On June 21, Netflix presented another action novelty «Trigger Warning», this time with Jessica Alba as a tough warrior. The actress also executive produced the film, which is the English-language feature debut for Indonesian director Muli Suria. In the review below, we will tell you why this movie is absolutely not competitive within the genre.
Pluses:
Jessica Alba has very cute braids here;
Minuses:
shameful cinema in all its manifestations;
«Trigger Warning»
Genre action movie, thriller
Director Muli Suriya
Уroles Jessica Alba, Mark Webber, Anthony Michael Hall, Alejandro de Oyos, Gabriel Basso, Jake Weary, Tone Bell, Kavi Lyman, Peter Monroe
Premiere Netflix
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
After a mission in Syria, a cool special forces officer with a laconic name Statham Parker returns to her home village to bury her father, who suddenly died in a mine collapse. On the spot, she begins to suspect that it was not an accident, and that local bandits are having fun with an RPG in the middle of the desert. As she delves deeper into her investigation, Parker encounters sinister arms dealers who are apparently directly involved in her father’s death.
Jessica Alba hasn’t been making many new movie appearances lately: the actress’ previous feature film was released five years ago. That was the outright nonsense «Killers Anonymous», which has, it’s scary to imagine, a staggering 0% of positive reviews from film critics on Rotten Tomatoes. But this comeback can hardly be called triumphant because «Trigger Warning» is at about the same miserable level.
In the very first scene, the authors announce the blatant old-fashioned ness of their brainchild when a balloon flies in slow motion. Excuse me, we’re in the middle of something, 2004 to use such an outdated visual technique so unreasonably? And in general, the first minutes of the seemingly serious action are already quite eloquent because the budgetary technical performance is simply striking. But this is just a prologue that has nothing to do with the central storyline and is intended to show how much Jessica Alba’s character — is a badass warrior.
But it doesn’t get any better. Parker rushes uselessly from one point of the desert terrain to another, sometimes switching to short-term fights with bad guys. There’s no plot as such; this kind of penny-pinching B-movie primitivism was made by the ton in the 80s and 90s, but then the action movie genre was in its heyday, and now times are a little different. Nowadays, no one is surprised by Rambo’s steadfastness and ability to swing a machete well, and the choreography of fight scenes in modern action films has advanced far beyond that.
However, «Trigger Warning» can hardly be called a full-fledged action movie, because almost all the action, which is rather weak and unpretentious, is saved for the final act. Before that, the viewer is treated to a kind of thriller about a big reveal of criminals. It’s like something from the late Liam Neeson filmography, or even worse
In general, films like «Trigger Warning» don’t really need any reviews — a lot is clear even before the screening. And during the screening, everything becomes completely clear, so all that remains is to pay attention to the small nuances. For example, among the deadly boring Albanian hikes, there is a scene of a fight with a chainsaw. But we remember that Jessica is so cool here that the Leather face there would be no chance of opposing it.
A lot of questions arise during the screening, but the main one is probably this: is it enough to understand the level of the film to know that it is just another action movie on Netflix? Unfortunately, the concentration of genre mediocrity on this platform, or even worse, forces us to answer that it is. And this will be more eloquent than all the film criticism in the world.
Netflix continues to churn out outright nonsense in the action genre, and «The Path of Vengeance» is on par with the disastrous girl power one-dayers in the service’s library, such as last year’s «Mother». The streaming service needs to urgently change its approach to film production if it wants to represent the genre with strong girls at the center of the plot. Because what is offered now is not good enough.
In other circumstances, «Trigger Warning» could be recommended at least to ardent admirers of the beautiful Alba. But even for them, there are no pleasant moments here. «I’m always normal» — her character never tires of repeating, but the movie convinces us of the exact opposite — no one and nothing is normal here.
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