Shame that the gimmick didn't really work out, as the trailer was actually somewhat intriguing. First person action movie? Sounded good to me. Shame that they apparently didn't go any further than that.

So we got Spunkgargleweewee: The Movie. I'm waiting the day when they figure out how to represent the multiplayer experience in an FPS videogame movie (people seem to enjoy multiplayer more than singleplayer in these games).

I kinda liked the movie. It's fun, cartoony violence in the vein of Shoot 'Em Up and Wanted, minus a compelling protagonist.

09philj:

CaitSeith:
So we got Spunkgargleweewee: The Movie. I'm waiting the day when they figure out how to represent the multiplayer experience in an FPS videogame movie (people seem to enjoy multiplayer more than singleplayer in these games).

It's a crotch being pushed into your face from above for two hours.

So a typical Happy Madison film then?

And Marter's back to dumping on anything that looks like slam-bang mindless fun. Sharlto Copley acting crazy and the right fast-paced Queen song have compelled me o see it. Besides, it's very likely that the guys who made this grew up playing FPS's and what to celebrate them in movie form, like Gamer. Remember that one?

CoCage:

martyrdrebel27:
DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS GUY

this movie was a lot of fun, and completely over the top. also, if you're worried that videogames have desensitized you to violence, this movie will show you that that is in fact not true.

i've almost never agreed with escapists new movie guy, and i'm proud to say this will be my last foray into this contributors content.

this movie is something so different, nobody can tell you how to feel about it unless you watch it yourself.

Johnny Novgorod:
I kinda liked the movie. It's fun, cartoony violence in the vein of Shoot 'Em Up and Wanted, minus a compelling protagonist.

I'm with both of you guys. I don't know what Cinemarter is on about. The movie won't change your life (what can nowadays?), but HH is entertaining and fun.

It seems that critics in general aren't liking the movie, I saw it the night it came out and loved it. Most of the people i know who have seen it enjoyed it.

One of the problems with gamers is that they think that videogame plots are better than they actually are. When the critic says:

Henry takes orders from Jimmy without thought or argument, trusting him wholeheartedly almost the second they meet. Jimmy gives him directions to a place, tells him that there's someone there who needs interrogating or killing, and then Henry does it.

Yeah, that pretty much IS every FPS game ever. Oh, who the hell are we kidding? That's EVERY GAME EVER!!! There are almost no games where you're allowed to tell the person giving you the briefing to piss off even when it becomes blazingly obvious that they're up to no good. At best, you can refuse sidequests on an MMO but that's about it.

It sounds like this movie should have been a first-person Birdman in the cinematography and editing department... At least it still sounds interesting/fun to watch, anyway...

Other than that, on a scale of numbers to letters, how "hardcore" is Henry?

Am I the only one who wants to play this movie in one of those motion simulators?

martyrdrebel27:
DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS GUY

this movie was a lot of fun, and completely over the top. also, if you're worried that videogames have desensitized you to violence, this movie will show you that that is in fact not true.

i've almost never agreed with escapists new movie guy, and i'm proud to say this will be my last foray into this contributors content.

this movie is something so different, nobody can tell you how to feel about it unless you watch it yourself.

CoCage:
I don't know what Cinemarter is on about. The movie won't change your life (what can nowadays?), but HH is entertaining and fun.

Totally agree, Hardcore Henry is a blast.

Michael Tabbut:
It seems that critics in general aren't liking the movie, I saw it the night it came out and loved it. Most of the people i know who have seen it enjoyed it.

A lot of the Youtube critics have really dug it. In general though, action movies don't get the best reviews from your normal critics. I watched one review and found out "Don't Stop Me Now" is used in the movie and then I just had to go and see it.

Caramel Frappe:
*Watches the entire movie of Cloverfield* Well i'm a tad dizzy, but the movie was still cool to see!

*Watches the trailer of Hardcore Henry* Holy jesus i'm going to puke my brains out.

Seriously, the cameraman or the way they filmed this movie is horrendous. Wonky, shaky, and so frantic it made me dizzy within the first minute. The reason Cloverfield didn't make me feel sick at all was because despite some action scenes here and there, the camera was never that clunky or bad on the eyes.

Here, there's non stop action with some of the worse camera handling i've ever seen and began growing really sick.

I can totally see why Marter would feel the same, and to top it all off- has a bad plot and forgettable cast of characters? Oh what a flunk of a movie for sure. Such a shame we can't ever get video game based movies to be above average in quality.

I had zero trouble watching Hardcore Henry but I have no motion sickness issues (outside of reading in a car, just can't do that). I thought Cloverfield was worse as far as just watching it as there's a sorta "flow" with Hardcore Henry's camerawork (sorta feels more like Mirror's Edge than a FPS) whereas Cloverfield is shaky cam as it's just a dude holding a camera and shaking it all around; basically, some guy running while holding a camera is more shaky than a guy with a camera rigged to his head. I find the shaky cam stuff of the Bourne sequels way more annoying than Hardcore Henry.

I don't get why the movie is getting automatically compared to video game plots as video games basically copied action movie plots to begin with as most action movies have plots that just serve the purpose to get from one action scene to another. Hardcore Henry is just in that vain of action movies and it doesn't do anything any worse of say a Crank or a John Wick. Hardcore Henry has a better plot than some action movies like say The Raid.

Sharlto Copley "characters" are far more entertaining and memorable than most characters in these type of action movies. Again, no character in The Raid is as entertaining to watch as any one of Sharlto Copley's characters. Yet, you don't see The Raid getting criticized as being nothing but a movie version of a video game beat'em up.

100% jumping on the "Hardcore Henry is awesome and Marter is a dumb poopyface" bandwagon. Sometimes I agree with the reviews, but the critics have generally been dead wrong on this one.

Henry is just a damn joyride all the way through. It's like the church scene in Kingsmen extended to an hour and a half with insane near-death stuntwork.

I almost guarantee that in 10, 15 years this movie will be considered a cult classic that was panned on release.

I'll admit it definitely isn't for everyone, but you don't get motion sickness, just check it out. Jimmy alone is worth the price of a ticket.

CoCage:

Phoenixmgs:

Sharlto Copley "characters" are far more entertaining and memorable than most characters in these type of action movies. Again, no character in The Raid is as entertaining to watch as any one of Sharlto Copley's characters. Yet, you don't see The Raid getting criticized as being nothing but a movie version of a video game beat'em up.

Roger Ebert would like to say otherwise...

Of course, I meant for the most part The Raid wasn't criticized nearly as much as it's at an 85% fresh rating vs Hardcore Henry. There was really only a few moments here and there that felt video game-y to me. I didn't feel at all like I was watching a FPS whereas the Doom 1st-person scene is exactly that. Hardcore Henry just felt like a straight-up action flick.

Michael Tabbut:

It seems that critics in general aren't liking the movie, I saw it the night it came out and loved it. Most of the people i know who have seen it enjoyed it.

I don't know, YourMovieSucks reviewed the movie 9 months ago (he saw it at the Toronto Film Festival back when it was still called "Hardcore" which was where a 3 way bidding war for the distribution rights occurred) and he was pretty damn positive about the movie, and this is a guy who's a very hard guy to impress.

I'm sorry that Marter got a headache from watching the movie, but he's honestly the only person I know who has seen the movie and had that happen, so I'd really suggest not taking that as gospel. As many have mentioned, I found "shaky cam" movies to be way more headache-inducing than Hardcore Henry.

But regardless, seriously, see this movie in the theaters because I imagine the experience is drastically different vs. watching it on DVD. The movie is BANANAS. It's probably the most 'pure' action film I've ever seen: I think the longest segment where something isn't getting shot or blown up is about 5 minutes. This was the first action movie I've seen in a long time where a good chunk of the movie I was thinking "how the hell did they do that?". And the great thing is that the movie doesn't try to be more than it knows it is: it knows it's brainless action flick with a gimmick, and it's only about 90 minutes long.

Seriously, I'd recommend giving the movie a shot, I don't know anyone who saw this and didn't have a blast.

RaikuFA:

09philj:

CaitSeith:
So we got Spunkgargleweewee: The Movie. I'm waiting the day when they figure out how to represent the multiplayer experience in an FPS videogame movie (people seem to enjoy multiplayer more than singleplayer in these games).

It's a crotch being pushed into your face from above for two hours.

So a typical Happy Madison film then?

Only instead of Adam Sandler doing it, it's an obnoxious, drunken frat boy listening to gangster rap.

......so pretty much Adam Sandler.

I enjoyed it. I'm not proud.

I didn't have any problems with motion sickness, but most of Marter's criticisms are accurate, at least as far as his individual view goes. It's definitely not a "smart" film. But that didn't prevent me from being impressed with how they took the conceit and ran with it. The cuts didn't bother me, and I never stopped goggling at what they must have had to go through to carry out some of the sequences (this was not a nine-figure budget film; indeed, it may not have been an eight-figure film; their indiegogo campaign asked for $250,000 to finish it). This was a bunch of dedication, stuntmen, GoPro cameras, and a little bit of CG after-work, mostly adding backgrounds and removing wires.

I'm not a big fan of Call of Duty or Battlefield... But I thought HH was fun. Your mileage may vary.

Gamer was a very good movie about the video game industry. How come you never mentioned in your article that this was an expanded version of the director's music video? Or that he was a friend of Blomkamp's? It was a bit obvious with the stylistic approach and the inclusion of Sharlto Copley.

Haley Bennett looks like a less expensive Jennifer Lawrence.

The movie was very entertaining and it reminded me of times when I was a kid and played doom for the first time :)

I was interested in the trailer, but deep down I thought it would pan out like this. Not as badly though, the first person POV cuts are super jarring, and started annoying me real quick.
It's kind of a shame, maybe it's the loss of physical feedback, maybe it was all the blinking, but it seemed like it could have been a solid gimmick. Watching movies where you're the hero, sounds cool.

Darth_Payn:
Besides, it's very likely that the guys who made this grew up playing FPS's and what to celebrate them in movie form, like Gamer. Remember that one?

I remember being so bored to tears with Gamer that I wound up reading a 3,000 (or was it 5,000?) word analysis and defence of the film saying it was criticizing capitalist consumer culture and yadda yadda yadda instead. It was more intriguing than the film itself.

Nuts I tell ya.

CoCage:
-Roger Ebert snip-

I dropped his opinion when he accused the morality of the film 'The Sleepers' being centered around homophobia.

I'd go on a rant about that, like holy shit.

Finally OT: I'm not really interested in the movie to be honest. I saw both YMS' and RLM's reviews on the movies and they seemed mostly positive, and judging from the trailer it seems kind of interesting. But it doesn't really interest me, even though I enjoyed movies like The Raid.

I dunno, maybe one day I'll be compelled to watch it, maybe gather some friends and do it. Though a common criticism I've heard is characters and twists so...

The trailer for this made me cringe into a tight ball of shame when it aired in the cinema. If anyone had nudged me and implied that it would totally be my thing because it's so videogames, i would have to violently advise them of their subtle misconception. I liked films a lot longer than games, so personal taste has refined differently between the two. The lack of user input and feedback from film mean that an overactive mind has a lot more headspace to notice things. Problems, patterns, mistakes, issues with unbelievable actors...it all gets subconsciously analysed with some more obvious conscious analysis. You have a limited sensory pool and a specified allotment of time in which your mind has full directed attention of.
A one-note gimmick may be alright if you temporarily dull the effectiveness of your brain cells along with a few dumbass friends before the film, like past me. But that is a habit that doesn't work so well after a while of aiding enjoyment of dumb movies and when you stop completely, you just turn into a cynical arsehole that can't find joy in anything, no matter how much you try. Nope, videogames...get out of my films. And didn't the Doom film do an FPS section which had just about the same reaction? Is it for the "lolz?" Eh, i am a dreary soul drearing through dreaded days, so any opinion from me is tainted with grey and probably dead parents too.

I got a fucking headache just from the trailer when I went to see Deadpool. The idea of having to sit through the whole damn thing would be like some Clockwork Orange level torture.

I really enjoyed Hardcore Henry more than Deadpool despite Hardcore Henry having 0 plot.

[Call of Duty, Battlefield] have better plots, characters, and camera movements than this movie.

I was tempted to stop reading after this statement because with this you basically shot yourself in the nuts with a shotgun. After that there's no need to write a complex comment other than: "He's wrong, don't listen to him."

I think he's [Marter] is either has something against this movie specifically or was paid off to make a bad review. (or just have shit bad taste.)
The only part that is credible is about motion sickness: with the amount of camera movements it's plausible that somebody can start to feel motion sickness (although I didn't, and I'm myself ain't that good with shaky cams).