The Union – Movie Review

TL;DR – While it is a perfectly okay spy film, all it does is remind me of better films.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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

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

Shooting targets.

The Union Review

Today, we look at a film that should have everything going for it. Big names to anchor the proceedings, big action scenes, car chases, hopping across the world. Everything that you would want from a Spy Film. However, while watching it, I just kept thinking the whole time that I have seen this done better elsewhere.  

So, to set the scene, Agent Hall (Halle Berry) is working on what should have been a simple extraction of an asset from a hotel Trieste. However, just as they are about to leave, things start falling apart as the team is picked off one by one. Soon, all but Hall are dead, and the hard drive is taken. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg) is living his life, working on bridges, being a good friend, and living paycheck to paycheck. When Roxanne Hall, his old high school flame, walks into the same bar. It is time to reconnect, time to get knocked out, and time to get kidnapped by the not-CIA spy agency, The Union. Because they need skills, only Mike has: a nobody with no history.

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Movie Review – Suicide Squad

TL;DR – Sigh, oh DC, it really looked like you tried on this movie, but boy the best that you can do is an aggressively mediocre outing that adds nothing to the franchise, and as a self-contained film – well you can do a lot worse, but you can also do a lot better.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

P.S. There is a mid-credits scene

Suicide Squad. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review

When it comes to that whole DC v Marvel comics rivalry which seems to permeate the internet these days, for me this was one of those arguments that was never really a factor in my life growing up. This is because we didn’t really get the comics where I lived, but what we did get was the animated series, like X-Men and Batman, and they were not aired in competition with each other, and indeed sometimes aired on the same TV channel. So growing up you were not a DC or Marvel person, it was more “did you see that episode yesterday”, I feel I really need to start with this up front because I really want this Justice League series to work, I really do. However I don’t think Suicide Squad is the film that will do it, and in fact all it does is show that DC/WB just don’t seem to know how to get this movie series off the ground. At best it is average, and at worse it is quite problematic, but in the end it is not really all that engaging and you’ll probably forget most of it within a day of watching it.

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