On August 17, cinemas began showing the action-comedy film “Mission for Two” starring Jackie Chan and John Cena. After five long years of sitting on the shelf, the tape finally reaches the audience, in particular, with a noticeable delay, to us. In the review below we tell you why this fact is not at all pleasing, what the no longer young Jackie Chan can offer his fans and whether it is worth spending time on this new product.
Pros: some good jokes and action scenes, interaction between Jackie Chan and John Cena Cons: visually artificial, implausible setting, weak special effects, primitive plot, inability to qualitatively use the work of successful representatives of the genre, which the film is equal to
“Mission for two” / Hidden Strike
Genre Comedy Action
Directed by Scott Waugh
Starring: Jackie Chan, John Cena, Pilou Asbæk, Zhenwei Wang, Max Huang, Amadeus Serafini
Premiere cinemas
Year of release 2023
IMDb website
Near future. An oil refinery in Iraq, owned by the Chinese firm Unicorp, is attacked by mercenaries led by Owen Peddock. Former commando “Dragon” Liu Feng (only Don Wilson could afford such a nickname), now the head of a security company, organizes the evacuation of civilians. A convoy of eleven buses is supposed to get to the Green Zone, but on the way they get caught in a strange sandstorm.
A squad of mercenaries takes advantage of this and kidnaps several factory employees. Liu launches a search for the missing and meets one of the kidnapping team – American specialist Chris Van Horn.
Very soon, both come to the conclusion that they are dealing with the same enemy, who is planning to commit a large-scale oil robbery. Therefore, they join forces to stop the villain and prevent the literal leakage of a resource important for the Chinese economy.
“Mission for Two” is a product of American-Chinese production, which is a rather controversial phenomenon in our time. True, filming ended in 2018, but since then the $80 million project, for unknown reasons, has never reached theatrical release. One of the reasons for the long stay in oblivion can be called the COVID-19 pandemic, which probably prevented the film from appearing on screens much earlier.
But be that as it may, “Mission for Two” is finally making it to the box office, although this action movie can hardly be called long-awaited. Just as it is not easy to get any adequate pleasure from watching it.
At first, the film was planned as a collaboration between Jackie Chan and Sylvester Stallone, but Sly had to refuse to participate due to being busy with the second Creed. Therefore, another big guy came to replace the action legend – the famous wrestler John Cena. Since then (i.e., since 2018), his film career has taken off sharply: literally soon, Cena will appear in the successful Bumblebee, later play the role of Peacemaker in the DC cinematic universe, join Dominic Toretto’s family, etc.
“Mission for Two” tries to pretend to be a large-scale and energetic action film in the spirit of “Mad Max” (2015) by George Miller. All these dangerous journeys in the middle of post-apocalyptic deserts, skull masks, dynamic camera passes during action scenes – everything in the frame is intended to prove to the viewer that this is an interesting example of the genre with cool action scenes.
But if we associate Miller’s action hit with this craft, in this context the latter looks like a cheap mockbuster parasite. And this is not to mention the visual component. Miller created a bright, spectacular and exciting chase film. Here, in the best moments, they rely on CGI, which can be called quite good. For cut scenes of old video games.
It’s not worth mentioning the plot, and especially any kind of dramaturgy, because they perform a purely decorative function. Director Scott Waugh (the film adaptation of the game Need for Speed, the biographical survival thriller Six Feet Under) relies on action and interaction in the frame of the main stars.
This is enough to not consider watching the film completely useless, but not enough to enjoy it. It would be unfortunate if we get something like this in September, when the director’s next project, the fourth “Expendables,” comes out.
Jackie Chan and John Cena sometimes actually joke well and look confident in action scenes. The Hong Kong childhood idol of many viewers is no longer so dexterous, but despite his advanced age, he is still convincing in his classic playful fighting role.
His character still refuses to use firearms, and the fight scene in the fire foam allows us to remember the best years of the actor. Cena scatters enemies no worse than in the WWE ring, gives names to cars and still manages to give out one-liners. This allows you to smile a few times, but that’s about it.
Waugh and his team are not shy about saluting not only Mad Max, but also The Fast and the Furious with its passion for driving fast and throwing cars into the air. However, the creators will still not be able to achieve the desired effect, because the entire local setting looks too artificial, unnatural, and extremely plastic.
At the same time, there are too many absurdities happening on camera to perceive what is being depicted as a coherent story. And a Jackichan movie cannot be good, where in classic scenes with unsuccessful takes, the most difficult trick turns out to be inserting a magazine into an unruly pistol.
Conclusion:
“Mission for Two” is a low-grade comedy buddy movie. Its authors are trying to take the best from the top representatives of the action genre, but they do it more so that the film only seems cool, and is not so in reality.
