The Horde
A squad of cops attends the funeral of one
of their number. It turns out he was murdered by a notorious drug gang – they
plan to tool up and take down the gang’s tower-block hideout, strictly off the
books.
Things quickly go wrong and the cops are
killed, wounded or captured, but just as the gangsters are working out what to
do with their new captives the dead start rising…
Heavily armed dirty cops, gangsters and
zombies seems like a bland recipe these days as seemingly everyone with a
camera and make up kit tries to cash in on the zombie buck, but in recent
decades French cinema has broken out of the middle class drawing room and into
thrillers and schlocky action flicks, with some decent results.
Unfortunately the Horde, whilst certainly
not as bad as some zombie films made in the last few years, offers little to
justify an audience.
There are a few short, brutal sequences of
survivors beating up zombies hand-to-hand in a novel approach to traditional
zombie apocalypse survival, but these few scenes aren’t enough to hang a film
on, and a supposed comic relief character introduced in the last act is
unpleasant if anything.
1911
Jackie Chan’s career has been rooted in the
martial arts genre, displaying his skills in straight action films and
slapstick comedies and famous for performing his own stunts. Impressive as
those skills still are, Chan’s acting wasn’t always seen as a strong point, but
since 2004’s New police Story Chan has attempted to stretch that part of his repertoire,
most likely as a fall back now that the fully action packed roles aren’t
possible – Chan turned 59 in 2013.
1911 is another drama entry, released on
the centenary of the Chinese Xinhai revolution of 1911, which overthrew
thousands of years of monarchy.
Chan plays Huang Xing, the revolutionary
leader and first army commander in chief of the Republic of China, and he holds
his own against the rest of the cast.
Unfortunately the film is quite slow and
stilted, struggling to hold the interest despite numerous battle scenes of
conflict between the revolutionaries and Qing dynasty forces.
Much of the action sequences, thanks to the
period detail of uniforms, rifles and trenches, feel like many other First
World War films, and all of the political machinations both within China and
between representatives of western nations are rather formal and sterile.
Ultimately it feels like a propaganda piece
glorying in the overthrow of a decadent, out of touch ruling class by the rule
of the people, and Chan has little to do outside give pained looks in reaction
to the deaths of young revolutionaries.
Not bad enough for Jackie Chan completists
to avoid (they will have already ground their eyeballs against the likes of The
Medallion and Around the World in 80 Days) but certainly not a great advert for
Chan’s abilities beyond spectacular stunts.
Bourne Legacy
Jeremy Renner was destined to be an action
hero since his fantastic turn as the sniper in 28 Weeks Later. Despite this I
was concerned about the first Bourne movie in franchise to trade just on the
name, making it seem much more likely to be a cash-in than anything.
But! It’s good.
Renner is believable as the agent with just
a little more personality than the other trained killers, but ruthless when he
needs to be. The action sequences retain the improvised feel of the previous
films, with a number of sequences both tense and exciting.
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