Tag Archives: Action

Memory – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An interesting concept let down by sloppy execution.     

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film

bullet smashes through a window.

Memory Review –

As we gallop towards the end of the year, it is time to catch up with the films I had missed along the way. The first of these is Liam Neeson playing an assassin with early onset Alzheimer’s, and while that is a set-up that is at the very least intriguing.

So to set the scene, Alex Lewis (Liam Neeson) is a hitman for hire and has no compunction murdering a son while his mother sits in her hospital bed, unable to do anything but watch. The only issue is that he has early onset Alzheimer’s, a problem in his line of work where there is no such thing as retirement. This all comes to a head when Alex is tasked to take out Ellis Van Camp (Scot Williams) in El Paso, Texas. However, he didn’t know the next target was Beatriz Leon (Mia Sanchez), a young sex-trafficking victim, who should be off-limits. But you don’t say no to people like this.        

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Avatar: The Way of Water – Movie Review

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TL;DR –  A visual masterpiece and powerful themes mark a solid return to Pandora   

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film

Swimming with the Tulkun

Avatar: The Way of Water Review –

Back in 2009, I might not have gotten all the themes Cameron was dropping, but I felt the power of narrative and the world of the first Avatar. However, I will be honest in that I have not really thought much of the film much since then. Every couple of years, there were mentions of going back into the universe, but they never eventuated. Well, I was surprised as everyone when this finally started coming together 13 years later, but then I re-watched the first Avatar in the cinemas and was reminded how good this world was. That screening primed me to return to Pandora, and I am glad I did.

So to set the scene, in the years since pushing the sky people back into orbit and skulking back to Earth, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have started a family and live with the rest of the Na’vi people in the forests. But after many years of peace, the sky people return and begin a literal scorched earth policy. Jake fights back, but when his kids Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), Spider (Jack Champion), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) are put in the line of fire as the family is directly targeted, they decide to leave to limit reprisals. However, no matter how far you run, your responsibilities or a genetically resurrected hellspawn that will try to hunt you down.

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Warriors of Future (明日戰記, Ming yat zin gei, Virtus, 矛盾戰爭) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A fascinating action story, held back by some frustrating characters.    

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Looking up at a painted rendition of what Earth used to look like.

Warriors of Future Review –

If there is one thing that will get me immediately interested in a film, it is a story about trying to fight for a future. The world has gone to pot, but there is one chance to save us all. I can’t help but sucked into stories like this, and today we look at one around an alien plant.

  So to set the scene, technology had been advancing at a prodigious pace in the last century, as was the propensity for destruction, aided by the development of military robots. The wars and ecological decline led to a societal collapse worldwide. It is hard to go on when even the air you breathe is toxic, so what governments that were left started building Skynets over cities so they could purify the poisonous air. Things were beginning to turn around when a meteorite crashed into the plant. It caused immense destruction, to where it hit City B-16, and it carried an alien plant called Pandora that rapidly expanded when exposed to water. A turn that humanity might not be able to recover from.           

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Violent Night – Movie Review

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TL;DR – The sleigh bells ring as Santa takes out one henchman after another.    

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film

Santa and his reindeer.

Violent Night Review –

Some concepts for a film intrigue you by their very existence. For example: what if Santa must carve his way through a pile of mercenaries to save a young girl who truly believes in him? A concept that answers once and all the question ‘is Die Hard a Christmas film?’ by straight up making it one. Well, that is a film that gets my immediate attention.

So to set the scene, Santa (David Harbour) is getting wasted in a bar in Bristol, England. The constant consumerism of Christmas is wearing him down, and this might be his final year. Meanwhile, in Greenwich, Connecticut, Linda (Alexis Louder) is picking up Jason (Alex Hassell) so that their daughter Trudy (Leah Brady), can have a normal Christmas. Well, as normal as you can when you are separated, and you are part of one of the wealthiest families in America under the all-seeing eyes of matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo). But as Santa arrives at the house to drop off Trudy’s presents, Mr Scrooge (John Leguizamo) and his gang storm the house, kill the staff and take the whole family hostage. There is $300 million on the line, and now Santa is stuck in the middle of it.

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a profoundly messy film, but at its heart, it is about grief, and what is grief, if not messy?    

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film

A funral procession

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Review –

When it comes to comic book films, even the most jaded person would have to admit that the first Black Panther movie was a cultural touchstone. It would have been difficult to live up to that first film at the best of times, but we can all agree that the passing of Chadwick Boseman is as far as you can get from the best of times. How do you even proceed after that? Well, this is the question we will be exploring today.

So to set the scene, we open in a lab in chaos. The King of Wakanda, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), is dying, and his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) is trying everything possible to try and save him. Still, all the technology in the world could not stop the inevitable. The whole kingdom grieves their lost king, but for Sovereign Queen Mother of Wakanda Ramonda (Angela Bassett), it is a wound that cuts deep. One year later, after a continuous meeting in the United Nations, America found what they think was the second source of Vibranium at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. A Navy Seal team is there to secure the site from potential attacks from other nations. However, instead of an attack from above, they should have prepared for what comes from the deep.

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Black Adam – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a film where nearly anything of interest was sandblasted off to give us a bland expedition with some moments of interest.     

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Black Adam floats in the ocean.

Black Adam Review –

I came into this film with a lot of trepidation. To say that Warner Bros has had a challenging year with its merger would be an understatement, losing nearly any goodwill they had with them. Add to this that the DCEU has struggled with very straightforward hero narratives. How would they go with an anti-hero? But if nothing else, the charisma of Dwayne Johnson is strong, and if anything can help a film, it is that.

So to set the scene, 5,000 years ago, in 2,600 BCW, in the land of Kahndaq, Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) was chosen by the wizards to stand up to the local despot. SHAZAM, and the palace explodes. In the present, Kahndaq is still under the control of occupiers, and Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi) is trying to hide treasures from the Intergang mercenaries when she finds Black Adam’s tomb. He is finally let free, but all that time has not blunted his desire for revenge and rampage. Seeing a potential threat, Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and the Justice Society Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) try to show him a different path or at least get him to surrender peacefully. But then, the Black Adam is not peaceful.   

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Jurassic World Dominion (Extended Edition) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While a clear improvement, those improvements are but like sticking band-aids to a broken bone.    

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to watch this edition of the film

A Dead T-Rex.

Jurassic World Dominion Review –

Earlier this year, the newest edition to the Jurassic World franchise was released in cinemas. While it went on to make just over a billion dollars at the box office, Jurassic World Dominion fell thematically flat with me. However, the original Jurassic Park still ranks as part of my favourite films of all time, so when I heard the was an extended edition that fixes many of the issues with the film, well, I had to give it a watch.

So to set the scene, at the end of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the team had a choice to kill all the dinosaurs off or release them into the North American continent, and they chose the latter. We saved them from a second extension, but maybe at the cost of our own lives, which is shown in stark relief as a T-Rex smashes through a drive-in theatre. As the world starts to work out how this new existence will play out, Owen (Chris Pratt), Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), and Maisie (Isabella Sermon) live a quiet life out of the way, right up until Blue’s child is kidnapped and Owen swears to her that he will get that baby back.

Now, we will not be giving a full review of this film as you can read the original coverage for it HERE. However, we will look at the areas where the extended edition improved the film and where it didn’t.

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Beast – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It starts strong and has genuinely terrifying moments, but it does not have the legs to make it to the end.   

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

A truck drives through the South African bush.

Beast Review –

A long tradition of films can be summed up as ‘an unknowable antagonist hunts down our plucky protagonists’. If we slip into horror, this can be a slasher hunted down kids at a summer camp, dinosaurs running amok in Jurassic Park, or you could flip it, and the unstoppable force is the protagonist as in John Wick. However, one of the more popular scenarios in this realm is animals, and while sharks may have been king for a while, today’s film looks to unseat them with the big cats that roam the savannah.

So to set the scene, it is late a night as a group of poachers stalk through the bush to a trap they have set up. Letting loose a barrage of gunfire, they kill all the lions there, bar one that gets away. The next day, Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) and his daughters Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries) arrive at Mopani Game Reserve in South Africa to spend time with Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley), an old friend of Nate and his late wife. Nate is a ranger at Mopani, and in the morning, he gives the group a tour around the preserve, even in the areas the public doesn’t usually see. But when they see a man running out onto the road covered in blood and go to help, they soon realise that there is something out there in the grass coming for them.

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Prey – Movie Review

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TL;DR – a perfect blend of action and tension that makes you sit on the edge of your seat and makes your skin crawl every time you hear the predator’s sound.     

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is something at the end of the mid-credits.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film.

Naru looks into the sunset.

Prey Review –

There are some directors that when you watch their debut film, you know they will soar because this first film is already a master to watch. One of those directors was Dan Trachtenberg, who, with 10 Cloverfield Lane, terrified me when using one location and just three actors. But it has been a long transit between drinks, and I am happy to be able to watch his follow-up, which is a new take on the Predator franchise.  

So to set the scene, in 1719, on The Northern Great Plains in the land which is now called America, lived Naru (Amber Midthunder), a member of the Comanche Nation and a skilled axe thrower. One day when she was hunting a white-tailed deer, the animal became spooked by a loud noise from above. Seeing an alien spaceship in the clouds and interpreting it as a thunderbird, Naru knows it is time for her kühtaamia, where she hunts something hunting her. When a mountain lion takes one of the tribe, Naru, her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), and a group of young men search through the forest to find him, unaware that behind a cloaking shield, a Predator (Dane DiLiegro) lies in wait.   

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Bullet Train – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Several interesting ideas are going on here, but they never coalesce into something worthy.    

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Brad Pitt punching a life sized mascot.

Bullet Train Review –

When you are making an action film, there are many different styles that you could employ. There is the grizzled machismo of movies like Rambo, the high-octane yet safe for families action of the Fast and the Furious films, or the grimy rawness of films like The Northman. But one of the more recent action styles has been this smooth, free-flowing, and fast-talking style of cinema that was thrown into the spotlight with Deadpool. While that style has been divisive, I have generally enjoyed it, and today we see another example of it in the form of Bullet Train.       

So to set the scene, it has been a long road of recovery for ‘Lady Bug’ (Brad Pitt) since he got shot doing a job in Johannesburg. But he is finally ready to take on a new mission, and his handler (Sandra Bullock) has picked an easy one for him. He must go on to a bullet train stationed in Tokyo, Japan, retrieve a briefcase with a train sticker on the handle, and remove it before the train reaches Kyoto. The only issue is that ‘Lady Bug’ is not the only operative working a job on that train as “Lemon” (Brian Tyree Henry), “Tangerine” (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), “The Wolf” (Benito A. Martínez Ocasio), “The Prince” (Joey King), “The Father” (Andrew Koji), and “The Hornet” (Zazie Beetz) all have their own plans in how this will go.     

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