Actors Gotta Act..."Collide"

Collide (2017)

Rated PG-13

Starring Nicholas Hoult, Felicity Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley

Directed by Eran Creevy

The Story:

Casey (Hoult) loves Juliette (Jones) so very much, that when she needs a medical procedure, he turns back to his old way of life as a driver for drug runner Geran (Kingsley). However, Geran let's Casey know that the real money would be if they could hit the supplier, respected businessman Hagen Kahl (Hopkins). And then the real fun begins!

Sadly, that is a very true statement.

The movie opens with a terrific chase and crash, and then goes back to fill us in on the narrative of how we wound up at the opening.

And it's 10 minutes of Hoult and Jones saying "I love you...no, I love you...I love you more..."

Cue the fast forward button.

I was tempted to take the movie out, I mean clearly this is a budget film, no harm no foul; Kingsley and Hopkins are just collecting their paychecks.

Then I began to realize that I'm not very fond of Felicity Jones as an actress. Granted, I've not seen her in much, but she's yet to stand out to me as a great actress I look forward to seeing in a movie.

She was okay in Rogue One, but her supporting characters were infinitely more interesting.

And as the mum in A Monster Calls... ugh...so pathetic and sad as a character, I really didn't care that her character was going to die by the time the movie ended.

See?

The mind wanders when the movie creates boredom.

And I pause the fast forwarding and watch Hopkins and Kingsley interact for possibly the first time ever together on screen, and it's pretty interesting. They both try and dial their characters up to 11, especially Kingsley who seems to be channeling his Mandarin from Iron Man. :)

Which leads us to the 45 minute-ish mark.

That's when things get interesting as the movie veers back to the action caper the opening so promised us.

And yes, it delivers quite well on the back half of the movie.

So I'm torn on a grade for a film.

I mean, dismal start, I actually fast forward past the 20 minute mark that I set for myself just to see if the movie had any potential on the other side, while other movies get yanked out of the player and returned to Netflix without the same courtesy.

I'm nothing if not a movie hypocrite sometimes.

So we'll grade fair, and say terrible first half, pretty good second half...

Final Grade: D+