Reviews

The whole movie feels like a psychedelic trip through her worst moments in life and impresses by exceeding all my worst expectations. This type of movie could have been an interesting piece of art, but the focus on a single character and her inner pain makes it difficult to watch. I could imagine this type of camera and switching between scenes in a war movie, some other non-fiction topic or in a 1st person storytelling flick. Instead you are stuck in a neverending horror-like biography.

Maybe there is an audience for it, but I'm affraid it is a very small club. Oh, and I only watched it while doing something else simultaneously, or I would have had enough after 20-30 minutes.

The movie was good entertainment, had nice action scenes and some of the original's great aerial views, but once compared to the original story it seems to be an incoherent mix with separate groups that should never make it into one and the same movie clogging it with all kinds of criminal motives introduced only to be abandoned 10 minutes later and pretty much never seen again. As a result, there is little time to show any characters in greater detail or even develop them.

Then there is the timing and placement of events in the movie. A scene is shot at night because daytime makes no sense, but is followed by daytime scenes only to look good on the screen despite the fact that they should only be minutes apart. Characters cross the border with a lot of effort, but the reason remains unclear. Some decisions make no sense. Much of the movie is taking place just somewhere in the middle of nowhere and kind of ends up going nowhere as well.

Despite all that disappointment I mentioned above, I'm thinking of seeing it again (something I rarely do), because it was visually good and it is not the usual predictable one man show other action movies tend to be.

The plot is interesting, fast-paced within individual episodes, so that not much time is left for other characters' backgrounds. The inter- episode story is also developing, so it is not an action soap. I got very addicted. I really don't know why, because otherwise much is predictable, main characters seem to feel little or no fear and tension and twists appear artificial.

The mysterious Red is a brilliant character. The mysterious Tom is also good. However, Boone as Liz is completely miscast. Boone would make a good sweet girl role. Teachers, hairdressers... whatever. Just nothing with a gun. She simply doesn't have the face for this type of business, same as Arnie cannot play a teacher in any serious movie. And I wouldn't necessarily blame it on bad acting. The other Agent-characters have no personality. No private life, no feelings, nothing to tell them apart. The villains however are very interesting. Each one is different and I believe this is the part that keeps us in the seats.

Overall: (inexplicably) very good

It is not the worst film ever (at least not to the point Battleship was), but it had a few flaws that spoiled it a bit for me.

Despite being a woman, I do like action movies even if they are somewhat brainless. I never expected any Oscar-winning performance in this film, nor did I expect any complicated plot. The story is very linear and you will figure out most of it from the trailer before the movie even starts. The problem is, the villains are more entertaining than the good guys. The few words Snow says in the trailer and the way he behaves are the only things that define his character. This becomes a nuisance in the film, because he doesn't seem to be able to do anything else. Even the fight scenes are amateurish, hardly any serious fighting, bad camera, bad editing - some boring camera views can be fixed in the post-production, but even that doesn't happen here. By boring I mean too wide views where characters are small, but there is no interesting background to show. Not to mention the CGI at the beginning of the film before he is arrested - did someone just grab a video while playing his favorite computer game from 8 years ago? Because that's what it looks like.

I saw it in HD - maybe that made it even worse. It was somewhat entertaining, but not worth the time. Money is relative.

If I didn't have to travel an hour across a border to see this film and then another hour back, I'd go and see it a second time. I really liked it - and there were not many films I went to see twice in a cinema. The only one I recall was one I've seen 11 years ago.

Despite a fairly predictable story and a load of stereotypical stuff you'll see in every other made-in-US movie, it still has o lot to offer and will keep your attention every second of it's length. Realistic characters with nicely presented relationships make the film very emotional, so that some people will even cry. The characters are very likable, their feelings are moving, it recognizes other psychological problems for ex-soldiers than just drinking alcohol. The film is not overloaded with breathtaking CGI, explosions and non-stop brainless action, yet it doesn't get boring at any point. Schweiger invested considerable time and effort in training with weapons under the supervision of professionals, firing thousands of shots. Because of this, you will not see any ridiculous stunts, magazines are reloaded as they should be and there are no stupid dialogs about who is about to die and how. The are also no fill-ins in form of uselessly repeated scenes typical for some low-cost films. The film flows at a more or less constant speed, action scenes changing with non-action dialogs in smaller portions and delivers good value entertainment.

Also, luckily, the typically German personality apparently went on vacation. Maybe it was intentional - to make it more likable in the rest of the world, or because the story was partially written by non-German authors. Whatever. I mean - let's face it: who'd want to watch a 135 minute film loaded with poker-faced old know-better geezers. I thought it deserves a 6, but I so long to see it again, that I guess it should have a 7 for that ...or perhaps an 8?