Author: Jim McLennan

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★★½
“…but no cigar”

Rapace appears to be aiming for a niche in the straight-to-video (or, at least, straight to Netflix) action market, this coming on the heels of Unlocked and What Happened to Monday. The results thus far have been rather uneven, and this seems unlikely to move the needle of his career much further forward. Not that the issues here are her fault; more that “being good in underwhelming movies” is not a passport to success. She plays Troubled Bodyguard (TM) Sam, who is hired to act as protection for Zoe (Nélisse), who just inherited a phosphate mining company, after the death of her father. Zoe got a bit too friendly with her last bodyguard, if you know what I mean, so Zoe’s stepmum (Varma) wants a woman this time.

Naturally, there’s a kidnap attempt. which sends Sam and Zoe on the run through Morocco. Is Mom, who was cut out of her husband’s will in favour of the daughter, responsible? Or is it the rival Chinese company, with whom there’s a battle over Zambian phosphate rights? The answer is: who cares? The film certainly doesn’t seem to, dropping elements like Sam’s estranged daughter in, then never doing much with them. See also the shotguns built into the walls of the family mansion. A better movie would have milked this great idea for all it was worth, but here, it’s thrown away in one blast. Instead, we get the inevitable blossoming of the relationship between the two women, who gradually come to understand each other, blah blah blah.

The action is intermittent, and probably not enough – a shooting schedule of barely four weeks likely played into that, chat being easier to film than fighting. There is a cool sequence where Sam battles someone with her hands literally tied behind her back, and a nice opening which establishes her bad-ass credentials, defending journalists from insurgent attack. Otherwise, Atomic Blonde this is not: an underwater combat scene (complete with CGI fish) being more risible than memorable. Rapace holds up her end of the dramatic requirements well enough; Nélisse, unfortunately, less so. Immediately she demands Sam go feed her Pomeranian, her character is tagged with the “rich bitch” label, and never escapes that ghetto.

This might have worked better as a limited series – although that territory was recently mined by Bodyguard, for which Richard Madden won a well-deserved Golden Globe. It would have given scope to dig further into Sam’s character, something definitely needed here. Her character was, apparently, inspired by real-life female bodyguard Jacquie Davis, who has been working in the field since the beginning of the eighties, and was the first such in the United Kingdom. There are a million possible stories to be told there, for example, her mission to Pakistan to rescue a pregnant woman kidnapped by her husband. She says, “We had to storm the villa by paying a taxi driver to ram the gates,” and then escaped the country over the mountains with the army in pursuit, because then-President, Benazir Bhutto, had recognized the bodyguard. Compared to that, what we get as a story here falls well short of a thrilling tale.

Dir: Vicky Jewson
Star: Noomi Rapace, Sophie Nélisse, Indira Varma,

Action Heroines in Asian adverts

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Japanese adverts have long been a popular destination for Western actors and actresses, paying very well for quick work. Back in the day, they were safe in the knowledge that the advert would never be screened outside of Japan. so their Western fan-base would not be aware of their commercial shilling, even if it was for a product whose association would raise eyebrows here. Witness, for example, the series of five commercials that Nicolas Cage did for pachinko, a Japanese gambling game similar to pinball. Or the one for an energy drink, out of whose bottle, Arnold Schwarzenegger pops out like a genie, laughing maniacally.

The Internet, however, means that no country is an island. Recently, I saw an advert for collectible card-game Cardfight!! Vanguard, which had Kazuchika Okada going up against Milla Jovovich. Okada is probably the best professional wrestler in the world whom most people have never heard of: in 2017, he was the first Japanese wrestler to be ranked #1 on Pro Wrestling Illustrated‘s list of the top 500 wrestlers in the world. Milla Jovovich is… Well, if I have to explain that, you’re on the wrong website. But it says a lot, that in the card battle between her and Okada, Milla gets her collectible card-butt handed to her!

It’s not Milla’s first foray into Asian advertising, because she had already returned to the former Soviet Union where she was born, in 2014 – just a few countries over and down a bit, from the Ukraine to Azerbaijan. There, she filmed this advert for the dairy company named Milla: no relation beyond the name, apparently, but hard to think of a more appropriate celebrity endorsement. I’m trying to come up with a tasteful advertising slogan. Maybe something about drinking the creamy goodness of Milla… Nope, I’ve got nothing. [There’s also a making-of short about the commercial, with more footage]

But, it turns out, she was not the first action heroine of our acquaintance to make such an advert in Japan. Back in 1986, the unusually-named sports drink Pocari Sweat [would you sink a glass of Sweat?] decided the best way to advertise its product, was to have Cindy Crawford get all Xena-like and sweaty, swinging a gigantic sword around near a black panther at the Sphinx, while a mutant rabbit watches and offers her a can of the drink in question. Who could possibly resist? The same goes for Lucy Liu, advertising Suntory beer [sorry for the potato quality of the video]. At least that one diet beer. Though I would personally have had her as O-Ren Ishii, saying “You may not be able to fight like a samurai, but at least you can drink like a samurai.”

Liu’s isn’t the only Charlie’s Angel to have gone that route, as Cameron Diaz did a commercial for Aeon English Schools, though it’s kinda dull. Then there’s Natalie Portman, whose use of Lux shampoo apparently imbues her with sword-fighting skills just in time for an audition, allowing her as a result to impress the director and win a role as La Femme Musketeer. Or something. I may be making up my own story there. Portman follows in the footsteps of the future Imperator Furiosa, as Theron – with both arms – had previously been a spokeswoman for the product, as had Bandidas’s Penelope Cruz.

And finally, while Korean rather than Japanese, do you really think I’m going to pass up the chance to include The Quick and the Dead‘s Sharon Stone waving a nozzle around in sultry fashion, trading on her Basic Instinct image to sell fuel? Hell, no! Enjoy them all in the playlist below.

Contract: Snatch by Ty Hutchinson

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

Sei is a former assassin, who quit the industry after getting pregnant, then having her daughter stillborn. She has taken up a quiet life in the Belgian countryside, when she’s brought out of retirement by a shocking offer she received over the deep web. Her prospective employer says Sei’s daughter is not dead, and offers information in exchange for carrying out a job: breaking another assassin, the notorious Black Wolf, out of the Turkish prison where he is being held. After confirming with the doctor who was present that the claim of her daughter’s survival is true, Sei accepts the mission. However, it turns out she was set up as a patsy, and finds herself also incarcerated in conditions which seem not have improved much since Midnight Express.

It’s a little odd that Sei is described as an assassin, yet doesn’t actually do any actual… assassinating here. Sure, she certainly kills a lot of people, mostly members of Turkish law-enforcement (as well as a wild boar) – just not for money. Might have made more sense to begin by establishing Sei’s credentials in this profession; as is, the reader has to accept her skills on faith. Perhaps the vague hints of back-story should have been fleshed out more. There’s also a large debt to Kill Bill in the driving force of the story here: specifically, the end of Volume 1, when Bill says, “One more thing, Sofie. Is she aware her daughter is still alive?” To my great surprise – sorry, can’t find the sarcasm font – this element is left entirely unresolved at the end of the volume. Indeed, she’s little if any closer to finding the truth than when she leaves the doctor.

While I’ve qualms about the overall structure here, I did actually enjoy the meat of the sandwich more than the bread. That would be the mission to Turkey, including her initial attempt to free the Black Wolf, then Sei’s subsequent escape from incarceration and flight across the country, with evil prison governor, General Rakin Demir, leading an extremely hot pursuit. It’s a crisply paced saga of action sequences, that have an interesting variety to them, from her compromised attempt to free the Black Wolf, through to a climactic race from Cesme across the Chios Strait to Greece. While she’s mostly a solo operator, who prefers to rely on stealth, she ends up teaming with Kostas, a Greek who… well, let’s just say, his connections come in handy, and I predict, likely will do so again in future volumes.

As the review to this point should make clear, I’m in two minds about whether I’ll be going further, because certain elements I liked and others I didn’t. Sei’s a good character, and I appreciated the almost complete lack of romance to get in the way of the “good stuff.” But I get the feeling the saga of her daughter is going to be stretched out beyond the point of tolerance, to deceased equine level. Probably one of those cases where I’ll wait for volume two to be available at a discounted price.

Author: Ty Hutchinson
Publisher: Gangkruptcy Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 5 in the Sei Assassin Thriller series.

Deadly Exposé

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★★★
“Cheaters never win.”

After hacktivists expose the identities of users to a dating site, someone starts targeting the victims, murdering them in ways appropriate to their particular sexual fetish. Detective Maxine Peyton (Archer) leads the investigation, but it soon becomes clear that, as well as acting as a moral judge, jury and executioner, the killer has a particular interest in and connection to Maxine. Potential suspects include over-attached boyfriend and college teacher Simon (Hamilton), her cop partner Nick (Beemer),  ex-husband Ryan, or even slutty best friend, Jen (Ochise), who keeps trying to hit on Simon. Might even be e) None of the above. As the bodies continue to mount, Maxine has to find the perpetrator before he/she finds her.

I sense the likely destination for this was probably Lifetime or somewhere similar, yet in this case, that should not be taken as a bad thing. For especially in the early going, this is surprisingly well-written, with a good ear for dry sarcasm which helps flesh out characters that could easily be no more than stereotypes. I genuinely LOL’d at Maxine saying to an interview subject, “Please excuse my partner. He was raised by wolves.” This goes for just about everyone: even relatively minor roles, who have only a few moments of screen-time, appear to be real people. The inspiration is clearly the Ashley Madison data breach, though the company here is called “Adeline Lilly” instead – the hacktivist group responsible is also renamed, being “Incognito” rather than Anonymous. Might have been nice if the script had engaged a bit more with the moral issues here, rather than mentioning them in passing.

The problems, however, are more during the second half, as the story – and its climax in particular – relies heavily on the killer basically wanting to be caught. This is always an irritant, especially after the culprit has shown themselves to be relatively smart and savvy in the early going. It does feel like rather lazy writing, unless there has been some particular justification set up for it e.g. they have accomplished whatever it was they set out to do. In this case, that doesn’t happen, and instead someone close to Maxine is kidnapped in order to lure her in. Again, the motivation for this, and why he/she is so obsessed with her, is left rather too vague to work successfully.

Naturally, things end in a moral way, par for the TVM course: those who are guilty, in one way or another, tend to pay with their lives, while the (relatively) innocent are able to survive. While what follows is a spoiler, I have to say that does not include the killer, who is dispatched with surprising if satisfying brutality, at point-blank range. Despite my criticisms about the way things eventually unfold here, this was still a more than acceptable time-passer. Archer and the rest of the cast deliver engaging performances that were good enough to sustain interest, even when the story could have used some additional writing.

Dir: Chris James
Star: Melissa Archer, Graham Hamilton, Brandon Beemer, Alyshia Ochse

Relentless

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★★
“Hell Salvador…”

From just about all I’ve read, the director seems entirely earnest in his desire to make a serious film about a serious problem, human trafficking in Central America. That the end result falls almost entirely wide of the mark is a bit of a double-edged sword. In terms of making its intended point, that it feels more like a B-movie from the fifties is a bad thing. But on the other hand, the serious film about the serious problem would likely be considerably less amusing.

Holly Drew (Shaw) runs a coffee shop in what I’m guessing is Portland, carrying on a family tradition of working with farmers in El Salvador: fair trade, ethical production, etc. Her daughter, Ally (Sweeney), is visiting the coffee farm there, somewhat reluctantly: some kind of college credit seems involved. Her stay is rudely interrupted when she and a local friend are kidnapped by Los Discipulos, a local gang. With the local cops worse than useless, Holly goes down there herself, and plunges into the underworld with the help of slightly sleazy but good-hearted Fern (Castro), on the trail of Ally before she can be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

A major problem here, is that Tracy clearly wants to be sympathetic to the locals. It opens with stuff about the civil war there causing a cycle of poverty and violence, etc. Yet in the light of subsequent cinematic events, this comes over more excuse than rational explanation. Because for the purposes of the film, modern-day El Salvador has to be depicted as a “shithole country” (to quote the current American President). Otherwise, where’s the threat to Holly and Ally? So for example: the local police are depicted as being thoroughly corrupt or entirely useless, and no-one beyond Fern seems willing to help Holly in the slightest. If you come away at the end doing anything except agreeing with Trump, you haven’t been paying attention.

The other big problem is character motivation, especially for Fern. He abandons Holly, right at her moment of greatest need… except he subsequently doesn’t. Neither his departure, nor his return, make sense, except that both are necessary for a film in which he’s a supporting character to the “relentless” mother. Similarly, the actions of Los Discipulos often left me scratching my head. They didn’t fit the likely behaviour patterns of the hardened criminals they are supposed to be – again, save for being required by the plot.

We’ve seen almost exactly this kind of “lost daughter” scenario before, in the decent Never Let Go and slightly less-decent Taken Heart. Whether due to the sense of (literal) deja vu, or just because the components aren’t as effective, this falls below the standard of either. Shaw’s performance is likely the only half-decent aspect, and it needs to be in the service of a more considered script. If I’d been making this, I’d have had Fern part of the notorious El Salvadorean anti-gang death squad, La Sombra Negra, and taken Holly down a darker path of vengeance. Sadly, what we have here is considerably more lightweight and predictable, and almost entirely forgettable.

Dir: Lance Tracy
Star: Lauren Shaw, David Castro, Sydney Sweeney, Peter Holden

Pitbull: Tough Women

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★★★
“Still Poles apart.”

Having enjoyed the same director’s Women of Mafia, I thought I’d check out this earlier film, part of his Pitbull series, also about Polish cops ‘n’ criminals. Unashamedly populist, in its home country the featire set a record for opening weekend admissions by a local movie, and topped the overall box-office there for 2016. More surprisingly, it was also a hit when released in Britain, reaching fifth place at the box-office in its first week, due almost entirely to the Polish expat community there. ‘

It’s a similarly sprawling tale to Mafia – perhaps even more so – which covers a range of characters, on both sides of the law. Despite the title, disappointingly, the focus is not particularly on the women. While there are certainly no shortage of interesting female characters, as we’ll see, the central one is ‘Sugar’ (Fabijanski), a member of a biker gang who is tasked with a revenge hit on ‘Majami’ (Stramowski), a cop who shot and killed a fellow gang-member. However, Sugar ends up diverting into a convoluted scam involving smuggling fuel oil. I can only presume this scheme made sense to the Polish audience, because I had no real clue what was going on.

On the “tough woman” front, the focus is on two new recruits to the police force, Zuza (Kulig) and Jadźka (Dereszowska). It doesn’t take long after completing their training,. for the shine to come off, as they realize the harsh realities of law-enforcement work, and the inevitable moral compromise beneath the surface. These are exemplified in Izabela (Magdalena Cielecka), a cop who is more than prepared to bend the law in order to protect it, to put it mildly. Both rookie officers have their issues, in particular Zuza, who eventually ends up having an affair with Sugar, while his girlfriend ‘Drabina’ (Alicja Bachleda) is in jail.

Elements of all this work very well. The characters are strong, performances solid, I loved the purely pragmatic approach of the cops (needed to deal with criminals who hardly obey the niceties of polite convention either), and there are some fine moments of pitch-black humour. I was especially amused by the scene involving stepping in a half-dissolved corpse, and the subsequent discussion over protocol, whether or not the poor policewoman should keep her footwear, and forensic pathology:
   “There’s the liver.”
   “A liver’s that small?”
   “It’s normal, but half is on your shoes.”

