their own in this apology for the old steroid-injected blockbuster.
Jake Gyllenhaal, Yayha Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza González in ‘Ambulance: Escape Plan’.
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