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The Gorge takes a pair of good actors, a big budget, and a very cool premise...and just kind of squanders it all.

Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy are both assassins with a checkered past who are assigned to watch over opposite ends of a mysterious gorge in the middle of nowhere.

The gorge is covered with auto-guns and mines, and they are told to keep the things down there from climbing out. They are also forbidden from contacting each other.

So of course they immediately contact each other and strike up a romance. And then someone falls into the gorge and needs to be rescued...

And this is where it kind of falls apart. The monsters are the most generic things they could possibly come up with. There's not much real threat outside of jump scares since our heroes are heavily armed soldiers. There's not even much at stake really, because it turns out all they had to do was push the self-destruct button.

Add in a paper-thin evil boss played by Sigourney Weaver and you have a paint-by-numbers sci-fi action movie with some romantic aspects crowbarred in.

I was left with the impression that they were struggling to find a time or place to launch this film, and someone said "hey, it's got some kissing in it...how about Valentine's Day?"

If you're just looking to pass two hours with some generic stuff that you've seen a million times before, this movie will scratch the itch.

The main takeaway from Anora is that Mikey Madison is going to be a star. She breaks out of her (brief) typecasting as "the girl who gets set on fire in every movie" to deliver a monumental lead performance. Unfortunately, the movie itself is kind of "meh".

The first third is the most interesting part, as stripper/escort Ani meets a rich Russian kid and they seem to become mutually infatuated.

Things eventually go downhill for the couple, and that's where the movie grinds to a halt. It devolves into a lot of shouting and driving around as the two wimpiest Russian gangsters in movie history do their very best to not be threatening or intimidating in any way. The main character kind of just sits around and goes with the flow.

The good - Mikey Madison. "The stripper who doesn't strip" is a common character in Hollywood movies about strippers, but Anora does away with that trope in the literal opening shot. Mikey's stripper routines can only be described as "authentic". She holds nothing back. Her performance runs through every possible emotion in the book and comes out on top. Absolutely masterful.

The mid - The story just kind of plods along. I suppose it could be described as "realistic", but reality is often boring as they say. The cinematography is standard indie movie fare. Lots of bokeh and extreme color grading. Some might find it "pretty" but I found it "annoying". The soundtrack is also extreme, but probably authentic for the setting.

The bad - It just felt like the movie fell into the abyss after the introduction of the Russian gangsters. They weren't interesting, didn't do anything really memorable, and generally took screen time away from the much more interesting main character. They also were way too gentle and polite, all things considered.

I'm not really sure if she actually liked the Russian kid or just wanted his money. I'm also not really sure what the final takeaway is.

I suppose movies that answer every single question are considered pedestrian, but this one didn't leave me pondering the meaning of life; it just left me a little annoyed that after 2 hours and 19 minutes I wasn't leaving with any interesting ideas to chew on.

If I had to compare Anora to another film, I would say Cate Blanchett's Tar. Another plodding indie movie that doesn't make a ton of sense and relies almost entirely on a great performance from the main character.

When I heard they were remaking The Killer, I was ready to write it off until I saw that John Woo himself was directing it. That alone made it worth checking out.

The original 1989 film was hugely influential on Hollywood action movies in the 1990s, and folks like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were among those who took notes. I think it's safe to say that the "John Wick" franchise wouldn't exist without the films of John Woo, either. He brought us the slow motion, balletic gun violence that we've all come to love in movies.

Nathalie Emmanuel as the lead was a big twist. Like most people, I liked her in Game of Thrones, but was unsure of how she'd do in charge of a violent action movie.

At first I was a little uncertain. Much like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, I just didn't buy that she was strong or fast enough to be doing the things she was doing on screen. However, I was finally convinced after the final action scene in the church. She did indeed step up, and brought the ferocity necessary to sell the fight scenes. Nice job, and I hope we see her in more roles like this in the future.

Omar Sy as the detective was fairly by the books. He's honest, all the other cops are corrupt, and he forms a bond of trust with the Killer. He was perfectly fine, just nothing really memorable about the character. We've seen this guy a million times in European action movies.

Speaking of Europe, the movie is set in Paris, which gives it a bit of a Luc Besson vibe. I was surprised at first, but I think it works better here than if it was set in the US. You still get that foreign flavor as an American viewer, and some things like the jazzy soundtrack are full-blown European. Personally, I would have dialed down the saxophone just a tad, but it was different than the usual action flick to say the least.

The rest of the cast is mostly forgettable, despite some familiar faces. Sam Worthington affects a terrible Irish accent for some reason. Diana Silvers as the singer seemed miscast. She didn't have much to do besides sing a song (not great) and then whimper and cry throughout the rest of the movie. Could just be that the role was written to be paper thin, though.

The action scenes were hit and miss - though I think the final shoot-out was strong enough to end the movie on a "hit". It's basically John Woo porn, it takes place in a chuch (check), there are doves flying everywhere (check), lots of slow motion (check) - it's classic Woo.

Unfortunately, some of the other action scenes aren't quite on that level. There are a fair amount of shaky cam/rapid cut type scenes, which is disappointing in a post "John Wick" era. We have come to expect a little better.

One final thought it that the original film had a romantic subplot between the Killer and the Singer. She didn't realize the nice guy she was dating was the guy who blinded her, which obviously led to tension and eventual plot payoff.

They completely abandon this plot thread in the remake, which makes the relationship between the Killer and the Singer kind of nonexistent. Seems like a missed opportunity.

In conclusion, this is a solid 6 if you are a John Woo fan. Interesting remake that at least has the occasional fingerprints of a master director on it.