Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Val1, May 4, 2012.

  1. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    The Quiet Gun (1957)
    Dir. William F. Claxton

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    Sheriff Brandon is troubled by a campaign waged by the town's attorney against one of the ranchers, supposedly at the behest of the town council. The man in question has been shacking up with an Indian girl following his estranged wife departure to stay with her family. The gossiping townfolks want to run him out of town for immoral behavior. Brandon knows that if they confront the rancher in question, a man who at one point was his closest friend, it is likely to end in bloodshed. When his fears are confirmed, he sets out to bring in his old friend, only a lynch mob rides out too, intent on beating him to the punch.

    Decent little western. The themes are pretty straightforward, but it's all well done. Features Mara Corday and a youngish Lee Van Cleef in supporting roles. Forrest Tucker is good as the decent, everyman Sheriff.
     
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  2. Belgian guy

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    The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
    Dir. Mike Newell

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    A writer looking for inspiration for a new book finds it in a correspondence with a resident from Guernsey, a small island in the Channel. The man in question recounts his experiences during the war, whilst Guernsey was occupied by the Germans and how he happened to form a literary society with a handful of other residents. The newly engaged writer departs for the island to find out more about them and in turn forms a strong attachment to the members of the society, whilst also learning about another young woman: a former member who touched the lives of the others in the group and whose absence has left a hole in their lives.

    I mostly liked this. It's charming, if a bit too long (kind of like its title). I love the cast, especially Lily James, Michiel Huisman and Matthew Goode. It's not meant to be very realistic, which is most apparent in the depiction of the German occupation of Guernsey. It's mostly about loss and the meaning of family.
     
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  3. yasik19

    yasik19 Moderator
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    Great book.
     
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  4. Belgian guy

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    Can't really say how faithful the movie is to the source material since I never read it.
     
  5. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Godzilla: King of Monsters (2019)
    Dir. Michael Dougherty

    [​IMG]

    Following the events of "Godzilla", the eponymous monster has officially disappeared. Unofficially, Monarch are closely tracking him. Besides that, they have identified seventeen more Titans like him, all of them dormant for the time being, monitored at various Monarch facilities around the globe. Until an eco-terrorist cell uses a device originally made to make the creatures more docile to wake them all up. In their desperation, humanity only has one savior to turn to: the King of the Monsters himself, Godzilla.

    I believe Godzilla purists don't like this movie, among other things for what it does to Mothra. As usual, the human stories in this are the least interesting aspect, yet I did enjoy some of the action set pieces. One annoying aspect here is how they seem to consciously edit the fights between the Titans in a way that makes it harder to follow, especially during the climax. This also doesn't feature any scene as spectacular as the first movie's HALO jump. Which apart from anything else, did a great job at portraying the scale of these monsters.

    Kyle Chandler returns to play his everyman character, Vera Farmiga is way overqualified for this material, Charles Dance is chewing scenery like no one's business as the villain du jour and Millie Bobbie Brown doesn't have enough to do to showcase the talent that made her a star on "Stranger Things". I also felt like Ken Watanabe was going through the motions a bit more than in the first film, to the point that I wondered if this was merely about fulfilling a contractual obligation for him.

    Did enough to keep me curious for Godzilla vs. Kong, if nothing else.
     
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  6. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    Dolemite (1975)

    After being framed by crooked cops, Dolemite has been behind bars for years. But the warden has finally started to believe Dolemite's story, and Dolemite is being released to clear his name and clean up the Fourth Ward. However, Mayor Daley(!), the man behind the drug and gun pushers and the crooked cops, wants Dolemite dead. Or maybe just arrested. Or bailed out after being arrested. They aren't very consistent. Fortunately, the women that used to work at Dolemite 's night club slash massage parlor have been practicing karate in the mean time.

    The movie is so amateurish and slap-dash and that alone is funny at first, but it grates after a while. What keeps you watching is Rudy Ray Moore's comedic timing and his occasional bursts of brilliant dialogue. I just wonder how they were able to create a film with real editing, sets, location shooting, numerous speaking roles, and extras because I have certainly seen far far worse in movies with actual plots and actors.

