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Outside the Wire (2021)
Good action. Disappointing ending.
The action sequences reminded me in someways of Chris Hemsworth in 'Extraction' though that movie didn't leave me disappointed like this one. After the last monologue by Mackie they could have given some credit to his supposed AI superiority similar to the ending of the 'Watchmen" movie. It would have been refreshing to see Mackie's aim of killing millions to save hundreds of millions come true instead of the predictable "protagonist who was once fine with collateral deaths finds his heart and saves the day" ending.
Mackie who basically has the powers of a "supervillain" to have already deceived the "higher-ups" of the U.S. military into trusting him enough in allowing him out on his own, defeating an "elite" Russian insurgency group, then to be defeated by a guy who has never had "boots on the ground" experience is just a tragedy of an ending because the movie could have been "saved" if they'd remained congruent with his skills as a character throughout the movie up until the end. Watch this if you want some action and have time to kill but don't expect any satisfaction.
Peppermint (2018)
It's exactly what I expected it to be.
A straight to the point vigilante movie as shown on the trailers and I expected nothing more and nothing less. If potential viewers are going to see some sort of philosophical debate about violence or a comedy then watch the trailers again. It's a good movie for its genre and a good warm up for an Alias reboot.
Escape Plan 2: Hades (2018)
A bit better than expected.
If I hadn't read reviews before hand then this film would have been exactly as I expected it to be. Sure Stallone wasn't in it as much as I expected but "Shu's" fight choreography was great and the rest of the plot was more or less what the synopsis says. It's not a classic but I never expected it to be, neither was the first (and TBH I preferred this one to the first) but I can't fathom giving it a 1/10 like some here and can only guess that some have an issue with an Asian lead character.
The Outpost (2018)
Give it time
I almost gave up on the pilot however remembered that I did the same with another "guilty pleasure" series "Spartacus," which ended up being one of my top 10 favorite shows. We're still only on episode 4 and I'm gradually seeing the actors, particularly the lead becoming more "merged" with her character. I can't see the show reaching the heights of say "Fringe" however clearly the budget is much lower so my hope is that the story arcs will be where they put their most efforts. It would be less cliche if the blonde character wasn't so ditzy and perhaps if it is revealed that she is actually quite clear and decisive and that this has all been a facade the two main female leads would have better rapport. I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of Dean and Sam from Supernatural though again that show is on another budgetary level. In any case, it could become a "legend of the seeker" which had a lot of potential before it was axed and so I'm giving it a cautious 6/10 for improvement over the course of the last 4 episodes and encouragement that they just say "stuff it lets go all out," throw away the cliches and similar to "Spartacus" go "full gratuitous" where some will hate it but some will see it as a classic. Shows that are middle of the road either sustain due to being just enough and having "everything resolved in each episode" ie. NCSI or Castle or they get canned. Most get canned so I say if you're going to go out go out fighting.
Siberia (2018)
The main problem
The main problem the way I see it is that Keanu Reeves is presently eponymous with John Wick. As in fans, including myself literally see him (the onscreen version of him as John Wick) so its hard to see him not respond to situations the way John Wick would. The fact that John Wick 2 came out not long ago and John Wick 3 is in the works can't help but insert bias. I know I have it. So having said I know it affected how I saw the unfolding of the movie.
I'd say that if say Ryan Gosling was playing the role I would give it a higher rating because he hasn't been a one-man army in recent years (wasn't really that in Drive either). For Keanu though this is just the fate that he is going to be having for a while. I mean it was hard enough not seeing him as Neo but I got past that albeit nearly 15-19 years later (if I include both movies).
One Eight Seven (1997)
I saw this movie too late.
In fairness I think there's inevitable bias from seeing this movie in 2018 as opposed to 1997 when it was released because I kept expecting Samuel L Jackson to either turn into Nick Fury. Or for that matter Jules from Pulp Fiction which by 2018 I must have seen at least 20 times and so I was waiting for him to turn around to the unruly class and say "I don't remember asking you a goddamn thing!" as well as when he's having a discussion about the bible with someone say "Well there's this passage I've got memorized, it sorta fits the occasion." I guess what I'm saying is that by 2018 Samuel L Jackson has played such iconic roles that its hard to see him as anything else, at least for me and this probably detracted from me being able to fully immerse myself in this movie.
Every Day (2018)
Different but significantly flawed.
Minor loop holes don't bother me and I can easily overlook these in order to enjoy an overarching good story. The reason that this story was significantly flawed was because even by its own "rule set" it threw any semblance of coherence and congruent nature out at the end, seemingly for the trifling intent of being different.
The fact that "A" had not met anyone in thousands of "lives" that he connected with at a mental, emotional and perhaps spiritual level at such a depth that the willingness to pursue a relationship until meeting Rhiannon speaks volumes. The reflection and decision to pursue a relationship having had so much experience cannot help but have brought a wisdom that was often shown during the film. Yet at the end the challenges spoken of, leading to their breakup, while definitely different and significant if they were to continue their relationship were far from insurmountable. Given the "once in thousands of lifetimes" connection that the film sought to portray between A and Rhiannon, the story broke coherence when the challenge to fight for the relationship through struggle, thick and thin, wasn't even attempted.
So we are left with 99% of a story doing its utmost to portray a 'soul mate' connection, then the last 1% showing (in spite of the inevitable challenges) how easily they and especially A, who purportedly knew the rarity of their connection, threw it all away (before even reaching and experiencing those challenges which at that point existed only in A's imagination). That last 1% destroyed all belief in any of the meaning that supposedly connected A and Rhiannon during the first 99%. Now if they were to show the strength of their connection through both of them battling through any challenges that came their way, that would keep the coherency and genuinely show how "once in a thousand lifetimes" their connection was. By ending it the way it did it just showed how weak, insignificant and illusionary the connection that the first 99% of the film tried its best to portray.
Death Wish (2018)
I guess the low reviews are to do with politics but...
As I'm not in a country where this issue is a volatile debate I just was able to watch the movie without seeing it through that "lens" and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It seems strange that people don't seem to have the same issues with John Wick, Taken or the Equalizer but as I said there is apparently some type of political debate that polarizes peoples' opinion of this particular movie. For me it was exactly what I thought it was going to be in genre but much better than expected due to the, in my honest opinion, incredibly unfair reviews that had an agenda to push. If you've seen the original Death Wish or can't discern from the title of the movie that there's going to be violence and killing then I can understand why you might have issue with the movie being completely not what you expected.
For everyone else, I'd make an educated guess that the movie has exactly what you expected it to be and as I said before it exceeded my expectations. As an aside, seeing Vincent D'Onofrio I kept expecting him to shave his head and turn into Wilson Fisk, standing up and saying "I am the ill intent who set upon the traveler on a road that he should not have been on" and joining his brother.
Dracula Untold (2014)
It was called 'Dracula Untold' for a reason.
First off I thoroughly enjoyed 'Dracula Untold.' If you're into an anti-hero type movie with pretty decent acting (for the genre) as well as plenty of action then watch it. I'd watch a sequel to it based on how much I unexpectedly enjoyed this one.
Second, people that have issues with historical inaccuracies reflect on the idea that the movie just might be a "fictional fantasy" film, make your peace with that and then enjoy the movie. Furthermore, sure there may be aspects that don't track with the original book but the "untold" part of the title kind of infers that "this is the part that wasn't in the book." So again if people can get past that, enjoy the movie.
Winchester (2018)
Not bad but not particularly a horror movie.
This movie was more of a thriller and while it wasn't badly acted, the gimmicks used to "get" viewers were predictable. It's not a bad watch if you're really into the genre otherwise there are better thrillers out there. All that aside she should have just made one phone call to Sam and Dean Winchester and they would have solved the problem within 5 minutes. ;)
American Assassin (2017)
This was probably the worst action movie I've ever seen.
First off, the cliché (and continually repeated) line of "I've never seen anyone like this," inferring that this guy who has trained in martial arts and shooting for something like 18 months, was better than anything that these "experts" had seen in all their years of special/black ops was not only completely unrealistic, even in this fictional world but also not illustrated in the film itself, since the actor just couldn't pull off anywhere near adequate combat skills to show that he was anything even of moderate level ability. The implication seemed to be that he as just driven by "cold rage" and that this is what gave him his skills but all the fight scenes were edited to be close and so we never get to see him doing anything to show his hand/hand or knife combat skills.
Secondly, all the people at various levels of power had a very one-dimensional "I have dealt with everything and anything for years and don't have a drop of internal/emotional conflict" expressed either though their body language or language. Compare this with something like "Homeland" where all the characters are basically showing more and more how messed up they are inside because of what they've been through.
Third and this is just a personal gripe: Scott Adkins who is an incredibly skilled martial artists was completely wasted and watching "Mitch" take down "Yuri Boyka the greatest fighter in the world" was just heresy.
Fourth and probably most importantly, it was just a boring movie.
Zhan lang (2015)
Decent but could have been much better
I'm all for movies with gunfights and wouldn't be disappointed in an old Clint Eastwood for example to have him just shoot it out and not get involved in some good old martial arts. When you've got actors like Jing Wu and Scott Adkins however I'm watching the movie because I know these guys can bring epic fight scenes if they want. Sure they did a bit of hand to hand but it was almost a drop in the ocean relative to the whole movie. I also know that its a military movie but when has that stopped a good martial arts movie from being made just by throwing in some reason why they need to fight unarmed. Perhaps I'm being harsh I just feel that the martial arts potential of both actors was wasted considering how athletic they are. I wanted to see "Boyka" vs the "Legendary Assassin" not a generic blink and its over a few stars above a Bruce Willis fight.
Boyka: Undisputed IV (2016)
Almost exactly as expected
I'm pretty sure that no one was watching undisputed 2 and 3 for the plot, it just provides the scaffolding for the fights. Undisputed 4 is the same, though some could argue that there's too much plot. Nevertheless, there's ample fighting and Adkin's throws in some of the lines that we've all come to love from Boyka as well as the moves.
If you're not into fighting movies then this should obviously be a movie that you shouldn't be watching. For people who are, we generally don't mind the "plot scaffolding" they throw around the movie as long as the fights are good and they are. My only slight complaint if you could call it that is that Boyka is a more remorseful character in this film and IMHO Adkin's kills the role more when he's just the badass who cares about nothing else excepting being "the most complete fighter in the world."