Colin Woodell Archives

Review: ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ (2024), starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum

July 5, 2024

by Carla Hay

Scarlett Johannson and Channing Tatum in “Fly Me to the Moon” (Photo courtesy of Apple Original Films and Columbia Pictures)

“Fly Me to the Moon” (2024)

Directed by Greg Berlanti

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1969, in Florida and briefly in New York and Louisiana, the comedy/drama film “Fly Me to the Moon” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An ambitious advertising executive and a patriotic NASA flight director have conflicts over how to handle marketing and media coverage of the historic Apollo 11 spaceflight that was the first to send people to the moon.

Culture Audience: “Fly Me to the Moon” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, movies about NASA, and dramedies that present revisionist versions of real history.

“Fly Me to the Moon” is a breezy and charming comedy/drama that tells an alternate and often-satirical version of planning media coverage of NASA’s historic Apollo 11 spaceflight. Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum carry this movie over some of its bumpier parts. It’s the type of movie that will have the most appeal with people who have good knowledge of American history (especially when it comes to NASA) and can appreciate movies that poke fun at how easily the media can be manipulated.

Directed by Greg Berlanti and written by Rose Gilroy, “Fly Me to the Moon” is based on a story by Bill Kirstein and Keenan Flynn. The movie takes place during an untold number of weeks leading up to and including July 20, 1969, the date that the Apollo 11 spaceflight put the first people on the moon. The movie has a little bit of something for everyone: scientific adventure, emotional drama, suspenseful thrills, lighthearted comedy and entertaining romance.

“Fly Me to the Moon” begins with a voiceover from a character who is later introduced as Moe Berkus (played by Woody Harrelson), who says he works in the office of the U.S. president. (Richard Nixon was president of the U.S. at the time. And although his name is mentioned a few times in the movie, he’s not a character in the film.) Moe is a government official who acts more like a spy than someone who has a typical administrative job.

An opening montage sequence explains how the Space Race competition between the Untied States and Russia (which was then known as the U.S.S.R.) heated up in the 1960s, as both countries competed to be the first to send people to the moon. In a 1962 speech at Rice University, then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy stated that the U.S. would accomplish this goal before the end of the 1960s.

In 1969, Cole Davis (played by Tatum), a bachelor with no children, is NASA’s launch director at Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. He is confident and has the respect of his team. It’s later revealed that Cole is a Vietnam War veteran who used to be a military pilot. He had trained to be a NASA astronaut but had to leave the astronaut training program when it was discovered that his heart had a fibroid. Cole also has some emotional baggage, including remorse and guilt, over his involvement in the tragic Apollo 1 spaceflight where three astronauts died.

Kelly Jones (played by Johansson), a bachelorette with no children, is also an assertive achiever who sees herself as highly motivated. She works for a New York City-based advertising agency called Hoover. Kelly knows she’s in a male-dominated profession, so she uses her wit and charm to impress people who underestimate her. An early scene in the movie shows Kelly (who’s wearing a fake baby bump to appear pregnant) astounding an all-male group of executives working for a car company client during a conference room meeting. She tells all of the executives in the meeting what types of cars they drive and what types of cars they should be driving.

These weren’t lucky guesses from Kelly. She did her homework in researching these executives. An unethical reason for her success in business is that she has a long history of presenting fake stories, images situations as being real. More of Kelly’s past is revealed in the story. Why did she fake a pregnancy in a business meeting? It’s an example of how far Kelly is willing to go to manipulate people into thinking that she’s more vulnerable than she really is, in order to get what she wants.

Someone who has noticed Kelly’s “smoke and mirrors” skills is Moe, who can be either stern and smirking in the way that he interacts with people. He approaches Kelly in a bar, introduces himself as someone who works for the U.S. president, and shows her proof that he knows a lot of secrets from her past, including Kelly having a history of creating false identities for herself. Moe tells Kelly that he can make her shady past go away if she takes NASA as a client to market the Apollo 11 spaceflight to the public.

