#scott waugh

Expend4bles (2023)

Directed by Scott Waugh

I haven’t really kept up with Jackie Chan’s career for the last decade and a half, but decided to give this a look as I’m once again getting into a Jackie mood (which is definitely preferable to the Uwe Boll mood I willed myself into for the last week to get over a cold), and I’d heard this was one of his better ones in quite some time. I will say that the first half hour is pretty rough going. I’m used to modern movies having ugly digital cinematography and abusing CGI, but this one was actively painful to look at. This is set in a fictional Middle Eastern country (I’m assuming the same one as Iron Eagle; I understand it was originally supposed to be Iraq before it got shelved for several years), meaning that we get a lot of scenes in the desert, and there isn’t a single one that looks to actually have been shot outdoors. The vehicles are largely overly shiny digital models rendered with CGI that reminded me of Beast Wars. There’s a fight scene in a bus where the background looks so fake and the camera swirls so impossibly that it looks like you’re watching a diorama get flushed down a toilet. And worst of all, Jackie looks tired and sad and has zero chemistry with the actress playing his daughter. The only bright spots are John Cena, who retains his charisma.

Thankfully things get a lot better after the first act when the movie finally puts the two stars together, to the point that you wonder if a different director stepped in. The action scales down from CGI goop to something resembling physical reality, keeping the action close to these characters. The movie is good at coming up with ways that the two can interact during these scenes in ways that feel essential: passing ammo to each other, giving each other hand signals while they sneak around, etc. There’s even a bit of the classic Jackie fight scene magic in how the surroundings are exploited. And maybe after the mostly humourless first third I was looking for anything resembling comedy, but I think there are a good number of actual laughs here as both of the boys get to be goofy and self deprecating. I’d like to think John Cena warmed up Jackie’s withered old heart.

NEED FOR SPEED, dir. Scott Waugh (2014)

Hidden Strike (2023)

Directed by Scott Waugh