Ambulance is something of a best and worst hits album from director Michael Bay. He’s one of the most polarizing directors ever. Roger Ebert said of The Rock, “…you really care about what happens. You feel silly later for having been sucked in, but that’s part of the ride.” But of Armageddon, he said, “The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out.” Ebert was also one of many detractors of Pearl Harbor, proclaiming it “a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality.” While he found the first Transformers good enough, he hated the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, saying that it’s “a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys.”
I only quote Ebert because I left Bay’s new film feeling largely unimpressed and even confused as to what I had just watched, but not completely hating the movie. I had gone in expecting a Michael Bay movie, and that is what you will get for your ticket price—for better and worse. But the problem is, I think that the first Transformers was more competently made than this. The movie–based on a 2005 Danish film of the same name–opens in the most hilariously cliched way: introducing brothers Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Danny Sharp (Jake Gyllenhaal) in a brief childhood flashback that explains nothing. The only information we know about these two is that Will is a war veteran who desperately needs $231,000 for his wife’s surgery. So he reaches out to Danny, who is a life-long criminal but his last hope.
But Danny and his crew (who are all about as competent and well-equipped as Stormtroopers) are about to pull off a big bank heist. This is something he forgot to mention to his sibling, who gets roped into this within the span of approximately three minutes, because Danny is missing a guy and needs someone to help. Reluctantly, Will agrees but before long they are holding up hostages, and during the seemingly smooth getaway he shoots a cop (Jackson White). So they commandeer an ambulance, holding an EMT (Eiza Gonzalez) hostage while forcing her to save the man’s life as they outrun the LAPD.
First, I would like to say that I did enjoy a few aspects of this movie. Gyllenhaal’s performance and charisma is the primary saving grace here. It keeps the movie consistently enjoyable even in its worst moments. I would also be lying if I said that I did not laugh at least a few times throughout the course of this ridiculous movie. After all, despite the idiotic script, it is deliberately over-the-top in places and such moments put a smile on my face in only a way Michael Bay can.
If only the rest of the experience were as good. Apparently, Bay blends practical effects with special effects, using drones to capture the action. The result is a very dizzying and disorienting action movie, where it is nearly impossible to follow what is going on, and the camera is constantly shaking, even when it’s just focused on someone’s face. Once again, I expected the director’s trademark “Bayhem”, and it’s here in truckloads (or should I say ambulance-loads?). Unfortunately, it’s just not well shot, which is a real shame.
Add in a nonsensical, weak script by Chris Fedak that stretches credibility even by this director’s standards, obligatory product placement, a premise that cannot support its excessive runtime (the film overstays its welcome by at least twenty minutes, but even around the hour mark it starts wearing thin). Bay’s characters are cardboard cutouts, and we only learn about them through exposition dumps in the second half…through another character, no less. The action in the climax, and even the motivations of secondary players, are perplexing.
Michael Bay is, in many ways, comparable to the titular vehicle. He races through lanes of logic, speeds through surgeries, and plows over plausible premises. Meanwhile, we get two-plus hours of mind-numbing CGI, incomprehensible action, and a confounding conclusion. Maybe if he had stopped at a red light and stitched up his film a bit, this Ambulance would drive better.
**1/2 out of four
Rated R
2 hours, 16 minutes
THE REEL REVIEWER WITH JOSHUA KROEGER 