The problem is largely Vega’s failure to tell a coherent story. I wondered if this might be down to my lack of local knowledge e.g. the fuel scam, perhaps enhanced by not having seen the previous entries in the Pitbull franchise. However, reading some local reviews [all hail, Google Translate!] suggests it’s not just me, with this being a common complaint. I can’t help wishing the writer/director had actually delivered on the potential of his premise: while certainly an equal-opportunity piece, this still falls short of what I wanted. Perhaps Vega knew he had half-assed it, and that’s why he circled back around so quickly for the not-dissimilar Women of Mafia.

Dir: Patryk Vega
Star: Sebastian Fabijanski, Joanna Kulig, Anna Dereszowska, Piotr Stramowski

Zombies Have Fallen

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★★
“Cheap at half the price.”

It’s not often that a film cost less to make, than the television set on which I watched it. But it appears this was the case here, with the budget reportedly coming in at five hundred pounds. No, there’s not a “thousand” missing from that. £500. What you get is probably not too far from what you would expect for that – some of the aerial photography and locations do appear to represent good value for money. Budget isn’t the real issue here though. This British film’s main problem is the drastic shift in story for the final third, when it suddenly morphs, for no reason, from a SF/thriller, into a full-on zombie apocalypse which the makers have neither the budget nor the talent to depict.

The heroine is Kyra (Parkinson), who was captured while a toddler by Raven Health, who are intent on developing and exploiting her latent psychic abilities. Probably close to 20 years later, she is broken out of their facility with the help of an activist bounty-hunter, who sends her into the care of one of his proteges, John Northwood (Heath Hampson). But the company head, Raven (Richardson) won’t let his asset escape easily, and dispatches a hunter of his own, Max (Gardner), to bring Kyra back. After about an hour of the chase, Kyra shows up at a wedding just over the Scottish border in Gretna Green and turns the entire congregation into zombies with her talents. 

What? Yeah, it was as abrupt as that, and the remainder of the film is your typical zombie bashing action. I do have to award a bonus half-star for the semi-automatic bagpipes, which double as a flamethrower. Laughed like a drain at that, and it’s the kind of dumb invention at which low-budget films can excel [see the early works of Peter Jackson for good examples] Unfortunately, the zombie effects and actors are awful; while the depiction of Kyra’s telekinetic powers is not exactly top-shelf, it’s somewhat hidden by the editing. If the randomly selected locals, pretending to be undead (or bad mimes, it’s hard to tell), had been also better concealed – such as behind a mountain – we’d all have been better off.

I substantially preferred the earlier sections. Parkinson is not unsympathetic, as the heroine struggling to come to terms with her powers (though if she has been kept locked up all the time, how did she apparently learn how to drive?), and Hampson comes over like a low-rent version of Liam Neeson. If the film had kept down that route, it would likely still not have been “great”, by any reasonable standard, but could certainly have been adequate. Instead, we’ve got something which looks almost as if it was slapped together from two entirely different films. Any redeeming qualities are largely trapped behind a severely questionable title (really, if you’re going to ape another movie, you can pick a far better one than London Has Fallen) and even more dubious cover artwork.

Dir: Sam Hampson
Star: Tansy Parkinson, Heath Hampson, Tony Gardner, Ken Richardson

Code Name: Griffin, by Morgan Hannah MacDonald

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

A painfully clunky mix of spy and crime thrillers, this really needs to decide which it wants to be. Alexandria Kingston – code name Griffin, in case you hadn’t guessed – was an abused child, with the good fortune to be rescued and brought up by Margaret Murphy, the head of Irish organized crime in Boston. Though to avoid Alex being targeted for leverage, she was never acknowledged to be part of the family. As an adult, Alex joined the CIA and became a top field agent, jet-setting over the globe on demand. But when her foster mother suffers a stroke, she returns to Boston to find herself in the middle of a war for control of the turf. The rival Killeen clan, sensing an opportunity, pounce. It’s up to Alex and her brothers to defend the family – and then take the battle to the Killeens.

