It was one of those rare Wednesdays where there was no major blockbuster Hollywood movies premiering in all Indonesian cinema chains but instead we have 3 new movies playing in various theaters. My wife and I chose to see this one as it played in the cinema nearest to our home. We plan to maybe see the other 1 or 2 movies this weekend. What was this movie all about? Let's move on to it now.
Brief Story Line
When a US and Russian submarines were involved in an incident in the Arctic seas, Admiral Fisk (Common - Smallfoot, The Hate U Give etc) with his superior Admiral Donegan (Gary Oldman - The Darkest Hour, The Hitman's Bodyguard etc) decided to assign another submarine to investigate. Fisk proposed Commander Glass (Gerard Butler - 300, Den of Thieves etc) to command the USS Arkansas to the location. During the investigation, Glass found out that things did not seem logical and made him suspect it was more complex than just an attack on both sides.
Meanwhile, a NSA analyst Jayne (Linda Cardellini - Daddy's Home 2, Bloodline TV series etc) was suspicious with the timing of the incident. She recommended Fisk to assign a special ops team to infiltrate the Russian territory and find out what the Russians intended to do. The team consist of 4 Navy Seals led by Beaman (Toby Stephens - 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Lost in Space TV series) and included a rather inexperienced sniper Martinelli (Zane Holtz - From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series).
With both countries on the verge of war, both Glass with his submarine crew and Beaman's team tried their best to do whatever necessary to avoid the war. So could they achieve this very dangerous mission? Find them all in this quite fun action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well to be honest, I saw this movie's trailer only once last week and it occurred to me that it was a bit confusing whether it was a war movie, a submarine movie or something else. And it turned out that indeed it was difficult to grasp, at least for the first 45 minutes or so. There were so many people involved that we were not sure of what was supposed to be the main story. My wife said it was a bit boring at first because she was not sure of the movie's direction. But as the film progressed and all the pieces started to fit, we finally could understand where the story was going and it turned out to be something interesting.
Once we were able to get the plot, the movie became more suspenseful and intriguing. We were caught up in the game of cat and mouse under the sea which was exciting. I cannot remember the last time I was entertained by a "war" involving submarines and it was really a nice experience. I personally thought that the underwater scenes were good (maybe not the greatest but still quite convincing) and the real suspense with the submarine chase sequence were great. There was one scene that I believed all the audience (including myself and my wife) were very much intense, when Glass' crew had to be very silent.
Apart from those underwater action sequence, there were also quite amazing action shootout scenes involving those special ops team. I thought it was neatly done and to my surprise, it was shown in a quite logical manner unlike other 1 man army shootout sequence in other movies. I thought the director Donovan Marsh (who did not have major Hollywood movies to his credit prior to this one) was good in making the action sequence and maintain the thrill plus some brief fun moments. Although same thing could not be said for the more dramatic part or the earlier scenes. This film did not have any romance at all and the characters might not have the proper background introduction which could be important for certain audience, though for me personally it did not really matter as it would probably make the movie became more than 3 hours because of the so many people involved.
With quite abundant action sequence, the sound effects were very good considering it was the Dolby 7.1 system. During the end credit scene (which did not have any mid or post scenes) did mention it had Dolby Atmos effects. Unfortunately the Indonesian cinemas might have opted not to bring in the movies with such effect that would have enhanced our experience.
Sadly though, with this kind of story, I could already imagine that it would be thrashed by critics and there might be lots of those audience who would not be appreciative of this movie due to possibly the bad writing or some plot holes and so on. Not to mention the under use of Gary Oldman who had a wonderful acting career in here. But I personally had quite a good time, especially the last two third of the movie. Its climax was something that I did not see coming (though my wife was able to guessed it) which I thought was quite satisfying. A nice ending to a good build up. Btw, the movie itself was based on a novel titled Firing Point written by Don Keith and George Wallace.
Overall I was pretty entertained by this movie. Even if the earlier part was a bit overly complicated for my taste, it did have a nice submarine war sequence and pretty decent special effects and very cool sound effects. Those looking for this kind of action thriller movie and do not mind waiting a bit to see how the story unfold, should be able to enjoy this movie. However, those more sophisticated audience expecting wonderful plot and great writing would most likely be disappointed. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment