Hidden Strike review

When I first read the name, I casually dismissed this as a mediocre straight-to-DVD action movie. Then I realised it starred Jackie Chan and John Cena. Still, the trailer did not look particularly interesting. The poster's kinda crap too.

But John Cena can be funny and Jackie Chan is the greatest action star of all time, so I made the effort to catch this in the cinema. I think locally it was on it's third week, so I was expecting the theater to be mostly empty, but to my surprise there was a fair number of people there.

I was also a little surprised by how good it was. Not like "Citizen Kane" good: this isn't a movie that wants to explore the human condition or inspire thought-provoking debate. It only wants to entertain. And I was entertained, pretty much from start to finish.

Jackie and John play well off each other, with Chan playing something of a straight man to Cena's more comedic character. Perhaps because of this I felt Cena stole the show a bit, outside of the action scenes at least.

Speaking of the action scenes, they're pretty good... for an American movie. Which is weird because I didn't think this was an American movie. Yes, there's a fair bit of martial arts on display, but it's not really the main focus and to me it felt like American Jackie Chan martial arts, rather than Hong Kong Jackie Chan martial arts.

Nevertheless, the martial arts scenes are stylish and creative, with clear differences between the agility and skill Chan's character displays and the brute power Cena's character specialises in, with the two complementing each other well when the fists start flying.

The creativity and humour we've come to expect from Jackie is present in the action, and works well enough with John Cena's own style of comedy. Worthy of special mention is one of the strangest fights I've ever seen, perhaps one of the craziest in Jackie Chan's career; if you're a fan of his work you'll probably find the film worth watching for this fight alone!

I didn't personally feel too invested in the story, but it does a good enough job of establishing a sense of danger, and more importantly perhaps of giving both characters a bit of backstory; enough to care about them anyway. And of course provides an excuse for some interesting locations and action sequences. The acting is fine, though most of the supporting characters don't get much development. I did think the villain's performance was entertainingly evil, but he wasn't really very threatening - and the plot-twist concerning his true identity was a little pointless.


I'd say it's a solid 7/10. It's a pretty good action flick, and overall an easy and enjoyable watch.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One review

Jeez, that's a long title. I liked the last few Mission: Impossible movies, but was a little concerned when I discovered this film was getting towards three hours long yet was only a "part one". I feel like a lot of shows and even some movies these days are just made to string you along, all promise and very little payoff. Would this film really justify its runtime?

To me the answer was "not really". While nothing in the film felt like "filler", it did feel a touch bloated to me. And, as I feared, the end didn't really leave me feeling satisfied. Of course a cliffhanger ending is always going to lack a sense of finality and closure, so perhaps that's not a fair criticism. But a good cliffhanger ending can leave you eager to see the next part, and I didn't really feel that either.

That might be because I just wasn't really enjoying the movie all that much, so I wasn't feeling invested enough to care about a sequel a year or more from now. Don't get me wrong, the movie was pretty good, but I felt it was weaker than the previous few M:I films. Or most of Tom Cruise's movies of the last few years for that matter.

I'll save most of the discussion of why not for the spoilers section. As far as general criticism goes, I felt the film lacked some signature Mission Impossible elements. I wasn't impressed with the writing; the plot felt lazy at times, some events just felt too contrived. And I didn't really think the story was complex enough to justify the long runtime and cliffhanger ending.

Of course the film had it's moments. The action was pretty good, though not as impactful as the action in several movies I've seen in the last year or so. I was engaged and entertained for most of the run-time, though I started to get frustrated towards the end. I did enjoy seeing the cast back and slipping into their old roles, though some of them didn't really get all that much time in the limelight as a lot of the focus was on newer cast members.


Overall I'm giving it a 6/10. It was fun, but flawed. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but at the end of the day I just felt a little disappointed.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
The movie was missing some of the expected MI touches. Overly-complicated infiltration plans are an iconic element of the series, but that didn't happen here. The closest we got was Ethan trying to get onto a train, which the movie seemed to think was something very difficult, yet never actually tried to explain WHY it was difficult - trains are not known for having extremely tight security. In the typical M:I infiltration scene they descibe the security sytem, explaining why breaking in is practically impossible, This time they... didn't.

For example, there's a scene in the previous entry, Fallout, where Ethan and August infiltrate a club by parachuting in from extremely high altitude. In this movie, Ethan and Ilsa just walk in through the front door. No disguises, no plan, no backup, no weapons or tools or gadgets, they just walk up and see what happens. Hell, one of the villians had several knives, another smuggled in a SWORD, yet our heroes don't bother to even try to bring anything at all. That's... that's NOT how Mission Impossible is supposed to work.


I didn't really like "The Entity" as a villain: apart from being arguably too "sci-fi", it was faceless, almost voiceless, and far too "hands-off". It was described as being very powerful and implied to be very dangerous, but it actually does very little and we never understood what it actually wanted. In practice it was pretty much a non-entity (I swear I didn't do that on purpose).

Gabriel then served as the actual main antagonist for the film and he was... not very impressive. He had no agency of his own, I never felt as if he was built up as a convincing threat: there was no suggestion of him being particularly intelligent or physically capable, all we know is that he likes to make people suffer. Which makes him detestable, but not inherently threatening. He was just... more annoying than scary.


The movie spent a LOT of time centered around Grace. Which was fine at first but soon got old, or at least I got tired of it because after a while I realised I didn't really like her. Hayley Atwell was great, but all we know about the character is that she's a thief who keeps backstabbing Ethan when he's going out of his way to try to help her. There is no redeeming backstory or anything.

OK, sure, she makes the right decision in the end, but it was a LONG time getting there. A long time in which I mostly just found her irritating. And what makes it worse is the way that Ethan keeps, well, letting her get away with it. He keeps acting like she's on his side, putting his trust in her, even though she repeatedly betrays him. She just keeps making things worse; for Ethan, for the rest of the team, and even for herself. It's just annoying.

Hell, at one point she handcuffs him to the steering wheel of a car when he's not looking, trapping him in a car that's sitting on train tracks. He barely manages to survive. That's right, she almost KILLED him, yet he doesn't say anything and just keeps risking THE ENTIRE WORLD to try to be nice to her. What the hell is that?

This is a big problem because it turns Ethan into a moron, rather than the brilliant intelligence agent that we're told he is supposed to be. And that kinda breaks the movie. The way he behaves makes no sense, it lacks internal logic. And when a story lacks internal logic, I get turned off.

I just don't think the movie does enough to justify why it's all so centered around her. Is this one of those "introducing a new character to replace the old one" situations? Is Tom Cruise planning to retire from the MI series, and they're trying to set up a replacement protagonist? Because if that's what's happening, it's not being handled that well.

BTW, Ethan trying to protect Grace reminded me of Knight And Day. Which was a movie that I loved. But June was a far more likeable and relateable character than Grace, seeing as she didn't keep trying to betray the person who kept saving her life.


So Ilsa shows up and attacks Gabriel with a sword. On a narrow bridge, where she has enough arm-room to swing the sword around freely but his ability to dodge is restricted by the lack of leg-room. And he only has a pair of small knives. And yet she still loses? The odds were stacked in her favour, yet she loses. Later an unarmed Ethan managed to defeat an armed Gabriel, yet Ilsa lost when she was at an advantage. I... am not impressed.

By the way, Ilsa faking her death, then just showing up halfway through the movie only to not do anything all that useful (except die to save Grace I guess) was a bit of a wasted opportunity? The Entity dealt with information, that's its strength, so trying to keep the fact that Ilsa was still alive a secret in order to catch it by surprise, to throw off its predictions, could have been a useful strategy -or at least a dramatic moment. It didn't even have to succeed, just having them attempt it would have worked well with the theme of the movie. But as-is, her faking her death at the start of the film just didn't amount to anything.


