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, 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 cliche leads him.

His naivete may be a cliche at the beginning, but there's a different kind of cliche 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 propaganda piece. But wouldn't it have held all the more an impact if they really 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 one 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 movie may have some cliche bad guys and internal affairs/bad cop investigation thing. Basically everything outside of the main character chemistry and Booty somehow 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 lacks depth and intensity to really go all the way.

Wholesome though. Entertaining. 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. 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, and a dusty voyage through a gray world in search of love, and familiarity, and answers, and judgement...

It was great. Fighting choreography swift - although clumsy in the beginning. 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. Could've had a bit more depth. Could've built up more. Or maybe it's the world that seems a bit too empty? The statues were awing, but it could have had something... something more beyond those desolate plains... maybe? A more diminishing end? A more concluding one...? Though Paul Bettany's really perfect in his role, almost as much so as Karl Urban the villain. Former comrades turned fiends by the twisted trails of fate.

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

Those parallels too. The church we serve in the name of something greater. Applicable to all. Like the guise of commerce we follow under the name of state. Whatever you believe in: fetch something in this 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. 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. It's the unconventional kind of.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome

It's like the Expendables of Asia! Plus Michael Jai White andM ichael Bisping. And Scott Adkins! Actually scratch that. It's like an Expendables with a bit more focus on martial arts though. So many good names here, the main three being Tony Jaa, Tiger Hu Chen and Iko Uwais. You know the action's going to be good just by the cast list. JeeJa Yanin AKA the female Tony Jaa has a small role too, and there's a few more notable ones.

English not being the native tongue of the main trio unfortunately comes through a bit much - the main characters feel out of place occasionally, and that does weaken the score a little. 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 always dealt the damage, Jaa the savage, Tiger the polished. And Michael Jai White so good it doesn't ever seem anyone has a chance against him. Though maybe Scott Adkins would've compared, too. 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, and meets a girl (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), and how his life is thereof and therefore entirely flipped upside down.

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 situation, but you wouldn't know it. Dark humor? Probably.

It's somewhat 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 moment too. Albeit in a very momentary and mortal role.

It does things differently, this one. 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