Jake Gyllenhaal has made some excellent movies over the course of his career. Nightcrawler, anyone? He also made his share of blockbusters, ranging in quality and entertainment value. Of the latter, this movie pretty much skirt the bottom of the barrel.
It has all the right ingredients—good actor, good director, good budget—but the clichéd dumbness of it all overwhelms the lot. I don’t think I’ve watched the original, and I don’t know if I should have watched this one. But it stands to mention, I don’t like dumb action movies, and this one has nothing to elevate it from the rest either. Yes, Jake’s physique is most impressive and counters his mild, polite demeanor nicely, and yes, Conor McGregor’s manic energy is ever so mildly entertaining for about two minutes (the man after all is a real-life fighter while Jake’s just faking his way), but the rest of the movie is like watching a video game. An older video game to be specific, before they got all fancy and complicated with plots and real actors. This movie’s plot is paper-thin and involves around the eponymous structure and a fighter who comes to save it from some criminals threatening it. The movie is genre-appropriately-bombastic and bright and has pretty, racially diverse people doing things in scenic locations, and a lot of fighting and boats and all that, but it engages approximately 0.000001 percent of the brain, emotions, etc. Unless you're after something particularly unchallenging or really want to enjoy Jake's muscles (or perhaps swing the other way and enjoy Post Malone's inked flab--yes, he is peculiarly enough cast as a fighter in the opening scene), you can comfortably give this one a pass. It's kind of sad that movies like this exist and make money, and sadder still that actors of Gyllenhaal caliber do them, but needs must and all that. After all, most actors inevitably fall into some clichés. And yes, Jake has been dating a model 15 years his junior, so why not this too? But make no mistake, this is a background movie at best, the sort of thing where you can fall asleep in the middle, wake up, and miss nothing.
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