The Union

For a Netflix movie it had big screen action and actors and great locations. Very cool to finally see Berry and Wahlberg doing something together - on-screen professionals doing what they do best, make it look so easy and believable which redeems the weak script. You kinda wonder, if they are throwing all this money into big names and big action, why wouldn't they do better with the script and storyline? Script and storyline 3/10, actors, action and locations 8/10. So this gets an overall 6.

Found the scene blowing up the BBC BT Tower in London amusing and interesting (given that I'm a Londoner). What would London actually do if that happened!! Wowzers.

A truly awful film and a waste of a talented cast. The plot must have been written by AI. It had every cliched plot point you could imagine; the ordinary man becoming a hero; spy stuff; the beautiful ex-girlfriend; action; a foreign location. It wasn't even funny, just grim.i gritted my teal and slogged through it. I'd like to say that there were some interesting plot points that could have been done better it expanded upon, but that wasn't the case. I appreciate that companies such as Netflix need content to keep their subscribers happy, but the quality needs to be much better, even if it takes longer to produce.

Halle was hot in Wick, yet I don't know how they did it, but her walk was bad, her acting was bad, her fighting was bad, and her look and wardrobe was just awful. Mark was his usual good acting but even he couldn't do a whole lot with this movie. Fight scenes were sub-par, dialogue was cheesy and everything was so done before. I even stopped the movie to go take a walk. If I had had anything else to do I would not have finished it, but I didn't so ended up watching the rest and nothing about my initial perception changed. To sum up, if you have literally anything else to do go do it, otherwise set your bar low and enjoy.

Picturesque locations, good production values, some good actors and Mark Wahlberg, but nothing memorable. Perfect moving wallpaper to glance at occasionally while scrolling on your phone. Essentially it's a string of comfortable cliches strung together in a predictable sequence, designed to make you forget to cancel your Netflix subscription. Halle Berry looks better than ever, JK Simmons doesn't break a sweat using one of his 'grizzled' character templates.

The UK setting is puzzling because apart from the scenery it's almost wall-to-wall Americans doing American things in American ways. The Slovenian locations look beautiful but, again, they have no impact on the plot, which could easily have been generated by ChatGPT with a very short prompt.

It has become painfully clear that Hollywood is short on good writing. This movie has a ton of story to work with but instead flushes it down the toilet. To be clear it is a stylish action flick, it looks really pretty and the action scenes are fun to watch. The problem however is that the flick has employed an impressive number of A-list actors and gave them poop scripts. The only person that had any decent lines was J. K. Simmons, all the rest of the cast was wasted on a doo-doo script. It wouldn't be out of place to say this has been done before, and a lot better than this. After the plot was explained it was painfully obvious they just copy and pasted bits and pieces from other espionage movies to get this stylish looking thing on screens. It's too bad really, the story could have been worked into something much better than what the end result was. This is a watch and make fun of it while it plays movie, that could have been so much more.