Let me make something crystal clear from the beginning – The Heat is a great comedy that’s unfortunately buried inside a very long film. Both leads (Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy) are funny in this film, and they worked so well together. I could even imagine some “reunion” of those two, where they could swap the roles, where Melissa could be the “straight” character, and Sandra would be the “wild” one. And you could even give it to Paul Feig, except this time, please assign him an editor who won’t be afraid to challenge him.

Because this is where The Heat frustrated me the most, almost every joke here works because of two of our superb leading ladies. Yet unfortunately, about 80% of those jokes are dragging on for way too long. Most of this film felt like when you are talking to somebody who makes a good point. So you agree with them. And then, they make another point. And you say: “Ok, I get it, you are right.” And then they go on a bit more, and you go: “No, honestly, I am being serious, I know you are correct, let’s drop it.” Only for them to say one more thing, where at this point, you are annoyed at them not for being right but more for not dropping it where they were “in the lead”.

The Heat 100% feels like that. The “not cutting after the punchline, just to get some improv to see whether we can improve upon it” feels counterproductive when it’s overused. Because it makes you look almost unsure as to what does and what doesn’t work in your movie. And again, the most frustrating thing is, the jokes worked! As it stands, this film is 117 minutes long. It doesn’t seem that much, but for a movie that is effectively a buddy cop comedy starring Sandra and Melissa, that is “a bit” excessive. I am not kidding when I say there is an excellent 90/95 minute comedy hidden in plain sight! If I had the time and energy, I would try and re-edit the movie since everything you need to make it hilarious is here. You don’t have to rearrange any scenes; you need to cut down the “endings” of most of the jokes, mainly by Melissa, and then the movie would feel better paced, and you might have one zinger after another. But in its current form, the film feels like they just let the cameras roll, captured everything they could and if it fit “well enough”, they left it in the movie.

That is a shame as I long for those days when Sandra Bullock was the comedy queen. Take Miss Congeniality (2000); it’s only about ten minutes shorter, but there is more of a story in that film, and most importantly, the movie never manages to bore you or make you cringe. We also know Melissa is a superb comedienne. I knew that for a while because I loved the show Gilmore Girls (2000 – 2007), and Spy (2015) is her best work yet. So putting these two together should have resulted in a comedy that would have been funny and remembered for generations. Unfortunately, not cutting out the end bits of the jokes (that mainly consist of why the joke somebody just said is funny or accurate) makes this film cringe at times and bloated. Even though I enjoyed both main leads, I thought the ending couldn’t have come soon enough.

But to repeat, I would love to see Sandra and Melissa in a movie again. I am not advocating for The Heat 2 or some version of #ReleaseTheWhoeverCut. Nah, let’s not do that. What if, instead, it was a semi-new idea, and this time the roles would flip – Melissa being the “straighter than an arrow, everything by the book” character, Sandra the “fuck you, my way is way better” character and just let them work. They don’t even have to be cops; I would watch them do pretty much anything, as long as there is somebody who knows that jokes don’t have to be over-explained and that improv works in small doses (in films anyway).

Overall, The Heat would be a cautious recommendation from me. It stars two funny actresses, both I’ve admired for a while now so I thought I would love this film. And I thought the movie was… just ok? Frustratingly, I will do what the film does and explain it one more time – there is an excellent cop-buddy film “hidden” inside this bloated mess. I challenge somebody to cut this movie to around 90/95 minutes, and you will see how much would this film be improved. As it is now, I will say watch it, and you will judge for yourself. It’s decent enough that you shouldn’t hate it, and who knows? Maybe, you won’t mind it’s almost two hours. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when you keep checking your watch halfway through it.

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

Until next time,

Luke

When I learned a sequel for Don’t Breathe (2016, my review here) was coming, I was confused. I understand we live in the age of sequels, prequels, cinematic universes and whatever DCEU is trying but still… this film? Then, I’ve checked how much it made in the box office and holy shit. On a budget of just under ten million dollars, the movie made almost 160 million dollars worldwide. Talk about a great return on investment. Now I am wondering how come it took them so long? Anyway, you did not ask for this film, but here it is. And… it’s pretty much the same yet slightly worse?

Don’t Breathe 2 has two significant issues going up against it. First, the novelty factor is gone. You can’t throw us into the same world with the same character and expect us to be vowed again. That “gimmick” (a blind man who isn’t as defenceless as he seems) no longer works here because we know him. And that takes me to the second issue – we know him. We know now what he has done. As stated in my review of the first movie, I don’t mind having complicated, even straight-up evil characters as protagonists; it doesn’t bother me not having anybody to root for. But many film fans did mind, hence why they had a hard time connecting with this film. And I can’t blame them. But, Don’t Breathe 2 is self-aware of these issues, so what do they do? They… introduce somebody even worse, to turn the complicated character/antagonist of the first film into a hero in this one.

Yep, that happens. Before going into massive spoilers, Don’t Breathe 2 takes place eight years after the first movie. We see the Blind Man (who has a name now, Norman Nordstrom) raising a daughter. In any other film, that’s fine, but knowing what we know about our character from the previous movie, that reality raises questions immediately. And some audience members might get the unfortunate turkey baster flashbacks. Everything gets explained eventually, and we get more into the story. And this is where the filmmakers had a choice. Either try to redeem the character or just introduce somebody roughly ten times worse where Norman looks “saint-like” by comparison. I don’t know, but for a series of films that try to explore the very grey area between right and wrong, that seemed like a bit of a cheap move. I don’t think I can discuss this any further without at least alluding to some scenes/characters that might give away a few surprises, so…

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

If you haven’t seen this film yet, but you had seen the first Don’t Breathe, you are probably asking: “Who can possibly be morally worse than the Blind Man?” That’s a valid question because this movie felt the need to come up with villains who not only are junkies not only are the daughter’s actual parents (yep, Norman found her on the street when she was young and just took her) but also they only want her back so they can remove her heart. Her mum needs a new one because she needs to cook drugs for her crew. Yep, can you see the morality questions from the first movie disappearing? Me too, as Don’t Breathe 2 thinks it is still doing that but not really. The characters are more black and white here. And as mentioned before, Norman is now our hero.

I am sorry, but how dumb their plan is? The daughter (played by Madelyn Grace) is around 14 years. Now, I am not a doctor, let alone a surgeon, so I might be talking out of my ass here, but I am 99% sure her adult mum (a woman in her 40s) couldn’t take the implant from her daughter even if that operation was done in the hospital with a top-notch surgeon. Again, I might be completely wrong, but that doesn’t seem right. But I know movie’s gotta movie.

Also, I didn’t like how the people behind this film felt the need to make the parents and their group be “super evil”. Well, maybe except for that one guy who is against the operation. For example, there is a moment when the doctor tells them he can’t even put her to sleep. Something about the heart must still be fresh, beating, so he needs to cut into her while she is awake…? And the parents say yes, no problem. See what I mean by making them “super evil”? It’s almost like the writers felt the first film wrote them into a corner where they felt like: “Sure, he’s evil. But come on, there are much worse people running around want to see?”

What also started to annoy me was how good Norman was. I get that in the first Don’t Breathe, and even in the first half of this movie, he knows his surrounding very well. But the moment Norman breaks into the building the junkies occupy, I am sorry, but he should be dead within the first ten minutes. Sure, he’s a NAVY Seal; he is an incredibly clever person, I get that. That said… How can a blind person navigate a building he’s never been to where there are people around and in total silence? Where the previous film shined by not making him into a superhero too much, this film does the opposite, mainly in the movie’s second half.

But the movie still has things going for it; a couple of scenes were shot very well, I liked Madelyn’s performance, and the film never bores you. The runtime is a solid 98 minutes, so the movie is paced well, and I enjoyed the first half, even though there was no new ground being broken. The second half was where the cookie crumbled more and where the film felt like making him more likeable was the way to go. For most audiences, possibly, but honestly? I don’t know… Think about it for a second. Those who had a problem with his character wouldn’t bother seeing the sequel, so those who come for the sequel don’t need this “he’s better by a mile if you only compare him to these guys.” That is why it’s still so weird that this film got a sequel.

Overall, Don’t Breathe 2 is a decent enough sequel to a film that didn’t need a sequel in the first place. It’s a movie of two halves where the first one feels familiar yet different, and you are on board. And then, there is the second half that swings this film into the supernatural/superhero territory and makes Norman this unbeatable and (based on the very last scene) unkillable bad-ass. And it’s only up to you whether you are on board with a bad-ass with more than a shaky history, especially since we have seen it in the first film so well. If you liked the first Don’t Breathe, I would cautiously recommend this one.

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

Until next time,

Luke

I don’t get it. This movie has three ultra-mega-super-duper stars that all proven they can carry movies, and those were all actions movies nonetheless! So how come, when you put Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds together in one movie and let them “loose”, you get something like Red Notice that is not bad, but also not great? This film might be the most average action film that ever averaged on your TV or iPad (please, for the love of everything holy, don’t want movies or TV shows on iPads). What Red Notice also proved, albeit accidentally, is that Netflix still doesn’t know how to “crack the code” and make decent films. They figured out how to shower the stars with money and attract them to Netflix. But if the script falls short of the star quality, that might be their eventual downfall.

Red Notice was a frustrating film because I wanted to like it. I like all three main protagonists; I love action/adventure films and don’t mind when they get unbelievable or silly, as long as they entertain me, it’s all good, I can forgive a lot. But in this film, it almost seemed like the script revolved around our three protagonists without giving them any lines. Because why, if we can improv most of it? They all have massive charisma and are witty, so surely they can be funny? Well… kind of. Most jokes don’t land the way this film intended, and (not surprisingly), the funniest person out of the titular trio was Ryan Reynolds. But even his performance felt like he was running on fumes at times.

And I don’t blame him. Because I can say the same thing about Dwayne and Gal, all of them did good enough jobs, so nobody can say they didn’t earn their massive paychecks, but at the same time, we have seen all three shine in other films. Whereas in Red Notice, they don’t shine as much as they flicker…? I am still not convinced whether it was the direction they got or something else, but they all had much better moments in other films. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film became one of the go-to examples of “just because you can get the biggest stars, it doesn’t mean your film will be exceptional”. Or, in this case, even great.

But that all goes back to the script and lack of tension. This film invited the following comparison by hinting at this movie a few times throughout it, so let’s compare them. You can tell this film wants to be this generation’s Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) so bad. But it never had a chance, with a script like this and here’s why. There is no tension because the MacGuffin our heroes are chasing down doesn’t exist. And Raiders built everything on Ark that could exist as we have some records of it. And Hitler was genuinely into weird religions and had people searching the world for artefacts that might give him an edge to win the war. But ok, let’s put that aside as films should be allowed to make MacGuffins up, and movies don’t have to be historically accurate. And this is where Red Notice falls into another, much bigger trap – no tension, character-wise.

I don’t know if you remember or whether you might have re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark recently, but it still holds up. And part of that reason is our main protagonist is just a person. He gets his ass kicked throughout the film a lot; he’s not Superman or an untouchable bad-ass. Therefore if he ends up in a dangerous situation, you actually are worried for him. Sure, deep down, you know the main hero won’t die in the middle of the film, but still. Whereas here (and to be honest, not just here but in most modern action films), the filmmakers make the mistake of having the hero being this bullet-dodging kung-fu master who’s never too tired for a fight. Who, no matter what situation they end up in, you know ultimately it won’t matter as they will free themselves in about five to ten minutes. And this film is, yet again, not the only one that does this sort of thing, but it might be the most outrageous example.

And since we have no stakes here, the film becomes forgettable. I don’t know about you, but I like my action movie not to be forgettable. But I can’t say this film was awful because of it. Because it’s not, it’s perfectly… ok. And that might be the ultimate “sin” against this film. An action movie with stars as big as all three main ones here shouldn’t be just ok. A film like this, trying to be a simple adventure film, should be more memorable because this is one of those where I’ve seen it a few months ago and can barely remember anything specific. But we are getting a sequel, so… yey?

Overall, Red Notice is the perfect film to put on the background while you go about your day doing chores. I can’t believe I am saying this (as I don’t watch movies like that), but it is what it is. You can tune in at any time and quickly figure out what happened, it doesn’t require a lot of your mental energy, and it won’t “offend” you by any means. That all sounds great until you realise Netflix paid around 200 million dollars for this. And I know most of that went to wages for our top three protagonists, and honestly, I can’t blame them for that. If somebody offered me that money, it’d be hard to say no. My question is, how long can Netflix “just” throw money away like this and not produce anything worth your full attention? Because I have a sneaky feeling that most people at Netflix didn’t want to spend 200 million dollars on a movie that’s “perfect background noise, for when you are doing home chores”.

