August 29, 2023
Directed by Tom Harper
Screenplay by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder
In the snowy Italian Alps, technician Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) stayed in their van as backup, while MI6 field agents Parker (Jamie Dornan), Yang (Jing Lusi), and Bailey (Paul Ready) were extracting an arms dealer. The mission went completely wrong. Surprisingly instead of taking cover, Stone contacted her other bosses in the secret coalition called the Charter, to get into the action as their field agent "Nine of Hearts."
The very concept of this film was very much like other spy franchises and their complex missions. Here, there were two groups of agents going after a target called "The Heart", a powerful AI program capable of hacking into any computer in the world -- which is basically the same plot as the recent "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One". Aside from double agents with self-interests, there was also a misguided tech genius (Alia Bhatt).
Gal Gadot's acting chops are admittedly quite limited, but her beauty and a powerful star presence going for her here. Of course, you knew it was not her doing all those wild stunts on the snowy action sequence in the first act, or that brutal fight scene with a man twice her weight in the final act. However, she can still sell them with her smile and charisma, even if the suspension of disbelief could be quite a bit of a stretch. 5/10
Directed by Scott Waugh
Written by Arash Amel
Terrorist Owen Paddock (Pilou Asbæk) took over a Chinese-owned oil refinery in Iraq. The chief of security of that firm was "Dragon" Luo Feng (Jackie Chan) and he was tasked to evacuate the civilian employees to safety. Meanwhile, ex-Marine Chris Van Horne (John Cena) reluctantly joined a mission of his mercenary brother to raid that convoy. Luo Feng and Chris end up joining forces to rescue the hostages and the plant.
The story of this action-comedy was paper-thin so this only depended on the charisma of its two lead stars to save it from total oblivion. Jackie Chan played his typical heroic bit, plus overprotective father schtick once again. His action sequences are still the highlight of this movie, as it always had been in all his movies. The best action here was in that frenetic fight scene among the gas tanks with the yellow pipes.
John Cena has been developing his own style of action-comedy since his pro-wrestling days in the WWE, and so far his whole filmography is practically in that subgenre. Like Chan, Cena is an amiable funny guy, even silly, but is well-worth his action cred. Chan and Cena had an awkward chemistry at first, but that was the intention. To take full advantage of his partnership with Chan, Cena even flexed his ability to deliver lines in Mandarin. 5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment