Smack My Henry Up
Today I delved into being talked at by watching Hardcore Henry (2016).
.jpg)
Right from the "can't stop running and fighting" genre of Crank and Crank 2, Hardcore Henry injects the movement of an action movie directly into your head. This is a movie that came together from a pretty engaging ten minute short film that made the rounds on the internet a few years ago and in a broad look at a broad overview of the movie, does follow through on creating an entertaining experience.
There are a lot of weird things that don't connect in this movie. The writing and the acting feel very amateurish at times, even as Sharlto Copley (best known as Wikus in District 9) does all the heavy lifting for the actors as he oddly plays many many versions of the same person. The love interest and the villain pop in an out and their only purpose seems to ppretend there's a plot to the movie.
In the end I think this project came six months too early. The action is very well orchestrated, it plays with music (it does a great job using Queen's Gonna Have a Good Time but it comes in the same manor in the same place in the movie as Shawn of the Dead used the same song years before), and it's rather brutally violent (although it might have touched over the line into aspiring to be a snuff film in the opening credits). This should have been married with a musical artist like the visual albums of Beyonce and Frank Ocean this year. It should have been more loose and mysterious with the plot and play along with the music. I don't know what artist could have pulled it off, but rather than EDM, I think a rock group could have made this something fun and critically acclaimed.
It is bad at times, and it's fun in the ways it's bad. It builds a world and teases a story, however, the teases don't work as well as the world building. It's a movie that's worth a rental... as long as you don't get motion sickness.
