Category Archives: Action and adventure films

Nobody review – Bob Odenkirk betters John Wick in fun action caper

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The Better Call Saul star gets a furiously entertaining star vehicle playing a suburban father who finds himself up against the Russian mob

For any vaguely fit actor over the age of 50, being given your own Taken was briefly seen as an enviable career boost, a chance to relive former glories, a slickly choreographed leap from an early Hollywood grave back to the sandlot. Ever since Liam Neeson swapped emoting for punching back in 2008, Kevin Costner, Sean Penn, John Travolta, Pierce Brosnan and Guy Pearce all tried to do the same but audiences wisely stayed away from their sub-par shoot-em-ups and execs were forced to realise that, duh, it’s the star rather than the sub-genre that people are magnetically drawn to. Because Neeson’s shtick was continuing to bring in solid crowds while his peers were flailing and in 2014, Keanu Reeves found a similar sweet spot with John Wick, kicking off a hugely profitable new series with a Taken-adjacent combination of simple action plot and much-loved actor.

Related: Chaos Walking review – cursed YA adaptation stumbles into view

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The Recce review – crossing enemy lines in South African action-drama

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An elite soldier is sent on a perilous solo mission in this underwhelming drama set during the Namibian war of independence

This South African-made action-drama unfolds against the background of a conflict little known about above the equator, much less used as a setting for film – the Namibian war of independence from 1966-90, AKA the South African border war. Often considered South Africa’s version of Vietnam, it was, among other things, a proxy fight between South Africa, then still under apartheid, and its allies at the time, and the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, who were backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba.

Although there’s a fair amount of on-screen contextualising in the opening minutes to explain key terms and ideas, The Recce feels made for a local audience that has a grasp of the cultural and historical background. That means it’s not easy for outsiders to read the ideology of this stylised, fictional account of an elite Afrikaner soldier, Henk Viljoen (Greg Kriek), the “recce”, who is ordered to go across enemy lines alone one last time to kill a Russian officer. Henk leaves behind his pregnant wife Nicola (Christia Visser), with whom we spend a lot of screen time as she looks anxious, remembers happier moments in her marriage and visits Henk’s parents, who are sick with worry about their son. In the narrative mix is Captain Le Roux (Grant Swanby), an English-speaking South African officer who is also worried about Henk and the general madness of the war.

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Godzilla vs Kong: the big dumb action movie we’ve been waiting for?

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The trailer for the monster match-up promises bad dialogue and convoluted mythology, but also two giant creatures fighting until the death

We can all agree that the restrictions brought about by Covid have reinforced all the things we previously took for granted. Some miss their loved ones. Some miss the pulsating mass of warm strangers on an unplanned night out. Me? It turns out that I apparently miss the sight of a massive gorilla punching a radioactive sea monster right in the middle of its dumb face.

Related: Charlie Cox's Daredevil would be a welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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Dune, Bond and Top Gun returns: Films to look out for in 2021

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Daniel Craig hands in his licence to kill, Frances McDormand delivers her best ever performance, Carey Mulligan unsettles in a rape-revenge drama and Tom Cruise reaches for the skies … this year’s must-see films

Paul Greengrass’s latest film is based on the western novel by Paulette Jiles, about a girl returning to her family in 1860s Texas after being kidnapped by the Kiowa tribe. Helena Zengel plays the girl, Johanna, and Tom Hanks plays the man who must look after her: Captain Kidd, an ex-army veteran who makes a living reading aloud from newspapers to illiterate townsfolk, and who is now in the middle of a very big news story.
• Released in the UK on 1 January

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Breaking point: why Tom Cruise is living a mission impossible

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Analysis: A leaked recording of the movie star yelling at crew on his latest blockbuster is not evidence of tyranny, but the extraordinary strain of keeping the huge undertaking afloat

It is a lonely business, being a Tom Cruise fan in 2020. The heel lifts, the way his arms pump when he runs (nobody runs like Tom Cruise), his Dorian Gray looks: I love Cruise for all of it, and yet I’m aware this is a deeply unfashionable opinion, and one I’m often called on to defend at dinner parties. And so it befalls me, as Cruise’s solitary champion, to step to his aid now, like Ethan Hunt in a tuxedo taking on a posse of earpiece-wearing hitmen, as behind him an orchestra plays Nessun Dorma.

Related: Top bun: Tom Cruise's cake-mailing habit proves he's a real Christmas miracle | Stuart Heritage

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Wonder Woman 1984 review – queenly Gal Gadot disarms the competition

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Gadot is terrifically imposing, while Kristen Wiig is the scene-stealing antagonist in Patty Jenkins’ epically brash sequel

Here is an enjoyable Amazonian incursion into Reagan’s America – but the real wonder is Kristen Wiig, playing the warrior queen’s resentful and emotionally wounded antagonist, Barbara Minerva.

It is 1984, that pre-Covid utopian era of big hair, rolled-up jacket sleeves and imminent nuclear war, and Diana of Themyscira is getting her second superheroic adventure in a world dominated by over-promoted mortal males. The first time we saw this mythical warrior queen, played as here by Gal Gadot, and with outrageously gorgeous outfits, she had just surreally shown up in the middle of the first world war. Now Diana Prince (she is never called Wonder Woman, even obliquely) is living discreetly as a civilian in the Washington of Ronald Reagan – or as discreetly as someone so resplendent can.

Prince works as a demure archaeologist at the Smithsonian museum, and it is here that Diana examines an ancient stone that has the magical power to grant any person one wish. Poor, lonely Diana silently wishes to be reunited with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) the dashing airman with whom she was once very much in love. But her nerdy colleague, maladroit gemologist Minerva, who has a beta-stalkerish fascination with the impossibly gorgeous Diana, wishes to be every bit as strong as her. And there is a third wisher: megalomaniac oil entrepreneur and museum donor Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), who wants more than one wish, so he sneakily wishes to be turned into the stone, to become a human wishing stone, so that he can persuade any individual he meets to wish for something beneficial to his interests. Could it be that Maxwell Lord is a version of Norman Vincent Peale, the positive-thinking guru who was such an influence on presidents Nixon and Trump?

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The Eight Hundred review – ear-rattling, breathtaking battle for ‘Chinese Alamo’

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One regiment’s symbolic and often suicidal defence of a warehouse in bombed-out Shanghai is the subject of this tub-thumping war epic

The domestic release of this thunderous Chinese war epic was delayed last year for what trade magazine Variety described as “mysterious political reasons”. It is thought the film displeased Communist party academics by portraying rival Kuomintang army officers during the 1937 Sino-Japanese war in too positive a light. To an outsider, however, The Eight Hundred looks like a paragon of tub-thumping patriotism in its description of heroic Chinese soldiers defending the Sihang warehouse in the battle for Shanghai. Like Dunkirk for Brits, the incident is seen here as an honourable defeat, a moment to galvanise national pride.

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The problem with Mulan: why the live-action remake is a lightning rod for controversy

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The remake of Disney’s hit animation has triggered pro-democracy and human rights protests in Hong Kong and around the world

It’s an understatement to say that a lot has happened since the trailer for Disney’s live-action Mulan was released last year, shortly after Hong Kong’s draconian national security law was passed without consultation or vote in June. The ongoing assault on democracy in Hong Kong has dominated international headlines, with the arrests of pro-democracy activists, newspaper editors and government legislators. With its original cinema release put on hold due to the coronavirus epidemic, Mulan is now emerging to a vastly different political landscape.

On the face of it, the new Mulan is a missed opportunity for Hollywood to explore Chinese history and identity, a confused and superficial statement about Chinese nationalism. A hodgepodge of Chinese historical mise-en-scène, wuxia-style choreography, cheap orientalism and stilted dialogue, it’s also become a lightning rod for pro-democracy and human rights protests around the world.

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Tenet review – supremely ambitious race against time makes for superb cinema

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Go with it, and Christopher Nolan’s high-concept action romp will leave you ripping off your face mask for air, even as you wonder what it was all about

Who shall save cinema? Not James Bond apparently. There’s been a brand-new Daniel Craig spectacular ready to go since Easter, arguably just the thing to get punters’ actual bums back on actual seats. But Team 007 is wimping out, unwilling to splurge their product irreversibly into some potential new ruinous lockdown – and Disney has suffered a comparable bottle-loss, dumping its live-action version of the Mulan legend on to streaming services.

So it’s up to the mighty Christopher Nolan to take the heroic, morale-boosting gamble and open his big new film in cinemas. Tenet is a gigantically confusing, gigantically entertaining and gigantically gigantic metaphysical action thriller in which a protagonist called The Protagonist battles cosmic incursions from the future while time flows backwards and forwards at the same time. There’s a 747 plane that crashes into a warehouse and then uncrashes back out of it, for reasons that are not immediately obvious.

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And the 2019 Braddies go to … Peter Bradshaw’s film picks of the year

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Ahead of the launch on Tuesday of the Guardian’s films of the year countdown, our critic selects his personal choice of the movies, directors and performances of 2019

• The Braddies are listed in alphabetical order, rather than ranked in terms of merit

Once again, the awards season comes to its climax with my “Braddies” for the calendar year, a selection of my personal awards that exists entirely independently of Guardian Film’s best-of-the-year countdown.

As ever, there are 10 “nominees” in 10 categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting Actor, supporting Actress, documentary, cinematography, screenplay, directorial debut. There is also the single-entry nomination in the special category: quirkiest future cult classic most likely to beoverlooked by the boomer MSM establishment. The nominees are listed in alphabetical order and readers are invited to vote below the line for their preferred winner – and complain about omissions.

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Charlie’s Angels review – ramshackle action reboot goes at half throttle

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There’s intermittent fun to be had in this throwaway relaunch of the female secret agent franchise but the party is cut short by incoherent action and a clunky script

Back in 2000, the glossy relaunch of Charlie’s Angels felt like a genuine pop culture event. The central casting of Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, all at the height of their fame, was an impressively inspired get. The accompanying lead single from Destiny’s Child was not only a smash hit but a deserved one. The gaudy aesthetic and post-Matrix bullet time action were laughable but also undeniably of the moment. It was the most 2000 film released in 2000, and at the time it was impossible to avoid – a slick, pre-packaged blockbuster received with as much enthusiasm as it was made. Almost 20 years, one sequel and one failed TV series later, the franchise is back, but all that buzz has been replaced with something else: deafening silence.

Related: Elizabeth Banks: ‘My film is loaded with sneaky feminist ideas’

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The new heart-throbs: how Hollywood embraced east Asian actors, from Henry Golding to Simu Liu

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From romcoms to Marvel blockbusters, east Asian actors are enjoying unprecedented success. What’s taken the film industry so long?

It was the moment that all romance fans look forward to at the end of a film, hearts bubbling with anticipation: the kiss. I was watching The Edge of Seventeen, a smart coming-of-age movie, in which Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) had rushed to see her awkwardly endearing classmate (Hayden Szeto). After a bungled date and a crush on another man, she had decided Erwin was the one she wanted.

And then, instead of any show of passion, there came … an affectionate pat on the back as he introduced her to his friends. Moments before, I had been delighted that a Canadian actor of Chinese descent had been cast as the love interest of a white American woman. As the credits rolled, I felt cheated.

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Film stunts under scrutiny after deaths and serious injuries

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CGI-weary audiences’ demand for complex ‘real’ action is increasing the risk for performers

This week, the British stunt performer Joe Watts suffered a serious head injury on the set of the film Fast & Furious 9, at Warner Bros Studios in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, after he reportedly fell 30ft (9 metres) from a balcony. He was airlifted to hospital and has been put in an induced coma. Production on the film was shut down, and the Health and Safety Executive is investigating.

Stunt professionals are in high demand in the current climate of action-driven blockbuster films and increasing volumes of small-screen productions requiring cinema-standard action. Weary of unconvincing CGI and green-screen action, audiences are starting to want practical, unsimulated effects: humans doing spectacular stunts “for real”. However, as the volume and complexity of stunts has grown, so has the risk factor.

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Captain Marvel review – Brie Larson kicks ass across the universe

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Marvel’s superhero adventure veers from boomingly serious to quirkily droll as Larson wages a vicious war against evil aliens

This latest tale from the Marvel cinematic universe takes us way back in time, many years before the great catastrophe shown in Avengers: Infinity War. We have crash-landed in mid-90s America: a hilariously antediluvian world of Blockbuster video stores, dial-up internet, web searches via AltaVista, and grindingly slow CD-Rom drives. At one important stage, there’s a soundtrack outing for Nirvana: “Come as you are, as you were / As I want you to be / As a friend, as a friend / As a known enemy ...”

This is an engaging and sometimes engagingly odd superhero action movie from directors and co-writers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, a weirdly nonlinear mashup of past and present, memories and present experience, Earth and non-Earth action. It’s an unconventional origin-myth story, which makes it initially uncertain what the nature of those origins is, and maybe even whose origins exactly we’re talking about. There’s an eccentric splurge of tonal registers from boomingly serious to quirkily droll. It gives us a playful first glimpse of a number of things, important and otherwise, including how Shield agent Nick Fury acquired a notable part of his badass image – Fury played of course by Samuel L Jackson, his face digitally regressed to the way it looked around the time of Pulp Fiction. A lovable cat makes an important appearance.

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Pierce Brosnan on GoldenEye: crazy stunts and thigh-crushings from Xenia Onatopp

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A tank flattened a camera, M called him a sexist dinosaur and his fights with Onatopp were so rough they needed a padded cell … the Irish actor recalls his 007 debut

The first film I saw when I came to London as a boy was Goldfinger, which starred Sean Connery as 007. In Ireland, I had been brought up on a diet of Old Mother Riley and Norman Wisdom, so it was a bedazzling moment, seeing this lady covered in gold paint. I ended up getting a toy car with an ejector seat, but I didn’t have any aspirations to be James Bond. The character who really captured my imagination was Oddjob, Goldfinger’s bowler-hatted henchman.

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