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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated The Fate of the Furious (2017) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Blood is thicker than Diesel.
All work and no play makes bob-the-movie-man a tardy reviewer. Still, what better way to break the fast than with “Fast and Furious 8” (aka “The Fate of the Furious”)?
Well, quite a lot of things actually!
Now, I have a confession to make (and I know for some this will be the equivalent of an appalling statement like “I’ve never seen Star Wars”). I have actually never ever seen Fast and Furious 1 through 7! (If it’s any mitigation to this cinematic crime, I did see the F-and-F wannabe “Need for Speed“).
So I was going to be completely lost with the “plot” right? Well actually, no. It was pretty easy to jump in and follow as a piece of popcorn nonsense.
The M25 water main burst was a real bitch for the Monday morning rush-hour.
For nonsense it is (hence the “rabbit ears” round the word “plot” above). The story isn’t just a bit far-fetched. It’s bat-shit crazy where the bat in question has downed a questionable vindaloo two hours earlier!
Dom (Vin Diesel) has turned on his “family”, including his squeeze, the lovely Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, “San Andreas“), to team with the above-the-law (and above the clouds) cyber-super-terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron, “Mad Max: Fury Road“). They have teamed up, apparently, for no other reason than to allow Cipher to ‘kick some global ass’ with a nuclear threat. But given his caring and sharing side, why the sudden betrayal of his nearest and dearest by Dom?
Ice Queen Metallica fan Theron, showing off her hardware.
Where do you begin with the nonsensical story? Jumping from Cuba (with some admittedly fun scenes, but shamelessly objectifying scantily-clad women) via Berlin and New York to the icy wastes of Siberia, it’s just an excuse to show fast cars doing ludicrously unlikely things. There is zero logic within any of the script. Here are just a handful of examples:
the team know (through enormous jumps of speculation) to be present at a particular location in the world and at exactly the time that Dom is there (arrive, look through binoculars, “Oh, there he is”!);
all cars can be automatically hijacked and remotely driven (who knew), but NOT those of the team (obviously);
fast cars/tanks/etc can be magicked from New York to Siberia (wot, no Hertz Siberia available?);
Russian nuclear codes are stolen, so obviously they can’t be changed?
a nuclear submarine is out of the water on wooden blocks, but spin the propeller really REALLY fast and it can suddenly be sailing away.
Muscle for muscle it never looked like being a fair fight.
I appreciate I am being enormously po-faced about this, and this is designed as pure escapism. But is there REALLY any need for this to be such mindless escapism? The director (Gary Gray, “The Italian Job”) and writer (Chris Morgan, responsible for parts 6 and 7) should credit their audience with rather more in the way of intelligence.
Diesel and Johnson are never going to set the acting ablaze, but Rodriquez (“Lost”) is as watchable as ever. Theron has fun with her villainy and the supporting turns by Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris are enjoyable. Nathalie Emmanuel though as Ramsey seems as uncomfortable with her “sexy English” stereotype as she should be.
A long way from Brookside. Nathalie Emmanuel uncomfortable as “the sexy one”.
Luke Evans (“The Hobbit“), Kurt Russell (“Deepwater Horizon“) and Helen Mirren (“Eye in the Sky“) turn up in entertaining but underused cameos, but it is Jason Statham as Deckard that has the most fun in the whole film, and his scenes – done largely for comic effect – are the best part of the movie. (But “math” Jason? “MATH”?? I hope your old maths teacher back in London doesn’t get to see this film).
Parking enforcement by the City Council was getting more and more stringent.
If you’re willing to park your brain at the door for two hours then it has some fun moments. But I felt the damage to my IQ might not have been worth the risk, and this really didn’t fill my cinematic tank.
Well, quite a lot of things actually!
Now, I have a confession to make (and I know for some this will be the equivalent of an appalling statement like “I’ve never seen Star Wars”). I have actually never ever seen Fast and Furious 1 through 7! (If it’s any mitigation to this cinematic crime, I did see the F-and-F wannabe “Need for Speed“).
So I was going to be completely lost with the “plot” right? Well actually, no. It was pretty easy to jump in and follow as a piece of popcorn nonsense.
The M25 water main burst was a real bitch for the Monday morning rush-hour.
