Vlad Tepes

VIP

4

Although far from a masterpiece this is a simple, straightforward and entertaining fantasy movie.

The story is predictable to say the least but I do not really care. I rather have a good, solid but predictable story than one filled with the usual illogical twists that the Hollywood hacks are so good at coming up with.

Fantasy is about magic, fantastic creatures and thus about special effects. This movie is pretty solid in that area. The special effects are overall good, not fantastic but good. Occasionally the dragon fire looked a wee bit wonky but overall they were fine.

The movie moves at a decent pace. Not too fast and not too slow. The story and the past is revealed at a rate and in a way that makes things fit together nicely.

The main protagonist is quite right as well. The right amount of panic and cluelessness at the start which gradually turns into a capable and unafraid heroin seeking revenge.

It is also a story with a happy ending which I like. Well not for the evil queen of course but you cannot please everyone.

So, this was a pleasant surprise from Netflix. Their production has been a bit uneven to say the least but I guess the agenda pushers did not get their grubby hands on this one.

I have to be honest and say that, if far left Hollywood had not turned out one woke turd after another but actually good movies as they used to a long time ago, this one might not have earned five out of five stars from me.

But since the Hollywood pedophiles have more or less ruined everything they touch the competition for good movies is more or less non-existent so here we go.

The movie is pretty much free of woke bullshit and far left preaching so that alone earns it at least two stars.

This movie is very much a John Wick style movie. Some dumbass criminals piss off the wrong guy and a fireworks display of martial arts and dead criminals follows.

Jason Statham, as Adam Clay aka The Beekeeper, is really at his best in this movie. He is a kick-ass, relentless, stone hard, killer focused on both revenge and the eradication of the human scum that preys on the weak and, in this case, stupid.

The bad guys, at least at the start, is an organization that runs on-line scams. When scamming the person that has taken Adam under her wings after his retirement it has unforeseen and tragic consequences.

Later in the movie this simple plot evolves, as the blurb states, to a national emergency due to the corrupt and criminal actors involved at high levels.

When I watched the movie I really thought that this entire scamming things was a bit unrealistic. I mean come on, people cannot be that stupid! But then I reminded myself that people also, allegedly, voted for a senile turnip brain with a kackling moron as vice president so I guess they can be.

As I wrote, Statham is really at his best. If we should compare with John Wick again, Statham is much more menacing and vengeful than Keanu Reeves ever was in John Wick.

I really like how the criminal asshats at all levels gradually gets their rightful, and usually terminal, punishment and that they most of the time gets to see and sweat as their doom approaches.

Also, the stunts are not at all as exaggerated and ludicrous as in the fourth John Wick installment. That does not mean that they are very realistic but then that is not really to be expected in this kind of action movie.

The story overall is not bad. It is an action movie type of story which means it is fairly simplistic, it has plot holes and it is not overly realistic but that is fine. It is good enough and it is Statham that carries the movie anyway.

This was indeed one of the best movies in a long time as far as I am concerned. Pure entertainment.

Overall this is a fairly entertaining movie. It has a reasonably cool, totally unrealistic of course, but cool story. It has plenty of special effects, lots of action, some mild suspense and a bit, sometimes too much, humor.

Overall it is in the same style as the previous movies and that brings me to the gripe I have had with these movies since the movie part of the franchise started. This is yet another movie where Ethan is betrayed and goes off doing his own thing. Seriously? The original Mission Impossible was agents doing cool stuff with the full backing of their organisation. Not this bloody Hollywood secret agent soap opera crap.

Another issue I have is that, as usual when Hollywood tries to wander into areas of technology, the basic premise of the movie is just totally unrealistic. There’s no way the computing power available on a submarine would be sufficient to house an actual Artificial Intelligence. Also, at the bottom of the sea there’s no bloody connection to be used for taking over the world unless you count low frequency submarine communication which would make an old 300 baud telephone modem look lightning fast.

Yes I ment baud, not bps, in that last sentence by the way.

Apart from those really annoying faults the movie was, as I wrote pretty good. The special effects were over the top of course but not so totally over the top as in some movies. Sometimes they were really dragged out until they became too much though. Like the obligatory car chase or the forever falling of a cliff train.

I also have to say that Nathan being screwed over, over and over again by that bitch became tiresome rather quickly. So did Benji’s often ridiculous behavior.

So 3 1/2 out of 5 stars it is. Could have been better but could also have been a lot worse.

Yesterday evening me and the kids, well the two boys at least, sat down to watch The Equalizer 3 which has been sitting on my to-watch shelf for a while.

I have quite liked the previous two instalments and this was was a quite good movie as well.

It starts of with a fairly brutal, The Equalizer style, slaying of a bunch of bad guys but then McCall gets shot in the back by a kid and goes into a bit of a funk.

The entire movie slows down quite a bit after that while McCall goes around moping. It was actually a bit boring and I could have been without that.

Still, McCall is McCall and the movie does pick up speed again after a while.

There are some quite nice action scenes as we approach the ending and the way McCall disposes of the bad guys towards the end is quite brutal.

When I saw that the movie had an R-rating in the states I thought, yeah right this is another one of these movies where they show a boob or two or use adult language and then the easily offended whiners go all must-be-restricted-bullshit over it but I guess it was because of the brutal slayings after all.

Still, in France it got a restricted from 12 years and below which is far from an R-rating and more reasonable. Guess we got less whining asshats here.

Overall a good movie though. Technically, the filming and the acting was very good. If not for the boring parts for almost half the movie it might have gotten a 5 out of 5 from me.