paul-carlier

A truly awful film and a waste of a talented cast. The plot must have been written by AI. It had every cliched plot point you could imagine; the ordinary man becoming a hero; spy stuff; the beautiful ex-girlfriend; action; a foreign location. It wasn't even funny, just grim.i gritted my teal and slogged through it. I'd like to say that there were some interesting plot points that could have been done better it expanded upon, but that wasn't the case. I appreciate that companies such as Netflix need content to keep their subscribers happy, but the quality needs to be much better, even if it takes longer to produce.

This film should never have been made and is a horrible end to the franchise. In the original films the violence has an almost comic edge to it and it is largely confined to the 'baddies' getting their well served punishment. This film seems to revel in the body count of dead civilians. The chief villain is a poorly fleshed out character and his henchmen have no redeeming or comic qualities. They are just nasty pieces of work. The plot is confusing and frankly boring. And there are very few nice characters including Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character. Those that do raise a smile are not in the film long. The tone of this film is bleak and miserable, it has been made by old men about an old character and you can feel it in every frame. There isn't much humour in watching an old man at the end of his life. The budget was far too big and they've, frankly, chucked everything and the kitchen sink at it. The action scenes are too lunch and predictable and everything is drenched in CGI. The sound quality is awful. Hollywood continues its march away from clear dialogue cleaned up in post production and continues to encourage mumbling. Why? I have no idea. This is a film best to forget. Remember the original three films fondly. Not because of nostalgia, but because they were better films.

I found this a difficult film to watch and didn't get far into it. The plot was your standard romance fayre, predicable and inoffensive. The difficultly arose from the main character Diana Willingham, who came across as a deeply unpleasant and self centred person who treaded her boyfriend pretty badly. They go on a trip together which is supposed to be the launch pad to love and romance. The only problem is that I found myself hoping that the boyfriend either ran away or found a refuge for abused men. The underlying premise of the film was I'm sure meant to be interesting, but if you don't engage your audience in the first few minutes then you've lost them for good. This was a film with potential that was sadly not realised.