Michael Bay's new Netflix movie 6 Underground comes to the big screen with a number of overt creative influences: including blockbuster comic book movies. For his part, Michael Bay's fingerprints all over the final product, particularly in regards to his usual visual touchstones, like the rapid-fire editing. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick also bring back the pop-culture savvy dialogue found in their Zombieland and Deadpool movies for this project. Meanwhile, the overall story shares a lot of its DNA with classic heist movies, as well as a 1990's action movies such as The Rock. Above all else, though, 6 Underground is heavily influenced by comic book movies.
The influence of comic book superheroes in 6 Underground is observable in a number of ways; the frequent references to already-existing comic book characters through in-movie dialogue being an especially notable example. Famous pieces of comic book iconography like the Batcave repeatedly get name-dropped in the dialogue as reference points for key parts of the 6 Underground lore. But the influence goes beyond just some pop culture references: 6 Underground's whole story feels cut from the same cloth as a number of modern comic book movies, specifically titles like Guardians of the Galaxy or The Avengers, that follow a whole group of superheroes.
6 Underground is about a team of vigilantes living in a secret hideout, who have plenty of nifty gadgets at their disposal, and dedicate their lives to pulling off heroic missions that will help mankind — an apt summary for any number of cinematic superhero groups. Their quippy banter, laden with pop culture references, feels like it'd be at home in certain Marvel Cinematic Universe entries, while the team's narrative arc, which centers on the members learning to connect with one another as human beings, parallels how the individual members of the Guardians of the Galaxy spent their first movie learning to trust one another and care about somebody else.
It isn't just in the group dynamics that 6 Underground becomes Michael Bay's take on a comic book movie, though. Individual characters also resemble figures you'd find in your average comic book film. Many of the lead characters, especially the protagonist One (Ryan Reynolds), get tragic backstories explaining why they've taken up this specific life. Such backstories tend to hinge heavily on traumatic deaths that echo the similarly tragic origin stories for Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker. In another, likely unintentional, parallel to the female characters found in traditional comic book team-up movies, the primary female characters in the main group of heroes in 6 Underground get little in the way of distinct perspectives or personalities.
Even the extravagant action set pieces in 6 Underground featuring people doing grand parkour feats, falling from great heights and surviving, and walking away from car chases without getting so much as a scratch, feels more like something out of a Justice League adaptation than the smaller-scale grittier fights you'd find in, say, a John Wick movie. Although Michael Bay has never directed a movie based on a comic book, key qualities of 6 Underground make this title something that certainly feels like the filmmaker's first foray into the world of comic book movies.