Jason Statham

Shelter

  • Title: Shelter
  • IMDb: link

Shelter is far from the first film to play on the basic concept of letting sleeping dogs lie, but it does offer slightly more dramatic work for Jason Statham compared to some of his throwaway action sequences. We’re introduced to Mason (Statham) living in isolation on a small island in Scotland with this only ties to the outside world being a local fisherman and his niece Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) whose attempts to engage the mysterious stranger are rebuffed every time she brings him supplies.

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Ghosts of Mars

  • Title: John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars
  • IMDb: link

Not exactly the best of John Carpenter‘s career, Ghosts of Mars gives us Natasha Henstridge as the lone surviving member of a squad (which also includes Jason Statham and Pam Grier) on a terraformed Mars sent to retrieve a prisoner (Ice Cube) from a small mining town. Told mostly through flashbacks, with inserts for Lieutenant Melanie Ballard’s deposition, the officer tells an outrageous story that somehow doesn’t seem to raise any red flags for the tribunal who offer few questions, and even less skepticism, about her tale of miners possessed by Martian ghosts slaughtering an entire town.

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Fast X

  • Title: Fast X
  • IMDb: link

Having nowhere new to go with the series, the Fast & Furious franchise looks backwards by photoshopping Jason Momoa into the events of Fast Five (the best movie of the hit, and mostly miss, franchise) and quickly elevating him to one of its most dangerous villains. At least more enjoyable than the last entry, Fast X is mostly harmless with some extravagant special effects sequences including our heroes chasing a giant bomb crashing through the streets of Rome. Its also mindbogglingly twenty minutes too long while making no effort to wrap up events before the credits roll. How can a movie this long never end?

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Wrath of Man

  • Title: Wrath of Man
  • IMDb: link

Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham unite for a by-the-numbers revenge flick. Statham stars as a notorious violent crime lord who takes a job as the new security guard for an armored car company that has been the target of several recent robberies, including one that killed his son. It doesn’t take long for the other members of the company to discover H (Statham) is way overqualified for the job and there’s obviously something more to the story of what he’s doing there (which will be exposed slowly in a series of flashbacks that lead to inevitable questions of how blind everyone working for the company is in not recognizing H).

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Hobbs & Shaw

  • Title: Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
  • IMDb: link

Hobbs & Shaw movie reviewThe Fast & Furious franchise has produced a series of films over the past two decades that range from fairly okay (Fast Five and Tokyo Drift) to largely forgettable (see everything else). Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw may not have a lot going for it but it does have Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham who take their bickering to the next level when forced to work together on a joint CIA and MI6 assignment (despite neither one working for either agency).

The plot steals more than a little from M:I-2 when an agent (Vanessa Kirby) injects a deadly virus into herself rather than let it fall into the hands of terrorists. Hobbs is tapped to find the agent, who our suped-up super-villain (Idris Elba) and his super-secret villainous organization have framed for the theft and deaths of her team. Ryan Reynolds gets a fun, if largely unnecessary, cameo to bring the hero onboard. Shaw‘s motivations are far more personal.

The film offers plenty of chase sequences but far less muscle cars and heists than the usual Fast & Furious flick. In fact, other the the forced family theme shoved down the audience’s throat at every turn, Hobbs & Shaw feels like a rather purposeful departure from the franchise which spawned it.

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