Movie Nation

“Project Wolf Hunting” is “Con Air” on a cargo ship — psychopathic convicts being transported by sea. And there’s something even more monstrous on ice in the hold!

Boy, Hollywood’s going to have to put the work in to catch up with where Korean action cinema is these days.

Writer-director Kim Hongsun’s action epic is a “Captain Phillips” bloodbath, a straight-up splatter pic — that’s a slasher film that doesn’t know when enough is enough. Scene after scene is filled with convicts killing crew and cops, or cops killing convicts, or everybody being killed by Korea’s take on Mary Shelley’s most famous work.

It’s a wonder anybody can kill anybody, as the decks are so bathed in blood it’s hard to avoid those nasty slip-and-fall accidents while you’re lunging with a knife, swinging a sledgehammer or merely taking aim with an assault rifle.

Writer-director Kim Hongsun (“Traffickers”) just signed with a Hollywood agency, which will at least coordinate the proper spelling of his name so that IMDb doesn’t have a different “Kim” credited as screenwriter. He stages machine gun shoot-outs within the confines of the bridge, knife fights on every deck and a brawl in the engine room, where fuel oil and fuel oil lines lead the Filipino engineer to bellow, “You can’t shoot here! The ship will stop!”

TOOL fight!

The set-up — there was this agreement between Korea and the Philippines a few years back, an exchange of prison inmates, with Filipinos sent home to do their time on the islands and Korean criminals likewise sent “home.” A prologue shows how things can go wrong when you put hated criminals on a jet and have to walk them through an airport.

So the decision is made to rent space on the Frontier Titan, a cargo ship. Twenty “veteran detectives” and their chief (Dong-il Sung) will watch over the worst who got caught doing their worst in the Philippines, including a necrophiliac and assorted murderers, with Jong-du (Seo In-guk) the worst of the very worst, and a “celebrity” “red notice” killer (Jang Dong-yoon) in their ranks as well.

But we smell a rat the moment we see the shifty-eyed “doctor” hired at the last minute to join this three day sail. And there are other sketchy characters on board, along with openly abusive cops.Then there’s the amoral corporate creep (Jang Dong-yoon) and his crew that takes over the shipping company’s traffic-monitoring station back in Inchon.

Things are bound to go awfully, gruesomely wrong. And they do. A viewing tip? Don’t get too invested in any one character, or group of characters.

“If this isn’t hell,” the doctor grumbles in Korean with English subtitles, “I don’t know what is!”

The script works in Korea’s favorite nemesis, Japan, in some World War II flashbacks that don’t fold into the story seamlessly. Scenes don’t play by their own rules. That “Don’t shoot in here” warning falls on deaf ears, as there’s no warning psychopaths not to do something.

“Project Wolf Hunting” is a brutally efficient killing machine long before the supernatural twist stomps into the proceedings. That almost seems like a gimmick-too-far.

Only a couple of characters merit background sketches, and these explain and motivate their characters when the picture doesn’t really require that. A few red herrings offer clever distractions. But how many “villains” can one thriller stand?

Kim keeps the action going and the blood flowing through two hours of grisly, grim mayhem as the armed and murderous go at it in a “prison” from which there is no escape, only a chance to be chum for the sharks.

Rating: unrated, gruesomely violent, sex, nudity, profanity

Cast: Seo In-guk, Sung Dong-il, Jang Dong-yoon, Jung So-min, Park Ho-san

Credits: Scripted and directed by Kim Hongsun. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 2:02

Netflix is all in on this sequel.

Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale, Mia Farrow, Christopher MacDonald, Jennifer Coolidge and Margo Martindale are among the stars of this “true story” of terrorized suburbia.

Looks nerve wracking.
Oct. 13.

Whatever audience awareness tracking and pre-release ticket sales say about how a film will perform at the box office, the defining clue is that moment the rubber meets the road — opening night, still called “previews” by the studios.

“The Woman King” had a $3.1 million opening Thursday, and opened just over $19 million.

“Don’t Worry Darling,” with all the buzz — much of it bad — had high awareness and a special early EARLY preview of IMAX showings in the larger cities. And it opened not Thursday night but late Thursday afternoon.

It’s “preview” take was still $3.1 million. All those predictions of curious filmgoers checking the film out, of Harry Styles fans following into his dotage and swarming the cineplexes were an illusion.

“Don’t Worry Darling” opened below the lower end of its expectations, which were $20-21 million.

It opened at $3.1 million, just like “The Woman King,” and the weekend estimate take now it $19.2 million, almost just like “The Woman King.”

Thanks #boxofficepro for confirming what seemed obvious Friday morning.

“The Woman King” had a slightly better second weekend than predicted, BTW.

MBB is back in the tile role, Netflix has decided to treat this as a streaming franchise as this sequel is to be two movies.

Lots of action and 19th century British drollery.

The life of a shoemaker to the stars. Some folks are going to really be into this, I dare say.

Netflix has this John Boyega/Jamie Foxx and friends laugher. The trailer is damned funny, a good sign considering Mr Foxx’s prior Netflix paycheck.

“Railway Children” has more hugs in it than any British movie this side of “Love, Actually.” So much for chilly, oppressed English reserve — then or now.

This treacly trifle is the latest version of an E. Nesbit novel from 1905, a tale of city kids sadly separated from their parents and sent to live in the country.

