Holy freakin' hell! HARDCORE HENRY is insane! What a rock 'em sock 'em experience for us action fans! A full on first person shooter movie where you get to look trough the eyes of the hero. There's firepower, there's parkour, there's sex, blood, drugs, and rock n' roll, HARDCORE HENRY is brutal through and through and you can't get enough.
It's a Russian film featuring familiar faces like Sharlto Copley, Tim Roth, and the beautiful rising star, Haley Bennett. During the movie, so much is going on, you may have some difficulties collecting the pieces together but those of us sci-fi fans will soon realize that the concept is quite familiar. Henry is part man, part robot, resurrected from death with no memory, he eventually learns that he's part of bio-engineering soldiers led by a vicious warlord. And the only person who can help him is this group of avatars designed by a master scientist/engineer. Clearly, writer/director Ilya Naishuller and co-writer Will Stewart are very specific as to which audience they're targeting with this film: gamers and those of us who are fascinated with that world.
Obviously the true stars of this film are the camera work and VFX, it gets you badly wanting to purchase the Blu-Ray/DVD whenever it comes out just so you can see the featurette on how the production was done. Ilya did give us that Biting Elbows' viral POV music video, and so take that and turn up the amp to 11, and you get HARDCORE HENRY.
I had my doubts at first, I mean the trailer looked awesome, an entire movie done POV-stye, who wouldn't want to watch that out of plain curiosity! But my concern was that the film would feel like you're just watching a GoPro video instead of something that's cinematic, another concern was that if a few minutes of the first "Cloverfield" already had my head go dizzy, what would 96 minutes of "Hardcore Henry" do to me?! But turns out, I had a blast. HARDCORE HENRY lives up to its title, it's hardcore, it's fun, and it's more than just a roller coast ride, it's like drag-racing. I think whether or not this method is as immersive as a 3D or a IMAX experience, can always be argued, but you can definitely file this under the category unique. I read a critic somewhere said that HARDCORE HENRY reminds him much of "The Raid," and ya know what, he's on point there, our protagonist in this film constantly battling so many villains, all at once, scene after scene, halfway through you start to wonder how and from where on earth do these villains keep on coming, they constantly pop out of nowhere, but then again, that goes towards the fact that most first person shooter video games out there are done in this exact manner where you keep finding yourself having to fight and shoot your way out, non-stop.
Is this the future of cinema, is this as virtual reality as it gets for us without our having to wear those big oculus rift gears? Who knows, but it sure works for HARDCORE HENRY.
Tingnan pa 