The Terminal List fails even as a jingoist advertisement for the Navy because not only is the corruption endemic in both the public and private sector, but everyone is terrible at what they do. Is it about corporate greed? Government corruption? Military incompetence? The betrayal of our front-line soldiers by corporations with vested interests? It’s impossible to tell because everyone from the Secretary of State to military officers and even Reece’s contemporaries are all bad guys.
None of that applies here because The Terminal List doesn’t know what it wants to be. The story, however implausible, made some kind of sense. The action was well-shot and easy to follow. Bob Lee Swagger was deadly and soft-spoken. But Mark Wahlberg, for all his flaws, didn’t try to butch up for the role. It’s the same libertarian fantasy that one man with enough firepower can stand up against the world. They share the same structure a military sniper betrayed by his government at the behest of powerful, shadowy corporate entities, who survives and goes on a hunt for his enemies. In fact, it might be best to think of The Terminal List as a dim, dull, unnecessarily drawn-out remake of that far superior movie. And I love ridiculous “one man against the world” movies, including Taken, Walking Tall, and Antoine Fuqua’s Shooter. I don’t care about his love life, I’m not on Insta, and apart from The Terminal List I only know him from the MCU where he saved the universe by punching Thanos and as the guy James McAvoy smacked with a keyboard in Timur Bekmambetov’s 2008 masterpiece, Wanted. He’s Worst Chris, but for me that’s more a statement on how much I like Pine, Evans, and Hemsworth than any animosity I have for Pratt. It’s the first of several unnecessary twists that left this viewer unsatisfied, culminating in a truly terrible one by the end. Apparently the deaths of all but one of his friends aren’t enough to send Reece on a revenge mission, so the writers kill his family too. It segues into his entire team getting murdered when they fall for an ambush, so … maybe not the best example? I definitely knew by the time Reece’s wife and daughter, literally and figuratively the only bright spots in a show visually so flat and badly lit it makes the few daylight scenes feel like a night in Sunnydale, are unnecessarily fridged. Probably by the opening scene when Chris “I’m not that religious” Pratt tells a story from the Book of Judges about how God told Gideon to choose only soldiers who kept their eyes open and alert. I’m not sure when I figured out exactly how screwed I was with this self-imposed assignment. Tragedy strikes, and soon Reece is on a path to revenge against corrupt military officers and evil pharmacologists, aided by reporter Katie (Constance Wu), CIA buddy Ben (Taylor Kitsch), and former comrade Liz (Tyner Rushing).
His wife finally convinces him to get a CAT scan but he’s attacked by assassins at the clinic. Despite being unable to tell what memories are real and which are false, he’s convinced there’s a conspiracy afoot, that they were set up and the command chain hid what really happened to his men. Reece’s squad of indistinguishable bearded special forces cannon fodder are all killed, and Reece is left with survivor’s guilt, headaches, and memory problems, presumably from head trauma. Reece is leading a mission in Syria to capture or kill a chemical weapons scientist when they’re suddenly ambushed by enemy soldiers and ultimately blown to hell when a frightened soldier triggers booby traps. Worst of all, it’s boring.Ĭhris Pratt is Lieutenant Commander James Reece, an all-American good ol’ boy and SEAL squad commander.
#The terminal list movie series
The rest of the series is a libertarian paintballer’s ultimate revenge fantasy a grim, chaotic, and nonsensical journey into domestic terrorism.
The second best thing is Taylor Kitsch, though even he wears out his welcome. It sounds like when Starlord imitates Thor. Let’s get it out of the way: the best thing about The Terminal List is listening to Chris Pratt’s tough guy voice.
0 kommentar(er)
