Despite being terrible and watching any plans for a sequel go up in smoke, 6 Underground nonetheless endures as a pivotal moment in Netflix’s history.
Picking up the baton from David Ayer’s Bright, the action-packed blockbuster signaled a change in the way the streaming service would approach its highest-profile original content by recruiting Michael Bay to make the jump from cinemas to on-demand to hand him a $150 million budget and an A-list superstar in Ryan Reynolds to lead the charge, even if the results could generously be described as having been mixed ever since.
Perhaps the most memorable thing about the inane globetrotting epic is something that happened both on and off-camera at the same time, in what ranks as one of the most infamous continuity errors of the last few years. During a high-speed chase sequence that prominently features Reynolds’ character One, the vehicles involved race past… Ryan Reynolds, recording a promotional video for his social media channels.
It’s been four years since 6 Underground wound up as one of Netflix’s biggest-ever hits before fading into the ether of irrelevancy in no time at all, but the leading man and producer evidently hasn’t forgotten after holding his hands up when it was brought to his attention yet again.
Reynolds has mastered the art of headlining Netflix’s all-time Top 10 several times over through 6 Underground, Red Notice, and The Adam Project, but thankfully he managed to avoid any glaring mistakes in the latter two regardless of their many, many shortcomings on any number of levels.