This movie revels in its status as a dumb action flick, and doesn’t disappoint in delivering fun, vehicle-based, over-the-top action. And when it does deliver even moderate emotional payoff it hits much harder because it’s unexpected.
Closest comparison: It’s the next ratchet up in The Fast And The Furious series.
Setting: Super Hero
Plot: Espionage
Tone: Action
This movie takes a good idea for a super hero story and muddies the water with bad dialogue, clunky exposition, and forced character motivations. The special effects are very good, but its penchant for depicting violent deaths stands head and shoulders above its peers in the genre. It suffers from the same problem as Superman, granting its protagonist too much power to allow for coherent stakes. Surprisingly, Pierce Brosnan’s Dr. Fate gets the best character arc in the whole runtime.
Content warning: violence
Closest comparison: It’s like Suicide Squad (2021) by way of Man of Steel (2013).
Setting: Adventure
Plot: Super hero
Tone: Action
This movie is hilarious, but the plot and world building are horrible. It takes a whole scene to set up a certain mechanic early on in the film, and the one time that mechanic comes back into play it completely breaks its own rules. If the story beats were even sort of passable this movie would be great because of how funny it is, but the movie goes out of its way to explain normal things that need no explanation in such a way as to make no sense at all.
Closest comparison: It’s like Ready Player One by way of Divergent.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Dystopia
Tone: Comedy
This movie is a fun action romp, that nicely wraps up in the end the questions it raises along the way (with a few minor exceptions). It’s charmingly garish and seems to be having fun making standard action tropes look good. The three veteran action leads are effortlessly charismatic and play the whole film with a smirk and a wink.
Closest comparison: It’s like Mission: Impossible by way of Hobbs and Shaw.
Setting: Action
Plot: Espionage
Tone: Adventure
This movie is in some ways more of the same from this franchise, but ramped up to the next level. It has a bigger heist, more questionable physics, and a bigger guy (Dwayne Johnson) chasing the protagonists. The emphasis on family and low-level street crime has been mostly done away with in favor of high-tech missions and international stakes.
Closest comparison: It’s like Mission: impossible 3 by way of The Rundown.
Setting: Espionage Action
Plot: Espionage Action
Tone: Espionage Action
This is a solid sequel with great locations and action setpieces in the same vein as its 2017 predecessor. Because of the nature of these films there’s an aspect of the acting that amounts to the actors doing impressions of each other, hamming it up as they go, and that is much more varied in this film. The main characters are doing impressions of multiple people throughout the runtime and it’s fun and funny to watch. The action / adventure part gets predictable and unrealistic in several places, but here it’s funny instead of irritating because of the video game premise. It’s not as good as the previous installment, but still a lot of fun.
Closest comparison: It’s like The Saint (1997) by way of Indiana Jones.
Setting: Adventure
Plot: Action Adventure
Tone: Adventure Comedy
Sure, this movie is dumb, but it’s so much fun I can’t give it just a 3/5. The action is big and cool, one setpiece after another with awesome fights and stunts and just enough plot to get you from one to the next. It seems intent on going bigger than everybody else, upping Marvel’s two mid- and post-credits scene ante with four of their own. There are lots of awesome slow-mo stunts that are impressive even in a world of CGI because of how gorgeous and colorful the whole movie is.
Closest comparison: It’s the Mission Impossible II of the Fast and Furious franchise, in all the best ways.
Setting: Action Adventure
Plot: Action Thriller
Tone: Action Comedy
Don't let the rating fool you, this movie is lots of fun. It's a much-needed return to 90's thrill ride action movies and blends Die Hard with a disaster movie to the expected result. That said, it has its flaws, of course. The kids do a mediocre acting job at best, and there are plenty of confusing motivations and convoluted plans staring simpler ones in the face. But you could do a whole lot worse, and the CGI around the prosthetic leg combined with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's portrayal of the character with an injury is some of the best I've ever seen. Great action setp-pieces and pasted-on everything else make for a fun time at the movies.
