As a regular reader of Polygon, I'm well aware that they've aggressively pivoted to the same enthusiast coverage many other sites have, but somehow I managed to take this nuclear-level glowing description of this movie's stunt production at face value.


https://www.polygon.com/23824292/heart-stone-gal-gadot-netflix-movie-locations-stunts


I made it about 40 minutes into the movie, which runs just over 2 hours, so maybe I'll go back to see what all the fuss is about, but as somebody who's self-described as a sort of Netflix action bloodhound what I've seen of this movie seems to want to marry '80s coincidence writing to post-Marvel self-aware quips without any understanding of why the former was so charming and the latter can be absolutely depressing when it's not delivered by superhumans and literal gods.


Yea, my disappointment's heavily on me considering, again, I just read that one article and thought "everything else aside, practical effects kick ass" without digging deeper, and AGAIN, the first hour of this movie plays more like a rejected TV adaptation of a video game interpretation of the first two Mission Impossible movies. So MAYBE the practical stunts described in that article are super cool (my Letterboxd circle says otherwise, sadly).


The meanest thing I can say about the third of this movie I watched is that, accepting at least two real people wrote this movie, this is one of those situations where it's hard to imagine an AI doing worse, but in any case, it'd have been nice if these people talked almost never and kept jumping off and sliding under shit instead. AI can't make Gal Gadot look awesome doing stunts - though without spoiling anything, this movie's "best" joke comes early, and its punchline is that AI can.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

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Which was made doubly weird by my feeling that I'm fairly confident I actually like this actor, I'm just only seeing him in terrible movies. But the way they would constantly have the magical tech bro back at home base tee up "suspense" or "surprise" for the audience was fucking nauseating. I don't know who falls for it, but it's such an escalation of the "guy in truck celebrates hero overcoming the odds" trope that it has the reverse effect for me and makes me totally detached from the action.


And if this movie isn't the poster child for why that device needs to be employed delicately at the very least, I'd hate to see the one that's even more flagrant about it.


If you finished it, I gotta ask: did 50 Shades turn, or do they just tease it throughout until he remembers Gadot in a swimsuit and does the right thing?


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz