This will certainly be a hot take for many, but Michael Bay is a good filmmaker. Has he made some absolute steaming piles of absolute hot turds over the course of his career? Oh god yes, I've seen all the Transformers sequels. But whether you are a fan of Bayhem or not, the man is obviously very confident in his own singular vision at this point of his career and it's at least a good thing he has one. For those reasons, I always look forward to a new Michael Bay film where I can just shove a bunch of popcorn into me and not have to think too much about what is the deep philosophical themes of this film. And when you have a cast that is headlined by Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza Gonzalez, I'm bound to be the first person waiting in line.
Ambulance is this year's Wrath of Man and that's a huge compliment in my books. Yes, it's about every bit as loud, sensory overload, and preposterous as every Michael Bay film before it, but this is also probably the purest fun I've had watching any other film so far this year. It's a vibrant, relentless, and non-stop adrenaline rush that is essentially the coolest 2hrs+ car chase you'll see all year. While some of Bay's worst instincts as a filmmaker might be present throughout, this is easily one of his most well-made films. The action is chaotic, intense, and absolutely I think demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Bay has always been one for good spectacle, but this is easily some of the most well accomplished set pieces of his entire career. All the car chases alone make this one well worth the price of admission. I was certainly on the edge of my seat the entire time.
Nobody should be walking into a Bay film expecting rich storytelling and powerful themes. Having said that, this is narratively one of his best features to date. This story might be riddled with many cliches we've seen before and is Michael Man lite, but I was genuinely surprised how invested I got into its emotional core. And much of that needs to be contributed to how committed these lead performers are. Even in Bayhem, Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza Gonzalez are swinging for the fences with these performances. Gyllenhaal just commits to an almost insane level with his work here and it's such an absurdly fun performance to watch. Alongside him, Yahya continues to prove he is one of our most exciting rising actors and he brings such an emotional gravitas that was needed to his film. But my MVP award would go to the wonderful queen that is Eiza Gonzalez who is the film's true heart as its emotional anchor. Gonzalez is a movie star and it's time for Hollywood to give her a franchise of her own already. The rest of the supporting characters are rather thin, but we do still get some fun work from Garret Dillahunt & Keir O'Donnell.
Of course, Bay still must give into a few of his worst habits as a director. Even as someone like me who is generally a fan, Bay can get borderline obnoxious with his own style. He's mostly able to restrain himself and dial it back to a more grounded level with this thankfully, but the film really loses that more grounded tone at a certain point and it really does become almost a live action cartoon especially in its last half. That honestly didn't really distract from my enjoyment of this at all, but if you're looking for even a resemblance of logic in this film you might want to look elsewhere. The comedic moments in a Bay film can also be very hit or miss and there's plenty of it sprinkled throughout here. Luckily, the comedy in this mostly worked for me, but there are a few moments that had me rolling my eyes a little.
Putting all those imperfections aside, Ambulance absolutely rules and is one of Bay's very best films overall too. It's Michael Bay at his most Michael Bay and for some that might be a huge issue, but clearly not for this viewer who just had a total blast with it. If you've never enjoyed a Bay film in your lifetime, then I'll be the first to tell you to steer clear of his latest. However, if you can handle at least a certain level of Bayhem (especially films like The Rock or any of his Bad Boys films, please go out and give this one a chance. It really saddens me to see an original action film from a typically very bankable filmmaker open as low as it did last weekend at the box office. Let's please go out and support these original films too.
Final Grade: B+