Category Archives: Action Movie

Movie Review: Sisu: Road to Revenge

Posted on by • Posted in Action Movie, Drama • Tagged , , • Leave a comment

The new fictional World War II movie “Sisu: Road to Revenge” is not really a movie, but more of a series of violent action scenes with one man from Finland trying to get revenge against the entire German army. The reason for Aatami’s (Jorma Tommila) revenge trek, other than his country being invaded by Germany is not very clear, not that this matters in an unusual movie like this one.

The action scenes are almost all crazy, impossible, and insane, almost as off-the-wall as the inane action scenes in the latest Fast and Furious movies. The other obvious issue is that no human being can be injured as severely as Aatami and still be alive.

The only known actor in this foreign film is Stephen Lang, who plays the German leader trying to kill Aatami. There is an extremely violent fight scene at the end of this movie that is both impossible to describe and violates all laws of physics and basic logic. This last scene is the entire movie in a nutshell.

This movie is difficult to review, so I will agree with the very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but only for the intense war action scenes. I will give this movie only 50% for its very limited screenplay and almost no dialogue. I recommend this film only for those who enjoy gratuitous violent action scenes and don’t mind a lack of a story.

Movie Review: Now You See Me: Now You Don’t

Posted on by • Posted in Action Movie, Comedy, Drama • Tagged • Leave a comment

The new movie “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is the third and hopefully last in this movie franchise, the first two: Now You See Me (2013) and Now You See Me 2 (2016). In order to be relevant in Hollywood and make enough money to survive in California, one of the most expensive areas in the world, an actor has to keep making movies and money in order to afford the costs of living in a state where almost all of the movies are made. So making money over quality is a reality of life as an actor in Hollywood to much of the time.

Unfortunately great stories and screenplays are few and far between and this third installment was written and greenlighted only to make money and not to put out a quality film. The plot makes almost no sense, and just jumps from one unexplained scene to another one for two hours entirely for the purpose of showing some magic and misdirection, most of which is either impossible or ridiculous. The reason why screenwriting is so difficult is that the story has to make sense, action and scenes have to be explained and predefined, along with continuity throughout the entire story. This film has none of these essential ingredients.

The original cast returns in this movie, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco and Morgan Freeman. For this third film, new cast members have been added, which will probably mean there is a long term plan to extend this nightmare into new movies. The new cast includes Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa and Henry Fisher as they all try to stop a criminal mastermind Veronika Vanderberg played by Rosamund Pike from using Diamonds to launder money for other master criminals. On top of this being an overall bad movie, it is slow and very boring in too many areas, making the audience hope that it will all be over soon.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating is a too high 60%, with my rating around 20%, hoping that this will be end to a pretty stupid series of movies trying to be about magicians solving crimes.

Movie Review: The Running Man

Posted on by • Posted in Action Movie, Drama • Tagged , • Leave a comment

There should be a documentary made about the decision makers in Hollywood who decide what movies to remake. Almost forty years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger made the original “The Running Man” about a man who tries to escape being killed by assassins, fully televised for a huge cash prize. Kind of like a modern day Rome and the Coliseum, from 2000 years ago. This movie also starred Richard Dawson as the host of the show and the accurate Rotten Tomatoes rating were 59% for a movie that was at best, below average and close to B movie status.

Why then, when producers are looking for a good acting movie premise for the rising career of actor Glen Powell, would this be the vehicle for his first solo action movie? The reason is, it takes too long, to create a new idea and write a new screenplay, so in order to take less risk, a well known movie name from a long time ago is chosen that starred a very well known actor in the hope that name recognition mostly from baby boomers would help make this movie a hit or be profitable. Unfortunately, this is a bad movie, no matter how much name recognition and action scenes you throw at it. It is slow, stupid in too many places and implausible throughout because as is always the case, writing a great screenplay is the most challenging part of movie making. Without a great story foundation, the movie will never been good and in the majority of cases will lose money – especially when the budget is 110 million dollars.

This film stars Sean Hayes as one of the hosts of the show Running Man, Lee Pace, as an evil assassin, Michael Cera who appears at the end of this movie for mostly filling time and Josh Brolin as Dan Killian, starring in the part originally played by the late Richard Dawson. Why Brolin took this part in a movie this bad, is anyone’s guess.

The low Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a correct 64% made even worse by a bad movie that runs too long another big mistake here. I rate this movie a run for your life, big pass.