Canary Black

With a decent cast of familiar faces, passable action sequences, and some strange editing choices, this film delivers a safe/predictable take on the spy-action genre. It's a by-the-numbers experience that doesn't raise any eyebrows and is ultimately forgettable. It has a somewhat interesting change to the expected premise that doesn't really last long or pay off. Soon, we're back to a familiar "doomsday device" and world-ending MacGuffin plot that must be kept from falling into the wrong hands. An added attempt at a romance subplot that falls flat end up feeling underdeveloped and unnecessary. Lastly, the final 20 minutes are unexciting and predictable filler, dragging the movie to a close without much fanfare.

I wasn't expecting much.. but it still managed to be somewhat disappointing.

We've seen this before. A very talented spy or thief or retired hitman is compelled to do something really really bad... perhaps even apocalyptic... to save a loved one from harm. Meanwhile said action star can't tell anybody and can't trust anybody... and everybody simply thinks the action star has gone "rogue".

If you've seen enough of these films, your antenna goes up almost immediately when you see the tortured loved one utter a dire plea "Honey.., just do what they say!" And therein lies the rub. For as talented and clever a spy as Kate Beckinsale, why couldn't she put 2 and 2 together like the rest of us.

Beckinsake, at age 51, is not quite as spry as her Underworld days or even her Total Recall stint - and even a platinum blonde wig doesn't do justice for her stunt double.

That said, highly evocative of The Blacklist and Alias in plot points and premises, the action is watchably entertaining in a streaming movie kind of way yet distinctly short of theatrical release quality.

The movie, as entertaining as it was for a Friday night on the couch, perhaps takes itself too seriously in pitching itself for a sequel. In the end, it felt like a pilot looking for a network pick up.

Canary Black is an action drama directed by Pierre Morel, director of Taken and Peppermint.

CIA agent Avery Graves (Kate Beckinsale) is blackmailed by terrorists when they kidnap her husband and threaten to kill him if she doesn't do what they ask of her. Avery has to steal the digital program Canary Black, but has to turn against her own agency to do so. This puts her in direct conflict with the terrorists and her own and other secret agent agencies.

After Taken, Pierre Morel has not had such success with action films. The script of a novice writer doesn't really help either, especially when the story comes across as a lesser mix between Taken and Peppermint, or other similar action films.

The action scenes are also too lively, with too much editing between the scenes or too zoomed in on the screen. As a result, they remain difficult to follow, or they seem unbelievable. As a result, there is little tension or entertainment left. Because of all these messy aspects, the cast members also get few opportunities to really come across well or believably.

I love Kate Beckinsale. In the past she delivered some really fun movies to watch but this film...Just ugh, not that great. Plot and story is blah and predictable. Why didn't they just kept her as an English agent? And for many scenes I didn't recognize her. I know we all age and it's fine but it just doesn't even look like her. Seems there had been some work done on the face but that's not even the important part, her acting is completely off. Just seems like a Temu version of the Kate we know. This movie made it seem like she's a mediocre actress who accepted this role for the heck of it. So disappointing...

This was a lot more fun than I expected. One might think one saw this same plot many times before. A highly trained woman CIA agent, whose husband has no idea what she does. Put into a blackmail situation where she is tasked to steal a highly secret and potentially explosive file if exposed. And she is given a short time to do that, and the person who is supposed to have the file on him doesn't. Of course the blackmailers won't take no for an answer. And the CIA considers that she has gone rogue. But the movie is fun to watch, and there are enough twists and turns to make things enjoyable, and builds to a nicely scripted climax.