Monday, September 19, 2016

Mercenaries 2014 Movie Review - Discussion




From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.

Today I'll be reviewing the movie Mercenaries released in 2014.

Starring:
Zoë Bell, Kristanna Loken, Vivica A. Fox, and Brigitte Nielsen

Directed by:
Christopher Douglas Olen Ray

Genre:
Action, Adventure

Rating:
Unrated

Budget:
N/A

IMDb Rating:
3.7

My Rating:
6.5

The Synopsis is:
Four female convicts with military backgrounds have been brought together by the CIA to rescue the president’s daughter from a psycho military dictator in an ex soviet prison.

Enjoyment:
I enjoyed this movie.  It’s the girl version of the Expendables with a little touch of Dirty Dozen in there too.  I liked the idea and it was executed in a way that tickled me the entire time.

Pacing:
At 1h 29 min, the pacing is good.  There’s a lot of action in the film so you keep watching to see what will happen next.


*WARNING: FROM THIS POINT FORWARD THERE MAY BE SPOILERS!*

Story:
Starts out strong, but really corny and it knows its corney.  It’s not very good, but I don’t think they were looking to make a good story as much as they wanted to make a film with all of the action movie tropes that were popular in the 80’s.

They took the idea of the Expendables released in 2010, gathering as many female action movie stars to be in this film and spinning a it like the Dirty Dozen released in 1967, having them as convicts in the film.

The character of Cassie Clay is actually a female version of Stallone, channelling Rambo, performing some awesome self surgery and then channeling Barney Ross from the Expendables being the leader of the team of mercenaries.

Kristanna Loken is playing the part of Dolph Lundgren's character from the Expendables Gunnar Jensen.

The film reprised glimpses of Vivica Fox’s super awesome bad girl character in the film Kill Bill released in 2003, Vernita Green.

The film also has some similarities to the role of Karla Fry, for Brigitte Nielsen in the film where she plays a cold hearted killer and ultra baddie in Beverly Hills Cop II released in 1987.


Challenge:
Right away Ulrika, the evil military maven comes out hilariously over the top and cray cray.  She is in your face and loving every moment of it.  I really enjoy over the top characters like this and hope that hollywood doesn’t keep making our villains boring... into sterile nubs of flesh that just emote evil.

Raven is a traitor to the group and you discover why because she never gets to have any fun.  Everyone is always telling her she can’t do this, can’t do that and she wants to live dangerously.


Empathy:
Cassandra Clay referred to as Clay in the film is actually the main character contrary to the poster.  I liked her character, but I was left wanting a little more.  However, she does kick butt in this film.


Technical:
This B movie was put out by the movie studio famous for those Sharknado films, The Asylum.  Asylum can be considered today's new version of Troma films… low budget and very unconventional.  And besides having a hit with the Sharknado series, I do believe that one day these guys good make an amazing film, because a lot of the components are there.  It’s just not quite polished yet. And their main weak spot is with writing and special effects.

The makeup was ok for wounds and scuff marks, but the beauty make-up was awful.

I really liked most of the camera work.  It worked well and had flashes of awesomeness.

During the action scenes they do the speedup and slowdown 300 camera moves.  Its cool, but makes me laugh because this movie is trying so hard and not quite making it.

Claire looks like she is an amazing fighter.  The things that she does are amazing, but at times you can’t see what she is doing because of the way the action scenes are shot.  They were simply hard to follow.

Many great shots were ruined by really bad gun flare effects.

There are just so many hilariously wrong moments in this film.  Moments when you would think that the person fighting or running were surrounded by people with machine guns and rifles and they all miss.  Or, just stand there waiting to get beat up instead of shooting their guns.  That’s just sloppy.

There’s a scene where Ulrika grabs a chord to get on a plane that is getting away.  Why does Raven continue to drive alongside the plane?  Who drives alongside a plane?


The scar on Clay’s shoulder disappears and reappears in consecutive scenes.


Performances:
The acting has moments of being good, sometimes even juicy, but also horrible.  It’s no doubt that Brigitte Nielsen and Vivica A. Fox are having fun in their roles as bad guys and it’s really cool to see them like this.  I really enjoyed that, but it could have been paced better.

Zoe Bell, really shines here.  I had no idea she was that good, but she was excellent.

Unfortunately, everyone else was a little lackluster and none of the dialogue seemed natural.  It really boils down to the script and what the characters motivation really are.  Why should we care about them?

Best:
Brigitte Nielsen as Ulrika.  I hope she gets more work like this.  She plays crazy very well and her physical stature also adds to her performance too.  She’s my favorite part of this film.

Wish List:
I wish they didn’t put Kristanna Loken front and center in this film, because she is not the main character.  I found this poster floating around the internet and this much more accurate.  They of course did that to gain interest for the film, but it is misleading… something of which I despise.

I wish there was a consultant that could appropriately dress and make up the actors in this film.

The makeup for the women in this film was awful.  For the older women, the makeup was too harsh.  Look at Vivica Fox that same year this film was released and her makeup in the film.  I also wish she did a little training to prepare for the film.   She just didn’t look her best.

And Brigette needed a little less makeup because it really made her look older than she is.  This is a picture of her with softer eye makeup and it looks really good.

Wow, I wish the dialogue had a little doctoring… different wording, like a little girl approaches one of the mercenaries as they are walking down the boulevard and she says ‘kid, be gone’.  Or when they witness a girl being dragged off,
“Stick to the plan, soldier.  We can’t save her.”
Who says that?

And I wish there weren’t so many horrible asian jokes and racial tropes in the film.  It didn’t need it and it cheapens the film.


The Ending:
The ending was predictable, but so are all of these action movies.  You know what to expect and they deliver.

Summary:
Even Though the dialogue is not very naturalistic, there are a few gem quotes like.  “We go PMS from hell on this place!”  It’s just perfect for this kind of film.

There are so many terrible moments in this film, it’s glorious.  And it puts a smile on my face because it’s wildly entertaining.  It’s a so bad it’s good flick. It’s a guilty pleasure that is so much fun to watch.

That sums up my review.  I hope you liked it.  This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off.

Take care movie lovers!  I'm off to the next review!



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