Seattle is lucky enough to be home to the best film critic on the topic of action movies in the business. His name is Vern and his blog is a must-visit for me every time I watch a movie. So let me tell you that if you only read one review of the martial-arts action film The Furious, it should absolutely be Vern’s.
I basically want to high-five Vern for his review, because he put so much into words about The Furious that left me speechless. I love that the five main characters of the film each have their own individual fighting styles—one is a dancer, one throws his body around like a pissed-off bull, the lead is small but indomitable. I love that through sheer kinetic filmmaking, The Furious made me believe that a tiny man in flip flops can realistically chase down a giant truck roaring at full speed through the streets of a generic southeast Asian city.
The Furious isn’t the best martial-arts movie of all time. I think the movie kinda flags around the penultimate fight before coming back in a big way for the grand finale. And I hate the current action-movie trend of making the bad guys human traffickers—the reality of human trafficking is so disgusting that it adds a queasy-making jolt of reality into a story that’s ultimately meant to entertain.
But if you like big dumb fights between unbelievably graceful men that have been choreographed down to the most minute detail, this could be the best example of the form you’ll see all year—hell, maybe in five years. Watch it in the theaters, read Vern’s review,and spend the next two weeks wondering how the hell they managed to do all that stuff without accidentally killing someone on set. It’s movie magic, baby!
Leave a Reply