Haywire
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Tagline: They Left Her No Choice
“Oh, you shouldn’t think of her as a woman,” says Ewan McGregor’s character, Kenneth, about the frightening Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) in Stephen Soderbergh’s pulpy action flick Haywire. “That would be a mistake.” Memo to Kenneth: that train has long since left the station.
Gina Carano might not know much about acting, but she sure can kick butt. The real-life MMA (mixed martial arts) star was cast by the prolific Soderbergh, following on from his hiring adult film actress Sasha Grey as the lead in 2009’s The Girlfriend Experience. Carano’s Kane doesn’t make for ideal girlfriend material, considering that she’s a kind of international troubleshooter, who takes care of business while her employers sensibly look the other way. It’s not quite the oldest profession in the book, but it comes pretty close.
The opening scene sets the tone (you can watch it here on TIME’s entertainment site) and the movie never once lets up, with the action sequences taking in the likes of Barcelona and Dublin, all spectacular in their own cleverly choreographed way. In many a director’s hands, Haywire would have lived up to its title, becoming an unseemly mess, but the veteran filmmaker celebrates making his 25th film (in just 22 years!) by surrounding the rookie Carano with a stellar cast including McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas. And his favorite composer and cameraman, David Holmes and Peter Andrews, are on hand to lend their ears and eyes to the sumptuous sounds and sights.
What’s not to like? “A fresh, muscular payback movie shot through with Soderbergh’s mischievous indie-spirit,” concludes Empire. “The script makes no attempt to assert its plausibility or realism; it is, instead, refreshingly frank about what it is, a simple, workable framework for the melees and mayhem,” writes The Hollywood Reporter.
TIME’s Richard Corliss is a rare dissenter: “Carano is her own best stuntwoman, but in the dialogue scenes she’s all kick and no charisma.” Nevertheless, you’ll still come away thinking about her and whether that real-life nickname of “Conviction” holds up. She might just be a veritable Jane Bond in waiting. Keep your wits about you, 007.
MORE: TIME’s full review of Haywire
Coriolanus
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Tagline: Nature Teaches Beasts To Know Their Friends
Possibly the smartest decision Ralph Fiennes made when approaching his directing debut was to choose one of William Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays. Can you imagine the hoopla surrounding, say, Hamlet, especially if Fiennes had cast himself as the Prince? But Coriolanus? Even Shakespeare himself might have forgotten he wrote it.
To refresh your memory, this is the one with the political undertones that happens to work wondrously well in 2012. Fiennes did end up getting the part of war hero general Caius Martius Coriolanus — we’re sure he gave a fabulous audition — who is on the verge of becoming leader of the republic. But this being Shakespeare, you just know that his opponents will orchestrate not only his downfall but banishment, which is a two-for-one deal that never goes down well. But by teaming up with former enemy Aufidius (Gerard Butler), a return home is all but assured, a warm reception slightly less so.
The original was set in ancient Rome, and though the name remains the same, we seem to be in a modern-day, war-ravaged Eastern European location (it’s interesting to note that it was filmed in Serbia) and Fiennes utilises the likes of the TV news ticker to update us (and makes you wonder how much fun Shakespeare himself would have had with it, a crass modern-day sonnet, if you will). Directing aside, if Fiennes knows anything, it’s to surround yourself with a solid cast and cinematographer. And it doesn’t get much better than Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain and Brian Cox in the acting stakes with Barry Ackroyd in charge of the visuals (he shot The Hurt Locker to great effect, a movie Fiennes made a fine cameo in.)
The reviews are pretty much off the charts for a debut. “Having created one brilliant villain with Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, Mr. Fiennes, his head shaved, summons up another by visually evoking the iconography of Marlon Brando’s in Apocalypse Now,” smartly notes the New York Times. “Fiennes brings to scorching life on-screen, spitting out his rage with such force the words seem likely to damage literally as well as figuratively,” said the Los Angeles Times. “Fiennes and his cast yank the 400-year-old dialogue off the page and make it sound vividly conversational; it lives and scalds, sings and singes,” notes TIME’s Richard Corliss.
MORE: TIME’s Full Review of Coriolanus
Underworld: Awakening
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Tagline: Vengeance Returns
Kate Beckinsale crops up two weeks running in Friday Flicks, this time returning to the Underworld franchise. Beckinsale starred in the first two films, and is back in number four as the vampire warrior Selene. She’s escaped imprisonment to find herself in a world where humans have discovered the existence of both Vampire and Lycan clans, and are conducting an all-out war to eradicate both immortal species. In short, if Citizen Kane got a sequel, it would probably play out in this manner.
But never mind Citizen Kane. Unfortunately for Underworld, if Haywire is an indication of how to make action films feel relevant, the critics don’t have the same kind of feeling for what’s going on here. In fact they’ve barely reviewed it, which we imagine is because the studio didn’t screen it which, to put it mildly, is never an encouraging sign. In the words of The Scotsman, “Yet more vampire vs werewolf battles from the fang franchise that is even more boring than Twilight. Strictly for completists.” Bet there’s a fifth film before you know it.
MORE: TIME’s full review of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Red Tails
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Tagline: Courage Has No Color
Based on a story by George Lucas, who financed the film, Red Tails is set during World War II and tells the story of the powers that be at the Pentagon gambling on some unorthodox options to try and win the day. And one such choice involves using the hitherto untried and untested African-American pilots of the experimental Tuskegee training program.
Lucas might have been captivated by the story but didn’t direct the movie, leaving it to Anthony Hemingway, whose evident talent was used to great effect on those seminal TV shows The Wire and Treme. But this is a step up and, sadly, it isn’t getting the same kind of raves as the aforementioned programs.
“In its falsity and clumsy exposition, Red Tails‘s dialogue has all the grace of a margarine commercial,” writes TIME’s Mary Pols. The New York Times is more positive, though still concludes that the ending “is as satisfying as a snack of milk and cookies after a ninth grade softball game.” Perhaps USA Today finds the best balance: “It’s only half of a good movie. As soon as those dogfighting planes land, the story trips up by skimming the surface of history.”
PHOTOS: A Brief History of World War II Movies
NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: Both Haywire and Coriolanus have much to offer, but if you want to think at the same time as seeing heads being knocked together, then we have to go for Fiennes’s debut over Soderburgh’s latest.