This period-piece has been turned into at least three TV series and many movies, most famously a film from 1970. That movie’s Yorkshire locations, and one of its child stars — Jenny Agutter, who also starred in a 1960s TV version — are revived for this film, which wore the title “The Railway Children Return” at one point.

Setting this “reboot” of the tale during World War II, when British cities were being bombed and parents were urged to ship their kids off to the country, often to live with complete strangers, is such a clever touch that it’s shocking no one thought of it adapting it before. Perhaps one of the post-war versions did. That adds pathos and a hint of tragedy to the story, and raises the stakes.

Picking 1944 as the year when the sisters Lily (Beau Gadsdon) and Pattie (Eden Hamilton) and their little brother Ted (Zac Crudby) are packed off to stay with strangers is odd. The London Blitz was years before, and the big exodus of kids came earlier. But that’s a plot contrivance that makes another subtext fit.

Their nurse-mother takes them to their tearful farewell at the train station, sending them off with “Look after them, you’re the parent now” instructions to Lily.

They steam from Manchester (which was only bombed twice, in 1940) into the country, to scenic, quaint Oakworth where school teacher Annie (Sheridan Smith), her son Thomas (Austin Haynes) and Annie’s mother (Agutter) show up at the school to see who needs to be taken in.

A sweet touch — grandma remembers when she came to the country, a reference to Agutter’s film of 50 years ago. Another? Granny advises them to “wait” and see who can’t be placed. Most families would blanch at having to feed three extra mouths. “There’s a war on,” as folks said back then.

But they take on the three kids, keep calm and carry them home.

Life here is all schoolwork, “sweets” and precious few chores. Annie shows them how to run after they’ve fetched the morning’s eggs from her hens, so that they drop and break a few. The kids cut loose during a bread-making lesson by having a flour fight.

Not to be a fussbudget, but wasting food was a cardinal sin on an island that was rationing everything and worried about being starved out is a detail that some born-yesterday screenwriter should have looked up.

The three new kids join Thomas for rambles in the countryside, and playtime at the local railyard. That’s where he’s turned an abandoned trolley car into a clubhouse. It’s there, after tall, plucky Lily has handled a local bully, that they stumble across a deserter.

It’s wholly worthwhile for a film about Britain in World War II to introduce African American characters and the Jim Crow racism that the U.S. military dragged with it as it sent troops overseas. But this slight, unevenly-acted children’s film handles it rather clumsily.

AJ Aiken plays Abe, a teen who has been beaten by racist MPs (we see this happen several times) for fraternizing with the white local girls and who has decided to try and find his way home. The kids try to help, and bond with the stranger as they do.

That’s a well-intentioned but somewhat wan attempt to add a little gravitas to the “children’s war movie” proceedings. One other bit of military melodrama is introduced when a stray bomber looses a stray bomb. Not to worry. Manchester Lily knows just how to react.

“If you’re still alive after the noise is gone, you’re OK!”

Tom Courtenay shows up to twinkle through a moment or two, a visiting uncle relating news about the war, about “Rommel” and his army being “crushed” in North Africa. That was in 1942-43. Is this supposed to be before D-Day, or shortly after in 1944? One wonders just how much history those who scripted it dug into.

The World War II material carries a lot of the emotional and action weight in this “Railway Children,” with parents missing or actually missing in action, an air raid and American GIs bringing their problems from home with them. That stuff is simply handled, and rendered into thin drama. One wonders what on Earth Nesbitt’s novel had in it that carried the story along and gave it drama without WWII. And the epilogue that wraps this entire enterprise up is so namby pamby as to make one wonder why The War was used if they weren’t going to treat it as the perilous and sad event that it was, for adults as well as children.

Still, it’s all harmless enough, and a lovely Yorkshire travelogue if nothing else. Gadsdon (“The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” “Rogue One” and young Princess Margaret in TV’s “The Crown) is the stand-out performer. Try not to notice how distracted the other kid-players seem in group scenes.

Rating: PG

Cast: Beau Gadsdon, Austin Haynes, KJ Aikens, Eden Hamilton, Sheridan Smith, Zac Cudby, Tom Courtenay, John Bradley and Jenny Agutter.

Credits: Directed by Morgan Matthews, scripted by Daniel Brockhurst and Jemma Rogers, based on the 1970 film which was based on a novel by E. Nesbit. A Blue Fox release.

Running time: 1:35

Jake Gyllenhaal, Gabriel Union, Dennis Quaid, Lucy Liu — few big voice names, a Thanksgiving release. Looks ok, derivative but OK.

“Don’t Worry Darling” did preview numbers that matched those of “The Woman King” a week ago –about $3.1 million.

But Olivia Wilde’s critically-panned, bad-buzzed sci fi “Stepford” thing had IMAX previews earlier in the week, and opened earlier on Thursday afternoon to boot

They were expecting Harrymania and the curious Looky Loos to push this one to $27 million plus.

It’s opening a third or so below that, very close to “Woman King’s” $19 million. Figure $21 million, or a smidge more or less, based on Friday’s take.

“The Woman King” is heading towards a $10-11 million second weekend. Always happy to see a good movie hang around.

Like a bad green-with-age copper penny, “Avatar” has earned a re release with a sequel due out over the holidays. With a preview for the next film slapped on in front of the James Cameron epic, it added $9 million to it’s overall take.

“Barbarian” is adding another $4.75 million to the kitty.

“Pearl” and “Bullet Train” and “See How They Run” are in the $1.9 to $1.7 million range.

Not quite enough to chase “Top Gun” out of the top ten. But any day now…