Action movie review time. POV action coming our way courtesy of Hardcore Henry. This full on in your face action movie is the first of it's kind in the action genre. Full of insane stunts, intense gun fights and one of the fastest paced action films since Crank, but is it any good?...check out my review after the jump, be warned this review may contain spoilers...
I
rarely play video games, I don't have the patience for them these
days unless the game has a story mode that I can really get into. I
did however recently play the excellent Uncharted 4 and loved every
minute of it. It's essentially Man Raider but the plot was exciting,
had huge Goonie references and the action was well handled but my
usual go to type of game to just pick up and play would be first
person shooters such as the Call Of Duty franchise, the Medal Of
Honour franchise and the Battlefield franchise. Maybe it's because of
my psychotic sensibilities where I just like to shoot people in the
face and feel no remorse afterwards, I think that is what draws me
into the FPS genre of gaming. I talk about gaming and FPS games
because of the film i'm reviewing, the first (apparently) First
person perspective action film...HARDCORE HENRY. HH is entirely shot
in the FPS style using Go-Pro cameras to put the audience into the
shoes of cybernetic badass Henry.
The
film follows our hero Henry, waking up in a status tank, like Luke
was in at the start of Empire or the type of one Johnny Rico was
stuck in after he was “killed” during the battle of Clendathu in
Starship Troopers. He wakes up in a lab while a woman, his wife,
explains to him what happened. She points out that he has missing
limbs, a foot here, a hand there as she proceeds attach robo limbs to
him. Suddenly while having his vocal modulator restored, a white
haired telekinetic super villain infiltrates the lab and Henry must
escape. We discover that the lab is in fact set up inside an airship
high in the sky. What follows is 90 minutes of non-stop, viceral,
bloody and extremely well staged action scenes as Henry, with the
help of Jimmy, a scientist who uses Avatars to help Henry get to the
super villain's HQ and rescue his wife.
Hardcore
Henry is very thin on plot, what plot it does have is actually quite
original. The whole cybernetic body parts, avatars, The telekinetic
powers etc are all highly influenced by Japanese anime, it has a very
cool Ghost in The Shell like vibe while still playing by it's own
rules. It also has a Crank vibe, the non-stop action, one-liners etc
all seem familiar but also at the same time feel refreshingly new.
But the film has some major flaws, the lack of a talking protagonist
takes out the emotional aspect of the main character and the super
villain is a little on the weak side, I mean the guy has telekinetic
powers that are never explained but looks like an albino grunge fan
from the early 90s. Some of the editing is a bit jarring at points,
jumping from one point to the other without giving the viewer time to
take in the visuals, but the biggest flaw is the first person
perspective, while at first it looks pretty cool and make you feel
like you are Henry and it works really well during all the major
action sequences, but when Henry gets into close quarter combat, you
have no idea what the hell is going on, it's all a blur and people
who suffer with motion sickness will have a hell of a time trying to
watch it.
It
does have some epically awesome moments though, and these do tend to
out weigh the bad, the action is just incredible. It's like Mad Max
Fury Road but instead of a car it's a turbo powered bloke, there's
free running, car stunts, explosions and so many gun fights, all
expertly choreographed and full of buckets of the red stuff. Two
particular set pieces stood out, the bike chase along a freeway which
included exploding, flipping vans, a rail gun, two sexy biker chicks
and Henry jumping from truck to truck was insanely well staged as was
the big gun battle in the abandoned building that housed Jimmy's Lab.
It's the scene that was released a year prior to the films release, a
sort of test run. One of the films biggest assets was Sharlto Copely,
he nailed his part as Jimmy, the guiding voice of the film, he had to
play multiple versions of Jimmy, sometimes in the same shot. The
multiple Jimmy's were clones which is why each one had a separate
personality. He also pulled off a pretty good cockney accent too.
The
film also displayed some wonderful uses of music throughout from the
directors own band, Biting Elbows to Queen and at one point, where
Henry is about to mount a horse, the iconic theme from William
Wyler's classic Western The Big Country starts, I found that quite
amusing and also a little bit awesome. Just to point out that all of
the stunts performed in Hardcore Henry were all performed for real
with only a little bit of CGI for minor enhancements, that my friends
is hardcore.
Hardcore
Henry is the directorial debut of Russian born director Ilya
Naishuller, who cut his teeth on a music video for his band called
Bad Motherfucker, shot in the exact same style as HH, you can check
out the music video at the bottom of the review. He handled his first
film incredibly well, like I previously pointed out, the action is
impeccable. So if he can do action like this for a POV style movie,
what can he pull off with a normal film. There's a sort of weird
renaissance of action movie directors doing action properly at the
moment, Naishuller is just another added to the list that includes
Gareth Evans (The Raid 1 & 2), John Hyams (Uni-Sol: Day Of
Reckoning) William Kaufman (Sinners & Saints) and Isaac
Florentine (Close Range) just to name a few. I'd be interested to see
where Naishuller goes next, if he does.
Hardcore
Henry will definitely not be for everyone, that is a given, however,
if you're an action nut that likes his stunts real, his gunfights
kinetic and their films fast paced, i'd recommend Hardcore Henry in a
heartbeat, if not, maybe stick to the Marvel movies for your dose of
easy to digest action. Hardcore Henry is a solid 3 star movie. A
recommendation for action junkies.
Rating : 3.0
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