I make it a habit of only spoiling bad movies. That way I can save you from wasting your money on bad movies and I get to vent a lot of frustration... Oh there will be spoilers for this one.
I'll be fair... for the most part, it's not a really bad movie. The action is pretty good (except for all the close up shaky cam), the acting is alright (but nothing special), and Statham does have some really good one-liners. But that's the only positives I have to share with this one.
This movie fails in some of the most basic elements of storytelling it makes me cringe. So, welcome again class to a new installment in our movie making 101 class. After watching Colombiana I came up with several ways it failed at storytelling. This one while doesn't make as many mistakes as Colombiana, this movie made such glaring errors they need to be highlighted.
Welcome to Storytelling 101 part 2.
1) Don't try to tell too much story in a short period of time. The first act of the movie is actually two different stories. One where we follow an 11-year-old Chinese girl and the other where we see Luke Wright (Statham) get his family murdered by the Russian mob. Other movies have done this kind of thing before; most notably Close Incounters of the Third Kind. But while Close Encounters took time and stuck with one family for several minutes, Safe shuffles through stories after every SCENE! It's so jarring I literally threw up my hands in frustration. Which brings me to the second problem with the first act.
2) Don't time shift so much! Especially if we are telling two different stories spanning over a year in about 15 minutes! It really is hard to keep up with what is happening and when. Act 1 needed a serious re-write. It's such a jumbled mess of rushed exposition and quick cuts.
3) Tell the exposition fairy to stay at home! It's an expression I've used in other reviews but sometimes in stories they have characters basically blurt out important information. I call these characters "the exposition fairy" because that's their only role in the movie. For example Spaceballs had Colonel Sanders. He's talking with President Scroob and Dark Helmet and he plainly tells Dark Helmet their plan to steal all of Druidia's air. Dark Helmet then looks into the camera and asks the audience if "everyone got that?" In this movie, Luke is in a cage fight. He's supposed to lose the fight because it was fixed. And that's why the Russian mob killed his wife... or girlfriend... or housemate... not sure because I never saw her. (more on that coming up) But the only way we the audience knew the fight was fixed and Luke screwed up was because someone just came out and told us. IT'S A MOVIE!!! SHOW!!! DON'T TELL!!!
4) Introduce a character before doing something to said character. I can't believe I have to even explain this point. If you don't know anything about the person, why should I care about this person? If the character's death is supposed to be tramatic to the main character, and I have no emotional investment in either the main character, his emotional well-being, or even aware of the existence of a love interest, why should I have any emotional investment in her death? AM I CRAZY? There's no drama in killing a red shirt!
5) Don't make the antagonist a surprise! In a story there's a protagonist, and an antagonist. Basically speaking the protagonist is the person we follow in the story, and the antagonist is the person trying to stop the protagonist from realizing his ambition. Usually we establish the antagonist in the first act. The end of act 1 in Die Hard, we introduce Hans Gruber and begin the conflict. In Safe we get a lot of bad people but the antagonist isn't even heard of except for a single phone call until the end of act 2! That means for over an hour we follow Quan Chang (Reggie Lee) as the sadistic Chinese mobster and surrogate "father" to Mei (Catherine Chan) but he's not the real antagonist because Chang gets killed off long before the climax of the movie. Can you say, "waste of time?" I knew you could.
6) The climax is not a minor detail! This is what angered me so much that I had to do my review like this. The only thing worse than having a terrible climax, IS NOT HAVING A CLIMAX AT ALL! Imagine if you will... you're watching Star Wars... you are watching as Luke Skywalker and all the rebels are getting ready to go attack the Death Star. Then the next scene is them coming back to base celebrating. Wouldn't you like to see what happened? I know I would. I'd feel a little ripped off if they didn't show me the destruction of the Death Star. In this movie we see Statham squaring off with Alex (Anson Mount), right after he single handedly killed the last remnants of the Chinese mob in about 5 seconds. They are getting ready for their epic hand-to-hand fight and then... the 11 year-old girl shoots him in the leg, Luke (Statham) shoots a lot more into his head, and then the movie just kinda wraps up. WORST POSSIBLE WAY TO END A MOVIE EVER!
Dear readers, I beg you, DEMAND better stories. Until next time.....
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