The Furious (2025)

Sometimes you want the latest Spielberg magic. Sometimes you want to spend some time being amused by a slick rom-com. Sometimes you need to check out the latest hot horror movies. And sometimes . . . sometimes you really want something with a very slight plot that's just an excuse to have people punching and kicking one another in the face.

Xie Miao stars as a mute handyman living with his young daughter (Rainy, played by Yang Enyou). He needs to start tearing through bad guys when Rainy is snatched up by men involved in a child trafficking ring. That's almost the entirety of the plot. Okay, Joe Taslim is involved, playing a journalist named Navin who is looking for his missing partner, and there are a number of main baddies standing out from the crowd, but this film boils down to watch Xie Miao dismantle a large crime ring in pursuit of his young daughter.

There's a ridiculousness to this whole thing, from the slight plotting to some of the bad dialogue, but I'm less concerned with criticising the four people who shaped the screenplay and more concerned with praising director Kenji Tanigaki. What he's done here is present a slice of pure adrenalin-pumping action insanity, with fights and savage violence that will have even the most hardened action movie fan picking their jaw up off the floor on a number of different occasions.

Even the relatively small-scale opening sequence has some impressive fight moves, but things really step up to another level once our hero sees his daughter in trouble and shows his determination to save her at any cost. An impressive two-on-one fight is quickly followed by some dangerous driving, but that's nothing compared to what unfolds after that. Take one man, one hammer, and a club with a MMA octagon in the middle of it and you have the ingredients for one fantastic set-piece. A room with plenty of large ice blocks is the setting for another highlight. And I can't even begin to describe the extended final sequence, which features such an astonishing blend of inventiveness and savagery that I actually think I almost forgot to keep breathing a couple of times.

Taslim may be the more well-known of the leads, but it's Miao you'll be researching once the end credits roll. He's an incredible talent, up there with the likes of Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa when it comes to making a strong impression with his fighting skills. Yayan Ruhian portrays another memorable bad guy, Brian Le combines bulk and grace in a way that reminded me of the mighty Sammo Hung, and Joey Iwanaga is the sharp-suited "final boss" who eventually shows that his bite can be just as bad as his bark.

I can't tell you that I'm writing this review without some rose-tinted glow affecting me, having been blown away by the choreography and the fighting styles on display (there's also a fantastic score helping things along). But I CAN tell you that I've watched this twice in the last week, aiming to watch it again whenever I get the free time, and will probably be waiting quite some time until something else comes along that absolutely blows my socks off in the way that this did.

9/10

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Boy Kills World (2024)

It always happens. One great success leads to numerous imitators. That can lead to other successes, as has happened in recent years with a certain kind of action cinema. It can also lead to the occasional mid-step, at best. Boy Kills World is a mis-step, although it’s one that I know plenty of people enjoyed more than I did.

Bill Skarsgård plays our main character, a mute man who narrates his own life in an inner voice (H. Jon Benjamin) that he used to enjoy hearing in one of his favourite videogames. He is living in a strange dystopian world, one in which the rulers occasionally just pick people to kill/sacrifice, and his own loss drives him on a wild and bloody quest for revenge.

What you get here, when it works, is an enjoyably creative killing spree centering on a main character who is skilled and fortunate enough to deal with waves of disposable villains. The action is certainly fun and energetic, and everything is underlined by a streak of hunour that many will enjoy (although it didn’t work for me).

Director Mortiz Mohr, making his feature debut, feels like someone making a feature debut. This has a great idea at the heart of it, it’s trying to boil down a pure and simple action movie aesthetic into something even more pure and simple, but the end result is too messy, with a muddled plot, clumsy tonal movement, and characters that you don’t ever care about, even if Skarsgård has an innate likability to him.

The script, fully fleshed out by Arend Remmers and Tyler Burton Smith, is a mess. I never once believed the world depicted onscreen, and the attempt to add some twists and turns were altogether unsuccessful. Either keep things rooted in pure action madness or try to deliver plotting that people will care about. This moves between both, and that caused it to leave me unsatisfied with both aspects.

Skarsgård makes up for many failings though. His wide-eyed turn is very enjoyable, and he looks more than capable when in full-on rage fighting mode. That’s a good thing indeed, because almost everyone else here is wasted. Michelle Dockery, Sharlto Copley, Brett Gelman, Famke Janssen, all wasted. It should be a crime to waste Janssen this badly. Jessica Rothe is also wasted, as is the fantastic Yayan Ruhian, although he gets a few good moments throughout, and it’s at least good to see him in a fairly central role.

I really wanted to enjoy this. I expected to enjoy it. While I didn’t hate it, I was surprised by how poor it was. Is it worth a watch one evening when you want some bloody entertainment to accompany snacks and drinks? Yes. Is it worth a rewatch at any point, and will it stay long in your memory once you go on to many of the other action movies from the past few years? Absolutely not.

4/10

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Beyond Skyline (2017)

Remember when Skyline came out? Remember how many people agreed that it looked great, especially considering the budget, but was really didn't have anything more going for it? Which perhaps explains why Beyond Skyline now comes along as one of the most unexpected, and unwanted (for many), sci-fi sequels in recent years.

It was even more surprising when people heard that it would star Frank Grillo, Iko Uwais, and Yayan Ruhian (the latter two most famous just now for their roles in The Raid movies). But could it pull off the ultimate surprise move and turn out to be a good film?

The plot concerns the same alien invasion that we saw during the first film. We're just seeing things from a different perspective this time. Grillo is Mark, a tough detective who starts the film picking up his son (Trent, played by Jonny Weston) from jail. When all hell breaks loose, Mark tries to protect Trent from the alien invaders. And so begins a tale that will throw some hardy humans together with some advanced tech that may just help them defeat the aliens, or may just delay the inevitable as Earth is overpowered and drained.

Written and directed by Liam O'Donnell (co-writer of the first movie), Beyond Skyline is a film that certainly seeks to make up for the failings of the first instalment. If the first film had nothing much beyond the great FX work, this one wants to throw in a whole boat-load of new ideas. Taking the key moment from the end of the first film as a starting point, it naturally progresses things in a way that could have worked well if O'Donnell wasn't determined to expand everything at the same time: the scale, the cast of characters, the implausibility, the wavering focus of the film.

The fact that Frank Grillo must be used to being wasted in the few main roles he gets doesn't make it any easier to see him wasted once again. He's a good choice for the role, and easily the best thing in the film, but his character is almost rendered invisible by everything that's going on around him, both in terms of onscreen activity and the frantic plotting. Bojana Novakovic is similarly wasted, given the deep and resonant character of . . . female. Weston isn't onscreen for that long, which is something you could also say of Uwais and Ruhian. Both of those impressive fighters get one or two decent moments, but it's really too little too late when you think of the movie that could have been built around their skillset. At least Antonio Fargas does as well as he can with his small role.

A lot of people have enjoyed this movie more than I did, and it's definitely a better attempt to work a plot into the special effects this time around. But just because it's better than the first film doesn't make it a good film. The flaws drag this down to average, at best. It's a mess, there's nobody to really care for (despite having more characters to choose from), and any sequel to a film starring Brittany Daniel loses a point for not bringing back Brittany Daniel. That's my rule anyway.

5/10

Buy the bluray here.
Or, in America, buy it here.