Moe explains that Apollo 11 has a public relations crisis because many people, including several influential politicians, think that the U.S. government is spending too much money to try to send people to the moon. At the time, sending people to the moon was still considered an improbable science fiction fantasy. Kelly’s job would be to “sell” Apollo 11 as not only patriotic but also an opportunity for capitalists to make a lot of money. Kelly feels she has no choice but to take this job, and she sees it as a challenge that she can conquer.

And so, Kelly goes to Kennedy Space Center with her trusted assistant Ruby Martin (played by Anna Garcia), who is openly a liberal feminist. Ruby says she has a problem with the job if it means they’re working for politically conservative Richard Nixon, but Kelly assures Ruby that their client is really NASA. The budget for this job is much lower than what Kelly usally gets. She and Ruby have to stay at a motel. And to their dismay, their office at NASA is cluttered and small.

Soon after arriving in Florida, Kelly is by herself in a diner when Cole walks in and looks at her as if he’s immediately attracted to her. Kelly notices Cole staring and her, and they both try to play it cool. He finally approaches her.

They have their “meet cute” moment when he notices that a candle on her table has accidentally lit a book on fire. Cole quickly puts out the fire, and she offers to buy him a drink. He tells her that he doesn’t drink alcohol. Later, it’s revealed that Cole is also very religious. In other words, Cole and Kelly have opposite lifestyles.

Kelly notices that Cole is wearing a NASA pin. They have some casually flirtatious conversation where she plays coy about who she is and exactly what she’s doing in this part of Florida. Before Cole leaves, he is somewhat bashful and a little awkward when he tells her that she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. Cole thinks he’ll probably never see her again, but there would be no “Fly Me to the Moon” movie if this was just a one-time encounter between Cole and Kelly.

Cole inevitably finds out who Kelly is and what she’s doing at Kennedy Space Center. When they see each other again, she’s giving orders on his turf. And he doesn’t like it one bit. When two people who are accustomed to getting their own way have to work together and disagree, arguments and other conflicts predictably ensue. And when those two people have sexual tension with each other, the conflicts get even more complicated and personal.

“Fly Me to the Moon” takes a while before it gets the parts of the movie that are the most interesting. A lot of screen time is taken up by somewhat repetitive scenes of Cole disliking almost every idea that Kelly has in order for her to make the Apollo 11 spaceflight more appealing to skeptics. Soon after finding out that he has to work with Kelly, Cole tells her to forget about what he told her about how he thinks she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen because he wants their relationship to be strictly platonic. (And we all know that’s a lie because they’re obviously attracted to each other)

Kelly’s ideas involve things such as product placement and marketing the Apollo 11 astronauts as product spokespeople; hiring actors to pretend to be NASA officials (including Cole) who don’t want to do media interviews; and creating fake personal histories about herself, in order to make herself more relatable to politically conservative U.S. Senators whose votes are needed to get more funding for Apollo 11. In very unrealistic-looking scenes, Kelly suddenly acts like a political lobbyist and has separate meetings with U.S. Senator Hopp from Georgia (played by Gene Jones) and U.S. Senator Cook from South Carolina (played by Colin Jost, who’s married in real life to Johansson). And then, Cole gets in on the lobbying too when he and Kelly have dinner with Senator Vanning from Louisiana (played by Joe Chrest) and his wife Jolene Vanning (played by Stephanie Kurtzuba) in the Vanning family home.

Some of the other NASA people at Kennedy Space Center who work closely with Cole include executive launch director Henry Smalls (played by Ray Romano) and two engineers in their 20s: resourceful Stu Bryce (played by Donald Elise Watkins) and nerdy Don Harper (played by Noah Robbins), who becomes Ruby’s love interest. The three Apollo 11 astronauts—Neil Armstrong (played by Nick Dillenburg), Buzz Aldrin (played by Colin Woodell) and Michael Collins (played by Christian Zuber)—are given somewhat generic personalities and are not the focus of the story. There’s also a stray black cat hanging out at Kennedy Space Center, much to the annoyance of Cole, who doesn’t like this cat because he thinks the cat is bad luck.

Moe isn’t at Kennedy Space Center all the time to see how Kelly is doing her job, but he has ways of monitoring what she’s doing. He orders her to do something that is highly unethical, which is already revealed in the “Fly Me to the Moon” trailers: Film an alternative version of the Apollo 11 moon landing where everything goes perfectly, and pretend that this recording is a live telecast of the real moon landing.

Moe has a name for this massive lie about Apollo 11: He calls it Project Artemis. Moe pressures a reluctant Kelly to carry out this scam because he says it’s a matter of national security. “This isn’t just a race for the moon,” Moe says in a lecturing tone to Kelly. “This is a race for the ideology that gets to run things.”

Kelly recruits her longtime director colleague Lance Vespertine (played by Jim Rash) to be a part of the scheme. Lance, who is a very fussy and flamboyant prima donna, directs commercials (he has the nickname “the [Stanley] Kubrick of commercials”), but he really wants to direct prestigious movies. Rash is a hilarious scene stealer and gets some of the best lines in the movie, although some viewers might find the Lance character kind of irritating.

When it comes to recreating 1969, “Fly Me to the Moon” is at its best with the movie’s production design, costume design, makeup and hairstyling. Some of the dialogue and mannerisms aren’t quite convincing because they seem too influenced by later decades. Tatum in particular has some scenes where he comes across as too 21st century. (And there are some sleek, lingering shots of him staring into the distance as if he’s in a fashion ad.)

Johansson (who is one of the producers of this movie) is more believable as a retro character who is living on the cusp of the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s. Kelly often blurs the lines between being a coquettish sex symbol and being fiercely independent feminist. Some of the scenarios in the movie go a little overboard in making it look like Kelly can get anyone to do anything she wants just because she’s a beautiful blonde.

Tatum and Johansson together have crackling chemistry in their scenes together. Cole and Kelly don’t really seem like soul mates because a lot of their attraction to each other has to do with their physical looks and the way they like to compete with each other. For most of the movie Cole doesn’t ask Kelly very much about herself because he’s too busy arguing with her and trying to assert his authority. Kelly has many secrets and has no qualms about being a habitual liar, so it’s questionable if she’s capable of having a truly honest relationship.

All of those questions are put on the back burner when the last third of the movie takes a “race against time” turn concerning the big fraudulent Project Artemis plan that Moe wants Kelly to carry out on behalf of the U.S. government. Kelly is also ordered to keep this scheme a secret from almost everyone at NASA, including Cole. “Fly Me to the Moon” has a heightened sense of glossy movie glamour that shows it’s not intended to be a historically accurate movie. It’s pure escapist fantasy that mixes some parts of real-life history with fictional main characters and 1960s nostalgia. It all results in an entertaining movie experience whose best moments outshine any flaws.

Apple Original Films and Columbia Pictures will release “Fly Me to the Moon” in U.S. cinemas on July 12, 2024. Sneak previews of the movie took place in U.S. cinemas on July 1 and July 5, 2024.

Review: ‘Ambulance’ (2022), starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza González

April 6, 2022

by Carla Hay

Jake Gyllenhaal and Eiza González in “Ambulance” (Photo by Andrew Cooper/Universal Pictures)

“Ambulance” (2022)

Directed by Michael Bay

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the action film “Ambulance” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A longtime bank robber, who’s white, convinces his adopted black brother to rob a bank with him, and when things go wrong, they hijack an ambulance to make their getaway.

Culture Audience: “Ambulance” will appeal primarily to people who like mindless action movies that repeat bigoted stereotypes of women and people who aren’t white.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Ambulance” (Photo by Andrew Cooper/Universal Pictures)

“Ambulance” is racist and sexist garbage that tries to cover up how stupid it is with car chases and gun shootouts. In this idiotic schlockfest, almost all black and Latino men are criminals, and women are a small minority. This movie hates black men so much, it makes the only black man in a group of bank robbers to be the one to commit the most violent and dumbest crimes. And by the end of the movie, there’s no doubt who is going to prison and who is not going to prison for the most serious crimes.

