For 96 Minutes in Hardcore Henry, you think the main silent character of Henry is having a seizure he cannot die from. But you wish he would because he has absolutely no personality whatsoever.
I was following the movie titled 'Hardcore' back when a 6 minute scene hit Youtube in 2014. I was absolutely stunned by the premise. It looked like it could actually work. As I kept my eyes open for this movie, a trailer was released with a new title 'Hardcore Henry' and it looked bloody awesome. So when I saw it today after seeing the reviews, I hoped it would exceed my expectations and be my favorite film of the year so far.
Unfortunately, with movies like these, you need your expectations set very low.
What's the Plot of Hardcore Henry? Hell if I know. From what I understand, the plot involves robots, multiple Sharlto Copley characters, a villain reminiscent of Tommy Wiseau, extreme gore and violence... that's about it.
I could say there is no plot in this film, but to my surprise, there is too much plot. The plot is extremely complicated to follow. Henry gets resurrected as a robot, turns into an absolute killing machine, finds out that Jimmy (Sharlto Copley) is a handicapped person who has multiple versions of himself that he can exit from at any time, also finds out the villain has his memories implanted into other robots for them to fight him which makes absolutely no freaking sense. Why did they make a movie that is suppose to have very little plot have too much plot?! It's ridiculous.
As much as I love Sharlto Copley, his performance(s) cannot save this movie from being over the top crazy and unnecessarily stupid. I couldn't follow his back-story at all.
The main problem I have with this movie is the camera work. It is actually interesting on how it works. They had three people film it. They put a camera headset over their head and when filming started they start doing whatever they need to do. It's actually quite revolutionary in technological advancements for film. But although it's an original idea (Kind of, I mean the Doom movie did the first person shooter thing too) it is horribly done.
The camera always shakes violently and never ever stops to get in focus of where the action is. People complain about found footage movies having too much shaky cam, but this goes to a whole new level of obnoxious. You cannot see the violence or action going on because the camera seems to be having a seizure. Also, the static like effects of the camera are bad also and very annoying. I felt like I was going to fall out of my seat and roll down the theater stairs breaking my legs. That's how bad the camera work is.
The villain. Oh my god the villain is just hilarious. He is the Tommy Wiseau of this generation. I forgot his name (It's some Russian name so I don't know) but his performance is so funny. I could not stop grinning every single time he came on.
Did I like anything? Yeah. I liked the music. The music actually wasn't that bad. Although I feel like the movie could have been done without music, the score is pretty good. With the exception of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now which plays when Henry injects himself with two syringes full of adrenaline. That was probably it though.
It was disappointing to know that something this groundbreaking could go this south of the border. If the camera-work was done better, if there was anyone likable to route for, if the violence and action could be seen, this would have gotten a 90/100 or better. But unfortunately, Hardcore Henry is not the film I hoped for.
Also, I didn't know robots had flesh that was made out of paper. Seriously, robots can just rip their own hearts out with no problem.
39/100 D+
I was following the movie titled 'Hardcore' back when a 6 minute scene hit Youtube in 2014. I was absolutely stunned by the premise. It looked like it could actually work. As I kept my eyes open for this movie, a trailer was released with a new title 'Hardcore Henry' and it looked bloody awesome. So when I saw it today after seeing the reviews, I hoped it would exceed my expectations and be my favorite film of the year so far.
Unfortunately, with movies like these, you need your expectations set very low.
What's the Plot of Hardcore Henry? Hell if I know. From what I understand, the plot involves robots, multiple Sharlto Copley characters, a villain reminiscent of Tommy Wiseau, extreme gore and violence... that's about it.
I could say there is no plot in this film, but to my surprise, there is too much plot. The plot is extremely complicated to follow. Henry gets resurrected as a robot, turns into an absolute killing machine, finds out that Jimmy (Sharlto Copley) is a handicapped person who has multiple versions of himself that he can exit from at any time, also finds out the villain has his memories implanted into other robots for them to fight him which makes absolutely no freaking sense. Why did they make a movie that is suppose to have very little plot have too much plot?! It's ridiculous.
As much as I love Sharlto Copley, his performance(s) cannot save this movie from being over the top crazy and unnecessarily stupid. I couldn't follow his back-story at all.
The main problem I have with this movie is the camera work. It is actually interesting on how it works. They had three people film it. They put a camera headset over their head and when filming started they start doing whatever they need to do. It's actually quite revolutionary in technological advancements for film. But although it's an original idea (Kind of, I mean the Doom movie did the first person shooter thing too) it is horribly done.
The camera always shakes violently and never ever stops to get in focus of where the action is. People complain about found footage movies having too much shaky cam, but this goes to a whole new level of obnoxious. You cannot see the violence or action going on because the camera seems to be having a seizure. Also, the static like effects of the camera are bad also and very annoying. I felt like I was going to fall out of my seat and roll down the theater stairs breaking my legs. That's how bad the camera work is.
The villain. Oh my god the villain is just hilarious. He is the Tommy Wiseau of this generation. I forgot his name (It's some Russian name so I don't know) but his performance is so funny. I could not stop grinning every single time he came on.
Did I like anything? Yeah. I liked the music. The music actually wasn't that bad. Although I feel like the movie could have been done without music, the score is pretty good. With the exception of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now which plays when Henry injects himself with two syringes full of adrenaline. That was probably it though.
It was disappointing to know that something this groundbreaking could go this south of the border. If the camera-work was done better, if there was anyone likable to route for, if the violence and action could be seen, this would have gotten a 90/100 or better. But unfortunately, Hardcore Henry is not the film I hoped for.
Also, I didn't know robots had flesh that was made out of paper. Seriously, robots can just rip their own hearts out with no problem.
39/100 D+