And...just like a train-wreck, you can't tear your gaze away from it.
Wether it's the awful CGI, the wooden acting, the badly comped-in scenes and obvious green-screen work, the hilariously gigantic sets, the sheer number of bad guys that can fit on one ship, or any of the myriad of other little hilarities, you just. Can't. Not. Watch. It.
The CGI is like something you might expect in a fanpro production, not something that supposedly cost $100 million. I've seen more convincing and realistic scenes in video games - and not particularly recent ones, either.
The acting varies. Statham is still watchable and trying his best, even when he's in a scene with someone who was added in later (Stallone). Honestly, whomever thought that comping work was a good job needs a new career.
Then there's Megan Fox. If ever there was an award for "Most miscast 'actor' " it's her. She manages to act reasonably, but is about as believable in her role as your average five-year old in the school play.
Back to effects... green-screen work. It's really obvious here and it seems nobody told the people doing it that, you know... lighting matters. To be fair though, I'm not sure it was all green-screen. Some of it looked like back-projection work, but not from something like The Volume, but a much poorer, knock-off version. Either way, it's jarringly obvious. In some instances about the same level of realism as when Mark Hamill stood in front of the Wing Commander game graphics during the cut-scenes for that game. It's bad!
Then we have the monster cargo vessel, or as it actually is here...overly large sets. I'll be honest, I don't know a lot about the life of merchant sailors, but I doubt their ships have passageways wide enough to comfortably ride motorcycles through. In one scene, you even get a nice shot of the inside of a obvious warehouse complete with roof joists etc.
But the size of the sets is necessary, as the "ship" is stocked with hundreds of disposable extras. I'm not kidding. Someone needs to do a kill count here as there was never any shortage of them.
If the film had been competently made, with decent FX and minus a few of the actors whom (let's be polite about it) were included to make the movie marketable in China, then it might have been less of an assault on the senses. As it is, however, it is just a candidate for worst movie of the year as far as I'm concerned.
SUMMARY: Bad movie, bad franchise entry, bad actors, BAD casting, BAD CGI, BAD sets, BAD! By far the worst of the bunch so far. Text-book example of how NOT to make an action movie.
Wether it's the awful CGI, the wooden acting, the badly comped-in scenes and obvious green-screen work, the hilariously gigantic sets, the sheer number of bad guys that can fit on one ship, or any of the myriad of other little hilarities, you just. Can't. Not. Watch. It.
The CGI is like something you might expect in a fanpro production, not something that supposedly cost $100 million. I've seen more convincing and realistic scenes in video games - and not particularly recent ones, either.
The acting varies. Statham is still watchable and trying his best, even when he's in a scene with someone who was added in later (Stallone). Honestly, whomever thought that comping work was a good job needs a new career.
Then there's Megan Fox. If ever there was an award for "Most miscast 'actor' " it's her. She manages to act reasonably, but is about as believable in her role as your average five-year old in the school play.
Back to effects... green-screen work. It's really obvious here and it seems nobody told the people doing it that, you know... lighting matters. To be fair though, I'm not sure it was all green-screen. Some of it looked like back-projection work, but not from something like The Volume, but a much poorer, knock-off version. Either way, it's jarringly obvious. In some instances about the same level of realism as when Mark Hamill stood in front of the Wing Commander game graphics during the cut-scenes for that game. It's bad!
Then we have the monster cargo vessel, or as it actually is here...overly large sets. I'll be honest, I don't know a lot about the life of merchant sailors, but I doubt their ships have passageways wide enough to comfortably ride motorcycles through. In one scene, you even get a nice shot of the inside of a obvious warehouse complete with roof joists etc.
But the size of the sets is necessary, as the "ship" is stocked with hundreds of disposable extras. I'm not kidding. Someone needs to do a kill count here as there was never any shortage of them.
If the film had been competently made, with decent FX and minus a few of the actors whom (let's be polite about it) were included to make the movie marketable in China, then it might have been less of an assault on the senses. As it is, however, it is just a candidate for worst movie of the year as far as I'm concerned.
SUMMARY: Bad movie, bad franchise entry, bad actors, BAD casting, BAD CGI, BAD sets, BAD! By far the worst of the bunch so far. Text-book example of how NOT to make an action movie.