Directed by Michael Bay (who has a long history of making terrible movies) and written by Chris Fedak (in his feature-film screenwriting debut), “Ambulance” is a remake of writer/director Lars Andreas Pedersen’s 2005 Danish film “Ambulancen.” Both movies are essentially about bank robbers who make their getaway by hijacking an ambulance. The American version of “Ambulance” takes place in Los Angeles, where nearly half the population is Latino in real life. But in this horrible movie, the Latino men are criminals, and the sole Latina is a cold-hearted, difficult person who needs to be redeemed.

“Ambulance” opens with a scene that’s a very tired stereotype that’s been in too many other movies: an African American family is struggling financially. In this case, it’s the family of William “Will” Sharp (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a military war veteran who’s on the phone while he’s trying to get insurance coverage for his wife’s “experimental surgery” that his insurance won’t cover. Will and his wife Amy Sharp (played by Moses Ingram) have an infant son. Amy has cancer, although what type of cancer is never detailed in the movie. The character of Amy Sharp literally does nothing in this movie but hold a baby, look worried, and be a “stand by your man” woman, no matter how many violent crimes her husband commits.

Will is frustrated because the people he’s been dealing with at his insurance company are dismissive and downright rude. During this phone call, the insurance company employee hangs up on him when he expresses his irritation at being stonewalled. And you know what that means in a racist movie where an African American is financially desperate: The African American is going to commit a serious crime to get money.

Will has a brother named Daniel “Danny” Sharp (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), whom Amy dislikes and distrusts immensely. Amy warns Will not to contact Danny. And it’s precisely at this point in the movie that you know Will is going to contact Danny. Before Will leaves the house, he lies to Amy by saying that the insurance for her surgery was approved, and he’s going to work at a new job that he’s started. That job probably doesn’t exist.

Instead, Will goes straight to Danny, who is in a money laundering business of supervising a warehouse where wealthy people store their luxury cars. What Danny really does to make money is rob banks with his small crew of men. Later in the movie, it’s mentioned that Danny has been robbing banks since he was 17. “Ambulance” never mentions if Danny spent any time in prison for it, because the filmmakers want to make Danny look like a smooth mastermind who’s too clever to get caught.

Viewers find out during Danny and Will’s jumbled conversation in their awkward reunion that Will and Danny grew up together as brothers because Will was adopted as a very young child by Danny’s biological father, L.T. Sharp. L.T., who is now dead (for reasons not explained in the movie), is described in various parts of the movie as an evil, psychotic but brilliant criminal whose specialty was bank robberies. Not surprisingly, L.T. was the one who groomed Danny to become a bank robber, while L.T. eventually became estranged from Will. And because “Ambulance” doesn’t care about women, except to put them in the movie to react to whatever the men do, it should come as no surprise that this movie never mentions any mother that Danny and Will might have had in their lives.

Because of Danny’s criminal lifestyle, Will has been estranged from Danny for a long time, although how long is never detailed in the movie. What the movie does show more than once is the racism when people try to insult Will by saying that he’s not Danny’s “real” brother, because Will is black, and Danny is white. Will tells Danny that he needs $231,000 for Amy’s surgery. Danny says that he doesn’t have the money, but that he and his crew are about to commit a major bank robbery that day, in a theft where they expect to get $32 million.

Danny tells Will that Will can get more than enough of the money that he needs if Will is a part of the bank robbery. (The robbers’ target is Los Angeles Federal Bank & Trust, which is a fictional bank name for this movie. In real life, the movie’s bank scenes were filmed at a former branch of Bank of America.) And to put even more pressure on Will, Danny tells Will that Will has just five minutes to decide before they leave for the heist. We all know what Will decides, because almost all of the mayhem in “Ambulance” wouldn’t exist without Will’s bad decisions.

