Action Movie | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

For the new movie “Black Widow” I would have liked to have much more background and setup explaining how this “Black Widow Family” has powers where it seems they cannot really be hurt or killed, at least not very easily. Where do they get their fantastic martial arts skills? Early on the two girls in the family; Natashia played by Scarlett Johansson and Yelena, played by Florence Pugh are placed into some kind of a spy training camp for unknown reasons at very young ages. At this point it would have been logical to see some of this training, explaining some of their impressive skills. Maybe this important part was cut out of the film because it was too long.

What is explained is a foreign spy syndicate that is involved with mind control to train young women to be spies and killers using brain washing chemicals. Unfortunately, the ending is completely out of sync with the sudden appearance of a far into the future huge space ship at the end of this film. This ship looks like something that might be built 100 or 200 years from now, definitely not present day. This is yet another example of special effects over story, almost as if an incredible idea for a fantastic ending with explosions, fights and action on a space ship had to be melded with a present day spy story and as a result we have a time-line that once again makes absolutely no sense.

The special effects and acting in this movie is very good, with a standout performance from Florence Pugh who is becoming a very well known actress who has a perfect face for the movies. With all of that in mind, why Florence Pugh has not changed her last name is about as mysterious as a good part of this screenplay.

David Harbour plays Alexi the girl’s father along with Rachel Weisz who plays Melina, their mother and in my opinion that twist at the end of this story, involving Melina and Natashia, has trouble making enough sense to round out the ending.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie is in the low 80% range and I mostly agree with this rating and do recommend Black Widow.

The word from the movie industry (much like Broadway) is that any thoughts of a realized rebound in 2020 are out the window. The promised release of all 2020 blockbuster movies coming out this year now have all been pushed into 2021. This is why Regal Cinemas has decided to close down all of its US locations for a second time this year. The final straw happening with the new James Bond movie being pushed to April 2021.

The other large movie chain AMC has recently announced that they are running out of money and could be out of business by year end.

Many in the financial world are predicting the total collapse of the movie industry as it existed in 2019 and unfortunately because of Covid-19, they could all be right. Nobody would have imagined 1 year ago all that has happened in 2020; a year far worse than any year anyone alive can remember.

As far as the new movie “Honest Thief”, starring Liam Neeson and Kate Walsh many critics will say that we have seen most or all of the scenes in similar movies in the past and Liam Neeson is still capitalizing on his great 2008 performance in “Taken”. This is all true, but overall I thought that the story and the message make this one worth a visit.

This story is about a former bank robber, played by Neeson who wants to come clean and give back the 9 million dollars he stole years earlier in exchange for getting a much lighter sentence so he can be with his new girlfriend, played by Walsh. Unfortunately due to human greed and the amount money involved this idea goes very south quickly and what follows is a believable story and some good action. The very low 37% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes for this one are way off – once again proving that the critics are wrong too much of the time. To give a good movie like this one only 37% makes no sense. More in line with reality is the 71% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes that I agree with. I do recommend this movie.