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If “6 Underground” were opening in theaters, you’d want to be sure to get there on time. Within the first six minutes, Michael Bay destroys a plane, a motorcycle, three cars, countless pedestrians, and the dignity of three Italian nuns. I’m fairly certain that Ryan Reynolds — who heads up the film’s off-the-grid vigilante squad, for whom this action bonanza is named — also kills a high-ranking Mafia lawyer, although the action comes so fast and so furious that it’s hard to say. In any case, moments later, Reynolds whips out the lawyer’s eyeball and uses it to access a retinal scanner, all while moving slightly faster than the speed of thought.

James Bond movies, which virtually invented the pre-title tease, have a reputation for starting out at top velocity, but this is something new. It’s minute-one mayhem (a strategy for which Michael Bay is unusually...