Category Archives: Action movie

BLOOD & GOLD (2023) – Nazi Killing World War II Adventure Spirited and Intense

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BLOOD & GOLD (2023) is the latest international movie to premiere on Netflix, as it hails from Germany.

I said this recently, but this has been my favorite part of Netflix of late, their making available foreign language films that I otherwise would not see at the theater.

BLOOD & GOLD is a World War II action movie that is reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) only not as intense nor as bitingly sharp with its quirky dialogue, traits that Tarantino excels at. You could say BLOOD & GOLD is INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS lite, although it’s pretty violent in its own right and does contain some unexpected comedic moments.

They both contain lots of creative killings of Nazis, and this sort of thing admittedly does make for high cinematic entertainment.

BLOOD & GOLD opens in the final days of World War II, when the Allies are closing in fast on the Nazis in Germany, and most can see that the end of Hitler’s reign is near. A soldier named Heinrich (Robert Maaser) is about to be hung by his small Nazi unit for desertion, and this unit leaves him for dead, but moments later, he is saved by a young woman Elsa (Marie Hacke) who brings him back to her farm where she lives with her brother Paule, who has Down syndrome. Elsa hates the Nazis because they killed her family, and of course her brother wouldn’t be safe with them around, while Heinrich explains that he deserted because he was sick of killing for no reason, and also because he’s searching for the only surviving member of his family, his young daughter.

Meanwhile, the troop which had hung Heinrich makes their way to Elsa’s village because their leader, von Starnfeld (Alexander Scheer) knows that a fortune in Jewish gold is hidden there. What he doesn’t know is a group of prominent villagers, led by the mayor, has stolen it for themselves and have no intention of giving it back.

The rest of the movie intertwines these two plots, as the Nazis search both for the gold and for Heinrich once they learn that he is still alive, while Heinrich and Elsa fight for their survival and freedom. The result is a well-made, well-written action thriller that contains lots of really well-choreographed action scenes.

Director Peter Thorwarth creates many memorable action sequences, including Heinrich’s rescue of Elsa when she’s about to be raped by Nazis, Paule’s fight for survival in a church tower when the Nazis bring him there to execute him in front of a crowd, and the exciting finale in the church when everyone is converging for the gold.

And there are thrilling dramatic scenes as well, like Elsa’s escape plan from von Starnfeld, who has decided to make her his bride.

Peter Thorwarth previously directed the vampire movie BLOOD RED SKY (2021) which I loved. I enjoyed BLOOD & GOLD even more.

The screenplay by Stefan Barth is very good. The story is a winner, and it includes many quirky characters, especially the different villagers, and memorable heroes and villains. The dialogue for the most part is strong, although it’s not quite as edgy enough as it needs to be. It’s missing the Tarantino-style cultural references and humor. It comes very close though.

Robert Maaser is excellent in the lead role as Heinrich. He’s believable as an action hero, and he is also very sincere. This is the second time in a week that I’ve seen Maaser in a movie. He had a supporting role in the comedy THE MACHINE (2023) in which he played a Russian mobster. He’s much better and much more memorable, and three-dimensional, here in BLOOD & GOLD.

Marie Hacke is equally as strong as Elsa. The scene where she plots her escape from von Starnfeld is the best in the movie. Speaking of von Starnfeld, Alexader Scheer is sufficiently villainous in the role. He wears a partial mask for most of the movie, and when he removes it later in the film, the CGI/make-up showing the hole in his jaw is very well done.

All supporting players in this one are excellent.

BLOOD & GOLD is a stylish, well-told adventure, filled with intense scenes of action and violence, memorable characters, and a spirited narrative that doesn’t quit.

This one satisfies from beginning to end.

I give it three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

THE MACHINE (2023) – Needs an Oil Change

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THE MACHINE (2023) is a new movie based on the comedy of stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer.

For my money, comedy is the most difficult genre to do well in the movies. A really good comedy is really hard to find, more so these days. Hopefully at some point soon we’ll witness a comedy renaissance, and they will be as prolific as Marvel superhero movies.

But that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon, and THE MACHINE certainly isn’t a step in that direction. As comedies go, it’s not very good. Actually, it’s kinda bad.

I saw it not because I’m a fan of Kreischer’s, whose comedy I barely know, but because the trailer was actually pretty funny, and Mark Hamill was also in the cast, playing Kreischer’s father. I was hoping to laugh a lot. I didn’t. The laughs are few and far between, and they’re not very hearty.

As I said, the plot of THE MACHINE is based on Kreischer’s comedy routine, in this case his famous story about how he earned the nickname “The Machine,” when he was in Russia and robbed a train with the Russian mob. In the movie, he’s pretty much playing himself, and so the film opens with Bert struggling to be a good dad for his two daughters, and a good husband. He’s trying, but he’s also failing. To make amends, he throws a lavish Sweet 16 birthday party for his daughter, and at the party, his estranged father Albert (Mark Hamill) arrives, and Bert and his dad have major issues with each other.

Also arriving at the party is Russian mobster Irina (Iva Babic) who tells Bert that her father, the head of a powerful mob family, wants his watch back that Bert stole when he was in Russia twenty years ago. Bert says he doesn’t remember stealing a watch, and so Irina and her henchmen kidnap both Bert and his dad and bring them to Russia where they are forced to find the missing watch.

Which is what the rest of the movie is all about, Bert and his father’s misadventures as they try to find the missing watch. I’ve seen worse plots. However, the humor in this one never really takes off.

While Kreischer is a fairly funny guy, he doesn’t knock it out of the park. At times, he can be raunchy, but most of the time he’s a goofy wannabe likeable “fat guy.” It’s also part of his shtick to go around without a shirt, which doesn’t really happen in this movie until the final reel. Neither persona is all that sharp, and so the humor is tepid at best. There are some laugh out loud moments, like when Bert is trying to pull a shaft out of Irina’s leg and he has to throw up, but these are few and far between.

I actually thought Mark Hamill was pretty funny as Bert’s weird dad, and his best moment is when he is high on drugs, but being high to get laughs is a rather low bar for comedy.

Iva Babic makes for an icy cold and sexy Russian mobster, and she plays it straight for the most part.

THE MACHINE is being marketed as an action comedy, but the action scenes aren’t very good. The fight sequences are a bit slow in their choreography, and they’re just not as slick and polished as what we are used to seeing in action movies these days. Director Peter Atencio features some nifty camerawork here and there, but he drops the ball with the action sequences.

The screenplay by Kevin Biegel and Scotty Landes is meh. The story is okay, but the situations which should be rife for hilarity just aren’t. Bert and his father’s exploits in Russia have the potential to be laugh out loud funny, but they’re not.

I’m tempted to say that this one is for Bert Kreischer fans only, and he does have lots of fans as the theater was packed, but while these fans were laughing and being boisterous before the movie started, during the movie, they were fairly quiet. I laughed as much as anyone else, and that wasn’t that much.

And that’s the bottom line with THE MACHINE. It’s simply not very funny, and for a comedy that runs nearly two hours, that’s a long time to sit through an unfunny movie.

I give it a paltry one and a half stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

Picture of the Day: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)

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Today’s Picture of the Day comes from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), John Carpenter’s classic action thriller which made Kurt Russell an action movie hero.

I’ve chosen this picture mostly because, and I think this is true for most of John Carpenter’s films, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK has only gotten better with time. Like a lot of his other films in his early career, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK was not critically acclaimed. With the exception of HALLOWEEN (1978), critics gave Carpenter’s work a hard time. There was very little love for this movie upon its initial release in 1981.

It also didn’t wow the masses, as it was made on a smaller budget than most of big budget action films of the time, and it looks it, and back then with its cheaper look it struggled to connect strongly with audiences of the time. On a purely action movie level, it was not able to compete with the likes of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), for example.

But over the years, it has aged well, in spite of its “futuristic” science fiction plot— the action takes place in the “future” of 1997. Wow, that came and went quickly.

It has aged well because what was considered a “cheap” look in 1981, now looks artistic and special. I love the way New York City looks in this movie. The set design is dark and bleak, perfect for this story.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is probably most famous for being the movie which changed Kurt Russell’s career, turned him from a child star in Disney films to bonefied action hero. It actually did more than that, as Russell took on all sorts of movie roles and pretty much became a household name after this film. Russell doesn’t disappoint. He’s terrific in this movie.

He almost didn’t get the part, as the producers didn’t feel he had the tough guy status to pull it off. Carpenter wrote the part with Clint Eastwood in mind, and Russell admits he played it as an homage to Eastwood. His performance works perfectly.

Russell plays Snake Plissken, a convict who is tasked with sneaking into the Manhattan Island maximum security prison and rescuing the abducted President of the United States, and unless he can get in and out in twenty-four hours, the authorities will kill him. The world which Carpenter creates inside that Manhattan prison, and the bizarre characters residing there, are the stuff of nightmares. It’s fabulous movie making.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK also features a tremendous cast besides Russell. There’s Adrienne Barbeau, pictured above with Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Atkins, Charles Cyphers, Season Hubley, and Jamie Lee Curtis provided both the voice of the computer and the opening voice-over narration.

Of course, my favorite part of this movie is the amazing score by John Carpenter. It’s one of his best. Then again, you can say that about nearly every film score he wrote.

About the only thing that still doesn’t work for me in this movie is the casting of Donald Pleasence as the President of the United States. I love Donald Pleasence, but he’s miscast here.

If you haven’t checked out ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK recently, do yourself a favor and give it a fresh viewing. It’s already considered a classic of the genre, a superb science fiction action movie from the glory days of John Carpenter’s early career, but it wasn’t always considered that way. It has stood the test of time, and what I am saying today is, that not only that, but it has gotten even better in recent years.

There’s an imagination and spirit in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that is present from start to finish, and it’s largely because of the talent of writer/director John Carpenter.

Snake Plissken? I thought you were dead.

Nope. He’s very much alive. And better than ever.

—END—

THE MOTHER (2023) – Standard Actioner Saved by Strong Mother/Daughter Dynamic

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Just in time for Mother’s Day, it’s THE MOTHER (2023), a new action thriller which just premiered on Netflix that stars Jennifer Lopez as an assassin who also happens to be a mother and who will do anything to protect her 12-year-old daughter from the deadly thugs who are trying to kill her.

Sound familiar?

It should. Because recently there has been a slew of action movies featuring super deadly female assassins, often protecting a child from harm, films like LOU (2022), GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE (2021), and KATE (2021) to name just a few. It’s a formula that’s wearing thin.

THE MOTHER, which is rated R and goes heavy with the violence, gets off to a good start, then sinks into a series of scenes that strain credibility, before eventually getting much better towards the end.

The movie opens with Jennifer Lopez’s character, who remains nameless throughout the movie, being questioned by F.B.I. agents who are trying to get her to give them information about a dangerous criminal, while promising her protection for doing so. She scoffs at this suggestion, saying that no one can protect her, and seconds later she’s proven correct, as snipers and assassins move in to kill her. She fights her way out of it, but the man who wants to kill her, Adrian (Joseph Fiennes) confronts her first, and when he sees that she is pregnant, violently stabs her in the belly. It’s a jarring opening scene.

Of course, she survives, as does the baby; hence, she becomes “the mother.” She agrees to give up her daughter for adoption in order to protect her, since Adrian also survived and is still hell bent on revenge. She disappears into the wilds of Alaska, until twelve years later, she learns that Adrian has discovered the whereabouts of her daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez), who’s now 12. She stakes out Zoe’s new family and watches her daughter, until Adrian makes his move. At that point, she grabs Zoe and takes her to Alaska where she plans to train her to survive, while waiting for Adrian to eventually find her.

THE MOTHER is a standard actioner with not much going for it until assassin mom takes her daughter Zoe to Alaska and trains her, because it’s in these sequences where Jennifer Lopez and young Lucy Paez share some onscreen chemistry, and the film pivots from unbelievable action movie to a somewhat heartfelt drama. Young Paez gives the best performance in the film, hands down. Her expressions, her emotions. She is a twelve-year-old who at first hates this woman who is her real mother and everything she stands for, but her feelings change as they grow close.

It’s also a decent performance by Lopez. Early on, she’s simply the emotionless assassin. Ho hum. But later in the scenes with her daughter Zoe, her character grows, and she becomes more watchable. In terms of believability, while the action scenes themselves strain credibility— every time there’s a fight, all the bad guys fall while Lopez escapes unscathed—, Lopez looks the part, and her performance is believable. She’s lean and mean, and I had no problem she could kick multiple people’s butts at the same time, but the sequences themselves were often over the top.

Joseph Fiennes, a fine actor, doesn’t do a whole lot here as evil bad guy Adrian. He’s not really a memorable villain. And Omari Hardwick has the thankless role of the F.B.I. agent who unlike mommy assassin gets shot, stabbed, and beaten up nearly every action sequence he appears in. It’s almost laughable.

THE MOTHER was directed by Niki Caro. The action sequences are slick and stylish, but the film’s best parts are in its latter half in Alaska, featuring scenes between mother and daughter. This is when the film is at its best. There’s also some neat sequences featuring wolves which factor thematically into the film.

The screenplay by Misha Green, Andrea Berloff, and Peter Craig like the rest of the movie works best when dealing with mother and daughter. The rest is all rather flat and uninspiring, and not very believable. Craig also worked on the screenplays for THE BATMAN (2022), and THE TOWN (2010), one of my favorite movies with Ben Affleck, who directed, who of course is Jennifer Lopez’ husband. Speaking of Affleck, both he and Lopez had movies released on the same weekend, as Affleck’s movie HYPNOTIC (2023) also just came out. I liked THE MOTHER better than HYPNOTIC.

I found the first half of THE MOTHER pretty standard and unimpressive, but it gets better, thanks largely to a neat performance by young Lucy Paez, as she and Jennifer Lopez lift the second half of the film to a much more satisfying final act.

I give it two and a half stars.

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

HYPNOTIC (2023) – Nothing Hypnotic About This Superficial Thriller

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HYPNOTIC (2023) is a new thriller starring Ben Affleck that tries to tell a clever story but instead ends up being superficial and shallow.

It’s also one of those movies where characters speak in terms of exposition. “We had to do this because….” “We had to do that because…” Lots of telling. Not much showing.