Meanwhile, viewers are introduced to Camille “Cam” Thompson (played by Eiza González), the only woman in “Ambulance” who has more than 10 minutes of dialogue in the movie. The filmmakers of “Ambulance” want viewers to forget that women and girls are 51% of the population in the U.S. and in the world. Cam (she insists on being called Cam, not Camille) is a very jaded and egotistical lead field-training officer of Falck Company’s Ambulance No. 3.

As an emergency medical technician (EMT), Cam is technically very proficient in her job, but her personality is emotionally detached and off-putting. She’s first seen responding to an emergency scene, where somehow a girl named Lindsey (played by Briella Guiza), who’s about 8 or 9 years old, has gotten a spike from a wrought-iron fence embedded in her abdomen. (The accident is not shown in the movie.) In the ambulance, Cam attends to Lindsey and talks to Lindsey’s frantic mother (played by Jenn Proske) in a way that is almost robotic. Cam says all the right things, but there’s no real empathy in her voice, and she often gets irritable with the people who need her help.

After Lindsey is taken to the hospital, Cam has a conversation with a new EMT trainee named Scott Daskins (played by Colin Woodell), who seems to be romantically attracted to Cam. Scott looks disappointed when Cam tells him that she’s dating a doctor who works at a local hospital. In this conversation, Cam makes it clear that the people with whom she comes in contact on the job are just names to her, and she just moves on to the next assignment. Cam advises Scott to take the same emotionally disconnected approach to the job, because she says it’s the best way to deal with all the trauma that they witness.

Later, when Cam and Scott have a meal together at a diner, Cam gets somewhat of a rude awakening when Scott tells her how much she’s disliked by her co-workers. Scott says that although Cam is considered one of the best EMTs on the job when it comes to the technical responsibilities, she has a reputation for being unlikable and “no one wants to be your partner.” Cam looks a little hurt and shocked by this revelation, but it still shows how huge her ego is that she has no self-awareness about how being cold and unfeeling to other people can make people dislike her. It’s at this point in the movie that you know Cam is going to get some “life lessons” that will possibly redeem her and her obnoxious attitude.

Danny has meticulously planned the bank robbery. But, of course, some unexpected things don’t go according to the plan. Danny has a motley crew of about six or seven robbers on this heist, including a hippie-ish dimwit named Trent (played by Brendan Miller), who insists on wearing Birkenstock sandals to the bank robbery, and he gets teased repeatedly about his choice of shoes. There’s also a hulking dolt nicknamed Mel Gibson (played by Devan Chandler Long), because Danny thinks the guy wears his long, bushy beard like a 13th century Scottish warrior in Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winning movie “Braveheart.” Apparently, Danny and the “Ambulance” filmmakers forgot that Gibson didn’t have a beard in “Braveheart.”

What Danny and his crew didn’t anticipate was that a rookie cop named Zach Parker (played by Jackson White) from the Los Angeles Police Department would insist on coming in the bank, without Zach knowing that a robbery was taking place at that exact moment. At this point in the robbery, Danny (who’s dressed in casual business wear) has locked the entrance door and disguised himself as the bank manager, by wearing the manager’s name tag. Zach wants to go in the bank to ask a bank teller named Kim (played by Kayli Tran) out on a date, because Zach has had a crush on Kim for a while.

While Zach’s more experienced, corporal-ranked cop partner Mark Ranshaw (played by Cedric Sanders) waits outside, Zach approaches the bank’s front door, while Danny tells him that the bank is temporarily closed and refuses to let Zach inside. Zach persists on being let in the bank and says that his reason for being in the bank won’t take long. Danny finally relents and lets Zach in, so as not to arouse suspicion.

