


The quips clip by and corpses pile up (off camera) as “two guys who look like they eat steroid pancackes for breakfast” team up for the action comedy “The Wrecking Crew.”
Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa tear through Hawaii as estranged half-brothers who will crash, kick, crack and cut down anyone who gets in their way of getting to whichever villain or villains killed their dad.
Director Angel Manuel Soto (“Blue Beetle”) takes a few too many cues from “Old Boy” for this not to be a blood bath. He and his “crew” expect us not to notice the boatloads of pedestrian and motoring innocent bystanders who drop like flies all around the periphery of this jovial mayhem.
Momoa and a tanner-than-usual Bautista have decent chemistry and “Deadpool” alumnus Morena Baccarin all but steals the show as one’s ex-girlfriend who finally gets to land zingers of the Ryan Reynolds variety.
Bald cherub “Spiderman” sidekick Jacob Batalon is here as a paid punching bag and accomplice.
“Who’s Uncle Fester?“
“It’s ALOPECIA man!”
Yes, there are some dumb laughs. But the timing of this kind of “due process” ignoring “rogue cop” piling up victims who are in his sights, or just civilians in the way. could not be worse.
Momoa’s a veteran, rules-bending Oklahoma Reservation cop named Jonny summoned home when his low-rent private eye father is killed in a Honolulu hit and run. Bautista is James, a Navy SEAL trainer who brings the toughness to a new generation of the toughest of the tough.
They bicker and brawl and have their psychological issues bandied about by James’ child psychologist wife (Roimata Fox). And they figure out no, it wasn’t an “accident,” no matter what the aged Honolulu police detective (Stephen Root, in rare form) says.
The Japanese mob, the Yakuza, are involved. There’s this casino developer (Claes Bang, settling into the “New Jeroen Krabbé generic second-choice Euro villain role) who seems sketchy.
Hawaian culture is sampled, and the script is peppered with more Hawaianisms and slang than a dozen Kona Beer commercials. Maori character actor and “Star Wars” alumnus Temuera Morrison even plays the governor.
But damn this beast is violent and stupidly predictable. You can’t have a car chase getaway from the yakuza without “Ninjas on motorbikes!” Don’t bring in a helicopter on that CGI-assisted chase if there isn’t a tunnel that’ll come into play.
The “talking villain cliche” is on its way!
And you can’t set out for a final confronation without visiting a Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Statham et al styled private armory of firearms of every persuasion. Action heroes are “hoarders” in cheesy action comedies.
Soto takes a couple of shots at reprising the famous Park Chan-wook “mowing through foes on a narrow hallway” scene from “Old Boy,” the last one even including a claw hammer to complete the homage.
This overlong but rarely slow picture almost gets by on Momoa’s playfulness bouncing off Bautista — “You got old.” “You got FAT.” — and a light tone that almost wholly belies the arm-yanked-off/head-sliced/woman-tossed-out-a-window gore we’re treated to.
There’s no gore like glib gore, right? And there’s no body count when nobody bothers to count, which Soto, screenwriter Jonathan Topper and their cast take pains NOT to do.
Rating: R, graphic violence in big doses, drug abuse, profanity
Cast: Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Morena Baccarin, Jacob Batalon, Frankie Adams, Stephen Root, Temuera Morrison and Claes Bang.
Credits: Directed by Angel Manuel Soto, scripted by Jonathan Tropper. An MGM release on Amazon Prime.
Runnging time: 2:04

