All Too Familiar: A Review of Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part I

 directed by Christopher McQuarrie

written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendersen

Tom Cruise is a wizard.

Around December 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a story that went around the entertainment press about the troubles facing the production of Mission: Impossible 7 which was taking place in London at the time.  The trouble was that members of the crew had been caught violating the ultra-strict COVID-19 safety protocols and as a result, star and producer Tom Cruise, still in costume, went ballistic on the crew in an expletive-laden rant. There was  a picture of him, dressed in character, wearing a mask, holding a megaphone and looking very much like the man in charge he was. That story dominated the conversation about this movie for years until the marketing began in earnest, and all they could talk about was the stunt of Tom Cruise jumping off a cliff with a motorbike. 

And now, the movie came out after literally years of people talking about its production...and it's...okay.

After a lengthy prologue in which a Soviet submarine is sunk by its very own targeting system, which is operated by an Artificial Intelligence, the Impossible Mission Force contacts Ethan Hunt (Cruise) with a mission: recover a cruciform key to unlocking the very A.I. that sunk the Soviet submarine. It is an extremely potent AI, capable of basically taking over the world, so naturally ever other government in the world wants its hands on that key, as does the AI itself. Knowing what it does, which is apparently nearly everything, the AI also has another ace up its sleeve; it has engaged the services of Gabriel (Esai Morales) a highly effective assassin with a bit of history with Hunt; he murdered his girlfriend years  ago, which spurred Ethan to join the IMF. With an adversary this formidable, will Ethan and his allies Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) be able to save the day? And how will the intervention of master thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) affect everyone's plans?

I'll say it again, Tom Cruise is a wizard....because he has somehow convinced over ninety percent of critics polled by Rotten Tomatoes, as well as several other people, that this film is a high watermark of action filmmaking.

Now, don't get me wrong: it's a very competently made action thriller, but the problem I have with this film is that so much of what supposedly makes it special is stuff that we have already seen before, whether in previous installments of this very series or in rival franchises like the John Wick films. 

Take, for example, the gun battle in the beginning of the film; it feels like warmed-up leftovers after the madness of John Wick 4 earlier this year. None of the hand-to-hand fights in this film even begin to compare to the show-stopping men's room fight in Mission Impossible: Fallout which featured Cruise's Ethan Hunt, Henry Cavill's August Walker (complete with his now-iconic "arm reload") and an extremely formidable opponent.  The car chase through Rome feels like something that's been done too many times before, whether it was in John Frankenheimer's Ronin, Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity, Sam Mendes' Spectre, or even Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.  Finally, the film's signature stunt, the motorcycle jump off a cliff, felt like a retread of Fallout's HALO jump.  

Once upon a time, the M.I. guys, when it came to practical, flesh-and-blood stunts, were pretty much the only game in town. Other blockbusters had already started leaning heavily on computer-generated imagery for their action sequences, but Tom Cruise and his indefatigable stunt team, bless their hearts, kept things real. This was  endearing to critics and audiences, and it made each new installment, starting with Brad Bird's sublime Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol feel like an event. 

Unfortunately, in the twelve years that have passed since Ghost Protocol, stuntmen like Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have started directing and producing movies, bringing their distinct sensibilities with them and suddenly, we have movies like Nobody, Kate and of course John Wick filling our screens, big and small, with white-knuckle, heart-stopping action sequences that feel as real as they possibly could without causing the stars of the films serious injury. It's become a very crowded marketplace, in short.

I'm looking forward to the end of this series, because as with Indiana Jones, I think this franchise has pretty much run its course. I just hope they go out in style. 

7/10

 

Sending Indy Off...Again?!? A Review of Indiana Jones: the Dial of Destiny

 directed by James Mangold

written by John-Henry Butterworth, Jez Butterworth, David Koepp and James Mangold

I'll be blunt; I despised Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As far as I was concerned, the franchise ended with Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones literally riding off into the sunset with his dad played by Sean Connery and his friends played by John Rhys-Davis and Denholm Elliott in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  The fourth Indiana Jones movie felt distinctly tacked on, and worse still, as I watched it, I got the distinct impression that nobody involved, from Harrison Ford to Steven Spielberg, really wanted to be there. 

