Saturday, April 26, 2014

Brick Mansions

Man, and here I was thinking Divergent was a stupid movie. My lord, the stupidity on display in that movie has nothing on the sheer ludicrous level of idiocy that's present in Brick Mansions. To be perfectly blunt, there wasn't a single brain cell present during the production of this flick, and I fear that I may have lost several brain cells of my own while watching this thing.

(Warning: stupid spoilers ahead)

In what I believe is supposed to be Paul Walker's last non-Fast movie, he plays, shock of all shocks, an undercover cop who is sent in to a closed off section of the city known as Brick Mansions in order to defuse a bomb. And along the way, shenanigans happen, and well known cold blooded murderers are left with Mr. Straight Laced Cop Paul Walker's support in their attempt to run for city mayor. Oh yeah, this shit gets stupid, but more on that later!

Also similar to Divergent in addition to its moronic writing, I also knocked against that movie for its unintentionally goofy use of parkour throughout. But, again, Divergent has nothing on the silliness of the parkour stunts put to work here in Brick Mansions. Now, to be fair to this movie, I did watch it only a week removed from The Raid 2 (which is, quite frankly, a masterpiece of action cinema), so watching this movie with that one still fresh in mind was a major disservice to it, and made it just that much harder than usual to take its action sequences seriously, where as if I were more distanced from The Raid 2, I might've been able to take it for what it was and appreciate it for being just some dumb and silly yet inoffensive action.

But even so, the action here is like this movie thought it was being so cool and so slick, yet these scenes are so oblivious to just how silly and impossible to take seriously they are. I was left chuckling all throughout, when I could tell that the intended reaction was something more akin to awe. Nope, the only awe-inspiring aspect this movie has to offer is the unfathomable depths of stupidity that it manages to delve to.

No, I really can't stress just how stupid this movie gets by the end, and after I walked out, I had trouble even attempting to describe to my friend the sheer amount of idiocy that I had just witnessed. I mean, pretty much until the big twist ending that flipped the movie on its head, I was willing to accept this as just a really cheesy but stupidly fun little action flick. But then the main villain, a drug lord played by the RZA, has a sudden and absolutely out of nowhere change of heart, as do each and every single one of his thugs working under him. And we're also suddenly supposed to buy them as being these heart felt "for the people" kinda human beings who are praised as genuine heroes that we, the viewer, are supposed to rally behind and support. All of this, as if we hadn't just spent the prior 80 minutes seeing these vile, awful people commit acts of cold blooded murder, kidnapping innocents for ransom, and on top of the rest of their drug-related schemes, actually threatening to level an entire city for money.

Yes, let me emphasize this for you, these are the heroes of this movie. And the movie even goes so far as to have Paul Walker, the good guy, have a turn around of his own and have their back in the end as well, supporting the drug lord RZA's run for mayor (no, I sadly wasn't joking about that before), and waving out at these thugs with a smile on his face as he drives by, as if they weren't just trying to shoot each other up all throughout the rest of this idiotic thing. I just... what? What?!

I still have a hard time really even thinking straight when it concerns this stupid freaking movie. Brick Mansions is unintentionally, unfathomably, unforgivably, and insultingly idiotic. So much so that I felt them paying respects to the late Paul Walker just before the credits rolled was actually kind of disrespectful coming after a movie such as this. Sure, Walker wasn't bad here, but my lord, if you want to see a good recent Paul Walker movie, for the love of god go see Hours instead. Nobody saw that movie, yet it was actually a genuinely good movie with a great performance from Paul Walker, which is far more than can be said for this shamefully awful thing.

12 comments:

  1. Such a shame there isn't even a listed release date for this film here in Australia :P Looks like I'll just have to miss out haha!

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    1. Oh believe me, you aren't missing out on anything, lol. :P

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  2. Never planned on watching this one, and, now, I definitely won't... Thanks for the warning!

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    1. That's what I'm here for, Tanner. Taking one for the team, haha. ;)

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  3. Boy did this look awful. And I guess I was right. Poor Paul Walker has to have this as his last movie. I'll surely be skipping this. Nice review Chris.

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    1. Thanks, Whit. It is a shame that this is what he goes out on, 'cause this is probably also his worst movie to date (worst one I've seen, at least). :\

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  4. I know people are probably interested in seeing this because it's Paul Walker's last movie but man it looked awful even from the trailer, heck even reading the concept itself sounds bad. Too bad you had to take this one for the team, Chris!

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    1. Yeah, I honestly wasn't expecting it to be nearly as bad as it was, but sure enough. Guy really deserved to go out on a better flick. Thanks, Ruth.

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  5. It was a poorly written and goofy film but it's no worse than the majority of action flicks out there. It's worth watching as a fun mind numbing flick which is what these kind of movies are all about.

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    1. I dunno, I've seen some goofy, stupid action flicks in my time, but FEW that are as unawares to just how overly silly and idiotic they are as in this flick. This one is a whole new level of that, IMO. Thanks, Chad.

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  6. Good review Chris. I expected this to be stupid, which is why I had fun with it. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing in between. Just dumb.

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