Anthony Ramos – Action Hero Movies

This movie starts out slow and boring, but not impossible to watch since it’s clearly just warming up to something via a tedious, inefficient backstory. 10 minutes in, things clearly indeed appear to be warming up, as Liam Neeson‘s character Tom rings the police to confess to being a famous uncaught bank robber.

Half an hour in is when the action really kicks in though, as the FBI agents sent to investigate his confession find the money, then attempt to kill Neeson, then get surprised by their own boss and kill him while Neeson gets away in a bullet-showered car chase.

By 45 minutes in, Tom decides to attempt to clear his name before handing himself in, and by 60 minutes in, his girlfriend Annie (played by Kate Walsh) has been almost killed, and he goes on the attack against the two rogue agents.

The rogue agents themselves are played by Jai Courtney (from Divergent) and Anthony Ramos (from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts). Ramos’s character here has a conscience but is constantly led astray but his more psychopathic friend played Courtney, who by 70 minutes in (with 30 minutes to go) is pretty much a lone ranger, having alienated his partner in crime, his new boss, and of course Tom & Annie.

The old boss of the two rogue agents, who they soon killed, was played by Robert Patrick (the liquid metal antagonist called T-1000, from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991). The new boss of these two agents, who gets tipped off by Tom, is played by Jeffrey Donovan with vibes like a cross between Clint Eastward, Jesse Enkamp and Magnus Carlsen.

A slightly clever ending somewhat saves this movie, solidifying its rating as better than merely Watchable. Indeed, I rate it So-So.

This movie gets off to a messy start, but builds up an intriguing plot with some interesting characters by the end of the first half hour. Unfortunately though, the creativity soon dries up, the momentum dies down, and the quality dwindles. There are some interesting bits throughout, but it’s too few & far between for this movie to rank alongside the best Transformers movies (like the first and the fifth) – instead it ranks barely better than the worst (the 3rd and the 6th). I’d probably say it’s the third worst in the series, which makes it the fifth best, and I’m going to give it a Bang Average rating by the skin of its teeth – helped by the very ending which was not bad.

The new lead cast member – Anthony Ramos playing Noah Diaz – has great potential, but his demeanour in this movie is all too frequently gaumless when he’s not being too hot-headed. And his co-star girlfriend, Dominique Fishback playing Elena Wallace, is no better – the look on her face when trying to save the world is like that of a lazy low-IQ teenager who’s just been asked to do some household chores by her mother. Through these lead cast members, the script of this movie pushes some very shallow-minded approaches to dealing with emotional problems. Contrary to what this movie is teaching our kids, chanting sports terminology like ‘home team’ is not a meaningful message to deliver or a good way to spend the last few seconds of one’s life, and reciting your legal name and postal address is not serious solution for an identity crisis and lack of self-belief. Hasbro just can’t help themselves when it comes to setting terrible examples of leadership and emotional problem solving via their Transformers movies, and instilling disfunctional mindsets in our youth.

One of the coolest things in this movie is how the Autobot Transformer called Mirage, being nearly dead, gave all his kit to Noah who wore it like an Iron Man suit, which combined with his soldiering skills turned him into a top player on the battlefield. Albeit clearly part of a broader military recruitment push – a card which was played very hard at the end of the movie after the final battle was done; it was still a cool scene when it happened.