Netflix And Chill: Army Of Thieves (2021)

I know that some people rushed to see this when it first landed on Netflix, but I don't know why. A prequel spin-off from Army Of The Dead, focusing on one of the supporting characters in that film, and directed by the actor who played/still plays that character, there was nothing here that made me consider this a priority. I'm glad I finally got around to it now though, and I can tell everyone else that this is actually quite a bit better than the film that spawned it.

Matthias Schweighöfer is Ludwig Dieter, a mild-mannered man who maintains very strict order in his life while spending his spare time mastering the art of safe-cracking, in theory. He dreams of breaking in to four legendary safes, a quartet of huge devices that become increasingly difficult to break into when approached in a certain order, and he has the chance to turn his dream into a reality when he's approached by a group of criminals, helmed by Gwendoline Starr (Nathalie Emmanuel). But the chance to make his dream comes true also comes with the chance of everything turning into a nightmare.

Clocking in with a runtime of just over two hours, because of course it does, the most pleasant surprise about Army Of Thieves is how well it moves through the fairly silly plot, helped by a decent mix of characters and a few fun set-pieces. Writer Shay Hatten keeps the growing zombie threat from Army Of The Dead simmering away in the background, but sensibly focuses on this as an amusing crime caper, centred on an entertainingly nervy and ill-prepared main character.

Schweighöfer is great in the main role, making it easy to remember why his character was such a standout in the previous film. As awkward with people as he is comfortable with lock mechanisms, he's allowed to be the kind of criminal that viewers can easily root for, in it more for the challenge than any big payday, and aiming to get things done with a minimum of fuss or casualties. Emmanuel is an enjoyable screen presence, and she does well enough in her main role here, although it's hard to view her as a strong leader when the cracks in the team start to show. Stuart Martin is the mean and moody one, abd both Guz Khan and Ruby O. Fee are there to be placed in difficult positions as things become more strained. Jonathan Cohen is the determined cop who is always just one step behind, as expected, and there is an end scene that presents the expected cameos reminding everyone of where these events have been leading.

Aside from his acting onscreen, Schweighöfer also deserves some credit for his direction. This isn't his first feature, but all of his previous films have been co-directed with Torsten Künstler, which makes this his first solo outing. I'm sure he was given a lot of support and guidance by those who wanted to keep this in line with Zack Snyder's movie (and that support no doubt includes Snyder himself potentially offering some pointers), but Schweighöfer manages to deliver something that feels in line with the previous film in this series without ever being slavishly devoted to it. It's a character piece, it's a comedic crime film, it's a fun adventure. It's not a film that needs to keep reminding you of every detail and overcooked style of what preceded it.

Absolutely disposable stuff, admittedly, but I certainly enjoyed it enough while it was on. And I'd certainly be more keen to watch another film about this character than I would to watch another zombie-filled Snyder movie at this point.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: Family Switch (2023)

Jennifer Garner is Jess, a busy mother with a successful career. She doesn't really like her daughter, CC (Emma Myers), focusing on playing football matches ahead of other ways to fill her time. Jess is married to Bill (Ed Helms), and neither of them seem to realise how their son, Wyatt (Brady Noon), is doing at school. Wyatt is a very smart young man, but he's very uncool and a bit miserable. There's also a baby. And a dog. This is the family at the heart of Family Switch, a film in which a familiar Freaky Friday scenario happens to the mother and daughter, to the father and son, AND to the baby and family dog.

Based on the book "Bedtime For Mommy", by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Family Switch is brought to the screen by writers Victoria Strouse and Adam Sztykiel, and director McG. While none of these names tend to instil pure joy in the hearts of most film fans, I would say that all of them have had times when they have managed to deliver decent entertainment (and McG has been working particularly well on Netflix projects). Sadly, Family Switch fails in almost every way it tries to work.

It’s a Christmas film that doesn’t make any decent use of the holiday, a bodyswap movie that mistakenly assumes more is better, and a star vehicle that wastes the more established names in the cast. And you just know that everyone involved thought they were making something in line with the classics of this particular sub-genre, which explains the scene in which the characters onscreen cheekily reference a number of other titles that are all much better than this.

Garner and Helms get the worse end of the stick, perhaps simply due to them having to act like teenagers for most of the runtime, but both Noon and Myers improve every scene that they’re in. Both of the younger screen stars are likable and funny, and I will look forward to whatever is next for them much more than I will look forward to whatever Garner and Helms line up. There aren’t many standouts in the supporting cast, although both Rita Moreno and Matthias Schweighöfer have fun in their small roles, and the less said about the CGI helping to visualize the swapped behaviour of the baby and the family dog the better.

There are a couple of laughs here and there (I don’t mind a heavily-signposted fart gag on occasion), a dance number that feels shoe-horned in to remind you of other dance numbers we have seen in this kind of fare, and a very safe and predictable finale you could almost write up once everything has been set up in the earliest scenes.

Not a good Christmas movie (I really wouldn’t even count it, considering the lack of holiday spirit, and I am very easygoing with movie labels), not a good bodyswap movie, and not a very good comedy. It’s just not good.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: Heart Of Stone (2023)

I am often accused of being too kind in my movie ratings and reviews, and that is absolutely fine with me. I go into EVERY movie with optimism, and I always remember that the final result in front of my eyes is the result of people working together to get a clear vision onscreen. Sometimes it is only a handful of people, sweating and struggling to pool resources, and sometimes it's a huge number of people who can get their hands on whatever they need for their glossy blockbuster. Heart Of Stone falls into the latter camp, and it's one of those films that allows me to be unkind. Because it is, undoubtedly, one of the most soulless and unexciting pieces of garbage that I've seen in a long time. 

Gal Gadot stars as Rachel Stone, a woman working as part of a MI6 team. She's a technician, supposed to be able to stay safe and observant while others do the action stuff, but they don't realise that Stone is actually working for a global peacekeeping agency known as The Charter. The Charter has the advantage of being able to feed agents information from a powerful AI device they call The Heart (see? see where the title comes from?), a super-computer that can hack into any digital device and offer fluctuating predictions on the potential success of every possibility for a field agent on a mission. Someone wants to get to The Heart though, and that could allow them to become a very powerful super-villain. There's treachery, changes of alliance, and horribly inept set-pieces all thrown together on the way to a finale that feels as smug as it does predictable.

It has become all too easy lately for people to dismiss a film by saying "it feels as if it was written by A.I.", but that certainly feels like it was a factor here. A Netflix film, and we know that they often design their movies around certain patterns and factor they have seen in their viewing data, the humans actually responsible for this screenplay are Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder. While I wasn't surprised to see that Rucka was used to the Netflix style, having also had a hand in The Old Guard (a film I have yet to muster the enthusiasm to watch), I was very surprised to see Schroeder attached to this, considering her work in recent years on both Hidden Figures and Christopher Robin, as well as being an extra helping hand on the screenplay for Frozen 2. It's equally surprising to see Tom Harper sitting in the director's chair for this. I can only imagine that he either wanted a different kind of challenge, wanted a big payday, or both, considering his past couple of movies were the very different, and apparently much better, The Aeronauts and Wild Rose. What isn't surprising is that neither the writers nor director put any kind of personal stamp on this. Heart Of Stone is a star vehicle. It just doesn't have a good enough star in the lead role.

I like Gal Gadot. I do. She's pretty great in the role of Wonder Woman, even if the films are very often not the best vehicles for the character, and I have enjoyed her in most of her other movie roles. Superhero movies aside though, she's never really been given a lead role, and Heart Of Stone clearly shows why this is the case. She doesn't shine as she should, unable to give the role the mix of humour and charisma needed. It doesn't help that she's surrounded by a cast of equally dull performers, whether that's caused by their own acting or the script is something I'm still debating internally. Jamie Dornan and Alia Bhatt are the wost offenders, but even someone as good as Sophie Okonedo seems to be delivering her lines as if she'd rather be doing anything else instead. Both Jing Kusi and Paul Ready are a bit more enjoyable, and I was most disappointed when their limited screentime came to an end. The other cast member worth mentioning is Matthias Schwieghöfer, who proves himself a highlight once again, having won people over with his turn in Army Of The Dead, leading to his lead role in the spin-off, Army Of Thieves. He works well in his role here, despite having to deliver exposition while portraying "intel guy monitoring and moving around computer data depicted as an augmented reality display surrounding him".

There was one action set-piece I quite enjoyed here, a chase involving cars, bikes, and a chunky van, but I even watched that while wondering whether or not I preferred a similar sequence in the recent action comedy Murder Mystery 2. As for the rest of the film, it moves from one bit of over-edited greenscreen nonsense to the next, keeping you stuck alongside a lead character you don't care about as things wind towards a tiresome conclusion that lets the film end EXACTLY how you think it is going to end. This is the kind of hollow and artless work that ends up on Netflix because it isn't good enough to end up anywhere else. It certainly isn't good enough to end up on your viewing schedule. Treat yourself to something better. It won't be hard.

And, yes, I know many will still think my final rating here is too kind.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: Army Of The Dead (2021)

I went in without any expectations, I assure you I did. Zack Snyder isn't someone I have a very strong opinion on, despite his ability to stir up lots of fans online and get away with much more than most directors would. I like his visual style, he's done a couple of great modern blockbusters, and I'll still try to view anything he directs with an open mind.

Unfortunately, it seems that Snyder, like one or two other big name directors I could mention, has started to believe his own hype. And may be surrounded by people who don't say no often enough. There's no other reason I can think of for the succession of bad decisions made here. And I will roll my eyes and wag my finger at anyone who forgives all other errors because "zombie tiger . . . coooool."

The plot is simple. A nasty accident means that there's a massive outbreak of zombieitis in Las Vegas. There's a lot of carnage, and then Las Vegas is basically quarantined, thanks to a handy complete ring of large containers placed around it. If you're already unable to handle this level of disbelief, it just gets worse from here. Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) is tasked by Mr. Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to put together a team and head into Las Vegas, with the aim of collecting a massive sum of money from a casino vault before the place is flattened by nuclear rockets that don't cause any other issues for the surrounding area. Yes, this is a film in which a plan to enter a zombie-infested area just to snatch millions of dollars becomes one of the least dumb things in it, certainly by the time you get to that nuclear rocket strike.

It's also a film that features a fleeting cameo by Sean Spicer. At that point I knew that it would have to work bloody hard to win me back around. It never did.

There's some good stuff here. The gore isn't tamed down, there's an interesting variety to the zombies, and Bautista is a good leading man. It also helps that they ended up with Tig Notaro in the role of Marianne Peters, the pilot for this exploit. Notaro, from her very first scene to her last, is gold. And I'm not completely oblivious to the coolness of a zombie bloody tiger, which is involved in what is the very best death sequence in the whole film.

That's all I can think of for the positives. The script, co-written by Snyder, Shay Hatten, and Joby Harold, is mostly awful. Everyone is given too much time, no matter how minor their characters should be, the motivations are unbelievable, and the attempt to establish an actual society within the zombie realm is a big mis-step, especially when you get to a reveal in the third act that is properly hilarious when I suspect it was meant to be a serious attempt to surprise people. Surprises are lacking throughout, from the characters who turn out to have other agendas to the inevitable resolution to different relationship issues.

The runtime, just under two and a half hours, is another issue. This is a film that should have been all about forward momentum, especially if that would help to distract from the poor script, but it meanders around instead, with Snyder needing to show off every idea that popped into his head while creating the film.

Although the cast aren't bad, some are better than others. Standouts are Bautista (not great, but feels just right in his role), Notaro, Nora Arnezeder (playing someone who can guide the team into Las Vegas), Matthias Schweighöfer (the safecracker), and Garret Dillahunt. But when is Dillahunt not a standout? Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, and Raúl Castillo do what is necessary, but are either hampered by the script or just not as good as some of their co-stars.

It's not that I hated watching every minute of this. I just wished that I'd spent two and a half hours watching something much better. And there's a much better film to be made from this premise. Snyder, however, does what Snyder does. And that includes filling up the soundtrack with some horrendous cover songs, despite starting well with another bit of Richard Cheese (used so memorably in Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead remake).

I've already seen some high praise for this, and it's confounding. Everyone can like whatever they like, and it's always different strokes for different folks, but I can't help thinking that some of the people rating the film so highly are simply looking to continue keeping the pedestal upright that Snyder has managed to get himself placed on. 

4/10

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