On October 17, the screening of the spy action movie began in cinemas «Canary Black», where Kate Beckinsale, a popular star of action films, was entrusted with kicking the bad guys. In the review below, we are pleased to say that the actress still feels confident in the character a tough warrior, but this does not save the movie from the general fadedness and secondary nature of the plot.
Genre spy action movie, thriller
Director Pierre Morel
Starring Kate Beckinsale, Rupert Friend, Ray Stevenson, Ben Miles, Goran Kostic, Michael Brandon, Saffron Burrows
Premiere movie theaters
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
While tough secret agent Avery Graves saves the world on another mission in Tokyo (the general layout of the city reminds us of the beginning of the fourth «Resident Evil»), her husband David is diligently chopping leeks at home for dinner before his beloved arrives. Moreover, the couple is celebrating a solemn date, and the skillful spy has prepared fantastic boxers with the inscription «Big in Japan» for the doting David from the trip.
But the couple’s playful mood quickly deteriorates when Avery returns home from work to find that some crooks have kidnapped her husband and are demanding the files of a secret project called «Canary Black» (not «Red Sparrow» — and thank you for that). Now the heroine faces a difficult choice, when the security of the country on the one hand and the life of her beloved — on the other are in the balance.
«Canary Black» tends to be mediocre rather than absolutely tasteless, but so blatant that it literally makes you feel uncomfortable while watching it. And this characterization is hardly an achievement.
And that’s because the local scenario is so distinctly secondary that it’s not difficult to predict every next plot twist. At the same time, some of them look ridiculous and ridiculous, such as the utter helplessness of the spy agency, the miracle twist that, without spoiling anything, opens the eyes of the main character (but hardly the viewer). Or the final intervention of Saffron Burrows’ character, which is just a laugh.
The action is also useless, as it looks simple, unimaginative, and ordinary. There’s a scene with a whole drone, but it’s not able to affect the overall fade of what’s happening on the screen.
At some point, the creators seem to be trying to raise the stakes, and the scale of the problem goes far beyond the family of the long-suffering Avery Graves, to the global level. But even this doesn’t save the situation because the only feature of Local McGuffin — is that instead of standard threats like a countdown after the launch of nuclear weapons, the local one moves to the screen of a regular laptop, i.e., into cyberspace.
Simply put, the hunt here is not for a conventional nuclear suitcase, but for a magic flash drive with miracle files. But these are just different variations of the same genre cliché, which is often used by spy movie authors, even in the same «Mission Impossible». However, in the Tom Cruise saga, they at least refreshed it by addressing the topic of artificial intelligence, so to speak, and are trying to keep up with the times. Here we have the files on a flash drive; well, at least not on a CD-R, as it used to be 25 years ago, and that’s good. And cyberterrorism is not a new word in action movies, remember the fourth coming of John McClane.
In terms of clichéd plot, the film is comparable to last year’s «Heart of Stone», however, they spent much less money on «Canary Black», and the authors can even be proud of that.
Kate Beckinsale is in great shape, and right now, you can drag her into seductive latex and send her off to war with werewolves. In the opening scene, the actress appears in front of the viewer wearing a wig a la atomic blonde Lorraine Broughton, but then acts as usual, confidently kicking the bad guys. Rupert Friend is very minor and almost useless, and this is the actor who transformed into Hitman, even in the second, even more disastrous adaptation of the cult game series. Ray Stevenson, as in last year’s «Ahsoka», he looks convincing, but here his character is literally merged. Unfortunately, this was one of the last roles of the British actor.
As a result, «Canary Black» is a mediocre spy action movie, packed to the brim with typical genre tropes and unremarkable action that is forgotten after five minutes. It’s not even the $110 million «Salt» with Angelina Jolie, with which the novelty has plot points of contact and which also did not shine, being far from being on par with the outstanding representatives of the genre. This is something clearly more down-to-earth, more modest, less ambitious. So it’s only worth watching if you’re a fan of Kate Beckinsale’s talents.
