My first question about this film is that how is it possible that Heather Graham is the last of the people who get one of those separate credits? She must have a shitty agent or something.
Asia lost her younger sister Maria ten years ago. Now, Asia is out of prison and trying to find Maria again. This leads Asia to Virgil, an old building that holds a secret. We learn soon enough (so I wouldn’t say it’s a spoiler) that the building is run by a Satanic cult who are looking for sacrifices. So, Asia must fight her way out of the building with Maria in tow, but problems arise.
This is definitely style over substance. That isn’t bad in itself, but you need to strike a good balance. Just style will become tiring. And this is too much style. They try to fill the holes in the substance with flashbacks, but they don’t really do the job. Otherwise, the movie is just one action scene after another. Again, this isn’t necessarily bad either. Fury Road is basically just that and it’s glorious. This one isn’t.
A good story needs peaks and valleys. There should be moments where the audience has an opportunity to catch their breath. When you are kept at high tension all the time, it just doesn’t work anymore.
The director apparently wanted everyone to know that this isn’t camp. But it is. Not overly so, but the final fight definitely is. Otherwise, there’s moments where the movie does a specific kind of slowed down shots that look very much like comic book panels and that’s definitely camp.
They do try to vary the action, but since the opposition is just middle-aged people in a building, there’s limitations to this. With these limitations, it’s hard to compete with today’s action movies. I don’t even need movies to do that, but if you don’t the action should be more tangible. Most of the time this isn’t that.
I think the movie would be a lot better by a bit different editing and a few moments where the audience doesn’t have to be on the edge of their seat, because after a while that’s just not fun.
Finally, why Tom Felton? How is he, again, credited higher than Heather Graham? While I have deep dislike of people like JK Rowling, who use their resources and platforms for evil, at least she has conviction. Sure, it’s conviction for a messed up thing and I would hope she could find a better cause to champion. But I just despise these people who avoid any kind of controversy in the name of furthering them personally without any interest in anyone else’s well-being. That’s just spineless and it hasn’t even worked. This might very well be his highest profile role since the original Harry Potters.