All Episodes
Previous Next
April 18, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
17:58
Equal Treatment is Misogyny
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey everybody, welcome to What the Flick?
Christy, Matt, Ben.
I'm Alonzo and I didn't have enough drama and so I did not go see Hardcore Henry, but these cats did and they're gonna tell you all about it.
Well, I'll tell you what, Alonzo, you really missed out because this film was fucking awesome.
I'll leave a link in the description to a rambling review I did after I got back from the cinema watching this movie if you want to see what I think about it in depth.
But go on, let's find out how this film is misogynist.
Yeah, Hardcore Henry is, well, let me put it this way.
If you've ever been watching a video on Twitch of somebody playing a first-person shooter and you thought, I wonder what this would be like if somebody did it with GoPros at a feature length, this is that film.
Yeah, you could describe it as all of the most exciting parts of an afternoon of playing Doom or Quake condensed down into an hour and a half.
It's a fucking great film.
That is, if you're part of the right demographic.
So it's kind of interesting for the first what?
15, 20 minutes?
I gave it 18 minutes.
The mystery of who this guy is and he wakes up with no memory and he's off from his perspective and he's getting prosthetics attached to his body with this beautiful blonde doctor who says she's his wife and like who is he and why is Chanto Copley keep showing up with different personalities and costumes and different ways.
Getting killed and keep coming back.
The mystery of it is really intriguing for a while.
Well at least you're trying.
I mean you're trying to find something positive about it.
I'm going to be honest.
This story was a video game story.
I didn't care about the story.
I wasn't interested about the story.
It was just a device to move the plot along from action scene to action scene.
But that's fine.
Anyway, I'm not here to review it.
So let's carry on.
Enough to mitigate the headache-inducing dizzy factor of it.
The three of us, it was not pretty.
I don't know whether it's because we're old people.
Oh, it's not because you're old.
I mean, I'm probably about as old as you, love.
I'm probably not as old as the other guys, but you know, it's not because you're old.
It's because you're not the kind of people who are going to enjoy this movie.
Or what?
But like, for a lot of it, Matt's doing this.
Yeah, I'm looking down.
Ben, you were like in the fetal position at some point.
Yeah, I was bored, but I was mostly bored.
Yeah, that's because you have less testosterone than my one-year-old son.
It does.
It's very numbing and very remote.
Now, do any of y'all play video games?
Because I don't either.
I think we've identified the problem.
But he does.
I do, and I have found that as I've gotten older and as the frame rates have increased, it's harder to spend a lot of time playing certain games.
It gives you a headache.
It makes, depending on the perspective, it gives me a little bit of motion sickness.
Oh, well, maybe someone can make you some Ovalteen and run you a hot bath.
You can get an early night.
Some games I have to stop after 30, 40 minutes.
Like, whereas it wasn't always that way.
Are we going to send this guy to the glue factory or what?
Now, with this particular movie game, look, it hits all of the notes, as you'd expect, out of something like Hitman, which is not exactly a first-person shooter, but it's a lot of...
When writing this movie, they clearly were setting out to write something that has the rhythm of what it feels like to play one of those games, right?
Right.
And they do a spectacular job of that.
It's, you go...
I don't play, and that's incredibly clear, just because if you've seen it once, like, just, you know, the way you...
Like, at one point, he picks up adrenaline.
Right.
You know, guns are lying on the ground.
You pick up a gun and, you know, change weapons.
Yeah, it's fucking awesome.
You boring son of a bitch.
Holding the gun like it's in frame.
Exactly.
He does the flip, the hand flip, which is, you know, which happens.
Yeah, I mean, it looked like this.
Is there like a flashing mound of gold coins or anything?
Such snobbery.
You'd think for a bunch of guys who clearly don't understand what fun means, you'd probably try and be less condescending, especially given the technical excellence on display in this film.
Almost.
And it's one of those things, like it's tough to, you know, I thought a lot about how I would review this movie.
And if I can get past the way it's shot, because, you know, it's not just that it's all first-person perspective, but kind of the way the GoPro shooting kind of, you know, it's almost like almost a fisheye lens.