For nonsense it is (hence the “rabbit ears” round the word “plot” above). The story isn’t just a bit far-fetched. It’s bat-shit crazy where the bat in question has downed a questionable vindaloo two hours earlier!
Dom (Vin Diesel) has turned on his “family”, including his squeeze, the lovely Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, “San Andreas“), to team with the above-the-law (and above the clouds) cyber-super-terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron, “Mad Max: Fury Road“). They have teamed up, apparently, for no other reason than to allow Cipher to ‘kick some global ass’ with a nuclear threat. But given his caring and sharing side, why the sudden betrayal of his nearest and dearest by Dom?
Ice Queen Metallica fan Theron, showing off her hardware.
Where do you begin with the nonsensical story? Jumping from Cuba (with some admittedly fun scenes, but shamelessly objectifying scantily-clad women) via Berlin and New York to the icy wastes of Siberia, it’s just an excuse to show fast cars doing ludicrously unlikely things. There is zero logic within any of the script. Here are just a handful of examples:
the team know (through enormous jumps of speculation) to be present at a particular location in the world and at exactly the time that Dom is there (arrive, look through binoculars, “Oh, there he is”!);
all cars can be automatically hijacked and remotely driven (who knew), but NOT those of the team (obviously);
fast cars/tanks/etc can be magicked from New York to Siberia (wot, no Hertz Siberia available?);
Russian nuclear codes are stolen, so obviously they can’t be changed?
a nuclear submarine is out of the water on wooden blocks, but spin the propeller really REALLY fast and it can suddenly be sailing away.
Muscle for muscle it never looked like being a fair fight.
I appreciate I am being enormously po-faced about this, and this is designed as pure escapism. But is there REALLY any need for this to be such mindless escapism? The director (Gary Gray, “The Italian Job”) and writer (Chris Morgan, responsible for parts 6 and 7) should credit their audience with rather more in the way of intelligence.
Diesel and Johnson are never going to set the acting ablaze, but Rodriquez (“Lost”) is as watchable as ever. Theron has fun with her villainy and the supporting turns by Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris are enjoyable. Nathalie Emmanuel though as Ramsey seems as uncomfortable with her “sexy English” stereotype as she should be.
A long way from Brookside. Nathalie Emmanuel uncomfortable as “the sexy one”.
Luke Evans (“The Hobbit“), Kurt Russell (“Deepwater Horizon“) and Helen Mirren (“Eye in the Sky“) turn up in entertaining but underused cameos, but it is Jason Statham as Deckard that has the most fun in the whole film, and his scenes – done largely for comic effect – are the best part of the movie. (But “math” Jason? “MATH”?? I hope your old maths teacher back in London doesn’t get to see this film).
Parking enforcement by the City Council was getting more and more stringent.
If you’re willing to park your brain at the door for two hours then it has some fun moments. But I felt the damage to my IQ might not have been worth the risk, and this really didn’t fill my cinematic tank.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Cold Pursuit (2019) in Movies
Mar 15, 2020
Comments on revenge are best kept on the screen.
I'd completely forgotten the furore about Liam Neeson's comments back last February during the press-tour preceding the film's release. In discussing the destructive feelings of revenge experienced by his character, Nels Coxman, Neeson revealed something he did 40 years ago: after the rape of a friend by "a black man", Neeson went out on the streets to find another "black man" and do them harm. (As a fellow Ballymena-born man, David Moody (from the "Mark and Dave" blog) has an interesting theory about this... that it was not a "rascist" statement in the true sense, but something else entirely. See here - ).
The comments undoubtedly impacted the movie at the box office. Which is a shame. Because in his catalogue of bonkers and violent revenge-porn flicks, this is one of Neeson's more entertaining ones.
Revenge is a dish best served cold. And where colder to serve it than in the ski-resort of Kehoe where Nels Coxman is the local snowplow operative and "man of the year" for his services to the community. But the tracks are about to fall off his orderly life. For his son Kyle (Micheál Richardson) winds up dead through a drugs overdose and his strained marriage with wife Grace (Laura Dern) disintegrates. (One of the most cutting and best-written "Bye" notes ever seen in the movies).
With revenge in mind, Coxman pursues the Denver-based drugs lord Trevor Calcote (Tom Bateman) who dished out the drugs to his son. But he inadvertently manages to stay just below the parapet as he sets in train a gang war between Calcote and a Kehoe-based native-American drugs gang led by White Bull (Tom Jackson). The snow turned progressively pinker as the body count rises.
