Recently Watched - May 2020!

Hmm, I seem to be watching movies on a pretty regular basis.  As it turns out, I have four more reviews to share with you!  I hope this format is working for you, because it seems to be working for me.  Anyways, here's the latest of what I've been watching.

Extraction (2020)

Not every action movie can be a clean, clear sequence of stylized choreography, like the John Wick movies.  Sometimes, they're pretty messy, and it doesn't get much messier than Extraction.  Featuring Chris Hemsworth as a ragged mercenary tasked with rescuing the son of an Indian drug lord from a competing drug lord in Bangladesh, this one crunches its way from one gritty set-piece after another, but not really doing much else.

There's some predictable double-crosses, and they throw a decent anti-hero (played by Randeep Hooda) into the mix, but the movie knows that the story is perfunctory, focusing instead on intense (but not gory) violence.  Most of it works, in a Bourne-style shaky-cam sort of way, but some of the left-turns in the battle threw me out of the experience at times.  They try to do this epic "one-shot" early on that takes the heroes and some mooks through some apartments and streets, and after a while, it gets exhausting. 

There's also a decent subplot about how the bad guy uses kids as a part of his personal army, while Chris's character is struggling to cope with the death of his own child a few years previous, creating an interesting parallel that doesn't really go anywhere.  In the end, it's mostly an excuse to string together their grim and gritty action scenes, resulting in a final act on a bridge that's pretty explosive, but also goes on for a bit too long.

For what it's worth, the action is mostly well-shot and performed, full of ungraceful headshots and takedowns, and it is kind of neat to Hemsworth do something other than wave a magic hammer around.  Besides all that, though, this movie really doesn't have much to offer.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

The X-Men films have been a peculiar series, with some flaws and quirks, but overall, I think they've been decent.  However, the last few have been kind of underwhelming, with Deadpool 2 trying to get away with telling the same joke twice, and Apocalypse trying to go big but ended up being some bad, CGI-laden fluff that didn't feel relatable at all.  To its credit, Dark Phoenix tries to fix this by going more personal and intimate with its stakes, but in the end, still ends up as fluff.

When Jean Grey ends up absorbing a cosmic phenomenon and expanding her powers, she discovers truths that Charles Xavier had locked away in order to protect her, forcing her to reevaluate who she is and what she stands for, which puts her at odds with the rest of the X-men.  Unfortunately, this gets presented with some very lame writing, full of vagueness and pronouns in an effort to sound deep and mysterious that falls very flat.  A lot of pithy statements get handed out, angst and melodrama are used to pad out the run time, and the ending is hardly satisfactory.

There are action scenes, of course, and they're okay.  However, the special effects don't feel connected to the actors, as they wave their hands about and CGI happens around them.  Also, the continuity with other films feels particularly ruined, probably in an attempt to get away from the earlier ones, but this was before Marvel got the rights back, so that's the end of that.

For all it's attempts at melodramatic grandeur, it comes up short, often feeling cheap, weak, and tired.  Even the actors (outside of James McAvoy) look exhausted, just kind of plodding through their roles.  As it would turn out, it failed at the box office when it was released, so I can safely say that if you haven't seen this, you've missed nothing.

The Current War (2017/2019)

I remember seeing trailers for this and thinking that it looked quite interesting.  However, extenuating circumstances delayed its international release, and the film kinda dropped from my mind until recently.  While it certainly gets some good performances from the actors, the pacing and editing for the film seems too fast, resulting in a film that doesn't let the great and tragic moments it's depicting never really settle.

The premise is pretty straight forward: Edison and Westinghouse competing to determine the future of electrical current in the US.  However, the movie seems to insist on starting "at the beginning," resulting with a story that spans many years without really reconciling that span.  The way the actors play it, the whole plot seems to have taken maybe a month.  A lot of this has to do with the rapid editing, with the film rapidly jumping from scene to scene without much to hold onto outside of a few title cards.  Scenes that should feel like major moments barely get time to sink in before we're off to the next scene and the next moment.  I feel like much of this could have been mitigated by focusing the timeline down and maybe using more expositional dialogue or flashbacks to fill us in on the details.

For what it's worth, it's well-acted, as Cumberbatch gives his all to a conflicted Edison.  Michael Shannon plays a nice, calm foil as Westinghouse, and Nicholas Hoult plays a great Tesla, seemingly from another world, but full of amazing ideas.  However, the way the film is edited, Tesla feels like little more than a cameo.  The soundtrack is also interesting, focusing on ambient synths that do fit the scenes well, if a bit oddly.  Overall, a film that has some decent moments, but doesn't really come together as a whole.  Maybe I was expecting too much from it, but I doubt this will be the definitive version of this story.

Skyscraper (2018)

Because I didn't get enough of over-the-top action with my Fast and Furious retrospective, I've turned to another recent Rock vehicle with over-the-top action and stunts that probably should have killed people but didn't.  Honestly, though, there's nothing wrong with some popcorn entertainment, and for what it's worth, Skyscraper works as a roller-coaster thrill ride, if nothing else.

The plot is by the numbers: Dwayne Johnson plays a security expert who was once an FBI agent, but lost a leg in a mission gone wrong, so he's lost a lot of his edge and isn't as confident as he used to be.  When he gets hired to analyze a big shiny skyscraper's security system, he ends up being a patsy for a scheme by some pretty bland villains to blackmail the titular building's owner to cough up some incriminating evidence.  And they raise the stakes by putting everything on fire.  And the hero's family is stuck inside.  Honestly, the scenarios feel so forced and gimmicky, it's hard to really feel any genuine dread.  Sorta like the Fast and Furious movies.

Setting aside the lackluster plot (and some occasionally weak dialogue), you're here for the special effects, and they're actually quite good!  The skyscraper has a neat design, and the fire is made very immediate and intimidating.  It's also fun to see The Rock throw himself around, make ridiculous leaps through the air, and apply duct tape in ways that would make Red Green proud.  It's largely brainless entertainment, but it's at least well made and well shot.

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While again, I can't guarantee if this will become a regular thing, I know that I'm finding plenty to watch.  I've even been thinking about what franchise I should binge next.  If you have any recommendations, let me know!