Tag: Action

The Matrix Reloaded vs. Tenet – Highway Chase

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IT’S MATRIX RESURRECTIONS WEEK Y’ALL!!!!!

This is my Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever sci-fi franchise have you. Instead of lightsabers and spaceships, it’s nothing but dope shades, high-flying kung fu, and Rage Against the Machine babyyyyy. I’m celebrating the return of a monumental franchise by taking a misty-eyed look back on all of my favorite things from The Matrix trilogy. First up, The Matrix Reloaded’s bonkers highway chase.

It’s such a ballsy set-piece 18 years later that I found myself wondering, “why hasn’t anything else come close?” But something has come close, or at least aspired to those ridiculous live-action heights: Tenet’s own forward-reverse highway chase.

I’m gonna have a little fun here by pitting the two against each other in a comparison game. Matrix Reloaded vs. Tenet. The Wachowskis vs. one Christopher Nolan. Who will win? Buckle up.

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‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ Review – A Thrilling Martial Arts Odyssey

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How the hell do you introduce a new superhero this far into the Marvel game? This is something the MCU has to contend with as the roster gets bigger, and Shang-Chi is the newest member post-Endgame. For one, you stack the right talent: director Destin Daniel Cretton at the helm, a storied action cinematographer in Bill Pope, the late Brad Allan as fight choreographer, along with a dizzying who’s who of a predominantly Asian cast. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings may be burdened with the standard grooves of an origin story, but it blazes past the stumbling block to the tune of a martial arts action romp.

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Hard Boiled, Or How I Met Tony Leung

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I’ve been hyped for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings for many reasons: director Destin Daniel Cretton at the helm, Bill Pope as cinematographer (The Matrix trilogy & Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), and former Jackie Chan pupils Andy Cheng and the late Brad Allan serving as the film’s fight choreographers. All this talent on board to help bring Marvel’s first Asian superhero to life, with a proper ensemble that includes OG martial arts ass-kicker Michelle Yeoh.

I was all in before the trailers, baby.

Respectfully, the film’s biggest flex for me came from the casting of Tony Leung as the villain. That’s a hell of a way to get me to root against the hero.

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The Problem with Today’s Fight Scenes

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One of the first movies I saw in theaters this year was Mortal Kombat and I gotta say, it felt good to be back. Hearing that bombastic MK theme and Hiroyuki Sanada laying down the most badass line of dialogue ever just screamed CINEMA to me. Which is to say I was all too happy to return to the theater for me to be completely objective to the movie. Something stuck out to me that I couldn’t quite pinpoint until I re-watched Mortal Kombat before it left HBO Max last week – how lackluster its fight scenes really are.

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