MrHlad

Dumb action movies like The Fast and the Furious work with a simple rule: there has to be enough interesting things going on in them that you has no reason to dwell on how much they don't make sense, how many laws of physics are broken, and how bullshit it all is. The ninth installment of this car franchise didn't do it. Justin Lin's direction is surprisingly boring and unimaginative, and his action sequences are a level worse than what he showed in the earlier films or what his colleagues came up with later. Yeah, it's always banging, crashing into things, falling from somewhere, driving fast and shifting gears even faster, but compared to previous installments, there's just nothing here that makes you go "wow, this was so cool, I don't care that Vin Diesel can't act and doesn't have a neck." On top of that, sadly, all the fun characters that were capable of keeping up with Diesel and settling him down have disappeared, so now there's just him as an alpha-male and buffoons running around, whose original job was to be comedy reliefs and now they're trying in vain to look like heroes. Honestly, is there anyone who realistically cares anything about the characters of Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris or Nathalie Emmanuel? Diesel is on his own. John Cena's serious acting is utterly mismanaged, Charlize Theron has more or less a bigger cameo, and the whole thing drags on from nowhere to nowhere, and even the best action scenes, the most you can say is "OK, but you did so much better last time." Fast and the Furious 9 is probably just as stupid as the previous installments, it's just much more obvious thanks to the lackluster action and unimaginative direction. And much more of a chore to finish.

At some point before the end of the first film, I already felt this world was a bit exhausted and I didn't quite feel the need to return to it. The sequel confirms that feeling, unfortunately. John Krasinski basically repeats what worked last time, and I'm going to believe that it's not because he can't do anything else, but rather because his world doesn't stand on a strong enough foundation on which to build a full-fledged sequel. If, however, you caught the last one before the closing credits and you're in the same boat as me, you're going to get a bit lost in the sequel. Krasinski is very confident in the action scenes, he can also get the atmosphere right and his scares are in the right places, but the whole thing feels somehow unnecessary. Trying to expand the world doesn't lead to anything interesting, Cillian Murphy's character doesn't really work, and trying to split up the protagonists and spread them out over several locations and give each one their own challenge or problem misses the mark too. It's more like Krasinski is chasing minutes and trying to get to the end credits as soon as possible so that the audience doesn't notice that this sequel doesn't make much sense and just varies what the first film impressed with. There really aren't many new ideas here, and I can easily do without the third film.

Craig Gillespie is a very skilled director and Cruella confirms it. The ridiculously overblown running time was a bit jarring at first, but this Disney original paces unexpectedly well. Emma Stone is very likeable most of the time, to the point where you wonder if she's actually supposed to be the villain, but the moments where she turns into a sociopath out for (justified) revenge work so well because of it. Emma Thompson enjoys playing the top-notch bitch, too, and Gillespie pours one visual idea after another from his sleeve, plucking a bit from Joker here and Burton there, and his stylish 1970s London is damn good to look at. Like the whole film, in fact. I was quite sorry that they obviously had to rein themselves in a bit at times. Overall though, it's a damn entertaining and audiovisually polished spectacle that works as a drama, a comedy, a family film and a heist. I don't know if I'd sign off on the claim that of all the live-action throwbacks to Disney classics, Cruella is the best, but it's certainly the most distinctive and daring.

Debutant Corinna Faith has made a ghostly film that, at least in its first half, manages to captivate with a rather unpleasant atmosphere and a convincing Rose Williams in the lead role. Unfortunately, the closer we get to the end, the more it becomes apparent that the director-screenwriter may have had too much ambition and can't quite pull off the themes she introduces. The Power ultimately wants to say too much and thus trips over its own feet in the finale.

It's as if, after the more or less upbeat and cheerful The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie decided he had to set things straight somehow, and he made the darkest, meanest film of his career. In Wrath of Man, he cuts back on his trademarks of frantic editing and narration, the film doesn't rush anywhere and has time to crawl under people's skin – and make you feel quite uncomfortable. Atmospherically, it reminds us of something between S. Craig Zahler's films and 70s thrillers, and thanks to the non-chronological narrative, it manages to be a fairly B-movie story into something you can't take your eyes off. And then we have Jason Statham, who has never had a better role in his life. His uncompromising expression and Ritchie's unexpected approach to directing (that music!) actually make the film quite uncomfortable to watch in the end. You can feel the anger, rage and aggression bubbling to the surface, with both men doing their best to delay the moment when the carnage breaks out. It's almost torturous, but it works brilliantly. Ritche has made a very different film than his fans would expect him to make. This vigorous sidestep shows that he's far from showing everything he can do as a filmmaker. I'm happy for him and his new release. Very happy.

