Sniper: The Last Stand

After the horrendous "Rogue Mission" the franchise took a step forward with 2023's "Sniper: GRIT" and is officially all the way back with "Sniper: The Last Stand", the eleventh movie in what has mostly been a reliable, if somewhat cliched and stereotypical B-movie franchise.

Mercifully and thankfully, this film does away with the cringey alleged-comedy that dotted the last two instalments and returns to the franchise's more serious roots.

Fair to say there isn't as much sniping as you might expect from a movie with the word 'sniper' in the title. However, there's enough bloody, gory action - some of it in John Woo-style slow motion - to sink a ship. Maybe two.

Chad Michael Collins returns from and centre as Brandon Beckett for the eighth time in a row. He was almost being a bit-player in the last two movies, but is unquestionably the star once again, kicking butt and taking names. The dude is a lethal weapon.

Ryan Robbins' Zeke Rosenberg is also back (for the fourth time), and the chemistry between the two is spot on. The character has really grown on me since "Sniper: Assassin's End".

The title makes you wonder if there'll be a twelfth entry in the franchise. Here's hoping that we haven't seen the last of Beckett and Rosenberg in acion.

The movie starts slow, but the last 45 minutes of action make the film worth a watch and a decent addition to the Sniper series of movies. The action set pieces are beautifully worked and are fun to watch. The cast does a decent job overall on the combat scenes and handling the weapons. One of the drawbacks is that the enemy is shown to be too weak and does not have much of a character, and the development of the characters is bland. But, the lead actors playing B and Zero give a decent performance. A bit more work on the script would have improved the rating, but I feel the rating of 4.6 is too low, and it deserves at least a rating of 5.

Until I looked this movie up I had no idea that the underwhelming 1993 Tom Berenger/Billy Zane movie 'Sniper' had 10 direct-to-video sequels. This is the 10th. I haven't seen any of the intervening movies and I may have missed some references and callbacks. Fortunately for me the dialogue is a combination of rah-rah trailer lines and exposition dumps so I had no problem following along.

Elite ex-Marine sniper Chaz Michael Michaels joins the world's most diverse special-ops squad to take down Imhotep and free the people of Costa Verde, who are downtrodden because their country exists in the shadow of its dynamic big-budget neighbor Val Verde. Imhotep has devised a weapon which causes the same concussive damage to human tissue as a grenade - except it requires databanks of servers, it's effective to a shorter range and it works 10,000% more slowly. Diabolical!

To keep this deadly new weapon of minor destruction from falling into the wrong hands, Chaz and his friends must fight off the private army of the commie fascist dictator of Costa Verde, which is also conspicuously diverse and includes a whiter-than-Icelandic woman with an eyepatch. Some might call this immersion-breaking; but if you think about it, a commie fascist dictator is about the most likely person to insist on DEI hiring policies in his private army.

This movie is an unapologetically corny slice of low-budget 1980s-style action cheese. It's refreshing in its simplicity, its clunky optimism, its straightforward morality and its violent action. Turn your brain off and just have fun with it.

Want act-ing? Get you some Laurence Olivier. Want act-ion? This is it. Plot? Sure there's a plot. Evil arms dealer, mad scientist, super weapon, ruthless dictator, loyalist militia, elite band of freedom fighters . . . Have you put together the mission yet? Of course you have.

Why didn't the militia bad guys just shoot the brave lady freedom fighter instead of letting her hack eight of them to pieces with twin battle axes? Please.

I just wish all these action stars would listen when I tell them to pick up the fallen bad guy's Kalashnikov instead of trying to fight off the rest of the bad guys with a half-empty SIG.

Kinda corny Butch-and-Sundance ending though. So the director got to have a little fun with us. Grin and bear it.

The movie starts off well enough, with an excellently acted villain. Too bad they kill him off immediately. There's a lot of backstory on most of the characters, but unfortunately very little on him. The weapon scene is unrealistic and far too short.

I think they ran out of plot 1/3 of the way into the movie. It was enjoyable until then. At that point, though, it's just another hour of fighting -- unrealistic fighting at that. The fights with the females are the worst; they're slowed down so we can see what badasses they are supposed to be. Five members of a militia that's heavily armed with guns decide instead to battle against one woman with knives and machetes instead of just shooting her.

We don't really get enough information about the bad man running the country.

Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz and Arnold Vosloo play their parts well. The rest of the cast just doesn't have enough to work with.

They're definitely resting on the popularity of the other Sniper movies.