I rate this movie Bang Average because it’s got good actors in Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, and as you’d expect with those two involved, it’s got good humour too. But there’s a lot of weirdness here. I’m talking tons of gay-play with sexual connotations, and encouraging really messy & reckless emotional outburts in our impressionable youth. Typical Hollywood!
There’s not much of a classic action hero vibe going on here — it’s more of a lighthearted ‘family’ entertainment genre, and I use the word family in quotes for reasons already stated — any responsible parent would not feed this kind of trash to their children without exhaustive ‘parental guidance’.
This isn’t even the best comedy by the name of Welcome To The Jungle starring Dwayne Johnson! There’s another, which is also called The Rundown and it’s even better than this one thanks to its co-star Seann William Scott who makes an even better funny sidekick than Kevin Hart.
The first 15 minutes of this movie comprise boring, irritating drama — highly skippable, even though it features an aged Danny DeVito (in his mid 70s).
After that, it gets really weird. If you thought a bunch of grown men & women acting like teenage goofballs in new bodies wasn’t weird enough, this time they’re acting like irritating elderly cripples — always complaining & ignoring etc. That’s quite a turn off in the first half hour, and there’s still a good 90 minutes to go! At this rate, this movie will be lucky to score Below Average which is a darn shame seeing how it stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.
It’s sad to say, considering its star cast members in Dwayne and Kevin, but this movie is genuinely hard to watch at times. Especially when they start waffling with the new co-main cast member after 50 minutes in — that’s Awk Wafina, the same docile-come-hyper dumpy-butch Chinese chick in all the action movies lately — and then things stay boring for pretty much the entire movie thereafter. The Rock doesn’t get nearly enough screen time, and when he does, it’s so lifeless & bad, it kind of seems like it’s been Deep Faked, like he was ever really there and it’s all made with AI. As such, this movie warrants a Barely Watchable rating, which is several levels worse than the 2017 movie which was bad enough at Bang Average.
Two for the price of one, with both Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) and Jason Statham in co-lead roles, as ‘Hobbs’ and ‘Shaw’, continuing their characters from the Fast & Furious movies.
Plenty of high budget fast action scenes including epic car chases, inline with the rest of the Fast & Furious movie series, of which this is a kind of spin-off since Vin Diesel and The Rock didn’t want to work with each other any more.
Idris Elba makes a convincing antagonist too.
Ryan Reynolds has a funny supporting role – this is where he belongs – not in the lead role of an action hero movie. Great supporting role by Kevin Hart too – top level banter there.
Terrible choice of sleazy bratty pop music throughout – kind of ruins the vibe and is a missed opportunity, reminiscent of Black Panther from the year before.
Deadly virus themed plot – no surprise since it’s released in 2019 – it’s even called ‘CV17’ aka ‘the snowflake’ which ‘targets the weakest of us’. Ring any bells?
Dirty theme aside, there’s odd bit of good light humour throughout. But the comedy only works because the mood is otherwise nonchalant – for all the expensive action scenes, it’s not got the cool & comforting mood of something like Bloodsport – the plot is a bit soul-less and the action is intermittently noisy and unemotive, between exciting patches – just as you’d expect from any recent Fast & Furious movie. This is a classic example of how more money and big action movie stars doesn’t necessarily equal action scenes that click – top talent is still needed to put things together behind the scenes. The genre seems to be having an identity crisis – the action here isn’t nearly as slick and clicking as in The Transporter, and it isn’t nearly so funny as The Rundown. It’s got all the meat & bones of a mega classic, but lacks the warm blood running through it, as is often the case when too many superstars come together in one movie – the crew tend to get complacent and the movie ends up stinking (à la Ocean’s Eleven). Ironic, considering The Rock’s speech near the end of this movie, about having heart, to overcome machines.
The mood lifts about two thirds of the way in though, when the team head to Samoa to seek refuge among The Rock’s extended warrior family members. But the cast members playing his relatives aren’t impressive – another missed opportunity.
The lead female is played by Vanessa Kirby but she’s more like one of the lads. Eye candy instead comes courtesy of Eiza González (of Bloodshot (2020) starring Vin Diesel), but she only gets a few minutes of screen time. Major mix up there, and another missed opportunity.
Flaws aside, the stars and budget still carry this movie through to being decent. It’s not a bad movie at all. It’s just way off what it could have been, considering the levels each star has reached alone in other action movies.
Action Hero Movies