Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre review

I find Jason Statham movies are usually entertaining, but rarely great. This one wasn't quite what I expected, but it still sat in that range.

Of course this isn't exactly the typical Jason Statham movie. With an impressive cast and Guy Ritchie in the director's chair, this film is a little smarter and more stylish than Statham's typical action fare. I also found it more perplexing.

I can't find the words to describe what I felt watching this film, but there's something a little off about it. My friends also had a complaint that they struggled to articulate. The best I can come up with is: it has a pacing issue.

There is a LOT of exposition delivered early on, and Guy Ritchie tries to keep the audience entertained while delivering it, energetically cutting between characters and locations, action and exposition. I think perhaps this just goes on for too long though, as the movie started to feel almost monotonous.

To be clear it wasn't boring, I was enjoying myself for most of the runtime. But most movies have peaks and valleys; a fast-paced scene followed by a slow one, a loud scene followed by a quiet one. Tension builds up, pays off, then winds down. This movie felt to me like it was at about the same level almost the entire time. There wasn't enough difference between the highs and the lows I guess is what I'm saying.

Well, that's just my impression, my attempt to understand why I felt the movie was lacking. Whatever the issue, it wasn't a dealbreaker. The film is entertaining, with a balance of action and comedy. It's all a little toungue-in-cheek, a little over-the-top, with a Guy Ritchie flavour. The spy-thriller story wasn't that interesting to me, centered around an extremely overused movie macguffin, but it lead to some fun situations and interactions. The action is nothing special but had a pleasing touch of creativity and always a bit of humor woven in.

Jason Statham is playing the mildly comedic version of his usual tough-guy persona, which I enjoyed well enough. He doesn't get too much of a chance to show off his martial-arts skills, but he does get some varied action scenes and as usual he's great in them. It was nice to see Cary Elwes, he was entertaining but I think the script was a little too preoccupied with using him to deliver exposition; I would have liked it if he was given more to do than just play the "Bosley" role.

Aubrey Plaza seemed to be enjoying herself, playing a comedic foil to the more serious men in the team. I liked the way Bugzy Malone played his character with quiet confidence; he was the strong silent type, and I appreciated it. I think this is my favourite role that I've seen Hugh Grant play in years. It's very different from the "adorably awkward" persona from his old romcoms, and much closer to the sleazeball he played in The Gentlemen. I found him much more entertaining in this one; surprisingly he might actually have been my favourite part of the movie.

I did feel Josh Hartnett wasn't being given the chance to do as much with his role as could be done. There's been entire movies centered around the kind of role he played, Nicholas Cage's The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent comes to mind. And yet here he was just a supporting character, a comedic sidekick. It was another element of the film that felt a bit strange, but it was part of the fun, adding to the cast of colourful characters bouncing off each other.


Overall I'm going to give it a 7/10. It's just a bit of easy lightheated fun.

Shazam! Fury Of The Kings review

I was hoping this movie would be good. I liked the original, and I am somewhat fond of Zachary Levi, and of the character in the comics.

The film had moments that I liked: emotional scenes that landed for me, action scenes that I thought were cool, and I even laughed at a few of the jokes. But overall it was a let-down.

It could have been so much better. The characters were likeable - which I found an improvement over the original - and their struggles were relateable. But they were all written to be so unbelievably stupid. In practically EVERY single situation, Billy would make possibly the worst decision possible. Hell, the core conflict of the whole movie is built on something he did in the last movie that is retroactively reframed as a massive mistake.

I expect it was done partly for humour, but after a while I started to find it very frustrating. I mean, a couple of silly mistakes would be fine, but it just kept happening. These weren't just small harmless errors; his screw-ups got people killed. Lots of people. But weirdly the movie doesn't actually seem to acknowledge that. I guess that would ruin the joke?

What's more, the characters' stupidity also makes the whole movie feel unnecessarily contrived. The drama feels forced, easily avoided. The runtime feels padded when you think of how easily the final conflict could have been avoided.

Other than that, the film was fairly well done. While I've said that I hated how stupid the characters were, in actual fact I thought they were mostly very well written from a... human standpoint, if that makes sense. Their interactions, their fears and ambitions; I cared about these characters and wanted to see them succeed. Of course the acting helped with that.

While Shazam was even dumber this time around, he actually got to handle more of the emotional scenes, which gave Zachary Levi the chance to show he is capable of giving a deeper and more rounded performance. Of course this meant that we actually didn't see Billy Batson very much, but when we did I felt that Asher Angel's performance was closer to Zachary Levi's mannerisms than before; and with the other actors also matching performances the human/hero mismatch from the first movie was no longer present.

I think Freddy was generally less annoying this time, and Jack Dylan Grazer did a good job with the character. The rest of Billy's family got a little more to do this time around, and of course all the actors did well, but ultimately they were still mostly in the background. Though I will mention I felt Cooper Andrews' Victor Vasquez left a bit more of an impression this time.

I really liked Rachel Zegler as Anthea, and I was surprised by how convincing Helen Mirren's Hespera was as a physical threat. Unfortunately I felt Lucy Liu didn't really get the chance to shine, as Kalypso was kind of pushed to the background early on and then didn't really get to do very much that was particularly characterful later as the movie was mostly just focused on the CGI monsters. There was also a returning character from the first movie who was better fleshed out this time around, which I enjoyed because I like the actor, but I won't say any more here to avoid spoilers.

