Tag: Gina Carano

People have been waiting years for a Deadpool movie. At least a little bit over one year.

Remember X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Of course you don’t, because any sane person has blocked it from their memory. But that is when we finally got a Deadpool on screen, played by Ryan Reynolds, and he was barely in it. Hell, he became a final fight, but his mouth was sewn shut, and he is known for his talking mouth.

So people went on the internet and bitched and complained, which is the number 2 thing people do on the internet. And no one listened. Until finally, in 2014 “test footage” of Deadpool visual effects made in 2012 was “leaked online.” Oh no! The internet went wild and shared it, showing there would be interest, and guess what, interest finally existed for them to go full on with the movie that had been in development hell for at least a decade.

Now that it is here, my only worry is that it is actually going to suck. Because the Wolverine solo films suck and the advertisements everywhere make the film look like it is trying too hard.

Heh. Hard. Like a penis. Hey, is that a boner!?

Ryan Reynolds is DEADPOOL, aka Wade Wilson, aka not Deathstroke or Wolverine. A weird guy, excessively violent, speaks graphically and honestly, a go getter, can heal exceptionally fast, and breaks the fourth wall.

That is basically everything you knew if you were already on the internet, because that is what is he known for now.

Did you know before he had the hideous face he was just a fucked up mercenary with a twisted sense of honor? Did you know he loved a woman (Morena Baccarin) almost as fucked up as him? That he frequented a bar of tough guys where his friend Weasel (T.J. Miller, not Pauly Shore) worked? That he developed cancer in multiple parts of his body, and to try and cure it, he underwent secret scary surgery that promised to make him into a super hero?

But no, it was a bad place run by Ajax (Ed Skrein), who was turning these people into super soldier slaves! He is the main bad guy, super strong and fast, with no nerves so he doesn’t get a fuck about no pain.

Yeah! So Deadpool really wants him to kill him. Or get him to fix his ugly body that is gross now, then kill him!

Also featuring on his side, Colossus (Stefan Kapicic, just the voice), and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand)! Angel Dust (Gina Carano) is Ajax’s main lackey, and a guy named Warlord (Michael Benyaer) also exists. Other characters are played by Karan Soni, Randal Reeder, Jed Rees, and Leslie Uggams plays Blind Al.

Colossus could make a good case for being blind as well.

I am afraid the internet will hate me. Deadpool has received gallons of support from other early reviewers, and if I don’t like it they will cut me down like the people who for some reason believe Sylvester Stallone deserves awards from Creed.

But let’s get straight to the point. Parts of Deadpool are hilarious. Parts of Deadpool have great action. Parts of Deadpool make me smile. But all of them just feel like small parts, and I want more. It isn’t funny enough and there isn’t enough action.

Starting with the action, our bad guy is played by Skrein, who most recently did a terrible job with The Transporter Refueled. His character is also strong and can take a huge beating, but he is incredibly boring and dry. He doesn’t feel sinister, just almost like a normal gang member with some powers. Similarly, Angel Dust is just Gina Carano. She is super strong I guess? Another boring power.

But they are just two people who like like humans, going against Deadpool and Colossus, a 100% CGI man, and Negasonic, who is barely used. In super hero battles you expect both sides to have some sort of pizzazz. Without it, it is just Deadpool slaughtering gang members and a couple slightly stronger humans.

Similarly, there didn’t seem to be enough action. The intro action sequence plastered over the trailers was broken up by extremely long back story sequences. It ruined the flow of that scene for me. Outside of the final climatic battle, it just didn’t feel like there was a lot between them.

This is about as epic as any encounter gets unfortunately.

Now for the comedy. Again, there were great and hilarious moments. I tended to laugh at the smaller jokes. The crude and vulgar humor felt about as funny as it does in a teen sex comedy, so sparingly. T.J. Miller was usually good, but even his lines felt forced at times, not a lot of natural moments.

Meta jokes were usually good, as they were part of the fourth wall breaking. I tend to like that in movies in general, and the moments in here were all used nicely. But again. The back story didn’t have enough humor in it. The lines were witty, but they were too far and in between. Fuck, when he was getting tortured in the secret facility? I thought that would never end. It didn’t make the film feel dark and gritty, just made me checking my mental clock wondering when it would get to the good stuff.

I am just a bit disappointed. I got a bit hyped up from the internet storm, and I thought Deadpool could have been a lot better. More wall to wall action and comedy. Better villains so that something cool could have happened in the fight scenes. Hell, Colossus was completely underused and just became generic Russian strong guy.

I have high hope that sequel will end up being much better. But for now, this ended up just being okay, exactly what I was afraid would happen.

2 out of 4.

After Fast Five premiered, there was a lot of talk about the future of the franchise thanks to the scene in the credits. It left many people confused. How could Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) be alive, when she clearly died in The Fast and The Furious?

We will get to that later. More importantly, the time line of the films became more clear.

They mentioned that Fast & Furious 6 (Trailer) would follow 5, and part 7 would be set AFTER Tokyo Drift. Basically, films 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 of the series are in the correct order, and 3 is set after 6, but before 7. They also went through a little bit of development hell, where they were going to break 6 into two parts, but thankfully went back to just one film. Either way, the questions you have at the end of 6 will be answered next summer when part 7 comes out.

I don’t give a fuck about any of that, because HOLY SHIT A TANK! Long story short, there is a highly tactical gang of drivers out there in Europe, who are trying to assemble a device that can shut down an entire city for 24 hours. That is a pretty dangerous weapon and could kill a lot of people. Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and his new partner Riley (Gina Carano) know the only people who can help them out are a group of lesser international criminals on the run from the law.

Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) obviously refuse to help, but when Hobbs shows pictures of Letty, his love who they thought died years ago, they assemble the team (Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Sung Kang, and Gal Gadot) to find out how this picture exists and if she is really alive. Saving the world isn’t on their mind, just finding the girl.

But with Shaw (Luke Evans) being a criminal master mind, always a few steps ahead of the authorities, can their rag tag group even follow in their exhaust fumes?

Of course the women have to fight each other. Gender equality people, let’s see some. Fast & Furious 6 is being lauded as one of the best films in the franchise, and action movies in general. I will give the movie that. There is action throughout the movie, from car chases, to scenes completely void of cars. It doesn’t apologize for anything in the film, and goes at completely ridiculous lengths for an explosion or two.

But personally, it completely changes the genre of the film, which grinds my gears the most.

To me, everyone felt like a super hero in this film. There are TONS of hand to hand combat scenes between the two groups, and it felt like watching a live action Dragon Ball movie. Ridiculous feats of strength and long battles where neither side got hurt, when most of these people are just retired car racers. It bugged me to no end that they all basically became invincible just for the sake of a bigger action movie.

On top of that, I don’t think it flowed well. Almost every scene I felt confused due to the plot of the movie. The heroes were constantly doing nonsensical things. Nonsensical to their character and to a normal human being. They wedged a street race into the movie that plot wise didn’t make sense (nor did anything out of that London woman’s mouth before the race). At one point four or five of the bad guys get arrested and end up making their escape, yet one of the group is no longer seen in the movie. I guess they just decided to write him out of the movie.

The climatic plane ending is ruined for me thanks to it apparently being the longest run way known to man, making the ridiculousness too much to bare. It also features an Amnesia plot line, which I feel is one of the laziest plot developments you can ever come up with.

Yes, if you changed the movie to be something completely set apart from the Fast & Furious universe, I would probably enjoy the movie more. But we have five movies that are grounded (mostly) in reality, a shift in genre I can’t get over. It is breaks all the rules of the series, despite trying its hardest to include the previous five films. If it was an original movie (and better acting), I might have loved it.

2 out of 4.

“We’re going to watch the female Bourne Identity movie.”

“Err what?”

Apparently that is how some people are referring to Haywire. Not sure why, not like she is a secret weapon or anything. I think it is more based on the realistic fighting than anything. What I’m trying to say is, I had no idea what this movie was about.

Sexy fighting maybe?

Gina Carano is just hanging out in a diner, when Channing Tatum comes in, and eventually they fight! He wants her to leave, for some reason. This looks like legitimate fighting too, not what normally happens when a woman is involved. She gets punched in the face! A random diner patron, Michael Angarano, intervenes, allowing her to break Tatum’s arm and escape. With Michael, in his car. Woot!

She goes over the last week of events. Turns out Tatum and her used to work for a private covert firm. The firm is run by Ewan McGregor (also her former boyfriend?)! They get a job from an agent in DC, Michael Douglas, to rescue and Asian guy in Barcelona, who is being held hostage. Their Spanish contact is Antonio Banderas. Don’t worry, I am not done name dropping yet.

Well, despite it being hard, they succeed! Back in the US, she gets a second secret mission, that is also meant to be easy. She just has to pose as the wife of a British agent, Michael Fassbender, in Ireland. No sweat! But during the mission she finds out that the Asian guy they saved…has been killed! And made to look like she did it. Set up by her own firm! But why?

The rest of the film is her trying to figure that out, on the run with that random stranger. A lot of scenes involve her kicking peoples asses too, so that is fun. Also her dad is played by Bill Paxton! So many famous (men) in this movie.

Gina’s claim to fame is MMA fighting and being “Crush” on the American Gladiators reboot.

In terms of fighting, I tended to like those scenes a lot. The most, compared to the rest of the scenes. Definitely important for an action movie with a lame plot. I am surprised by how many famous actors are in this movie, despite how I barely even heard about it coming out in theaters.

Obviously I thought the acting was a bit weak, especially from Gina, who…hasn’t really acted in anything before. But thankfully they have a lot of the other people do most of the talking. Scenes in her flashback were kind of weird, like randomly switching to a slow motion black and white adventure when they were in Barcelona. Disrupted the flow for me and felt cheesy.

Although the plot isn’t too interesting, it is fun to see her kick a lot of peoples asses. Especially Ewan. I have no idea why that is so rewarding.

2 out of 4.