Zach notices that he’s the only customer in the bank, but he doesn’t seem too concerned about it, because Danny told him that the bank was closed. Kim just happens to be at a bank teller window. Zach asks Danny what Kim’s last name is, and Danny quickly makes up a lie. Zach nervously asks Kim out on the date. When Zach notices that Kim is crying in distress, and that her last name on her name tag isn’t the same last name that Danny told him, Danny blows his cover and pulls a gun on Zach. Outside the bank, police officer Mark sees through the bank window that there’s an armed robbery in progress and calls for backup.

And that’s when all hell breaks loose. In the chaos of the robbers trying to get away, Will ends up shooting Zach in the leg. Much later in the movie, they find out that Zach was also shot in his spleen. During this desperate getaway, the rest of the robbers scatter outside, while Will and Danny stick together and hide in the bank. An ambulance is called for Zach, so Scott and Cam are the ambulance EMTs who arrive on the scene. The bank is surrounded by cops, and the robbers’ getaway driver becomes unavailable. And so, a trapped Will and Danny decide to hijack the ambulance to make their getaway.

Scott gets knocked down on the ground, while Danny and Will steal the ambulance, with Will driving and suddenly having the skills of a professional stunt driver throughout the rest of the movie. Cam is in the back of the ambulance while trying to give medical treatment to Zach, who is bleeding profusely and mostly unconscious during this entire ordeal. Danny, who alternates between the front and the back of the ambulance, thinks that he and Will should have more leverage if Cam and Zach are held as hostages.

It’s all just an excuse for “Ambulance” to show a lot of shaky cam chase footage and bombastic action scenes, with a lot of yelling and wreckage along the way. At various points in this moronic movie, Will punches Zach in the face to get him to shut up and render Zach unconscious; Danny tells a lot of bad jokes; and Cam (who’s not qualified to do surgery) does very unsanitary emergency spleen surgery on Zach, by getting videoconference advice from doctors on the ambulance’s laptop computer. Yes, it’s that kind of movie. And there are more silly shenanigans, such as people who are seriously injured and unconscious who then suddenly wake up as if they just took a harmless nap, or civilians show up at active crime scenes while law enforcement gives the kind of access to these civilians that wouldn’t be allowed in real life.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department’s S.I.S. (Secret Intelligence Service) team, led by an arrogant, macho imbecile named Captain Tyler Monroe (played by Garret Dillahunt), gets involved in the chase. Captain Monroe and his S.I.S. team were actually undercover and waiting outside the bank during the robbery, because they laid a trap when they heard that this bank might be targeted for a robbery, but Danny and Will still managed to escape. Some members of the S.I.S. (who are almost all white) unfairly blame Zach’s cop partner Mark for Zach getting shot, in a scene that has racist overtones because Mark is African American.

Captain Monroe makes dumb mistakes after dumb mistakes in his bungled efforts to capture these bank robbers. There’s a scene in the movie where Captain Monroe tells his subordinates to temporarily halt because he wants to rescue his English mastiff dog Nitro, who was unwittingly left in the back seat of one of the cars giving chase. Trivia note: Nitro’s real name is Nitro Zeus (named after a “Transformers” robot villain), and he is the real-life dog of “Ambulance” director/producer Bay, who has directed most of and produced all of the “Transformers” movies so far.

The LAPD isn’t the only law enforcement to get involved in the chase. An uptight FBI agent named Anson Clark (played by Keir O’Donnell) gets called to the scene. He gets the call while he’s in the middle of couples therapy with his husband Kyle (played by Brendan Robinson), who is very annoyed that Anson has to rush off and do his FBI job of catching criminals and trying to save people’s lives. Because “Ambulance” is such a badly made movie, Anson is the only FBI agent who’s shown doing any real work in this case.

And predictably, “new school” FBI Agent Clark (who wears suits on the job) and “old school” Captain Monroe (who wears camouflage pants and a baseball cap on the job) have opposite personalities and ways of working, so they clash with each other. But there’s an extra twist to Anson’s involvement in this case: Anson soon reveals that he knows Danny from their college days, when they both studied criminology at the University of Maryland. By the way, the law enforcement in “Ambulance” is depicted as completely incompetent and slow in doing background checks when they find out the identities of the bank robbers.

“Ambulance” tries to inject some comedy to lighten the mood of the intense violence and chase scenes, but it doesn’t erase the ugly stench of racism, sexism and overall stupid filmmaking that pollute this movie. Other than Cam, the movie’s only other female character who gets more than five minutes of dialogue is LAPD Lieutenant Dzaghig (played by Olivia Stambouliah), who talks for less than 10 minutes in the film. Her role is to be Captain Monroe’s sidekick, who delivers wisecracks in a deadpan manner.

Danny utters most of the tacky jokes in “Ambulance,” because the filmmakers want to portray Danny as an unhinged but lovable rogue who can laugh at himself and others around him. In a scene where Danny gets sprayed with a fire extinguisher, Danny is upset that the water ruined his clothing. “It’s cashmere!” Danny yells to no one in particular. During another part of the movie, Danny leads a bonkers sing-along to Christopher Cross’ 1979 hit “Sailing.”

Will is just there to follow Danny’s orders. On the surface, Will is portrayed as more sensitive and less prone to violence than Danny. However, based on who Will decides to shoot in the movie (Zach isn’t his only shooting victim), Will is not mentally stable at all. Will’s decisions actually make him look more violent and more foolish than everyone else in this bank robber crew, including Danny. Danny isn’t off the hook for dumb decisions either, because holding a wounded cop hostage after committing a bank robbery is almost a sure-fire way for criminals to get even harsher prison sentences, if the criminals aren’t killed by police during the hostage crisis.

As for Cam, she really is just another token lead female in a Michael Bay action movie, where she ends up with makeup that stays perfectly intact throughout the entire messy ordeal. Even her sweat looks polished. Sure, Cam has some fake-looking marks on her face that’s supposed to resemble dirt, and her clothes get somewhat ripped and “bloodied” in the pandemonium. But somehow, her bright red lipstick and other face cosmetic makeup never get smeared and remain perfectly contoured in ways that are unrealistic for anyone who goes through what Cam goes through in this insufferable film.

The only other Latinos with speaking roles in “Ambulance” are criminals, led by a menacing thug named Hector “Papi” Gutierrez (played by A Martinez), who owns an automobile warehouse/chop shop in downtown Los Angeles. Danny calls on Papi during the chase when Danny needs help. Papi used to work for L.T. Sharp, so he’s known Danny for a long time and is almost like an “uncle” to Danny.

And because “Ambulance” is a cesspool of empty-headed, racist clichés, there’s a buffoon African American character named Castro (played by Wale Folarin, also known as rapper Wale), who is portrayed as Danny’s most vapid subordinate. There’s a part of the movie where Danny tells Castro to meet him in a designated area to spray paint the entire exterior of the ambulance in less than two minutes, which is a dopey and unrealistic request in and of itself. Instead of bringing the requested blue paint, Castro brings neon green paint to do the job.

None of the cast members in this movie does anything great. In fact, they frequently embarrass themselves with all the junk dialogue they have to say and witless scenarios that they have to enact. “Ambulance” drags out the chase scenes to ridiculous levels, but ironically, the movie has probably the shortest time length for end credits of any major studio film released this year. That’s assuming anyone wants to stick around for the end credits after enduring this train wreck of a movie.

Anyone who is okay with this type of “entertainment” is okay with tone-deaf Hollywood filmmakers churning out bigoted and outdated content because these arrogant filmmakers think most movie audiences are too dumb to care. Needless to say, “Ambulance” is a sloppy and inferior remake of the original movie. If you care about supporting quality entertainment that doesn’t insult your intelligence, do not waste your time with “Ambulance,” which is nothing but mind-numbing trash with a major studio budget.

Universal Pictures will release “Ambulance” in U.S. cinemas on April 8, 2022.