Meg 2: The Trench is a movie that could’ve been a whole lot of fun but I found it to be a sludge to sit through and at times, early on mainly, took itself too seriously before finding its campiness for the finale.
Fast X might have some good stunts and a great over-the-top villain performance from Jason Momoa, but otherwise you really couldn’t care about any of these characters. Perhaps it’s worth a rental especially if you’ve made it this far in the franchise but it is running out of steam at this juncture.
London debuts on Blu-ray through Mill Creek Entertainment and stars Chris Evans, Jason Statham, Jessica Biel and Joy Bryant. No features were included, however.
Although not the strongest movie within Guy Ritchie’s filmography, Wrath of Man sees the filmmaer re-team with Jason Statham to make a solid, and all around entertaining action-thriller well worth checking out.
Hobbs & Shaw is a weak entry within the franchise for sure and although I do like both Johnson and Statham and their respective characters, but having them bickering at one another reminded me that perhaps less is more.
Crank is a fun and rather entertaining flick even with the frenetic (though I know it’s in keeping with the adrenaline theme) direction, though works mostly for Jason Statham who does well even with some limited character development.
With an incredibly stupid story, bad visual effects, and some terrible acting ever imagined possible, Ghost of Mars will go down in history as one of the worst Sci-Fi/Horror around. Kind of surprising this is came from the legendary John Carpenter.
The Meg is a fun enough if not also forgettable science fiction action-adventure flick, a bigger budget version of a plot you’d see from Asylum that somehow managed to get an A-grade actor to star.
Transporter 3 is sadly a poor entry into the franchise, especially for the end of the Statham line, although I found it to be more entertaining compared with the TV series and Refueled reboot.
The Fate of the Furious is a perfectly fine entry into the now long-running franchise that doesn’t really show signs of slowing down. The action scenes are well done and although none of the acting, or dialogue for that matter, will impress, I still found myself relatively entertained.
Mechanic: Resurrection, while not awful and at times passably entertaining, had not reason to even exist, although from my memory was I guess a tad better than its predecessor. The only reason to even sit through this is for Jason Statham who still possesses great charm, otherwise the stunt work isn’t the best and the plot is incredibly thin.
These three sets are more bargain releases for Mill Creek Entertainment with titles previously on DVD and in some cases Blu-ray so unless you don’t already own these, it might be worth picking up at $10 a pop, though don’t expect any frills and the video and audio transfers are so-so at best.
Furious 7 takes insanity to the next level with incredible action sequences as well as impressive stunt work to go along with seeing characters I’ve come to care about since the beginning. No doubt the loss of Paul Walker weighed heavily on the cast and crew and one must give kudos for getting it done.
Wild Card is one unusual film if only that it comes across as a mish-mash of a feature film mixed with some kind of TV pilot with the variety of colorful side characters and a patch-work of a plot. Statham for his part though was fine albeit no different than any of his other run-of-the-mill crime-thrillers and the supporting cast was good but often underutilized to the point of being useless (Jason Alexander for instance has one scene and is not seen again… at all).
The Expendables 3 continues a franchise that had more promise than delivering the goods, but still this wasn’t a terrible film, just underwhelming and at times a tad dull. I still enjoyed seeing these 1980s action stars together so it’s not a complete waste of time, but at best this is only a rental.