This assessment was written through the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. With out the labor of the writers and actors at the moment on strike, the movie being lined right here wouldn’t exist.Early on in Hidden Strike, an action-comedy whose humor comes much less from the jokes than the weird nature of each factor of its presentation, we get some of the unusual character introductions put to display in a while. After a extra straight-faced one for Jackie Chan’s Luo Feng, we then shift to a scene elsewhere that units the tone for what’s in retailer. It’s there the place we see John Cena’s Chris Van Horne standing by a automobile for a take care of a gaggle of armed characters in the course of the desert. Did I say desert? What I ought to have stated was some of the cartoonish CGI approximations of 1 the place it doesn’t really feel just like the characters are even in the identical room, not to mention really speaking to one another. If solely this had been extra integral to the in any other case normal movie. Maybe it might have been extra bonkers versus persistently boring. As an alternative, it’s the worst factor an motion movie can presumably be: forgettable.
The story, for what little it issues, is of two ex-special forces troopers who discover themselves introduced collectively for a standard purpose. They have to battle towards thinly sketched villains on the notorious “Freeway of Loss of life” in Baghdad. Whereas Chris was initially a part of a gaggle of mercenaries on the opposite aspect, he’s supposedly a superb man at coronary heart. We all know this as a result of he performs catch with a child and appears vaguely involved concerning the state of this nook of the world the place he’s a employed gun. When he’s subsequently betrayed and aligns himself with Luo, the goofy duo must face down a wide range of enemies who wish to take them down. No less than, that’s ultimately what we halfheartedly get. It’s a meandering film that often looks like it needs to create one thing resembling George Miller’s magnificent Mad Max: Fury Street, however is revealed to be nothing greater than an inexpensive imitation. Directed by Scott Waugh, who beforehand made the inert Want for Pace adaptation and is behind the upcoming Expendables 4, what holds this movie again from being extra unrestrained enjoyable is each its belabored setup and the final tediousness with which all of it then unravels. For each unintentionally humorous visible or clunky line of dialogue, most of it finally ends up getting in circles.
The problems on the core of the movie are structural in a story sense and technical by way of its presentation. It’s almost an hour earlier than the leads even meet up, which is supposedly the entire premise of the film, with this buildup all feeling like it’s simply filling time till we do. The primary full scene they share is outlined by slapstick that feels prefer it may have been lifted from the Rush Hour movies which, whereas hardly the top of motion cinema, a minimum of felt grounded in a actuality that helped give the jokes some precise weight. Once they get pinned down, even the bullets supposedly making contact throughout them by no means really feel actual for even a second. It makes the lethal sport of sizzling potato the 2 should play to throw grenades again to defend themselves really feel stiff versus foolish. What is supposed to endear us to them within the hopes of making a way of camaraderie is simply too flimsy and compelled to be convincing. It’s all the time a foul signal when the blooper reel (keep in mind these?) that runs through the credit sees every of them having higher chemistry and comedic timing than something within the precise movie.
Each the motion and the story really feel like it’s simply checking bins with no actual heft behind them. Even after they ultimately go head-to-head with the villainous Pilou Asbæk, most identified for Recreation of Thrones who was additionally splendidly menacing in final yr’s Run Sweetheart Run, the inspiration wasn’t there to make this really feel remotely vital. The best drawback is that Cena and Chan can solely achieve this a lot as they navigate an in any other case hole movie that will get hopelessly misplaced in a CGI desert purgatory. The poor results solely make it really feel such as you’re having a fever dream from which you’ll be able to’t get up. There’s a world through which the movie leaned into this extra to present the in any other case empty expertise one thing resembling life. It wasn’t ever going to be one thing like final yr’s excellent RRR, however one may a minimum of hope for one thing near it. As an alternative, we get a extra generic story about an merchandise being retrieved, a humdrum heist that’s with out even a touch of any thrills, and a complete lot of vamping. One second that encapsulates the expertise is when characters are doing a little so-so schtick in a reasonably critical scenario at evening just for us to abruptly reduce to the subsequent day. Whereas it’s clear that is meant to be about launching us into the anti-climatic climax of the movie, there isn’t any rhythm to any of it. It merely goes by the motions with none creativity to be seen for miles.
Close to the top, there’s a second the place the motion grinds to a halt for Cena to riff a bit on the recurring query of a nickname he was attempting to provide you with for a forgettable mid-level antagonist. Quite than really feel like a rewarding punchline that we had been ready for with bated breath, clumsy execution makes it fall flat. When the duo then splits as much as attempt to cease the heist to avoid wasting the day or no matter, the sequences with Chan aren’t horrible as he takes half in a leaping battle of stunts. Even when it isn’t probably the most well-edited motion scene you’re ever prone to see, with its cuts hiding a few of the tough edges and breaking the immersion we now have with the battle, a minimum of it looks like there was one thing resembling a imaginative and prescient to its staging. The one with Cena? Extra of the identical with poor results that by no means for a second create any sense of funding. That this turns into the fruits of the film, the supposed massive finale, is a testomony to simply how tepid the entire movie was. Even when it tosses every part it could possibly on the display, all of it comes crashing down as soon as extra. The one query you’ve left is that if a flop of a film is dumped on streaming and nobody is round to see it, does it nonetheless land with a thud?
Ranking: D
Hidden Strike is now streaming on Netflix.