HYPNOTIC opens with detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) in a therapy session talking about the horrific day his young daughter was abducted from a park playground when he had looked away for only one second. Danny is clearly still a mess, yet at the end of the session, the therapist gives him the green light to return to active duty, which is the first of many instances in this movie where the plot just moves along because it is supposed to, rather than for any believable reasons.

We next find Danny staking out a bank with his fellow detectives because they received a tip the bank would be robbed, and there have been a string of robberies where the only thing stolen has been safe deposit boxes. When Danny observes a strange man (William Fichtner) speaking in code to a woman and then to a couple of guards, Danny wrongly believes they are all working together, and he rushes into the scene. He’s wrong, because the strange man, whose name is Dellrayne, is really hypnotizing these people to do whatever he wants.

When Danny thwarts the person who Dellrayne hypnotized to steal the safe deposit box, he opens it to see a photo of his missing daughter. Perplexed, he confronts Dellrayne, but the mysterious hypnotist escapes. Looking for answers, Danny and his partner Nicks (JD Pardo) track down the person who left the anonymous tip about the bank robbery, a woman named Diana (Alice Braga) who also happens to possess hypnotic abilities.

And it’s here where the dialogue in HYPNOTIC becomes bogged down in exposition. Diana explains who Dellrayne is and what he is up to, and since he wants the safety deposit box which Danny prevented him from stealing, he will be coming for it, which suits Danny just fine, since he wants to find his missing daughter. So many questions, so few answers. Honestly, at this point in the movie, the story is somewhat intriguing, as the mystery of why a picture of Danny’s daughter was inside a safety deposit box, and why Dellrayne wants that picture is a mildly interesting one.

HYPNOTIC then tries to go full blown “out there” and become a sort of poor man’s INCEPTION (2010), with equal parts TOTAL RECALL (1990) but it’s just not ambitious enough to pull this off successfully. There are lots of twists and turns and false memories and the like, but everything that happens in this movie is quick and superficial. It all fits neatly into its brief 90-minute running time, which sadly, might be the best part of this movie, that it doesn’t go on for too long! While I appreciated its briskness, it doesn’t take full advantage of this brevity by providing a lean mean story; instead, its plot is threadbare and summarized.

HYPNOTIC was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, whose work I usually enjoy. Not so much this time around. My favorite Robert Rodriguez film is one of his earliest, the now classic vampire flick FROM DUSK TO DAWN (1996) which starred George Clooney, and he also helmed both the SIN CITY and MACHETE movies. Most recently he’s been directing episodes of THE MANDALORIAN (2020) and THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT (2021) TV series.

His work is usually slick, polished, and energetic, which is the case here with HYPNOTIC, but the problem is the story doesn’t hold up. Rodriguez’s screenplay rushes through nearly every story element here, and none of the characters are all that interesting. For a movie with a somewhat intriguing premise, I found this one all rather dull.

Likewise, I usually enjoy Ben Affleck. He just turned in a solid performance in a supporting role in the recent movie AIR (2023), which he directed, and which also just premiered for free on Prime Video this weekend. About the only time I haven’t really enjoyed Affleck was when he played Batman, and unfortunately, he kinda seems like Batman here only without the costume. He’s dark and grumpy, as he plays detective Danny Rourke as one dreadfully gloomy character, but without any real angst. He just looks serious and delivers somber lines, acting tough as if he were an indestructible superhero, a la Batman. Which is another knock on the screenplay. The dialogue is awful.

I also usually like William Fichtner, as he has stood out in movies like DRIVE ANGRY (2011) and THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), but he’s dull here as well as hypnotic villain Dellrayne. Like the other characters in the movie, he talks about what he just did, and what he is going to do, rather than actually doing anything. Ditto for Alice Braga as Diana.

Jackie Earle Haley shows up for one brief scene, basically a cameo, and it’s too bad he’s not in this one more, because in his few minutes of screen time, he delivers the best performance in the movie.

HYPNOTIC offers an intriguing mystery but drops the ball when telling a story about it. The characters are flat, the dialogue superficial, and the story, while it tries to go the route of a mind-boggling science fiction thriller, instead plods along a pedestrian path of unremarkable exposition.

I give it one and a half stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

AKA (2023) – New Actioner from France Will No Doubt Satisfy Action Movie Fans

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If you like action movies, chances are you’re going to love AKA (2023), a new action thriller from France which premiered on Netflix this weekend.

I gotta say, one of my favorite parts about Netflix these days is their promotion of international films. There are a lot of movies premiering on the streaming service that aren’t available at theaters, and in recent months they have showcased some outstanding movies from countries like Thailand, South Korea, and Norway, to cite just a few.

Their latest is AKA, an action flick from France about a special ops agent named Adam (Alban Lenoir) who is called in to infiltrate a mobster’s organization in order to learn the whereabouts of a terrorist in hiding who is intent on wreaking havoc in France. The terrorist is friends with the mobster, and the French government knows the mobster is hiding him. Adam’s mission is to find the terrorist and eliminate him.

Adam is reminiscent of Jason Bourne, only without the memory loss. He’s a killing machine, and it doesn’t take him long to win over the mobster, Victor Pastore (Eric Cantona) and be invited to join his security team. Adam also connects with Victor’s young son, who looks up to Adam, and Adam is sympathetic to children because as a youth some horrible things happened to his brother, and Adam murdered the man responsible, an event which led to Adam being recruited by the French government at a very young age.

The story told in AKA is really secondary. Adam’s search for the terrorist is mildly interesting, and towards the end, there is one twist too many, but none of this affects the quality of the movie all that much, because what makes this one so entertaining are its action scenes.

The movie opens in dramatic fashion as we see Adam single-handedly “rescue” a female hostage in the middle east, taking out an army of guards, but rather than free her, he shoots her dead. He’s a cold-blooded killer and pretty much unstoppable. He’s also a good guy, and as the movie goes along his loyalties are aimed more towards good people than his superiors. The action sequences are second to none, and well done by director Morgan S. Dalibert.

Alban Lenoir is quite good in the lead as Adam, the unstoppable assassin. He’s got a quiet Arnold Schwarzenegger vibe going throughout. He’s in most of the movie, and he is able to drive this one along. Lenoir also reminded me a little bit of Alan Ritchson, who plays Jack Reacher on the excellent TV show REACHER (2022). He effortlessly makes Adam a larger-than-life action hero.

The entire cast in this one is commendable, and there are fine performances by everyone involved.

Lenoir also co-wrote the screenplay with director Morgan S. Dalibert. As I said, the story told in this one plays second fiddle to the action sequences, but it’s still a decent story which held my interest throughout. The dialogue is strong, the characters well-defined, and other than a “one-twist-too many” ending which falls into the government is really a bunch of crooked bastards category, it’s a good script. It supports the action well.

As a result, I had fun with AKA, and I give it an enthusiastic three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES (2023) – Fun Fantasy Full of Humor and Adventure

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DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES (2023) is a fun movie that is enjoyable even if you don’t know anything about the famous role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Players of the game will probably appreciate it more, but in terms of audience satisfaction, this one delivers whether you’re a player or not.

To be honest, I really wasn’t all that interested in seeing DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES, as high fantasy really isn’t a genre I enjoy all that much. But the trailers for this one looked pretty darn funny, and writer/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have a proven track record, as they wrote the screenplays for Marvel’s SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017), the first and probably my favorite of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, and the HORRIBLE BOSSES movies. They also directed the funny comedy GAME NIGHT (2018) starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams.

On the other hand, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie!

And that’s because the story in this one really doesn’t matter. It’s all just an excuse to write humorous lines for dashing witty characters in a colorful fantasy land where the good guys battle the bad guys, and the end result is never in question. Which could be the formula for a dreadfully dull movie, but that’s not the case here. At all. Because the dialogue is humorous and the characters are sharp-witted.

The whole thing is just popcorn-movie-fun.

The plot is about a group of thieves– and these are nice heroic thieves, Robin Hood style robbers— Edgin (Chris Pine), Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), Simon (Justice Smith), Doric (Sophia Lillis), and Xenk (Rege-Jean Page) who are in search of various relics which will lead them to the ultimate prize, a magical object that Edgin hopes to use to bring his murdered wife back to life. They each have their own reasons for wanting to help Edgin, and along the way they also need to rescue Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) who has been in the care of their former associate Forge (Hugh Grant), who has since changed his ways and is now poisoning Kira against her father, and also teaming with the main villain in the movie, the red devil Sofina (Daisy Head).

As I said, the end is never in doubt. You know who will come out on top long before the movie ever gets there, but the fun of this one is the journey along the way.

And that’s because the script by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, and Michael Gilio is a good one. The situations are lighthearted, and most of the jokes land.

It also helps to have a talented cast. Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez seem to be having a lot of fun, and they have a good chemistry together. Pine is perfect as the dashing hero, and as light and witty as his presence is in this movie, his performance is even better because there’s a deep undercurrent of seriousness in the character, as Edgin identifies as a loser, telling his friends when they are down that he has consistently messed up, so much so that his wife’s death is on him, and so he’s driven to get things right this time and make things better.

Rodriguez also has a field day playing silent tough guy type, and her character Holga can pretty much hold her own against anybody and then some.

Justice Smith as Simon gets most of the best lines in the movie, while Sophia Lillis as the shapeshifting Doric gets to be the freckly soft-spoken cute presence when she’s not turning into various creatures. Lillis played young Beverly Marsh in the recent IT movies.

Rege-Jean Page is both handsome and humorous as Xenk, arguably the most powerful one in their group, and once again, Hugh Grant plays an over-the-top eccentric villain, something we just saw him do in Guy Ritchie’s OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE (2023). I enjoyed Grant’s performance more in OPERATION FORTUNE, because there was a deadly serious side to his character that doesn’t exist here in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, but that’s not a complaint, because Grant is so good at playing these types of characters. Like the rest of the cast, he’s fun to watch throughout.

I also really enjoyed Daisy Head as the villainous Sofina. Head is serious and frightening and plays the role with a driven sense of purpose that looks like she walked off the set of GAME OF THRONES.

The movie also looks great, as it has a clear, crisp print that projects the colors of its fantasy world to the point where unlike a lot of movies with CGI created worlds, it looks incredibly realistic, like directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were shooting on location. The action sequences are decent. They’re nothing earth-shattering, but they are certainly watchable and don’t go on for too long.

Sure, the story plays out like a story in a Dungeons and Dragons game— duh!— with lots of magic spells and conversations about which powers to use and the advantages and disadvantages of each, but this doesn’t get in the way of the success of this movie.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES is a fantasy adventure comedy that is as satisfying as it is jovial. It’s a summer popcorn movie that just happened to be released in the spring.

I give it three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

KILL BOKSOON (2023) – Korean Action Thriller Stylish but Stale

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KILL BOKSOON (2023) is a new action thriller from South Korea about a single mom who also happens to be an assassin.

Premiering on Netflix this weekend, KILL BOKSOON tells the story of Gil Bok-soon (Jeon Do-yeon), a single mom who’s finding that raising a teenage daughter on her own is more challenging than killing people. The movie opens with a very stylish sequence on a bridge where Gil engages with a ninja, at first granting the man’s request that they fight to the death, but when she realizes she can’t defeat him, she simply shoots him dead. Gil always gets the job done.

She works for a company with very strict rules regarding assassinations, but she is able to push the boundaries because the man who runs the company has long admired her. When she’s not assassinating people, she’s trying to raise her teen daughter, who is giving her all she can handle and then some. But the main plot of this one is mostly concerned with the assassination firm for which Gil works, and when Gil goes too far and breaks a major rule, she finds herself at odds with her employers and has to fight for her life when the company decides she is no longer an asset.

KILL BOKSOON was written and directed by Sung-hyun Byun. The script maintains a very serious tone throughout and doesn’t go the route of high camp, which I found surprising because the movie opens with a rather campy fight sequence between Gil and the ninja. But KILL BOKSOON is not BULLET TRAIN (2022), the Brad Pitt actioner in which the assassins in that film seemed to be having more fun than kids at Disneyland. I wasn’t the biggest fan of BULLET TRAIN, so at first, I was grateful for the serious demeanor in KILL BOKSOON, but as the movie went on, and at two hours and seventeen minutes, it does go on, the film becomes weighed down by its seriousness.

Honestly, the whole plot about the assassination company I found boring and very superficial. I didn’t care about their rules or how they trained young assassins. A huge chunk of the movie is about these things. Gil Bok-soon is a really interesting character, and while the movie does focus on her, somehow, she still doesn’t have enough to do. The main plot doesn’t really give her an exciting conflict.

Jeon Do-yeon is terrific as Gil Bok-soon, and she’s equally at home playing the exhausted single mom and the bad-ass never-loses hired killer. She’s the best part of KILL BOKSOON, although the rest of the cast is also very good.

Director Sung-hyun Byun handles the many action sequences with precision. The fight choreography is impressive, but on the other hand, there’s nothing in this movie’s action sequences that we haven’t seen before. The opening fight scene may have been my favorite. At one point in this sequence, Byun shoots the action through the windows of a passing train for a neat effect.

But the screenplay was merely meh. While the acting is solid, the characters other than Gil and her daughter, are all rather dull and forgettable. There isn’t much of a plot, and sadly, after creating a cool character like Gil Bok-soon, Byun forgot to include a credible threat for her to face. The main threat, which turns out to be her boss, wasn’t exciting, and events leading up to the film’s conclusion simply weren’t that suspenseful.

I enjoyed the action scenes in KILL BOKSOON, and I really enjoyed Jeon Do-yeon’s performance as Gil, but the movie as a whole with its stale stoic plot about an assassination firm with rules and an honor code did very little for me.

As a result, I give KILL BOKSOON two stars.

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RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

65 (2023) – Adam Driver Dinosaur Adventure Dead on Arrival

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65 (2023), a new science fiction adventure starring Adam Driver as a space pilot who crash lands on Earth 65 million years ago smack in the middle of some menacing dinosaurs, has a fun premise, but then does nothing with it.

At all.

