This movie was announced to premiere on Tuesday, but strangely enough it was cancelled on the day and was postponed to yesterday. My wife and I actually already planned to see another drama comedy movie that was also released on the same day, but it did not play in our favorite nearby theater. So I opted to see this movie first instead. I saw this by myself as my wife did not seem to be too enthusiastic with it. Anyway, let us get on with the film then.
Brief Story Line
Anna (Sasha Luss) was a KGB agent recruited by Alexander (Luke Evans - 10 x 10, Beauty and the Beast live version etc) and now worked with her handler Olga (Helen Mirren - The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Gosford Park etc) to do various assignments which included assassinating certain targets in many countries. Her cover was a model which enabled her travel to various locations.
Meanwhile a CIA agent named Leonard (Cillian Murphy - Dunkirk, The Dark Knight trilogy etc) was suspicious of her but never make a move. After a while Anna, wanted to leave this kind of life as she felt trapped.
So what would happen to Anna? Find them all in this quite stylish action thriller movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well this was kind of surprising. When I saw the trailer once, I immediately thought that the movie looked very interesting and got nice action sequences. So I thought it would be a full action movie. Especially when I saw the name Luc Besson as the writer and director, which immediately reminded me of some of his great action films like Leon: The Professional, The Transporter trilogy etc. But it turned out that the movie was not full action.
Yes there were actions involved and they were almost always enjoyable to see, however the movie felt different in particular the story telling part. The sequence might be confusing for casual audience, even for me who was quite accustomed to this type of story telling. But as the movie progressed and I was more familiar with the pattern, it became more exciting for me. I also enjoyed the multiple twists that occurred during the movie as one or two of them still managed to surprise me, though I should have predicted the last one if I paid more attention earlier.
For a movie that had quite a number of twists and with that kind of story telling, it should not come as a surprise that the duration was quite long. It had a 118 minutes including closing credits which did not have either mid or post end credit scenes. The film was categorized for 17+ in Indonesia which I thought was totally justified. It had few (a bit surprising to me) scenes that were more suitable for adults, plus some of the action sequence might be a bit disturbing as well for the less mature audience.
As I said above about the unique story telling, it might also be the reason that the movie was not a nonstop action type. But the action sequence in the middle and also the one prior to the finale were totally awesome. I really loved the way Luc Besson managed to turn a former supermodel in real life into an action heroine. Sasha Luss seemed like she had been playing this type of genre all her life. She definitely suit this role perfectly especially with her background. The rest of the supporting characters were pretty decent as well. Helen Mirren was great as the KGB handler while Luke Evans was pretty convincing with his Russian accent and Cillian Murphy as the charming CIA agent.
One thing that I noticed in this movie though was the familiarity feeling with another movie titled Red Sparrow which focused on an ex ballerina recruited as assassin by Russian intelligence. I also thought there was familiar feeling with the movie Atomic Blonde where the main lead was a female secret agent and set in the late 1980s (just like in here where it was set in the 1990 with flash back from 1980s). So it was probably not surprising that critics did not really enjoy the movie with some reasoning that Luc Besson had run out of ideas. But for me it was still enjoyable, especially the action scenes.
Btw, this time the Indonesian subtitles were really poorly done. I think they should hire someone else (Nazaret Setiabudi should be the perfect choice). And the sound effects was a bit disappointing too, with some parts seemed to be not spectacular enough. The songs were pretty nice with 1 or 2 familiar songs from that period from Technotronics and Inxs, Overall this was a pretty entertaining spy thriller with some stylish action sequence a la Mr. Luc Besson. As long as you are ready for non linear story telling, you should be fine and could enjoy the movie.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Yes there were actions involved and they were almost always enjoyable to see, however the movie felt different in particular the story telling part. The sequence might be confusing for casual audience, even for me who was quite accustomed to this type of story telling. But as the movie progressed and I was more familiar with the pattern, it became more exciting for me. I also enjoyed the multiple twists that occurred during the movie as one or two of them still managed to surprise me, though I should have predicted the last one if I paid more attention earlier.
For a movie that had quite a number of twists and with that kind of story telling, it should not come as a surprise that the duration was quite long. It had a 118 minutes including closing credits which did not have either mid or post end credit scenes. The film was categorized for 17+ in Indonesia which I thought was totally justified. It had few (a bit surprising to me) scenes that were more suitable for adults, plus some of the action sequence might be a bit disturbing as well for the less mature audience.
As I said above about the unique story telling, it might also be the reason that the movie was not a nonstop action type. But the action sequence in the middle and also the one prior to the finale were totally awesome. I really loved the way Luc Besson managed to turn a former supermodel in real life into an action heroine. Sasha Luss seemed like she had been playing this type of genre all her life. She definitely suit this role perfectly especially with her background. The rest of the supporting characters were pretty decent as well. Helen Mirren was great as the KGB handler while Luke Evans was pretty convincing with his Russian accent and Cillian Murphy as the charming CIA agent.
One thing that I noticed in this movie though was the familiarity feeling with another movie titled Red Sparrow which focused on an ex ballerina recruited as assassin by Russian intelligence. I also thought there was familiar feeling with the movie Atomic Blonde where the main lead was a female secret agent and set in the late 1980s (just like in here where it was set in the 1990 with flash back from 1980s). So it was probably not surprising that critics did not really enjoy the movie with some reasoning that Luc Besson had run out of ideas. But for me it was still enjoyable, especially the action scenes.
Btw, this time the Indonesian subtitles were really poorly done. I think they should hire someone else (Nazaret Setiabudi should be the perfect choice). And the sound effects was a bit disappointing too, with some parts seemed to be not spectacular enough. The songs were pretty nice with 1 or 2 familiar songs from that period from Technotronics and Inxs, Overall this was a pretty entertaining spy thriller with some stylish action sequence a la Mr. Luc Besson. As long as you are ready for non linear story telling, you should be fine and could enjoy the movie.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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