Runtime:
93 minutes
Directed
by: Stephen Soderbergh
Starring:
Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewen McGregor, Antonio Banderas,
Michael Douglas
From:
Relativity Media
Here
is a movie that I have heard a lot of mixed reviews on, from hatred
to strong praise. I know that I am definitely not a Soderbergh fan
but I was curious as to what I would think about it... plus I
understand there's a scene where Ms. Carano's character talks to her
movie dad (Bill Paxton!) and hey, that's enough for me to watch this
on Father's Day; appropriate as why not watch a manly kick-ass action
movie on this sort of day?
It
turns out, maybe I should be more of a fan of Soderbergh. I'll ignore
his mainstream dreck (i.e. those terrible masturbatory Oceans films)
and instead I should at least give him praise for taking some rather
bold chances, even if they don't always work. Doing a movie centered
around some random porn star who has done films like Butt Sex Bonanza
and Flower's Squirt Shower 5 sounds about comparable to building a
movie around an attractive MMA fighter (who doesn't fight anymore)
and surrounding her with A-list talent.
The
story is rather simplistic and if you can get by that... here's the
plot, straight from the IMDb: “A black ops super soldier seeks
payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.” That's
pretty much it. If you want or expect more, then you might be
disappointed; otherwise...
I
wasn't sure what I was going to get here given the reviews. It turns
out, I enjoyed this quite a bit. The star acted about as well as
you'd expect from a newcomer with zero acting experience in the past,
but she wasn't a liability. The other people are all fine in their
roles, none of which are too extensive. I was and am surprised they
were able to get so many famous faces for this story, but it was cool
that they did. Even Tanning Chatum... er, I mean Channing Tatum was
acceptable.
What
I dug most was how this movie was filmed. Even though it's basically
a Steven Seagal film from back in his skinny days (a simple plot but
there's various intrigue involving a shady government,
double-crosses, and what have you), it's filmed rather nicely. You
know, high-quality filmmaking, long takes, no rapid camera changes,
no relentless pace, etc. Gina is great fighting what is basically an
MMA style applied to the movie world. It's pretty brutal... but in a
good way. The fact that she is doing action stuff and she isn't anorexic (::coughcoughAngeliaJoliecoughcough::) is a big bonus too.
And
best of all the action is NOT filmed in the way that unfortunately
too many movies are filmed these days. You know, the shaky-cam/quick
edit crap that I've complained about in the past; for the most part I
don't like it when a movie does such a thing. Thankfully this movie
films everything clearly so you see exactly what happens in the
fights that Gina gets in. There's one impressive fight sequence where
she and the guy get into a brawl that damages a lot of stuff... and
from what I hear it's all them and no stunt doubles. Pretty
impressive.
Also
impressive was the groovy and great jazzy score. Others have said it
doesn't fit with the movie; I thought differently. As long as you
know going in what sort of movie this is, you might enjoy it... or
you might not. I am glad I saw it and in fact, in hindsight maybe I
should have seen it on the big screen. I don't get some of the
complaints that I heard, such as one guy shutting it off about a half
hour in because he thought it was “boring”; I highly disagree.
I'll
be back Wednesday night.
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