Furiosa: Summer 2024’s Most Obvious Flop

Summary

We return for a prequel almost a decade after the film it is proceeding.

Whilst I can see what WBD wanted to do here in keeping the Mad Max brand alive, this was not the way to go about it.

I think the biggest crime of this film was that it came out so long after it would have been relevant. The issue with long awaited sequels and prequels is that they have to do more to justify not just their existence but to explain why a contemporary audience should care. In my mind it is that failing which is why this film is so maligned.

In terms of the wider Hollywood culture this film is not a girl boss film, in fact it is quite the opposite. The character is not a Mary Sue as she has to go through quite the trial to get to where she is and has to be taught how to be badass rather than it just coming innately to her. I think Anya Taylor-Joy is an action star in the making as I did think she was very believable here and I would dare say that her version of Furiosa eclipsed that of Theron.

The story is good, if overly long, the idea of a war between the main factions of the wasteland is a good idea. I would say that they could have done more with it and shown a larger amount of the battles on screen but that was clearly not the story they wanted to tell.

Overall, I think it is a good film with a few issues namely relevancy and pacing.

3.5/5

Pros.

Taylor-Joy

The idea of a wasteland war is interesting

Some good set pieces

Engaging characters

Cons.

The pacing is brutal

It is not really relevant anymore

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Hearts Of Stone: Gal Gadot Is An Action Star

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Gal Gadot continues to be the best female action hero.

So a lot of people will dislike this film, because a lot of people dislike folks from Israel right now, antisemitism is rampant, but if you can put down your flags and your angry banners for a minute, then you’ll see this was actually a Netflix gem that far too many people slept on.

The plot is standard action fare, nothing much new, but Gadot approaches it with such charm and charisma that you remember why Wonder Woman worked so well. It is incredibly hard not to warm to her and root for her, moreover, unlike other wannabe action stars, looking at you Millie Bobby Brown, Gadot has the moves and the physicality to be able to pull off the fight scenes and make it look real.

I think that for an action film the pace was quite good, we didn’t waste time with too much exposition, we just got straight into it which was positive. From there we got some action, which I’d say it was a good, pretty great by Netflix standard, and then we were out. It made other Netflix action fare like Atlas look like sluggish messes.

Overall, Gal Gadot will always be an action hero.

3.5/5

Pros.

Gadot

The pace

The action

The charm

Cons.

The plot is dumb

The wider cast are mostly wasted

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Bad Boys 4: Keep My Captain’s Name Out Your Damn Mouth

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Will Smith and his partner are back fighting crime and slapping men who make jokes about their wives.

Honestly this is Smith’s first major role post slap and I was wondering if they were going to address it, I thought he might defeat the villain by slapping him and then he looks into the camera and nods so that in that moment the audience and Smith are on the same page. No such luck I am afraid.

Personally maybe this is just me, but with everything we know about Smith’s personal life now I find it hard to take him seriously as an action star. I understand this is supposed to be comedy action but I just find it hard to see him in the same light post the smack and since all the stuff with his wife’s affair.

I feel like this film is in a weird sort of limbo as it acts very much like the last film, and is basically just more of the same, but at the same time it seems to know things are different than they were when the last one came out culturally in relation to Smith. I think that if you liked the last film you will like this.

In many senses this film doesn’t feel like it needs to exist it is more just there. The story is okay and it is interesting to consider them as fugitives rather than cops, but it all just feels very done before. Ultimately you know it will end with them defeating the bad guy and clearing themselves and as such there are no real stakes here.

Some of the jokes are funny and there is some fun to be had, but there are also some really unfunny ones and the film repeats these over and over.

Overall, fine nothing more nothing less. Wait till streaming.

2.5/5

Pros.

It is funny

It is watchable

It has some good moments

Cons.

Will Smith isn’t really an action star any more

It repeats unfunny jokes

It doesn’t need to exist

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Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny: Turning A Southpark Joke Into Reality

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, becomes a deadbeat dad and gets bullied around by his god daughter, played by Phobe Waller-Bridge.

I find it hard to describe this film as anything other than an assassination. The creatives behind this film wanted to kill off the character of Indiana Jones and it clearly shows, however, rather than meaning that in the sense of a character death they wanted to make him as low and pathetic as they could so no one would care about him anymore.

It takes a long time into the film to see Indiana Jones behave like himself in anyway, I question why anyone over at Lucasfilm thought that what the audience wanted was to see the character deconstructed.

Honestly Waller-Bridge is very hit or miss sometimes she can hit gold and be a really good fit for a project, other times not. Here she just seemed like she was playing a variation of her Fleabag character, which didn’t fit, and became increasingly more unlikeable over the course of the film.

The ending leaves things in a slightly better place then when we started but it just makes you leave asking why did they need to make this film, who was it for, why now, why did they think this would get people back in the door.

Overall, this is a sad disrespectful way to treat one of the most beloved characters in pop culture.

0/5

Pros.

None

Cons.

It ruins the character

It didn’t need to be made

Waller-Bridge doesn’t fit

It is badly made, and the pacing is awful

It is a waste of your time

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Atlas: Jenny From The Block Fights The AI Screenwriter Netflix Used For This Film

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Netflix continues to make films by algorithm, with no human brain switched on.

So let’s get one thing out of the way early, Jennifer Lopez is not an action hero. I don’t care how many crappy action films Netflix insert her into there is nothing convincing about seeing her take down grown men when she doesn’t look like she even carries her own groceries. Yes here they do contrived things like put her in a mech in order to make her fighting look less laughably bad, but all it does is redirect the laughter towards the terrible CGI.

Moreover, Netflix continues its trend of adding in identity politics to almost every film they make as they think it will somehow make them popular with young people. Most young people don’t care about identity politics it is just an old group of men in California who think they do. It is as usual incredibly cynical and performative here as it always is, there is no real need for it, it is jus inserted in to tick off a list.

Had this film an air of parody to it then it could have been good, but no. This film takes itself incredibly seriously and thinks that it is high cinema when it is the furthest thing from it, residing somewhere even lower than the bargain bin. The idea of someone having to go and fight an AI is incredibly dumb and feels like the sort of thing that would have been written about 30 years ago not as we live alongside them.

Overall, Jennifer Lopez should stick to music, or rom-coms she has enough range for those, but stay away from action as unless she undergoes a massive physical transformation no one will ever believe her as an action star.

0.5/5

Pros.

It might be a useful form of torture at a CIA black site somewhere

Cons.

Jennifer Lopez is miscast

The threat feels like something people would worry about 30 years ago

The CGI is terrible

The plot makes no sense

The identity politics

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Roundup Punishment: Fighting In The Toilets And On A Plane

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A no nonsense police officer, Ma Dong-Seok, tries to take down an overseas casino racket that is soaked in blood.

I enjoyed this film for its mix of both serious action, with fairly high stakes, and also more comedic and light hearted moments. It felt like a homage to classic 80s era American action films like Lethal Weapon in many senses. The film knew what it was doing on all fronts and it knew when to let things get serious and when to draw back for a joke.

The action itself was intense, it felt very full on and visceral, though at the same time it wasn’t super gory, what I appreciated about it was that it was not like an American action film very often a bad guy might take one hit to go down or maybe 3 if he is the big villain but instead this felt drawn out and far more realistic.

This I think is the fourth film in the series and after watching this it made me want to go back and watch the other films in the franchise that I have missed, that was how much fun I had with it. Sadly, I think a lot of people won’t watch this as they won’t want to watch something with subtitles but I am telling you that you are missing out.

Overall, a fun and well done action film.

4.5/5

Pros.

The action

The comedy

The cast

It is a lot of fun

It has some great set pieces

Cons.

It has some pacing issues

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The Fall Guy: The Best Blockbuster That We Have Been Given In Years

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A stuntman, Ryan Gosling, must go through hell and highwater in order to solve the mystery of an actors disappearance and reunite with his lost love, Emily Blunt.

I would argue though it will be a controversial opinion that Blunt and Gosling have better chemistry here than he did with Margot Robbie last year in Barbie. I think the film is made all the better for their relationship being front and centre to the film as the love story aspect really gives you something to root for and hold onto during the film.

I also liked that this film felt like a push back against a lot of the worst trends of recent Hollywood blockbusters, there was no dumb over the top CGI fight, the characters had humour and felt like real people, and crucially there was little to no identity politics. There was a line about toxic masculinity which was played for laughs and said by the villain of the piece to show how it was just another way to manipulate people into going along with her.

This film felt like in many ways the sort of film we used to get 10 years ago, before Hollywood decided to tie its fate to left wing politics and repeat every social justice buzz word they have heard online for points alienating half their audience in the process. You could argue in many senses that Blunt’s character here is a girl boss trope done right, she is in charge yet she also is allowed to have emotions and not be perfect, which makes a change from the self-serious, stoic, no nonsense girl bosses we often see, or the I’m so random iteration of the girl boss.

I would say my main issue with the film was that the second act went on for far too long and became bloated. If it had been better paced the film would have naturally flowed a lot better.

Overall, a solid and fun blockbuster

4/5

Pros.

It is fun

It doesn’t take itself too seriously

The stunts

The characters are likeable

Cons.

The second act is bloated

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Boy Kills World: Bob Tries Out Some New Techniques In The Kitchen

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A young man, Bill Skarsgard, goes on a quest for revenge in an odd and absurdist world.