As a result, when they announced a few years back that they were actually developing a fifth Indiana Jones movie, back then with Spielberg still slated to direct, I honestly did not mind.  I didn't even mind when they announced that Spielberg had stepped back from directing duties, with James Mangold, director of Logan and Ford v. Ferrari, both movies that I loved, taking over.

I only started getting worried when I read about its lukewarm reception from critics and audiences, as well as the plethora of right-leaning critics dogpiling the film as "more woke trash" thanks to the prominent role of British writer/actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  

Still, I persevered, and watched it, and you know what? In spite of everything, I actually liked it, despite its bloated running time, Bridge's admittedly obnoxious character and some pretty chuckle-inducing CGI at key moments. 

The film starts in 1945 in the dying days of World War II, with Indy (a digitally de-aged Ford superimposed over a much younger body double) and his buddy Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) stealing an ancient artifact called Archimedes' Antikythera, the titular  Dial of Destiny, from the Nazis, headed by physicist Jorgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen).  Indy and Basil jump the Nazi train just before Allied Forces blow it up, and presumably all's well that ends well.

Flash forward to 1969. The moon landing has just taken place, and Indiana Jones is old and embittered due to a personal tragedy that ruined his marriage to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and is basically going through the motions of his teaching job until his retirement, when he is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of two different people: Basil's daughter and Indy's goddaughter Helena (Waller-Bridge) and Voller, now going by the name Schmidt and flanked by several U.S. government agents, having been recruited by the U.S. government after World War II to help them win the space race. Both parties want one thing that Indy has stashed away in the university where he works: Archimedes' Antikythera. The madcap adventure that follows leads Indy halfway across the world, from Morocco to Sicily as he races against time to prevent Voller from using the dial for a truly nefarious purpose.

To be clear: if this movie had come out as a direct sequel to the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I would probably have despised it.  While it was, if nothing else, a competent action-adventure movie, it really wouldn't have made sense to append it to a trilogy made by a master filmmaker at the very height of his powers.

The fact is, however, that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was so bad it created the need for this film.  There is simply no other way to put it.

On its own, the film has its merits.  The action sequence that opens the movie, as well as the madcap car chase that takes place through the streets of Morocco featuring two cars and a tuktuk, of all things, were genuine fun that, in my opinion at least, captured some semblance of the spirit of the original films, if only just.   The remainder of the action was hamstrung by either too much darkness like the underwater and cave scenes or some very regrettable CGI, like the big climax.  Harrison Ford still cuts an amazing figure even at 80 years, though he was aided and abetted quite a bit by CGI and a body double, especially in the beginning sequence.  Mads Mikkelsen turned in his usual solid performance as Voller, while Boyd Holbrook, who once menaced Hugh Jackman in Mangold's Logan, played yet another homicidal henchman. I actually liked the CIA Agent played by Shaunette Renee Wilson, but she didn't have a whole lot of screentime, nor did Antonio Banderas' diving expert Renaldo. The supposed "new blood" introduced by the movie didn't really do anything for me at all, whether it was Waller-Bridge as Helena, or Ethann Isidore as her sidekick Teddy, who was sort of an updated Short Round with a creepy little moustache.  I would much rather have had a cameo by Ke Huy Quan, to be honest, but that was not to be, unfortunately.  

I'd argue, more than anything, though, that the script was what let this movie down time and again, with its easy reliance on numerous tropes as well as some really sloppy storytelling, like the magical device that enabled the bad guys to know exactly where Indy and company were heading after each escape. While it's easy to bash any movie that features CGI these days, and this film is no exception, I think it's worth pointing out that Industrial Light and Magic did a very decent job de-aging Harrison Ford and mapping him onto a younger actor capable of physical derring-do. Sure, they used the age-old trick of shrouding it all in darkness, but that's their prerogative anyway. 

When the film ended it left me feeling much, much better about the franchise than the last one did, but I will say this: it really is time to let this franchise end. 

