 I flip-flopped between a few movies for this week, and it was pretty irritating. Unfortunately, this virus that has 2020 living under its shadow contributes to a lot of last minute adjustments on top of everything else. So, if you see a title change on any of my upcoming reviews, there's a decent enough reason for it. Here's hoping I won't have to flip-flop for too long. Anyway, I finally landed on 'Ava', after it changed its mind a couple of times on its release date.
We open the film with Ava (Jessica Chastain) posing as a limo driver, and we quickly find out that she's a trained assassin. Before offing her target, however, she asks what he did. This becomes the key to what happens later. After the hit is carried out, she heads to Boston to meet her sister, Judy (Jess Weixler), who she hasn't spoken to in ages. It's revealed that Ava ran off eight years ago, presumably due to a love triangle situation involving her sister and a guy named Michael (Common - that's who plays him, not just a jab on how common the name Michael is). We further learn about her Mother (Geena Davis) in the hospital, and there's a lot of family conversation about Ava's disappearance and what she's been doing this whole time. However, Ava reveals nothing. Going back to what was mentioned about her questioning her target about what he did, this is breaking protocol. By breaking protocol, she becomes a risk and soon her own Black Ops organization starts to come after her; namely her superior, Simon (Colin Farrell). Alongside him for much of the movie is Duke (John Malkovich), who seems to sort of play the role of messenger here. He wants Simon to leave Ava alone, but talks to them both, conveying what's up with either side. But to keep things super basic, it's a sort of survival movie in the same way 'John Wick 2' is, but far less exciting. For as badass as Chastain looks here, her action scenes are pretty limited. There's a lot of talk and banter here, and some of it seems pretty unnecessary. For example, I didn't really feel like the mother needed to be a part of things, necessarily. It just seemed like an excuse to get Geena Davis' classic name in there, and give you a character to empathize with. Empathizing with a character is good, sure, but not when it feels kinda forced. Then again, maybe that's just me. Really, that's not even the film's biggest problem. I think the elephant in the room here is that yet again we have ANOTHER movie where the badass heroine is seemingly caught up in some sort of love triangle. It doesn't add much to anything, it's just kinda there and really doesn't need to be. Sure, it led her to run off and become an assassin, but you could make up a lot of things to cause that. It irritates me that it always seems to have to be a thing. The bottom line here is that there are far better movies like this out there. When this is over, it doesn't leave any sort of impact on you, and it feels pretty typical for what it is. An example of a movie more like this that really stuck with me was 'Atomic Blonde'. I gave it a 3, but truth be told, it probably deserves a bit more. By the end of that year, going through the movies that stood out in my head, I remember it being one of them. This sort of just left me wanting more, because as soon as things really get good, the movie approaches its ending. I will give this film its climax, and Chastain does pretty well, looking almost like a Terminator in one of the final sequences. But up until that point, despite a punch or two being thrown, it drags a bit. At the end of the day, I don't think I'd call 'Ava' a complete waste of time. The action sequences are fairly solid when they do happen, and it's interesting to see so many different big names attached to it; mainly Geena Davis, who I haven't personally seen since 'The Exorcist' Netflix series (although I know she's also in 'GLOW'). I just think story-wise, it's fairly typical. It's one of those movies where you can call what's gonna happen fairly easily. However, it does seem that this wasn't a film destined for the theaters, and straight to digital/home release, so for what it is, it's just barely passable. I just know I've seen much better titles of its kind, and every actor here in something better. 3/5
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
RSS Feed