THE ROOKIES (2021)

THE ROOKIES (2021)

Tagline: No One Escapes The Noise

(Action, Humor, Weird Stuff) [PG-13] 

Note – This movie wasn’t given a rating by the MPAA so I am throwing a PG-13 on here for some moments that were probably a bit too nuts for PG. It’s likely not R though. Also in China, the movie came out in 2019 but wasn't released in the US until April 2021. 

This movie revolves around a secret agency that fights evil-doers around the globe. Extreme sports lover Zhou Feng (played by Talu Wang who was once in a TV series called “Mysterious Incredible Terminator’) accidentally gets involved in one of their missions just by being arrogant and ends up being recruited to help them finish the mission. Bruce (played by the legendary Milla Jovovich) is the leader of the mission, but Feng has his own ideas and enlists the help of a few crazy friends and even bi-polar Interpol agent Miao Yan (played by Sandrine Pinna). Can they overcome the sinister Iron Fist (played by David Lee McInnis) and his plan to turn people he doesn’t like into plants? (No, I am not kidding on that last part, it’s part of this damn plot). 

In this movie, we have everything from Feng reluctantly drinking a glass of wine with some dude's thumb in it, to a bug-like car that turns into a mad bug-like car with a tongue that pushed other cars out of the way. I mean it’s freakin nuts. I normally love nutty stuff, but unfortunately, parts of this thing straddle the line of embarrassingly horrible. The movie overall feels very uneven and even if Talu Wang is trying to be funny, his role in this comes across as rough as hell. We do get other characters to like (LV played by Meitong Liu) for instance but not even some actually decent performances out of Sandrine Pinna, Milla Jovovich, and David Lee McInnis can fix this disjointed nightmare. 

The Good – What does work is a lot of the action sequences. They are whimsical, often funny, and sometimes just completely awesome. This includes just about every scene Milla Jovovich shows up in. Miano Yan and LV are likable characters. There are also some pretty cool ideas thrown in here. David Lee McInnis is a pretty good actor and is a great villain in this. 

The Bad -  The plot is rough. It starts out straightforward enough but ultimately spins into something about the Holy Grail and it seems like it doesn’t take long before the opening scene is basically completely dismissed. There are also weird scenes in Feng’s bedroom for instance that not only are not funny, but they are also completely unnecessary and don’t add anything to the plot. There is also a just bunch of freakin bizarre stuff that I am guessing was supposed to be comical but wasn’t. This includes a pair of snails on the road screaming. Yeah, you read that right. Also sadly Milla’s performance is fine, but even she looks completely disinterested the majority of this movie. This movie does not center around her character which for me is a bit of a disappointment. 

Overall if you are just in the mood for something bat-s—t crazy then this might be your thing. Fortunately, though, there are plenty of funny spy-org-saves-the-world type movies out there done better. This effort feels a bit off all the way around loaded good-looking but largely incoherent humor that misses far too often. 

I give THE ROOKIES a 3 out of 7. There isn’t enough good to outweigh the not-so-good.
 

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