Calcote (aka "Viking") is painted as a colourful family man, with an annoyingly bright son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes) that he controls with a rod of iron. Viking is estranged from wife Aya (Julia Jones), who seems completely unafraid of him and happily embarrasses him in front of his men. This relationship never really works. Since given all the terrible and irrational things Viking does to people, whether they obstruct him or help him in equal measure, putting a quiet bullet into Aya's head seems to be to least he could do!
Where there is fun to be had is in the "Stockholm syndrome" linkage between young Ryan and Coxman. When his father insists on controlling his diet, feeding him the same insipidly healthy meals morning, noon and night, the alternative of being kidnapped and fed burgers seems eminently more preferable!
The film is at times really difficult to follow. There are lots of inexplicable leaps of logic and really inexplicably bonkers scenes that you can only patch together later. It's as if the filmmakers randomly filmed 5 hours of footage and then tried to edit it all into a cohesive plot!
As one example of this, the relationship between Coxman and "Wingman" (William Forsythe) was poorly introduced such that I was left baffled by a later plot twist.
In another scene, Neeson smashes the head of enforcer "Santa" (Michael Adamthwaite) into his steering wheel, but in the next scene collapses with him utterly exhausted in the snow. There was clearly a significant fight here that was cut out of the finished cut. But as a result the final cut makes no sense at all!
Of course, the local law enforcement team are average at best. Average because although young and keen-as-mustard detective Kim Dash (Emmy Rossum) is hot on the trail of the truth, her partner Gip (John Doman) is f*ckin' useless... wanting to do nothing but drink coffee and eat donuts in true Simpsons style.
Normally with these sort of films, it's difficult to keep track of the body count. No such problem here. Every death is celebrated with a tombstone graphic so it's easy to keep count! Needless to say, there are a lot of tombstones registered.
Directed by Norwegian Hans Petter Moland, it's all good violent cartoonish fun, that keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek for most of the running time. The snowy setting, the partly native-American cast and the presence of Julia Jones brings to mind the truly excellent Jeremy Renner / Elizabeth Olsen movie "Wind River". But there the similarities (and quality levels) definitely stop. It's not a clever movie; it's borderline bonkers for most of its running time (never more so than with a totally bizarre "joke" final shot); but it is entertaining. As a 'park brain at door' action comedy it just about makes the grade.
(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/03/15/one-manns-movies-dvd-review-cold-pursuit-2019/. Thanks.)
The comments undoubtedly impacted the movie at the box office. Which is a shame. Because in his catalogue of bonkers and violent revenge-porn flicks, this is one of Neeson's more entertaining ones.
Revenge is a dish best served cold. And where colder to serve it than in the ski-resort of Kehoe where Nels Coxman is the local snowplow operative and "man of the year" for his services to the community. But the tracks are about to fall off his orderly life. For his son Kyle (Micheál Richardson) winds up dead through a drugs overdose and his strained marriage with wife Grace (Laura Dern) disintegrates. (One of the most cutting and best-written "Bye" notes ever seen in the movies).
With revenge in mind, Coxman pursues the Denver-based drugs lord Trevor Calcote (Tom Bateman) who dished out the drugs to his son. But he inadvertently manages to stay just below the parapet as he sets in train a gang war between Calcote and a Kehoe-based native-American drugs gang led by White Bull (Tom Jackson). The snow turned progressively pinker as the body count rises.
Calcote (aka "Viking") is painted as a colourful family man, with an annoyingly bright son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes) that he controls with a rod of iron. Viking is estranged from wife Aya (Julia Jones), who seems completely unafraid of him and happily embarrasses him in front of his men. This relationship never really works. Since given all the terrible and irrational things Viking does to people, whether they obstruct him or help him in equal measure, putting a quiet bullet into Aya's head seems to be to least he could do!
Where there is fun to be had is in the "Stockholm syndrome" linkage between young Ryan and Coxman. When his father insists on controlling his diet, feeding him the same insipidly healthy meals morning, noon and night, the alternative of being kidnapped and fed burgers seems eminently more preferable!
The film is at times really difficult to follow. There are lots of inexplicable leaps of logic and really inexplicably bonkers scenes that you can only patch together later. It's as if the filmmakers randomly filmed 5 hours of footage and then tried to edit it all into a cohesive plot!
As one example of this, the relationship between Coxman and "Wingman" (William Forsythe) was poorly introduced such that I was left baffled by a later plot twist.
In another scene, Neeson smashes the head of enforcer "Santa" (Michael Adamthwaite) into his steering wheel, but in the next scene collapses with him utterly exhausted in the snow. There was clearly a significant fight here that was cut out of the finished cut. But as a result the final cut makes no sense at all!
Of course, the local law enforcement team are average at best. Average because although young and keen-as-mustard detective Kim Dash (Emmy Rossum) is hot on the trail of the truth, her partner Gip (John Doman) is f*ckin' useless... wanting to do nothing but drink coffee and eat donuts in true Simpsons style.
Normally with these sort of films, it's difficult to keep track of the body count. No such problem here. Every death is celebrated with a tombstone graphic so it's easy to keep count! Needless to say, there are a lot of tombstones registered.
Directed by Norwegian Hans Petter Moland, it's all good violent cartoonish fun, that keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek for most of the running time. The snowy setting, the partly native-American cast and the presence of Julia Jones brings to mind the truly excellent Jeremy Renner / Elizabeth Olsen movie "Wind River". But there the similarities (and quality levels) definitely stop. It's not a clever movie; it's borderline bonkers for most of its running time (never more so than with a totally bizarre "joke" final shot); but it is entertaining. As a 'park brain at door' action comedy it just about makes the grade.
(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/03/15/one-manns-movies-dvd-review-cold-pursuit-2019/. Thanks.)
Gareth von Kallenbach (965 KP) rated The Gunman (2015) in Movies
Aug 6, 2019
Today, we have an action film on deck for you and ‘no’ it doesn’t star Matt Damon or Jason Statham. This latest film ‘The Gunman’ stars none other than Sean Penn?! Yes, Sean Penn has decided to step into the action genre in his latest film.
Starring Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Jasmine Trinca, Ray Winstone, Peter Franzén, Mark Rylance, and based upon the 1981 book ‘The Prone Gunman’ by Jean-Patrick Manchette
‘The Gunman’ is set in the chaos that is modern Africa where civil unrest and war are day-to-day occurrences and western countries and multi-national conglomerates fight for control of the continent’s vital resources. Within this backdrop we find the character of Jim “Twink” Terrier (Penn). A corporate mercenary AKA security contractor on his last ‘assignment’ forced to leave
behind the woman he loves after going into hiding once his final assignment is complete. Now, years later after he has returned in secret to Africa he is forced go on the hunt again after nearly being killed and confront his former boss Felix (Bardem) who may or may not hold the key to finding those responsible. As in the world of espionage however, no one can be trusted. With corporate interests, international law enforcement, and his deteriorating health Terrier is racing against the clock to ensure that the world knows the whole story and perhaps find his long lost love before it’s too late.
Penn is obviously known for his dramatic roles. To say he is ‘legendary’ is pretty accurate.
After seeing this movie, I think it’s safe to say it’s likely we could see him in more action movies. The movie was a bit rough around the edges and perhaps 15 to 20 minutes longer than it needed to be. I felt like Bardem’s presence in the film was ‘wasted’. His character was quiet, spoke very little, and when they did give the character significant time in front of the camera he was drunk for most of it. Bardem has become legendary in his own right and I was hoping for a lot more for his character. The movie was NOT terrible though. One thing that impressed me was the fact that the filmmakers and the writers had the ‘guts’ to include mention of the type of thing that’s going on in Africa right now with corporations fighting for the continents resources and using the civil unrest to their advantage as part of the storyline.
All in all, I’d give the film 3 out of 5 stars. Catch the matinee or order it online. It’s not much when you compare it to something from the ‘Bourne’ or ‘Bond’ franchises. What you see in ‘The Gunman’ is the kind of action film that’s not outside the realm of possibility in real life.
On behalf of my fellows at ‘Skewed & Reviewed’ this is ‘The CameraMan’ saying thanks for reading … and we’ll see you at the movies.
Second Review by Jennifer Fiduccia
The Gunman, stars Sean Penn as James Terrier, Javier Bardem as Felix, Idris Elba as Barnes, Ray Winstone as Stanley, Mark Rylance as Cox and Jasmine Trinca as Annie.
The movie starts out by showing the men all working together as guards for a humanitarian effort in Congo but we are quickly led to believe that they might also be ‘up to something’
Annie is Jims’ fiancé, but it is overly obvious that Felix is jealous and wishes she were his.
Our beliefs become justified when we see the group of guys get orders to assassinate the Minister of Mining, and its a sort of blind draw as to who has to do the actual shooting. Whoever gets picked must then leave the country. It is revealed that that is how Felix wants it to be.
Terrier draws the short straw so to speak, and must carry out the assassination, and then flee the country.
The movie then skips ahead to 8 years later, and sees Jim once again helping a humanitarian effort in Africa, digging wells.
As he works, his group is suddenly attacked by a group of mercenaries, and Jim manages to fight them off and kill them.
He then begins to hunt down his old team mates in an attempt to try and figure out who tried to kill him and why.
The action in the movie is good, and fast paced, the stunts were well done. None of the stunts seemed ‘unbelievable’ given the circumstances they were put in.
The relationships between the characters could have been better fleshed out, and I was confused most of the way through the movie as to who was after Jim and why, but I guess that was intended in the plot.
Overall, if you are looking for a decent action film with a bunch of shooting and car chases, this will fit the bill.
I’d give the movie 3 out of 5 stars, specifically in the category of ‘action films’.
Starring Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Jasmine Trinca, Ray Winstone, Peter Franzén, Mark Rylance, and based upon the 1981 book ‘The Prone Gunman’ by Jean-Patrick Manchette
‘The Gunman’ is set in the chaos that is modern Africa where civil unrest and war are day-to-day occurrences and western countries and multi-national conglomerates fight for control of the continent’s vital resources. Within this backdrop we find the character of Jim “Twink” Terrier (Penn). A corporate mercenary AKA security contractor on his last ‘assignment’ forced to leave
behind the woman he loves after going into hiding once his final assignment is complete. Now, years later after he has returned in secret to Africa he is forced go on the hunt again after nearly being killed and confront his former boss Felix (Bardem) who may or may not hold the key to finding those responsible. As in the world of espionage however, no one can be trusted. With corporate interests, international law enforcement, and his deteriorating health Terrier is racing against the clock to ensure that the world knows the whole story and perhaps find his long lost love before it’s too late.
Penn is obviously known for his dramatic roles. To say he is ‘legendary’ is pretty accurate.
After seeing this movie, I think it’s safe to say it’s likely we could see him in more action movies. The movie was a bit rough around the edges and perhaps 15 to 20 minutes longer than it needed to be. I felt like Bardem’s presence in the film was ‘wasted’. His character was quiet, spoke very little, and when they did give the character significant time in front of the camera he was drunk for most of it. Bardem has become legendary in his own right and I was hoping for a lot more for his character. The movie was NOT terrible though. One thing that impressed me was the fact that the filmmakers and the writers had the ‘guts’ to include mention of the type of thing that’s going on in Africa right now with corporations fighting for the continents resources and using the civil unrest to their advantage as part of the storyline.
All in all, I’d give the film 3 out of 5 stars. Catch the matinee or order it online. It’s not much when you compare it to something from the ‘Bourne’ or ‘Bond’ franchises. What you see in ‘The Gunman’ is the kind of action film that’s not outside the realm of possibility in real life.
On behalf of my fellows at ‘Skewed & Reviewed’ this is ‘The CameraMan’ saying thanks for reading … and we’ll see you at the movies.
Second Review by Jennifer Fiduccia
The Gunman, stars Sean Penn as James Terrier, Javier Bardem as Felix, Idris Elba as Barnes, Ray Winstone as Stanley, Mark Rylance as Cox and Jasmine Trinca as Annie.
The movie starts out by showing the men all working together as guards for a humanitarian effort in Congo but we are quickly led to believe that they might also be ‘up to something’
Annie is Jims’ fiancé, but it is overly obvious that Felix is jealous and wishes she were his.
Our beliefs become justified when we see the group of guys get orders to assassinate the Minister of Mining, and its a sort of blind draw as to who has to do the actual shooting. Whoever gets picked must then leave the country. It is revealed that that is how Felix wants it to be.
Terrier draws the short straw so to speak, and must carry out the assassination, and then flee the country.
The movie then skips ahead to 8 years later, and sees Jim once again helping a humanitarian effort in Africa, digging wells.
As he works, his group is suddenly attacked by a group of mercenaries, and Jim manages to fight them off and kill them.
He then begins to hunt down his old team mates in an attempt to try and figure out who tried to kill him and why.
The action in the movie is good, and fast paced, the stunts were well done. None of the stunts seemed ‘unbelievable’ given the circumstances they were put in.
The relationships between the characters could have been better fleshed out, and I was confused most of the way through the movie as to who was after Jim and why, but I guess that was intended in the plot.
Overall, if you are looking for a decent action film with a bunch of shooting and car chases, this will fit the bill.
I’d give the movie 3 out of 5 stars, specifically in the category of ‘action films’.
Gareth von Kallenbach (965 KP) rated Attack the Block (2011) in Movies
Aug 7, 2019
Remember, remember the fifth of November…because that’s when the film Attack the Block (from the producers of “Shaun of the Dead”) begins – on Guy Fawkes Night. If you want to know what that is, use a search engine like I did (there’s even a catchy poem for this British holiday, too).
Anyway, back to the film. It’s Guy Fawkes Night in London, with fireworks exploding throughout the city, a small gang of teens are looking to have a little fun. The gang has 5 people; the leader Moses (John Boyega), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Dennis (Franz Drameh), Biggz (Simon Howard) and Pest (Alex Esmail). During this “fun time” they mug Sam (Jodie Whitaker) a nurse returning home from work. During the course of the mugging an object falls from the sky striking a nearby car. While the gang is distracted, Sam runs off and calls the police. As Moses investigates what hit the car and what he can steal, something scratches his arm and escapes into the night. Moses is so furious, he and the rest of the gang give chase, eventually cornering and killing the creature.
They aren’t sure what the creature is but they know they can probably make money off of it, so they take it to Ron (Nick Frost), the friendly neighborhood drug dealer who lives in their apartment complex, for safe keeping. As the gang enjoys a “relaxing” smoke (don’t worry anti-tobacco people, they aren’t smoking cigarettes), Moses is approached by Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) the local drug kingpin that Ron works for. Hi-Hatz likes the tough, street-smart Moses and wants him to be one of his dealers, a job Moses considers an honor to be offered.
As Moses’ gang gaze out the apartment’s window at the fireworks exploding over South London they see more aliens landing. They soon discover that these aliens are bigger, stronger, tougher and way more violent than the first one they encountered and, even worse than that, these aliens are coming after them. The gang decides that they have to fight back and protect their block. During one encounter with the aliens, Pest becomes seriously injured and they end up tracking down Sam (the nurse they mugged at the beginning of the movie) for help. Once Sam is convinced that they are telling the truth about the invasion she joins them and eventually a sort of mutual respect forms between her and the members of the gang. Unfortunately while they are fighting off the invasion, Moses’s gang has a falling out with Hi-Hatz. So just to be clear, at a point in the film, Moses and his gang have the police, Hi-Hatz with his crew and aliens chasing after them. Will Moses and his merry men be victorious or will they fall prey to ‘those clamorous harbingers of blood and death’? Sorry, felt the need to quote Shakespeare.
The movie is highly enjoyable with its unique twist on the sci-fi genre blended with a healthy dose of humor, believable action and great anti-heroes. While the movie is a low budget film, the cast put on a big budget performance. The special effects were well done and not over the top like so many other sci-fi action movies I’ve seen. While the movie is a bit on the campy side (which I do enjoy) I do want to point out that with the exception of the alien-thing the film keeps things quite realistic. One negative thing about the film is that because of the British accent and slang I did not understand some of the dialogue (I’m sure the British say the same thing about our movies).
I will be honest, Nick Frost was the driving force behind me wanting to see this movie and I thoroughly enjoyed his scenes but he only has a few scenes. Jodie Whitaker did a very nice job of taking the audience on a journey of a character who, at the beginning is both mad at and afraid of those who had mugged her, but as the movie progresses those feelings are slowly replaced with mutual respect, understanding and friendship. Jumayn Hunter portrayed such a unique drug kingpin I was actually rooting for him (don’t worry law enforcement officials, I will still “Say ‘No’ to Drugs”). The rest of the supporting cast all did wonderful jobs as well but I want to talk about the actors that made up Moses’s Gang.
