Year: 2018
Director: Otto Bathurst
Cast: Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, Eve Hewson, Jamie Dornan, Tim Minchin, Paul Anderson, F Murray Abraham
Plot: After Robin of Loxley returns to England from the Crusades, he finds his home destroyed and his girl Marian in the arms of another man. Teaming up with Yahya aka John, an Arabian he encountered during the war, he starts robbing money belonging to the evil Sheriff of Nottingham and inspires the common folk to revolt.
Review: This latest version of Robin Hood is comparable not just to the previous versions of the man featuring Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe, among others, but also to last year's remake of King Arthur by Guy Ritchie, due to its contemporary approach by director Otto Bathurst.
In all honesty, how many times can this story be remade and feel fresh? Bathurst may have updated and changed a few things, like the costumes that feel too modern for the time it's set in, the fact that people can shoot arrows as quick as firing a gun, and how Robin meets Little John (in this case, just John), but in the end, the essence of the Robin Hood tale is very much the same. It's not helped by Taron Egerton's extremely dreary opening narration. The dude is a charming actor, but a narrator he is not.
The first action sequence, featuring Robin and his fellow crusaders versus the Arabs, is the best part of the film. Once Robin returns home and joins forces with John, the story starts to get less and less interesting. The action sequence, made to look like a battle in a modern day Middle East, except with arrows, was very well shot and looked pretty good. Everything after that pales in comparison, though the film sporadically feels engaging when Ben Mendelsohn's Sheriff starts a monologue of sorts.
It also doesn't help that Robin's made to look too strong and unbeatable. He always manages to escape and avoid repercussions throughout the film. Even his romance with Marian feels flat, though it's no fault of Egerton and co-star Eve Hewson. Their love story begins rather typically and the subsequent love triangle with Jamie Dornan's Will feels that way too. Even Will's fate, which leaves room for a sequel, is typical.
So what's good about it? Well, Egerton makes a good action hero at least, having done so in Kingsman and succeeds again here. Jamie Foxx makes a good mentor as John, and Mendelsohn excels when he's allowed to act his evilness on screen. Hewson is mostly just a pretty face here and Dornan is bland as he usually is.
What else? Oh, there is a lot of action to behold, though as I've said, none of them compare to the opening battle scene. And the final fight is very anti-climactic, unfortunately.
In the end, this new version of Robin Hood is just meh, for lack of a better word. It's not a terrible movie, but not very memorable either. (6/10)
Year: 2018
Director: Julius Avery
Cast: Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Pilou Asbaek, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Iain De Caestecker
Plot: During WW2, a group of Allied soldiers on a mission behind enemy lines discover a secret lab where Nazis are creating near unkillable zombie soldiers.
Review: The biggest name attached to Overlord is producer JJ Abrams, as most of the cast are made up of relatively unknown actors. Thankfully the cast all deliver great work, though the lack of a bonafide star does hurt the film a bit.
In Overlord, a group of Allied soldiers are dropped via parachute in France to destroy a German communications tower situated at a village. After taking refuge at a young girl's home, they encounter the Nazis, and subsequently discover that the enemy has been experimenting on the villagers and their own soldiers to create zombies, and unlike the kind we've seen in other horror fare, these undead humans don't go down easy.
Director Julius Avery manages to deliver a competent film with plenty of action sequences, from the thrilling opening sequence to the final assault on the Nazi occupied church at the film's end. The second act though is rather slow, though I wouldn't blame it on Avery. The script by Billy Ray and Mark L Smith is mostly responsible for that, as well as the mostly humorless dialogue. In fact, the film is guilty for taking itself much too seriously as the idea of zombie Nazis is pretty crazy, and the filmmakers should have tried to exploit that more.
Of the cast, Jovan Adepo and Mathilde Ollivier impress the most as Boyce, the rookie soldier who has to man up to survive, and Chloe, the French girl who assists the Allied soldiers on their mission. Adepo reminds me a lot of John Boyega and is just as talented. Ollivier on the other hand is like a less cynical version of Melanie Laurent from Inglourious Basterds, but it works just fine. Pilou Asbaek scores as the evil Nazi general in charge of the base while Wyatt Russell is also solid as Ford, the commanding officer of the group.
Overall, I found Overlord to be a mostly fun zombie horror flick, complete with violence, gore and bullets to match. But it just needs to embrace its craziness a bit more to be thoroughly enjoyable. (7/10)
Year: 2018
Director: Donovan Marsh
Cast: Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Michael Nyqvist, Common, Linda Cardellini, Carter MacIntyre, Toby Stephens, Alexander Diachenko, Michael Gor, David Gyasi
Plot: After two submarines, one Russian and one American, are sunk in Russian waters, another American submarine, the USS Arkansas, is sent under the leadership of an unorthodox captain to investigate. They subsequently discover a coup by the Russian defence minister and must now rescue the Russian president to avoid a war.
Review: It puzzles me as to why Gary Oldman is given top billing next to Gerard Butler when he's not in the film long enough to justify it. I'm guessing it's a marketing ploy by the film distributors. In reality, Butler's top billed co-star should have been the late Michael Nyqvist, who plays a Russian submarine captain.
Based on the novel Firing Point, Hunter Killer is a submarine action thriller, and while director Donovan Marsh does his best in creating some neat action sequences plus a cool sequence where the Arkansas has to evade mines and sensors near the ocean bed, it lacks any genuine suspense. It was actually more interesting watching the Navy SEAL team sent on the ground to retrieve the Russian president. The SEAL team engage in some firefights with the Russians during their mission, and while it feels all too familiar, there is at least some excitement during these sequences.
Another problem is how pretty much everyone onboard the Arkansas maintain the same look on their faces, trying to generate tension, but aside from Butler and Nyqvist, none of them truly pull it off. Butler does a good job in portraying a leader and a hero, though he doesn't actually get to kill anyone directly this time, while Nyqvist paints a sympathetic figure as a captain who only wants to serve his country the best way he knows. As one of his final roles before his recent death, he pulls it off well.
Oldman is given the thankless role of the Joint Chief Of Staff who only expects threats and war from the enemy, and does what he does best: yell. It's a role we've seen him do dozens of times, and is a waste of his talent. He's contrasted by Common as his subordinate and Linda Cardellini as an NSA analyst, both trying to find a way to prevent a war. They both do a proper enough job, but not enough to stand out.
Still, all is not lost. There is just enough here to constitute a generally entertaining action movie, it's just not fresh or suspenseful enough. Hunter Killer is still a decent way to kill 2 hours if you're at the cinema. (7/10)