7/10

Familiar but Still Kind of Fresh: A Review of Elemental

 directed by Peter Sohn

written by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh (with Sohn)

Elemental marks the first time since 2017 that Walt Disney Pictures has released into theaters on a worldwide scale an original film not based on any previous property like Toy Story or The Incredibles. It carries a heavy burden of a sort, especially considering that Pixar's last theatrical release post-pandemic, the spinoff Lightyear, flopped upon release a year ago, costing the studio millions and the director his job. 

Set in a fantastical world populated by anthropomorphic versions of the four elements, air, water, earth and fire, the film tells the story of fire girl Ember (Leah Lewis) the daughter of immigrants to Element City Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) who run a convenience store which Ember is set to inherit when her parents retire. The only problem is that Ember has a bit of a temper, which makes it challenging for her to deal with the inevitable difficult customer, as a result of which Bernie puts off retiring as long as he can. One day, however, he puts her in charge of a major sale, during which Ember of course loses her temper yet again. As she rushes down to the basement to blow off steam, however, she ends up bursting water pipes that had long thought to be dry, and ends up sucking city inspector and water guy Wade (Mamoudou Athie) into her home. Desperate to prevent Wade from reporting her father's stores various infractions to City Hall, Ember tails Wade and pleads with his boss air lady Gale (Wendy McLendon-Covey), and is given the briefest of reprieves to fix the problems. In the days that ensure, Ember and Wade learn to work together, unbeknownst to Bernie and Cinder, to solve the store's problems and experience the unlikeliest of attractions to each other.

This is Peter Sohn's second feature length film from Pixar, the first being 2015's The Good Dinosaur, a film which, even before Pixar was waylaid in its momentum by the pandemic, had the dubious distinction of being the rare Pixar film that a) bombed at the box office and b) was frightfully boring.

The good news is that Elemental, for all its flaws, is, at the very least, not boring. It tells an engaging story about two generations of immigrants and how the children of immigrants often face the dilemma of living up to their parents' dreams.  Sohn, who came up with the story, draws on his own personal experience as the son of Korean immigrants, and it shines through in the interaction between Ember and her aging dad, which is played very effectively by voice actors Leah Lewis and Ronnie del Carmen, the latter of whom is actually a veteran Pixar animator who has worked on some of their most significant movies like Inside Out and who, in my opinion, deserves to direct his own movie more than Sohn deserved this second crack at directing after the grossly mediocre Good Dinosaur.  Ahem.  Well, at least this movie is not about cowboy dinosaurs like that one was, so the narrative works when it focuses on the parent-child dynamic.

The fire and water love story, however, which was front and central to the film's marketing and is supposed to be a central aspect of the film as well, is nowhere near as compelling as the filmmakers seem to think it is. Sohn mercifully eschews the more conventional aspects of the "meet cute" such as an openly antagonistic relationship between the two characters, but even then he cannot help but have the characters drift into cliche time and time again. It doesn't help that, if I'm frank, Ember can be distinctly unlikeable while Wade, despite his clearly tragic backstory, seems genuinely uninteresting.   In short, fleshing out the two protagonists as individuals, instead of leaning much more heavily into Ember's complicated, culturally-infused relationship with her dad, would have really helped the love story along a lot more. 

The good news, though, is that the film is drop dead gorgeous. Sure, it is highly evocative of the visuals of Zootopia, another movie with diverse anthropomorphic creatures living in a city, but Pixar clearly tried to give this film its own visual identity, including each of the key characters.  

I also appreciated a lively score by Pixar mainstay Thomas Newman, best known for Finding Nemo and WALL-E.  While Newman's signature sound permeates it, there are new elements like new-age, Enya-like vocals supplementing it as well this time.

This is a far cry from Pixar's best work, but I'm grateful for it, and if they are to continue to convince audiences to catch their movies on the big screen instead of at home on Disney+, they need to keep making movies along this vein and, I hope, with better storytelling. 

7.5/10 

Grotesquely Bad Faith: Why the Flash Deserved to Flop

 I generally don't cheer when a movie fails. I've given bad reviews to movies I don't like, regardless of their success or failure, but I don't generally celebrate a movie flopping. 

I will make an exception for The Flash, though, even though I haven't seen it, because more than anything in recent memory, it illustrates Hollywood's unparalleled hubris when it comes to making movies. 

Well before The Flash began principal photography, Ezra Miller was caught on video choking a woman in Iceland in April 2020. I found this news story such an oddity when it first broke, but the world was in lockdown then and there were other things to worry about, so I forgot about it.   Warner Brothers was fully aware of this and yet pushed through with Miller, shooting their blighted movie a year later, in April of 2021.  Incidentally, around the same time, they fired Johnny Depp from another movie because of his legal troubles (that he eventually overcame), but more on that later. 

When Warner Brothers finally dropped a trailer for The Flash in early 2022, I suddenly found myself remembering that April 2020 news report and asking, "whatever came of that?" I even posted a vlog entry about it on my now dormant YouTube channel. The story had been quite effectively buried; I couldn't find anything more substantial about it than people sharing opinions on message boards.  Not a lot of people watched my video, but some of the few who did reacted dismissively, saying that I was making a big deal out of nothing, with at least one commenter saying "dude, it was a joke" with no real evidence to back up this assertion.  I wanted to make it a jumping off point for discussing how hypocritically selective Hollywood's cancel culture is, considering what had happened to Johnny Depp, but as a talking point it kind of went nowhere.

It's pretty common knowledge what happened after that; Miller's legal troubles came to light, one after the other, Warner Brothers embarked on a bizarre marketing campaign that excluded Miller, but included random celebrities like Tom Cruise and Stephen King, and the film went on to flop in the most spectacular fashion imaginable, with its second weekend box-office drop being the worst in the history of the now doomed DC Extended Universe. 

I'd like to reiterate: Warner Brothers had a pretty good hint of the s**tstorm to come when Miller choked that woman in Iceland a full year before a single frame of The Flash had even been shot. With shooting halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they had a full year to recalibrate, including the opportunity to recast the role with someone who wouldn't have been a lightning rod for controversy, like Grant Gustin for example. For reasons only they know, though, they thought they could magically make their problems go away by pretending Miller's shenanigans never happened. 

It is debatable whether or not Miller's legal problems were what effectively kneecapped The Flash's box-office prospects, but what I respectfully submit is not up for debate is that this was entirely and completely avoidable. Warner Brothers could have fired Miller the same way they fired Johnny Depp, but they chose not to, and I wonder if we'll ever find out why.  Whatever they would have lost in buying out Miller's contract, assuming they even had to, could not possibly compare to the tens--possibly hundreds--of millions they are now destined to lose on this movie.  I find myself cringing at the arrogance of the Warner Brothers execs who greenlit this movie thinking that what was happening in the real world would not ultimately affect their bottom line. It's fitting that their heads rolled long before this movie was crapped into theaters, though part of me wishes they'd been around to reap the fruits of their hubris. 

Warner Brothers' rivals over at Disney/Marvel would do well to pay attention, given that two of their own stars are now facing legal troubles of their own. Now, while admittedly Jonathan Majors and Tenoch Huerta may triumph over their legal troubles as Johnny Depp did, Disney should, at the very least, tread carefully.

SPOILER DISCUSSION on Across the Spider-Verse

 Again, HEAVY SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.  It admittedly seems silly to still be putting spoiler warnings for a movie that has already been in theaters for around a month, but I want to make absolutely sure nobody stumbles onto this post by mistake. 

One of the greatest virtues of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is, ironically enough, one of its greatest vices as well. It deconstructs the notion of what defines Spider-Man by challenging one of the very central pillars of the Spider-Man story: tragedy.

Miles Morales, the central character of Across the Spider Verse and Gwen Stacy, who is arguably his co-lead in this film, have both experienced their fair share of life-defining tragedies.  Miles' uncle Aaron who moonlighted as the Prowler, died at the hands of the Kingpin, while Gwen inadvertently killed her best friend, Peter Parker, who fought her to the death as the Lizard. 

According to the Spider Society led by Spider-Man 2099, however, this isn't enough; just as Peter Parker, in his many iterations across the multi...err...Spider-verse, has had to suffer the death of Captain George Stacy, so must Miles suffer the death of his police captain father (as he did, incidentally, in the 2018 Playstation 4 game Spider-Man). So committed, in fact, is the Spider Society to bringing about this "canon event" as they call it, that they imprison Miles to make sure he cannot prevent it from happening.

