"Casualty: A Hitman's Vacation" is a continuation of a fairly successful film adaptation of the British comic book of the same name, which was directed by Jesse Johnson. This time, novice filmmakers - brothers - took the helm of directing. George Kirby и Harry Kirby. Screenwriter Stu Small ("Casualty", "British Psycho", "Collectors") and himself Scott Adkins teamed up again to create and write the sequel. This time he was responsible for staging the battle scenes Andy Long together with Adkins, using the director’s work from the first part Tim Man.
PLOT
Hitman Mike "Casualty" Fallon is back, and this time he must protect the degenerate son of a mob boss, defeat the world's best assassins, save the life of his only friend and rekindle his relationship with his maniacal adoptive father.
REVIEW
The second part begins after the events of the first film when Fallon was expelled from Great Britain. This time the film takes place in sunny Malta rather than rainy Britain, which completely changes the mood of the film. First was a really good, strong Beshka, who had her own British style, her own presentation, mood, lampness and ideal casting for an action movie, which is rarely seen now: Ray Park, Amy Johnston, Michael Jai White, Tim Man, Martin Ford and, of course - Scott Adkins. The rear of which was covered by more experienced and famous actors: Ray Stevenson, Ashley Greene и Perry Banson.
In the sequel, only Stevenson, who also plays the role of Mike Fallon's surrogate father, and Benson, whose role in the sequel becomes more significant, remains from the previous cast of movie characters. He is now Adkins' character's partner and friend. The rest of the cast has been updated and, unfortunately, doesn't have the depth of cast that the first film had. Without the same action stars as in the first part, the film feels somewhat lacking. However, the film pleased us with new characters, for example, Su-Ling (Sarah Chan), Mike Fallon’s funny assistant, who showed a real master class in kung fu, as well as diverse and charismatic killers, especially the clown Poco, played by a martial artist and stuntman Beau Fowler. But, of course, they are unable to fully replenish the former cast, since their role is simply to get rid of the main character, and even the ex-kungfu champion Sarah Chan does not yet have any rich background in cinema.
In terms of picture, the film looks excellent and is not much different from big-budget films, not counting the bad computer effects, which, in principle, do not really spoil the impression, since there is no special emphasis on them. However, without special effects the film would have lost nothing. There is a lot more humor and I can’t say that it did any good. There is too much of it, and its quality is mediocre. The film began to resemble a teenage, American comedy. However, the humor did not cause any particular irritation. The film looked easy and there was no desire to waste it. The picture is beautiful, it’s hard to find fault, in many ways it even surpassed the first film. Camera work, editing, framing, color correction, views of Malta - everything looks sticky. Old-school action stars of the 90s, who are now filming in the “C” category, would have the same quality of visuals...
ACTION
This time around, Adkins and the stunt team upped the ante with action scenes and stunts. The performing skills and fight design have become much more complex and all this is presented in the best possible way, without any camera shake, constant editing, with excellent camera work and choreography. In the first part there was no shaking or constant editing either, but here it is obvious that much more work has been done. There's quite a lot of action, you won't be bored. This is the main advantage of the film, however, the plot, apparently, was written for action scenes. The only action scenes are fights and some shooting.
In terms of the style of choreography, some scenes are reminiscent of the performances of the guys from Martial Club with an abundance of trickery tricks. For example the final fight with Andreas Nguyen (Aka Andy Long), who played in films "Undisputed 4", "Police Story: Under Siege", "Armor of God 3: Zodiac Mission" и "Cyberpunk 2077 - Phoenix Program".
At some point, Adkins shook his old ways and remembered the “Boykov” kick, which he had not performed for a long time. In general, the action scenes are very good, but nevertheless, something was missing for me on an emotional level. Maybe this is the effect of revision, maybe it’s just entertaining, and you want something more from action films - I don’t know for sure. But on an emotional level it didn’t particularly touch me, although my eyes were pleased. There are no complaints about the visual and technical components, it’s just that when you’ve watched thousands of action films, it’s already difficult to be hooked by beautiful leg-swinging. I would like there to be something more behind this than finding out “whose kung fu is cooler.” But this is purely subjective.
SUMMARY
Compared to the first part, the sequel turned out to be more stupid and popcorn, and lost something very important in style and manner of storytelling. This film is a meeting "Deadpool" с "The Hitman's Bodyguard" и "John Wick", ironizing the spy genre. The first part was subtler and smarter, it was more British, the dialogue and relationships between the characters were more meaningful, there was some kind of drama, as far as it is possible in an action film based on comics. The second part is 100% American popcorn entertainment with American, sometimes teenage humor. It would be better if the sequel was in the spirit of the original. I liked the first part as a film much more, also because of the casting. I can’t say that in the second part he is bad, no, all the actors here were chosen well. It’s just that there are no famous action movie actors among them. I didn’t get bored throughout the film, but it’s still a pity that the sequel made such a big shift into primitive entertainment and clowning, losing the luster of the first part with these conversations in the pub.
Despite everything said above "Killer's Vacation" is definitely one of the best martial arts action films of 2022. Not bad entertainment for the evening, but in terms of continuing the series of films about Mike Fallon, for me it is a step back.
A stretch of 4/5 for overall quality.
Yuri Dudin
Especially for fight-films.info
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Tags: Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday, Beau Fowler, Garry Kirby, George Kirby, Sarah Chan, Scott Adkins, Andy Long
Tags: Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday, Beau Fowler, Garry Kirby, George Kirby, Sarah Chan, Scott Adkins, Andy Long
Thanks for the review.
I didn't like the movie at all. Excessive caricature, humor is out of place.
Idiot - kungfuist, with moronic "jumping out of the snuffbox", this scream of Adkins - Flamingo! Well, not funny, but somehow... embarrassing... or what? It’s strange to demand realism from foot-to-hand action films, but there are fights and motivation that you believe in at the moment of watching (the magic of cinema), and there are those that raise the question: what the hell!? The fight with "It" is terrible. I didn’t waste it on purpose, but I yawned halfway through. Well, gentlemen, “removing”, well, Thanos was killed faster. The final boss made me happy, but it made me sad. Adkins has grown old and no longer takes out young people. I can already see his shoulders drooping, like Van Damych’s.
For me 2,5 out of 5. But of course this is only IMHO,