Monday 26 March 2018

Movie review of Death Wish

Death Wish - 4/10
Directed by Eli Roth

I'm starting to notice a pattern about Bruce Willis. It started with A Good Day to Die Hard (which is the most lanjiao movie of the Die Hard franchise). Every movie since then, Bruce Willis has not given a fuck about acting anymore. From Good Day to Die Hard to Death Wish, almost all of his movies, he gives the same "Eh Fuck you lah, I'm bald Bruce Willis. I don't need to act" look. From the smirks to the damn "sian" style of delivering lines, he has been doing the same shit and its starting to get a little annoying.

I fondly remember watching the original Death Wish with my dad as he was a huge Charles Bronson fan. The original Death Wish was gritty and a cult classic. The sequels after were a little meh but it's ok cause they had Charles motherfucking Bronson in it. Man, was that fella a badass. So when I found out that Bored Willis (I'm gonna call him that from now on) was gonna act in the remake directed by Eli Roth, I thought OK, let's give it a try.

I felt Eli Roth did a pretty decent job. The kill scenes were brutal and made me cringe a little. You expect nothing less from a guy who did Hostel, Hostel 2 and Cabin Fever. Soundtrack was a little weird. I don't know why ACDC's Back in Black was used for a sort of training sequence montage, it just didn't click and I thought ACDC can pretty much work well for any kind of movie. Well, I was wrong.

It was nice to see Dean Norris doing a Hank (Breaking Bad) kind of role. Elisabeth Shue did what she did cause her role was pretty small. I couldn't recognize her at first, I thought it was Kyra Sedgewick. hahahaha.  The immensely talented Vincent D'Onoforio was severely under used. This guy does fucking fantastic villain roles and I felt he should have been given a bigger role for this. Bored Willis was... well.. bored as usual. Knn even sad scenes also, he looked bored. I burst out laughing at his attempt of crying. Chialat lah the fella.

Now Death Wish may look like its advocating for guns and all despite what's going on in America and timing couldn't be any worse. Maybe that's why it didn't do really well. Either that or people are starting to be just as bored as Bored Willis.

You don't really need to watch this in a cinema, just wait for it on cable will do.

Movie review of Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow - 4/10
Directed by Francis Lawrence

Spy or espionage movies don't really have a lot of action in them. They mostly depend on the drama, the acting, script and plot twists. I'm not gonna count the Bond franchise because that's pretty much action with good looking people and what not. I'm talking about movies like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tailor of Panama or A Most Wanted Man where the focus is mainly on acting and delivering the script. Sadly, Red Sparrow tries too hard and becomes a little dull and draggy. And you can see the plot twist and reveal pretty much a mile away.

I didn't really like the casting as well. Jennifer Lawrence can be a good actress in certain movies but Red Sparrow is clearly not suited for her. First of all she is not really consistent with the accent. Whenever she shouts or gets angry, the Russian accent disappears. Second, her face is too bubbly for scenes which show distress or pain. That particular scene where she strips naked to sort of emasculate the guy who wants to fuck her, I was not convinced one bit. If you give that kind of scene to actresses like Marion Cotillard or Noomi Rapace, Fucking hell.. I will probably chop my cock off in shame. The worst casting was Mary Louise Parker. What the fuck was she doing? She acted like as though it was an episode of Weeds. Matthias Schoenaerts was not too bad. I remembered him from the movie, Rust and Bone. Even Joel Edgerton was decent, I still think someone else could have done his role better. Veterans like Ciaran Hinds and Jeremy Irons were given small roles and under utilized. Both pretty much did fuckall actually.

Direction and camera works was alright. Plot wise, it was a little draggy and too much focus on the training. Sitting down like a classroom, touching nipples and showing tits, dicks and ass is not really a training sequence for me.

Overall, Red Sparrow is a forgettable movie and I will not watch it again. Just wait for cable to watch for those who haven't.