JodyBruchon

I watched the original Road House, then I watched this remake the next day. In the original film we see a cocky tough guy cleaning up the place. In this film we see the same thing, but the original takes its time developing the main character while this one rushes the process and tells us exactly what we should think about what we see and hear. Throughout the film, we get "I'm this person and you did this thing" instead of just letting the context clues tell us that and spending the dialogue time on actual story development. I spent the entire movie mocking the lines out loud, repeating "WE NEVER WOULD HAVE FIGURED THAT OUT IF HE DIDN'T TELL US THAT!" There was so much potential, especially with such a masterful cast. In the original film, we see the tough guy who thinks he can take on anything truly suffer through trials that make the ultimate ending feel earned. In this, the relationships aren't deep enough to make any of the end results feel worth the journey.

I feel like this was an unnecessary remake that squandered the potential of the original story and the excellent actors. There were parts that were interesting and well-done, but I'm not watching a short film, I'm watching a 2-hour story that treats me like I'm a child. I wanted more depth to the characters. I wanted the filmmakers to trust me to understand what I saw and draw conclusions rather than slap me in the face with direct exposition chatter every time something happened. This is why so many people think modern productions suck and 80s/90s films were peak cinema. The older productions left room to breathe between events, built up characters naturally, and made the ultimate payoff for spending 2 hours of your life staring at a screen feel like it was earned. This remake--like most modern remakes--is collection-padding mediocre slop that only keeps you watching because nothing stops for longer than a minute and you never have to think about anything because someone will expressly tell you what's going on at every step of the way.

I wanted to like this, but I'm not a Tik Tok drooling idiot with no attention span or original thoughts. It's not made for me; it's made for a younger generation that's been ruined by constant screen time and bad parenting. I don't even expect that much out of an action movie, but if my bar of acceptance were considered low, this movie is in Hell. The absolute worst part is that after all that, I can see that they're making a sequel. I don't want a sequel! I want this to be better! Please stop making slop and wasting Jake and Post Malone on it.

The people behind this film are notorious for making movies meant to be "so bad it's good" a la Sharknado. You'll see the same faces involved in Jurassic Shark and Raiders of the Lost Shark. I was introduced to these movies through I Hate Everything's review of Jurassic Shark and went on to watch Raiders of the Lost Shark, then ultimately this movie. With the two shark movies as the basis, Avenging Force is surprisingly good. It's still not a great movie but it has a lot more charm and better production in general than later works by the same crew. It's at least worth a watch if you like amateur films that don't have a budget but made a good attempt.

I'm pretty annoyed fresh off of watching this. As so many other reviews have said, the visual and musical side of this is fantastic, to the point that I remarked to my significant other that "this would have worked with the idle parts cut out and no dialogue at all." Unfortunately, this movie has a plot thin enough that it almost belongs in a 90s porno. The story is woefully neglected. In the first 20 minutes, you find yourself excited to see how things develop because of how exquisite the presentation is. There is unfortunately zero payoff for your investment. The rules of the world are not explained. The quirks that make the premise of the story so interesting are left completely undeveloped. You don't care about what happens because you aren't told why you should care. This isn't the first Netflix-produced anime movie I've seen with this issue, either; it seems like Netflix anime is produced like a fan fiction with a huge budget. Everything looks amazing on the outside, yet the story could have been written on notebook paper by a hormonal eighth-grader. I wanted so badly for this to dig into the interesting world they started to build, but by the end there was nothing but a concrete foundation and some "uwu I wuv you" to work with.

The thing I resent the most is all the higher ratings just for the audiovisual work. The missing story merits a 5/10 at absolute best, but I rated it down because others rated it up foolishly and someone has to counter such garbage.