65 is the story of Mills (Adam Driver), a pilot who is about to leave on a two-year mission which will pay him well, money he needs to treat his ailing daughter Nevine (Chloe Coleman). But enroute, the ship is struck by a meteor and crash lands on an unknown planet, which happens to be Earth in the age of the dinosaurs. There is only one other survivor besides Mills, a young girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), and so, thinking of his own daughter, Mills vows to get her back home. The specifics of that endeavor include climbing a mountain to reach the ship’s escape pod, which is on the mountaintop because Mills’ ship split in two and that’s where the half with the pod landed. In their way, a jungle filled with hungry dinosaurs.

And oh, by the way. This is also the day when the catastrophic meteor strike which wiped out the dinosaurs is about to occur. So, if Mills and Koa don’t get off the planet, they will be pulverized by the doomsday meteor blast.

There are a lot of thought-provoking roads this movie could have taken. Sadly, however, there just isn’t much that is thought-provoking about this film.

Let’s start with the characters. Mills and his people come from a planet different than Earth, and yet they all look human, and they speak English. But they are about to crash land on Earth during a time before humans existed, and so, I thought, might there be some PROMETHEUS (2012) ideas floating around, that perhaps these folks would somehow become the parents of the human race? But that’s not what this movie is about. And I know, in the STAR WARS universe, they look human too, but STAR WARS is also more fantasy/adventure than science fiction. So, why is it worse here in 65 than in the STAR WARS movies? It’s not. It’s just that in a standalone film about aliens who crash land on Earth who look and act exactly like humans, well that stands out a little more here, and not in a good way.

The screenplay by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, both of whom also directed the movie, struggles from the outset with this exciting premise. The plot here seems like a no brainer for suspense and excitement, yet the film labors to generate any, especially at the beginning. The ship crashes, and Mills is alone for a while trying to figure out what happened, and all I could think about is, we the audience know what happened: they crashed on Earth in a place full of dinosaurs! Had this ship contained a group of people who were alive, we could see them all dealing with these dinosaurs immediately! Instead, the script makes the dubious decision to kill everyone on board in the crash, except for Mills (and then later Koa when he discovers her alive), and so when Mills looks about the jungle, you know he’s not going to be killed because the movie would then be over after about ten minutes, and so there’s no suspense and no excitement.

The screenplay also struggles with time. At the beginning of the movie, it’s stated that Mills will be gone for two years. Yet, on the trip, everyone is in stasis, which seems odd for a mission that will have them back home in two years. It’s not like they’re traveling for decades. But I can buy that perhaps they were saving on food and other things, so it would make sense for them to be asleep for the voyage. However, after the crash Mills learns news about his daughter, and while it’s not specifically stated, it just seems like more than two years have passed since he left.

The movie also employs some of what I like to call LOST IN SPACE logic. Now, I love the original 1960s science fiction TV show LOST IN SPACE (1965-68) and I’m a big fan, but the logic on that show was always silly, and science was never at the forefront of their scripts, unlike STAR TREK. Here, you have Mills sending out distress calls to his home planet, and he seems to believe they will send help immediately. One, he’s on an uncharted planet, so they don’t even know where it is, and two, he must be far from home. What kind of ships do they have? Can they navigate worm holes? Does he really expect them to just show up and rescue them? Apparently, he does. Which makes little sense.

Then, he believes that the escape pod/ship will save them. Yes, it will get them off the planet, but then what? What about fuel? Food? And where are they going to go once they’re flying in space? No one here is asking these questions. It’s all very lazy writing.

The movie isn’t interested in any of these things, but it is interested in dinosaurs. So, how are the dinosaurs in this movie? Not bad. There are some decent sequences here, my favorite involving a T-Rex towards the end of the movie. But a lot of the scenes are derivative of stuff we’ve already seen in the JURASSIC PARK movies. In short, the dinosaurs here are decent, but they don’t make or break this movie.

Screenwriters Beck and Woods also worked on the screenplays for THE QUIET PLACE movies, which told much better stories than the one told here in 65. THE QUIET PLACE movies took an interesting premise and ran with it. 65 takes a neat premise and drops the ball.

The acting, however, is fine. Adam Driver is really good as Mills, and he turns in an athletic, driven performance as he will stop at nothing to get Koa home. Driver’s performance, as expected, is one of the better parts of the movie.

Ariana Greenblatt is also excellent as Koa, but the sad truth is there’s not a whole lot for either of these two actors to do other than react to scary dinosaurs.

My favorite part of 65 is that they used the same sound effects from the Martian machines in the classic 1953 WAR OF THE WORLDS for Mills’ ship’s warning system. It was fun to hear it on the big screen, even if only for a few seconds.

65 is pure fluff, but not very thought-provoking or exciting fluff. Its tale of dinosaurs attacking people who have crash-landed on Earth 65 million years ago could have been intense and exciting, but it’s not. It’s superficial and sadly mediocre.

But because I like dinosaurs… and who doesn’t?… I give it two stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE (2023) – Jason Statham Leads the Way in Fun Spy Adventure by Writer/Director Guy Ritchie

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I’m kinder to writer/director Guy Ritchie’s work than most.

