Category Archives: Action Movie

Movie Review: Runner

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

The new movie “Runner” is another example of how Alan Ritchson is the new #1 action movie star. Starting with the Amazon Prime series “Reacher”, Ritchson has now made 5 action movies in the last three years.

The logline for Runner: A former soldier turned elite courier must transport a life-saving liver to a critically ill young girl within hours, but when a ruthless cartel targets the organ, he and his unlikely partner are forced into a deadly race across Australia to stay alive—and complete the delivery.

This idea is a good one, along with adding Owen Wilson (Ben Bishop) and Ritchson (Hank Malone), who rides with Malone to avoid a group of drug cartel criminals who want the extremely rare liver (due to blood type) to a hospital in Brisbane, Australia, to save the life of a child. The action scenes are well done, but nothing we haven’t all seen before. Throughout this film, Wilson and Ritchson have very good chemistry during all the many action scenes, which include car crashes, chase scenes, and the many physical fights that Hank Malone has, dominating the many criminals trying to kill him and Bishop and steal the liver that is stored in a special case to keep it at a constant cold temperature.

The side story is Hank Malone’s own child, who died of leukemia some years earlier, causing him to become an alcoholic, leading to his divorce and his job as a runner, transporting items around Australia. Malone did make progress, earning his AA 1-year sobriety coin, but unfortunately his ex-wife moved on and married another man.

There are some impressive special effects and action scenes at the end of this movie, and a few surprises that I did not see coming, but not enough to turn this from an average action movie into a great one.

I agree with the moderate 69% Rotten Tomatoes rating and give this movie a marginal recommendation mostly for the action scenes.

Movie Review: The Dog Stars

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

There are numerous issues with the new movie “The Dog Stars”, starting with how strange it is that a director with the clout of Ridley Scott would read this script and agree to make this film. The title of this film also makes little sense; yes, there is a dog, and at times they do look at the stars. This phrase refers to Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, which is commonly called the “Dog Star.” Despite all of this, this story is about a virus that almost wipes out the human population. The Dog Stars is not a good title for this movie.

One of the few good points is that this time around, the virus that almost wipes out the population of the world does not turn people into flesh-eating zombies, for a refreshing new idea about a virus. We have all seen enough zombie movies, both on television and in movie theaters. Enough already.

This story takes place in a bombed-out, disaster-stricken Denver, Colorado, in the year 2035, ten years after the Pandemic. The main character is Hig (Jacob Elordi), a pilot who lives with a friend and mentor, Bangley (Josh Brolin), in a broken-down house/garage, where Bangley is frequently sitting at the top of a tower, shooting anyone who comes close to their shelter with a high-powered rifle. Most impressive is the number of burned-out, broken cars and planes that are constantly littered throughout all the scenes, accounting for most of the production costs. The other remarkable thing about this movie is how thin the action is, with very little happening, making this movie somewhat like the television series Seinfeld (the show about nothing).

Due to restlessness, Hig flies his plane into a new area of Colorado, has major engine problems, is barely able to land the plane, and then runs into a father and daughter, Pops and Cima, who are trying to survive in the middle of nowhere. What follows is very little story and then another bout of restlessness where the three of them somehow are able to fix the plane (never explained), clear the land for a runway, and wind up at an airport where it seems that everybody is crazy. The head of this insane airport is Darline (Allison Janey) – another well-known actor who read the script and agreed to act in this movie, forcing all of us to wonder why.

The ending is very anticlimactic and boring, like too much of this story, with an abrupt ending that was a good thing, because the movie was finally over.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this mostly bad movie is a correct 40%, making this movie, considering all the well-known people involved, a big miss.

Movie Review: The End of Oak Street

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

“The End of Oak Street” is one of the very few movies involving dinosaurs chasing and killing people, aside from the seven Jurassic Park films. When it comes to dinosaurs, with no exception, there will be scenes with people running for their lives and being eaten alive.

This new movie has the interesting idea of a small town in the 1980’s that transports through a portal of time back to millions of years ago, where dinosaurs dominate the planet Earth. This is, of course, completely crazy, but it sets the stage for highly unusual scenes of people running for their lives and being attacked and killed by a number of different dinosaurs around a normal lower-class neighborhood.

This film stars Anne Hathaway (Denise Platt) and Ewan McGregor (Greg Platt), who are having relationship problems with hints of a possible divorce. They have two children, Brian Platt (Christian Convery) and Audrey Platt Maisy Stella. In terms of character development and any complex story, understandably, this is not that kind of movie.

The first 20 percent of this film is just setup for the run for your life rest of the story. My main problem with this movie is that there are too many scenes where the characters do things that nobody would ever do in real life. The worst one is Brian leaving the protection of his house to chase after his dog, with giant man-eating dinosaurs running all over the neighborhood. Obviously, nobody would ever do this. There was one shocking scene that seemed way out of place in this film, where two dinosaurs are mating. This scene should have been cut from this movie, including the selfie that Denise takes of her husband standing in front of the mating dinosaurs. What were they thinking with this scene?

The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 84% for this film is mostly correct, with my rating at 80% and a mild recommendation, mainly for some of the impressive special effects.