The Union

Going into this action/comedy movie, I knew nothing about it and my expectation was extremely low. Maybe too low but I felt this movie started out OK. Things made sense but it went South (way South) very very quickly. Everything was sub-par ranging from action scenes to acting, and it was really getting painful to watch toward the end. There was no climax whatsoever. Thank God I was not watching this in the movie theater!

Unless you have watched everything on Netflix (which I was told simply impossible), please skip this one. You have not missed much and glad that you have followed my advice.

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.

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.

So not even 5 minutes into the movie, and you can already tell who the villain is, and how the movie most likely will end.

Unfortunately I was right.

It was way too predictable, some bad acting and emotions not making sense on the situations.

Choices and decisions that wouldn't make any sense at all, especially not from a so-called agency.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun mindless watch and you should just turn off your brain, grab some chips and a beer and just watch together as a family. But other then that, it's not a movie I'd recommend. It doesn't stand out, fails to suprise or amaze, and honestly it felt long.

So if you're looking for something entertaining to watch as a family, than sure this movie will do.

However if you really want to watch something that drags you in, having you wonder what will happen next or suprise you, then skip this one.

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.