Listen, I was always gonna be seated for Cameron Diaz’s comeback movie. No matter what I was planning on seeing it. But you should not. You should wait until her next movie cause Back in Action is depressing to see. An action movie dropping quietly on Netflix in January? Yeah, it’s not very good.
It’s certainly fun and cheeky at times. The action choreography is actually quite fun. It’s super over the top and silly (at a point someone uses a gas pump as a flamethrower. That’s the type of movie this is). It’s not super realistic, and that’ll certainly bother a certain crowd, but it was pretty easy for me to get past that. I’m fine with sacrificing a sense of reality for good action comedy.
The issue is that most of the movie is not action. Nor is it funny. Nor is it particularly well made. I don’t know if this was meant for the big screen or was always made for Netflix’s compression in mind, but it looks absolutely dreadful. The CGI is never convincing. The green screens are pretty terrible. It’s so distracting, it immediately makes me want to tune out.
The family dynamics are all over the place. They’re super cheesy in a Spy Kids kind of way, but doesn’t work because it’s playing to adults. It’s got seriously bad writing, all the characters are quipping about everything and it just doesn’t land as funny, it lands as awkward. The actors in this are giving it their earnest attempt here. But I just don’t think the material is any good. It’s probably one of the better slop Netflix action movies to come out, but that’s not saying anything.
A movie I was able to catch on streaming about a real-life underdog. Unstoppable (2025) on Amazon Prime Video hits exactly the way you think it would. While maybe hitting all of the typical beats you’ve come to expect from a sports biopic, it is certainly carried by its cast here.
Jharrel Jerome is FANTASTIC here, he’s obviously putting in a lot of commitment to this role physically and emotionally. I would love to see him in more leading roles because he’s got that compelling star power. Don Cheadle also is pretty great, though given a much more subdued role. It would’ve been easy to phone it in, but he still delivers at the end of the day.
The director is an editor, and you can absolutely tell in his storytelling choices and care for the shift from scene to scene. The story itself is definitely one of those cheesy and inspirational tales you’ve seen a hundred times before. And yet the movie hits all of the right beats at all of the right moments.
It maybe runs a little too long, and it’s certainly got its cliche tropes. I liked Bobby Cannavale, but man was his character so obvious. And Jennifer Lopez sadly didn’t have much of an arc here. Unstoppable (2025) hits the exact beats it needs to hit in order to win over an audience and not much else. And sometimes that’s ok. It’s a movie that you recommend to mom and dad for movie night.
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