Like that, I think, made it a little bit worse than just being kind of like, you know, it's like that, got that anamorphic quality to it, right?
And I think that that ups the level of kind of how much it messed with me to watch.
To be fair, I should probably go a bit easier on this guy.
It's not his fault that he's infirm and he does try.
But past that, this movie, I think, successfully does exactly what it sets out to do, which is recreate the idea of playing a first-person shooter that is one of those over-the-top, very violent, very kind of extreme movies.
Like as the as the game goes on, the levels get harder and harder.
The missions get tougher and tougher.
And, you know, there's there are the, you know, there's missions where you have to go and kill this guy and get this thing.
And then there's missions where you have to, you know, the worst missions of all in games like this, where it's like, oh, you have to guard this thing while it's moving slowly and you have to protect it.
Like those are the worst.
And it happens in this movie and it's okay.
And then, you know, there's the showdown to the boss fight.
And then there's the boss fight that you think you beat.
And then there's another boss fight.
And so on that level, it nails it.
You're goddamn right it does.
Review over, right?
Now, the trick is, can you sit through that on the big screen?
It's tough.
For people who are not used to playing first-person video games, if you're someone who, I don't know, like maybe myself who loves playing first-person video games, it's fucking awesome and flawlessly executed.
But here's, you could have given it a better number.
And I was originally going to, I was thinking of doubling the number that I have like last night because I gave it some thought too.
I mean, you probably gave it more.
Because I thought it was, wow, this is cool.
This is inventive.
And they deserve a lot of credit for that.
But.
But Christy said in the beginning that you go and you're sort of intrigued in that first, whatever, 18 minutes.
But none of those questions are answered in any sort of story manner in anything.
So ultimately, it becomes just the game where you go from level to level to level to level as opposed to what still could have happened, but with some story you mentioned last night, like if there had been a real Russian mob there and you'd had to crack it or why something had why it had happened to you or where these guys came from originally other than creating an army of, you know, of serious unkillable killers, except turns out they're all killable.
Oh, for fuck's sake, Ben, you're so pretentious, right?
The movie doesn't say that they're unkillable.
You just said they're unkillable.
So going, well, actually, they're killable.
You're correcting yourself.
Not the movie, you dummy.
But there is actually a story.
The things are actually explained.
It's just the explanations don't really matter.
It's kind of magical, sci-fi, MacGuffin explanations.
Who cares?
This would be like me watching Downson Abbey or something and going, well, I mean, it's okay, but where's the blood?
But so none of that happened.
There's no story.
Yeah, there is.
It's just dumb.
But that's fine.
At all.
It's just, hey, you're at level four.
Are you going to get to levels five and six?
Okay, I know there's no point to me refusing any of the things that Ben's saying here.
And nobody's interested in this.
I'm just feeling like an absolute pedant at the moment.
And they do start getting to the interesting things that they criticize about the world and the movie later on.
But I just can't fucking, no, dipshit.
They do have a story.
There are reasons for things.
They're not very good reasons, but they are there.
They exist.
It's not actually just levels.
And therefore, it becomes just watching someone play a video game.
Yeah, and that's why I think you want to get past the gimmick of the style of it.
I think it's impossible to because that's all there is to it.
And yeah, you never find out.
Spoiler, you never find out who he is or how he ended up in that situation.
No, you don't.
And you're right.
The entire point is a technical tour de force to show you that, look, this is probably going to be like the future of action movies.
I really hope they do a medieval version of Hardcore Henry next because I would love to see it fucking, you know, riding along on a horse with a fucking lance or a sword or something.
That would be awesome.
The guy, the albino with the telekinetic powers, you never find out really who he is or what he wants.
I mean, I guess it doesn't matter.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
Maybe it's the MacGuffin.
Maybe it's just, you know, a matter of the mayhem and whether or not he has diabolical plan is secondary.
Yeah, but you can't have a MacGuffin if there's no other thing that ultimately, like, you got to have something there.
The violence is the other thing.
That's all.
It's all it is.
Oh, come on.
There was a fucking plot.
There was a point.
It was just silly.
It was about some cybernetically enhanced dude with telekinetic powers called Akan who's building an army of super cyborg zombie soldiers to take over the world.
It's not a complex plot, but it did exist.
It became uninteresting and they needed some sort of story there.
And I thought they set up for what could have been a pretty cool story.
I thought we were going to find something interesting, but then it just, that never happened.
Yeah, but imagine then if your balls dropped and you understood what it was like to enjoy conflict.
Also, I'm going to do a thing that you guys think is a cliche that I do all the time.
Can we talk about misogyny?
We have a winner.
It was only a matter of time.
What do you think, Ben?
Yeah, sure.
Of course.
All right, go ahead.
Let's talk about misogyny because every woman in this thing is just like every man in this thing.
They range from not a very nice person to arch villain.
It's either a Russian hooker.
Holy shit, you fucking elitist.
wrong with russian hookers you don't do you think they're bad people or Or, okay, the doctor may have ulterior motives.
The beautiful blonde may not be as trustworthy as we think she is.
Spoiler alert, she's one of the villains.
Yes, a woman is a villain.
You see, this is the fucking problem I have with progressives, right?
They're like, we want women in everything.
It's okay, sure, here's a woman villain.
Oh my god, you're portraying women so negatively.
Well, this is why we can't have women in certain positions and certain roles in movies.
Because you whine that they're not there.
And then when there is the only option to have villains in a movie, which is the only option in Hardcore Henry because it's so violent.
Going into it, I was genuinely worried that it would be something like Deadpool, where the bad guys weren't necessarily obviously bad guys, but they were being horribly murdered anyway.
On an emotional level, I felt a bit of a disconnect there because, I mean, they could have just been people doing their jobs, you know?
But the people in Hardcore Henry obviously seem like the sort of people who are going to kill the protagonist if he doesn't kill them first.
And so, it feels a lot less of an emotionally jarring sort of experience to see him just butcher them outright without even finding out anything about them.
You know, the reason that they are there is to capture him for either to be tortured or just to shoot him outright.
So it's fine.
And she, everyone who is opposed to Henry, falls into this category.
And they fall into this category because when Henry eventually comes to kill them, you don't want the audience feeling bad that Henry is killing people who don't fucking deserve it.
And ironically, the Russian hookers you were taking a big shit on a minute ago are one of the few people in the film who actually help Henry.
So every woman in this thing is horrible or a whore.
And every man in this thing is either horrible or a murderer.
So here's the credits were the best thing.
And to that point.
So a woman named Svetlana Gzvozdeva.
Okay.
She played Girl in Brothel 29.
Yes, and Cyrus Arnold is credited as playing young bully number two.
What's your fucking point?
These are just stock characters because the film is too fucking fast.
Everything in the film is a stereotype because that's not what the film is for.
Everything is like this.
This isn't hatred of women any more than having Cyrus Arnold as stock young bully number two is hatred of men.
But you just can't help but fucking cherry pick.
You can't help than expose a double standard in your thinking.
Wait, is that the 29th brothel or girl in brothel number 29?
The 29th girl in the brothel.
Oh my god, you fucking regressives.
Yes, it was a brothel full of naked ladies.
Believe it or not, a movie based almost entirely on killing people has adult themes.
Seriously, I mean, there are literally hundreds of men who are murdered in this film.
You're like, oh my God, 29 women in a brothel.
Misogyny.
Now, one other credit, not to your misogyny point, which we can get back to.
An actor named Bruce Grant played Trey in the Head John in Brothel.
Which is a nice credit to get dying with a Trey split through your skull.
Or I thought Trey was his name.
Nope.
That's exactly how awesome this film is.
And all the prostitutes look exactly the same.
They're all toppled with the same little black panties on and the same platinum blonde bob wig.
Don't forget huge perky tits and flat stomachs.
Once you make the one model in the game, you're not going to do a bunch of them, right?
because you're not going to use that character.
I mean.
Well, well done that man for pointing out thematic consistency.
Again, the film moves so fast, everything has to be a stereotype so you know what you're dealing with as it comes to you.
Yeah, like honestly, like that's, you almost wonder if like that was a conscious choice to make it feel more like a game.
Probably.
Well done.
For example, there is a reason why all of the mercenary henchmen have black coats and shaved heads as well.
I'm sure.
No, I think it was the same way that like all the bad guys were like, you know, bald Russians and they sort of run at you and then you and I don't even play in tracksuits, but as soon as I see that, I'm like, oh, that's obviously what it has.
That's your Russian mob touch.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, well done, Ben.
I didn't realize you would actually be nuanced enough to pick up on that.
I don't know, but Svetlana Gvozdeva, she was girl in brothel 20.
And that's, by the way, some of the women in brothels had names, so I don't want you to think that there were only 29 hookers in the brothel.
The movie had many more.
What the fuck was that, Ben?
Do you think movies having women in brothels is some sort of moral outrage or Would you prohibit women from working in brothels if you have the power?
Or is the problem that not every stock character woman in these brothels had a name of their own?
Oh, we should mention really fast also Charlto Copley.
Kind of amusing here and there with the various personalities.
I mean, like, one guy is like an easy rider kind of hippie.
One guy is like a professor.
One guy is a punker.
Right.
One is the World War I-era soldier.
One is dressed as the tree, you know, the camo guy.
There's some kind of funny stuff with him.
He's a good player.
Yeah, but that bitch.
But that bit wore off.
Like, it was.
What do you mean that wore off?
Every time you saw him, it was a different outfit until like the very end of the film when you find out he's controlling them through some sort of fucking mind link or something because the dude's a cripple in a wheelchair and this is how he vicariously lives his life.
Doesn't fucking wear off.
You didn't find out about it until the fucking end.
The question is, why is this psychotic tramp who's just been lit on fire by a flamethrower saying, I'll meet you later?
This guy was funny a couple of times.
Yeah, it's almost like, are these the things that he would have done, like extra things he would have done as Murdoch in another A-Team movie?
Right?
Like, how do we get that?
Yeah, right.
We'll never know.
Sadly.
Okay, so what are your numbers, guys?
I gave 3.3, but I thought about giving it a 6.6.
I'm saying 4.
Yeah, I give it a 6.
I think this movie sets out to be a video game, and it does that.
And as far as video game stories go, it's okay.
So on its own merits, like, you know, I actually really am quite impressed with this Matt Chap for, you know, trying to take his own bias out of it.
You know, he's obviously not like, oh, I'm not really into this.
But it does set out what it tends to do.
And man, it's way better than practically any other video game movie I can think of.
And I, oh, they're going to mention Super Mario Brothers, aren't they?
Is it better than the other video game movies for not actually being based on one?
Or does that not matter?
It is.
I think it is somewhat better.
It doesn't seem to be.
It is better than a lot of other video.
Look, it's a lot better than Super Mario Bros.
I knew it.
But yeah, this movie is amazing for a video game movie.
Right?
It's a yes, because it's not necessarily beholden to things and it kind of tries to make it work.
Like, as much as I couldn't handle the way it was shot, that is more about probably my age and not being able to.
Look, I know people who are going to love this.
And they're a lot younger than we are doing.
And Dave White was laughing the whole time.
True, but he was also looking at fixed points on the horizon.
I think there's a lot of that.
I wonder what this would feel like watching it on a smaller screen.
On an iPad.
Right.
Like, watching it on an iPad, I wonder if I would be better.
Wow, that was completely the opposite opinion I'd have.
I think this would be a lot worse on a small screen.
The experience of it being on a big screen really helped me when I was watching it to draw myself in.
But anyway.
Right.
It's still like the still have the same story problem.
Yeah, it's still a good idea.
But it's a video game story.
And at least for me, like, I'm like, yeah, okay, it's a video game story.
I'm not expecting anything out of this.
I think they hear what we're saying.
▲
Export Selection