    I guess I'll have to watch the new Eddie Murphy movie about the history behind this film to find out.

     
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  7. Belgian guy

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    Den of Thieves (2018)
    Dir. Christian Gudegast

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    Ray Merrimen is the leader of an elite heist crew. Their latest job was a spectacular theft of an armored truck, which puts them onto the radar of L.A.'s major crimes unit. The leader of said unit, Big Nick O'Brien is a morally dubious character who is in charge of a crew of equally shady individuals. They make it their mission to capture Merrimen's unit in the act of committing a serious crime and they aren't afraid to bend and break the law to do so. Only it isn't ever clear who has the upper hand or the moral superiority.

    This is pretty referential, drawing heavily from movies like "Heat" and more recently "The Town". Which themselves were already borrowing heavily from Michael Mann's "Thief". As a genre exercise, it's not bad, if a bit too long at nearly 2.5 hours. Not sure if I would ever buy Gerard Butler as an L.A. native, but the rest of the cast is pretty decent. O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Ice Cube's kid) is pretty convincing as the driver with hidden depths.
     
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  8. Belgian guy

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    Night Hunter (2018)
    Dir. David Raymond

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    After finding the body of a young woman who has jumped to her death on top of a lumber truck, the cops in charge of the investigation discover the signs of a lengthy imprisonment on her body. Shortly thereafter, with the help of a vigilante, they actually find the man responsible and discover that the young woman they found earlier isn't the first one who was held captive and subsequently killed by him. Though the mentally challenged young man does not seem to fit their idea of a very organized serial killer. As they conduct interviews with the suspect, it is soon revealed that they don't yet have the full picture of the crime or the criminal in question.

    This was a very poor thriller, which probably explains its near immediate VOD release in spite of a very good cast. In terms of that cast, you have to wonder what the reason was for this ensemble to sign on to such poor material: Henry Cavill, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion, Alexandra Daddario, ... are the kind of actors you could definitely make a far better film with than this. It also doesn't look like a particularly high budget production so I can't imagine the paycheck was the deciding factor either.
     
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  9. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    Notting Hill - 1999 - Dir - Roger Michell

    20 yr old rom-com hasn't lost its luster.
     
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  10. Belgian guy

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    Ma (2019)
    Dir. Tate Taylor

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    Shortly after moving to a small town in Mississippi from her former San Diego home, Maggie befriends a group of kids who introduce her to the weekend social life. With few other options, they try to find some adult to buy them booze and then hang out at one of the few spots they aren't likely to be bothered by the cops. One day, the person buying them their alcohol is a middle-aged veterinary assistant who seems more up for the shady task than most adults are. On their second time of asking for her help, she improves her offer by not just giving them the booze itself but also a place to safely party without the cops bothering them: her home's basement. After some hesitation, the kids accept and the place becomes the unlikely party location for them and other high school kids. Until it is slowly revealed that the woman's largess to the local kids has very dark motives.

    Apart from the silly premise, the writing in general is pretty subpar here. Octavia Spencer does a good job (her delivery of one expletive is especially memorable) but even she cannot salvage this film. There are some decent actors in supporting roles, among them Luke Evans, Juliette Lewis and especially Allison Janney (who has very little to do). Not the greatest of Blumhouse's recent and semi-recent releases by any means.
     
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  11. Belgian guy

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    Hoax (2019)
    Dir. Matt Allen

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    Following the death and disappearance of six college students in the woods of South-West Colorado, a down on his luck TV producer cashes in his last favor to finance a team which will go to that area to investigate if the deaths can be linked to a bear attack or if there is some truth to the rumors of a Bigfoot like huge primate roaming around there. His team includes a security expert, local guide, a self-declared Big Foot expert, a Dr. who primarily studies primates, a camera man and the on air talent, a diva-esque reporter who will present the documentary.

    After initially not finding much of anything, things change when one of their group disappears and they find signs of a struggle in the nearby woods. Is there some truth to the legend after all or is someone ********ing with them?

    This monster/horror flick did not meet my very modest expectations of it. It's fairly mediocre fare throughout only to become horrendously bad towards the end of the film. The cast is forgettable too (not sure how Brian Thompson ended up in this flick) apart from perhaps Shoshana Bush, who does a decent job playing the bitchy reporter.
     
