Copshop is a cops-and-criminals thriller with a funny streak that features a number of recognizable talents: Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo onscreen, and Joe Carnahan behind the camera. But more than anyone, it’s co-lead Alexis Louder who grabs your attention.
Read MoreMuscular, many-limbed and possessing tentacles that eject bullet-like spines, the so-called Whitespikes are instantly believable as a species that could overrun the Earth. So it’s a shame that the movie that introduces them feels distinctly familiar, as if constructed from pieces of other, better sci-fi movies.
Read MoreHe’s a world-class solder, a quick thinker with a quicker trigger and the ability to process minutiae really fast and spit it out as exposition to the audience. He’s fun to watch but difficult to relate to, and at the end gets lost in a massive library of action heroes who we remember by the name of the actor who portrayed them and not the character themselves.
Read MoreGarrett’s troubles increase with the arrival of two enemies: the Japanese air force, and a thoroughly supernatural addition, a gremlin. Yes, perhaps I forgot to mention: Shadow in the Cloud is also a creature feature. In an homage to the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, starring William Shatner, Garrett is plagued by a bat/monkey-like creature that’s trying to tear the plane apart in mid-air.
Read MoreGiven the huge range of results, it gets harder to believe that anyone would actually take the stuff. The extent of the movie’s commentary about drug epidemics is “they exist.”
Read MoreIt is easy to root for Angie, whose characterization departs drastically from the usual East Asian trope of the meek daughter of a domineering father who needs a Romeo to save her. In Triad Princess, Angie is Romeo and Xu Yi Hang the more passive and obedient Juliet.
Read MoreIn the library of action films, The Old Guard doesn’t really excite and it’s definitely not memorable, but consider it a good-enough entry into Netflix’s ever-expanding library of films you can simply put on the background, or skip to the parts that interest you.
Read Moret’s a heavy-handed action film, with each cliché delivered to you hand over fist. When we meet Tyler, he casually jumps off a big cliff and into the water, where he stays submerged. He’s drowning himself with the heavy memories of a troubled past, which the film is all too eager to remind you any time there’s a quiet moment.
Read MoreThe violence is a lot gorier than I had remembered from the previous two films, but even with a different director at the helm – long-time collaborators Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah – the DNA remains much of the same.
Read MoreHere’s five reasons the movie rules and five reasons it sucked.
Read MoreThe key ingredient of the original film is the relationship between J and K: one an over-confident, rule-eschewing newbie, the other a grizzled veteran. Even though the screenwriters try to fit Hemsworth and Thompson into a similar dynamic, their characters are paper-thin by comparison
Read MoreThe movie adds 167 deaths alone - more than half the total - and many of these come in lengthy, technically dazzling scenes whose only crime is that there’s too much of them. It sounds odd, but for all the thrills and grim laughs in Chapter 3, the movie could do with being 10 or 15 minutes shorter.
Read MoreTriple Frontier, with its all-male cast of ex-special forces operatives who decide to rob a drug dealer's stash of cash, made you believe with its marketing that it was an action shoot 'em up with cliched one-liners about duty, honour and how their own society has rejected them as a bunch of marginal contributors.
That's not this movie.
Read MoreThe film is very aware the story is not its strong suit; the entire plot is explained in the first 10 minutes in classic Mission: Impossible secret message fashion, and then promptly ushers you into an incredible two-hour escape. What’s most impressive is that it feels like there’s a legitimate mental and physical weight to the things Cruise is put through and that’s undeniably a part of his charm.
Read MoreThere seems to be two distinct films in here; there’s a black ops espionage thriller pitting the talkers in suits versus the doers in camo, and another which weaves a slow burn tale of a hitman who is forced to decide between the mission or the moral high road.
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