Sharlto Copley added a much needed strong presence to this film. Overall it's not bad but I didn't find myself engaged with this perspective. My friends raved about how it feels like an ode to all these videogames but I was wondering if a richer world could've been created without the POV.

It all depends on how long can you stand the gimmick. I lasted about 15 minutes.

I can appreciate the amount of skill, hard work, and imagination that went into this, but there's a reason why you haven't seen a movie like this and that's because you can pretty much replicate the experience at home with a video game. As a movie, at least in the case with Hardcore Henry (though I had a similar reaction to Doom), I just got bored rather quickly. And the gore's there really for the sake of having gore in the movie. It's pointless.

I was reading some of the reviews on Flixster and one reviewer pointed out (and I'm paraphrasing) that as a film it's pretty thin, but as a technical exercise it's interesting. No offense to that reviewer, but 95 minutes as a technical exercise doesn't work. You need at least a few minutes of what makes a film (a little more than the bare bones of what makes up character development) thrown in there as well.

To put it kind of plainly, outside of Sharlto Copley who gives it his all, I kinda hated it.

* (D)

Damn........thx Jmart.
I'll wait till it's on Netflix to give it a look

I loved it. Rev, check it out.

Hardcore Henry is a full throttle editing exercise in first person point of view. It doesn't quite reach the ecstatic heights of Crank, but HH still provides an invigorating little splash of battery acid to the face. *B+*

An action-movie simulation of a video game, Hardcore Henry proves exhausting and puerile rather than exhilarating, and the sole card up its sleeve—a feature-length first-person perspective—wears thin fast. The film opens with the title character, mute and played by camera-wielding stuntmen, coming to in a laboratory in an airship above Moscow. He has no memory, but a female scientist (Haley Bennett) says she is his wife. She reveals she and her partners have transformed him into a type of Six Million Dollar Man, a supercharged human-robot hybrid programmed for survival and ass kicking. Before long, the base is breached by a power-mad telekinetic albino (Danila Kozlovsky) and his henchmen, inciting a whirlwind chase which puts Henry's new abilities to the test. The plot is nonsense—the antagonist in particular is a medley of ambiguities and clichés, and the idea of the Hero as a Void so everyone in the audience becomes him falls short (zero rooting interest)—but this can be partly forgiven considering the format and genre.

The execution is also very problematic, however. Broadly, I do not doubt the production required ingenuity and skill, but the result is ugly: a disorienting and watery-grey parade of in-your-face perpetual motion. Almost never is the unique presentation utilized to build suspense or illustrate Henry's evolving tactics. The cinematography is never balletic or intricate. The only purpose is speed and head-into-concrete brutality. There are also frequent cuts, dispelling any illusion of real-time urgency. (See the recent German crime drama Victoria for a more impressive technical exercise.) The strychnine-infused cherry on top of the fetid sundae is the film's Putin-era Russian soul, a type of Adidas-wearing, head-shaving cynicism/masculinity/misanthropy/misogyny indicative of co-producer Timur Bekmambetov's worst impulses. And the sole saving grace: a campy performance by South African actor Sharlto Copley as a master of disguise who repeatedly dies gruesome deaths and returns with another, more outlandish avatar, ranging in inspiration from Colonel Blimp to Sid Vicious. His bewigged comic mania is the only pleasant distraction from the mean-spirited, overwrought malaise.

D

I am excited to see this movie because the take is different but it was clear from the start that the first person view won't have a lasting effect.

HARDCORE HENRY

Overall, I enjoyed the film. Yes the first person point of view can be trying at times especially when the character is running all over the place but it's also interesting and unique in a way. Would I want to see more films filmed in that perspective. Hell no. I doubt I'll watch this film more than once every five years. I did enjoy the action and the multiple versions of Copley's character. I never figure out how that bad guy had the power he had on people or maybe it had to do with metal. Idk.

Grade - B

I finally saw the movie and while it wasn't a perfect movie and the first person viewpoint gets tiring after sometime (I lasted 35 minutes), the different take is interesting. Sharlto Copley carries the movie more than Henry without his multiple personalities this movie would quickly turn into a video game, which essentially happens after the lift scene. The problem here is storyline not sure it has one and I also noticed that the sound effects were lacking. If you are going to see a persons view even without the voice you will hear the breathing, some scenes do capture this but rest of the movie ignores this. The big finale overstays its welcome mostly because its impossible to keep the camera straight with how they shot the movie. This is where the artistry of camera, a must for such a movie, was lacking.

This will obviously be very divisive movie but for action and gore lovers this is a VERY unique take which is enjoyable mostly.

7/10. B-

Pretty entertaining flick, but it does over stay it's welcome after a while. Loved the ridiculous amount of gore which was mostly practical, but the action sequences were a bit too shaky cam at times, especially in close quarters. Sharlto Copley was fantastic and injected some much needed personality into this film. Didn't care for the villain and I don't get why they had Tim Roth in this only to be really underused. Oh! and Haley Bennett is a total babe.

* / ***** (F)

I actually thought the trailer was good. But the movie is pretty bad. It's definitely what a movie version of FPS shooter should be, but apparently that doesn't make a good movie. At all. For most of the time it's really hard to eve understand what's going on screen which makes watching this movie pretty tiresome. The ending was cool though.

It's a bit too much at times. But the dark sense of humor, mostly brought by Copley's character(s), elevates this from kinda annoying to kinda awesome.

I wouldn't have turned the wife heel at the end. A happy ending would have given this movie more of a reason to exist. As is, it's just a much funnier than expected gimmick.

Hardcore Henry

This is a fast-paced, non-stop, brutal experiment in action cinema. It could almost be called a video-game adaptation, it is that evocative of the style and game-play of a first-person shooter, including a seemingly impossible-to-beat villain that pops in and out as needed. This film is brilliant. I have no idea how they did some of the things they did, but it was all incredibly over-the-top awesome. Does it get tiresome after some time? Well, a bit, but not really. They combat that by increasing the absurdity level with each "level". It starts off with thugs on the street and eventually he's hanging from a helicopter after just taking out a tank crew!

I have little desire to see a sequel (how could they top this?!) but this film is a blast, from beginning to end. Sharlto Copley makes yet another awesome, technically brilliant film. I loved his British army officer character, and the stoned biker. Very well acted, and the beautiful Haley Bennett is a welcome piece of eye candy, but the film's real triumph is its technical departments. Just superb. I have huge appreciation when film actually tries something new, and this was not only new but it flat-out worked.

B+