Three days to have awkward conversations.
Kevin Costner plays Ethan, a CIA agent thirty-two years in the job and alienated from his young daughter and wife because of it. His life becomes worse when cancer ends his career, but the CIA ask him to complete one last job in exchange for an experimental drug to prolong his life.
This film is utter nonsense.
I know exactly where to start my criticism: "Based on a story by Luc Besson", oh you mean like based on Taken, a film written by Luc Besson. A film vastly superior to this one in every way imaginable?
I can see were Besson's influence exists here, but director McG hasn't a clue how to execute any of it and what we get is a parody of a Besson film with an identity crisis.
At its best 3 Days to Kill is a cliche action movie with the classic scenarios in the first and final acts. Costner is roped into the story because he "may have seen the villain of the story before", possibly the loosest reason I've heard in a long while, and naturally the story concludes exactly as it should: this is a 12A after all, it is child friendly.
But the second act, what can we fill it with? Exciting car chases, interrogations, memorable lines (ie everything Taken provided) no, no... we get possibly the weirdest most passionless comedy show on Earth. Everyone (and I mean everyone) knows by now Costner is not one for charisma. I'm sorry, all five of his fans out there but the entire middle of this film is utterly tedious and insanely repetitive.
Want action scenes? How about a father/daughter debate about girls' hairstyles? No? How about an argument about moustaches versus goatees, or how yellow isn't a man's colour, or which is considered "real Football" from a French or American standpoint. Good lord, the script pushes the boat out for asinine conversations. I know the film is trying to be funny (to its potential benefit: some distance from Taken is a good thing) but it fails so completely that I just feel bad for it.
I've not even touched on Amber Heard... who after proving to me how hopeless she is as an actress in Drive Angry, continues to do so here, playing the most... uhm... how can I put this... unorthodox, dominatrix barbie CIA agent ever put on film. No explanation either, she's just there, a CIA "higher up" who dresses in tight leather or lacy corsets like she's just fallen out of a teenage vampire novel.
Oh did I mention the editing was terrible too? To think I forgave McG for Terminator: Salvation, the man has no sense of timing or pacing.
You know, from the beginning I had some hope it might improve and I stuck it out... but no one can endure so much repetition and cliche. Just watch Taken again, seriously. I cynically thought this was Costner's agent saying to him: "Hey, it worked for Neeson!" and... that's exactly what tried to happen here.
The key word being tried.
A high speed science fiction thriller with a difference, and three of my favourite actors!
Lucy is just another girl before a friend gets her involved with a Korean drug cartel, she is abducted and becomes infected with an experimental neural stimulating drug. The effect cascades and increases, making Lucy a superhuman with access to incredible mental powers. Can questions about the human mind be answered before the cartel catch up with her? Or will she self-destruct under the increasing strain on her body?
I was more than happy that two of my favourite actors were in this film, headliners Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman, but imagine my joy and surprise to see Oldboy's Min-sik Choi in the opening credits too!
French director Luc Besson is no stranger to superhuman heroines either, colours of Leeloo from The Fifth Element and shades of one of his first films La Femme Nikita. He is in his element here. It is also great to see something original again! Something akin to comics and current science fiction franchises and yet an original screenplay!
The film is fast paced and full of action set pieces and physical fighting as we watch Lucy develop from the standard "10%" of her brain capacity escalates higher and higher! We know Johansson is capable in stunts and action what with Marvel's Black Widow character, but Lucy becomes more of a race against the clock than a brawler, introducing the audience to the incredible mental powers humans might be capable of. It uses its entire runtime to express what is happening to Lucy and how it affects her mentally.
Min-sik Choi's antagonist isn't used as much as I would have liked, but as a Korean powerhouse of acting talent, it is good to see him in a Western production, especially one such as this!
The film's key strength lies in its sense of humour, which goes from dry and intelligent to subtle and goofy. While Johansson's Lucy becomes colder and more detached from her human side, our secondary characters, especially Freeman, have great fun bouncing off her detachment and incredible powers with bewilderment. This humour and fast pace stops the film becoming something of a pretentious waste of time and more an enjoyable romp with intelligent undertones.
This sense of humour does go off the deep end a little. Besson, in a peculiar move, splices throughout his film footage of wildlife and disconnected scenes that are metaphors for what is happening narratively. For example, when Lucy is first kidnapped we see an escalating scene of a cheetah stalking its prey, or a mouse going towards a trap. Running parallel with this is Freeman's initial presentation speech about the human mind, also with wildlife footage.
This will probably alienate the wider audience, who'll wonder why there's National Geographic clips in their action movie!
But after reminding myself this is a Luc Besson film, Lucy gets better and better as it goes on and you can't wait to see how far her mental powers go, and how the director will present it!
A funny, if a little glib, black comedy from one of my favourite directors Luc Besson.
Giomatti Manzoni (Robert De Niro) is a husband and father and once respected head of an American mafia clan, only now he and his family find themselves relocated to France under a witness protection scheme. While mafia hitmen look for them, surveillance teams see that the socially dysfunctional family cannot blend into their surroundings.
There's only so much one can say about Besson's recent little dive into black comedy territory. Some might argue that others have done this idea better, far better (both in film and in television) and parallels can be drawn to existing work, and they wouldn't be wrong. The Family is a short affair, idling through high school angst, nuclear family and household dilemma cliches without much purpose other than through a lens of often unbridled psychopathy.
That said though, I liked it. Tommy Lee Jones is the officer in charge of Giomatti's incarceration, and the man's granite-hard, stony grimace is at full force here as he reluctantly tries to temper an unhinged and violence-prone De Niro to lay low. The family's kids, Warren (John D'Leo) and Belle (Dianna Agron) potentially steal the show despite their development initially going through some of the oldest High School stereotypes around. And Michelle Pfeiffer, well who doesn't like Michelle Pfeiffer in their films?
There is something intriguing and amusing about what must be a strong and very capable family (be it an overreacting and violent family!) trapped in some benign social purgatory!
It is a slow burn film towards an exciting conclusion, and that perhaps is its undoing. While it does crack some good black humour with how these mafia-born individuals (both adult and child!) deal with completely mundane problems, I did feel like I was in a waiting room, waiting for the inevitable.
The Family doesn't excel at one or the other; a black comedy or a straight out mafia story, it feels downplayed and while that is a boon in making the brief carnage seem intense by comparison, it doesn't quite go full comedy. Full unorthodox.
But like I said, I enjoyed it. It was a simple, violent and overall watchable film without any problems but without any real selling points.
A mindless science fiction action shooter, while entertaining and fun it isn't intelligent enough for me to appreciate.
Guy Pearce plays a CIA officer named Snow who after being wrongly convicted is sentenced for time onboard a orbital prison space station. As bad luck would have it, the President's daughter is surveying the prison when the inmates break out and take control. Snow is now the only man who can get her to safety.
Lockout got my attention by having Luc Besson's name attached to it, though unfortunately he was only one of three men who worked on the screenplay and the film is "Based of an idea by Luc Besson". Hm. The film therefore is the creation of debut director James Mather.
It looks good, the prison has a robust and functional appearance, the prisoners are psychotic and threatening and Guy Pearce has a great sense of dry wit and cynicism. He never takes things seriously and it looks like he's having fun; a lot of the film's merit comes from Pearce's performance.
However... story and narrative fall very short. Lockout is an entertaining waste of time and little more. True, I have seen worse: I would recommend Lockout over 2012's Total Recall any day of the week, because at least Lockout has the good decency to be an original piece with original characters! It is just a shame this high-octane rollercoaster doesn't slow down a little more to explain how things work and who characters are. It is literally a science fiction video game with the objective: "Rescue the Princess".
I found myself in the final climax wondering why an orbital prison would need automated turrets all over it... or how a state of the art prison falls apart as soon as one prisoner gets hold of a gun. Wouldn't they have procedures and high-tech security against that sort of thing?
But, I appreciated it for what it was, a mindless science fiction action film, and a unique one at that. If you like this sort of genre or just want to waste time, give Lockout a watch.
Additional Marshmallows: There is one of the worst CGI sequences within the first ten minutes though... I kid you not, this was Ultraviolet (shudder...) levels of awfulness. Fortunately you can forget it almost immediately.
I'm a big fan of Luc Besson's films, but I'm afraid Subway is a little too subtle and underplayed for me...
I knew next to nothing about this film except the odd clip and a seemingly edgy looking poster, however the image depicted only lasts a few seconds! Subway follows Fred, a man on the run who finds himself hiding in a subway station, befriending the odd characters who live there.
That's about all you will know for the first hour of this hour-and-a-half feature.
It is one of Besson's earliest works, even before Femme Nikita and Leon, bang in the middle of the 1980s, and it shows; Subway's soundtrack is often an abrasive mix of guitar, saxophone and synthetic burps.
While I am all for subtle storytelling and films that hold the cards close to their chests, so to speak, I at least expect the substance to come from characters instead. Especially when everything takes place in a subway station. But the characters are shallow too! There's no quirkiness, you aren't certain of people's intentions (at least not until the very, very end).
There is a good character story buried deep down, and unfortunately many will miss it for the barrage of problems I have already listed. The film's apparent lack of confidence and depth comes from the lead character's own harboured feelings for the love interest. Upon reflection (much reflection) I can see it now, but I cannot ignore how disinterested I was for over an hour! The pay off was too brief and too last minute to justify the spontaneous and random scenes and subplots that preceded it.
More unusual, charismatic characters inhabiting the subway would have done wonders to the film, and may have even strengthened the lead's inner troubles. I love many of Besson's films, but this one I won't be remembering.
