You know when you want to love a film because it’s quite cool-looking, or the movie has many great actors you like and admire? That is Gunpowder Milkshake in a nutshell for me. I knew nothing about it going in except for the cast. I was ready to have a fun evening with what I presumed was at least a decent action flick with a pretty stacked cast list. And the result was… one of the most average films I have seen lately. Also, and I hate that I even have to write this sentence, Karen Gillan was misdirected. As was the film, but her performance, unfortunately, stood out and not in the best way.

The first thing to know about Gunpowder Milkshake is that it “borrows” from everything you can think of, starting with westerns and ending with the modern wave of action films (the most notable example being the John Wick franchise). And look, there is nothing wrong with taking elements from other films and implementing them in your movie. The problem starts when you don’t do anything new with those elements.

This film is your stereotypical “a hit gone wrong” mixed with “parent left, so the child had to fence for themselves” and sprinkled with “the secret society of assassins are living among us”. Side note – why are all these movies trying to get us into libraries? John Wick movies had a few scenes taking place there, with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019, my review here) even staging a big fight scene inside a library. I have nothing against libraries (it’s weird that I have to specify that), but it seems a bit odd how these new action films with secret societies always end up one way or another in a library. Anyway, as you can tell from the description of the library mini-rant, we have seen this movie before, many times. But ok, let’s get past that; is it fun? Well… kinda?

There are certainly some fun action sequences where you can tell the people behind Gunpowder Milkshake were trying their best. But there was never one scene that would make me “cheer” that would make me say: “Fuck yeah, now we’re talking!”. Most had me going: “Yeah, I can see what you are going for. I guess it is alright.” A lot of guessing, and I think that’s due to this film’s “vibe”. For most of the film, it is trying desperately hard to combine some quirky fun with cool-looking action sequences whilst trying to say something about parenting, growing up alone and fencing for yourself. Often, movies can have many themes, but this one doesn’t know how to mesh them together, so the tone feels just all over the place. And that brings me to our characters.

I have nothing but love and admiration for Karen Gillan. I know she is a capable actress because I saw her in many better movies (like Oculus (2013) and her role as Nebula throughout the Guardians and Avengers films I also like). So I understand this most likely wasn’t her fault, but she was too serious in this film, to the point that her character felt like she was in a completely different film altogether, mainly in the second half. Even when others around her had some moments of levity, she would never “go down”; her character was so one-sided, one note, it was insane. I thought her character rescuing and possibly bonding with the little girl she saves halfway through the film (portrayed by Chloe Coleman) would loosen her character up a little, but no. I think it’s just a pure misdirection, where Navot Papushado (the movie’s director) was so focused on making everything look “super extra cool” that he forgot to work with the actors and actually, you know, direct them.

Take the trio of librarians/aunties – Carla Gugino, Angela Bassett and Michelle Yeoh. They are all seasoned actresses who can kick ass without any doubt, and they understood what the film needed. All three had valleys and peaks in their limited time on the screen, but with Karen’s character, it seemed she was trapped in the valley all the time. And that’s boring and distracting when you start to think about why you are not enjoying this film. I don’t know whether the director paid more attention to these three legends or whether their experience told them what to do because they had been doing it for a while, but by the end of the film, I wished we had spent more time with this trio rather than Karen.

Even the movie Anna (2019, my review here) had more meat on its bones and was a much better, fun time overall, even if that film was “just” a slightly higher-than-average action film. I actually think it’s fair to compare these two because they are similar – both are woman-led, and the protagonist gets betrayed by the organisation she works for and has to fend for herself. But unlike Anna, this movie’s action scenes aren’t as fun as they should have been. Don’t get me wrong; they are not bad either; they just… are. They merely exist in the vast space of “ok, that’s kinda cool, I guess”, but that no longer cuts the mustard.

Overall, Gunpowder Milkshake is the movie equivalent of Big Mac. It does the job, and you probably won’t regret your time, but it won’t make for a memorable experience. The biggest problem is the misdirection, from not making this film stand out in any way, borrowing from many, much better films, and most importantly, letting Karen Gillan hang out to dry, not telling her to do something more with her character. I would struggle to recommend this movie to anyone as it is the most average thing you will ever see. Sure, the title Gunpowder Milkshake sounds cool, but unfortunately, that is the best thing about that movie. Well, that and the badass trio played by Carla, Angela and Michelle. But we don’t even spend much time with them (let alone getting to know them) to bump this movie’s score higher. I really wanted to love this film.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke