Brief Story Line
Sean Walker (John Cena - Little Brother, Bumblebee etc) was a spy working for the CIA together with his handler Helen (Danai Gurira - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Walking Dead TV series etc). After being told to take some time off, Sean returned to his hometown and reunited with his best friends from middle school that consisted of Aimee (Jessica Biel - The Better Sister mini series, Total Recall remake etc), Ted (Arturo Castro - Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, The Menu etc), Crosby (Sam Richardson - Hoppers, The Tomorrow War etc) and Charmaine (Teyonah Parris - The Marvels, No Good Deed TV series etc). Unfortunately their reunion turned catastrophic when Sean was suspected of stealing dangerous weapons with the help from his friends.
As Sean tried to prove his innocence, his friends decided to help him and embarked on a dangerous mission to clear all their names.
So what would happen to Sean and all his friends? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Linetotal
Well that was one heck of a ride! The action sequence in this movie was just awesome with some eye popping spectacularly done car chasing scenes on the dessert, in the busy streets of a city, on a highway combined with multiple amazingly done fight scenes. It had been a while since I saw this kind of spectacular actions in a movie that was not released in theaters. It was kind of a pity cause I would have enjoyed it much better if I saw this on a large screen with great sound system. But even though I saw this on my TV, it still was truly entertaining watching them.
Aside from the action though, the story was very light with no complications. There was a supposedly twist after around one third of the film but it was too easy to guess and did not surprise me at all. It certainly would not win the hearts of critics and critical viewers with the generic formula and full of cliches which I could understand. However as an action comedy, I think this one really delivered with its over the top (and sometimes a bit ridiculous) action and few humor that were not the intelligent kind but still OK for me. And after reading more on the film, it was indeed negatively received by critics while audience were mixed.
To be honest, when I read the title, I did not realize that it was about a toy. I completely forgotten that Matchbox is the brand of toys owned by Mattel despite seeing its logo in the opening sequence. But I got to say that the Matchbox itself was only touched a little as part of the conversation among Sean's group of friends. So I do not think that this is a proper Matchbox film, rather a good old fashion action comedy movie which showed glimpses of those Matchbox toys. Perhaps if the story focused more on the toys itself, it would be better received by die hard fans. Nevertheless, I still enjoy the movie since I do not have any history with the toys anyway.
The movie itself was directed by Sam Hargrave the man behind that extraordinary action movie of Extraction and its sequel which would explain how wonderful the action scenes here. It was written by David Coggeshall (The Family Plan, Watch Over Me TV series) and Matt Westbrook. Aside from the above names, there were also some support cast such as Corey Stoll (First Man, Billions TV series etc) as CIA Deputy Director Mosier, Bill Camp (Presumed Innocent TV series, Dark Waters etc) as Aimee's uncle Smalley, Daniel Bernhardt (Deathwalker, Mortal Kombat: Conquest TV series etc) as Helen's right hand man Falko, Golshifteh Farahani as International weapons dealer Robbie and several others. Btw the film had a long duration of 126 minutes including closing credits but without any mid or post end credit scene. What I liked about this was it had enough time to show the abundant and satisfying actions.
In the end this was an action comedy film that is totally entertaining if you just want to enjoy the action. There was nothing to be praised on the story as it was very standard, light and generic which in a way suit this kind of movie where we just want to sit back, relax and have fun. So if this is what you are looking for, I am sure you would enjoy this a lot like I did. But if you prefer an action movie complete with good story or you want to see the toys become the main focus, then you would not find them here and might not be having great time either. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment