This Disney movie is like a more mature and slightly better made version of Journey 2 The Mysterious Island (2012) which also starred Dwayne Johnson.
The Jungle Cruise (2021) stars Dwayne Johnson as a ship captain for hire, and Emily Blunt as a woman seeking a legendary miracle cure from a plant hidden deep in the Amazon jungle. The chemistry between Dwayne and Emily is pretty good here. Her tag-along ‘brother’ played by Jack Whitehall is less entertaining but plays his role adequately. Jesse Plemons does a decent job as the main baddie.
By near the half way mark, this movie looks set for a Bang Average rating, which is markedly better than Journey 2, mainly because it’s more mature (while still a bit childish) but also because it’s generally a better production, with better humour. Having said that, it goes sharply downhill around the middle, as there’s a mix of extended boring patches and disgusting patches. It eventually gets a bit better again, but never really re-attains the levels of fun and enthusiasm as it had earlier on. For this reason, plus the fact it’s a bit off-genre, I’m going to rate it just So-So for the action hero movie fan, which is just one level above Journey 2 in the end.
The beginning of this movie is pretty well made. It’s well cultured, well choreographed, well planned and well edited to keep things moving at a good pace. The sound and picture could be improved but everything else is on point. The casting and acting is pretty good too. Jet Li with his well honed awareness, kung fu skill and quiet charismatic charm, makes a great 007-style Chinese agent, licensed to kill. And his counterpart, Tchéky Karyo, makes a first class baddie too.
Having said that, it is a bit gratuitous early on, and then it gets particularly nasty shortly after half an hour in as the main baddie — the head pimp who is also the local police inspector — forcibly injects drugs back into a prostitute who recently cleaned herself up — to keep her sick, weak, dependent and subservient. Then she gets beaten up by fellow prostitutes, and then by another pimp. This is uncomfortable viewing, but on the plus side, it sets up the following phase of the movie, where she meets Jet Li, the shy respectful gentleman — this part of the movie is convincingly made too.
By the half way mark, it looks set for an Above Average rating, give or take a bit since the plot has yet to really unfold yet — we’ve had little more than a strong opening thus far, with some nasty bits dragging it down.
As the movie progresses, the entertainment dwindles while the unpleasantries fail to subside. As a result, in the end I’m going to rate this a Bang Average movie. Indeed, the build up is considerably better than the middle. Not that the entertainment completely dies off, but the smooth fun vibe from early on is mostly absent in the middle, only to reappear briefly near the end — if not for the cool ending when Jet Li openly storms the police station, I would have rated it Below Average due to the low quality middle that significantly lowered the rating from the Above Average beginning.
This movie sees classic Neeson in his element, albeit tamed down a bit due to his old age. The story is mildly intriguing. There’s some action, and a simple concept but just enough script to keep things mildly interesting.
Overall I rate this movie Below Average, but you may rate it higher if you’re especially in the mood for this genre and haven’t seen this one before. Especially if you’re a fan of the theme: travel, mountains, Everest, survival, improv, kidnap, manhunting, escape & evasion, bus driving, etc.
Jason Statham singlehandedly holds down this movie, which is full of cheap action and sleaze. It follows a Taken-like theme except it’s not Statham’s daughter who’s taken, it’s his friend’s daughter who he vowed to protect.
I rate this movie So-So, because it shows Statham in his element but he’s clearly been given very little to work with here. It’s of a similar vibe to a cheap Seagal movie from before they became unwatchably bad.
Vanguard tells the story of a well resourced private security company specialising in VIP protection, headed up by Jackie Chan, on a mission to protect a VIP and his daughter from some equally well resourced & determined criminals.
Although not always concise, this movie does contain some good action, good actors and a good concept — and has a good pace in patches. Unfortunately though, it is watered down with too much boring filler dialog between the good bits.
By the end of the first half, and by the very end, this movie consistently warrants a score of Above Average.
Jackie took a step down in this movie — he had a lot less screen time than usual, and gave lots of time to the young guns in his crew — they were all pretty good too, but none of them strikingly memorable.
Elysium starts off with an interesting dystopian sci-fi concept but rather gritty screenplay. In the first half hour, not much happens to the least cast member except he receives a fatal dose of radiation poisoning in his workplace and is given five days left to live. This urges him to rekindle his old master criminal ways in order to reach the satellite city called Elysium – a place for the privileged to live away from the rest of humanity on Earth. He attempts to get there in order to heal himself, but it’s a dangerous mission – families have tried before and they tend to get shot down indiscriminately.
There’s a nice bit of action before the end of the first hour.
Much of the second hour constitutes a bit of an anxiety & depression fest – probably good for horror-drama junkies, but not so much for smooth action hero movie connoisseurs. Easily skippable if you’ve seen it before. Fortunately, that toxic junk at least intermittently subsides to make way for some half-decent action. This movie had a lot of potential to be a lot better than it eventually was though. Unfortunately, due to the amount of bad mixed with the good, I really struggle to rate it Above Average but I will on account of its genre & stars, and its resultant memorability.
Matt Damon manages to shave off his Jason Bourne identity (see what I did there?) by going bald in this movie – it’s not pleasing on the eye but at least it succeeds in creating a fresh new persona for this movie – this one having much more of an air of vulnerability from the start, since he gets radiation poisoning early on – quite fitting for a regularly toxic movie experience.
The fight scene at the end is dry and over dragged out – easily skippable, even though it’s kind of fast action – reminiscent of a Tony Jaa movie – no flying elbows, but just as spiritually dead.
Promoting radiation chamber type beds as cancer cures, at the end, was the icing on the cake – quite inkeeping with the Big Harma theme since the start.
On the plus side, the main baddies are played quite well by Jodie Foster (brains) and Sharlto Copley (brawn). Many of the cast members are pretty good, even if the movie is a bit thin and nasty while posing like it’s strongly representing a really cool genre.
This movie is mildly entertaining. It occasionally features some good acting, including from the lead character Percy Jackson played by Logan Lerman, and occasionally from others too, such as: Grover, Percy’s protective Satyr, played by Brandon T Jackson; and Zeus, chief diety, played by Sean Bean; and even Pierce Brosnan as Mr Brunner aka Chiron, Percy’s mentor centaur/minotaur type thing.
However, this movie is equally full of attempted sacrilege and shallow lackadaisical expressions, just as you’d expect from any bunch of spoilt & corrupted yet naive and skin-deep Hollywood teenagers trying to play dieties for kicks & giggles above all else.
So it’s got its pros & cons like most movies, and I rank it fairly average among action movies rated by this website.
Although it’s full of a mix of mild entertainment and awkward drama, there is eventually a really cool action scene, but it takes until 100 minutes to deliver it. In that moment, Percy proves he’s the real son of Poseidon by unleashing his power over water, to defeat his enemy, the actual lightning thief, Luke, son of Hermes. It only lasts a matter of seconds though – not even a minute – and for this reason, I can’t rate this movie any higher than Bang Average irrespective the potential and quality it displayed occasionally.
Sequel: Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (2013)
This movie kicks off with a chunky dose of boredom, awkwardness and sacrilege – just as expected. It’s a bit weaker in storyline buildup than the last one, and the cyclops nymph who’s meant to be Percy’s half brother is not appealing to watch (and that’s an understatement). While there is some half decent action in this movie, and some unique plot characteristics, it’s generally a bit below the par set by the first in the series and for this reason it looks set for a decidedly Below Average rating.
This movie has an air of a kids’ TV drama series, with actors and acting standards to match. Unsurprisingly, Pierce Brosnan didn’t come back for this one – his character was a major figure again but played by someone else this time.
Although the teen drama series vibe never really lets up, the action and energy in the latter half of this movie kind of make up for its lack of substance early on, thus bringing the final rating close to average and similar to the original – probably slightly weaker, especially due to the poor start, but not by much, considering the well played back end.
This movie is a strange mix between fast action and vibes of dispair. It takes about half an hour to really warm up, with a strong backstory already built, but it stays a bit confusing right the way through the movie.
By the start of the second hour, the three main protagonists are now somewhat introduced and are working together in a team to track down their loved ones – to rescue them from the aliens who have abducted them. This is probably the highlight of the movie, in terms of mood. But it doesn’t take long till they’re all captured and things become quite depressing right through till the end of the movie – that’s quite a missed opportunity to have a lot more fun, and it brings this movie down from what looked set for a very high rating, down to just Decent which is still no mean feat.
Andy On was impressive, as one of two roughly equal co-stars, called Connor, with vibes similar to Jet Li, just a bit less intense. He was able to match Scott Adkins (who played Quinn – the other co-star) in terms of charisma and screen combat capability, while coming from such a different culture – they made a quite good team.
The lead female – Adkins’ psychiatrist – was played quite well by Vietnamese actress Trương Ngọc Ánh. The second main female – Connor’s kidnapped wife – was played adequately by Lily Ji.
The best bit about this movie is arguably the very ending – it’s got a cool bit of mysterious music at the end, blended in very well with the final scene. It’s not an adrenaline-rush tune, but it’s quite spiritually stirring nevertheless.
This movie is also abundant with metaphors that coincide significantly with theories that became popular around world events that followed this movie’s release in 2019. It’s as if someone were trying to get a message out, but had no permission or trick to do so any more explicitly than were done here. Of course this is pure conjecture, but it kind of makes me respect Scott Adkins a bit more than I previously did. Maybe it’s misplaced credit, who knows. And by the same token, maybe we should respect the weird Wachowskis too, since even though they seem to be much deeper ‘in the club’, and even though they seemed to have the full backing of the system to do so, they basically promoted the same kind of metaphors via The Matrix, and somewhat in Jupiter Ascending too.
Even while all the comments online are along the lines of “this is terrible compared to the original cartoon series” I personally thought this movie was Very Good (compared to what else is out there). I haven’t seen the original cartoons and have no interest in seeing them either. When I were a young child, maybe I’d have watched the cartoons if they were on TV, but as an adult now, I generally avoid animations – I need movies with real people in them, and this one fits that requirement. Having said that, this movie has a theme very similar to one of my favourite cartoons as a child – Captain Planet. Both have the idea of people who can use individual elemental powers, and a main hero capable of using all the elements together.
Sure, there’s plenty of missed opportunities here, for example, there could have been plenty of kung fu moves that better match the elements. And I’m not a fan of calling air manipulators “air benders” – that’s a bit queer. But flaws aside, this movie still has a lot going for it – especially its highs – especially near the end.
There’s a strong awakening theme with this movie, as the Avatar realises his true potential and his duty to bring harmony between the clans and restore peace in the world.
Noah Ringer stars as Aang, the Avatar – the one person in the world capable of manipulating all four elements.
If you enjoyed this movie, you may also like to watch the Netflix series by the same name – again, it’s not an animation, but it’s still quite juvenile, yet still quite entertaining.
This movie kicks off with some terribly tedius non-plot quasi drama scenes that attempt to build backstory but are executed in a seeminly intentionally messy muddled way.
