cambell-bennett

The point of an action movie is to have good action sequences. There's always a leggy girl (Nina Dobrev is super pretty) and a damaged, tough exterior but soft hearted hero (Aaron Eckhart is craggy but needs a shave for most of this). There's likely to be a double cross too, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get that far in this movie. The fight sequences are brain meltingly poor, with super rapid jump cutting from cameras that have no logical position and are frequently at different heights and angles so the spaces are not clearly defined and you can't actually follow what's happening. It's the worst hyper smash cut editing I've ever seen. The director also seems to think that smashing people into the scenery and breaking a spit ton of sugar glass (along with a hugely OTT score) constitutes a fight scene. There is also the problem of the hero's shifting abilities. In a gang fight our boy is John WIck levels of awesome, taking out 15-20 goons with one punch or judo move as well as disarming them and popping the mags out of their guns (because the bad guys haven't chambered a round). But when it's one on one the hero suddenly becomes Ed Norton in Fight Club, pummeled for 3-4 minutes before just managing to overcome the goon, even when it's one of the goons he just took out with one punch 5 minutes ago in a bar fight. A disappointing waste of time.

Shame on me I watched it to the end. Further thoughts: Mr Eckhardt leans fully into the 21st century macho whisper, where he almost never speaks in a normal speaking voice (I believe this was pioneered by Keifer Sutherland in 24 but it might have been an animated Batman thing first) so you kind of need the subtitles given the volume of the SFX and score throughout. Oh, and Director Harlin hired 150-200 pretty girls in skimpy dresses to dance in the 2 minute nightclub scene and 12 extras to act like 2 different protesting crowds in the rest of the movie. You will get dumber if you watch this movie.

Zoe Chao is electric and Anthony Mackie is studly in this sizzling dance movie set mainly in space. Expressive set design, including an emoting 8-bit computer screen, brilliant other-worldly use of light and colour, and a dash of home-made charm make a surprisingly robust aesthetic that supports the dancing conversations between the two leads. If you're wondering whether a romance movie has a love scene, it certainly does (why else get Anthony Mackie, who can do with his pecs what it took Rock Hudson a whole torso?), one that goes to great length and to a few surprising places. Also, featuring the fabulous Natalie Morales as a super hot state governor who rues the day she chose politics over dance class.