Now, this was a real "wait, what?" moment for me and not for the reasons that I think the filmmakers may have intended it to be.

The idea of imprisoning someone who is out to save his father's life is, to the best of my knowledge as a regular Spider-Man reader for nearly forty years, not something any Peter Parker would agree to, let alone a multitude of them.  This is NOT the same thing as Peter Porker telling Miles he can't save everyone in the first film after his uncle's death at Kingpin's hands, nor is it the same thing as Peter Parker of the PS4 game choosing to save New York with the cure for the city wide pandemic, even if it means that Aunt May dies from the disease in the process. This is hordes of different versions of Peter Parker, agreeing that a precognitive process that is, at best, questionable, should take precedence over the impulse to help people, which is what Spider-Man does. The film is asking us to believe that Peter Parker, or worse, MANY Peter Parkers, would agree to let people die and would even IMPRISON someone out to prevent it.

Suddenly, the Spider Society doesn't feel like a realm full of Spider-Mans nearly as much as it does a realm full of Spider-Man editors, those eternally anonymous, utterly insufferable bogeymen who have, for decades, foisted narrative abominations on hapless readers like "Sins Past," "One More Day," and most recently, "What Did Peter Do?"  These people are the real reason why Peter Parker cannot hold down a regular job, unlike, say Clark Kent, or keep a stable relationship, unlike, say Reed Richards; because his life, like that of an eternal adolescent, has to remain mired in tragedy, trauma and personal setbacks. Peter has actually obtained a graduate degree throughout his sixty years of existence in publication, but depending on which branch of editorial you ask, some would say he hasn't even graduated from college.

Miles is no exception to Marvel's addiction to tragedy; in the early, Ultimate Universe iteration of the book, his mother Rio died from a gunshot wound, which actually caused Miles to quit being Spider-Man. Marvel walked the death back when they transplanted him from the Ultimate to the mainstream 616 universe, but elsewhere, Miles has seen his dad die (the PS4) game, or his uncle (Into the Spider-Verse).

I appreciate the fact that this movie pushes back against that concept and its proponents, and even ends on a cliffhanger that strongly suggests that for Miles to lose his dad would only push him into villainy, contrary to the Spider Society's thesis that he needs the tragedy to become a fully-realized hero.  It's something that needs to be said, after all. There is far more to being Spider-Man than just reacting to personal tragedy.  

My problem is that in trying to make this point, the movie dehumanizes its army of Spider-Men into mindless automatons ready to do Spider-Man 2099's bidding, a whole bunch of sheep who have bought wholesale into this concept of "the canon" without any semblance of critical thinking, which seems problematic when one considers that most incarnations of Spider-Man are supposed to have, as their alter-egos, geniuses. 

I enjoyed the movie, make no mistake, but in trying to make a broader point I feel it undermined its narrative ever so slightly. I don't know if anyone else shares my opinion, but I stand by it just the same. 

Defining Spider-Man: A Review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

 directed by Kemp Powers, Joaquim dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson

written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham

This review, like my viewing of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, is a bit of overdue, in part due to my soon-to-be-ex internet service provider, and in part because I actually struggled a little with what I wanted to say about this movie, which I honestly found brilliant but a significant part of which I actually found problematic. I won't be able to discuss that without spoiling plot points, so I'll keep my review short and post the usual spoiler-review follow-up.

In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which takes place a little over a year after the events of the first film, Into the Spider-Verse, we find Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) adjusting to his life as both Spider-Man and a high school student, when he encounters a new foe, the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) a former scientist who was apparently transformed into a living portal gun by the events of the last film, and who has since turned to a life of crime. Because of the Spot's ability to create portals into other dimensions, he has also come up on the radar of Gwen Stacy, aka Ghost Spider (Hailee Steinfeld) who, in the beginning of the film, joins up with a society of Spider-Men from multiple realities, led by Miguel O'Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac).  She tracks the Spot back to Miles' home universe and cannot resist the urge to meet up with Miles, even as she tries, and fails to catch her quarry.  Miles, who has missed Gwen and his other Spider-friends terribly since the end of the last film, follows Gwen back to the Spider Society's massive headquarters and even accompanies them on their mission to capture the Spot.  When Miles does something that apparently violates one of the central tenets of the Spider Society, things degenerate fast. Will Miles be able to get home in time to stop the Spot from carrying out his nefarious plan?

