User Reviews

"Survivor" is a 2015 film starring Pierce Brosnan, Milla Jovovich, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, Angela Bassett, and 'Vicious' star Frances de la Tour.

In London, a new State Department employee, Kate Abbott (Jovovich) has the assignment of examining all visas and keeping terrorists out of the U.K. There is a traitor in their midst, and her refusal to back down makes her a target for death, and she is framed for explosions and murders.

Kate goes on the run and soon learns of an attack to take place in New York City. She is being trailed by one of the most successful and ruthless assassins of all time, Nash (Brosnan), known as the Watchmaker.

Everyone in her office has turned against her except for Sam (McDermott) and Sally (de la Tour) who know she is innocent. In fact, one of the big bosses (Angela Bassett) wants her shot on sight.

Kate must get out of the country and go to New York and stop the attack. Will it be possible with the Watchmaker after her?

This is a very exciting film, especially the finale, but the story is absurd. First of all, why is it that the notorious Watchmaker can't seem to shoot this slip of a girl but he manages to kill everyone else he meets? And her escapes, particularly underneath the subway -- unreal.

Second - this woman is supposedly excellent at profiling terrorist subjects, so how come no one wants her to do her job and wants her to let people in she isn't sure about?

Also, anyone who watches modern British mystery or suspense films knows that the Brits have CCTV - so why can't they find her when she's above ground?

Another thing - her friend brings her money. She must have brought her an absolute fortune. I wish I had friends who had thousands of dollars hanging around their apartments. Kate manages to get the money and buys a London to New York ticket, and somehow gets her hands on a laptop - I must have missed that scene. And she didn't shop around for it either - she probably just grabbed it and paid full price.

When she gets to New York to singlehandedly stop this terrorist attack, she offers a driver $500 for the evening. She was rolling in dough.

I will admit the film was both scary and thrilling, with some remarkable chase scenes, and good London locations. And the last part is top-notch.

The acting is quite good. I have seen Milla Jovovich in films before, but frankly I wouldn't know her if I fell over her. I never remember who she is or recognize her. That's either a good or a bad thing, I don't know which. At any rate, she was excellent here except for a small thing.

Her fear, her terror, her horror was real in the chase scenes, and you felt it. One would think when she wasn't running she'd act a little traumatized, but she didn't. I put that down to Kate's training, but I'm not sure Kate was trained to be shot at and chased.

I kept remembering Genevieve Bujold in Coma coming home and telling Michael Douglas, "Someone is putting people into comas" and gradually becoming more and more hysterical. More realistic.

Pierce Brosnan is probably the only Hollywood leading man who hasn't had a face lift or dyed his hair. He looks every second of his sixty years. And mean as he was and good as he was in the role, it's time for him to put his gun and running shoes away.

I still don't understand why he, Harrison Ford, and Clint Eastwood get to keep doing these leads and most women their age are put out to pasture.

"Survivor" is a good rental. If you saw it in the theater, I think you would have been disappointed.

No one ever said that a film has to be Nolan era cryptic to be appreciated. But that doesn't mean there should be a critical lapse in logic either. In the wake of increasing terror attacks around the world, Survivor might have timing on its side but precious little else when viewed as a straight-up action thriller.

A bulk of that problem lies with the severely disjointed story of a girl that cried wolf. That girl is Foreign Service Officer Kate Abbott (Mila Jovovich), newly stationed at the American Embassy in London. Abbott comes with an impressive resume but despite her commendable experience in profiling terror suspects, can't seem to convince her boss and Ambassador to the UK (Angela Bassett) that certain visa applicants to the United States have diabolical motives. One such applicant is a Romanian doctor who calls The Watchmaker (Pierce Brosnan), an accomplice and hit-man, to eliminate Abbott. Their plan – bomb a restaurant she's dinning at. Of course, Abbott survives, and just minutes later, appears to have killed an embassy official thanks to social media. It's the first of several laughable face-palm moments. Now going from the frying pan into the fire, Abbott is targeted by British authorities, American authorities and The Watchmaker himself, before trying to single-handedly foil a massive terror attack on US soil.

By now you must have noticed a string of inconsistencies that are not only illogical but absurd. Why would a skilled hit-man blow up a restaurant just to kill an unarmed office worker with no field experience? With CCTV coverage at every nook and cranny in London, why would the US Embassy implicate one of its own without a shred of evidence? As an Embassy officer with diplomatic immunity, why is Abbott hiding? Even if there are justifiable theories to those questions, nothing can prepare you for the ludicrous nature of how the entire story is penned. Pacing is an even bigger issue coming from James McTeigue, the same director responsible for the fantastic V For Vendetta. Except for Abbott's unbelievable escapes every time The Watchmaker strikes, the rest of the film comprises of time filling goose chases from one plot point to another. It doesn't register and neither does Brosnan's villain who goes from brutal to clumsy in direct reference to the title.

Documenting a movie experience is never easy when you have certain expectations, only to be let down by poor execution, lazy scripting and wooden performances. At best, Survivor is a film with a bunch of talented actors struggling to bring out an honorable tribute to law enforcement agencies thwarting terror attacks since 9/11. Although that message is intrepid, the film isn't and anyone watching this film won't remember what it stands for.

I couldn't even finish the movie. She is supposed to be a security expert and doesn't know anything about keeping herself safe. I'm certainly not a security expert by any means but I do have some common sense. She doesn't put the scarf around her head to mask her face, she knows cameras are there but looks straight into them. She goes to predictable places, finds her friends to help her making them targets. She doesn't get rid of the tracking chip that's in her ID. She doesn't show an ounce of actual emotion throughout any of the movie. After running from the Ambassador, almost getting shot and then almost getting killed by the Pierce's character, she runs home and then cuddles with Sam. She seeks him get killed and barely reacts other than running away. Sure she can make the phone jiggle when she's "scared" but that's as believable as it gets. Yikes.