Within 10 minutes, things start to get real, as Liam Neeson‘s NPC type character gets a rude awakening in the form of an unexpected termination from work. But the movie goes straight back to muddled drama mode.
20 minutes in, it starts to get interesting, as Neeson’s character meets a strange woman who sets him a challenge with a large cash prize, and the core concept of this movie begins to reveals itself.
Around half way in, Neeson’s character gets framed for the murder of an FBI agent, all the while staying on a commuter train where he’s been for most of the movie already. At this point, this movie looks set to be rated Watchable – no more, since the first half has been so boring with such little going on. Sure, there’s a vibe of mystery among the semi-helpless angst but that’s literally the entire movie thus far summed up already, so it’s not a great fit for an action hero movie fan but not completely off the mark either.
Unfortunately, this movie doesn’t get any better until the last half hour. The angty stress & tension takes a long time to subside. It turns into a bit of a horror train ride in the secod half, and takes forever to let up. It’s a very one dimensional movie in this respect, and falls short of the ideal vibe us action hero movie connoisseurs are most interested in. But it’s not completely off the mark – Neeson still plays a bit of an adept hero – kind of. He especially comes into his own in the last half an hour, when he takes the lead and starts telling everyone on the crashed train what to do, to help them survive. From that moment on, he gets more dominant as the movie goes on, until in the closing scene he’s full re-instated as a cop and re-finds the woman behind the phonecalls.
In the end, I rate it So-So. A couple levels down from Bang Average, and just a few levels up from utterly Unwatchable. But this doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it at all – it’s still a level above Watchable.
If you think Taken 2 was being unorthodox by having Liam Neeson‘s hotshot character Bryan Mills among those kidnapped, you’ll probably think Taken 3’s a bit out there too, since it sees his wife killed in the first 20 minutes and Bryan becomes the prime suspect but doesn’t stick around to get arrested even in his own country, in his own house – instead he decides to go on the run and get to the bottom of things in his own way.
This movie benefits massively from the presence of Forest Whitaker who plays the lead investigator on the case of Bryan’s ex wife’s murder – you may recogise him as an FBI agent from Bloodsport several decades ago. He’s a pretty good actor, on a similar level to Neeson I’d say, even if nowhere near as rich or famous, he has just as much screen charisma.
Inline with what we’ve come to expect from the first two Taken movies, this one continues the theme of realistic insights into tactics that such a person as Neeson’s character Bryan would be likely to use, including some things more cliché and other things that we’d be less likely to consider. Such as inconspicuous code words over telephone calls (cliché but tactically powerful), and escaping from a foot chase by going through unexpected underground tunnel systems that have inconspicuous entrance masking objects (kind of like hiding in plain sight, thus still a bit cliché, while equally powerful). Also escaping from handcuffs using a concealed pick – something like what I thought we would see in the last movie to be honest, and then he pulled out a mini mobile phone instead! He also does a bit of waterboarding – a torture & interrogation technique made popular by American military in Gitmo etc.
As with the last movie, the hand-to-hand combat scenes here are very choppy between different camera angles – a classic method of masking an actor’s lack of real combative acumen, and in this case, his total lack of physical coordination altogether.
This movie also has a vibe of mystery that wasn’t present in the first two Taken movies, such that it’s not until half an hour before the end that we ever find out who killed Bryan’s ex wife – or so we think – and it’s not until the last quarter an hour that someone (his daughter) actually gets “Taken” this time round.
Even though this movie deviates from the standard Taken concept, and takes a while to warm up, and is a bit miserable early on; in the end I have to rate it higher than Taken 2, and roughly on a par with the original thanks to its strong ending. The highest point was near the end, when Bryan was speeding in a Porsche, chasing after the plane that his ex wife’s murderer turned daughter’s kidnapper was trying to escape in. But it wasn’t just an isolated high, it was part of a larger ending that’s generally quite strong thanks to the converging contributions of multiple decent actors and the richness & pace of the script – something gravely lacking earlier on.
I was disappointed (but not surprised) by the closing scene though. When, after learning that his daughter is pregnant, Bryan says something along the lines of “whatever you decide, I’ll support you” as if there’s a decision to be made (to kill or not to kill, is what I assume it means). But they cleverly brushed that one under the carpet quickly, by talking about the potential name of the baby, as if that’s what Bryan were referring to all along.
This movie takes half an hour to get warmed up, after a bit too long with the non-action backstory drama. But once it gets going about half an hour in, it turns roughly into what we know and expect from the first Taken movie. But even with all that backstory building, it’s really much ado about nothing early on, because this movie’s backstory is still quite reliant on knowing how the first movie went down.
Seeing Liam Neeson run around town, away from those who intend to kidnap him and his family members, really highlights the kind of fragile, awkward movement that only the trained eye could clock onto in the first movie. The fight scenes are also a bit weaker this time round, with a lot of camera angle flashing – a serious lack of rolling footage that lasts more than a fraction of a second – this is a classic budget coverup tactic for actors who can’t really fight, but the last movie didn’t have so much of this going on – not because Neeson could fight any better, but because it must have had a better screen combat team, including choreographers assisting him and stunt doubles standing in for him etc. I guess they’ve cut the budget in that department for Taken 2.
On the plus side, there’s realistic tactics displayed again by Neeson’s character Bryan Mills here, including things we didn’t see in the last movie. Such as memorising a journey taken when kidnapped, by counting seconds while listening out for sounds and driving style changes all along the way, even while blindfolded, in order to re-trace the same route later on; and using items concealed in clothing, to facilitate escape (in this case, a mini cellphone). Then measuring distance while on the phone by counting seconds between an explosion on each end.
On the plus side also, Maggie Grace‘s acting has improved slighty since the last movie. Not massively so, but it’s a little bit better than it was before. Just a little bit.
Around an hour in, things really warm up, as Bryan instructs his daughter Kim on how to help him and her mother to escape. There’s a good 10 minutes of fast action from here – mainly a high speed car chase where Kim is in the driving seat. This, combined with her helping him to escape earlier on, makes this movie very much about the daughter playing the action hero while the father himself is a somewhat immasculated man – a theme we saw from the very beginning while he’s meekly trying to win over his ex wife, who he treats like royalty, even though she’s been with another man for some time. All this girl power and immasculation stuff probably ticks a few boxes for the producers, but makes for a much weaker action movie – it’s much less enjoyable – it’s much weaker in its highs, and it’s much stronger in its lulls – it’s got less pleasantry, and more unpleasantry, which is no mean feat considering the nature of the last movie. It’s not until the last 20 minutes (15 if you take out the closing credits) when Bryan really does his thing and tries to rescue his ex wife.
All in all, it’s not massively different from the first Taken movie, and it has some slightly fresh ideas of its own, but it’s clearly a weaker movie over all, while still being mildly entertaining enough and on-genre enough to earn a Below Average rating I’d say. And that may even be a bit generous considering all the hard-to-watch monotonous and unpleasant chunks that I found myself fast-forwarding through in the knowledge that I was missing absolutely nothing from the goodness of the movie and even saving myself the pain of the screeching background noise that I can only assume is a desperate attempt to add flesh on the bones of the movie and build some kind of suspense & momentum when in fact it really serves only to irritate, not dissimilar to annoying noisy adverts jumping out and disturbing your mood while trying to enjoy a decent YouTube video for example (I’m sure that’s done as a psychological warfare tactic, and not really for the ad revenue).
Bryan’s ex wife in this movie and the last, called Lenore Mills, is played adequately by Famke Janssen who you may recognise as Jean Grey aka Phoenix from the X-Men movie series prior to Sophie Turner taking over that role for X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).
The main baddie in this movie – the father of the main baddie in the previous movie – is played by Rade Šerbedžija (from Tekken 2). He’s not a bad actor but he seems to have a habit of appearing in slightly flopped sequels with similar names. Watch out for him if you want to make a movie called anything like Token 2 or Toucan 2!
This movie begins with a very realistic view of some of the troubles in today’s world, as it builds up the backstory before getting stuck into the meat & potatoes of the plot. Liam Neeson‘s acting is pretty good here, but the woman playing his daughter has a serious lack of acting ability – her emotional scenes are cringeworthy in how they’re so skin-deep and bone dry, although to her credit she does get into the role properly once or twice, for the most important scenes, such as the moment of her kidnap. She’s also built so butch she couldn’t possibly be Neeson’s daughter – they don’t look alike and they don’t think alike, and this only magnifies the issue of poor acting, but fortunately she won’t be doing much in this movie beyond her role in the beggining and even less in the end, so this isn’t a major issue once it gets going.
The kidnap scene happens shortly before the end of the first hour, and aside from this being a rare moment of good acting from the daughter of Neeson’s character, it’s also the first time Neeson shows his talent as a “preventer” which lays the groundwork nicely for whats to come and makes the movie quite exciting going forwards, with about one hour remaining. This particular kidnap scene is well directed, well scripted, well planned and well supported with good cinematography and good acting – it only lasts a few minutes but it’s easily the most memorable and powerful moment of the movie, and as such, quite appropriately it makes clever use of the word Taken which is where this movie gets its name from – in fact a trilogy of movies (Taken in 2008; Taken 2 in 2012; Taken 3 in 2014).
Aside from strong combative tactics & techniques empty hands, blades, guns and makeshift weaponary too (massive credit to the fight choreographers there), some of the other niche problems & solutions demonstrated by Neeson in this movie are pretty realistic too, on topics such as rush-job crimescene analysis, suspect tracking, ad-hoc interrogation, room-clearing counter-measures and stunt driving, which all adds to the credible impression of his character and makes for a better movie in general. He’s basically an ex paramilitary operator with very tidy hands-on skills plus connections that enable him to get any kind of info he needs from government. He doesn’t move like an athlete, he’s even a bit physically feeble in his movement, which is a big red flag to the trained eye, considering his alleged top-level hands-on military background; but considering his age, his variety of skills, and his extremely useful connections, his obvious physical flaws do actually match a different kind of agent that makes his character credible again, ie someone privileged in an agency like the CIA where he’d have access to all the best training and connections without really needing to train so hard physically as someone coming through the military system would. Now if we go with this concept just to make the acting credible, the main thing that doesn’t add up now is how he’s so broke – he ought to be well set. Retiring completely from any kind of well-earning work just to be closer to his daughter who he’s still very distant with, doesn’t really add up, especially if we go with the privileged agent narrative. If he were ever operating on that level, he would have earnt plenty before he retired; else with all those connections on top of the kind of drive displayed in this movie, he should be easily capable finding work that closely suits his lifestyle preferences and still pays quite well – especially something senior in the security industry. Enough to buy a last-minute plane ticket at least. With all that specialist training and such a conservative approach to parenting, one would expect him to have saved up and cached away some resources for a rainy day, if only to help in case of emergency – exactly this very kind of emergency for example, which he was already predicting and trying to prevent before it happened. So some things just don’t add up here, but it’s not so bad that it significantly detracts from the power of the movie – it’s mainly just something that comes to mind when stopping to think critically about the credibility of the lead character’s story. On the surface, things generally seem quite realistic (except for the daughter’s awful acting early on).
