Michael Bay pops the clutch and hits the gas on a thrill ride like few directors can do - unfortunately, he often doesn’t know where to drive this murder machine, more intent on capturing the carnage in its wake, before fumbling the parking job.
Ambulance starts out solidly. A tight-five of exposition and thrust into the “thrill”, with some touches of character and the “turn your head and cough” of nuance. But Bayhem cannot be stopped and it is what you paid your hard earned money for, so when the “Speed Bad Boys” style gets going oddly situated but intensely chaotic car stunts and ‘splosions become the repas du jour. His signatures are all there, marking every Bay film, but he has added some extraordinarily intricate car work here and a finessing drone cam to his repertoire. Some visual panache on this gouache cinematic biscuit.
The style and bombast put your butt in the seats, but it is up to the story and characters to keep you there. Some frivolity and high school-wit pop the 1st act and Gyllenhaal revels in his hard-pressed villainy, but there isn’t much else. Abdul-Mateen and González keep a throughline of solid in the midst of insanity, but the antes keep getting upped and as it drags on, no one can keep this motorized missile of mayhem on course.
It’s fun for a while and has some flashes, but it's more an overly long pitch with some forced in broad characters that come off clunky and valueless destruction that tires as the spectacle propells. I would be intrigued on how this compares to the original Danish it is a remake of, especially with the coda, which feels like dragged down snore rather than a satisfying conclusion. Not sure dealing with the rubble is as interesting to Bay as the splosions that create them, which shows.
