Action

Outside the Wire | Review

Published

3 years ago

January 13, 2021

Outside the Wire is the latest action, sci-fi film from Netflix that’s set in the future and it’s full of robots and plenty of action. You’d think all this makes for an exciting film when in fact it’s the complete opposite.

Outside the Wire takes place in the year 2036 when a drone pilot named Harp, played by Damson Idris (Snowfall) goes against orders in launching a missile attack and as a result, he’s forced to work for an android officer called Leo, played by Anthony Mackie (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Hurt Locker). The two of them are tasked with going into a deadly militarized zone in order to locate a doomsday device before the insurgents do.

It happens all too often now that Netflix come along and release a below average action film but viewers continue to lap them up. It happened with The Old Guard and Project Power to name a few recent examples and it’s beginning to get a little tiresome. Outside the Wire is yet another messy, bloated action film devoid of any life or excitement.

There was definitely potential for something half decent to have come of Outside the Wire but it all just gets lost in trying to be a slick action film. Every other line in this film seemed to be exposition trying to explain something that’s been needlessly over-complicated by all the futuristic things going on. It’s an action film so you might be able to give all the expositional dialogue a pass if the action is alright and entertaining. But even the action feels boring and a chore to sit through. There are just too many action scenes that become far too confusing to follow because of choppy editing and poor CGI.

The opening scene throws you straight in with a fast-paced action scene but when the first few minutes are intercut with text trying to bring you up to speed with what’s going it all becomes too much. Within a few minutes you’re already struggling to keep up with all the information that’s been thrown at you and you’re not really interested in the action either. The sound design was quite good however and that’s one of the few redeeming factors of this film; all of the action scenes sounded really gripping and exhilarating. They just didn’t look it.

As the film goes on it tries to be much cleverer than a film like this needs to be and it results in feeling far too long. The film comes in at five minutes shy of two hours so it isn’t a long film at all and yet by the time the end credits start rolling it feels like an eternity later.

If Netflix slowed down the rate at which they’re churning out all these films they might end up with some good films but that’s not how Netflix work, they’d rather have quantity over quality as the number of people that stream their drivel always seems so high. Perhaps I’m being a little over-critical here as there are some good Netflix action films such as last year’s Extraction which was excellent but it just seems to be so often that you go to check out the latest original action offering on Netflix only to be bored and disappointed two hours later.

Overall, Outside the Wire is a bloated, messy action film, with very few redeeming qualities that will leave you bored and isn’t worth your time.

★★☆☆☆

Outside the Wire is streaming on Netflix from January 15.

FILM RATING

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Action

Godzilla Minus One | Official Trailer #2

Post war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb

Published

4 weeks ago

November 6, 2023

Staff

Genre:

Action, Adventure, Drama

Release Date:

December 1, 2023

Director:

Takashi Yamazaki

Cast:

Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada

Plot Summary:

Post war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb

FILM RATING

Action

The Continental Review: Not The Prequel We Needed

Published

2 months ago

October 4, 2023

Kevin Verma

Ever since Lionsgate greenlit this series in early 2017, fans of the franchise have been eagerly anticipating to see how the John Wick universe expands. 4 movies in, the John Wick franchise is widely known as one of the greatest action movie franchises of all time with our titular character (a.k.a Baba Yaga) becoming one of the most iconic and bad-ass figures ever in Hollywood. The Continental: From The World of John Wick is a prequel series that tells the story of Winston Scott and how he became the manager of New York’s The Continental branch.

The miniseries was developed by Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward and Shawn Simmons. It is executive produced by Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, Derek Kolstad, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, the director of all four John Wick movies. It is structured as a 3-night event told through three 90-minute episodes. The series was originally supposed to air on Starz, but the network sold it to Peacock in 2022. After 6 years in development, it finally aired on Peacock this September.

A lot has been made of the subtitle of the project ever since it was announced. The fact that the makers needed to include it says a lot about the show. It almost felt like the prime marketing asset for it many times as the other promotional material didn’t necessarily create a lot of hype for the show. Albert Hughes directed the first and third episodes, while Charlotte Branstrom directed the second, and disappointingly both directors do not bring the same novelty or creative prowess that Chad Stahelski managed to bring in the John Wick movies.

The show also surprisingly lacks any real star power. This franchise is one of Lionsgate’s most prized assets, so you would imagine that they would make sure to get a big cast and crew for this prequel miniseries, but they didn’t. Colin Woodell as Winston Scott is the clear standout among the cast despite delivering only a decent performance, which says a lot about the acting standards in this 3-episode miniseries. Many have criticized the casting of Mel Gibson in the series, but I personally had no issue with his performance and he’s also the most recognizable member of the cast despite having no real audience pull anymore.

The writing doesn’t offer too much to ponder upon or any seriously shocking turns in the story as most of the focus is on making the product as epic, badass and action-packed as possible. Some of the characters had some interesting layers to them, especially Charon (Ayomide Adegun) and Lou (Jessica Allain). Lemmy (Adam Shapiro) provides some much-needed comic relief with his witty dialogues. The structuring of the story works really well as a 3-night event which sets the high stakes and sets a standard of intensity for the narrative.

But the thing that people were most looking forward to, was the action and how it fared against John Wick. Unfortunately, that department was inconsistent as well. Ben Robson’s fight sequence in the early part of the first episode was great and it makes you optimistic that the action would get better from here on, but it never does. Most of the action blocks here involve explosions and guns rather than the hand-to-hand combat John Wick franchise is known for. Some of the action was awesome and some of it sadly wasn’t.

The Continental: From the World of John Wick brings a lot of glamour as it tries to expand its world but fails to engage with its paper-thin plot. The characters are mostly dull with a formulaic villain and misses the presence of a magnetic protagonist like Wick. A prequel about Wick’s backstory would’ve been much more interesting than this inconsistent prequel event saved by its style and some great action. It has almost enough to be its own thing but doesn’t quite have enough to match its parent movies.

The Continental: From the World of John Wick premieres on Peacock in the US and Prime Video in the UK and Australia on 22 September, with new episodes weekly.