This post contains spoilers for "Havoc."

We first learned about "Havoc," the new action film from "The Raid" director Gareth Evans, way back in February of 2021. It's been a long road for the movie, and when I caught up with the filmmaker over Zoom last week, the reason behind that delay was the first thing we talked about.

Here's the conundrum I have about "Havoc": Overall, it's my least favorite Gareth Evans movie by a mile. I admittedly haven't seen 2006's "Footsteps," but "Merantau" is a kick-ass martial arts film, "The Raid" and "The Raid 2" are legendary, and I finally got around to seeing his gnarly 2018 folk horror movie "Apostle," which is such a fun change of pace and totally rules. Comparatively, the character work in "Havoc" doesn't feel as strong, and the plotting isn't as propulsive. But purely on an action scale, which is presumably the main...