 | Watch Brick Mansions (2014) online Run time: 90 min Rating: 5.7 Genres: Action | Crime | Drama Stars: Paul Walker, David Belle, RZA |
| Storyline An undercover Detroit cop navigates a dangerous neighborhood that's surrounded by a containment wall with the help of an ex-con in order to bring down a crime lord and his plot to devastate the entire city. | |
| Plot Keywords: crime lord, undercover, auction, rat, contact lens | |
| Details: | |
| Box Office Budget: $28,000,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $9,516,855 (USA) (25 April 2014) Gross: $20,285,518 (USA) (20 June 2014) | |
Brick Mansions has the title of being Paul Walker's last completed film before he passed away last year. It's weird watching this film with its car chases and not think of Paul Walker's fatal crash, but that's what he was good at. As for the movie, I hope Fast Seven delivers because I don't want this film to be Walker's last movie since it's the definition of mediocre.
ReplyDeleteGood: I liked Walker and Belle here as our lead duo. They worked well together and they had fun banter. Belle who is the creator of parkour showed off his skills and it led to some fun action scenes here. It moves at a good pace and it never gets dull.
Bad: It's just terribly mediocre though. I haven't seen the original this remake is based on, but the movie just felt like a VOD action movie more than something worth to put in theaters whether it had Walker or not. The plot is pedestrian, RZA as a villain is both laughable and lame, some painfully obvious CG, and just a lack of structure connecting the dots. Plus, that ending was really corny.
Overall, this was a time waster. Fun action here and there, but nothing to really invest in and probably wouldn't have gotten much attention had Walker not pass away. I'd say wait for Fast Seven to really honor Walker's career.
I saw the original back in 2006 and absolutely loved it and its sequel. I had high expectations for this purely because I always wished they had made a third and when I saw Paul Walker was involved I had hoped this remake would be on par or better. Unfortunately I was wrong. While Brick Mansions is not a terrible film my viewing was ruined due to my love of the first one which this is almost a shot for shot copy of. My love of the French original may have set the bar too high it seems. Also my only major personal gripe is the voice dubbing of David belle. For some reason it struck a nerve with me and I could never really appreciate any scene. If you're looking for a good way to blow 2 hours or haven't seen the original by all means go see it but for myself this was just not what I had expected. Solid 6/10.
ReplyDeleteI personally thought the original French film "District B13" was great so when I first saw the preview for this I was excited especially with David Belle reprising his role. But maybe all that excitement got my hopes a little bit too high because I was very disappointed with this American version.
ReplyDeleteMy first real problem was the fact that Belle's voice is dubbed. They shoot it in a way so that when his character has dialogue, his mouth is hardly visible and when it is visible, the words don't match what he's saying. It's similar to what happened in "Enter The Dragon" when the main bad guy's lines were all dubbed. I figured maybe since he was in the movie, he was able to speak some English.
In the original Paul Walker's character Damien, seems to have more skill with hand to hand combat. Walker isn't a martial artists and the fight scenes he has are your typical American cop type of fights. The one thing Paul Walker did was act. He and Belle were the only actors who can actually act. What I mean by that is the secondary characters were horrendous! B acting at best, I've seen better on the Scify channel.
My expectations were probably a bit too high and because of that I couldn't enjoy this all that much. The ending is also different in this movie and I disagree with it. The French film is so much better on so many levels. Skip this and watch District B13.
This movie is a bad REMAKE of the original french production: "Banlieue 13" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414852/ )...
ReplyDeleteAnd believe when I say that it's not worth your time! The first movie has better acting and story! That is obvious by comparing the ratings of both monies... And to top that of, in the second movie they changed some details that you know "made sense"!!!
All in all, i recommend to anyone to watch the first movie! And i guarantee that you enjoy 84 minutes packed with action, free running, shooting and fighting...
ENJOY!