What's The Movie About?
A writer who writes an incredibly realistic spy novel is roped up in a struggle between a spy agency and one of it's agents gone rogue. Also there is a cat.
What I Like.
Most of this movie is expertly crafted. I mean watching the trailer will give anyone a sense of just how fun the movie's action will be, and how fucking dope the soundtrack is. Seriously, every few minutes I was pulling up Shazam to get the know what song was playing. Go listen to Electric Energy. GO LISTEN TO ELECTRIC ENERGY. The action is top notch, full of energy and color and again, the pace is set by the music. My one weakness! The cinematography and directing is also to notch, Vaughn really knows how to capture cool locations and movement. I really dug the leads as well. It's been said before but Sam Rockwell is a goddamn treasure. This movie probably has the best explanation of why a cold blooded killer is trying to get a meek normal person out of their shell by teaching them to murder that I've ever seen. And I like that this is basically Kingsman but for girls. Seriously, this movie does that spy movie thing where this is just wish fulfillment for the audience, but instead of suave guys in suits driving cool cars and banging tons of women, it's a mild mannered woman wearing a sparkly dress, defeating bad guys with ice-skating and winning the heart of a gruff but highly devoted guy. Part of reason I'm not really into spy movies is that even the ones with female leads feel like they were made explicitly for men. And I like that despite her growth into a badass spy, the movie never moves away from the leads mild-manneredness.
What I Didn't Like.
Everything about this movie is really good, except for the story. The story is god awful. I need to talk about this, but I don't really want to spoil the entire movie, so I'm going to replace all the twists with similar but different ones. But if you're smart you'll probably figure some of it out, just so be aware. So the first twist is that the main character is straight. The set-up is that she is a lesbian but then, surprise, no she isn't. Okay, I guess that work, no wait, the bad guys made her a lesbian, how surprising. Whatever. Then there's a second twist that, surprise, she's actually lesbian? And this makes Sam Rockwell mad because they've been flirting for most of the movie and also why the fuck the the bad guys use MKULTRA technology to make a lesbian a lesbian, but okay. She's gay. Wait no, she's actually bisexual and her and Sam hook up at the end, but also her dead girlfriend is alive. What the fuck is happening?! The final twist is that the movie is the adaptation of the book the main character writes or something, fucking screw off movie. And the movie takes place in the same universe as Austin Powers. WAIT, WHAT?
Final Summation.
Movies like this I find to be the trickiest to review. Do I recommend this movie because of all cool action, beautiful cinematography, good directing, and brilliant soundtrack? Or do I reject this movie because the story feels like someone went of a Wikipedia binge while on ketamine? The it's first half was good, and the finale was good too. But whenever they explained anything I had to stop myself from yelling at the scene about how stupid the plot is. I honestly think it would have been better if played it straight. The lady is somehow so knowledgeable about spy stuff that she predicts actual spy stuff, a real spy needs to protect her, and they fall in love. It's the Amazing Race but with murder, perfect movie pitch right there. But I guess if you can ignore the dumb stuff, it is still a pretty fun movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment