Is there any real differentiation between a Jason Statham film since Snatch? I hadn't seen the original "The Mechanic" and noticed that it was on Netflix, so a couple of days before I thought I would catch up on the next Stath-franchise. I then received a new thread called, "Because you watched The Mechanic", these films were...Transporter, Transporter 3, Hummingbird, War, Safe, Blitz, Wild Card. All these films have the same premise, Mr Statham has really been type cast since his initial role as Frank Martin, The Driver.
The Mechanic, although a fun 90 minutes, was nothing new and original but still something that easily whiles away the early hours whilst feeding a baby (this was how I watched it anyway), so my expectations were pretty low for Arthur Bishop's next outing. Unfortunately, I hadn't lowered them enough for the disaster that I was about to see.
It seems there were two separate films at work here, two generic Jason Statham action romps just merged them into one mishmash of a film. The plot was incoherent, the run time of the film (although short) seemed to drag as nothing really happened on screen that engaged, even Statham seemed very bored with it all. Jessica Alba, as lovely as she is, seemed to be there for no real reason at all and for most of it, I don't think she was. The bad guy was so 80's Bond villain-esque that it just seemed so generic.
In my review of Jason Bourne, I commented that the original films changed the dynamic of the Action/Adventure film and subsequently the for next 10 years the genre seemed to take a formulaic route. It seems that Jason Statham films have become stuck in a rut, but that rut is somewhere still in the late 90's.
I know that until we see a return to form of Turkish or Bacon from Mr Statham, I will resort to late night feed entertainment from Mr Generic rather than a visit to the cinema.
No comments:
Post a Comment