Affected by the epidemic, the cinema market in the mainland is now very deserted.
"Outlaw Ambulance", released this week, may be a commercial action blockbuster that has been missing in mainland theaters for a long time!
Directed by Michael Bay, known as "Exploding Bay", the film was directed by the popular film star Jack Gyllenhaal and actress Elsa Gonzalez, and was known as:
The most popular and exciting Hollywood R-rated action film in recent years.
As a commercial film lover, this issue will talk about the quality of this new film in the end -
"Death Ambulance"
Ambulance
Who is the most "explosive" director in Hollywood?
I'm sure someone will agree with this answer, director Michael Bay.
Entering the film industry for 36 years and serving as a director for nearly three decades, Michael Bay has left many memorable classic films to audiences around the world, and his films have become synonymous with "modern commercial blockbusters" - hot and exciting action explosion scenes, high-burning and exciting plots, and dazzling high-end cameras, making it Michael Bay's most distinctive personal style.
From the famous "Jedi X-Men" to the worldwide "Brave Island" with a global volume of 340 million US dollars, followed by blockbusters such as "The End of the World", "Pearl Harbor" and "Transformers", all of them have become the most high-profile film projects in Hollywood that year.
Since directing "Transformers 5" in 2017, Michael Bay began to reduce production, and in 2019, he filmed an action film for Netflix, "Ghost Attack: Fighting Violence with Violence", and then sharpened a sword for two years before launching a new work "Outlaw Ambulance".
The film cost about $40 million, or 250 million yuan, and the mainland version is 135 minutes long, but the North American version is 136 minutes, which means that the film is cut by 1 minute, but for a lively R-rated action movie, this deletion is not large.
The film has a Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of 77%, which is michael Bay's best work in recent years, and it should be known that the Rotten Tomatoes freshness of 2017's "Transformers 5" is only 15%, so many reviews said:
Outlaw Ambulance is Michael Bay's turnaround.
Adapted from the 2005 Danish film of the same name, the film tells the story of two brothers who ventured into a bank robbery because their mother was critically ill and needed surgery, but accidentally hijacked an ambulance while fleeing, but when they escaped from the police, they found a dying heart patient and an intern doctor behind the ambulance, leaving the two robbers in a dilemma.
The original film is only 80 minutes long, the Hollywood remake is 136 minutes long, and the screenwriter only follows the outline of the original film, but the story is completely renovated and added, and even the plot theme is not the same.
In the original version, there are two brothers, and the remake version becomes a pair of adoptive brothers with different skin colors, and the affection between them has a greater test - the younger brother even abandoned his brother and left.
In terms of starring, the male protagonist is Hollywood actor Jack Gyllenhaal, who has starred in classic movies such as "Brokeback Mountain", "Nightcrawler", "Source Code", and another male protagonist, Yehya Abdul-Meiding II, starred in the high-scoring comic drama "Watchmen".
The heroine is actress Aisha Gonzalez, who has starred in the American drama "Kill a Dawn", and it is worth mentioning that she is also the heroine of the American drama version of "Three-Body Problem" created by Netflix.
The film begins with a tense bank robbery.
Veteran Will Sharp, whose wife was seriously ill and desperately needed a $230,000 surgery, had to come to his door for danny, the last thing he wanted to contact. Originally, the two brothers had a good relationship when they were teenagers, but later their brother Danny inherited his father's ambitions and became a bank robber with many evil intentions.
Will asks his brother Danny to borrow money, but the money is not borrowed, but he is suddenly pulled down by Danny and forced to participate in a bank robbery.
Danny's gang of robbers sneaks into the bank, quickly takes control of the situation without alarm, and steals large sums of cash from the vault. Originally, the two brothers planned to steal $32 million and then slip away, but they did not expect that the plan went wrong halfway.
Just as several people were preparing to leave after work, a rookie policeman came to the bank lobby in order to talk to the bank woman support he admired, but found that the door was deeply locked, and he was immediately taken hostage by the robbers and accidentally shot by Will.
The chaos in the bank alarms the police partner who is waiting for his good news outside, causing Danny and Will and a group of robbers to be trapped in the bank by a large number of police forces, and the team members are killed in the process of trying to break through.
Will and Danny venture out of the siege and flee toward the underground garage, only to find the building surrounded by police. Desperate, the two ventured to hijack an ambulance with a female ambulance officer, Cam, and an injured police officer in need of first aid.
Will and Danny take control of the ambulance, holding the female ambulance and the police officer hostage, trying to break through the siege of the police force, at the same time, the injured police in the ambulance are in urgent need of surgery, and Will and Danny are forced to embark on an unprecedented escape on the streets of Los Angeles.