I did feel that, for a superhero movie with so many super-powered characters, it was lacking in what I think of as "superhero action". There was really only one decent fight, and most of the rest of the action essentially amounted to chase scenes. Still, the effects were good, and were put to good use in a some interesting shots. While the "magical world" didn't have the same aura of mystery I enjoyed in the original, it was more fleshed out this time around, and bled over into the modern world more, which made environments more varied and interesting. So from a visual standpoint I liked the film. They also worked in a couple of fun songs, which was nice.


Overall I'm giving this movie a 6/10. I guess I would say that the movie handles the human part reasonably well, but fumbles the superhero part. I cared for Shazam as a person, but got irritated with him as a superhero. All things considered I don't regret watching it, I just wish the script had better lived up to the movie's potential.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
The "returning character" I mentioned before was the Wizard. I mean, I realize he's on the poster I used for the header image so him being in the movie isn't some big secret spoiler, but still. I like Djimon Hounsou, I enjoyed his performance as the more likeable, less one-note character he got to play this time.


Early in the movie we see the whole gang using super-speed to save a large number of people from a falling suspension bridge. Later Shazam points out that he has super-speed and the Daughters don't. How is the audience expected to maintain their suspension of disbelief after that? Shazam and his four remaining super-powered siblings should be able to run rings around the Daughters, since they can move faster than the Daughters can see.

In fact at one point Shazam steals the macguffin-staff that is the single biggest threat as it can take away his and his siblings' powers with a single shot from Kalypso, then he immediately... tosses it right back into her hand? And then he just stands there with a dumb expression on his face. Again, I know it was supposed to be funny, but it just ended up hurting my brain. He then just runs away, leaving the Daughters to plant the apple and unleash a bunch of monsters who kill a whole bunch of innocent people. Nice work dude.

A short time later he actually steals it again: even though Kalypso was staring straight at him, he (the second dumbest guy in the movie - Freddy is the actual dumbest of course) outsmarts her with the oldest trick in the book and uses super-speed to grab it out of her hand. Again.

So yeah, he can basically take the staff at any time, and using the staff he can restore his siblings' powers. At which point it would be a straight up battle, with the odds in the heroes' favour. In fact the staff can be used to take away powers, including those of the Daughters. Sure, Shazam might not have realized that or known how to do it, but the Wizard does. So why doesn't the Wizard work with Shazam to take away the Daughters' powers once Shazam has the staff?

But no, instead of giving his siblings their power back or using the staff to take away the Daughters' powers, he blows up the staff in a glorified suicide-bomber attack. Defeating the immediate threat but leaving all his friends powerless.

It felt completely unneccesary. Even ignoring the staff, Shazam doesn't do too bad when he's fighting the dragon at the end: early on he's able to hold it back by grabbing its tail, then the only time he tries to punch it he hits it with a big swing that seems to be very effective, snapping its head around and knocking off armour plates. And while its fire can hurt him, he's not only fast enough to at least have a chance of dodging the flames, even when he doesn't try to dodge he actually manages to take the fire head-on without apparently taking too much damage.

What I'm saying is that, even with just Shazam against Kalypso AND the dragon, it felt like he had a chance of winning in a straight up fight. It didn't feel anywhere near desperate enough to need to instantly resort to a kamikaze attack. And again, that's just him, he always had the option of giving his brothers and sisters their powers back and getting their help. So yeah, while the big final battle did look pretty cool, it felt entirely unneccessary.


Speaking of looking cool, what was the deal with Anthea's powers? Is it supposed to be like that Doctor Strange "Mirror Dimension" thing? Because that didn't seem to be the case; she actually hit Shazam with a moving building. And if it is real, as it seems to be, then in terms of "work being done" in the technical sense, that makes her the most powerful entity we've seen in the DC universe, by several orders of magnitude.

I mean, she spins entire cities around! That's insane power output, nothing we've seen Superman do has even come close. And yet absolutely no-one comments on it! Shazam & Co never stop to discuss what they should do about the girl who can literally send entire city blocks zooming around the landscape. We never see anyone in the city mention how the entire topology changed. And hey, if a building was able to damage Shazam by hitting him, what happened to all the people inside the buildings when they suddenly accelerated or decelerated? Well, I can accept that they were accelerated at the same pace at the same time by the same force so they were fine, but... I feel like the whole thing is just treated far too casually.


Why did Anthea just stand there and watch the energy beam that she knew would steal her powers flying straight at her? Why am I even bothering to ask?


So Atlas, the titan of Greek myth, has 3 daughters: one caucasian, one asian, one hispanic? Seems a bit weird, but whatever, I guess figures in Greek mythology do tend to sleep around.


The staff was the only thing maintaining the barrier around the "god-realm" (or whatever)? Feels pretty contrived. And how does this tie in to Zeus, Wonder Woman, and Hades' presence on Earth in WW1?


Billy Batson came back from the dead. Yay, we're doing the comicbook thing where death doesn't matter. Blame Zach Snider I guess, but this film didn't need to perpetuate the problem. Can the Wizard bring ANYONE back from the dead? Or are we pretending that Billy Batson having the power of Shazam before he died is what allowed him to be reincarnated - and if so, then what is stopping all of the Marvel/Shazam family from being reincarnated at any time if they die?


In the final battle against the dragon, the movie has individual shots that I quite enjoyed. Freeze-frames of dramatic poses backlit by lightning; I wouldn't mind a couple of those frames as posters.


So... no Mister Mind then? Even though the first movie teased him? OK.