Sean’s movie thoughts

Batman Knightfall part one is good. This is the latest animated DC movie. It ends on a cliffhanger and I am interested in the next installment. Voices are good. A pre-Secret Six Catman is on hand briefly, which is a nice touch. (The Villains United comic book mini-series introduced a team called the Secret Six and revitalized Catman. The Knightfall storyline was years before Villains United.) One Last Shot was good. This is the sequel to One More Shot. Scott Adkins returns as the hero and Kane Kosugi has a villainous role.  Dolph Lundgren is in the movie but his role is less significant than his placement on the movie thumbnail/box cover would indicate. This  review  is good. Lion Fist was decent, maybe more than decent, and it might be worth watching again. The star of the Last Kumite returns in this movie and he gets involved in another tournament. This might for people nostalgic for the heyday of Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Scott Adkins stars in Reckless. He plays a paroled criminal on the run with a woman who accidentally kills someone. It is decent. It is not as good as Prisoner of War or Diablo. I think it might worth seeing again. This is set in the UK.  I am looking forward to the Furious. I hope it plays near me. A fight scene was released after the trailer and it was good. I heard mostly negative things about the Mandolorian movie. One you tuber I trust said that the movie might have been much better if it were 90 minutes long instead of 2 hours and 12 minutes long. Apparently a lot of reviewers feel compelled to say "this is not the way" at some point in their review.   I might catch up with Mandolorian movie later.  I don't like to go to movies on holiday weekends.

 Diablo is not connected to the video game series. It is not a John Wick spinoff either (even if two of the actors were in John Wick chapter 4). Scott Adkins stars as Cris who kidnaps a teenage girl, Eliza, who he claims is his daughter. He says her mother visited him in prison and asked him to save her from Vicente, the man Eliza believes is her father. Vicente is a criminal. Eliza's mother is dead. Vicente offers a reward for Eliza's return.  One of Vincente's henchmen calls in a psycho (Marko Zaror) to get her but he seems creepy and might have his own motives.  The movie is set in Columbia. This is the third time Adkins and Zaror have fought on screen.  I don't think their characters in John Wick chapter 4 fought. (Maybe they fight a lot off screen, heh.) It is nice to see them on screen together.  This is good. It might be better than I expected. Director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza also directed Fist of the Condor staring Zaror. 

Take Cover is good. This is another direct to video action movie with Scott Adkins. He tries to retire from his black ops job. His employers don't accept this and he and his partner are trapped in a hotel room and under attack. Two women, hired as massage artists, are trapped in the room too. This is good. It has a small cast and a limited location but I think it works. Adkins is good. I liked his partner. I did not recognize that actor. There is less hand to hand action than in some of Adkins other films. That kind of goes a long with the set-up. This might be worth re-watching.  It is not as good as One Shot or One More Shot.

This is the sequel to One Shot. Enough will be explained if you have not seen One Shot. A terrorist suspect is going to be handed to the CIA for interrogation. However some mercenaries take over the airport where the exchange will take place.  I thought this was good. It is nice to see Tom Bringer in a supporting role. Michael Jai White is one of the mercenaries, and he and Adkins get to square off. This is not revolutionary but I thought the action was good. A couple of the supporting performances were really good. https://www.blu-ray.com/One-More-Shot/1785254/#Review I liked that review.  I think this film is worth checking out. I might watch it again before the year is out.

Castle Falls is good. Maybe it starts off a little slowly but that is probably the worst thing I can say about it. The only way around that might be to start the movie in the midst of action and then have a flashback explaining how the various characters got involved. I am glad the movie didn’t do that.  Scott Adkins and Dolph Lundgren star. There is an old hospital to be torn down/demolished but there is a small fortune in cash hidden in the building. (The money is from some crime.) Some people, including a criminal gang, are trying to get it and conflict arises. Lungren’s character needs the money to pay  for his sick daughter’s medical care. It is nice to see Dolph Lundgren, who also directed the film, in action. He also gets some dramatic moments. His real daughter plays his character’s daughter. (That is a nice touch.)  The villains are not great, they might be average villains. One review I saw called it perfectly solid or pretty solid. That seems fair.

Scott Adkins and Donnie Yen are reported to be in the next John Wick movie. That could be nice. They don't even have to fight each other. Maybe Daniel Bernhardt can come back as a relative of his character from the 1st film.  I have never seen any of the Purge movies or the related TV series.  I have no interest in them. I am not sure why I have no in interest in the concept. The latest one is the Forever Purge and it is set in Texas (of course it is).  There is an animated movie called America the Motion Picture. I think it is a comedy but I did not get it. I did not finish it and I don't think I will go back to finish it. (Update: I, so far, did not go back to finish it.)

