No Hard Feelings (2023) review

Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Natalie Morales, Scott MacArthur, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Hasan Minhaj, Kyle Mooney, Zahn McClarnon
Genre: Comedy
Run Time: 103 min
Opens: 27 July 2023
Rating: M18

The concept of a movie star has become a nebulous thing. You’ve probably read think-pieces aplenty about how franchises and intellectual property are the movie stars now. Jennifer Lawrence maybe have been in lower key fare for the past few years, but she’s still got movie star clout. After winning an Oscar and headlining sci-fi franchises, she’s doing the next logical thing: a sex comedy.

Montauk resident Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence) is having a rough go of it. She’s an Uber driver who has just gotten a car towed and she is in danger of losing the house her mother left her. Desperate, she answers a strange ad on Craigslist. Wealthy couple Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti) Becker are looking for a young woman to help their 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) come out of his shell. Intelligent and talented but socially awkward and very sheltered, Laird and Allison are hoping someone will help, uh, “date” Percy in exchange for a Buick Regal. However, Percy cannot know that his parents made this arrangement. And so, Maddie attempts to get Percy to fall for her and to lose his virginity before he heads off to college, but complications ensue, as they must, and Maddie finds herself in over her head.

No Hard Feelings is the kind of movie you don’t see a lot of in theatres now: an R-rated (M18 in Singapore) comedy being released during the summer (it opened in June in the US). One would argue that there is a place for movies like this amidst the big tentpole franchise movies, and that the more types of movies get made, the better. Director Gene Stupnitsky also made the 2019 movie Good Boys, an R-rated comedy starring kids. Naturally, the premise of No Hard Feelings is dubious and might make many uncomfortable, because it carries the connotations of an older person grooming a younger one, even though at 19, Percy is an adult. No Hard Feelings makes it clear that the arrangement at its centre is a bad idea, but it has great empathy for its characters even as they are put in sometimes-humiliating circumstances. Perhaps surprisingly for a sex comedy, No Hard Feelings is sweet.

The movie’s warmth is often at odds with its raunchiness, and there are times when it feels like it is a sex comedy against its will. The big moment that more than earns it its R-rating, involving nudity from Lawrence in a comedic context, is funny and over-the-top but also feels a bit incongruent with the rest of the movie. It feels like No Hard Feelings is very restrained and trying very hard to play things safe, while also doing enough such that it can be categorised as a sex comedy. Some had hoped that this would hark back to the post-American Pie boom of teen sex comedies, and this is very much not that kind of movie. The promotional materials describe No Hard Feelings as “edgy”, and it isn’t, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The writing in the movie is often funny and everything moves along as a pleasant clip, but it’s its pair of stars that really make No Hard Feelings work. Jennifer Lawrence produces as well as starring, and she commits to a role that is silly, but that she’s able to bring dimensionality to. She never once acts like this is beneath her and invites the audience to laugh along with her and not at her. She proves herself an adept physical comedian and plays the kind of role that Cameron Diaz might have been cast in with a good deal of heart too.

Andrew Barth Feldman is a musical theatre actor who played the title role in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway. We’ve seen this character type before: painfully shy and socially inept but ultimately loveable. Feldman is absolutely endearing throughout the movie, and the chemistry he shares with Lawrence, which must be somewhat romantic but also playful and friendly, is compulsively watchable. Plus, he gets to sing, performing an unexpectedly moving rendition of a certain Hall and Oates classic. Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick are also welcome presences as Percy’s overprotective parents.

Summary: No Hard Feelings is a surprisingly sweet movie that is being sold as a raunchy sex comedy. While the movie does have nudity and sexuality, it seems almost reluctant to just be a sex comedy and has an amiable warmth to it. Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman are very well matched as co-stars: she’s game for the physical comedy while he’s endearing and easy to root for. It’s not the American Pie-style comeback for the sex comedy genre some might have hoped for and is really a lot timider than the marketing suggests, but it’s rare that anything like this still opens in theatres, and it’s worthwhile for that.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

Barbie review

Director: Greta Gerwig
Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, Rhea Perlman
Genre: Comedy/Fantasy
Run Time: 114 min
Opens: 20 July 2023
Rating: PG13

In 1959, Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll, creating a cultural phenomenon and changing the world of toys forever. Kids and hardcore collectors alike have coveted Barbie dolls for decades. The multimedia Barbie franchise includes multiple animated retellings of fairy tales and the Life in the Dreamhouse series that parodies reality TV. The toys have been the subject of various controversies and there are all kinds of Barbies that are tied into other pop culture properties and based on real people. Now, Barbie is set to paint cineplexes hot pink, stepping out of the toybox and onto the big screen in this highly anticipated film. 

Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in the magical Barbie Land alongside various other incarnations of Barbie, including President Barbie (Issa Rae), Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), Physicist Barbie (Emma Mackey), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp) and Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon). Ken (Ryan Gosling) pines after Barbie, but she rebuffs his advances. One day, things start going awry for Stereotypical Barbie: the shower is cold, she doesn’t float down from the roof but falls instead, and her arched feet become flat. She is told to seek Weird Barbie’s counsel. Weird Barbie tells Stereotypical Barbie that she must go to the real world because the real-life person who is playing with the doll version of her has unresolved emotional issues that are affecting Stereotypical Barbie. Ken tags along, and in the real world, Barbie and Ken meet Mattel employee Gloria (America Ferrera) and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), where the real world is much more of a mess than Barbie thought. When the things that Ken learns in the real world put Barbie Land in jeopardy, Gloria, Sasha and Barbie must save the other Barbies, with the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell) hot on their tail.

There are many variations of what a Barbie movie could have been. In many ways, this feels like the best possible version. There is a palpable affection for the toy line and a knowledge of its minutiae evident here, with a mix of world-weary cynicism, tongue-in-cheek satire and very real, earnest emotion blended together in just the right proportions.

Production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer bring Barbie Land to vivid, plastic life, with everything feeling uncannily toylike in the best way. Director Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the film with Noah Baumbach, draws from a range of influences, including The Truman Show and Technicolor musicals like The Red Shoes and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. One gets the sense that Gerwig is playfully taking aim at so-called “film bros” – sometimes-obnoxious men who are preoccupied with certain kinds of movies and espousing their virtues in a condescending way. There are multiple Kubrick references (the prologue, that was also the movie’s teaser trailer, is a send-up of the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, there’s a reference to The Shining, and the Mattel board room is based on the war room in Dr. Strangelove), a bit about the Snyder Cut of Justice League and another about The Godfather.

The central performances are key to the movie working and Margot Robbie, who also co-produces the film, does a lot of comedic and dramatic heavy lifting. Stereotypical Barbie is a bit of a naïf who has a rude awakening in the real world, and there are several colours Robbie must play, all of which she does beautifully while rocking impeccable costumes by Jacqueline Durran.

Ryan Gosling does steal the show on multiple occasions, and the relationship between Ken and Barbie, specifically the angst Ken feels from being in Barbie’s shadow and being denied his autonomy, is a driving force of the plot. The actors all seem very dialled in to what Gerwig demands of them and look to be having a great time while they’re at it.

Barbie is a political film and there are going to be people who will be very, very upset about that. This is a movie that will inspire no shortage of angry video essays. The filmmakers are entitled to their perspective, and some statements the movie makes will be very resonant. Things are obviously simplified and painted with a broad brush for the sake of comedy but prepare to see this movie burrow deep under some people’s skin. Barbie is often a lot of fun, but there are times when the movie does get caught up in the philosophy, because it is about its main character having an existential crisis. Younger kids will probably enjoy the “toy-comes-to-life” aspect of the movie but there might be a lot to explain afterwards.  

Barbie is an extended toy commercial, but it’s also very self-aware that that’s its main function. The movie is unafraid to make the Mattel company look bad, with its CEO portrayed as a blustering buffoon surrounded by obsequious lackeys. Movies and toys haven’t had the smoothest relationship, with Joel Schumacher citing the corporate mandate that Batman and Robin be made more “toyetic”, that is containing elements that could be turned into toys, as one of the reasons why it turned out the way it did. Barbie acknowledges the long history of the brand and wears its controversies as inside jokes [Earring Magic Ken makes an appearance, as does Midge (Emerald Fennell)]. There is also a touching homage to Barbie’s creator Handler. This is a movie that does sometimes seem to have an existential crisis itself (I’m a movie that’s meant to sell toys, but can I also have something to say? If I say anything, is it only in service of the brand?), but in a way that seems intentional and is interesting.

