2036. War in Eastern Europe. US troops on route. Aided by robotic soldiers. Gumps. A dystopian future with a criminal warlord rarely seen. And it starts BRUTAL. Explosions, glitchy feeds and blood. Reminds me of that movie about the war on alien insects: Starship Troopers. but not really. Not in plot as much as in production quality/style, at least.

It's impressively solid production-wise too. Not a wasted line with the dialog. Not a malplaced bit with the script. Impressive detail in regard to scenery. Impressive warmth (or coldness - when it's that time) with the atmosphere. Just overall impressive everything! Netflix know their shit.

At least that's how it starts.

Anthony Mackie (one of my favorite current actors btw)'s a great commando too, and Damson Idris a good disciple, albeit a little lost in the line of fire as cliché leads him.

His naivete may be a cliché at the beginning, but there's a different kind of cliché at the end too, and I wish more characters were involved then.

I wish Koval wasn't such a disappointment. I wish the ante just kept rising throughout the battle. Instead Leo shows weakness, we get a glimpse at an unconventional end and... I almost wish they'd followed through with it. But instead if takes the usual route. Heroism. Conventional form.

I do appreciate the greater good. I appreciate the role this movie plays as an anti-drone and robot/AI piece too. But wouldn't it have held all the more weight if they went all the way? Like they did with The Day After.

Feel kinda sorry for Leo too; the good intentions he might've had; the potential for betterment beyond the ending...

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Didn't realize I'd seen this movie before until the slightly mean but also appreciably wholesome airport cavity search scene. XD

Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy! What a great duo. Didn't think it'd work that well at the first kiss, but the longer it goes the more that grows...

The movie unfortunately does have a very cliché bad guys and internal affairs/bad cop investigation thing going on too, so basically everything outside of the main character chemistry and Booty comes off across a bit basic and familiar. It still feels more polished than most innocent white nerd/mean black tough guy combo movies, but in the end seems to lack the depth and intensity required to really go all the way (to a five).

It's wholesome though. Entertaining. With a good script. Good filming. A chemistry that shines with a genuinely entertaining kind of awkwardness that maybe hadn't been reprised before the recent Bodyguard combo with Ryan Reynolds.

Unexpectedly great movie.

 rated 4.5/5: almost awesome

Judge Dredd, Sin City, Watchmen, Wolfenstein... with a twist! Vampires. And the church. And priests. Steampunk and badlands.

It's a strange blend of traditional and sci-fi, with an animated intro, followed by a non-animated dusty voyage through a gray world in search of love, and familiarity, and answers, and judgement...

It was great. The fighting choreography was swift - although clumsy in the beginning. The special effects still work - though jumps and similar don't always seem to carry weight. God does work in mysterious ways but... feels like a possible sign of aging. There must be something.

Story-wise I feel it all passed by a bit too fast. The dreams. The conflict. The resolution. It's swift, like it should be - like the bidding they do in the name of the one and only, but still... feels like it could've gone deeper.

Or maybe it's the world that seems a bit too empty? The statues were awing, but it could have had something... beyond those desolate plains? A more diminishing end? A more concluding one...? Though Paul Bettany's really perfect in his role, almost so much so as Karl Urban is as the villain. Former comrades turned fiends by the twisted trails of fate.

I like the atmosphere too. It feels Cell-like. Like The Cell-like. Dusty and dystopian in a comfortably otherworldly and apocalyptic kind of way.

Those parallels too. The church we serve in the name of something greater. They seem applicable to all. Like the guise of commerce we follow under the name of state. Whatever you believe in I'm sure you'll see a trace here. Herein: demons. Fetch something in its wake.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

(more…)

When there's peace, a warring man attacks himself. So really there is no peace. There's always war. Somewhere. With someone. And that's what this is all about.

A war against boredom. A war against poverty. A war against a father for his daughter's hand, as the wall between East and West Berlin starts to crumble... something like that.

This one went further than I expected it to. It was bizarre. Ironic. Savage. Comical... in a dark kind of way. I thought I wouldn't like it when it all started, but when it's all over? Hell yeah Buffalo Soldier.

I love the soundtrack too. I love everything. It's a Donnie Darko kind of strange on a shooting range. Whole rooms full of fumes. Favorable minds left to spend some time on the other side... that's how we vibe.

Spoils of war. Maybe also a little moral to it all. Joaquin Phoenix always kills it, but so does everyone here. Fantastic movie.... but maybe you'd better not watch it expecting it to be. It's the unconventional kind of.

Give it a watch will you and this review may seem a lot more sensible.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome

It's like the Expendables of Asia! Plus Michael Jai White and Michael Bisping. And Scott Adkins! Actually scratch that. It's an international cast. It's like an Expendables with a bit more focus on martial arts, though.

There are so many good names, the main three maybe Tony Jaa, Tiger Hu Chen and Iko Uwais. JeeJa Yanin (AKA the female Tony Jaa) has a small role too, and there are a few more notable ones.

You know the action's going to be good just by the cast list.

English not being the native tongue of the main trio unfortunately comes through a bit much though. The main characters often feel out of place, and that does weaken the score. But you do enjoy it regardless. For the fights. For the multicultural incentive - action movies bridging the continental divide and all.

For Uwais the one who always dealt the damage, for Jaa the savage, for Tiger the polished. And for Michael Jai White the so good it doesn't ever seem anyone has a chance against him.

Maybe Scott Adkins would, but unfortunately they're on the same side.

Good movie but... script/progression feels a little lacking sometimes. The action's great. Everything else... not quite there yet.

 rated 3.5/5: not bad at all

Now this was an interesting one! A sort of family-friendly movie about a booker who becomes a hitman, who meets a girl (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), and how his life is then and therefore entirely flipped around.

It's not really though. It may be in an autistic way. It's never entirely certain if he's a psychopath or an autist, but it seems probable it's the latter, filmed in a time when autism maybe wasn't a common currency and Napoleon Dynamite-like lack of responsiveness was a thing you could play around with still without categorization. Though that one came later.

It's filmed well. It's on point. Jason Priestley really manages the lack of emotion well - or lack of suitable emotional responses, and the intense moments are a weird kind of intense where it really is a life and death kind of situation, but you wouldn't know it. Dark humor? Yes.

It's a little predictable in the end, but the personal encounters are all gold - especially the one with Randy, and I was pretty surprised to see Michael J. Fox in the mix for a bit too. Albeit in a very momentary and mortal role.

It does things differently, this one, and I'm glad. Though the lack of emotion maybe also leads to it all being somehow a little anti-climatic.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle