Haywire - quick review (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Former MMA attraction Gina Carano stars in Stephen Soderbergh's briskly shot film about a female spy/merc (Mallory Kane) who's been double-crossed and is on the run. The script isn't much more than a framework to propel the plot with some scenes with Carano kicking butt, of which she does quite well, though she has this sort of Jackie Chan quality to her fight moves that will make you laugh with how she dispatches the guys who intended harm to her character Mallory. They did dub Carano's voice with someone else who still gave off a flatness to the vocal inflections, it was a little distracting at first, but after awhile it didn't bother me all that much. It makes you wonder how Carano sounded in her own voice, maybe she might have given off a more monotone vocal performance in her first film, so they opted to dub her dialogue to punch it up a bit (though it still wasn't all that expressive). The film title "Haywire" is a puzzler as I never got the impression that Mallory's world went all haywire on her, the script just plays it too cool and subdued to feel like Mallory was in over her head as she tried to regain her footing and deal with the situation. Carano's acting is okay, not great, but not terrible, but she comes alive with the action scenes, with minimal stunt doubles, so it was quite entertaining to see a female doling out some ass-kicking without it being evident it was a stunt double doing most of the heavy lifting. I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Are you sure her voice was dubbed and what's your source for saying so? I thought the film was okay and felt the fight scenes were done well and much more believable than say the Bourne films.








Crawdaddy

 

[Patrick Sun]

Before I posted my thoughts, I had read or heard they dubbed Carano's voice in the film, but then I read the EW review late last night, and they ended up just digitally lowering her voice, perhaps Carano wasn't able to "act" vocally and still get through the scenes quickly enough, as Soderbergh shoots really fast (Banderas commented to this on a promo segment on Attack of the Show), so they went with the digital solution to flatten out her voice a bit to fit her character's voice. http://www.gina-carano.org/soderbergh-on-ginas-voice-alternation-work/

 

[Keith I]

I haven't seen the movie, but everyone I know who saw it said they hated it. No one said they liked it or that it was okay. They all hated it and felt they wasted their money. I then went to Rotten Tomatoes and saw a rating of 80% fresh for critics and 44% for general public. This movie is an action thriller and the January release date might have made critics dislike it due the common January dumping grounds for movies studios don't have confidence in. So it surprised me that the "critics like it but general audiences hate it" issue has been reversed with this movie. And this movie comes from a genre that critics don't always give high marks to. What theory does anyone have for this reversal of opinion for an action thriller?

 

[Malcolm R]

What theory does anyone have for this reversal of opinion for an action thriller?

It's a Stephen Soderburgh film. I think most critics are contractually obligated to gush over his films.

 

[Ken Chan]

Why general audiences don't like it: it's very spare. You feel cheated by the ending; especially when overall, it's probably one-and-a-half action scenes short. I knew going in that they altered Gina's voice, but it started to remind me of some voice I hear a lot on TV or something. Couldn't place it though.

 

[Al_S]

I saw this movie this past weekend and thought it was ok. There was a lot of time between fights so I was bored through a lot of it. I never heard of this lady before but she can clean up nice.

 

[Ruz-El]

I liked it. It was certainly Soderburgh in cool mode. The action scenes were well executed and cut in such a way you could actually see what was going on. I loved the use of music and sound scape. I didn't realize they altered her voice, I figured they gave her the minimum amount of lines to get her through it like those old 80's action films. It made me think Oceans 11 crossed with The Girlfriend Experience with a touch Out Of Site. I'd give it 3.5/5.

 

[Ted Todorov]

I loved it. No contractual obligations here. So many movies these days have completely preposterous action scenes -- this one is the real deal. Gina Carano kicks ass. I wasn't expecting Meryl Streep.