Glass (2019), Hit Man (2023) and Blue Beetle (2023)

One of these is not like the other.

Glass

M. Night Shyamalan's "third chapter" of Unbreakable and Split has all the main characters rounded up and put in a psychiatric facility to try be cured of their notions of being "super human". It's definitely a change of pace to your standard superhero fare and the ending might even piss you off, but the tale being told is a good one with the extremely talented James McAvoy actually stealing the show over both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson's title character. Recommendation for this one is a bit tricky, but I'm pretty sure if you are a fan of James McAvoy and/or Split, you will enjoy this. Also recommended if you just like all of M. Night's movies anyway. :P

Hit Man

If you were playing the "which one is not like the other" game in this post, this comedy movie is the answer. In it a regular but pretty smart guy (played by the exceptional Glen Powell) moonlights as an aide to the police department by pretending to be multiple "Hit Men", catering the "Hit Man" per client and then getting them to admit via recording their intenet to murder people which leads to their arrests. Shenanigans occur when one of his fake personas become better than his regular persona. Unlike Glass, this one is easy to recommend as it is very light hearted and entertaining. Go see it if you haven't yet!

Blue Beetle

Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena doing the best he can with the script) is just trying to get a job to support his poor (but incredibly annoying and obnoxious) family when he becomes selected by an alien Scarab and sentient weapon to turn him into the titular superhero Blue Beetle. I'm going to assume this was made for the younger Mexican audience as the plot really caters to them but boy do I have issues with it. Like, is Jaime really the hero or are all his "heroics" controlled by the scarab anyway? Sure he doesn't want to kill, at the start anyway (and then what happens?). This doesn't stop the rest of his family from totally murdering those generic bad guy soldiers though. Getting grandma to chain gun a whole bunch without taking any hits in return really must get the laughs right? So... yeah. It's that type of movie and despite having the DC budget is the worst of this trio.

Apex and The Equalizer 3

Where action heroes get old.

Apex

In a future where entitle rich people go on group safaris to hunt down lone human prey, a group of hunters (whose leader is played by Neal McDonough) run into their ultimate challenge yet. An old retired ex-cop who wears sandals and a bright red jacket to hide in the forest played by Bruce Willis (and his body double half the time I'd imagine, when you only see his feet, shoulder or back). As for the rest, its a predictable plot with B- grade acting and poor effects. Not recommended.

The Equalizer 3

Robert (Denzel Washington) makes a silly blunder after one of his justice-murder sprees and luckily is taken in by a quiet town to recuperate. Obviously there is a criminal element that happens to be threatening the populace here too and so that our protagonist has something to "Equalize" but while the premise is ok, the bad guys are simply too low level and don't even pose a challenge once he decides to take action, leading to an anti-climactic ending which is a shame since the start was pretty good. The first two movies were much better.

Unbreakable (2000)

One heck of a low key superhero movie.

After miraculously surviving a terrible accident, David (Bruce Willis) is contacted art gallery owner and comic book enthusiast Price (Samuel Jackson) who believes that David might actually have super human qualities.

Doesn't actually qualify as an action movie!

The entire movie is just character building for these two. There's very little action, very little in terms of special effects, but very good cinematography, acting and script. Definitely one of M. Night Shyamalan's better works and one I would watch again.

I give it 3 glass canes out of 5, and recommend it to everyone who doesn't mind very little action. It's a different genre but if you liked the Sixth Sense, you'll probably like this. If not, stay away.

A Good Day to Die Hard

[Post #14 of the Blaugust Challenge!]

The basic story here is that police veteran John McClane has an outing to Russia to find his estranged son and by doing so causes many violent deaths and enough property damage to rival Terminator 3! Unfortunately the plot is a little convoluted and for the first 10-15 minutes you might be wondering what the hell is going on. Fortunately it explains most of it well enough, but there are questions left unanswered such as: "Are there no police in Russia," and "Can you really survive taking x amount of damage and not going to a hospital?"

Instead of Bruce Willis, here's the eye candy of the movie! ;)

Acting wise it's passable but Bruce Willis looks a bit tired, grumpy and basically "been there, done that" which to be fair - his character has. I really disliked him yelling out incomprehensible stuff during the chase scene though. If that was to solidify that he's "a little crazy" then it did its job well. Overall though there are two main problems for me. Firstly, the bad guys are stupid. Yes, bad guys are expected to be stupid to a degree but wow, these guys take it to a whole new level. Some would probably qualify for the Darwin Awards.

The second problem is a bigger one, especially for an action movie of the "Die Hard" franchise. There are not enough BAD GUYS! Especially towards the end, I was wondering what happened to all the hired help. Maybe they were so stupid that they killed themselves off screen? That can't be right. According to the kill count, McClane kills around the same number in the previous two movies (and more than the first) so ... what gives? Basically, he kills them too easily. Too quickly. Possibly even offscreen. You don't even realize they died. Due to this I give it two and a half bullets out of five and would think it is one of the weaker "Die Hard" movies.

Blaugust Bonus: Speaking of Russia I've always wanted to visit Pripyat and Chernobyl, mainly because of the STALKER franchise (No not the rogue tenno in Warframe). That first person game series that put you into the heart of the deadly zone is one of my favourites, as those who have been reading this blog for awhile might know. Of course there aren't any (or should I say, as many) horrors out there in real but I thought it would always be a nice place to explore. In accordance to this, just like my one brother likes anything with a picture or the word "Dragon" on it, I'm pretty drawn to any movies, games or documentaries that take place in and around Chernobyl. Other than concerned family that tell me not to actually go for myself, the main reason I don't is the cold. I don't like the cold, and I've never seen snow in real because of it.