This film feels like it would have worked a lot better as a videogame, in almost every way it feels like a tongue in cheek, silly but also taking itself seriously videogame. As it stands it has problems and won’t work for a lot of people, the main reason for this is because the tone is just so jarring, there are moments where you are like okay this is a comedy and then others where you think it’s a drama, and plenty of films can wed these two things together but not this one, they make it feel tonally like two different films.

The third act plot twist adds to this it takes what could easily have been a pretty straight forward narrative and it twists it into being convoluted and just silly. The idea that the main character is the villain’s son and he has been trained to kill her after being abducted by his master who then wiped his memory of it all, just makes everything start to make no sense at all.

The positives I have for the film is that the violence and the fights are well done and feel very Wick esque, they are quick and brutal and you feel every minute of them. In that vein I wanted to say how both Jessica Rothe and Sharlto Copley stand out here, the former for her strong action skills and how she was able to give a character behind a mask a strong sense of personality and identity and the latter because he always enhances any film he is in.

Overall, though I am a big H. John Benjamin fan even he couldn’t save whatever this was.

2/5

Pros.

The action

Rothe and Copley

Cons.

Tonally it is a mess

The twist

It goes on for too long

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Knuckles: Life In The Fast Lane

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba, is back and this time he is patching up father son relationships, or trying to at least.

I was really, really looking forward to this and possibly I went in expecting a bit too much. I thought this was going to be the next chapter in the Sonic universe, I was expecting much more in the way of cameos and maybe even some more games characters being introduced that were more Knuckles centric. Alas we didn’t get that, and maybe I expected too much, this was an incredibly self-contained show and without the opening credits, the villains being vaguely tied to Robotnik, and a brief first episode cameo, you could watch this and not even realise it was related to the wider Sonic universe.

Another odd choice was that the main character of this series isn’t Knuckles, but rather Wade Whipple, Adam Pally. Now there is nothing wrong with Wade he is quite a funny character and you can easily relate to and root for him, but he isn’t the show’s namesake. I expected far more time to learn who Knuckles as a character was, learn more of his back story, maybe through flashbacks to before the Owls attacked, but again no. We don’t learn much more about Knuckles from this show other than he likes grapes. That said I did like Wade’s quest to become a warrior and to defeat his dad, Cary Elwes, who was comically evil.

I also thought the bond between Wade and Knuckles was quite endearing, they genuinely seemed to care about each other, in a sort of human pet way, or maybe even a father and son way.

The humour of the show was good and it was mostly funny, there were a couple of times were they let a joke drag on for too long or repeated an unfunny joke but for the most part it was funny.

A final word I would like to say that no doubt will get me hate, but hey I am not going to stop, is that I liked that this show gave an upfront portrayal of the Jewish Shabat dinner and had a lot of good Jewish representation without reducing the characters to stereotypes or having it be all they are. I think in these politically divided times, I am writing this in May 2024, where antisemitism is on the rise and more and more people seemingly hate Jews, for something that is not their fault, they are not responsible for state policy, it is nice to see positive representation, it shouldn’t be needed to combat all the hate as the hate shouldn’t exist but that is the world we live in.

Overall, a nice, fun self-contained series but one that left me a little disappointed

3.5/5

It is funny

Wade and Knuckles

It provides much needed representation

It sets up new adventures

Cons.

It is not as big in scope as I would have liked it to be

It repeats a few unfunny jokes

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Monkey Man: Killing The Guru

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

This was a massive surprise, both in terms of the quality of the film but also that Dev Patel has really strong action chops both behind and in front of the camera.

Going into this film I was expecting more of a thriller than what this was which was a straight up action film. The action here is brutal and you feel every punch, I wouldn’t quite say it was on the same level as John Wick at the prime of that series but I would say that it was very gnarly at times and in ways you wouldn’t expect.

The story is the weaker part, so you care about Patel’s character and want to see him do well and get revenge for his mother, but the film gets far too bogged down in trying to have deeper themes. It tries to have things to say about India’s marginalised groups and systems of governance, a noble goal, but it comes off as shallow and without any punch. I think the film should either have tried to dedicate more time to the plight of these groups and set up Patel more clearly as their hero, or just ignored that part of the story all together and just focused on being an action film.

The acting across the board is strong, Patel is a likeable lead, but for me at least the star is Sharlto Copley. It is always a treat to see Sharlto act, he is one of my favourite actors if you couldn’t tell, he steals the show as a boxing promoter.

Overall, a very solid action film that tries for deeper meaning but comes up shallow.

4/5

Pros.

The action

You care about the characters

Patel and Copley

It has good stakes

Cons.

It is not as deep as it thinks it is

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