Movie Review: The Equalizer 3

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One of the reasons why we go to the movies is because we want to see the world in the eyes of other people. We also like to see good people be happy and succeed, as much as we want to see evil people get what they deserve and in extreme cases, burn in hell. In movie franchises, there has probably never been a more vigorous advocate for defending the good and killing the bad than the character Robert McCall, played by Denzel Washington in the 3 Equalizer movies. For stories like this to work, with violence this extreme, the evil people who are killed must be evil enough in their actions to deserve how they die. Without extreme evil, extreme violence like this would never seem justified.

Of the 3 movies, this 3rd installment has some of the most over the top violence, including McCall at the start of this movie killing one man by shooting his gun through the hole he created in the eye of another man. In terms of imaginative killing, this scene within the first 10 minutes has to be one of the all-time bloody movie scenes to never forget.

Another standout of this movie is that the good people in this small town in Italy are as nice and likable as any people you could ever find in any movie, and the bad people, a gang of murdering criminals within a Mafia gang are as bad as any of the evil people in any of the 3 Equalizer movies. This gang, run by two competing brothers demand payouts from all of the local businesses and if the business owners cannot pay, they are either beaten or their business burned down.

There are several impressive scenes of McCall’s swift reflexes and extreme skills in martial arts that are far above any criminal’s ability to defend themselves. I can only guess that the extreme speed that Denzel demonstrates in these violent scenes is created by speeding up the film because it is hard to believe that anyone can move, injure and kill that quickly.

McCall contacts and then is confronted by a CIA agent, Emma Collins, played by Dakota Fanning
who is the daughter of McCall’s close friends in the last Equalizer movie. In their scenes, the chemistry and acting between Danzel and Dakota are all very well done. The course of this story slowly changes from a suspected terrorist cell to the Mafia group that is really behind the drug traffic in the area.

I was disspointed with the ending, that was the expected violent climax with McCall taking care of business and wiping out the entire Mafia gang, but the action scenes were less imaginative than I would have expected and is probably the cause of the relatively low Rotten Tomatoes of only 73%. This is a rating I agree with and give Equalizer a marginal recommendation – mainly due to the ending that should have been much better.

Movie Review: Retribution

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We can only speculate as to why Liam Neeson, who had his last blockbuster hit “Taken” in 2008, and in the last 15 years has been in a revolving door of movie making where he seems to play the same overall character each time. The movies he has made during this period have been either average or below average, around 60 of them. It’s probably no coincidence that this infinite loop of movies started around March 2009, when his wife Natasha Richardson died in a freak skiing accident. It could be that Neeson making movies all year round might be a way of trying to distract himself from what happened to his wife, where she died after a minor fall on a ski slope. A death of a spouse like this, is almost impossible to recover from. We all do what we can to try and move on from tragedy.

This time around with the new movie “Retribution” there are some different and positive features of this film that are moving in the right direction. For one thing, Neeson’s character Matt Turner, spends the entire time sitting in his car, mostly with his 2 children, following the instructions of a terrorist who is threatening to blow up his car. Most of the terrorist scenes are well done, however, the flaw in this story is that the police are convinced by the terrorist and several car explosions that Turner had something to do with what has been going on. Considering that there is a bomb under Turner’s car seat about to explode if he gets out of the car, it would not make sense that Turner set all of this up himself and would include his own children.

There is somewhat of a trick ending when we are shown the terrorist behind these car bombings, that I thought was within an acceptable level of believablilty. I also thought the ending was both satifying and believable as well.

Unfortunately the critics are once again trashing this latest Neeson film, at 30% with the IMDB rating a low 5.5. While this is not a good or a great movie, this is not a film that should be rated 30%. My rating is 70% with a moderate recommendation, mainly for the acting. From all the fans of the great movie Taken, hopefully Neeson will one day make another film that good again.

Movie Review: Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story

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The new movie “Gran Turismo” has “Based on a True Story” added to the title. This is another one of those movies that were it not for it being a true story, nobody would believe it.

It turns out that the technology and accuracy of a playstation game called Gran Turismo is so good that it is almost exactly like driving a real race car. From a group of addicted players of Gran Turismo, an executive at Nissan Danny Moore played by Orlando Bloom thought of an idea to have video game contest to see who was the best player and the winner would be eventually become a professional race car driver. It is this crazy idea that is the reason why “based on a true story” was added to the title of this film.

The main character Jann Mardenborough played by acting newcomer Archie Madekwe is good in his role, but seems to be either depressed or low energy during this entire movie, one of the flaws of this film. Jann’s parents are played by Djimon Hounsou and Geri Horner, in small roles, but overall they are both good and believable in their parts. David Harbour plays Jack Salter who is a former race car driver and becomes a mentor and friend to Jann. It is this relationship that is the best part of this story.

This movie has very good special effects that show not only how difficult it is to be a top race car driver, but also how extremely dangerous driving race cars over 200 miles an hour can be. One small mistake can cost you your life or the life of another driver. Over the years, the techology of how cars crash, collapse and fire proof clothing to protect drivers from being burned has vastly improved, but drivers still die, and as is shown in this film, so do spectators of racing events.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is too low 61%, with my rating 75% mainly because this is an interesting true story about car racing and video games with good acting.