Reviews

I don't believe that a world class, filthy rich, top of the line bad guy is going to accept as coincidence that a guy he met in Switzerland would end up being the guy who saves his son in Spain. Nor would I believe that the same bad guy would subsequently dump his trusted top security man in favor of the coincidental man. No sale. I don't know if these details are true to the book, but I hope not.

I also know that the MI6 isn't going to take a 2nd rate hotel manager and turn him into a world class spy just because the manager has a grudge. Real life doesn't work that way.

Also, the "corrupt MI6 / CIA officials" meme has been well worn out by the time the film was produced. Couldn't they have come up with something more original?

The acting across the board is top notch. That place in Spain in beautiful. Maybe they should have let Hugh Laurie use his British accent as house. It'd made it a fascinating tv series!

Up until that point the series was top notch. Then in the episode where the old Swedish woman sees the tatoo on Ibbe's arm, I said to myself, "ok, this is a big break, does she actually report it or do the writers use a worn-out Hollywood trope and have her killed off just before she can report that Ibbe is a terrorist? If it's the later, I'm done with the series."

It was the latter and so I turned it off. I'm tired of these over-used tropes that do nothing more than distract the audience with false drama.

And how did they know to come back and kill the old woman? Maybe that's explained later but it certainly didn't make sense at the time.

Again, up until that point it was great but after that I saw no reason to finish watching as it was no longer worth my time.

I've watched four episodes and so far this comes across as a 2nd rate thriller / spy show. There are several weaknesses:

1) The female lead, (Meta Golding), this thoroughly unbelievable and the character is written poorly. She's a supposed lawyer who after one series of classes in Krav Maga is able to overpower trained henchmen without the slightest hiccup. She's in a life and death situation and she flits about casually. She's got millions of stolen funds yet she decides to go for a joy ride with the shows protagonist, (Sutherland). She has no fear of death, consequences, or how she could get out of the whole spy caper she's been drug into. She's really some obtuse comedy relief character that has no business in a show that supposed to be serious. If this were "Chuck" then she'd fit, but certainly not here. This character is a major flaw. That being said, the only get-out-of-jail-free card is if she's really a spy / officer / bad guy herself. We'll see.

2) The story line. So far I've been able to predict each major slight of hand / surprise. That tells me that the writing and creativity are weak. Further, it's not believable to have the two super syp protagonists, John and his father, to so easily trust and entrust a bimbo lawyer to be their right hand man in their spy craft. Additionally, each big risk comes with a Felix the Cat bag of tricks so the good guys succeed and/or get away with a caper or the bad guys. It's become trite and unrealistic.

3) The skipping around from time period to time period is drawn out. It's tiring to have to pay attention to each second of dialog or action and then try to put it all together in a meaningful sequence. Enough with the childhood drama already!

4) The background "suspense/action" music is grating. They've borrowed that style of music from another suspense show, (I can't think of the name but I've heard this same type of music before). They should hire Tim Jones to write some original music for them.

5) Another unbelievable character is Edward Homm gov. Agent. He gets kidnapped, told that they saved his life, and then joins them like he's joining up with Robin Hood! Plus he got to stream his wife cheating on him when he was in captivity. Hell no. He'd made a break for it as soon as possible.

If you miss this show you're not missing anything.

The acting and the show's pace are good. That's about all the good I can say about it so far. I'll update when I'm finished with the show.

My goodness, such a mess whereas just some basic changes could have made this a much better film. Shame on the producers for allowing this slop to be made. Mr. Stallone, come on, we deserve better quality than this crap!

The Asian actress, Levy Tran served zero purpose. It would have been better to give her screen time to Couture or Dolph.

Fifty cent served no purpose other than filled the stereotypical role of the black side kick / black cast member / affirmative action actor. It would have been better to give his time to the other actors.

The absolute worst thing was to see Megan Fox's plastic face and disfigured lips. I'll never understand why attractive young women feel the need to have their faces butchered and lips disfigured like fish lips.

The story line was thin as paper. When I saw Garcia I said to myself, "Surely the writers are not so brain dead trite as to make him the secret bad guy." I was wrong.

When Stallone died I said to myself, "Nope, he'll be back in the end to save the day." I was right. How do they justify murdering an innocent guy, Jumbo Shrimp, to take Stallone's place?

Across the board the story line was poorly thought out and developed.

Oh, and surely they could have done much better than to get an actress like Fox to play the female lead? Why not Gina Carano, or Ronda Rousey again, or at least an actress with some acting chops.

Dolph and Couture deserved more screen time. It was another screw up to give them so little material in this film.

Either kill this series off now, or put some hard work into developing a better story.

I thought the movie was ok. I liked seeing McDonough and Cudlitz together again, (they were both in Band of Brothers). The supporting cast was good. I think they could have done more to emphasize the close relationship between the two aforementioned actors near the beginning of the movie.

A better director would have spent a little more time building up the drama and tension before some of the shootout scenes.

It was trite and predicable to know that the cop was going to betray the kid.

The actor who played the kid did a good job, much better than his brother in "Boon" the sequel to this movie.

Another problem with the film was that there were shootings and kidnappings in the middle of the town and nobody noticed. The director should have handled that better because that flaw was so obvious.