It’s all utterly implausible. Apparently, the CIA don’t bother doing any kind of background check on their employees, and have no problem recruiting and giving security clearance to people with close ties to organized crime. Alex, meanwhile, wobbles uncertainly between remarkable proficiency and incompetence, as necessary to the plot. She can reel in a member of the Killeen family by simply ordering a whisky, yet this top-notch spy inexplicably can’t form sentences when faced with her former childhood sweetheart. I admit her latter burbling is actually kinda endearing, but c’mon: have some consistency in your lead character. And, of course, the Murphys are an almost saintly crime family. By which I mean, they still do prostitution and human trafficking, they just do them the right way. Yeah. About that…

This still might have made for an interesting detour in an established series, if we were already fully convinced of her talents as a CIA operative, with an unrevealed past. Instead, we get barely a handful of pages at the beginning to establish her credentials, with no real context: she exists in a vacuum. There’s also a fondness for the kind of florid consumerist prose I thought had gone out of style with Bret Easton Ellis culminating in this remarkably superfluous description of Alex’s perfume: “The sensuous bottom notes of Sri Lankan sandalwood and Indonesian patchouli were mixed with high notes of Bulgarian rose and citrus to add a feminine touch that was irresistible to the opposite sex.” I swear, I literally rolled my eyes at “high notes of Bulgarian rose”.

I can’t knock the action too much. There is a steady stream of set-pieces throughout the book, and MacDonald does describe these with a clear eye, and no shortage of savagery. [You wonder what, exactly, Boston law enforcement are doing while all this is going on, since Alex does not mess around, and the pile of bodies left in her wake is considerable. It just needs to be in the service of a much better constructed plot.

Author: Morgan Hannah MacDonald
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 2 in the Griffin series.

2019 in Action Heroine Films

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Welcome to our sixth annual preview of what we can expect from our genre in 2019. The year just ended was relatively low-key, without the massive tent-pole of a film like Wonder Woman. The biggest success at the North American box-office was the Tomb Raider reboot, which was a commercial disappointment and finished 43rd on the year. There will still pleasures to be had, but they were more at the smaller end of the spectrum, such as Revenge and Raazi, as well as the small-screen delight of Killing Eve. 2019 though, should be considerably bigger, with the first quarter alone bringing two releases with a combined cost estimated as north of $350 million.

We start with one of those, and then cover another which is also a holdover from this feature last January…

Alita: Battle Angel (February 19)

Delayed twice from its originally-scheduled date of last July – that’s not normally a good sign. But escaping the Hunger Games which was the Christmas box-office for the much quieter February might have been very sensible: just ask Mortal Engines about that. After a shaky start with a first trailer that had everyone going, “…but those eyes!”, subsequent efforts have consistently improved, and by the last one, enthusiasm online seemed generally higher. With a $200 million budget, it needs to be huge for there to be any chance of sequels, and adaptations of Japanese comic-books have not done well previously. Fingers crossed producer James Cameron can sprinkle some of his pixie-dust on Robert Rodriguez.

Anna (TBA)

“I’ve a feeling this may end up drifting back into 2019″. That’s what I said last year, and I’m tempted just to copy-paste that entry. because we know precious little more about Luc Besson’s next film now, than we did last January. I suspect Besson has been a bit distracted, between rape accusations, sexual harassment claims by seven other women, and a $101 million loss for the first half of the financial year at his studio, EuropaCorp [thanks, Valerian!]. Anna was originally set for a January release in France, but has been pushed back to March 27, in part due to the company getting out of distributing its own films there. US distributors Lionsgate haven’t scheduled it yet. A trailer would be nice…

Atone (February 26)

Per Amazon, “Atone introduces us to the world of Laura Bishop, an ex-special ops soldier that has reluctantly settled into raising her daughter Kate… She spends her days in a security job at a place that she thought would not require much effort, a church. Until a team of highly trained and armed terrorists takes the church by siege. With the intent to simply report the incident to the cops, she starts to head to the police department when suddenly she is stopped as she notices her daughters bike lying at the entrance of the church… With special forces standing between her and her daughter, Lauras rage engages her past in special ops setting off a pitched battle that may kill everyone involved.” So… Die Hard in a church?

Captain Marvel (March 8)

This is an easy pick for top box-office GWG in 2019, as every Marvel Cinematic Universe film since Thor in 2011  – sixteen in a row, and counting – has grossed at least half a billion dollars worldwide. It sees Brie Larson play Carol Danvers, a.k.a. the titular superheroine. It will be Marvel’s first female-led film, which isa bit risky, considering the character is perhaps less well-known, lacking Black Widow’s audience in previous ensemble films, for example. It’s an origin story, set in the nineties, and tells how Danvers’s DNA was fused with that of an alien species, the Kree, and helps fend off an invasion of Earth by another extra-terrestrial race. It’ll be huge. But Ant-Man and the Wasp huge? Or Black Panther huge?

Charlie’s Angels (November 1)

Like Alita, this has been pushed back twice, originally scheduled for July and then September. Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska play the trio of crime-fighters, with multiple Bosleys, including director Elizabeth Banks, Patrick Stewart and Djimon Hounsou. This one will have to overcome the stigma of the 2011 attempt to reboot the show as a TV series, which was canceled after only four episodes had aired. Or indeed, the lacklustre Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which failed to capture the same spirit of fun as the original movie. I’m curious as to how this is going to work in a post-#MeToo era, given the eye candy that has been an integral part of almost every incarnation, going back to the first TV series.

Crawl (TBA)

“A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a Catagory 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.” This stars Kaya Scodelario, and will be somewhat familiar territory for the actress, as she was also in Tiger House, playing a young woman trapped in a house who must fight for her life against robbers. Director Alexandre Aja’s break through film was the French Haute Tension, and also did remakes The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha 3D.

Dark Phoenix (June 7)

Startled to realize this will be the twelfth film in the X-Men universe, if you include the Deadpool films. But it will be the first truly female-driven one – though you could perhaps make an argument for Logan  at least being a two-hander. Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) is ‘turned’ to the dark side after being blasted by radiation from a solar flare, and becomes Phoenix. She’s manipulated by an alien shapeshifter, played by Jessica Chastain, while the rest of the X-Men, including Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Psylocke (Olivia Munn) on the distaff side, try to reclaim their colleague. This has been in post-production for a long time, with shooting having completed in October 2017, and also had its release date moved back into 2019.

Fighting With My Family (February 14)

Telling the story behind WWE’s former women’s champion, Paige (Florence Pugh), who comes from a family of British pro wrestlers. Fun fact: I saw her mother wrestle, as “Sweet Saraya”, at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall in the late nineties. Mom here will be played by Lena Headey, with Dad by Nick Frost – both are well-loved here, and it’s an unexpected directorial effort from Stephen Merchant, whom we also like. I suspect it’s going to be very British and dry in its wit, but having seen the documentary of the same title, I’ve no doubt there’s plenty of material to be found in this dysfunctional family. However, films about wrestling have not tended to do well at the box-office. Anyone remember Ready 2 Rumble? Exactly.

Headlock (January 11)

I’ll believe this when I see it, considering how long it has been in production – it started filming in July 2014. For now, I’ll stick to repeating the IMDb synopsis – as last year! “After new CIA recruit, Kelley Chandler (Polish) is seriously injured during a mission, surviving only on life support, his wife Tess (Dianna Agron), a former CIA operative, becomes determined to find out what happened to her husband. As the details of Kelley’s last mission unravel, showing that his accident was an inside job, Tess puts everything on the line to keep Kelley out of harm’s way, even if that comes with dangerous consequences.”

I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu (TBA)

The fifth in the franchise, I’m not certain if this one will qualify for the site. We have revieweed the reboot and both of the sequels. However, the original was more rape than revenge, and this entry shares the same director, Meir Zarchi, and star in Camille Keaton. She plays the best-selling author of a book that recounts her rape ordeal and subsequent trial where she was acquitted of killing her attackers. Now living in New York City with her supermodel daughter (Jamie Bernadette), they are kidnapped and taken to a remote rural town by the revenge-seeking relatives of the rapists. Hence: deja vu.

Liberté: A Time to Spy (TBA)

“Based on true stories, the film tells the story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill’s “secret army”: Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.” We’ve written about Khan previously, and I’ve got a fondness for all the heroines of World War II. [I’m currently watching British TV series Wish Me Luck, which covers similar topics] Atkins is played by Stana Katic, who was in Stiletto, and Khan by Indian actress Radhika Apte.

Miss Bala (February 1)

A remake of the Mexican film of the same name, it does adjust some elements from the original. Rather than the heroine being a beauty queen, it’s a make-up artist (here, played by Gina Rodriguez) who is coerced in to working for the local drug cartel. Per the official synopsis, “Gloria must turn the tables on everyone to escape and finds a power she never knew she had as she navigates a dangerous world of cross-border crime. Surviving will require all of her cunning, inventiveness, and strength.” Which sounds more or less like the synopsis of 60% of the telenovelas I watch, though that is probably just me.

Monster Hunter (TBA)

Resident Evil may be done (for now), but Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich have moved on to another video-game property. She plays Captain Natalie Artemis, a member of a United Nations military team who fall through a portal into an alternate world where humans and monsters do battle. The skills she picks up there come in handy when the monsters come back through the portal to our Earth. With martial artist Tony Jaa as the male lead, the kick-butt here may be off the charts, and based on the pic above, it looks like Milla didn’t have to change much more than her socks from portraying Alice. Should be fun, though expect whining from the video-game fans about changes made for the movie.

The Rhythm Section (February 22)

Made by Eon Productions, the company who produce the James Bond films, this will star Blake Lively as Stephanie Patrick, “a woman who seeks to uncover the truth behind a plane crash that killed her family. Patrick was also meant to be on the flight. After she discovers that the crash was not accidental, she embarks on a mission to track down those responsible by assuming the identity of an assassin.” It’s based on the novel by Mark Burnell, which “is not a thriller about the hunt for a terrorist, although that is the path Stephanie takes, and it’s not a story about revenge, although justice for her family is her initial motivation. Rather, The Rhythm Section is the story of Stephanie’s attempt to reclaim herself.” Hmm.

Split Lip (TBA)

I heard about this independent effort through Chris, who works at a local film studio here in Arizona – the daughter of one of her clients there is the star, and does all her own stunts. Synopsis: “In the underground world of contract killers, mistakes cannot be tolerated. Set (Doreé Seay), a brutal mercenary with an icy exterior, finds out the hard way when one mistake sends her on a treacherous mission to clear her name. Hunted by her former mentor Karlton (DeJean Brown) and his roster of psychopaths, she forms an unlikely alliance with a mysterious stranger and his sister as Set races against the clock to out-wit and out-fight the dark forces gunning for her life.” I’m sold. Check out the trailer in the playlist at the bottom.

Untitled Terminator Reboot (November 1)

Probably one of the most frequent questions I get is why I haven’t written more about the Terminator films. It’s mostly because Sarah Connor is a supporting character in parts 1+2; only the third, with its female terminator as the antagonist really qualifies. I’ll still be interested to see what this reboot does with regard to the franchise. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton reprise their roles (albeit largely with a body-double for the former!), and it apparently ignores everything after Terminator 2.

Of course, any and all of the above is subject to change! But as and when they are released, you can expect coverage and reviews of them here in the coming year.