Summary: Barbie is everything it’s being hyped up to be: a clever, sly, entertaining metafictional movie. It’s a Trojan Horse painted hot pink, with a walk-in wardrobe inside: it has a silly exterior but there’s a lot going on. Not everyone’s going to be happy about this – brace yourself for all the angry video essays from people who aren’t on board with this movie’s brand of feminism – but while it does paint with a very broad brush, it is also resonant and emotional. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling understand the assignment perfectly, with Greta Gerwig crafting a movie that’s self-aware and cynical but still has enough genuine earnestness around them. Barbie exists primarily as a toy commercial but is so much more than that.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

Oppenheimer review

Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Dylan Arnold, Jack Quaid, Gustaf Skarsgård, Josh Peck, Dane DeHaan, Olivia Thirlby
Genre: Biography/Thriller
Run Time: 180 min
Opens: 20 June 2023
Rating: M18

A three-hour-long biopic about a scientist released during summer movie season amidst tentpole franchise entries, instead of in the usual awards season bracket? If anyone could make something like that into a must-see-in-the-theatre event, it would be Christopher Nolan, who has become a brand name himself. The writer-director tackles the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is a physicist who is appointed by Lieutenant General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to head up the Los Alamos laboratory of the Manhattan Project: a research and development program backed by the US military to develop atomic weapons. The team of scientists working on the project includes Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), Richard Feynman (Jack Quaid), Kenneth Bainbridge (Josh Peck), Luis Walter Alvarez (Alex Wolff) and Edward Teller (Benny Safdie). Despite his contributions to ending the Second World War, doubt is cast on Oppenheimer’s true allegiance, with chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) launching a security hearing to probe Oppenheimer’s actions and background. The film also covers Oppenheimer’s relationship with his brother Frank (Dylan Arnold), with his wife Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt), and his affair with psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh).

Oppenheimer is, in many ways, a masterclass in the biopic genre. It’s a movie that doesn’t want to settle for easy answers and a black-and-white interpretation of historical events (though part of it is shot in black-and-white). The movie’s formidable ensemble is led by Cillian Murphy in a career-best performance. Murphy skilfully essays Oppenheimer’s intelligence, his idiosyncrasies and flaws, and how he reckons with his role in the deaths of thousands. This is Murphy’s sixth collaboration with Nolan, and the trust that the director and star have formed plays a part in creating a soul-baring, affecting portrayal that is far from the uncritical hagiography some feared it might be. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema uses the IMAX camera not just to capture sweeping vistas of Los Alamos, but also to capture haunting close-ups in which Murphy’s eyes do all the work.

Nolan is a filmmaker who has actors lining up to work with him, with Downey, Blunt and Damon reportedly taking pay cuts to be in the movie. There’s a deep bench here, and more than in some of Nolan’s other movies, the dynamic among the cast and the way the characters play off each other is what keeps the movie going, and what lends it a humanity beneath its sombre, heavy exterior. Each character is complicated and their personal, professional and political lives collide in various messy ways, and Oppenheimer is a movie that’s interested in the breadth of that impact.

Like any big-name director, Nolan has his detractors, and they’re unlikely to be won over by Oppenheimer. The movie is ultimately three hours of mostly dialogue – it’s rendered as exciting as it can be, but sometimes the stylistic flourishes feel like they’re there to add excitement when there isn’t a lot to be found. We get several sequences that are visualisations of Oppenheimer’s conception of the quantum world and energy waves, which might be atmospheric for some and distracting for others. Nolan has drawn a lot of criticism for the way he writes women characters, and while both Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh are fully engaging with the material, the movie doesn’t give either actress a great deal to do. Oppenheimer’s branding as a Big Important Movie could also turn off some audiences, but for others, it’s canny counterprogramming to intellectual property-driven summer blockbusters.

The movie’s major set-piece – maybe its only set-piece – is a depiction of the Trinity nuclear test. Nolan often boasts of using as little computer-generated imagery as possible, and the Trinity test sequence was executed with gasoline, propane, aluminium powder, and magnesium pyrotechnics and large-scale miniature models. It is a spectacular moment and the lead-up to it is pulse-pounding even though we know what’s going to happen.

Summary: Oppenheimer is a three-hour-long biopic about a theoretical physicist that is, somehow, a blockbuster. Writer-director Christopher Nolan is usually feted as a technical craftsman, but here, he reminds us how much of an actor’s director he is too. Cillian Murphy gives a career-best performance in the title role, illuminating Oppenheimer’s brilliance, flaws and idiosyncrasies. The ensemble cast is uniformly solid, and Nolan gives them room to imbue their characters with plenty of personality. Nolan’s critics, who often maintain that his movies are too self-important, are unlikely to be converted by Oppenheimer, but as a biopic in the guise of a blockbuster thriller, Oppenheimer is startlingly effective.  

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One review

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Frederick Schmidt, Shea Wigham, Greg Tarzan Davis
Genre: Action/Adventure
Run Time: 163 min
Opens: 13 June 2023 (sneaks from 8 July 2023)
Rating: PG13

For almost 30 years, Tom Cruise has been flinging himself into danger in the name of our entertainment, and Ethan Hunt has been flinging himself into danger to save the world. It’s the seventh go-round, but the Mission: Impossible movie series has steam left it in yet.