At the half-way mark, when he gets close to the trail of his daughter and finds someone who she befriended and gave her jacket to, this movie looks potentially set for a rating of Above Average if it continues on its current trajectory which has had plenty of slow & dry patches but some impressive occasional highs too and seems to be still building momentum and just starting to get into the thick of the plot. Unfortunately the highs are a bit less impressive in the second half – the creativity doesn’t dry up entirely, and the action scenes are stll respectably made, but the momentum dwindles slightly and this becomes a Bang Average movie in the end.
This movie begins with the lead character wearing a white wig, not dissimilar to Atomic Blonde. She then goes on a bit of a killing spree, to obtain something from someone’s safe. There’s a lot of John Wick style shooting, stabbing and general hand-to-hand combat. But it’s lacking personality – all that grunting doesn’t make it any more charismatic – it’s really quite shallow in the opening scenes. The monotonous yet fast paced opening ends just about soon enough before I feet the need to fast forward, which makes for a respectable start.
After the opening action scene, we get a bit of domestic drama & romance which really shows the lead character Avery Graves (played by Kate Beckinsale) and her boyfriend David Brooks (played by Rupert Friend, from the Agent 47 sequel) as both having a serious lack of credible acting ability and a serious lack of action hero quality on top of that. Their acting is really emotionless, not even skin-deep, but in an irritable way, not in an ice-cold slick action movie star way. It’s like they’re both sleep deprived, numb zombies concentrating on something else and going through the motions while half asleep. The acting could hardly be any worse even from an indie B-movie, and come to think of it, the cinematography is pretty weak too, but it took a bit longer for me to clock on to this. Kate and Rupert both seem better suited to some kind of argumentative soap opera drama series. They’re both droning out their lines with terrible timing and zero sentiment early on – it’s really quite strange how random it is. Maybe AI made it up? It’s got a similar level of lifelessness as AI generated pictures. Maybe the audio is poorly synchronised with the lip sinking. Maybe the accents are a terrible choice. The outfits too. But the facial expressions and body language are that of sleepy grumpy teenagers while pretending to be hotshot secret agents having interesting and romantic chats. I blame the casting first & foremost, and by 10 minutes in I’m confident this movie is going to be rated Below Average at best. Aside from their individual flaws, the chemistry between the two of them couldn’t be any weaker if it tried.
The backing sound of this movie early on is a lot of white noise and screeching – it really makes me want to turn it off by the 13 minute mark. There’s very little going for this movie at all, in the beginning, and it’s really quite irritating, but it lasts over 100 minutes (including time for rolling credits). So far it’s on course for a rating even weaker than Below Average, but if the plot and action pick up in a good way, and the terrible background sound sorts itself out, then Below Average could surprisingly still be on the cards.
Fortunately, the movie does get a lot more real & interesting when the lead character’s boyfriend gets kidnapped and the kidnapper calls with his ransom demand in the 15th minute. Impressively, this energy is sustained for most of the movie, making it deserve of respectable rating of just Below Average. If it had a more advanced plot, and better actors, and more dynamic action, and higher budget cinematography, it would be easier to rewatch, but as it stands, it’s not so rewatchable until you’ve totally forgotten how it goes, and this is a big factor in why its rating remains Below Average as opposed to Bang Average – a score it only just falls short of.
Other key cast members, who are also slightly familiar faces from other movies, include Ray Stevenson who does a decent job as Avery’s boss Jarvis Hedlund (Ray passed away in May 2023 due to heart problems); Ben Miles as Nathan Evans who has a superior position to Jarvis, and Jaz Hutchins as Agent Maxfield who works directly for Nathan and has no problem outcasting & interrogating Avery and even her boss Jarvis as if he holds a more senior role or is at least on the same level. Apparently they’re all meant to be CIA agents, and I think Nathan is meant to be the director of the CIA, but it seems like Nathan & Maxfield are working for a superior agency to Jarvis & Avery, and at one point Nathan answers the phone seemingly calling someone else ‘Director’ so who knows. Their exact roles and agencies are not clearly defined in this movie, but their roles in relation to each other are clear enough.
This is a bit of a fun action movie, starring a 70-year-old John Travolta, with slight vibes of Mission Impossible. Although it gets off to a slow start, and gets a bit nasty in places, and is generally quite a simple movie, and has a long monotonous action scene towards the end; once it gets going it sustains an upbeat vibe and remains mildly captivating pretty much until the end scenes, which is rare for a movie so plain & simple as this one – especially one with a bit of a B-movie vibe about it. It’s actually quite an achievement and earns this movie a rating of slightly Below Average which makes it not much weaker than a lot of classics, which is quite an achievement considering some parts have a slight whiff of B-movie acting & cinematography, which is especially obvious towards the end, but does not make the movie a complete write-off – even the ending is slightly captivating, and the very ending is alright. It’s even tempting to rank this movie Bang Average on a par with many classics, but we have to consider its rewatchability which considering the minimal plot, simple script and intermittently weak acting & cinematography would make it quite hard to rewatch until it’s been pretty much totally forgotten again.
Travolta’s age is telling here – not so much in his face, but in the way he moves like a stiff & fragile stumbling old man.
Purely based on appearance, one of the supporting cast members called Caras, played by a guy who calls himself Swen Temmel, is almost certainly a real life son of John Travolta. Add to this how he looks nothing like his official father, but looks so much like Travolta he’s even been pictured doing impressions of him and the resemblance is striking.
The main woman on the protagonists’ team is a hacker called Link, played by Natali Yura, who is like a pound shop (or dollar store) Scarlett Johannson. Not as smart, classy or attractive but a similar flavour nevertheless.
Demián Castro does a solid job in playing Zade Black – the “target” and brother of the main antagonist. And the main antagonist – a man called Salazar, who has coerced the team of protagonists into helping him – is played quite adequately by Danny Pardo, although he doesn’t make as strong an impression and doesn’t get so much screen time as Castro.
All in all, I’d say this is a Netflix-grade movie, that’s blessed with a single elderly A-List star, and seems to have heavily supplemented its team of old-school industry dogsbodies with green new blood, such that it sits somewhere between Respectably Average and Hard To Watch.
Captain Marvel is an OK modern Marvel movie. It’s not very well made, but it’s not very poorly made either.
It’s got subtle and not-so-subtle undertones of a girls’ girl theme, but this doesn’t massively detract from the core plot or action scenes so it’s tolerable for those whose cup of tea it is not.
The action ranges from so-so to pretty good, and although its best scenes have most of the constituents of an awesome experience, they falls short of what the best Marvel movies have managed to achieve (both in action and in drama). The best action scenes, while still pretty good, are a bit limp and end up being a bit of a sissy version of what they could be.
The plot is fairly enjoyable when you’ve not seen it in a few years.
Brie Larson plays the main character, Captain Marvel, born as Carol Danvers and renamed Vers by her kidnappers who may have also wiped her memory. Her acting is alright but nothing special.
Samuel L Jackson plays the next main role, as Nick Fury, a senior agent of SHIELD and as Earth’s main liaison for Captain Marvel – initially trying to arrest her, then eventually helping her when he realises his own agency has been hijacked by the alien race who he initially thought were the enemy but eventually discovered were the good guys. Samuel does a good job and kind of saves the show from what would otherwise be little more than a poorly made, uncoordinated in drama interspliced with mediocre action, only a few scenes of which are sort of good.
Lashana Lynch plays Maria Rambeau, the tomboy-type forgotten ‘best friend’ (and maybe more) of Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel. Her acting doesn’t impress me.
Ben Mendelsohn plays Talos (the shapeshifting alien) and Keller (the agent who Talos impersonates, who is Nick Fury’s boss). He does a so-so job.
Jude Law plays the main antagonist in the second half of the movie, who initially appears to be a good friend of Vers – her senior comrade, supervisor and training partner (and secretly the guy who originally kidnapped her, before her memory were wiped). Jude does a decent job here, and significantly helps to make this is kind of respectable movie.
The main antagonist at the very end, who Jude Law’s character answers to, is Ronan (played by Lee Pace although you can’t really tell who it is behind the CGI, mask, outfit, makeup, etc). Ronan was the guy who served under Thanos in Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) before going rogue when he acquired an infinity stone and became the most powerful man in the universe and the main antagonist of that movie, until the Guardians took the stone back. He’s a cool character and wields hammer a bit like Thor.
Djimon Hounsou and Gemma Chan play members of Jude Law’s team – initially comrades of Vers (Captain Marvel). They add value. They’re at least as good as Brie Larson.
Annette Bening with weird contact lenses plays the AI character who helps to deceive & control Vers – modelled on Carol’s forgotten friend, a renegade pilot who developed the technology that gave Captain Marvel her superpowers when it crashed (shot down by Jude Law’s character, who also killed Bening’s character, kidnapped Carol and wiped her mind).
Clark Greg plays Agent Phil Coulson from SHIELD, working under Nick Fury. He’s a good character but only has a very minor role here – I’d be pleased to see him in a bigger role.
Diamonds Are Forever is Sean Connery’s last outing as James Bond, before the Roger Moore era began. Connery did come back one time, to make Never Say Never Again, 12 years later, independently of Eon Productions, but Diamonds Are Forever still marks the end of the main Connery-as-Bond era.
One of the most memorable scenes from this movie is when Bond steals a space buggy to make his escape through rocky desert terrain. This is followed by a charismatic car chase by cops which probably inspired similar scenes in the Roger Moore era – especially those in Live And Let Die (1973) which was Roger Moore’s first outing as James Bond and was the movie that immediately followed Diamonds Are Forever, so they probably took the interesting car chase from this movie and doubled down on the concept to make some epic chases in the next movie. It’s not so much the car chase itself that’s entertaining – it’s more the reaction of the cops in how they find Bond’s speeding & stunt-driving so cheeky & humiliating.
Another highly memorable scene from this movie, is when James kicks Blofeld’s cat, to see which of the two lookalikes the cat jumps to, so James knows which one to kill.
Another highly memorable scene from this movie, is when James enters a penthouse to find a kidnapped man and is confronted by two cute ladies named Bambi & Thumper who turn out to be highly acrobatic warrior women that proceed to beat him up until he eventually gets the better of them in the pool.
The main woman in this movie, Tiffany Case, is played fairly well by Jill St John. The main antagonist (Blofeld) is played this time quite well by Charles Gray. And of course Sean Connery does very well as always.
This movie is a bit one dimensional and void of creativity & excitement comparted to Goldfinger for example, but it’s not far from the usual standard expected from a Bond movie in the Connery era. I rate it an OK movie.
Dr No is a classy movie, thoughtfully made. It has more slow scenes and less exciting action than the best James Bond movies of all time, but with Connery’s charisma and the overall quality of production it still manages to sustain an action fan’s attention if he hasn’t seen this movie in at least the last few years.
This was Sean Connery’s first outing as James Bond, and was the first movie ever made in the entire James Bond franchise. This movie was followed by From Russia With Love (1963), then Goldfinger (1964) which is the highest rated Bond movie of all time according to the big mainstream review sites, but they rate Daniel Craig above Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton so what do they know! They’re neither understand nor appreciate what made James Bond the monster brand that it is today.
Dr No warms up nicely after about half an hour in, as James Bond identifies suspicious island called Crab Quay worth investigating in connection with his colleague’s murder. None of the local fisherman dare go near it, but Bond surely will.
As classy as it is, it still lacks the level of fast action that you’d expect from a strong modern movie – in this way it’s kind of like Bruce Lee’s last movie, Enter The Dragon – I guess this was the peak of what was produced in the 60s & 70s but by today’s standards I have to rate it just OK – no more, no less. It’s definitely at least a level or two below the best Bond movies by Roger Moore (who played Bond from the 70s till the mid 80s) and Timothy Dalton (in the late 80s). Budget may have also been a factor, since Dr No was also the lowest budget Bond movie by a long way, even after adjusting for inflation. The next movie – From Russia With Love – had twice the budget, after adjusting for inflation, then it was increased by the same amount again for the third movie, Goldfinger, and it pretty much kept going up with each next movie in the saga. So all things considered, they did a great job here.
Sean Connery‘s acting was superb, as the star of the show – a slick-talking, slick-moving MI6 agent who pretty much never puts a foot wrong. Near the start of this movie, James’s boss ‘M’ explicitly referred to MI6, but this was later dubbed over so what you’re likely to hear him say now is MI7 even though his lips are clearly saying MI6 still.
Ursula Andress played the lead female in this movie – a shell collecting woman called Honey Ryder – although she only appeared in the second hour. She did a fair job of it.
Earlier on, Zena Marshall did a decent job a double agent working as an administration assistant at the local agency.
And prior to that, Eunice Gayson played Sylvia quite adequately – she was the first significant female James Bond bumped into – initially at the casino, then they had a brief liaison after that.
Joseph Wiseman played the main villain, Dr No himself. He did a fair job of it.
The pace of this movie is a bit slow. The drama and crying scenes are a bit longwinded. But we manage to build a good story within the first half an hour still. It’s an interesting story where a Chinese triad boss kills his wife, and his daughter sees it then runs away to America along with a bunch of other illegal Chinese immigrants. They all get found, and the girl gets taken in temporarily by a social worker who happens to be Van Damme’s wife. But the cops are bent – they help the girl’s father track her down, so he kills Van Dame’s wife but the child runs off along with Van Damme’s son. Now he’s trying to track them down – the temporarily adopted Chinese girl, along with his missing son, after finding his wife dead and his home watched by a bunch of Chinese men with guns. So it’s time to reconnect with the local mafia lifestyle that Van Damme recently retired from in order to find his son and seek vengeance for his wife’s murder.
About an hour in, there’s an explicit depiction of a man using a power drill to drill into a kidnapped cop’s arm, to make him talk, while Van Damme is asking him “who killed my wife”. This is an ugly scene but it’s kind of tolerable considering the circumstances in how such torture techniques are kind of warranted, considering how this cop was involved in the murder of Van Damme’s character’s wife. Still, it’s a bit unpleasant, and then the torture continues for several minutes more. These scenes would be condensed down and mostly replaced by other stuff in a better action movie, but the directors obviously have a passion for horror. They should keep it to themselves – it doesn’t belong in our genre.
The final action scene is quite longwinded and soul-less, letting down the whole movie which started off with a slightly interesting story. For this reason I have to rate this movie Watchable – no more. I even find myself fast-forwarding through much of the slower scenes here. After the first hour, this movie was on course for a Lower-OK rating, a bit better than those rated So-So, but after finishing the movie with its weak ending I have to rate it just Watchable – a bit worse than those rated So-So.
The basic concept is a good one but the script and cinematography never catch fire, they seem a bit soul-less, a bit like a B movie. The UNISOLs are meant to be cold, not the whole movie.
This movie lacks any significant female role. It had potential for a bit of warmth with the introduction of a non-UNISOL soldier played very well by Mike Pyle, giving Andrei Arlovski‘s latest generation of UNISOL a run for his money. But just as Pyle was growing into his role he got killed off. Interesting plot twist at the very end though, as Pyle’s character appears to have been cloned to create a load of new UNISOLs – this whets the appetite for the fourth & final movie in the saga (Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, 2012) which brings back Van Damme & Arlovski while also co-starring Scott Adkins, but unfortunately does not feature Pyle so the ending to Regeneration is a bit of phony cliffhanger.
Dolph Lundgren does well in his return to the Universal Soldier movie series, as of course does Jean-Claude Van Damme – the main star of every movie in the series except the last (Day Of Reckoning) where Adkins takes over as the main protagonist since Van Damme is getting quite old by this time (in his early 50s) while active soldiers in the real world are generally young (with elastic bodies and impressionable minds). It’s just a shame they’re working with a weak script and deadpan cinematography, so I can’t rate it higher than So-So even if the genre, stars and concept are all excellent.
This movie gets started with a cocktail of unpleasantries, from extreme queer exhibitionism to crying babies.
But it gets interesting shortly after 20 mins in, when Jean-Claude Van Damme gets essentially kidnapped by the agency he worked for, after disobeying a direct order. He’s held on a mysterious prison island and presented with the choice of keep working from a tight leash else be killed immediately. He manages to escape, and goes after the man who kidnapped his wife & child, with the help of his heavily pierced weird friend played by Dennis Rodman. Mickey Rourke plays the main antagonist in this movie. That’s all the significant characters already.
I rate it somewhere between So-So and OK, due to its balance of strengths and weaknesses. The last quarter an hour can get particularly boring for people who have seen this movie a few times before, even if not in the last few years.
This is one of Jean-Claude Van Damme‘s first movies – it was released just a few months after Bloodsport, in 1988. But Sho Kosugi is the real focus of this movie – Van Damme is only a supporting cast member.
The plot is very basic – it’s like a thinned-out very early James Bond movie with less of a star and less of a script. Still, it’s not unentertaining – it is Watchable, once in a blue moon. It’s mildly entertaining if you’re terribly bored and lack anything better to do or watch.
Sho Kosugi’s real sons (Kane & Shane) also take key roles, as his kidnapped sons in this movie.
Van Damme plays a Russian secret agent with slick back hair and a very similar demeanour to his character in No Retreat, No Surrender.
Sho Kosugi plays the CIA’s best secret agent, tasked with recovering weapons technology from an underwater plane wreckage in Malta. The Russians are trying to beat him to it.
This movie offers a novel twist on the already creative concept established in the original, while also featuring strong new co-stars in Bill Goldberg and Michael Jai White. This is actually the fourth movie in the Universal Soldier franchise, but the second & third did not feature Jean-Claude Van Damme or anyone else of note (the main protagonist in both was Matt Battaglia) so you’ll be forgiven for watching the first movie then jumping straight to this one – the fourth.
We don’t see enough of wrestling superstar Goldberg in this kind fast action movie – he makes a very convincing tough guy. Plus, this is easily one of Michael Jai White’s better performances – the robotic superiority-complex role matches his real life demeanour.
Overall I rate this a Decent movie – it’s a bit less of a revelation than the original but still quite creative with a fresh new concept, and features multiple action superstars, but on the downside the plot is a bit one dimensional – the script could have easily been developed more to make it an even better movie. There are multiple females in this movie, including a reporter and a fellow UNISOL, but none of them are particularly worth mentioning – they all deliver bland performances.
Fun fact: this was actually Van Damme’s last widely-released-in-cinemas English-language movie until 2 and a half decades later, when he released Darkness Of Man in 2024 (excluding movies where he wasn’t the main star, such as The Expendables 2 in 2012). Maybe he wasn’t totally playing ball with Hollywood’s sickest shenanigans, but they eventually rewarded him for keeping quiet during the deceptions of the 2020 era? Or maybe his movies had only a small niche audience? The fact that Inferno (1999) had only a limited cinematic released is odd, and the fact that The Order (2001) went direct to video is outrageous.
Further Sequels
If you enjoyed the original Universal Soldier movie from 1992, as well as this one – Universal Soldier: The Return – from 1999, which is the second one starring Van Damme; then you’ll be pleased to know there are a couple more decent Universal Soldier movies to enjoy after this one.
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) rekindles the rivalry between Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, then they both come back again for Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) with the addition of Scott Adkins as the main protagonist in the final movie. Both of these movies from 2009 & 2012 also make a significant role for Andrei Arlovski, the former UFC heavyweight champion who still holds the record for the most wins in UFC heavyweight history to this day.
This is not a non-plot movie, but it’s pretty much the next simplest thing. The plot of this action comedy could hardly be more one-dimensional if it tried. From start to finish, it’s a single car chase. Not much happens during this chase, except the gradual falling in love, between the wrongly accused bank robber turned car thief and kidnapper (played excellently by Charlie Sheen) and the bratty car owner and kidnap victim (played quite well by Kristy Swanson). Strong supporting actors include Henry Rollins who plays an enthusiastic cop on their tail, and Rocky Carroll who plays a helicopter based camera-holding journalist on their tail. Incredibly, due to the excellent script detail, even though the skeleton of the plot could not be more simple, and due to the outstanding acting by Charlie Sheen and some of his supporting cast members, this movie is actually constantly entertaining from start to finish – a good watch if you haven’t seen it before, or in the last decade or so, but definitely one to miss if you’ve seen it within the last few years since it offers minimal value to frequent rewatchers.
There’s not really any martial arts in this movie except the odd gun-oriented standoff, and the odd whiff of car-based escape strategy, but it appeals fair enough to action junkies who haven’t seen it before or in a long time.
This movie is a little bit more interesting than the original, with a better plot and a better supporting cast.
Jason Statham is in his element here, as an assassin tasked with overcoming more adversity this time round than before. He’s given a series of difficult assassination missions to complete in order to save his girlfriend who is being held hostage.
Jessica Alba plays his girlfriend – she does a solid job in this lead female role.
Tommy Lee Jones also does very well in his supporting role that has only a small amount of screen time towards the end of the movie.
Sam Hazeldine does a decent job as the chief baddie in this movie.
Michelle Yeoh performs adequately, albeit with a snotty nose, as a friend of Statham’s character who looks after a resort where he keeps a safe house – she gets a good amount of screen time.
All in all, I rate Mechanic Resurrection (2016) one or two levels higher than the original Mechanic (2011) due to the improved plot and the improved supporting cast. It’s always nice to see a sequel outperform the original, considering it’s usually the other way round.
Action Hero Movies
