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Reviews
Malcolm & Marie (2021)
It's M&M's world and we're just living in it.
Starts strongly but loses focus quickly and decends into a mouthpiece for frustrated directors, screenwriters and students of film school.
JDW and Zendaya are excellent actors and revel in playing very narcissistic, almost sociopathic characters the dialogue is sharp, spiteful and would probably kill in front of a theatre audience but up close on your TV screen Malcolm and Marie come across as over smart, spoilt, toxic and extremely unlikeable. I don't need to like the people I see in a movie but I need to find something I can connect with or understand their motivation. Unfortunately I find neither with either character.
It becomes a chore spending time with these guys they live in a world of self importance which ends up being alienating.
Btw this film actually looks and sounds great so props to it on that side of things.
Project Power (2020)
Project Underpowered
Someone took a YA version of 8 Mile combined it with the superhero version of Limitless and managed to make a movie that could've been a winner for Netflix but sadly like most of their big budget output lately it's just OK (Extraction being the exception).
A shadey government/ Big Pharma type has produced a pill, not a painkiller (although it might kill you in tremendous pain) one that grants the user a superpower for the arbitrary time of 5minutes. And in typical shadey government/ Big Pharma fashion they decided to run clinical trials of the pill trusting the drug dealers and criminals of New Orleans to give them accurate results and information on how well the pill works!!!!
They also use this as a showcase to start a bidding war between criminal organisations wanting to get their own supply.
Robin (Dominique Fishback)is one such super pill dealer but she only deals so she can provide for her sick mom (even though the pills Robin has sold have probably been used in numerous crimes and resulted in many deaths but she's got an heart of gold) Robin is also a talented rapper and dreams of making it big (She can also treat and sow up bullet wounds) she's a triple threat.
Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a tough New Orleans cop so sick of his city being overrun by superpowered miscreants that he starts buying pills from Robin in hope that it will somehow level the playing field (For some reason he appears to be the only cop that does this) to help fund his habit he pays Robin by giving her a dirt bike he stole from the impound lot..(Robin can also ride motorcycles of any size and horsepower).
The Major (Jamie Foxx) is a man on a mission trying to track down his missing daughter. Only The Major is not what he seems (SPOILER he's got superpowers) which due to tragic accident he doesn't like to use (until he definitely has to at the end of the film) in a drawn out series of events and coincidences all the heroes cross paths and team up to bring down the shadey super pill producing organisation and rescue The Majors daughter(SPOILER she has powers too which is being syphoned by the bad guys to produce the pills).
I was so excited for this movie, the trailer looked amazing (suckered once again) plus Foxx and JGL are top actors but sadly this is definitely style over substance. A basic plot that requires smart people to do and say dumb things to keep the story going. Bad guys so boring and inept they don't feel like a threat to Robin let alone Frank and The Major.
I'd watch a sequel because this franchise has huge potential the main characters are engaging and I'd like to see their stories carry on. They just need a worthy foe to go up against.
Only (2019)
Only love survives.
Low budget intimate sci-fi is a hit and miss affair especially on streaming services. Thankfully this one is a little gem.
Set some time in the immediate future, 'Only' tells the story of a young couple trying to deal with effects of a comet passing over Earth unleashing a dust cloud covering the globe that infects and ultimately kills a majority of the female population on the planet.
Don't go into this movie expecting a wider look at what happens to the world and how men suddenly cope losing nearly 50% of their families/friends and how governments plan to repopulate these are all glimpsed in news reports or fleeting dialogue between characters.
This a much more nuanced take that drops us in on day 400 of the pandemic and then flits back and forth between the past and present to fill in the blanks.
The theme here is survival and how much are we willing to give up and suffer for to protect the person we love if that life is is really no life at all and the world around you is burning to the ground.
As much as the couple (Eva and Will) try to live safely, the strain of quarantine becomes too much (sound familiar?) And Eva makes a fateful decision that causes the pair to leave the safety(!?) Of their apartment and live out their remaining days together trying to find peace amongst chaos.
Of course this doesn't go completely to plan and to be honest the intrusion of the father and son bounty hunters sub plot derails the film a little bit.
Other reviewers here are fixated on why Eva doesn't try harder to disguise herself when out in the world, mainly the decision not to cut her hair (SPOILER, she's dying so why waste her time with such a pointless task that wouldn't even alter her feminine look that much) plus the plot needs her to keep her hair, that bit of recklessness to push the story along. (again, she's dying I doubt any of us would think logically knowing that there is only a few days left).
While there is plenty of films that touch on this subject matter, The Road, Contagion, Right at your door, Light of my life. 'Only' is a worthy edition to the genre.
Line of Duty (2019)
It's your duty to swerve this movie.
Watched this and Midway on the same day.... Eckhart is a really good solid actor why is he choosing dross like these movies? More importantly why am I watching them? At least he gets paid for it.
Line of duty plays like a rejected Die Hard script (yeah, even worse than the last two) Eckhart does his best but is hampered by poor writing, bad direction and abysmal special effects (if the budget doesn't allow you to blow up a house for real, take it out the film and come up with an ending that doesn't involve PS2 era flame FX).
The mid-tier action movie genre has been neglected for so long and Eckhart is the perfect actor for those type of movies but they need to be so much better than this.
The Old Guard (2020)
Theron lets her Guard down.
Better than The Last days of American crime but only just.
Another big budget comic book adaption from Netflix that suffers from a lack of energy, pace and spectacle. Everything here is just bland including the normally fantastic Theron and Chiwetel Ejiofor (seriously sack the casting director for putting him in the role of boring ass CIA company man and not as a main player in the Guard).
If there is going to be a sequel then Theron and Rucka should draft in David Leitch (Atomic Blonde) as director to give this series the spark it sorely needs.
Da 5 Bloods (2020)
Spike should thank Delroy Lindo for saving this movie.
There is two films at play here one is an eye opening account of how African American soldiers were/are mistreated by the very people they are defending and the other movie is a Vietnam war version of Kelly's Heroes but unfortunately this aspect of the movie is an awful mess.
If Spike had just focused on the first part this would be a great movie because the cast is fantastic, especially Delroy Lindo even though he is hampered by some terrible dialogue.
A missed opportunity to shed light on a part of history that was constantly overlooked by the glut of Vietnam war movies in the 80s.
The Last Days of American Crime (2020)
This is criminal.
Tony Scott would've crushed this type of movie, hell Michael Bay could do this with one eye open. This movie feels,looks and sounds like it was made 20years ago. A film with a great premise shouldn't be this boring, can't sleep? Bang this on and you'll be catching Zzz in no time. The leads have no charisma and lack chemistry together. Don't know how much Netflix paid for this but they should ask for their cash back.
Read the graphic novel instead.
The Vast of Night (2019)
Vastly underwhelming
JJ Abrams, The Duffer Bros and Joss Whedon do this Spielberg homage stuff in their sleep we really don't need yet another director/creative team making bang average sci-fi that adds noting new to the genre.
Irony is that Spielberg would know exactly how this type of film should be delivered, fun, exciting and a little scare here and there. Unfortunately we get writing that thinks dialogue is the star of the show but none of the funny bits are funny, dramatic exposition is boring and unengaging and the twist(!?) Isn't really shocking.
Track down Another Earth and Midnight Special to see how low budget sci-fi should really be done.