Sean’s movie thoughts

 The new Mortal Kombat is good but I like the original more. I think it might be worth watching them back some day. The new one lacks charm. Best action movies re-watched this year so far  Mission of Justice Bloodfist 3 forced to fight Blackbelt  S.W.A.T. Under Siege Worst movie of the year  Thunder Force Pleasant surprises Wheelman Gridlocked 

Wheelman stars Frank Grillo as a getaway driver whose job goes wrong. (If the job did not go wrong, it would be a short film.) He is also having trouble with his teen daughter, which is more important than you’d expect at first.   Grillo is pretty good as the lead in this. He spends a lot of time talking to characters over the phone. That seems like it might be hard to give a good performance. This has action but it is not action packed. I thought the acting was pretty good from the supporting cast. I liked the story and thought the movie was well paced.  This  review is pretty good, if you’d like a second opinion.  I am not saying this is great but it was good. I think it is worth re-watching. 

I did finish Thunder Force. It is bad. I did not find many of the jokes funny and I thought some of the pop culture references seemed stale or out of date. (Maybe if I liked the film more I would not mention this.)The prologue was okay, if a little long, but a major plot point established in the prologue makes no sense.  This is Ben Falcone’s fifth film as a director. He also wrote it. I have heard he is a talented actor, maybe he should stick to that. It is kind of telling that he is not directing any project that his wife is not headlining. I thought some scenes or jokes ran long.  This is not as bad as Vacation 2015. That is not saying much though. Ocativa Spencer did not save this movie.  See this  https://slate.com/culture/2021/04/thunder-force-netflix-melissa-mccarthy-ben-falcone-movies.htm  article if you want another opinion.

This movie is based on a novel and stars Zoey Duetch as a high school student named Samantha who is reliving the same day over and over. I know what you are thinking, it is a Groundhog Day rift. It is but it is a good one. The novel was written in 2010 before the recent string of movies inspired by Groundhog Day started coming out. She and her friends died in a car accident after a party one night and she wakes up to the same day. As the day repeats, Samantha tries to figure out what she is supposed to do to end the cycle of repeating days. This is not really comedic. It has some funny moments but it is more dramatic than comedic. Zoey Duetch is really good in this. Halston Sage co-stars as Lindsey, one of Samantha’s friends. I thought Sage would have had a higher profile after Paper Towns. She is good. The other two actresses playing her friends were good too. Logan Miller is on hand as a love interest. I think I missed something by not having read the novel.  I thought this was g...

The Swordsman was good. This is a Korean action movie about a swordsman who is pulled back into action to protect his daughter. He might be losing his vision. The fights are good. I think it will be worth re-watching. Crossroads was interesting. Ralph Macchio stars as a music student looking for a lost song from Robert Johnson. Macchio’s character breaks an old blues man out of a nursing home and they travel to Alabama. I guess I had not seen it for at least twenty years. There is another movie called Crossroads with Britney Spears but the two films are unrelated. Blood and Bone features Michael Jai White as a man named Bone who gets involved in illegal street fights. The fights are good and White is good as a hero. It is not great but if you like movies like Bloodsport or Bloodfist or the Undisputed series, you might like this movie.

Yes, the name for the neighboring country, Nextdooria, is not funny. That is the least of the film's problems.  This sequel is not good. It is not terrible or as bad as Zoolander 2 or Baywatch or the House. (I might need to update my list of bad comedies.) On one hand it is nice to see Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall back as these characters. On the other hand, I did not get invested in the story. Also, date rape as comedy? I guess since it involves a woman date raping a man that is supposed to make it funny. I did not think it was.  That seems like a bad idea. Maybe the missing heir could have been the son of the king's brother or some other lost relative. Maybe that could have worked. This is not worth seeing. I gave it nearly an hour, so I feel I gave it a fair shot.

S.W.A.T. Firefight is a sequel to S.W.A.T., which was inspired by the classic TV show. It is a sequel in name only. This was from 2011, so I am a little late here.   In this one a hotshot cop named Paul (Gabriel Macht) from LA is sent to train/certify a S.W.A.T. unit in Detroit. While on the job the team responds to a hostage situation. It goes badly and the suspect played by Robert Patrick vows revenge. There is more to him than is first apparent.  I liked it. I liked the acting. Patrick was good as the villain and I thought Macht was a likeable hero I liked his love interest played by Carly Pope. I enjoyed the training sequences. Maybe there is nothing here that is original but it was well done. This was followed in 2017 by S.W.A.T. Under Siege (which has nothing to do with this). I liked that one too.