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

Until next time,

Luke

The Santa Clause 2 follows the traditional formula of sequels – bigger, louder and playing into what the creators think the audience wants to see more of. And as it often happens with sequels, bigger and louder doesn’t necessarily equal better.

As mentioned before in my review of the first movie, The Santa Clause (1994, my review here), I am experiencing the entire trilogy for the first time. So I fully admit I might (no, scratch that) am not the target audience for this trilogy. But I still thought the first movie was decent enough, albeit not something I would re-watch every Christmas as I do with other films.

And that, unsurprisingly, goes for this sequel too. I will be honest especially when this movie started; I thought this would not be for me at all. Because it shows its hand early on, and the film goes full-on into the “this is a kids movie” territory and goes there instantly. Everything is louder, brighter, with a lot more Santa puns (Elfcon) that will probably make your 6year old spit the breast milk out of their mouths. I won’t lie; I wasn’t getting the “magic” from the first 20 minutes or so.

Then the story kicks in, as surprise surprise, there is a second clause (get it?) to Tim Allen being (or, I guess staying) Santa – he needs to find his Mrs Clause. And it needs to happen soon. Don’t pay any attention to details that it’s been totally ok for him to be Santa for almost ten years now without any wife. The movie needs to have somewhat a resemblance of a plot, so let’s go. But surprisingly, this is where it turned around for me. Because the people behind this film did one thing superbly, and that was the casting of Elizabeth Mitchell. I have liked her ever since Gia (1998) and Lost (2004 – 2010) and haven’t seen her in anything for ages. And she not only brightness up this film for me but also grounds it.

Surprisingly, she works well with Tim Allen. Because she isn’t trying to match his energy/humour, she is there to do her thing and be the “voice of reason” in this film. And trust me, in a movie where the main “villain” is an evil clone of Santa, who looks like he used one too many Instagram filters on his face, someone who can ground this film is needed.

Yes, let’s talk about the clone situation. Did we truly need that? Wouldn’t the film be more magical had we seen Allen’s relationship with Elizabeth build-up for longer? Instead of spending time with this up and coming wannabe influencer, who takes over the North Pole? I get it this is a kids movie through and through, so the path of “least resistance” was the obvious one to take. But at the same time, the most magical moment in the movie, by far, was the “office Xmas party” and seeing all the employees rediscovering their inner child. And I am not saying we couldn’t have the “evil Santa clone” storyline at all, just maybe instead of spending a lot of time with him, wouldn’t it be better to spend more time with the actual Santa, seeing how is he trying to find his Mrs Clause? We could have also focused slightly more on Tim Allen trying to repair his relationship with his son, who ends up on the naughty list. Yes, this film has quite a few storylines going for it, but they don’t compliment each other, as well as you might hope. Mostly the clone Santa storyline sticks out, and we spend (for my money) too much time with him and not enough on the other two storylines.

The Santa Clause 2 has a surprisingly great cast in cameo roles. From Kevin Pollak or Michael Dorn to the stunning Aisha Tyler (portraying Mother Nature), I had fun seeing these actors in a movie like this one; because those are the last people you’d expect to see in a sequel to a film where Tim Allen is playing Santa.

Overall, The Santa Clause 2 is a slightly worse film than its predecessor. But not by much. And that is surprising to me, as based on the beginning of this film, I thought I was in for something way more childish. Luckily, the movie tries to get somewhat serious, and Elizabeth Mitchell grounds it while working well opposite Tim Allen. That, combined with some heartwarming scenes (adults being kids during their office party), makes this film watchable. It’s a shame the people behind this film felt the need to invent a villain who drags the movie down for me. If you liked the previous film, this one will deliver pretty much everything you’d expect.

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

Until next time,

Luke

I can’t even remember when was the last time I wanted to like a movie as much as this one. On paper, it’s got many great things going for it – the cast is superb; I like Spike Lee‘s films and how political he can get. The story is also intriguing and (yet again) on paper should work. And to top it all off, one of the last roles for Chadwick Boseman. I still can’t believe he’s gone. What a talent, gone way too soon. So what went wrong? My personal opinion is, Spike just bit off more than he could chew.