As a film directed by Michael Bay, "Outlaw Ambulance" on the one hand inherits the usual genre elements in Michael Bay's works, the whole film is full of his style, flying cars, explosions, gun battles, Michael Bay can always bring the audience the strongest visual shock, the entertainment elements of the film to the extreme, let people adrenaline soar rapidly.
In addition, the film is particularly impressive is the camera scheduling, Michael Bay's signature rotating lens, a large number of tilt angle tilt composition cameras plus handheld sports photography, highlighting the tension of the film and the momentum of the confrontation between the police and the bandits, and the film also uses drone shooting many times, so that the film's picture level becomes richer, and the more than two hours of the film are not at all lengthy.
On the other hand, this film can also see michael Bay's changes and breakthroughs, although the film has a lot of action scenes, but the story is quite complete and wonderful, especially for the shaping of several protagonists, the character arc construction is very complete, making this film different from ordinary commercial entertainment movies.
The movie doesn't have an explosive opening, in fact, the movie doesn't even see a bullet until nearly half an hour. After the robbery, although there was a large-scale exchange of fire between the police and bandits, it was basically over, and the core of the film was placed on the escape scene of the two robbers.
The most interesting setting of the whole film is that the two brothers of the embattled robber and the hostage-taking female ambulance, as well as an injured policeman, are placed in a high-speed ambulance, showing the character's inner dilemma.
In enclosed spaces, humanity is often magnified, and this ambulance, which is rounded up by the police at high speed, is an almost perfect confined space. The injured police officer is in urgent need of surgery, like an invisible countdown device, forcing the three protagonists in the ambulance to make life and death choices, and also turning the protagonist's escape journey into a "test of human nature".
Danny, Will, and cam, a female ambulance worker, have different positions, but in the crisis test of the pursuit of soldiers on the outside and the lives of people inside, the relationship between the three is constantly changing, and even in the process of fleeing, the line between the robbers and the hostages is becoming more and more blurred.
Danny is a fierce bandit, but he also has weaknesses, and his concern for his brother Will is not fake, especially this brotherhood runs through the film and becomes the most moving place in the movie.
Cam, a female ambulance worker, is the embodiment of goodness and justice, although she has been taken hostage, she has never forgotten her professional ethics, in order to save the injured police, she constantly negotiates and games with Danny who hijacks the ambulance.
The robber Danny and the female ambulanceman Cam, the two characters are one and the same, and across the two is the relatively neutral "Will".
On the one hand, Will is really in desperate need of money, so he is dragged into the water by his stepbrother Danny and becomes a robber; on the other hand, Will is an upright soldier with a bottom line and conscience, he does not want to shoot and kill, but he can create people, but he accidentally injured the policeman. Out of guilt and a moral code in his heart, Will feels responsible for treating the injured policeman in the car, which makes him caught in a vacillating dilemma.
The three protagonists in the movie pull and compete with each other, and the relationship between them balances each other, forming a stable triangle relationship.
On top of this dramatic human conflict, the screenwriter arranged many obstacles and difficulties for the protagonist's escape journey, such as: in the ambulance through the video phone, directing the scene where the female ambulance did the operation, the doctor and the robber were busy, and finally used the female ambulance's hairpin to stop the bleeding, which was both tense and absurd, with both coolness and black humor.
In addition, through this thrilling but twists and turns of the ambulance escape journey, the film makes each character in the story experience a "psychic operation", Will and Danny two brothers have excessively disintegrated, but the brotherly relationship has not changed, and the female ambulance officer Cam experienced life and death after the escape, the work is no longer just business, but will take the initiative to care for the patient's subsequent life and death.
In this sense, this film is perhaps the most tender work of director Michael Bay in recent years.
After the characters in the film have experienced this bullet-and-bullet chase and escape, it seems that they are all reconciled with their past lives, the robbers find their lost good thoughts, and the ambulance personnel regain the faith of the healers, and the whole process emphasizes the kindness of human nature and respect for life.
This may be the message that the film really wants to bring to the audience.
Of course, it must be admitted that "Death Ambulance" is after all a commercial film that pursues entertainment effects as the main purpose, and while the film is extremely entertaining, it is inevitable that it will be top-heavy at other levels of the film, and the action scenes occupy the main core of the whole film, resulting in weak literary drama, dazzling camera scheduling, and sometimes may cause the audience to feel dizzy.
Overall, this "Outlaw Ambulance" is a qualified commercial popcorn movie, the advantages and disadvantages of the film are obvious, the coolness is not deep enough, if you are a fan of such action blockbusters, then this film is definitely not to be missed, it is worth experiencing Michael Bay's unique audiovisual stimulation on the big screen.