  12. Belgian guy

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    Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
    Dir. Andrew Kerr

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    A cyber attack leaves all of MI6's field agents burned. To investigate the attack, they have no choice but to bring back a retired agent. The choice falls on Johnny English, who has gone into teaching after his British Intelligence career ended. Together with his old partner Bough, English and his usual bumbling-yet-unwittingly-effective style gets onto the trail of a Russian woman who possibly has a connection to the cyber attack, after the investigation brings him to the South of France.

    Fifteen years after the original film and seven years after the most recent sequel, I think this is very much a film that will have been a surprise to even those who liked the earlier entries into this franchise. This is far from a great movie yet after thirty years of enjoying Rowan Atkinson's work, I can even appreciate his presence in subpar fare. Emma Thompson seems to have some fun with her Prime Minister role and Olga Kurylenko is very enjoyable in this, so much so that I think the action-comedy genre might be her ideal niche. I did love those cameos in the old agents scene.
     
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  13. Belgian guy

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    John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
    Dir. Chad Stahelski

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    Following the events of the second movie, John Wick finds himself Excommunicado by the High Table for having killed on the premises of the Continental Hotel. He has to flee, with many assassins in hot pursuit, eager for the 14 million dollar bounty on his head. He cashes in his last few favors to get himself a meeting with the Elder in Morocco, he gives him one final chance to redeem himself and have the Excommunicado order lifted.

    Entertaining sequel that doesn't really do much to expand upon the existing franchise or its mythology. In terms of the action set pieces, I thought it honestly took until the Continental shoot-out until things started truly cooking John Wick style. The Casablanca set piece was fine but I was a bit distracted by how they tried to shoe-horn in the - admittedly pretty cool - dogs into the action. Using them more sparingly might have been better.

    The Boban Marjanovic cameo was fun (once again reminding me that you never realize just how tall NBA players are until you see them next to a more regular sized human). The director/screenwriters seemed to have made it a sport to include many movie references. I myself spotted nods to at least The Good the Bad and the Ugly, True Lies, Lawrence of Arabia, The Villainess, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Matrix, Enter the Dragon and The Raid. Not sure if all of these worked or fit as well into this movie as they obviously thought.

    Definitely leaves room for a fourth movie which I'm guessing in a sequel crazy world is almost certainly going to happen.

    The supporting cast is fine, with Ian McShane and Lance Reddick returning as the stewards of the Continental, Halle Berry making the most out of her section of the film, Anjelica Huston happily chewing scenery as the matriarch of her crime family. My three favorites are the duo of Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayay Ruhian who play two skilled assassins and who will be very familiar to fans of The Raid franchise as well as Asia Kate Dillon as the mysterious Adjudicator.
     
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  14. Belgian guy

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    The Mustang (2019)
    Dir. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre

    [​IMG]

    Roman is a prison inmate with a lot of anger issues. After being released back into the general population, he gets the opportunity to participate in a special prison program in which prison inmates help break in wild mustangs. Roman gets paired up with perhaps the most unruly horse of the new bunch and the beginning of their relationship is rocky, though slowly horse and man gain each others trust. At the same time, Roman is reconnecting with his estranged daughter and is being threatened by a fellow inmate who wants to turn Roman into an in-prison drug mule.

    I think Matthias Schoenaerts is a very good, interesting actor who can display an intensity that few can match. I also think his English-language work has so far been underwhelming for the most part and definitely falling short of the quality he has displayed in his native language as well as in some of the French-speaking roles he has done. His work in this film is by far the best thing he has done in Anglo-Saxon cinema. Perhaps it is partially because he can lean primarily on body language and his physicality, since his character has a certain sparseness with his words. Features supporting roles by Bruce Dern and Connie Britton.
     
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  15. Belgian guy

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    Should add that one scene in particular was very beautifully done (the inmates all riding their horses outside of the prison walls) and reminded me a bit of the Western "Yellow Sky".

    Which then reminded me that the latter film also features an unlikely tender moment between an outlaw and a horse.
     
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  16. Unheardwaves

    Unheardwaves New Member

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    I just watched The Great Hack on Netflix, definitely an interesting watched, even though I wouldn't call two of those "whistleblowers"..
     
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  17. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

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    #7317 usscouse, Aug 27, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2019
    I havent looked in here for a while. I'm retired so my time isn't my own any more. :)

    Love some of the movies mentioned and the write ups. Our Belgian friend hasn't lost his enthusiasm for "crappy" movies. Sorry I meant offbeat. :)

    I haven't been to the flicks for a while but we did make a point of going to see "Yesterday". (So I'm from Liverpool)

    Fun movie with an original premise, for me that is.
    One evening, one time for a couple of minutes the whole world blacks out. Total no electricity at all, causing Jack to have an accident.
    Next day no one has ever heard of the Beatles. There are no records, albums, TV or movie shows.
    Except for one guy, an aspiring, yet failing solo singer. Jack, played by Himesh Patel. Jack looks on Google for Beatles and all he can find is beetles.
    Fun from there as he slowly becomes famous for "his" Beatles songs. The Lovely Lily James plays his friend and agent.
    Plenty of fun Beatles references and quips (Nah, you should call it Hey Dude!) including a chat with one of them.

    If you're looking for some real lighthearted family fun (if your kids know who the Beatles are. :)) if you're tired of shoot'em ups or freeking Captain Amerca. Then I wouldn't miss this.

    image.jpg
     
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  18. Bluto11

    Bluto11 The sky is falling!

    May 16, 2003
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    Watched Mortal Engines last night, since it is on HBO

    [​IMG]

    I enjoyed it, not sure why everyone hated it so much
     
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  19. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    Blitz (2011)

    Jason Statham is a hyper-violent cop who is given an acceptable reason to use hyper-violence. The meaningless details that separate this from a thousand other similar movies are that this takes place in South East London with accents to match, the bad guy is a serial cop killer, and there is a B story about a cop out of rehab looking out for a kid in a gang.

    Statham has certain qualities that elevate a few specific types of movies. The director of Blitz used none of those qualities, resulting in a performance so one dimensional its mathematical purity is a wonder to behold. Roughly a modern version of Dirty Harry, it dumbs down the various interplays of the press, the police, and legalisms. while anachronistically keeping the concept that a cop's hard boiled credentials come from displays of misogyny and homophobia. The only good thing about the movie is Aidan Gillen, who plays the bad guy with maniacal energy reminiscent of Andrew Robinson's Scorpio. I was hoping he would be seen in bigger things since Blitz, but he seems to have been stuck in some pay cable fantasy series for years now.
     
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  20. Belgian guy

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    He is fantastic in "Calvary" as something of a sociopathic doctor.

     
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  21. Belgian guy

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    Train to Busan (2016)
    Dir. Sang-ho Yeon

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    Seok-woo is a workaholic hedge fund manager who neglects his child and who only agrees to take her to see her mother in Busan on her birthday out of guilt of having missed a recital and generally having messed up getting her a good and personal gift for said birthday. They travel to their destination by train, only the trip is quickly interrupted by the presence on the train of an infected individual who soon collapses. After she regains consciousness, she seems no longer truly human and becomes hyper-aggressive. Soon the entire train is overrun by those zombies and Seok-woo, his daughter and other passengers who survived the initial onslaught have to fight for their lives as the train slowly but surely nears the supposed safe haven of Busan.

    I had heard a lot of good things about this but had not gotten around to watching it mostly due to a bit of fatigue in terms of zombie movies and TV shows. However, this is as good as advertised. Obviously with the subject matter being so overused in recent years it is hard to reinvent the wheel, but this is a very well executed action-horror-thriller that never lets up once it gets truly going around the twenty minute mark. The ensemble is enjoyable company, my personal favorite is Dong-seok Ma as the brawny behemoth with the heart of gold.
     
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  22. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    The Equalizer 2 (2018)

    The movie doesn't even start its main plot until 45 minutes in, but I'm not complaining. What we get in that beginning period is basically an episode of the old Equalizer TV show with McCall helping those that need help, if a little lacking in narrative and a lot overflowing in blood. I like how they updated the iconic classified ad of the original with him catching stories of people in need by being a Lyft driver.

