Road House (2024) Dir: Doug Liman
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Having recently watched the 1989 original for the first time, I felt prepared enough to take on Doug Liman's modern remake. I knew roughly what to expect, based on the original's storyline, and the pretty mediocre reviews, but I still fancied giving it a go, if only for some relatively simple entertainment.
The soundtrack was pretty fun - it definitely made the whole viewing experience better, and kept a pretty upbeat feel throughout the film. The music suited the setting, and the 'live' music was a really nice aspect of many of the scenes, especially some of the fight sequences.
The visual effects were pretty disappointing, although, I wouldn't say that they ruined my viewing experience too much - just mildly irked me. I really did not enjoy the nauseating camerawork during the fight scenes, which were nonsensical, inconsistent and wildly loose. Never-mind the random and jarring point-of-view sequences, which simply did not work at all.
The action sequences in the film, particularly after the introduction of UFC fighter Connor McGregor, were wild. The scale of the action was a lot bigger than I anticipated, but I really enjoyed how utterly bonkers it was. The camerawork, unfortunately, ruined a lot of it, as I mentioned above, but it was still fun.
The narrative was pretty mediocre, it followed that of the original to a point, but added in some extra storylines to make things more dramatic, and, I guess, justify the need for speedboat fighting, ridiculous explosions and other shenanigans. This was definitely more about the action than the story, but some better writing would not have gone amiss.
Jake Ghyllenhaal was fairly entertaining as the film's protagonist, although I can't say he had anything like the same presence as Patrick Swayze did in the original. I like Ghyllenhaal a lot, I think his comedic timing worked here, but this definitely wasn't his best performance, and by quite some way.
I quite enjoyed Daniela Melchior's performance, for the most part. I thought she was pretty likable. However, there were a couple scenes where she suffered from her character's writing, and, even worse, it felt like she was just barely in the film.
Connor McGregor was utterly unhinged, but, I'll tell you what, it kind of worked. He certainly played the part - he was partly great and partly awful, but it came together to form a really entertaining, psychotic character.
Billy Magnussen provided a mildly interesting, but pretty poor antagonistic character. His performance was unconvincing, he lacked any sort of screen presence, and I couldn't, for a second, take him seriously.
Jessica Williams was the most likable member of a pretty forgettable supporting cast. No one was bad, just not particularly notable. Regardless, I will still give mentions to Hannah Love Lanier, Joaquim de Almeida, B.K. Cannon and musician Post Malone.
Overall, this was most definitely a turn your brain off popcorn flick. It wasn't a great film by any means, but I still found a fair amount of enjoyment in it. I had a lot of issues with it, particularly with the camerawork, but it wasn't a totally lost cause.
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