The world is threatened by the Entity, an artificial intelligence-based superweapon with startling capabilities. Everyone wants to get their hands on it, but first, they need to get their hands on two halves of a cruciform key. Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), the Director of National Intelligence, tasks Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to acquire the key. Hunt’s team comprises tech experts Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). Also after the key is terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales), who has ties to Ethan’s past. A mysterious thief named Grace (Hayley Atwell) complicates matters when she shows up also seeking the key. The fate of the world hangs in the balance as Ethan and crew battle their way across the world, but the Entity knows their every move.

Christopher McQuarrie is one of the best action directors currently working. He has helmed the Mission: Impossible films since Rogue Nation in 2015. Each of the four films before that had a different director, but it’s clear that Cruise found the collaborator he should stick with, and Dead Reckoning Part One is further proof of that. The movie is elegant but muscular, brimming with expertly staged suspense. Despite its timely plot, addressing the threat posed by advanced artificial intelligence, the movie is reassuringly old-fashioned in its cloak-and-dagger spy movie machinations. The movie draws on classics of cinema, referencing Buster Keaton and Alfred Hitchcock. It feels like Hitchcock on steroids.

This movie is less reliant on big set-pieces and more reliant on character dynamics than some of the previous entries in the series, but the set-pieces are there. Each scene is gripping, and every effort is made to clearly communicate the sometimes-complicated plot, without it seeming like reams of exposition. The action sequences are staged with flair – between this and Fast X, Dead Reckoning has the better Rome car chase. The climactic sequence set aboard the Orient Express, headed for a collapsing bridge, is drawn-out but always engaging and has its share of hold-your-breath moments. Editor Eddie Hamilton, who was nominated for an Oscar last year for Top Gun: Maverick, deserves a nod for this one too.

The series has become known for its stunts, and much of the marketing focused on the scene in which Tom Cruise rides a motorcycle off a cliff and parachutes into the valley below. Now, one would be forgiven for thinking that maybe the movie has several more such daredevil feats – after all, Rogue Nation and Fallout each had multiple. Unfortunately, that’s really the only big stunt like that – there are many other action sequences, sure, but audiences have come to expect more than one death-defying Tom Cruise stunt from a given Mission: Impossible movie, but maybe that’s just us being greedy.

Making the Entity the main threat is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it’s a handily scary, seemingly omniscient and omnipotent villainous force. On the other, it can feel convenient, because the Entity can do anything. Dead Reckoning Part One mostly stays away from obvious plot contrivances, but sometimes gets close.  

The movie also falls back on an old storytelling device to motivate the protagonist that then does another character a great disservice. It feels like the Mission: Impossible movies should be slightly more sophisticated than that.

Cruise is, as usual, firing on all cylinders. In addition to the movie’s big signature stunt, he sprints for extended distances and looks great doing it, as expected. The movie has many confrontations, and he plays them with unwavering intensity.

As the big new addition to the cast, Atwell is wonderful playing a character who is a classic femme fatale, or so it seems at first. Grace is confident and competent, but the movie also throws her into situations where she’s very out of her depth, and we see her react when things get real, fast. She has a charisma that makes her feel like a natural part of the franchise. Unfortunately, placing Atwell at the forefront means Rebecca Ferguson takes more of a backseat when they’re both great.

Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are reassuring presences, and Pegg gets an excellent moment involving a bomb Benji needs to defuse.

On the villain front, Esai Morales is serviceable, but the Entity is the main villain, so it’s almost as if he’s the henchman to an abstract concept. That makes Pom Klementieff’s Paris the henchwoman to the henchman, and she is a striking character who feels like she could have come out of a Quentin Tarantino film: a stylish, ruthless, unhinged assassin.

Henry Czerny returns from the very first film, giving the franchise a sense of continuity that it hasn’t always had. He’s moved up in the world, but is still the same, less-than-trustworthy man.

Summary: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One may feature a timely threat in the form of an artificial intelligence-based superweapon, but its sensibilities are reassuringly old-fashioned. Tom Cruise is his usual intense, physically adept self, while director Christopher McQuarrie ably assembles a satisfying spy thriller, even given that this is Part One and certain plot threads are left unresolved. The movie is sold on its big set-pieces, but there is an equal emphasis on plot and characters, and the twisty cloak-and-dagger stuff is as fun as the heavy-duty action scenes. Dead Reckoning Part One is not quite as satisfying as Fallout, but it does leave audiences wanting more and looking forward to seeing whatever Cruise flings himself off in Part Two.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars                      

Jedd Jong

Hidden Strike review

Director: Scott Waugh
Cast: Jackie Chan, John Cena, Pilou Asbæk, Chunrui Ma, Amadeus Serafini, Li Ma, Minghao Hou
Genre: Action/Comedy
Run Time: 103 min
Opens: 29 June 2023
Rating: PG13

There are several movies that were completed or close to completion but were never officially released. From The Day the Clown Cried to Empires of the Deep to Batgirl, these movies have become objects of fascination. Hidden Strike almost joined this group but has been liberated from movie purgatory and is finally getting released.

