While driving with his two kids, a man receives a phone call from an unknown assailant who claims there is a bomb in the car. Unable to exit the vehicle, he must now follow a series of twisted instructions while trying to figure out how to survive.
Retribution is the third remake of the 2015 Spanish film El desconocido (I haven’t seen that one so I won’t be comparing) this movie is also another you guessed it Liam Neeson action thriller that is in the same vein as Non-Stop, The Commuter, The Marksman, Blacklight, The Ice Road, Run All Night and so many others that have released the last 5 or 6 years.
It’s gotten to the point where I just have very little to say about these movies because a majority of them are the exact same thing just tweaked around a bit, I guess Retribution isn’t as bad as some of the others but that doesn’t really mean much.
Liam Neeson gives a fine enough performance but you can really tell his heart isn’t into it anymore, at least with Non-Stop, The Commuter or Run All Night you can at least tell he genuinely cared and gave a pretty strong performance. With this one you don’t feel that at all, a few moments pop up every now and then but it’s not enough to call his performance good. The rest of the cast do a fine enough job and manage to push the movie to the finish line particularly Jack Champion and Lilly Aspell.
Everything else could honestly be boiled down to generic Liam Neeson action thriller movie elements (the action scenes are actually not awful it’s just they aren’t really noteworthy), they are the same sort of thing they have been in other movies. There is the ridiculous twist that you can easily see coming from ten miles away, it makes very little sense if you think about it for more than a second, I’m not sure how this was executed in the original movie but I’m willing to place bets that it was much better executed and didn’t end up being ridiculous.
Overall if you like these Liam Neeson movies you are going to probably have a decent time with this one, if you are hoping this one is going to be any different than the other movies you are going to be disappointed.
A Monkey and his magical fighting Stick battle demons, dragons, gods and the greatest adversary of all – Monkey’s ego.
The Monkey King is inspired by the classic Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West. A novel which inspired one of the most popular franchises in the world Dragon Ball (and personally one of my favorites!) I’m not going to compare the two for obvious reasons, The Monkey King and Dragon Ball are two completely different takes on the iconic story. I will say that I was genuinely interested to see how this movie was going to approach the story and unfortunately it’s a very bland approach.
I’ll start with what worked because the movie does have it’s positives, the animation is actually not entirely bad. While yes it does get a bit repetitive as it goes on, early on in the movie there’s some genuinely great moments in the animation that do standout. The character designs while not anything to write home about get the job done and do have a bit of charm to them.
With that said however what hurts this movie mostly is the writing, despite being inspired on such an iconic story the movie really doesn’t do anything special with it. The characters get very little character development, the jokes are incredibly unfunny and the movie plays out exactly how you think it’s going to. While Jimmy O. Yang can be very fun at times voicing Monkey, Monkey is a very one note character both in how he’s voiced and especially how he’s written. He’s the very typical underdog protagonist who’s cocky (also a jerk to everyone around him) and wants to reach his goal, it’s a type of character who’s been done far better before.
It’s a shame because I do think introducing this influential story to kids is quite an interesting idea but it completely lacks the execution and interest from the viewer, It’s definitely not the worst out there but it’s definitely one of the biggest missed opportunities.
A research team encounters multiple threats while exploring the depths of the ocean, including a malevolent mining operation.
Meg 2: The Trench is a sequel to The Meg which came out In 2018, The Meg is a fun enough shark movie that when it first came out I absolutely hated it. Over the few years it did grow on me but it’s still not something I would consider good, Meg 2: The Trench sort of follows that exact same path. Honestly what caught my attention about this one was Ben Wheatley being in the director’s chair who’s previous work consists of Kill List (2011), High-Rise (2015), Free Fire (2016), In The Earth (2021) and many others! Some really great movies here and drastically different from The Meg.
While I do respect Ben Wheatley for tackling something different Meg 2: The Trench is more or less the exact same thing as the first movie, Jason Statham of course does his thing and is very entertaining there’s absolutely no denying that. He works with what he’s given script wise and actually does manage to have a few funny movements.
The movie can mostly be broken down into two sections the first hour of the movie is a lot of uninteresting corporate conversations and not very good build-up, although there are a few moments here and there in the first hour that are decent. The second half is when the movie goes completely over the top and lands into hilarious territory. The Meg and other sea creatures attack which leads to chaos ensuing, there’s a ton of fun moments to be had and a lot of ridiculous moments that make the movie all the more hilarious.
Having that said much like the first movie it’s a huge mixed bag that never quite pins down the premise to it’s full potential, if you took away a lot of the bad exposition from the first hour of the movie and went as campy and wacky as possible there definitely could have been something here.
Meg 2: The Trench is available on all VOD Platforms.
An intelligence operative for a shadowy global peacekeeping agency races to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable and dangerous weapon.
Heart Of Stone falls in the exact same category as Red Notice and The Gray Man, over expensive and uninspired Netflix original action movies. Sadly this is a trend that I don’t see dying anytime soon, honestly what could I say that’s really thought provoking about Heart Of Stone?
Gal Gadot isn’t good here, the acting all around falls completely flat and the writing gives very little information about any of these characters. Outside of a few action scenes that are decently done, this is a movie that is really trying it’s hardest to be Mission Impossible. Except where as Mission Impossible is entertaining, has a story to follow and even if the characters aren’t the most developed they are still fun to watch. In Heart Of Stone the characters are the most generic spy movie characters you could come up with, they lack any personality outside of being plot devices or exposition.
The running time is a whole other problem as well, it’s 2 hours and 2 minutes and the pacing is about as dreadful as you would expect, there’s nothing investing, nothing that could give the viewer some sort of interest and nothing really to say at all. It’s not helped by bland direction that has no style to it at all, making this another terrible Netflix action movie that lands in the sea of them.
Nick Fury learns of a secret invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls; Fury joins his allies, and together they race against time to thwart an imminent Skrull invasion and save humanity.
Secret Invasion is the newest installment of the MCU and is the ninth television series in the MCU, it took me awhile to review this show despite watching the entire series in one day back in July because there truly is not anything interesting or compelling to talk about here.
Which is a massive shame because I do think some of the ideas presented here are interesting they are just very poorly executed, a political thriller Marvel series could have easily worked heck Marvel already showed that in movie form it can work with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (it depends on who you ask, some people consider it a political thriller some people don’t.) so it’s quite baffling to see just how massively Secret Invasion fails in comparison.
The only positive here are the performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Coleman (pretty much any scene she’s in is such a delight) and Ben Mendelsohn. They all try their absolute hardest with such a messy and unfocused script that really does not give them much to work with at all, Emilia Clarke’s character in particular is very blandly written and only gets worse during the finale (which that in itself is a whole other issue with the series that I’ll get to in a bit.)
One of the main problems here is the character development and a majority of the characters in general, the development for any of these characters outside of Nick Fury and maybe Talos is incredibly nonexistent. Emilia Clarke’s character G’iah had her moments but left so much to be desired, which is frustrating because I do think the father and daughter relationship that Talos and G’iah shined through at times but when it comes to just about everything else her character isn’t interesting at all.
Then we have the main villain of the series Gravik the leader of the rebel Skrulls (the Skrulls were in Captain Marvel I’ll get into why they do not work well at all in Secret Invasion in a bit) who is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir who doesn’t give a terrible performance just not a very memorable one, Gravik on the other hand is one of the most forgettable villains of the MCU and honestly one of the worst as well. Despite the series trying to make Gravik seem more than a villain who is evil for the sake of being evil there really isn’t anything compelling, unique or well written about the character. A majority of the time during the series he’s a hot head who just kills his own men.
Speaking of killing characters this show does a lot of it (I still don’t know how to feel about a certain character’s death in the first episode.) the problem is a majority of them are not interesting at the slightest, making the scenes they eventually get axed in lack any sort of interest. The Skrulls as I mentioned before were in Captain Marvel and while I didn’t like Captain Marvel at the very least in that movie the Skrulls had character to them granted the movie could have done a bit more but the ideas and character ideas were definitely there. In Secret Invasion with the exception of Talos they are restricted to either being henchmen who have no personality or just flat out being poorly written (G’iah and Gravik) as well as being used for a VERY stupid plot twist.