I have been watching some silly TV shows. Since this is a movie blog, I decided to do a best of list.   According to me, this is the list of the top five Scott Adkins movies, at least at this point of time.  Next year, I might revisit this list. I am not counting movies where he plays a villain or where he has a supporting role.  Eliminators The Debt Collector Accident Man Avengement  Undisputed 3 My new rule on movie lists is no ties. I could change it later but it seems like the right way to go. I guess I could have put Seized on this list instead of Undisputed 3. Maybe I should re-watch them bit over a weekend. Maybe the training sequences in Undisputed 3 made it more enjoyable than Seized.  I went with Debt Collector over its sequel Debt Collectors. I like both but the original is better and it has Tony Todd, which is not a bad thing. 

 Scott Adkins and Mario Van Peebles stars in this thriller. Adkins plays a former British special agent forced by a Mexican drug lord to kill his enemies. I had not seen Van Peoples in a movie in a long time, so it was nice to see him again.  He was born in Mexico, which I either forgot or did not know. I guess he is not the least likely actor to be cast as a Mexican drug lord. This is not top tier Adkins but it is enjoyable. It is under ninety minutes. I did like the sequence when he had his hands tied behind his back and had to fight without his hands. I think this film needed a top notch henchman for an epic fight scene. I liked seeing Van Peebles again. I think it might be time to re-watch some of his films. This is maybe a bit better than Legacy of Lies but not as good as the Debt Collector or Debt Collectors. Legacy of Lies is not bad though

Legacy of Lies is good but a step down from Debt Collectors. Scott Adkins stars as a former MI-6 agent. (He doesn't have to use his American accent.) Russian thugs kidnap his daughter, who is 12 or 13, and force him to get some information and to either kill a journalist or turn the journalist over to them. Things get more complicated because he starts to like the journalist. Adkins is good. He gets some nice character moments and is getting better in the non- action scenes.  The relationship with his daughter came across well and the actress was good.The actress playing the journalist was likeable. The fight scenes are good. There are not a lot of them though and there might be more gun battles than hand to hand fights. In one of the fights it looked like Adkins used a mixed martial arts move. Is this worth buying? I am not sure. I think it is worth a digital rental or checking it out if it gets to Netflix. I bought it but I am a fan.

This is a list of the top 5 Scott Adkins movies. These are movies staring him, not movies where he has a supporting role like American Assassin or Doctor Strange. In a year or so I reserve the option to update the list. I kept the list to a top five, there are no ties. the Debt Collector Eliminators Avengement Accident Man Hard Target 2 I have not seen any of the Undisputed movies yet. So it is possible when I do a new edition of this list, it might include at least one movie from that series. 

Scott Adkins and Louis Mandylor return as French and Sue in this sequel to the Debt Collector. Jesse V. Johnson returns as the director. French and Sue are back collecting debts for their boss Tommy. Things might be more complicated than that however and the duo are being followed by two men as they make their collections. This was fun. The fight scenes are good and both stars get their chance to shine. The bar fight that is featured in the trailer is good but it is not the best fight scene in the film. Sue has sworn off violence at the start of the film but that conviction does not last. Adkins and Mandylor have a good chemistry. There are some decent character moments. I am not saying this is amazing. It is good and director Johnson and star Adkins have done some good work together including Avengement, Accident Man, and the Debt Collector.  I did not like the ending (I am not going to spoil anything) but overall this is worth watching.

Scott Adkins Stars as Cain, a criminal who escapes police custody to get revenge on his brother and his brother’s criminal organization. (He was being taken to see his dying mother in the hospital before he escaped.) This is set in England, so Adkins does not have to fake an American accent. Jesse V. Johnson directs. This is the sixth film he has made with Adkins. This partnership seems to be working. I think the Debt Collector,  another of their collaborations, is significantly better than this film. Maybe Accident Man is also better than this movie. The fight scenes are really good. Adkin’s performance is pretty good. The villains are not too interesting and one plot point seems hard to believe but I am not an expert on British law, so maybe that plot point is not as far fetched as it seems to me. If the villains were better, this would probably be better. It is not a classic but it is worth seeing. I included some review links. https://ew.com/movie-reviews/2019/05/23/ave...

The Debt Collector is the latest film staring Scott Adkins. He plays a man named French who out of desperation becomes a debt collector for the mob. (His gym is failing.) Adkins gets to use his British accent in this one. French gets paired with a former boxer named Sue (Louis Mandylor). Sue has a classic car from 1971 and the pair collect money and give warnings to people. They get a big job tracking down a former bar manager but something about the job doesn’t feel right. It is fun. The fights are good. Adkins fights guys who are big enough to throw him around and through at least one wall. Adkins and Mandylor make a good buddy pairing. It is not great but it is worth seeing. I put a link to another review below. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-capsule-the-debt-collector-review-2018053o-20180530-story.html