Michael Bay’s movies – Bad Boys, Pearl Harbor, the Transformers series – usually boil down to “guns, big explosions and car chases”, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. And all three of these feature “large and deafeningly loud” in Ambulance, in which Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II play adopted brothers who rob a bank together, “only for the whole thing to go horribly wrong”. Their only means of escape is to hijack an ambulance, in which a paramedic (Eiza González) is battling to save the life of a wounded cop, with the result that within minutes the vehicle is being pursued by “pretty much the entire LAPD”. At its “throbbing heart”, the film is a “macho adrenaline rush” – and while it’s “preposterous”, it does the job “if big-action films are your thing”.
Bay based this “silly” and “hysterically kinetic” movie on a “scrawny little low-budget Danish film” made in 2005, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. He’s effectively “put an IV” in the original film’s “tiny arm and pumped it full of radioactive steroids”. The result is a “tedious” roll-call of “cop cars twirling through the air” and muscle men “growling” through their beards. In fact, Ambulance has “everything” you’d expect in a film like this – except “actors giving a decent performance as believable characters in a workable script”.
Well, I enjoyed it immensely, said Kevin Maher in The Times. “It’s not profound”, but it’s the “smartest, most enjoyable, most audaciously ‘Baytastic’ movie” of Bay’s career. The pace is utterly unrelenting; one sequence is so ridiculously tense there were “audible howls” at the screening I went to. Of course this isn’t Citizen Kane; it’s a Michael Bay movie. “But it’s also more than that. It’s ‘the’ Michael Bay movie. He’s finally done it.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Five key questions about the Gaza peace dealThe Explainer Many ‘unresolved hurdles’ remain before Donald Trump’s 20-point plan can get the go-ahead
-
See the Northern Lights from these bucket list destinationsThe Week Recommends The dazzling displays can be spotted across Iceland, Sweden and parts of Canada
-
Crossword: October 7, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
Mustardy beans and hazelnuts recipeThe Week Recommends Nod to French classic offers zingy, fresh taste
-
Susie Dent picks her favourite booksThe Week Recommends The lexicographer and etymologist shares works by Jane Goodall, Noel Streatfeild and Madeleine Pelling
-
6 incredible homes under $1 millionFeature Featuring a home in the National Historic Landmark District of Virginia and a renovated mid-century modern house in Washington
-
The Harder They Come: ‘triumphant’ adaptation of cinema classicThe Week Recommends ‘Uniformly excellent’ cast follow an aspiring musician facing the ‘corruption’ of Kingston, Jamaica
-
House of Guinness: ‘rip-roaring’ Dublin brewing dynasty period dramaThe Week Recommends The Irish series mixes the family tangles of ‘Downton’ and ‘Succession’ for a ‘dark’ and ‘quaffable’ watch
-
Dead of Winter: a ‘kick-ass’ hostage thrillerThe Week Recommends Emma Thompson plays against type in suspenseful Minnesota-set hair-raiser ‘ringing with gunshots’
-
A Booker shortlist for grown-ups?Talking Point Dominated by middle-aged authors, this year’s list is a return to ‘good old-fashioned literary fiction’
-
Fractured France: an ‘informative and funny’ enquiryThe Week Recommends Andrew Hussey's work is a blend of ‘memoir, travelogue and personal confession’
