Ryan Reynolds – Bride of the Book God 2

During these strange times we’ve started trying to watch a film together once a week to make up for how much we miss visiting our local cinema and I thought I’d pull together a post I was originally going to call Big Dumb Movies but as (a) not all of them are the same scale of bigness and (b) not all of them are particularly dumb, that idea was quickly set aside 🙂

Hobbs & Shaw

(or as we must call it Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw – I felt there should be a “presents” in there instead of a colon, and lo I find that was the original title!)

Lawman Luke Hobbs and outcast Deckard Shaw form an unlikely alliance when a cyber genetically enhanced villain threatens the future of humanity

I have to admit to only having seen the first Fast & Furious film though I understand each sequel has only raised the stakes in stunts, loudness and presumably silliness in the many years since, but I really wanted to watch this one because of Jason Statham. I think he’s great.

Don’t get me wrong, I also love Dwayne Johnson but this was all about The Stath for me!

The plot is just on the right side of utter ridiculousness, the stunts are totally over the top and there is insufficient Ryan Reynolds (but when is there ever sufficient Ryan, I ask you) but it was an absolute hoot and gets bonus points for villainous Idris Elba. Enjoyed it very much.

Dazzling details: directed by David Leitch, F&F: H&S is 2h 17m long and rated 12A for moderate violence and infrequent strong language

2036: Origin Unknown

After a failed mission to Mars, AI/ARTI is now used for the 2036 mission with a few human supervisors. A monolith of unknown origin is found there. It will have a big effect on Earth.

So we misread the Netflix description and thought that this was going to be a series and by the time we realised it was a feature we were committed and decided to see it through.

This was fairly disappointing to be honest. It started off well before getting a bit bogged down and then morphed into a wannabe 2001: A Space Odyssey for the final act., complete with philosophical gibberish and all the psychedelia you might require. A shame. Katee Sackhoff deserves better.

Dazzling details: directed by Hasraf Dulull, 2036:OU is 1h 54m long and rated 12 for moderate injury detail, threat

The Wandering Earth [liu lang di qui]

As the sun is dying out people all around the world build giant planet thrusters to move Earth out of its orbit and sail to a new star system. Yet the 2500 year journey comes with unexpected dangers and in order to save humanity a group of young people in this age of a wandering earth fight hard for the survival of humankind

Based on a series of (I believe) linked short stories by the author Liu Cixin which apparently I have had on my Kindle app for ages but totally forgot about, this is the biggest and most expensive sci-fi film to come out of China.

The special effects are great and I was pleased to spot some standard elements that I recognise from other Chines films I have seen (exaggerated comic relief being one of them).

It was a tad too long for my taste but the references to 2001 in this film were much more successful and on the whole, it was very impressive.

Dazzling details: directed by Frant Gwo, The Wandering Earth is 2h 15m long and rated 15 for strong language, threat, injury detail, intense action scenes.

This is a Michael Bay film. Just warning you.

Meet a new kind of action hero. Six untraceable agents, totally off the grid. They’ve buried their pasts so that they can change the future.

I was going to say that I have a love/hate relationship with Michael Bay but that wouldn’t be true. I just don’t like his stuff very much. I went on IMDb to have a look at his directing credits and found out that the last one I willingly watched was the first Transformers movie and the last one I can say that I enjoyed (with reservations) is Armageddon.

Armageddon was released in 1998.

So given all this, you may be wondering why I was willing to put myself through watching 6 Underground. I have two words for you.

Ryan Reynolds.

Now some of you have been here a while and will know that I do not really do romantic comedies, and by not really I mean not at all. For this reason, quite a lot of Mr Reynolds’ performances have passed me by. Until Green Lantern, which was universally panned (including by the star himself) but which I enjoyed quite a bit.

Then came Deadpool and I was smitten.

Therefore, I am always willing to give his movies a shot and this looked like it might be fun, plus it was on Netflix, so could be watched in the comfort of my own home. This is a big advantage when you are looking at a film that you are totally unsure about

So what did I think?

Put it this way – I gave it 2 stars on Letterboxd (see here) simply because of the lovely Ryan. One of those points was purely for the excellent product placement of Aviation Gin, a company which he owns.

It’s loud and stupid with lots of car chases and explosions and a disjointed plot which doesn’t really make sense. You will also note from the poster that there are actually seven people in Ryan’s gang. Though not necessarily all at the same time.

In short, to quote my legendary compatriot, Macbeth, it is a story

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.

(Still love Ryan though)

Dazzling details: directed by Michael Bay, this is 2h 8m long and rated 15 for (takes a deep breath) strong bloody violence, gore, sex, sex references, very strong language.

Seriously, what do you need to do to get an 18 these days – like I have said more times than I can remember?