The film is superbly made and is a visual masterpiece. After changing the game with the first movie, it was hard to imagine how Sony would be able to top themselves, but they managed to just the same, and everyone involved basically brought their A-game, from the directors and animators, to the voice actors like Moore, Steinfeld, and Isaac, to composer Daniel Pemberton. The artistry on display here is simply second to none. It's not just like watching a comic book come to life; this basically feels like an entire art gallery.

That said, well, there was a story beat that I found out of place, but I dare not discuss it lest I spoil several key plot points. It should be said, though that even in the face of this problem I have with the story, I'm only docking the movie one point. It's simply that good.   

9/10 

Bigger and Better: A Review of Extraction 2

 directed by Sam Hargrave

written by Joe Russo

I'll be honest; I thought so little of the first Extraction film that I didn't bother to watch it until nearly a year after its release, content to watch it on my phone while waiting for my wife.  I had no interest in most of Netflix's movies, finding them to be generic, forgettable affairs reminiscent of the straight-to-cable movies of old.  I ended up enjoying it way more than I thought I would, so much so that when the sequel, Extraction 2 dropped last Friday, I made sure to catch it on the biggest screen I had access to, so I plopped in front of my modestly-sized TV and tuned in. 

At the end of the first movie, mercenary/exfiltration expert Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) was shot in the neck and fell off a bridge in India, and as a result, he spends much of the beginning of this movie being nursed back to health by his colleagues Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) and her brother Yaz (Adam Bessa). He is then apparently retired and living in a cabin in Austria when he is approached by a mysterious man (Idris Elba) who has a job for him: exfiltrate the wife of a vicious Georgian crime lord (Tornike Bziava) and her kids from the prison in which he has forced them to live alongside him as he serves his prison sentence.  It's a bit personal for him, as well; the wife Ketevan (Tinitin Dalakishvili) is the sister of Rake's ex-wife Mia (Olga Kurylenko).  What is supposed to be a surgical exfiltration gets extremely violent, and as result, Tyler and his team have the crime lord's entire gang, led by his vengeful brother (Tornike Gogrichiani) hot on their heels as they attempt to flee the country with Ketevan and her kids Sandro (Andro Japaridze) and Nina (Miriam and Marta Kovziashvili).  Will they make it out? 

As an action movie, this film ticks all the boxes for me: just enough story to keep everything that happens coherent, actors with strong screen presence, and tightly-choreographed and shot action sequences with striking visuals and a propulsive soundtrack. This has all the grit of the best movies from the John Wick franchise and, if I'm honest, never feels repetitive the way some films from that franchise often did. Sure, the plot barely holds the whole thing together and would probably not stand up to anything even resembling scrutiny, but director Sam Hargrave, his cast and crew keep things moving along so briskly that it isn't worth taking the time to wonder if things make sense. It's just a rip-roaring, good time in much the same way the first one was, only this time the storytelling feels even tighter. 

Outside of his tenure as Marvel Studios' Thor movies there is not a whole lot that I have liked Australian actor Chris Hemsworth in, but at least that list has grown. I thought he was great as James Hunt in Ron Howards' criminally-underappreciated Formula One film Rush, and now, well, I think he's great here. I also especially liked Golshifteh Farahani's Niki, a hard-boiled, ass kicking woman that puts to shame a great majority of the so-called "strong female characters" infesting too many movies these days.  There's not much to say about the cookie-cutter bad guys, but the hell they put our heroes through made for some incredibly engaging viewing. 

My only real gripe with this movie, if I'm perfectly honest, has little to do with its craft and everything to do with Netflix's insistence to keep a film like this, which would be perfectly at home on the big screen making big money, away from movie theaters. It is honestly frustrating to see a wide-screen adventure like this confined to a platform which quite frankly diminishes the viewer's experience, and yes, I have to take that against the filmmakers who agreed to make this movie under those conditions.

It seems that a third installment of this franchise has already been greenlit, and I, for one, would honestly love to see it up on a movie screen.  

8/10