Finally there’s the finale episode 6 a disastrous way to end a series, I know a lot of people were divided on the finale of Wandavision but this is just awful, throughout the series it (for the most part) tried to stick with this political thriller atmosphere where the action scenes weren’t as flashy as a lot of other installments of the series. Even if the political thriller atmosphere was not good at all here, at the very least there was some consistency. However that gets thrown out the window with the final battle, suddenly becomes a flashy mess that even if you wanted to make the argument that it’s the final battle of course there’s going to be flashy action. That doesn’t take away that the CGI used is horrendous, the fight is between G’iah and Gravik two very uninteresting characters making the fight just dull.
Overall Secret Invasion is a gigantic mess, it’s a terrible series that has some decent performances and a few character moments but lacks in every other department.
After being kidnapped and transported to a strange world, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman unite to form a resistance and lead the planet to freedom.
Justice League: Warworld is the newest installment to the Tomorrowverse and well it sure is a DC animated movie that most certainly exists.
I hate having to repeat myself over and over again when one of these movies comes out, but once again this yet another DC animated movie that has some decent ideas but executes them in the most forgettable way possible.
The whole premise here is that Wonder Woman is in the old west, Batman is in a primordial Barbarian clan and Superman is in a 1930s mystery, interesting stuff yet the movie barely does anything with these ideas. It goes about as deep as a house tour where the guide just says “this is my living room” and doesn’t say anything else.
I guess the different styles are kind of neat and the voice acting is actually pretty decent, Darren Criss in particular does a solid job as Superman, plus I did enjoy Ike Amadi as Martian Manhunter. But really outside of that there is truly nothing here that is very memorable, granted I do think it’s a lot better than some of the last few installments in the Tomorrowverse. As this one genuinely tries to make it’s ideas work and there’s definitely a lot more effort put into this one.
It’s just mainly the writing that really holds Warworld back from being anything very memorable or having it’s ideas being executed well, the movie doesn’t do nearly as much with it’s characters as it should have. They ultimately feel like action figures being moved along in different scenery rather than actual well written characters.
Overall Justice League: Warworld is definitely one of the better installments of the Tomorrowverse but given the quality of the Tomorrowverse so far that’s really not saying all that much.
Justice League: Warworld is available on all VOD platforms.
Taking matters into his own hands, Detective Bob Hightower tries to infiltrate an evil cult to save his kidnapped daughter and avenge the murder of his wife.
God is a Bullet is directed by Nick Cassavetes (director of The Notebook, Alpha Dog, Other Woman, My Sister’s Keeper and a few others), the movie is based on the 1998 novel of the same name.
Going to be honest here there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one, I will clear up that for some reason a lot of sources say that God is a Bullet is 156 minutes long which is not the case it runs for 2 hours (I’ve actually been told that the movie is 156 minutes long but only the theater version I’m not sure what is right since I didn’t see it in theaters but I’ll put this here just in case) which is still a bit too long especially considering how dreadful the pacing is with this movie. But I thought that should be cleared up either way.
Anyway the acting and the filming are by far the highlights of the movie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is a pretty solid lead but the one who stands out is Maika Monroe once again she really shows her talent and completely takes over any scene she’s in really well. Everyone else did a pretty decent job but really nothing to write home about.
The trashy violent tone the movie is going for is quite interesting and actually pretty effective during first half of the movie, but slowly starts to get a bit old mainly due to just how repetitive the movie gets along with how dreadful the pacing is. It truly felt like a chore sitting through the last 30 or so minutes of the movie.
Honestly the main problem here is God is a Bullet is really nothing more than a revenge action thriller trying to be way more than it really is, it’s a simple enough premise that drags on for way too long and really doesn’t say or do anything very investing. It’s a well made and well acted movie but that’s really where it ends.
God is a Bullet is available on all VOD platforms.
Owen Browning is a straight-laced bank manager about to marry the love of his life, Parker. When his bank is held up by the Ghost Bandits during his wedding week, he believes his future in-laws who just arrived in town are the infamous outlaws.
I’ll give The Out-Laws this…it’s better than Tyler Spindel’s last two Netflix films The Wrong Missy and Father Of The Year. However that is really not saying much when you think back to how bad those two movies really were.
I can at the very least say with The Out-Laws there was a small level of attempt (and I mean very small) to try and make something work but that’s mainly through Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin, who are mainly funny due to them seeming like they don’t want to be on set (outside of a few moments). Adam DeVine like in most cases comes off as very unlikable almost immediately, his performance is extremely annoying spewing so much bad writing that is only made more insufferable due to his dreadful performance. Nina Dobrev isn’t horrible but she’s barely given anything to work with that could make into something interesting and compelling.
The writing is what seals the movie’s fate, it’s the exact sort of comedy you would expect from a Happy Madison and Netflix crossover. It’s the type of comedy that is so desperate for a laugh that it will just throw random, bizarre or flat out obvious joke that the viewer saw coming from a mile away and hope it sticks. If anything the only interesting about this movie is how anyone looked at the script and Adam DeVine’s performance and thought this was somehow a good idea.
An undercover CIA operative gets stuck in hostile territory in Afghanistan after his mission is exposed. Accompanied by his translator, he must fight enemy combatants as he tries to reach an extraction point in Kandahar.
Ric Roman Waugh and Gerard Butler team up for yet another action thriller movie this time Kandahar. It should be worth pointing out that Kandahar is based on the true story of a former military intelligence officer named Mitchell LaFortune.
Given this year’s recently released movie Plane which Gerard Butler was also in, I really wanted to like Kandahar but unfortunately this one really fell short in a lot of categories. I will say that Gerard Butler is quite great and the bond between Gerard Butler and Navid Negahban is undoubtedly great. There’s also some action scenes that are quite great as well particularly a night time action scene that stands out.
Other then that however the rest of the movie is a bit of a chore to get through, there’s way too much slow pacing, really not enough moments to get the viewer invested in this true story. Plus it quite honestly feels a bit more of the same thing Ric Roman Waugh has done previously, only that there aren’t as many action scenes and it isn’t as investing.
I have seen comparisons between Kandahar and Guy Richie’s The Covenant which released earlier this year. While I don’t necessarily think they are fully comparable, there is one big similarity both involve translators and showing how important they are. But much like The Covenant where I said in my review they really didn’t do much with the translators, Kandahar also doesn’t do much with the translators.
Overall Kandahar isn’t a bad movie, there’s a lot to like it just falls short when it comes to wanting to stand out. It quickly reminds you of better movies that already exist.
When a headstrong street orphan unwittingly taps into hidden powers, he discovers he might be the only person alive who can protect a reincarnated goddess who was sent to watch over humanity.
Before we get into things first a bit of history. Knights Of The Zodiac is based off of the anime series that ran from 1986-1989, as I said before in the past in some of reviews. I’m nowhere near as big with Anime as I once was but there are still a couple that I really like. One anime that I honestly completely forgot about was Knights Of The Zodiac, it wasn’t because of the quality or anything it’s just that I hadn’t seen or heard about it in years. I do remember watching a bit of the series when I was kid on Toonami and I remember liking it decently enough.
Apparently they made a 3D adaption called Knights Of The Zodiac: Saint Seiya which has 2 seasons, season 1 (2019-2020) and season 2 (2022), I haven’t seen the 3D series but from what I’ve read and heard it’s quite awful, but I guess they wanted to push it even further and bring in a live action movie.
Knights Of The Zodiac (2023) has very little going for it, honestly what got me interested was that Madison Iseman was casted, I loved her in the recent I Know What You Did Last Summer series (despite the flaws) unfortunately she’s not very good here and that’s mainly due to just how much of a mess script really is. Honestly the same can be said with a majority of the cast, they are given very little to work with and the only one who somewhat can get it to work is Famke Jansen, she definitely delivers the best moments of the movie but it’s unfortunately not quite enough to save the show.
In terms of story the movie really focuses on making this terrible origin story a very common problem that a lot of live action anime movies tend to have, I get it’s probably the best way to go about it when you are trying to introduce these characters to audiences who don’t watch anime. However there is no reason why they should always be this poorly written and this empty when comes to characters. Knights Of The Zodiac takes everything that was liked about the characters and turns them into very lifeless characters who are about as interesting as cardboard, as far as I’m aware this origin story that they made had absolutely nothing to do with the manga which makes this all the more puzzling as to why they even bothered in the first place.
I really wish there was more for me to say here, but a lot of this really speaks for itself. Knights Of The Zodiac is yet another horrendous live action anime adaption that both fans of the manga and anime plus people who have never even seen the series will absolutely dislike. Anything that was interesting about the original series is just not here at all, be sure to avoid this one.
Knights Of The Zodiac is available on all VOD platforms.
Jerome Reviews... 