Ambulance Review - A Ride filled with Thrills, Chills, and Emotions
Michael Bay's Ambulance, based on a Danish mystery from 6 years ago, is a bank heist/hostage scenario action thriller that, luckily, avoids the explosions, spectacular effects, action scenes, and collisions that Bay is known for. And, if you're still scratching your mind, this is the same director that brought us Armagedon, Pearl Harbour, and the Transformers trilogy. So you'll understand what I'm saying about his celebrity and the kinds of films he's made a career out of — loud, devastating, and inspiring.
Bay isn't known for sensitivity or a soft touch, but I'll give him credit for trying to be more nuanced while staying on the straight and harsh side of things. This may be seen in the way he establishes the primary characters. We're introduced to two adoptive siblings, one African-American and the other white, in the introduction. They grow into adults to be William and Danny, with William being a distinguished army veteran with a family and Danny being the one who followed in their dad's legacy into the realm of fast money and criminality. We're also expected to sympathise with Cam (Eiza Gonzalez), an Ambulance service frontliner who operates in the truck that gives the movie its name.
The astonishment is that Bay's attempt to develop his characters works, as both William and Cam ring true and elicit our affections. Both Abdul-Mateen and Gonzalez do a good job in their respective roles. Gyllenhaal is the one who appears to be acting on autopilot as the type of narcissistic, confused but nonetheless hardened, unstable villain we've seen him play before – such as Mysterio in Spider-Man Far from home
I believe additional pruning would have improved the film's effectiveness, particularly in the middle segment, which is about as entertaining as watching OJ Simpson on the LA road. We're fortunate that the last 20 minutes or so provide a few surprises from the Bay hat. Like a bludgeon, his use of music and the movie soundscape is still overly loud and thunderous.
What I will say is that if this is the Michael Bay we will see from now on, it will be a more fascinating brand of action movie, one in which the storey and character building now carry as much significance as the mindless destruction and explosion that we expect from any Bay movie.
Bay isn't known for sensitivity or a soft touch, but I'll give him credit for trying to be more nuanced while staying on the straight and harsh side of things. This may be seen in the way he establishes the primary characters. We're introduced to two adoptive siblings, one African-American and the other white, in the introduction. They grow into adults to be William and Danny, with William being a distinguished army veteran with a family and Danny being the one who followed in their dad's legacy into the realm of fast money and criminality. We're also expected to sympathise with Cam (Eiza Gonzalez), an Ambulance service frontliner who operates in the truck that gives the movie its name.
The astonishment is that Bay's attempt to develop his characters works, as both William and Cam ring true and elicit our affections. Both Abdul-Mateen and Gonzalez do a good job in their respective roles. Gyllenhaal is the one who appears to be acting on autopilot as the type of narcissistic, confused but nonetheless hardened, unstable villain we've seen him play before – such as Mysterio in Spider-Man Far from home
I believe additional pruning would have improved the film's effectiveness, particularly in the middle segment, which is about as entertaining as watching OJ Simpson on the LA road. We're fortunate that the last 20 minutes or so provide a few surprises from the Bay hat. Like a bludgeon, his use of music and the movie soundscape is still overly loud and thunderous.
What I will say is that if this is the Michael Bay we will see from now on, it will be a more fascinating brand of action movie, one in which the storey and character building now carry as much significance as the mindless destruction and explosion that we expect from any Bay movie.