Ad Vitam

Of course some people just can not enjoy this kind of movie, finding it too shallow or whatever, but then again I wonder why they even bother to watch an action movie if they don't like this genre. Because an action movie it definitely is, and a good one in my opinion. Of course you have some exaggerated scenes but not too much and not too exaggerated like we're normally used to in this genre. A good French action movie, it's been awhile since I watched one, this one deserves a good rating. The story is simple in the beginning but there are some good twists towards the end which made it a movie worth watching. The acting was also convincing so give it a shot if you're looking for a good foreign action movie.

At the beginning of the film, it is interesting enough for the viewer to watch the film and the story depends on the heroic man for his family and his child who will be born through his wife. He faces all the difficulties that come to him with great precision and faces people who break into his house. One time he and his wife were captured, and with goodness the heroic man was able to save his wife and child through his friend. Who worked with them to ensure their protection, and the story was detailed from beginning to end.

My rating is very sure about this movie who need a very important watcher to review this movie.

First movie of 2025...and it's a bit of a dud.

Firstly, a positive. There's some pretty cool action scenes here. I'm not familiar with French cinema but the main actor Guillaume Canet was great and really sold me on his tough guy persona. He really was the emotional core of the story, aside from just being an outright badass. The dude does everything : parkour, driving, martial arts....you name it!

However, "Ad Vitam" really struggled to hold my attention throughout its short run time, and just comes across as a cheaper and inferior version of the "Mission Impossible" series. The story didn't grip me at all. The majority of the film is one big flashback that doesn't even get to the main plot introduced at the start of the film until just over an hour in. For an action film, it's incredibly slow and plodding, and doesn't seem to have any momentum or pace until it suddenly ramps up in the last 30 minutes. It feels like a solid 40 minute pilot episode of a TV series stretched out to 95 minutes to be considered feature length.

Overall, it's not a film I'd recommend. It's typical of what you'd expect from a January Netflix film I guess!

A parade of the usual tropes - cops as one big, happy family, the lonely Arab kid who cannot find friends, Semper Fi, the usual stuff, mixed with some betrayals and high stakes political treachery. But you get a chase involving parachutes and helicopters, plus fatally wounded pregnant woman arriving last minute to the hospital, so at least that's that. In the end, in a (cough-cough) unexpected plot twist, the befuddled viewer finds out the heroic to-be-shot wife submitted all the critical evidence to the authorities in time, so all the chases and shootouts were in fact a waste of time and taxpayer money, but the movie does not give us the time to think about such details. In the end, the evil CIA guy is exposed, everybody not shot in the first half survives, and family values triumph. Instantly forgettable and spectacularly bland.

Ad Vitam is a French action thriller directed by Rodolphe Lauga and co-written by Lauga, Guillaume Canet, and David Corona. The film follows Franck, played by Canet, a former member of the elite French police unit GIGN, who must save his pregnant wife Léo (Stéphane Caillard) from kidnappers while evading the police.

The movie delivers some impressive action sequences, particularly the stunts filmed in Paris and Versailles. Canet's performance is solid, though some may find it lacking the intensity of other action stars like Liam Neeson or Jason Statham. The plot, however, feels somewhat underdeveloped, with the action scenes taking precedence over character development and narrative depth.

Overall, Ad Vitam offers a mix of thrilling action and a somewhat thin storyline, making it an entertaining watch for fans of the genre, but perhaps not a standout in terms of plot complexity.

Netflix, like other streaming platforms, has to meet certain content quotas in various regions, including Europe. These quotas often require a certain percentage of content to be locally produced . While it's possible that Ad Vitam was produced to meet such requirements, it's also common for streaming services to invest in a wide range of content to appeal to diverse audiences.