The Union

This movie is a candidate for Riff Trax or MST3K! One hour and forty plus minutes of Marky Mark being confused. You can play a drinking game for every time he asks a question or says $#it. 90% of his script is a question!

Decent production quality, shot well, generic soundtrack, ok action, but boy does the dialogue stink! Very cliche and unimaginative writing.

Characters are predictable and even the A list actors are hard to digest, it's just not very good and is background noise as I write this review.

So if you want to Netflix and chill, press play and commence to a couch party with your partner about 30 minutes in.

It has become painfully clear that Hollywood is short on good writing. This movie has a ton of story to work with but instead flushes it down the toilet. To be clear it is a stylish action flick, it looks really pretty and the action scenes are fun to watch. The problem however is that the flick has employed an impressive number of A-list actors and gave them poop scripts. The only person that had any decent lines was J. K. Simmons, all the rest of the cast was wasted on a doo-doo script. It wouldn't be out of place to say this has been done before, and a lot better than this. After the plot was explained it was painfully obvious they just copy and pasted bits and pieces from other espionage movies to get this stylish looking thing on screens. It's too bad really, the story could have been worked into something much better than what the end result was. This is a watch and make fun of it while it plays movie, that could have been so much more.

So not even 5 minutes into the movie, and you can already tell who the villain is, and how the movie most likely will end.

Unfortunately I was right.

It was way too predictable, some bad acting and emotions not making sense on the situations.

Choices and decisions that wouldn't make any sense at all, especially not from a so-called agency.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun mindless watch and you should just turn off your brain, grab some chips and a beer and just watch together as a family. But other then that, it's not a movie I'd recommend. It doesn't stand out, fails to suprise or amaze, and honestly it felt long.

So if you're looking for something entertaining to watch as a family, than sure this movie will do.

However if you really want to watch something that drags you in, having you wonder what will happen next or suprise you, then skip this one.

For a Netflix movie it had big screen action and actors and great locations. Very cool to finally see Berry and Wahlberg doing something together - on-screen professionals doing what they do best, make it look so easy and believable which redeems the weak script. You kinda wonder, if they are throwing all this money into big names and big action, why wouldn't they do better with the script and storyline? Script and storyline 3/10, actors, action and locations 8/10. So this gets an overall 6.

Found the scene blowing up the BBC BT Tower in London amusing and interesting (given that I'm a Londoner). What would London actually do if that happened!! Wowzers.

Well ... I found myself playing mindless games on my phone half way through, keeping a half an eye on the movie.

First the pros: the action sequences were pretty good. (Sorry, it's a short list) Cons: very little chemistry between the leads, I made the bad guy immediately (and if I did, why didn't the international super-spy?) and it just wasn't even believable enough to allow the suspension of disbelief needed for movies of this genre. One example: I suspect that secret agents do everything they can to blend in, rather than dressing like a cross between catwoman and action Barbie, with eye-catching hair.

Anyways ... not objectionable but with the resources obviously available, just feel like this could have been done way better.