So sloppy, it's like nobody was trying very hard with Army of the Dead. The characters are so uninteresting that I didn't care what order they died in, the actors have no charisma or nothing to work with, and the first really interesting and entertaining action scene3 doesn't come until sometime at the beginning of the last quarter. Once they start shooting and slashing properly, it's quite fun, with Snyder keeping himself in check, so there aren't nearly enough of those slow-motion sequences to make it boring, it's just that there's about an hour of completely unnecessary ballast that is boring, where the most entertaining thing is how it all makes no sense at all. Sure, in a B-action flick, that shouldn't really matter, it's just that Army of the Dead may be a B-movie, but it really isn’t. There's climactic brutality , it only falls into the horror category because there are zombies. And Snyder's playing with the camera, which often leads to ugly visuals full of out-of-focus shots (which was supposedly the artistic intent), is more annoying than effective. I don't know. An hour after the closing credits, I can recall virtually nothing of it. Just that I was expecting a lot more than another routine Netflix movie, and I really didn't have those expectations particularly high. An unimaginative and boring waste of time.

Thanks to Sicario, Wind River, and the few Yellowstone episodes I've seen, I like Taylor Sheridan a lot, and I was understandably excited for his new release. Unlike my colleagues, however, I had the advantage of having read the book, so I was rather cautiously looking forward to it. And thanks for that, because that's why I’m so disappointed with Those Who Wish Me Dead. While Sheridan did get rid of some rather boring and unnecessary plot lines, unfortunately he was left with what was already a problem in the book. That is, rather uninteresting characters and, above all, the pointless waiting for something to actually start happening. Angelina Jolie sits on a watchtower with a trauma, Jon Bernthal is a cool sheriff dealing with an expectant family, a little boy whose dad pissed off the wrong people who killed him runs around the woods, and ridiculously incompetent hit men try to complicate everyone's lives. And it takes an hour for all the uninteresting plot lines to come together, the forest to catch fire, and for Angelina to finally be able to save the day. The ending doesn't look bad, and as a survival thriller set in a burning forest it could be interesting, except that we have that hour beforehand to spend with boring characters on a story that is, to say the least, B-grade trite and simple, which I don't mean as a compliment. I'm finally going to finish watching Yellowstone to fix my appetite and remind myself why I like Sheridan in the first place.

Maybe I was looking forward to it a little too much. The Mitchells vs. the Machines is a very fine animated film that, at least in terms of visual ideas, manages to offer much more than what we are used to, and maybe even more than what the best in the business serve up. It also has likeable characters, effective jokes and very good action. It's just that the underlying story is too ordinary and predictable, whether in the "dad looking for a way to his daughter and daughter looking for a way to her dad" or "technology has gone haywire and wants to take over humanity" sense. It's nothing that outright ruined the experience of the film for me, but on the other hand the technical creativity, inventiveness and fun factor often just accentuate the banality and ordinariness of the plot. Granted, they do manage to sell even that with grace, but I still expected a bit more.

The Cold War is reaching its peak, and British businessman Benedict Cumberbatch is given the chance to prevent disaster. He is to become a liaison between the Western secret services and the Soviets, who are willing to share their country's biggest secrets. How long will they get away with it? The Courier is a very good-looking period piece with excellent actors, but unfortunately without strong emotions or significant tension. Professionally done, but ultimately a bit dull and unnecessarily conservative.

I'm very fond of Tom Clancy, Taylor Sheridan, Michael B. Jordan and actually quite a bit of Stefano Sollima. So I'm taking what eventually came out of Without Remorse pretty hard. Heck, the story has almost nothing to do with the source material, that wouldn’t be a problem in itself, if the film wasn’t as entertaining as watching paint dry. Jordan's pretty good in the badass lead role, and the fairly simple plot with a 90s feel could work under certain circumstances, except... it's just so fucking boring! Sollima shoots everything incredibly static and without any charge or attempt to invent anything. I even suspected him of sabotaging the film at one point, because what was happening on screen just wasn't and perhaps didn't want to be action-packed. Without Remorse doesn't peak or build-up in any way. The film just goes from nowhere to nowhere and basically never gets interesting. A perfectly wasted opportunity for all involved. And a waste of time for the audience.