You wouldn’t know it by watching the movie but this is the first film for John Boyega, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard and Alex Esmail; the second movie for Franz Drameh. Even before knowing that, I already thought these five actors did an incredible job in the film but after finding that out I was really blown away. Their five characters are the core of the movie that takes us on this great adventure. However I do want to single out the lead John Boyega, as his character goes through a sort of rite of passage in the film. He does an amazing job with the range of emotion that is needed all the while keeping the character as real as a sci-fi film will allow. I will definitely keep an eye out for future films with these actors.
Anyway, back to the film. It’s Guy Fawkes Night in London, with fireworks exploding throughout the city, a small gang of teens are looking to have a little fun. The gang has 5 people; the leader Moses (John Boyega), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Dennis (Franz Drameh), Biggz (Simon Howard) and Pest (Alex Esmail). During this “fun time” they mug Sam (Jodie Whitaker) a nurse returning home from work. During the course of the mugging an object falls from the sky striking a nearby car. While the gang is distracted, Sam runs off and calls the police. As Moses investigates what hit the car and what he can steal, something scratches his arm and escapes into the night. Moses is so furious, he and the rest of the gang give chase, eventually cornering and killing the creature.
They aren’t sure what the creature is but they know they can probably make money off of it, so they take it to Ron (Nick Frost), the friendly neighborhood drug dealer who lives in their apartment complex, for safe keeping. As the gang enjoys a “relaxing” smoke (don’t worry anti-tobacco people, they aren’t smoking cigarettes), Moses is approached by Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) the local drug kingpin that Ron works for. Hi-Hatz likes the tough, street-smart Moses and wants him to be one of his dealers, a job Moses considers an honor to be offered.
As Moses’ gang gaze out the apartment’s window at the fireworks exploding over South London they see more aliens landing. They soon discover that these aliens are bigger, stronger, tougher and way more violent than the first one they encountered and, even worse than that, these aliens are coming after them. The gang decides that they have to fight back and protect their block. During one encounter with the aliens, Pest becomes seriously injured and they end up tracking down Sam (the nurse they mugged at the beginning of the movie) for help. Once Sam is convinced that they are telling the truth about the invasion she joins them and eventually a sort of mutual respect forms between her and the members of the gang. Unfortunately while they are fighting off the invasion, Moses’s gang has a falling out with Hi-Hatz. So just to be clear, at a point in the film, Moses and his gang have the police, Hi-Hatz with his crew and aliens chasing after them. Will Moses and his merry men be victorious or will they fall prey to ‘those clamorous harbingers of blood and death’? Sorry, felt the need to quote Shakespeare.
The movie is highly enjoyable with its unique twist on the sci-fi genre blended with a healthy dose of humor, believable action and great anti-heroes. While the movie is a low budget film, the cast put on a big budget performance. The special effects were well done and not over the top like so many other sci-fi action movies I’ve seen. While the movie is a bit on the campy side (which I do enjoy) I do want to point out that with the exception of the alien-thing the film keeps things quite realistic. One negative thing about the film is that because of the British accent and slang I did not understand some of the dialogue (I’m sure the British say the same thing about our movies).
I will be honest, Nick Frost was the driving force behind me wanting to see this movie and I thoroughly enjoyed his scenes but he only has a few scenes. Jodie Whitaker did a very nice job of taking the audience on a journey of a character who, at the beginning is both mad at and afraid of those who had mugged her, but as the movie progresses those feelings are slowly replaced with mutual respect, understanding and friendship. Jumayn Hunter portrayed such a unique drug kingpin I was actually rooting for him (don’t worry law enforcement officials, I will still “Say ‘No’ to Drugs”). The rest of the supporting cast all did wonderful jobs as well but I want to talk about the actors that made up Moses’s Gang.
You wouldn’t know it by watching the movie but this is the first film for John Boyega, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard and Alex Esmail; the second movie for Franz Drameh. Even before knowing that, I already thought these five actors did an incredible job in the film but after finding that out I was really blown away. Their five characters are the core of the movie that takes us on this great adventure. However I do want to single out the lead John Boyega, as his character goes through a sort of rite of passage in the film. He does an amazing job with the range of emotion that is needed all the while keeping the character as real as a sci-fi film will allow. I will definitely keep an eye out for future films with these actors.