And that’s because I enjoy most of his movies, which are not always critically acclaimed. They are generally upbeat energetic adventures, with lots of witty comedy thrown in, films like the Robert Downey Jr. SHERLOCK HOLMES movies, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (2015) reboot, and THE GENTLEMEN (2019), which starred Matthew McConaughey.

Now comes OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE (2023), which Ritchie both wrote and directed, a spirited spy thriller starring action star Jason Statham as a British agent who is tasked with preventing the sale of an unknown stolen item to an unknown buyer. Huh? See, the British government knows that something top secret and of high value was stolen, but they don’t know what. They do know that it has attracted the attention of many dangerous buyers. They also know who is brokering the deal, the eccentric billionaire Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant).

So, handler Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes) hires superspy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham) to assemble a team to find out what Simmonds is selling, to whom is he selling it to, and then to retrieve it in order to prevent the sale. The team includes tech whiz Sarah (Aubrey Plaza) and all-around expert at everything JJ (Bugzy Malone). To infiltrate Greg’s super secure surroundings, Orson blackmails famous actor Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) into helping them, because Francesco is Greg’s favorite actor, and he practically loves the man. With Sarah posing as Danny’s girlfriend, and Orson as his new manager, they infiltrate one of Greg’s parties and begin their work. Complicating matters is another better financed team is also on the job, helmed by Orson’s main competition, a spy named Mike (Peter Ferdinando).

The ruse is on! May the best team win!

While I do enjoy Guy Ritchie’s movies, and I did enjoy OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE, it’s a little less spirited and a bit sloppier than some of Ritchie’s other movies, which usually are very slick and polished, and that’s not the case here. While there are plenty of exotic locations, the type you expect to find in a spy movie, Ritchie’s direction and the editing seems a bit off. There are some awkwardly edited scenes, a fight sequence for instance, which ends abruptly, and then is shown again later as a flashback to explain what happened, a decision which was odd to say the least. Just show the fight when it happened. There’s also a scene that ends right in the middle of a line of dialogue.

Speaking of dialogue, the screenplay by Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, and Marn Davies struggles to get the humor right. The writing just isn’t as sharp as it needs to be, and the laughs aren’t always there. The situations are there, the characters interesting to watch, but the dialogue isn’t up to the task. Many of the jokes simply don’t land. What you end up with is a movie that is more amiable than humorous. And it is amiable. I did have fun watching it, but it’s just not as witty as it tries to be.

Of course, the most awkward thing about the movie is its title: OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE. Really? What a mouthful! The French “Ruse de guerre” means “ruse of war.” Yes, these spies are using trickery to wage war against the enemy. I get it. But it’s still an awful title.

But what’s not awful is the cast, which is really the best part of this movie. Jason Statham is always fun to watch, and he remains one of my favorite action stars working today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Statham performance I haven’t liked. He’s always believable, he always has an edge about him, and he possesses a charismatic screen persona. He also has an awesome spy name: Orson Fortune. You can build a series around a guy with a name like that!

Here, Statham is rock solid once again, and he does enjoy some humorous moments, one of which is when he confuses the front door with the back door of a building and exits the wrong one, leading to an unexpected encounter.

And then you have Aubrey Plaza as Sarah who gives it her all in this movie. Like Statham, she’s also a lot of fun, and she gets one of the best lines in a movie I’ve heard in quite a while, a memorable quip involving a cocktail. Of course, if you really want to see Plaza at the top of her game, you should see EMILY THE CRIMINAL (2022), one of my favorite movies last year, and a true showcase of Plaza’s acting abilities. She’s fine here, but her character plays second fiddle to Statham’s Orson Fortune.

The best performance in the movie, however, belongs to Hugh Grant as the eccentric Greg Simmonds. Grant has a field day with the role, a gay man who is attracted to actor Danny Francesco but who is equally at home wooing and trying to steal his girlfriend from him. And while Grant excels at humorous quips, my favorite part of his performance is when he shows his serious side, which is far more subtle but far more intriguing. When he goes from warm witticisms to cold calculations, like in the scenes where he comes on to Aubrey Plaza’s Sarah, there’s a sense of ruthlessness and menace that seeps to the forefront of his character.

Josh Hartnett is also fun as actor Danny Francesco, who at first is terrified at having to enter a real life dangerous situation, but later embraces it, and uses his acting skills to help with the ruse. My favorite Hartnett role remains his lead performance in the violent hard hitting horror movie 30 DAYS OF NIGHT (2007). And of course, he made his acting debut as Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode’s son John in HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YEARS LATER (1998).

At the end of the day, while not my favorite Guy Ritchie movie, OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE is still a fun and entertaining spy adventure, with a terrific cast, led by Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, and Hugh Grant, and in spite of a script that isn’t quite up to snuff, still manages to make for very satisfying action-comedy thrill ride.

I give it three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful