This isn't a terrible movie, I watched it to the end, but much like the second Extraction movie that Netflix recently released it's just a cookie-cutter, check your brain at the door, cliché ridden action film. Maybe there's nothing new to be done in action movies but jeez, at least try.
The cliché's here pile up very early on; the man with no name professional killer who's actually not a bad guy. His boss who used to direct him to kill people who's also not a bad guy. The new boss who is corrupt and nasty and IS a bad guy. The female agent who kicks ass even though she's about the size of a smurf. And last but certainly not least; the funny psycho with lots of snarky lines.
Then the action cliché's and boy there are many. They shoot up a city, or cities, without any real repercussions. They get shot, the crap beaten out of them, blown up, tortured, and in the next scene by god they're ready to go!
The final one, and the one that actually made me finally regret sticking around for it, was the climatic battle between the main character and the psycho. Good guy is beating the snot out of him but no, that doesn't heighten the tension for the viewer (as if we all didn't know how it would end) so, suddenly the bad guy pulls a knife and the good guy just as suddenly forgets how to fight and starts losing! Oh no, what's going to happen...just once I'd like to see an action movie where the hero isn't pushed juuuusst to the edge of losing before suddenly finding something deep within himself to come back and win the day. In this case it was a childhood memory. It's old, it's lazy writing, it's been done to death...please stop doing it. Have some imagination for god's sake.
There's lots more that makes this just another mindless globe trotting video game with real people but why beat a dead horse. On the plus side; for Netflix, who make some truly abysmal films, most of them actually, this one is at least mildly entertaining, mildly, if you can get past all the stuff you've seen a thousand times before. The Bourne Identity it ain't.
The cliché's here pile up very early on; the man with no name professional killer who's actually not a bad guy. His boss who used to direct him to kill people who's also not a bad guy. The new boss who is corrupt and nasty and IS a bad guy. The female agent who kicks ass even though she's about the size of a smurf. And last but certainly not least; the funny psycho with lots of snarky lines.
Then the action cliché's and boy there are many. They shoot up a city, or cities, without any real repercussions. They get shot, the crap beaten out of them, blown up, tortured, and in the next scene by god they're ready to go!
The final one, and the one that actually made me finally regret sticking around for it, was the climatic battle between the main character and the psycho. Good guy is beating the snot out of him but no, that doesn't heighten the tension for the viewer (as if we all didn't know how it would end) so, suddenly the bad guy pulls a knife and the good guy just as suddenly forgets how to fight and starts losing! Oh no, what's going to happen...just once I'd like to see an action movie where the hero isn't pushed juuuusst to the edge of losing before suddenly finding something deep within himself to come back and win the day. In this case it was a childhood memory. It's old, it's lazy writing, it's been done to death...please stop doing it. Have some imagination for god's sake.
There's lots more that makes this just another mindless globe trotting video game with real people but why beat a dead horse. On the plus side; for Netflix, who make some truly abysmal films, most of them actually, this one is at least mildly entertaining, mildly, if you can get past all the stuff you've seen a thousand times before. The Bourne Identity it ain't.