There was supposed to be a new movie released on Friday starring Chadwick Boseman, same time as the US but at the last minute, it was replaced with this movie while that one was released as midnight show on Saturday. This one was only playing in very few theaters but yesterday more studios were showing it including the one near my home. Anyway I saw this one by myself as I was a bit doubtful my wife would have liked it. OK let us get on with the film now.
Brief Story Line
Frank Walsh (Nicolas Cage - Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, The Humanity Bureau etc) was a hunter for exotic animals. After capturing quite a number of them, including a Jaguar who was said to be a man eater, he planned to return to the US on a ship. However a group of US Marshalls led by Agent Ringer (LaMonica Garrett - Designated Survivor TV series etc) were also on board the same ship while bringing a dangerous prisoner named Richard Loffler (Kevin Durand - Swamp Thing TV series, The Butterfly Effect etc) to be tried in the US.
Together with the agents, there were also a Doctor Ellen Taylor (Famke Janssen - X-Men movies, Golden Eye etc) and US Attorney Paul Freed (Michael Imperioli - The Sopranos TV series etc). As you would have guessed, things turned to the worse for everyone when Loffler managed to escape and wreak havoc while the ship was at sea.
So what would happen to everyone? Find them all in this action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Hmmm, as suspected, this film had a real B movie vibe typical Nicolas Cage's current films. It looked like a low budget movie but from what I could see, the special effects were not done as poorly as I worried. In fact it was done quite Ok to my opinion. The movie started off pretty standard with the introduction of the main lead, but then it took quite a while to reach to the interesting part.
The story itself was nothing too fancy where the writers did not try to make something overly complicated and it was not too difficult to understand the plot. Although there was a surprising twist which I never thought would be available in this kind of movie. The main attraction would be the combination of ruthless assassin and the wild animals endangering the whole ship's crew.
The action was mostly OK when involving Durand's character and Ringer's team. But when it involved Nicolas Cage it was not the kind of action you would see when you watch major action stars. You could be disappointed with the way Cage fought but you could opt to see it at different angle where he was playing a normal character especially when compared to professional assassin like Loffler. Nicolas Cage this time portrayed a rather anti-hero person with his standard acting. Durand also played his standard no nonsense character and to me he was actually pretty convincing. The rest of them were just really average characters to leave an impression (sadly including Famke Janssen).
I personally felt that from the moment Loffler escaped, the movie had some suspenseful moments. It had sufficient amount of thrills and surprisingly quite entertaining. The actions were pretty brutal too with some scenes I thought were really violent. I also like the fact that the animals were shown quite frequently. And with some good sound effects (there was even a jump scare scene that did have an impact on me), it was a bit enjoyable.
Overall this was just an OK action movie, certainly not of the highest quality. In fact I would not be surprised if it was trashed by critics or audience who like smart and sophisticated movie with great scenario and so on. It is not something I would recommend to see in the theater and better to wait till it is shown on cable TV or live streaming. Of course if you really had no other movie to choose, then you could give it a try if you are OK with the flaws I mentioned above. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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