There’s nothing quite like a new Gareth Evans action movie, the man behind the likes of The Raid series. But Havoc? It stars the excellent Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant and Forrest Whitaker and it’s been planted at #1 on Netflix’s top 10 movie list for a long while. Until now.
There are actually two movies above it now, the #1 spot going to Exterritorial, a Netflix original from Germany. It sounds interesting, and here’s the synopsis for that:
“When her son vanishes inside a US consulate, ex-special forces soldier Sara does everything in her power to find him – and uncovers a dark conspiracy.”
It’s too new and at least temporarily a little too obscure, as it does not have any significant amount of critic and audience scores in yet, not that Netflix would show you any anyway. Of five critics in, 3/5 are positive, so not ideal.
The second place spot goes to Denzel Washington’s The Equalizer 2, his action franchise that has the actor still kicking ass as he was about to turn 70 while filming this. If anyone can do it, of course, it’s him. It reminds me of Liam Neeson’s action trajectory (he’s 72), but he’s in one of these Taken-like movies every other year, and it feels like Denzel is more purposeful with these parts.
So, Havoc 2? It’s not impossible given that Gareth Evans has done sequels for his action movies before. The film did not exactly have amazing scores, a decent 66% from critics but a pretty shockingly low 39% from audiences, yet that did not prevent it from staying on top for a long while.
The rest of the list is mostly licensed films, alien movie Paul, Despicable Me 4 which has been on this list for months, A Dog’s Way Home, Sisters, mid90s and The Secret Life of Pets. The only other Netflix original there is The Biggest Fan, a Mexican film about a woman working for her celebrity idol.
Any of these worth watching? I am probably going to get around to Havoc at some point, if for no other reason to see why people are hating it, which seems odd for an Evans action movie. I’m not sure Exterritorial holds much appeal. Rather, I need to catch up on The Studio over at Apple and The Rehearsal over on Max.
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