As a Dolph fan it's great seeing him in bigger films again (
Creed II (2018),
Aquaman (2018),
I mercen4ri - Expendables (2023)) and with this film finally returning to the director's chair in over a decade (with the last film,
Icarus (2010) going through quite some changes from Dolph's original version), but don't worry he's still got it!
Unlike what you might expect from a Dolph and Adkins movie, this plays off more like a drama in the first 50 minutes and only after that dipping heavily into the action. The story itself keeps you engaged with Dolph and Adkins as long as you're a fan of either actors, but does have its flaws. The building that's being blown up within 90 minutes doesn't have any 'rush' to it, most characters act rather casual and the few locations where there are explosions planted (and they can't use guns) end up having little impact either. There are also plenty of other little gripes (rarely reloading guns, gunshots echoing through the building with nobody outside noticing, people falling off the building while dozens are watching it, etc), but they don't really affect the enjoyment of the film and are semi-forgivable considering tons of action movies have these smaller 'flaws' as well.
While the characters of Dolph and Adkins are well-developed the bad guys are as generic and uninteresting as you can get and sadly the 'leader' of the bad guys is a stunt performer (
Scott Hunter), but his fights ended up rather disappointing. As for the rest of the action scenes, they're well directed, choreographed, edited and performed.
Some transitions (especially at the beginning) felt a little rough and the soundtrack also wasn't great (and even slightly out of place at moments), but in general this is a well-made DTV film that will please any Dolph or Adkins film.