Let’s start with the cast because I want to praise this film first. Everyone here is simply superb. As pointed out by many people who were cursing the Academy for not nominating him, Delroy Lindo is the standout amongst them all. That is saying something because, at first glance, I wasn’t too sure about his choices. He seemed so over the place for me. But the more layers you peeled of his character as the movie progressed, the more you understood why he’s going all in. There was no other choice. What his character has gone through, the burden he was carrying with him for the last almost 40 years… Once everything was revealed all cards were on the table, you couldn’t do much more than join the people who were cursing the Academy for not recognising him. I remember only one more snub from the recent history that always leaves me perplexed and angry – Amy Adams not being (at least!) nominated for Arrival (2016). What’s that, you say? I am wrong because for sure she must have been nominated? Go ahead and check for yourself. Anyway, back to Delroy. He managed to stand out in a sea of great actors and took some bold choices that paid off. Everybody else (and I could pretty much copy and paste every single actor in this film) was also superb in their way, but Delroy… he delivered a complex performance.

I also like the way Spike Lee shot this film. How characters would sometimes talk about someone, and there would be a picture of the real person on the screen. Or an event that took place that’s related to the story. But that’s not “news”. Meaning nobody will be surprised when Spike Lee’s films (or joints, as he calls them) are filmed in their unique way. That goes almost without a saying. But in this example, I wish he would focus more on the story.

And I think this is where the cookie crumbled for me – since we are following two timelines (past and the present), they should complement each other, right? They should feel like they belong, almost intertwined? Well, that didn’t happen. I wish we would have gotten more scenes with the “younger Bloods” in Vietnam, as every time it got interesting, we went back to the present. And the same way, the moment I got used to the present storyline and that got interesting, we shifted the focus again. The movie felt disjointed. This storyline structure isn’t anything new; it’s been used countless times before, and it works (mostly). But for some reason in here, it felt more disruptive than anything.

The other thing, and I want to make sure I word myself precisely here. The scenes from the Vietnam War; as much as I enjoyed them, I didn’t buy them. What I mean by that, I wasn’t transported in the ’70s. The movie failed to convince me we are in the past now. And I think it might have been the way those sequences were shot, but all I could see were actors playing their parts. Not the characters. Because those scenes were shot in this almost documentary-style, that yes feels unique, but every single time it managed to pull me out of the film completely. Maybe that was just my problem; I don’t know. But if a movie wants to take you back in time, and it fails to convince you that what you are seeing is happening in the past, something is wrong.

What I liked, even though it was a bit on the “predictable” side, was the underlying story about money (or, in this case, gold) corrupting everybody. And how everybody from the “Bloods” wanted to be exactly like Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick’s character), the guy, who’s got his shit sorted, he’s got a clear moral compass, ideals and ideas he is not willing to comprise. But the moment life/money gets in the way of that, almost everybody cracked. Again, even though it sounds predictable, I liked how that was executed. Part of it was Chadwick’s performance because he made it seem so easy.

Speaking about cast the, I was surprised and delighted to see Jean Reno in a movie like this. But then almost immediately got sad to see an actor of his calibre reduced to the “evil European with an accent” trope. Honestly, you get somebody like him in your movie, and you give his character almost nothing to do besides “be evil, be French and make sure you let everybody know how evil you are”. That seemed a bit wasteful. You can almost argue he wasn’t necessary for this film, his part could have been replaced by the gangsters, who are after “the Bloods” in the second half of this film, and nothing would have changed. That’s how unimportant and wasteful his character was. What a pity.

Overall, Da 5 Bloods is a wasted opportunity. The film is a bit too long; the scenes from the Vietnam War didn’t transport me there (therefore didn’t work for me, and they pulled me out of the movie), and Spike seems to be wanting to tell so much, he missed the basics. Just because something is complex doesn’t mean it’s better. Is it worth seeing this film? I would say yes, just for the cast alone and Delroy’s performance, that will go down in history as one of the biggest snubs we’ve had. But don’t expect too much. That is a shame, as I thought on paper, this couldn’t have failed. And, to give this movie some credit, it didn’t exactly fail. It just fell short of any movie you can think of that’s dealing with the Vietnam War.

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

Until next time,

Luke

Before I sink my teeth into this masterpiece, I need to explain something. As a child of the ’90s, tiny Luke was growing up without the Internet. So the only source of some excitement was the TV, which I fell in love with (and that stayed with me ever since). And on that TV, there was this TV show, pretty popular at the time, called Baywatch (1989 – 2001). I am not saying I was an avid fan of this TV show, but I have seen some episodes, and this is where my crush on two ladies started – Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra. When you say “90’s symbols”, those two names always pop up in my mind. And to this day, I have a weak spot for both. That brings me to Barb Wire.

I went into this film expecting nothing but a cheesy, guilty pleasure of a movie with Pamela in her prime. And various outfits, that would… look pretty great on her. I was ready for something unwatchable that will be objectively bad. And to my surprise, it wasn’t THAT bad…? Don’t get me wrong, you are not about to read a review, trying to say: “Barb Wire is a forgotten masterpiece, here’s why we should all appreciate it more.” No. This movie is everything I have named – dumb, cheesy, objectively bad. But, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The pacing is pretty great (it never feels boring) and most importantly, towards the end, the action sequences are not bad. Respectively, I have seen way worse action scenes in much better movies.

Even though I have just admitted my weakness for the one and only Pamela, I will be the first to say she isn’t a great actress by any stretch of the imagination. Even in her movie, she seems to only have three “modes” – mad, sexy and both of the above, at the same time. Sometimes, her line delivery was just plain cringy. And yet, even she, deep down, knows that. And that allows her to be above it. She doesn’t take herself too seriously, so it almost feels like she’s in on the joke with us. At least, that is how it felt to me.

What the movie got (surprisingly) right was that in 2017, America would be divided. And there will be “the second Civil War”. Ok, maybe they are not in the war literally, but if you switched on the news in the last five years or so, you need to give it to this film as they were right about something… kind of. 😉

And yes, you do get those laughable scenes, like having an exposition title screen in the beginning only to have a character in the movie repeating pretty much the same things later on. You know, for the people in the back, who didn’t get it. Or some action scenes where Pam should be kicking ass, but she’s doing it in some giant heels. I am not saying it’s impossible, all I am saying is it would have been way more difficult to kick ass in heels. But this kind of criticism (albeit valid) is misguided. To me, if you see a poster for this movie and don’t expect scenes like that in it… that’s like being mad at a toddler for not doing anything but sleeping, eating and shitting. That’s what they are meant to do!

Because that’s the thing about Barb Wire. Yes, I could make a PowerPoint presentation with thousands of slides, detailing point by point, why is this a bad movie. And all those points would have been valid. But these bad movies to me, live or die not on “objectivity” (because if I was truly objective, I would have to rate it the lowest mark possible) but on the entertainment level. How paced they are, how funny (intentionally or unintentionally) they are, will I remember the film a year from now? But most importantly, have I suffered while watching?

So, since we’ve established Barb Wire truly is a bad movie, let’s answer the questions I posed earlier. The pacing of this film is superb. There isn’t anything worse than a bad movie that also feels like it’s taking its time with every single scene. We all have been there you are watching a film, that feels like four hours when in reality, it’s only 80 minutes. This one luckily doesn’t fall into that category, as it flows quite well, I have never felt bored. I have laughed (to clarify, chuckled) throughout most of the film. Thinking about how the ’90s were truly such a unique decade for movies, where almost anything was possible. Just think about this movie that’s based around Pamela kicking ass while wearing pretty tight outfits. When comes to my other questions, yes, mainly because of Pamela and some bad line reading, I will definitely remember this film a year from now. And have I suffered while watching this masterpiece? No. I had fun with it, as I’ve accepted the film on its level. Now, am I saying I will be in any rush going back to it, “study” it further, to prove it’s not a lesser movie that just put one of the hottest women of the ’90s in some sexy outfits and called it a day? No, I won’t be rushing back. But at the same time, I don’t regret watching this film. Yeah, life works in mysterious ways.

Overall, Barb Wire is one of those movies that surprised me. Not by being better than expected, but by simply being watchable enough, where I had reasonable fun with it. The movie is a crazy fever dream of some executive who was also high on cocaine, no doubt about that. But at the same time, it’s not trying to be anything more it seemed fully aware of what it is and mainly what it isn’t. The pacing was decent, and some action sequences towards the end were even entertaining enough. If you don’t have a weak spot for Pamela (like me), deduct a star or more from my rating. And yes, my rating is probably a bit too high and does not truly reflect the “quality” of this movie, but again. Barb Wire is a “good” bad movie. It’s only up to you how much you enjoy these types of movies.

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

Until next time,

Luke