Nobody 2

Does It Better

Nobody 2
Directed by Timo Tjahjanto
USA 2025
Universal
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Extremely minor spoiler you will see coming anyway.

After the surprise hit of Nobody (reviewed here) it’s no surprise that the ensemble team from the first film... Connie Nielson, Christopher Lloyd, RZA, Colin Salmon and, of course, Bob Odenkirk as lead protagonist Hutch... are back for a second installment in Nobody 2. And, before I go into this... let me assure fans of the first movie that, yes, this one’s also lots of fun and I can’t see the producers not green lighting a third film in the franchise as soon as possible. 

That being said, this one feels a little ‘by the numbers’ in terms of the formula of the first film, for sure. After continuing to work as an ultra sleek hit man, to try and pay off the debt from all the Russian mafia money he burned up in the first movie, Hutch and his family decide to take a vacation and end up in a water park where he and his wife first spent some really good times with the kids. However, it’s not long before arriving that Hutch’s son gets them all in trouble with the local mob boss, who is also dancing on a string to the ruthless Russian mobster, played by Sharon Stone. 

Before long, it’s black comedy and ultra violence all the way in much the same way as the first film in the series did it so well. And that’s possibly one of the problems. The film does its best ot hit all the right moments which audiences loved so much from the first film... but it maybe loses just a little in the process. 

So the cold opening starts off once again with Hutch and a new pet animal held prisoner by the FBI in an interrogation. Then we flash back to how he got there for the rest of the film, starting with the Monday to Sunday montage where, to his credit, he no longer misses putting out the trash for the weekly pick up, this time around. Then, when things get going into full on action, we have the big money burning moment (albeit accidentally this time), a tourist boat fight instead of a bus fight and, also, another sequence where Hutch and his extended family rig a series of traps for the big showdown... this time in the water park. 

The big thing that’s missing is that, in this one, the audience is already in on the joke that this middle aged dude is actually a reluctant killing machine and so, we don’t really have too much of the really powerful drama of the first to pull you back in again. And, since we know he’s very dangerous, there doesn’t quite seem to be the same stakes involved in the story to really hammer that home. 

But, you know, it’s got other things going for it. So while some of the dramatic situations and the various scenes seem quite a bit more contrived, we have a nice moment where an enemy becomes an ally for the big showdown at the end of the movie. Plus, you know, we get to see RZA use a katana against a heavy in a sword fight near the end of the movie. 

And that’s me just about done with Nobody 2 and, yeah, sorry for the short review but I really don’t have many complaints (other than I’ve no idea when those end title snapshots were supposed to have taken place because, not much of a spoiler, the water park is just a hole in the ground by the end of the movie). Fans of the first one should like this one quite a bit and I’m sure I’ll be sitting down for another installment in a few years. Nobody does it better but, Nobody 2 is not a bad follow up, as sequels go. 

Gladiator II

Maximus Carnage

Gladiator II
aka GladIIator
Directed by Ridley Scott
UK/USA 2024
Paramount Pictures
UK Cinema Release Print.

Warning: Very small spoilers.

I really wasn’t expecting much from Gladiator II (or GLADIIATOR, as the actual film print reads) as I didn’t think too much of the first movie when it hit cinemas. For me, the first Gladiator had some nicely staged battles and a fantastic score by Hans Zimmer. Those were the two standouts for me... other than that, it was an okay movie, not a great one. So I really wasn’t expecting much from this sequel which, honestly... did anyone want a sequel to a movie where the title character, Maximus, died at the end... thus going a good way to negating any attempt at a possible follow on.

Well, I have to say that, although Gladiator II is a completely unnecessary follow up, I actually preferred it a lot more to the first film. I mean, it’s still not a great film but, yeah, it kept me entertained for much longer and, despite running for two and a half hours, it didn’t really drag either (I thought the first one did drag, somewhat, it has to be said).

This one is, in terms of story content, a kind of toned down remake of the first movie where, this time, it’s Lucius, the grown up son of Maximus, played here by Paul Mescal, who is captured after his wife is killed by his mother’s new husband. Said husband, Marcus Acacius, is played by Pedro Pascal but he’s not really a villain and he plays the character sympathetically. Lucius goes about conquering the new games devised by two Caligula-like ruling emperors (who are essentially the main villains, for a bit), with the intention of taking his revenge on Acacius but there’s more to it than that. Denzel Washington plays the guy in charge of the Gladiatorial school, so to speak and he wants to use Lucius to rise up for his own political ends. Washington is amazing in this, as is the returning Connie Nielson as Lucilla.

