Ouch.
Get new Hollywood success stories have felt as really hearty as “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” star Ke Huy Quans initiated return to act in 2023’s best picture winner “Everything everywhere at once.” Quans any prices are running Were things of dreams: Giddy reunions with Harrison Ford, incredible stories about his multifaceted career, brilliant performances at all major events, all topped with his Very own best supporting actors winning at Oscars. Even better? The role he won for, because the soulful, striving Waymond Wang was a Good One, one worthy, a complex.
So that Quan would be a hot product again was both completely correct and completely expected. Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with this star? And while the actor have had a consistent job since his great profitJonathan Eusebios ”Love hurts“Offer the actor something new (and we guess, quite appealing): His first leading role. Too bad that nothing else in Eusebio’s first director’s excursion is to spin with Quan’s star power.
The story itself – from a script written by Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard and Luke Passmore – is exciting enough. In “Love Hurts” Quan Marvin Gable, a seemingly mildly urged Milwaukee real estate agent who previously served as a stone -called killer for his gangster brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu, toe the line between scary and fun in a way the rest of film can’t match). Marvin, however, has given up all this, and now is pleased in a relatively quiet life, mostly spent baking cookies for open houses and binding with his boss (Quan’s “goonies” co -star Sean Astin) and sarcastic assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton).
Marvin is about catch phrases. He loves his life! He “wants a home for you”! But all the good encouragement and peppy attitude hides a darkness in Marvin, and when his brother’s old lawyer Rose (Ariana Debose, certainly has more fun here than in the “Requirements The Hunter”) returns from the dead, he is forced to confront what it means. (She makes her presence known by sending out valentines to Marvin and her enemies, one of many Try to establish the film as Valentine’s Day-Centric, which does not offer any material value beyond an ability to discover its marketing with frills and candy.)
The information about Rose and her death is not so essential – at least they are not handled in that way by the film’s script, which seems actively disgusting information and motivations of all stripes – but we are intended to understand that everyone definitely definitely believed she was dead at the From a financial crime she committed to knuckles, Marvin is believed to have done it herself, and now she is back … for revenge? Sure!
Of course, everything complicates Marvin’s life, mostly because he also loves Rose (the couple has a friendly, sweet chemistry, but they don’t have much romantic spark) and because his brother has sent a package with their best badies (including marshawn Lynch, Mustafa Shakir , Cam gig and André Eriksen) to get the duo to pay for their crimes. It is a sufficiently simple performance, but one made consistently confusing a clear lack of energy, excitement and coherent editing. Never before has 83 minutes felt so long.
A seemingly narrow budget keeps the film’s places sadly limited; We mostly travel between Cookie-Cutter-track homes (Marvin’s own, plus one he tries to sell), Marvin and Ashley’s similar anonymous offices, and Knuckles’ Lair (an exciting, about finally confusing mash-up of video store and martial arts studio, which only ever is inhabited by his goons). And even if it would be forgive – settle for what you have! – It is an indication of a bigger problem with more, more.
They never leave Milwaukee. No, no, to be clear: They never left Milwaukee. Yes, Marvin has struck out on her own to build an independent life, free from his brother and his violence crime, the intention to shake off his past as a contract killer, and yet … He still lives in the same little town (I checked: Milwaukee Has a population just over half a million people) where Knuckles and his crime syndicate control with an iron hand. And a massive part of his identity is bound in his real estate work, which means that you pick his face over all the ads he can afford. What exactly Is the plan here?
Even Weirder: Rose, who everyone thinks is dead, has also lived in Milwaukee all the time, complete with his own apartment and a bartending play in a local dive. Finally, one of Knuckle’s many lacquer finds Rose at … going to her apartment building, where her name appearance appears on her mailbox? Again, shouldn’t this woman be dead?
It is the kind of sensible plot point that should not have made it to The script’s first draft, let alone the final film. That and other crazy plot holes are ranked and caring, and since the rest of the film itself so often fails to entertain, the audience members will probably think about these issues and questions when they should at least be distracted by but-kicking action. If your action movie with a beloved Hollywood star that goes less than 90 minutes feels most like an exercise in the Iffy screenwriter, there is something much wrong here.
And the action? Ah, yes. Even the smarter sequences-a early battle that sees Lynch and Eriksen destroy Marvin’s kitchen (complete with our star being thrown into a refrigerator) is pretty good, but the big final battles harbor-barred by an over-confidence in bencrunching sound design . None of it ever feels funfor it just sounds horrible. Nifty perspective – from inside the fridge! From within a microwave! -Otherwise, it would feel smooth and exciting, evidence of Eusebio’s wonderful stunt skills, instead become victims of Foley -design who most seem to want to tickle our GAG reflexes. I did not see a single broken leg throughout the run of “Love Hurts”, but I certainly heard that dozens of them snapped.
The humor is equally lethargic. Tipton and shakir get rid of the only deliberately Funny subplan, which Ashley’s Woe-Is-Me attitude finds an unlikely paramour in Shakir’s overly serious poet-biller (like “The Raven”, the man throws feathers As weapon!). The crazy, Wink-AT-the-camera story they weave is a highlight of the movie that lacks them, and even more proof of how deep “Love hurts” lets down his lovely, open leading man.
This? It hurts and for all the wrong reasons.
Rating: C-
Universal Pictures will release “Love Hurts” in theaters on Friday 7 February.
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