Today a look at a great action movie yet one that didn’t do so well with other reviewers for various reasons. Hardcore Henry, like always we look at characters, story and premise for this heavy action movie that depending on who you ask is either revolutionary or straight up mindless garbage.
The premise for Hardcore Henry is a simple one. The main character Henry, gets into some kind of horrible accident and as a result is massively crippled and gets rebuilt as a Cyborg by his wife Estel. Then the villain of the movie Akan kidnaps her and Henry has to use his new abilities to go and save her from Akan and Akan’s incredible human resources department that sends henchmen at him in droves making up most of the action.
Akan is the main villain of the movie. He intervenes and kidnaps Henry’s wife Estel at the beginning for unknown reasons. He has the power of telekinesis which allows him to counter Henry’s super strength.
Massively wealthy with an army of mercenaries and most law enforcement bought off and little to no morality makes him a truly dangerous enemy for Henry to face.
Henry’s wife who rebuilds him at the beginning of the movie. She is kidnapped shortly afterwards by Akan and is Henry’s primary motivation throughout the movie for continuing on.
Jimmy is met by Henry after Estel is kidnapped and helps him due to also having a personal grudge against Akan. He’s a talented scientist being able to repair Henry’s mechanical parts but most notably even when killed he can come back looking differently than before.
Henry himself is the person you see the world through. The entire movie is shot from a first person perspective and Henry can’t speak because the operation to do so was interrupted by Akan. The idea to simulate a first person video game something that a lot of critics likely weren’t too thrilled about yet the audience this movie was made for loves.
Despite Henry not speaking though there is a lot of nonverbal acting from him that helps convey the mood.
Henry wakes up as a cyborg after a bad accident and loses his wife to the villain Akan and has to massacre his way through all of Akan’s henchmen in order to kill Akan and get his wife back is ultimately the main story and motivation summed up. The story is deliberately kept simple so that the action is the main focus of the story. And there is a lot of action to see. Quite a lot of gory action indeed. Yet because your always in first person perspective at no points did I ever feel lost in the story.
I always knew where I was and how I got there despite the fast pace of the action. It also made the story stick out even more when it did come back up. Those that say there is no story at all to this movie clearly didn’t watch it the right way.
Hardcore Henry is an incredible action film to get into. It is fast paced and gory; it doesn’t hold anything back in the violence department. The shakiness of the camera is a problem for most new people at first and it only gets worse but by then you’ve already gotten used to it unless you have severe trouble with that sort of thing.
If you’re a gamer that enjoys first person shooters then you will enjoy this movie beyond a shadow of doubt if not then you won’t enjoy it. Normally I would take points off for that but this is the first movie of its kind and clearly knows what its target audience wants so for that I’ll let it slid.
This movie gets a great 9 out of 10.