Film Review - The Wrath of Man (2021)

 The Wrath of Man is directed by Guy Ritchie and stars Jason Statham as H, a man who was shot during a robbery and awakens from hospital to find out his son is dead so he joins a local security company which handles money transfers from banks and does very well in that job but on his mind is revenge against those responsible for the death of his son.

 

Wrath of Man is typical of a Guy Ritchie film and also typical of a Jason Statham film and as someone who didn’t really have a lot of high hopes for this movie going into see it I was more or less entertained by the movie I did watch.

 

Firstly the guns and geezers running around shooting at each other while also planning complicated plots which Ritchie made his trademark style for the most part is on full show here though the action takes place in Los Angeles instead of London and I think it hurts the story overall as LA doesn’t really lend itself naturally to that kind of story whereas London does and the look of London as a city can be a lot more cinematic at times than LA which has a lot of palm trees and bright sunshine and pretty city shots especially at night but unless your going to use a specific style visuals wise LA isn’t the best looking city on film.

 

As for the plot well its fine again typical of what Ritchie has done over most of his career and along with the Gentlemen from last year has tried to go back to after making Aladdin for Walt Disney Pictures in 2019 and horribly I must add.

 

As for the Stath well he is his usual self, speaks very little, creates a brooding presence and kills a lot of people and again that is perfectly fine, I have been up and down on the Stath in the last few years with some of his movies being better than others but here I thought he was okay, perfectly fine if nothing fantastic.

 

And that’s really Wrath of MAAAAAN in a nutshell, perfectly fine, more or less what you expect of its lead and its director and serviceable fun for 2 hours for me at a time when that’s all I’ve really wanted from movies at the moment, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Six Minutes to Midnight (2021)

Six Minutes to Midnight takes place in 1939 on the Eve of World War 2 and stars Eddie Izzard (who also co-wrote the script) as a journeyman teacher who takes a job at a special Girls school that is both English and German in its heritage but with War looming keeping them safe will not be easy especially when one of the teachers may be a spy undercover.

 

I was surprised at how much I liked this movie, I went into it not really expecting a lot but I am a sucker for historical War stories like this one so I was definitely going to give it a watch and I am very glad I did even if I was the youngest person there by about 30 years and I liked it very much.

 

And what I liked most about it was the fact that it felt like both a drama and a thriller at the same time, a drama in the sense that you are in this English environment and this German-English hybrid school at a time when the world is on the brink of War and a thriller in the sense that War is looming and something must be done to keep these Girls in England and how there are those in Britain who would sell out their country to the Fuhrer and that symbol which made me wince in my seat every time it came on screen even though they were most likely doing it out of fear of the German war machine.

 

And this idea of appeasement which was an idea some in Britain had at that point in time was something that 2017’s Darkest Hour with Gary Oldman tried to explore but to me just felt like all the political talking points Christopher Nolan cut out of Dunkirk that same year but here is explored pretty well I thought and I found it more interesting here than I did in Darkest Hour.

 

As for the performances, Izzard and Dench are good and solid and deliver good work in their roles but the standout for me was James D’Arcy as Captain Drey who really delivered in that role and embodies the above points I mentioned in regards to the thriller aspects of the film.

 

And so that was Six Minutes to Midnight and it’s a good solid little film that I personally enjoyed, 3 out of 5.

 

Film Review - Mortal Kombat (2021)

 Mortal Kombat is based off of the successful video game and stars Lewis Tan as Cole Young, a washed up MMA fighter who is being hunted by a figure known as Bi-Han/Sub Zero (Joe Taslim) which brings him to the attention of Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) who has been researching an ancient tournament known as Mortal Kombat and If Earthrealm loses then the forces of Outworld will invade and enslave them all.

 

I was very keen for this new Mortal Kombat movie as I was a longtime fan of the video games going back to the first 2 on PC and the third on Game Boy and Sega Mega Drive in the 1990s and later on the 2011 reboot game on Playstation 3 and the preview for this new film looked very promising so I was all keen for this to be a great time at the movies and a great Martial Arts film which I have been looking for.

 

But sadly this movie only partially delivers on that promise, don’t get me wrong the opening of the film is amazing and it sets the mood beautifully, Josh Lawson is terrific as Kano and the audience I saw the film with in the cinema laughed a lot with his lines, the violence and action is pretty good even if at times there is way too much quick cutting and digital blood.

 

But where this movie really falters and it hurts the film in a big way is the addition of Cole Young who is a new character created for this movie and it is a very old fashioned character and by that I mean he comes from a line of thinking where people get nervous that a film like this won’t reach a big audience so they come up with an outsider character who can represent that broad audience and have everything explained to them and every single time he comes on screen it drags the film down and his storyline drags the film down and this had such an easy structure to it.

 

Act 1: Have Sonya explain MK through her research and tracking down the fighters

 

Act 2: Training

 

Act 3: Tournament

 

Following that structure was such an easy way to go but instead it becomes muddled with this family storyline of an outsider character that in the end adds very little to the film and takes away from the film as a whole and it feels very disappointing as a result.

 

In the end Mortal Kombat is a fun watch on the big screen with a crowd but its storytelling needed to be better refined and to have faith in the established roster of characters to carry it, 2 and a half out of 5.