The two agents chasing Ethan didn't really have much impact on the story, despite having a fair amount of screentime. I understand the archetype of that relationship, but the movie was already long enough that their role could have been cut down a bit or removed entirely without actually losing very much.


At one point Paris asks Ethan why he spared her. He did not answer. Which annoyed me because I also wanted an explanation; she was a dangerous enemy who had tried to kill him and Grace, and was stopping him from saving Ilsa and/or Grace. I mean, he's fighting to protect his friends and the world, and it's not like he's ever shown a reluctance to kill before. He didn't hesitate to gun down the mercenaries in the desert at the start of the movie, for example. Again, I am familiar with the whole "the hero helps someone even though it cost them, then gets saved by them later" story arc, but it really just didn't make sense in this situation. And the movie actually drawing attention to it without actually trying to explain it didn't make it any better. Am I just missing something?

Speaking of things I don't understand, why did Ethan try to get Grace to help him to begin with? He already showed he can pick a pocket - or place something into one, why not find a chance to slip up to the target and return the key himself? Possibly using one of those fake faces that he loves so much if he's worried about being recognised. Why involve an unpredictable wild-card? Someone in his position should know the importance of eliminating variables, he shouldn't be going out of his way to add more of them!


Cary Elwes was a little bit wasted. He shows up in two scenes: one where he's effectively clueless and just there for the movie to deliver exposition (which is a bit lazy: show don't tell guys!), and then another when it turns out he's the only one who DOES know what's happening, only for him to act like an idiot and die.


The team took far too long to start to think "we probably need an anti-hacking strategy since the Entity can mess with us". It somehow hacked ethan's GLASSES and interfered with his sight, that's probably a good point to start worrying about that sort of thing.


Can we just take a moment to talk about how unlikely it is that so many people would just casually carry around THE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM IN THE WORLD in their pockets where it can be so easily snatched by a pick-pocket? Apart from being stupid and unbelievable, it's very... not the way M:I movies usually do things? Important items having tons of security is a cornerstone of the series!


How the hell did Paris just APPEAR in a vertical train-cart, when she was literally minutes away from dying from a stab wound? Why was she there anyway, why did she think "Let me go see what's happening inside the train cars THAT ARE HANGING ABOVE A CLIFF AND ABOUT TO FALL"?

Speaking of which, I hate to say it, but I think that scene was just a little too drawn out. How many train cars are going to very slowly be dragged off the cliff, always giving the heroes JUST ENOUGH time to climb their way up. It was just... a little bit too contrived, too convenient, even for me. Especially since the payoff wasn't really all that great; two people slowly climbing up a vertical train car is just not as impressive or exciting as the kind of action sequences that, say, the John Wick movies find contrived ways to justify including.


Ethan acts like it will be impossible to infiltrate the train without a magic face mask machine, so he comes up with a plan to jump a motorcycle onto the roof. And yet the two agents (who have been in the movie the whole time yet never managed to actually do anything useful) just casually walk onto the train, and just walk around without anyone stopping them. Never mind a whole bunch of passengers who just casually climb on. Tell me again why it was so hard for Ethan?


How did Grace end up at the bridge with Gabriel? There was no-one directing her and it was a whole damned CITY, why would she end up THERE? Ethan and Ilsa were being directed by the Entity, but Grace was just running for her life. I can't accept that there was no other way she could have gone, and I refuse to believe "the Entity predicted it".

Also why did Grace see Gabriel and decide to try to kill him? She's spent the ENTIRE movie running away from Ethan - the guy very clearly trying to PROTECT her - up to and including what she's doing RIGHT NOW, why not just run away from the guy who has already said he's going to KILL her? Maybe I missed something, but I don't recall seeing anyone else around to stop her from running. She was running away from people (but there was no-one actually behind her at the time so she wasn't cut-off and could have turned and gone back), then she saw him and just decided to stop running and act COMPLETELY out of character!