    After that it's a Denzel revenge film of the kind we've seen many times before. But I'm not complaining about that either. Denzel is really good in those, as it generally takes a higher quality actor to do this kind of movie compared to a standard action film. But what makes this stand up a bit above the crowd is an argument given by the bad guy before the revengencing begins, and he's proposing that the whole concept of revenge is false. All of the main figures in the film began as government agents, and while Washington left to go the way of the emotionally satisfying, the others went towards killing for private interests with zero thought as to why the people needed killing. Head bad guy was arguing that they are all the same in the end - it's all just killing. But it's not just ways of killing - it's ways of living. Do you live as someone programmed to be part of a larger system, as the star of the story in your head, or just for getting ahead without concern for the larger picture? Of course, as a movie this was always going to fall on the pro-story side. The failure of the bad guys wasn't running into Denzel. It was a failure of their philosophy. Without the larger picture, their initial crime required cleaning up which required more cleaning up which would have lead to their unavoidable demise eventually.
     
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  23. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    Prospect (2018)

    Teenager Cee and her father Damon set their drop pod on a forest moon. The planet teems with life, including poisonous spores that fill the air. They are after gems that form in biological constructs underground. Very difficult to mine, but very valuable, the moon saw a mining bubble grow and then pop. Damon is sure there is still something there, and they have a very limited window to get it. They didn't count on other people still being on there. Faced with outlaws, mercs, former miners gone native, and a very drug dependent dad, Cee has to grow up really quick.

    Firefly meets hard sci-fi and this is absolutely brilliant if you are a fan of either. The dialog has that same music as the dialog on Joss Whedon's show (although more retro-future than pidgin English), it has the same frontier atmosphere (although more gold rush than cowboy), and it takes that desperate, poverty-stricken mood Firefly occasionally hits and just goes the extra dimension. The tech is 1980's sci-fi - chunky, physical, beige, and well used, but it's all perfect and seamless and immersive. You just get it. If you're 50ish, I guess. Great characters, great music, great acting. One of those small budget films that let its limitations hone its form to a fine edge.

    Strangely enough, the same actor played the bad guy in this film and in Equalizer 2 and I didn't even know it until I went to Wikipedia to dig up the picture. He has some range I guess. Or I'm rather oblivious.
     
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  24. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Based on your review, I'm definitely going to check this out.
     
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  25. Belgian guy

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    Anna (2019)
    Dir. Luc Besson

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    We follow Anna, a woman living and working as a model in early 1990s Paris. Through a series of flashbacks it is revealed that she is actually a wet work specialist working for the KGB whose loyalties aren't as clear as they originally seem. Aided by a series of increasingly less believable plot twists, we follow her path to freedom and independence.

    This is something we have seen before from Luc Besson. So not much about this is original or surprising. Nor is the fact that he once again deeply fetishizes his female lead, something that used to be mildly creepy but which after the MeToo style accusations about him has a slightly more sinister tinge. In spite of its lack of originality and the deep silliness of some of the plot (if not most of it), I can't claim that I did not still enjoy much of this. Perhaps the best thing about the movie is Helen Mirren, eagerly chewing scenery as a KGB operative who knows where all the bodies are buried and has little time and patience for fools.

    Most of Luc Besson's work finds itself somewhere on a spectrum in between high-grade trash and overly pretentious camp. I'm glad to say that Anna finds itself very much in the first category. That does not take away from the aforementioned silliness. In spite of most of the action taking place between roughly 1985 and 1992 there is zero effort spent on making the technology era appropriate. There is an extended montage set to INXS in which Besson seems to be paying homage to the female assassin genre, including nods to his own films of the past. The fight scenes and gun-fu aren't up to John Wick quality, but there are still some fun sequences in there, including one in which she beats up some dudes with broken dinner plates. I'm not sure if model-turned-actress Sasha Luss is the next coming of Meryl Streep but since Besson primarily needs her to look fierce and dangerous in high heels, she is more than up to the task.

    Flashy and dumb in the best possible way.
     
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