Runtime:
94 minutes
Directed
by: Peter Berg
Starring:
Mark Wahlberg and a bunch of actors that his character constantly
belittles
From:
STX
This was a miserable journey, believe me:
I've known of Mile 22 for awhile and it sounded promising between the people involved and what should have been a simple yet effective plot; it's a trope yet the story of trying to transport someone from Point A to Point B but people are trying to stop this... it's worked in movies for years long; I'll mention The Gauntlet as an example. The trailer looked fine so it was a surprise when I heard really bad things about this movie. While I knew specific details of what went wrong by the time I went into the screening, I still tried to keep an open mind.
Unfortunately, the movie does fail on many levels. Having a lead in Mark Wahlberg who is a tremendously unlikable a**hole is a big problem. I mean, I think we were supposed to like or be charmed by this genius (and we weren't shown this... instead the information was told to us) and yet he's an annoying jerk who not only treats everyone like crap, there is also the wonderful combination of him snapping a rubber band against himself dozens of times in order to get his hyperactive self to focus-it got old pretty quickly-and he delivers acres of dialogue; I mean, he babbles incessantly and having another character mention this at one point does not make it OK.
Then there's the action. I am sure it was staged well and it would have been exciting to watch... if only we could have clearly made out what was going on. Regrettably, this is one of those movies edited to death when it comes to action. The camera moves all around and there are edits every half second so the action beats are almost incomprehensible. This is a crime when that is done to Iko Uwais and from the Raid movies I know this SOB knows how to fight and in an awesome way. His fighting in the movie was probably bitchin'... if only I could have clearly seen him engage in awesome brawls. Talk about frustrating.
As for the story itself, it was no great shakes so overall the experience was pretty miserable for me. I did not like the foul-mouthed characters (Walhberg wasn't the only one who cursed constantly; Lauren Cohan also did so, to the point she couldn't send a text message without casually using vulgar language. As I've said before, naughty words on their own typically don't impress me much), the situation they were in or how fundamentally flawed the action scenes were. As for the ending, not only was it unsatisfying, LOL to the idea of there ever being a Mile 23 or any sort of sequel.
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