Good actors with an absolutely moronic script.. !!!!!! After the first 30 minutes you want to pull your hair out. Professional people who can't seem to put an coherent sentence together to explain what they are doing.or why. People who are in high places who want to risk it all to kill someone who actually no longer can hurt them ?? The entire plot starts to feel like a three stooges adventure on steroids.. Everyone becomes either incoherent, non functional, or just an out right idiot. Love Milla's acting and I usually think highly of Pierce Bronson's work but he seems as if he's uninterested and on Valium throughout this film.. I've seen worse films but when you expect at least an effective thriller and all you get is an insult to your intelligence, well it can anger you.

Where do they get the ideas for such nonsense.

Security chief at the US Embassy in London Milla Jovovich discovers something fishy and as a result the worlds most feared hit man for no sensible reason is sent to kill her and makes a horses arse out of himself blowing up a restaurant and then showing how useless he was at shooting at her from about 10 yards away.

The acting is poor and the script laughable. One nonsensical scene has Dylan McDermott walk up to a major crime scene and simply says 'American Embassy' to a policeman, as if that would magically grant him access. But of course it does without the copper even bothering to ask for some form of ID. And the policeman in charge is referred to as 'inspector' rather than detective inspector or detective chief inspector which are real police ranks here. Does America know anything about the real world? It seems not!

Then Milla becomes the worlds most wanted after 'killing' traitor Robert Forster in a public place. Then after discovering a dastardly plot to blow up Times Square instead of telling her bosses she impossibly is able to just wander onto a flight to New York on New Years Eve. Followed by the now worlds most useless assassin Pierce Brosnan who has had so many attempts to kill her fail he should have just gave up and had a cup of Horlicks.

Then some other stuff happens and the worlds most, by now, inept assassin gets his ass kicked, by what is just another bureaucrat regardless of her fancy title, and falls off a tall building.

Milla vindicated her boss tells her he had faith in her judgement and all's well that ends well.

As we say here in England. 'What a load of b#llocks'. Giving it 1 is too kind. If you want to see how to do this really well take a look at Dirty War (2004) from BBC and HBO.

Kate Abbott (Milla Jovovich) processes visa applications at the US Embassy in London. She narrowly avoids death in a restaurant explosion which kills her colleagues, following which she finds herself on the run for two reasons: one, the authorities (including the US Ambassador) believe this to be her work and, two, the real assassin, The Watchmaker (Pierce Brosnan) still needs to kill her.

This is a workmanlike suspense thriller, with good location work in London. Jovovich makes an efficient, though not particularly likable, protagonist and Brosnan is excellent as The Watchman. The action is quite well done.

There are no huge surprises, though, and the film is essentially one long chase. And the wilful stupidity of Angela Bassett's Ambassador becomes annoying.

From the cliché ridden 1-dimensional plot to the 2-dimensional cardboard cutout non-characters, this movie amazingly lacks even a single redeeming feature. Should come with a disclaimer - "the presence of well known actors in no way implies that any skill or talent was involved in the making of this movie." There are many ways to approach this kind of story - lone protagonist wrongly accused and hunted by the authorities, and by the bad guys, who is the only one who can prevent Something Bad Happening. This movie approaches it by lazy scripting, indifference to any kind of realism, not bothering with dialog or scenes that might have added a touch of individuality to any of the characters. Each character is a cliché to him/herself, and does/says nothing to personalise the role. Each scene either directly furthers the single-track plot, or fills time until the next plot point is reached. Without these empty scenes, the whole movie would be over in about 15 minutes.

Now, if it had a seriously agile kick-ass protagonist and an endless supply of kung-fu baddie henchmen instead of one tired looking former 007, then it could have been a wonderful Jacky Chan movie, despite the lack of plot and characters, just get the director to plant cameras on tripods and let the fight scenes unfold before our astonished eyes, and make sure the editor goes easy on the cuts. That way you could have 75 minutes of action and 15 minutes of obligatory (but don't take it seriously) plot to frame it, and everyone would have been happy.

Ah, maybe that's what it was. They found a script for a martial arts vehicle and thought they could skip the martial arts, too hard, too expensive, can't be bothered. In a word, lazy.

As a film-school assignment, it would earn an F.

Some nice shots of London, I suppose.

what a horrible, unrealistic movie...

So Pierce is supposed to be The Watchmaker, one of the top assassins in the world, BUT it's just toooooo hard to catch Milla, a worker in the embassy issuing visas lmao...

of course all the British cops, NYPD, and the US Marines are retarded and can't catch her either...but then again cops all over the world are portrayed in every movie as idiots and can never catch anyone...

Personally I didn't know that Pierce was playing a bad guy in this movie otherwise I might not have watched it... I prefer him playing the hero since I think he is much more suited in that role than as the antagonist... still that wasn't the reason why I rooted for Pierce to kill Milla throughout the movie. It's that Pierce Brosnan and Dylan Mcdermott were the only 2 believable, or even likable, characters in this movie...

I only felt bad for her coworkers who were killed in the beginning of the movie in the restaurant, but, never once, did I feel bad for Milla's character.. She was practically Jason Bourne in this movie anyways... Never mind that she doesn't have any sort of training or background in this movie to make that even remotely believable in the storyline...

The fight near the end of the movie is, of course, once again, ridiculous... Pierce Brosnan, as the Watchmaker, one of the most wanted assassins in the world, couldn't beat Milla in a 1 on 1 physical combat... I mean why should he win? He's only the top assassin while she is a super embassy worker....

so yeah the movie can be described in pretty much one word...

"WHATEVER"