There are political conspiracies paced with, frankly, somewhat over the top Colosseum games which include... I dunno... some kind of genetically altered killer ape/dog creatures and a flooded arena filled with sharks. Um, I assume there are going to be one or two accusations levelled at director Ridley Scott that he’s jumped the shark with this movie, for sure. That being said, although the action sequences are maybe not quite as consistently engaging as the first film, they still work very well and the quieter scenes where violence suddenly intrudes into the narrative have positively Japanese levels of arterial spray (well, more like arterial floods) and certainly liven up those moments considerably.

But, I don’t really care, as escapist fantasy it’s fast moving and, well it’s Ridley Scott so, whatever you may think of his movies post-1982 (after his three masterworks The Duellists, A L I E N and Blade Runner, reviewed here), you know that the cinematography is going to be nothing less than stunning so, yeah, no surprises there (and he seems to be using the different qualities of image tone between the two films for the flashbacks as the very thing which makes them feel like a window to the past). What did surprise me was the last combat scene in the film as I didn’t expect to see a certain character turning out to be the real villian until about half an hour before the end (I thought he would become an ally)

And as an added bonus, we get a score by one of Zimmer’s stable, the great Harry Gregson-Williams, who of course gave us the incredible score to Wonder Woman. And yes, Gladiator II is on CD and this was the real motivating factor that dragged me into cinemas to see (well, hear) this thing and, on the music front, I was not disappointed. I can’t wait to hear this thing as a stand alone listen, for sure. It does have a fair few nods to Zimmer’s leitmotif on occasion (although not the Holst derivative, from what I could hear) but it does its own thing and has some nice orchestration.

So yeah, I think that’s me done with Gladiator II other than to acknowledge that Derek Jacobi’s returning character feels somewhat wasted, Connie Nielson is the absolute glue which holds the film (and the story, to an extent) together and I didn’t even mind the tongue-in-cheek ‘I Am Spartacus’ moment after the Coliseum sea battle scene. Definitely worth seeing this one at a cinema if you can spare the time.

Nobody

My Name Is...

Nobody
2021 USA/Japan
Directed by Ilya Naishuller
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Some minor spoilers.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, Nobody is not a sequel or remake for the character in the famous Terence Hill movie. Nor is it, like a lot of reviewers have been suggesting, similar in style to the John Wick franchise... although, to be fair, it does have a few minor plot similarities and, sure, it’s loaded full of hard action sequences. This is nothing, if not an action flick with an upper case A! I’ve also read it’s a very humorous take on the action genre and, although it does have its moments, nope, I wouldn’t pigeon hole this movie as some kind of comedy thriller either. It does its own thing and it does it with a certain amount of style.

So we have a central character, Hutch, who was also known in the old days, for reasons revealed later in the film, as Nobody. He’s played by an actor who I’ve not seen before called Bob Odenkirk, who gives a very thoughtful and considered performance, I thought. Making what is, actually, the fairly fantastical, over the top, killing machine which productions like this have as their central role, a fairly believable person. Also, the writing helps out considerably here because, although he is the very definition of one of those super soldier action types found in a lot of cinema these days... he does take considerable hits and damage while he’s 'actioning away' and there are a few points when you think he’s not going to make it.

He lives with his wife played by Connie Neilsen (Wonder Woman’s mum... and I can guess why they’ve cast her as his significant other, if they get around to a sequel), his son and his daughter. His dad, played by Christopher Lloyd, lives in a care home and Hutch works a humdrum job for a boss played by the legendary Michael Ironside (who I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t even recognise... he looks so different in this).

The director takes a lot of time setting up Hutch’s bland, almost humiliating daily grind in a running day-by-day montage detailing his days Monday to Friday in short, quick cuts which get shortened with each repeat as the film goes through the days a few times more to hammer the message home (along with percussive, musical stings) that Hutch is not leading his best life. They then pile things on with a home invasion scene were Hutch doesn’t perform up to the expectations of his young son, a further blow to his ego (there’s a good reason he doesn’t defend himself as well as he might, revealed a little later in the movie) and, when he goes to track and reclaim a valuable item from one of the criminals, we see just where his heart is. On the way back, a young lady is threatened by a mob of thugs on a bus and then we get a quite spectacular scene where Hutch takes out the aggression pent up by everything we’ve seen thus far and he demolishes his opposition (while getting pretty beaten up himself). The problem is, one of the hoodlums he hospitalises is the younger brother of a very high up and extremely nasty ‘Russian mob bad guy’ and, when said villain finds out what’s been done, he comes for Hutch and his family. Which turns out to be, for the Russian and as you would expect in these kinds of movies... a bad idea. And that’s as much as I’ll say about the actual plot here.

The movie starts off strong with a heavily damaged Hutch in a police interview room, as we watch him, still in handcuffs, pull out a tin from a pocket and open it with a can opener, then pull out a little kitten from inside his jacket and put it on the table to eat from the tin. The two police detectives ask him who he is and then we (but not they), get the whole story as a flashback.

And it’s a nicely done movie with some solid performances and a crowd pleasing turn from Christopher Lloyd as the ex-FBI father who is pretty much a lethal weapon himself. There’s also an appearance from RZA of the Wu Tang Clan (who I remember seeing in a cameo in the Jim Jarmusch movie Ghost Dog - The Way Of The Samurai many years ago) and another cameo from Colin Salmon. It’s a solid cast and Aleksey Serebryakov, as the villain Yulian, also turns in a suitably unhinged performance.

The film rolls along very well and there’s a lovely bit of... hmm... what do I call this... inverted foreshadowing, where Hutch catches one of his co-workers trying to get something down from behind one of the ceiling tiles at some point and, towards the end of the film, it’s revealed just what it was she was trying to find and there comes a realisation that, yeah, we kinda knew that was coming all along. A nice little surprise which was hiding in plain sight, so to speak.

Also, the action sequences are handled very well. There’s never any confusion in the way it’s been edited so you know exactly where you are in a fight scene and you have the added bonus of never really knowing just how badly off any of the good guys in this are going to end up as nothing too ‘superhuman’ happens. Don’t get me wrong, the stunts and choreography are suitably over the top, as you would expect from a modern day action yarn but, there are no times in the scenes where you think that maybe any of the characters were performing in a way contrary to what a person would be able to sustain in a real life fire fight of this nature and... it feels very grounded a lot of the time.

Also, the ending of the film sets up the possibility of any number of sequels and I hope, if that happens, the writers won’t forget that Connie Nielsen can be a bit of an ‘action gal’ too and bring her in as her and Hutch certainly seem to have a ‘shared history’ in terms of their old professions... oh yeah, forgot to mention, there’s a very good reason why the central character can do what he does but I don’t want to spoil the character back story reveal here, other than to say that there’s a nice running joke in the movie as, every time he tries to explain his past to one of his opponents, they end up dying before hearing the end of the story.

So there you have it, Nobody is a nice action movie with, actually, a lot of heart in it. This could easily be made into a franchise and I’m hoping the very small audience numbers I saw it with don’t stop a sequel from happening in terms of box office takings. Oh... and stick around after the first minute of credits because there’s another nice little epilogue scene featuring Christopher Lloyd and RZA which isn’t essential but certainly lays more groundwork for any other sequels which may be coming. I’d definitely recommend Nobody to fans of the action genre, especially to those audience members who are getting a bit long in the tooth. A fine movie and I hope we see some more of these characters before long.

Stratton

Stratton ‘til Morning

Stratton
2017 UK Directed by Simon West
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Some very minor spoilerage in this one.

I always find Simon West a bit hit and miss as a director, to be honest. I hadn’t thought too much of the Stratton trailer when I saw it a few weeks ago but was willing to give it a try because I quite like Dominic Cooper and it’s rare that I actually get to see him headlining a movie... especially an action movie, no less. I loved him as the vampire turned hunter in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (reviewed here), for instance. Stratton is based on the main character from the majority of Duncan Falconer’s novels and is a bit of a stand in for Falconer himself, who modelled the character after his time in the Special Boat Service of the Royal Navy (basically the Navy’s version of the SAS). However, I don’t think this movie is based on any of the specific Stratton novels, or they would have been more forthcoming with a ‘based on’ credit at least somewhere (although I could be wrong).

Now, it has to be said that the film has had some pretty awful word of mouth and, to be fair, it does have its problems but the film is not too bad if you don’t mind the action sequences seeming a bit lacking in this one. Of course, you could argue it’s an action film but, to avoid disappointment, you might want to tell yourself it’s a secret agent film with some action sequences thrown in. Either way, if you’re going for the action you might want to have a little rethink as no reviewer, I would imagine, would call this ‘high octane’ stuff. However, like I said, it’s not too bad.

The film opens strongly with two agents, one of whom is Dominic Cooper as Stratton, as they go through an underwater tube/pipe system to penetrate a ‘secret lair’ but the mission goes horribly wrong due to incorrect intel and also the fact that “the bad guys” knew they were coming. This opening sequence, following on from some nicely designed main titles, is quite suspenseful and everything you could want it to be... up until a point. That point being when the two agents leave the tube system and find themselves in an empty complex with the object of their mission already snaffled by the bad guys, a load of dead workers and a load of gunmen standing between them and their extraction point. It’s here that the inadequacy of the budget (which I assume was low on the evidence of the resulting film) seems to sink in and things get less exciting. For instance, when Stratton lets off all the charges that he and his fellow agent have planted in the ‘is it a secret lair or... what the heck is it’ place, well... we had indoor fireworks once, when I was a kid and, to be honest, they had more of a bang than the sad, little explosion that occurs here.

And that’s the real big problem with this film... the action sequences. I don’t know if the stunts and effects work in this were affected by a terribly low budget, as I imagine it to be, or were just not very well conceived. The case could be made that the dialogue scenes leading up to and around those ‘not quite set pieces’ are actually quite good (although a little predictable) but I did think the writers did well in painting some nice little portraits of the lead character and his team.

Of course, the actors here more than pull their weight with that dialogue, with Cooper ably supported by Derek Jacobi as his ‘boat life friend’ as well as Connie Nielsen, who I’d recently seen as Queen Hippolyta in Wonder Woman (reviewed here), a role she will be reprising in the upcoming Justice League movie, by the looks of things. Here, she plays Stratton’s boss and the dynamic is like a slightly more active version of the Judi Dench version of M from the Bond films but it kinda works and I was quite impressed how the character didn’t do the obvious things like reprimanding the team for the various shenanigans that they botch up during their missions and she seemed like a really fair boss to work for, I’d have to say. Also, watch out for a lady on Stratton’s team called Aggy... she is played here by an actress called Gemma Chan and she’s one of those people who dominates the screen whenever she’s on. I wouldn’t be surprised if some director cottons on to this in future and she starts getting some major league roles (fingers crossed).

Cooper himself is okay in the lead role but I just didn’t really believe him as the kind of action man the writers wanted me to think of him as. I know Henry Cavill dropped out a week before shooting this and I wonder how tailored the role was to that actor. I do know Cooper looks uncannily like GI Joe in this one than was too close for comfort. And by that I mean the specific English character called GI Joe. To explain, as a child no kid had the internet or even much of a hint as to what was going on in the rest of the world in the same period of history other than what they caught on TV so we weren’t really aware of global, alternative brand names. In England, the American GI Joe line was manufactured by Palitoy and known over here, quite affectionately by people of a certain age, as Action Man. However, one of the 'action men' had a scruffy looking beard and that one was known as GI Joe. And it’s this scruffy beard that both Dominik Cooper and his new work partner, played by Austin Stowell, are wearing in this movie as they pursue the bad guy played by Thomas Kretschmann and... I don’t know, it was almost a ‘comedy’ beard as far as I was concerned. I don’t think it helps make Dominic Cooper look like a ‘manly man’s man’ at all and it kind of slips into the realm of camp humour at certain points. Ah well, at least his beard and moustache didn’t get better lines than he did and, despite this slight problem, Mr. Cooper still does a fantastic and believable job with his character so... not complaining too much.

The score, by the way, by Nathaniel Méchaly, is absolutely superb and plays just like the score to a modern Bond movie, only better. It seems to be used a lot in an almost inappropriately up tempo style to make the scenes somehow play faster than they actually are and I couldn’t help but think of a young Elmer Bernstein employing the same tactic to speed up the pacing of The Magnificent Seven all those decades ago. Méchaly does some really good work here and I truly think EON productions should give this one a listen and maybe give him a shot at the next Bond film because, quite frankly, he’s already doing it here. This stuff is in a way different ball park from his earlier scores for the Taken trilogy, for sure. Such a shame, then, that the score is unavailable to buy at the time of writing this review. A nice CD of this would not go amiss.

But like I said, the action is a bit of a problem here. Other action movies might end with a shoot out or chase on a cruise liner or an aircraft or with a big building going boom... this one has a double decker bus chase. Not that I’m knocking the ability of the humble double decker bus to take part in action movies, after all we’ve seen the effectiveness of said transportation in both Live And Let Die (reviewed here) and The Mummy Returns. It has to be said, though, the ending of this movie falls a little shy of spectacular and the post-action scene stab at the possibility of a future romance in Stratton’s life seems like such an afterthought that it’s a little laughable. Also, there’s a twist with one of the characters which is revealed about half way through but, even though I had no clue there should be a twist, I figured out that there would be because one of the characters seemed a little too shady. Which is bizarre but I saw it coming from the opening sequence onwards in terms of the identity of the ‘mole’ in the department so, yeah, not so well played by the writers, on that one, I felt.

All in all, Stratton is not a bad movie... just a little flat. In fact, what it reminded me of mostly was of a really great 'made for TV' movie of the 1970s where they got everything right. It’s just not what I would expect to see being touted in a modern cinema setting. More like an extended episode of The Professionals than something the big leaguers would be knocking out. That being said, I did find it quite enjoyable and diverting so I’ve really no complaints and it genuinely doesn’t deserve the negative attention it’s been getting, that’s for sure. So... see it if you like to watch the odd bit of adventure storytelling and you don’t mind if the action choreography seems a little tame in places. There have been worse movies thrust onto an unsuspecting public this year.