your Kung-Fu is *not* strong

Average rating: 6

The Doorman (2020) - "In this punishing action-thriller starring Ruby Rose, a former Marine turned doorman at a luxury New York City high-rise must outsmart and battle a group of art thieves and their ruthless leader (Jean Reno)—while struggling to protect her sister's family. As the thieves become increasingly desperate and violent, the doorman calls upon her deadly fighting skills to end the showdown."
length: 1 hour, 37 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD through the public library
I watched it because: Jean Reno is my hero
IMDB: 4.7/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 24% Audience: 24%
my IMDB: 4/10

MPAA rating: R

directed by: Ryûhei Kitamura

my notes: some interesting and well-executed fights, interspersed with some of the most wooden acting I've seen since Pinocchio. Both kids are terrible, the dad not much better. I wanted to care, but couldn't. I then just wanted to be swept along by the action, but it's just no good. The story and its unending coincidences are just too implausible.

    RogerEbert.com's review is here, at which I snorted with laughter. Poorly written and wrong in the details, it is an embarrassment to the memory of Mr. Ebert. 

overall: not  recommended unless you've got a really good (personal) reason to want to. And since I did, and since Jean Reno could film himself watching paint dry and I'd watch it—I will see this again, even though it's kinda awful.

 

The Core (2003) - "Geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) discovers that an unknown force has caused the earth's inner core to stop rotating. With the planet's magnetic field rapidly deteriorating, our atmosphere literally starts to come apart at the seams with catastrophic consequences. To resolve the crisis, Keyes, along with a team of the world's most gifted scientists, travel into the earth's core. Their mission: detonate a device that will reactivate the core."
length: 2 hours, 15 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD through the public library
I watched it because: Tchécky Karyo plays Serge Leveque
IMDB: 5.5/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 39% Audience: 34%
my IMDB: 6/10

MPAA rating: PG-13

notable quote: "'I'm married to my work.'

    'So am I. Which makes my wife my mistress. That's why I'm still in love with her.'"

directed by: Jon Ameil

my notes: silly, unintentionally funny, melodramatic ... and thus surprising. I watched with rapt interest. The movie is better than the sum of its parts. 

    Roger Ebert's review is here, which is hilariously tongue-in-cheek. 

Eventually they reach a depth where the pressure is 800,000 pounds per square inch–and then they put on suits to walk around outside. Their suits are obviously made of something stronger and more flexible than Unobtainium. Probably corduroy. 

overall: curiously, recommended

A Working Man (2025) - "Levon Cade has left his profession behind him to go 'straight' and work in construction. He wants to live a simple life and be a good father to his daughter. But when his boss's teenage daughter Jenny vanishes, he's called upon to re-employ the skills that made him a legendary figure in the shadowy world of black ops. His hunt for the missing college student takes him deep into the heart of a sinister criminal conspiracy creating a chain reaction that will threaten his new way of life."
length: 1 hour, 56 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD through the public library
I watched it because: I feel like, by this point, everyone ought to know that there is a list of actors whose movies are a must-watch for me, regardless of subject matter (and indeed I don't even care to know the subject matter before I dive in); Statham is right up there on that list
IMDB: 5.7/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 47% Audience: 87%
my IMDB: 7/10

MPAA rating: R

notable quote: "'Stay on my six.'

    'What does that mean?'

    [nonplussed] '...Follow me.'"
directed by: David Ayer (and co-written by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone)

my notes: I delighted in it. Jason Statham plays to his strengths, seeking out films that highlight the stuff he's good at and enjoys—and it shows. Is it possible to guess, at the beginning, how things will work out in the end? Maybe so. Does it work out just like you imagine? Probably not. 

    I liked David Harbour (as the movie's real heart, Gunny Lefferty), Maximilian Osinski (as the terrifically costumed, wackadoodle Dimi), and Eve Mauro (as the psychopath, Artemis). Arianna Rivas as the plucky Jenny is amazing. Watching her progress from the start of the film to the end is really cool.

    RogerEbert.com's review is here, with which I mostly agree (and at which I giggled a little).

[T]he ability to take the best pieces of the genre, in the process making your own specific brand of action movie, to the point that your name becomes a kind of trademark, is paramount for an action star. Statham has done it. You can only judge Statham’s work on the scale he’s built for himself.  

overall:  recommended

Oliver Twist (1948) - "When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist (John Howard Davies) dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble (Francis L. Sullivan), for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger (Anthony Newley) and his criminal mentor, Fagin (Alec Guinness). When kindly Mr. Brownlow (Henry Stephenson) takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes (Robert Newton) plots to kidnap the boy."
length: 1 hour, 45 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: I think I last saw it in maybe 8th grade, so it seemed due time to review
IMDB: 7.8/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 100% Audience: 84%
my IMDB: 7/10

MPAA rating: Approved

notable quote: "'The law assumes that your wife acts under your direction.'

    'If the law supposes that, then the law is an ass, an idiot! If that's the eye of the law, then the law is a bachelor. And the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience.'"

directed by: David Lean

my notes: win some, lose some. David Lean's Great Expectations (1946, reviewed here and here) is a favorite, beautifully filmed (for its day), compelling, and fun. This adaptation is kind of a mess, somehow managing to be both frantic and dull. It is not objectively bad, just not my thing. It is worth seeing, and is clearly well-regarded. Prehaps I'm just not the "urchin" type?

overall: marginally recommended

 

[the title quotation is from The Core]