Luo Feng (Jackie Chan) leads a team of Chinese Special Forces soldiers who are tasked with evacuating workers at a Chinese-owned oil refinery in Baghdad that has recently been targeted. Luo Feng’s team must transport the employees in buses across the treacherous Highway of Death. Luo Feng’s estranged daughter Mei (Chunrui Ma) is one of the engineers at the plant. Mercenary Chris Van Horne (John Cena) is recruited by his brother Henry (Amadeus Serafini) to attack the convoy to facilitate a heist of the oil in the refinery. Chris realises he has been tricked into accepting the mission. Luo Feng and Chris eventually meet, and are none too fond of each other, but eventually team up when they realise they have a common enemy in the form of the treacherous Owen (Pilou Asbæk), the mastermind of the heist. The unlikely partners must prevent the theft of the oil as havoc ensues.

Jackie Chan’s recent output has been shaky, and it’s of course unrealistic to expect him to perform the same calibre of jaw-dropping stunts he did in his earlier films, but there are glimmers of the old Jackie in Hidden Strike. Several fight scenes nod towards the physical comedy he is so adept at, and a delightfully absurd action sequence involving bungee cords and foam in an oil refinery control room does hark back to old-school Jackie.

While John Cena’s initial forays into action movie stardom, including The Marine and 12 Rounds, tried to cast him as a strait-laced, grimacing hero, he’s since found his niche as a big ol’ goofball who, unlike some other wrestler-turned-movie stars, seems to have little ego about him. Hidden Strike’s best moments are when Cena gets to be silly, and he and Jackie Chan play off each other well enough. They’re not as good a team as Jackie and Chris Tucker, but better than Jackie and Johnny Knoxville.

Director Scott Waugh, who also helmed Act of Valor, Need of Speed and the upcoming The Expendables 4, and who was a stunt performer, wants to take the action seriously. However, Hidden Strike comes off disjointed and its action sequences aren’t enough to salvage it. All the emotional beats, including the strained relationship between Luo Feng and Mei (complete with a torn family photo), fall flat.

The movie also has a weird synthetic feel to it – for a movie set entirely in the desert, it feels too crisp, clean, and shiny. The extensive computer-generated effects fall short of convincing, and the big vehicular set-pieces are clearly aiming for Mad Max: Fury Road but wind up being Mildly Annoyed Road at best. The movie is at its best when Jackie and Cena play off each other, and it is being sold as a buddy movie starring the two, but they only actually meet around 30 minutes in. A good amount of the runtime is dedicated to a Die Hard-style subplot in the refinery that Jackie and Cena only participate in during the last act. This is the type of action movie that would normally emphasise vehicular stunts and gunfights, which are there, but the requisite hand-to-hand combat that you need, because Jackie and Cena are stars, feel a little shoehorned in.

It’s been a long and winding road for Hidden Strike. The movie was known at different points as Ex-Baghdad, Project X-Traction, Project X and S.N.A.F.U., and was at one point set to star Sylvester Stallone, who opted to make Creed II instead. “Didn’t Creed II come out in 2018?” you ask. Yes, yes it did. Cena replaced Stallone and the film was shot in China in 2018. As such, Hidden Strike feels like a bit of a relic, a holdover from the pre-COVID era where movies would awkwardly try to appeal to both American and Chinese audiences, and often feel like they were pandering. The COVID-19 pandemic and strained trade relations between the United States and China (and some say the controversy involving Cena referring to Taiwan as a country and thus alienating Chinese viewers) contributed to the movie almost never getting released.

Summary: Hidden Strike is a largely generic action film, but it is also a curio as a holdover from a bygone era. The movie was shot in 2018 and was almost never released and is a bit of a time capsule of that era when tenuous Chinese-American co-productions awkwardly attempted to appeal to audiences from both markets. The movie is at its best when stars Jackie Chan and John Cena play off each other, which doesn’t happen often enough. The movie plays to Cena’s strengths and offers glimmers of Jackie’s classic screen action prowess, but that is eclipsed by extensive and unconvincing computer-generated effects, resulting in a movie that feels oddly synthetic.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong