Ok now this is going to be controversial, but I have to say apart from Charlie's Angels 2, I've actually enjoyed all of McG's films. I don't understand the hate for the man, especially surrounding Terminator Salvation which I really enjoyed and the man has given us some pretty damn fine TV entertainment with shows like Supernatural, Nikita and the brilliant Chuck, so I don't understand all the hate for him. This brings me to another film of his I enjoyed...the action comedy THIS MEANS WAR.
Cinema like to give us spy movies and we like to watch them. When you think of all the classic spy movies like Hitchcock's 39 Steps and Notorious being very serious movies to the more light hearted adventures of Bond, Our Man Flint and even True Lies, the spy film has always entertained viewers with their twist laden plots and shady villains. This Means War is so far removed from the usual idea of a spy film that it actually adds something new to the pot. Plot wise This Means War is typical rom-com fodder, it's the usual cliché of girl falls in love with two guys who happen to be friends but try to avoid revealing themselves until the final moment. In this film, this is plot, but the two best friends also happen to be the C.I.A's top spies. So we have the one-up man-ship that is usually associated with this kind of film but it's taken to a different level as our two spies use the C.I.A's resources to find out about the girl they like. It makes for entertaining comic viewing as the two men use everything from bugging her apartment, sniping tranq darts at the one and trying to avoid revealing their true identities. At one point they even use a predator drone to spy on a date. But the laughs do come very often and they are very attached to very funny moments.
In a film like this you'd need the cast to be comprised of beautiful people, so who are our three main leads?...Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and the gorgeous Reese Witherspoon. We all know that Witherspoon has great comedy skills from her Legally Blonde films and again is on form here, then there's Chris Pine, now apart from Star Trek and that film about a train, i'd not really seen much of his work, but he's alright here, his character is like Mike Lowery off of Bad Boys, the ladies man who has one night stands and doesn't really give a shit about settling down, he does this role quite well but the biggest surprise was Tom Hardy who is actually very very funny in his role and shows that he has the chops to do all kinds of roles. His delivery of some of the lines are spot on and I can see him showing up in more of these kinds of films. Chelsea Handler, a U.S stand up, author and Talk show host, she shows up as Reese's best friend, on hand to dish out dating advice and she's very funny. The entire cast do really well with a really well written comic script.
The action scenes are really well handled too and the film features some great set pieces including a shoot out in a night club and car chase towards the end and credit due to McG, a lot like Michael Bay, he really does have an eye for action scenes. One scene between Hardy and Pine going at it (fighting not fucking) in a restaurant is well choreographed but is made a little less realistic when you know damn well that Tom Hardy would destroy Chris Pin in two seconds, but it's a well staged fight.
Overall, This Means War is a fun, action packed movie that I hugely enjoyed. It has some really good comic performances from all involved and some really well staged action. It would have been better if there was better villain, but the one we do have, played by Inglourious Basterd Til Schweiger is alright if under used. But it's a fun film and I think people should relax the hate for McG, I do however think he should use his real name because McG is a silly name. I'm going to give This Means War 4 stars because it really entertained me and not many new movies are able to do that...
Yes! Someone else that liked this movie! Who knew that Tom Hardy was funny?!? Such a great surprise. I loved him in this and his interplay with Pine. All their scenes together were my favorites and made the movie interesting for me. I actually though Reese didn't bring much to the quality of the movie; she could have substituted for a number of other actresses.
ReplyDeleteI too thought the interplay between Hardy and Pine was great.
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