Havoc Review

 

Finally! Me along with other fans of Gareth Evans have been waiting for this since 2021! And now, it's finally arrived!

Havoc is an action-thriller movie. It's produced by One More One, Severn Screen, and XYZ Films with Netflix distributing. Gareth Evans both wrote and directed.

The story is, after a drug deal goes horrible wrong, detective Walker must fight his way through the criminal underworld in order to rescue a politician's son. While going on this rescue mission he uncovers more the city's dark web of conspiracy and corruption.

Initial Reaction

Now I've been waiting for this movie since the announcement way back in 2021. I was especially excited for Gareth Evans for being the one who was gonna write and direct. And if any of you have ever seen The Raid movies, you'd understand why it's awesome to see and hear his name being attached. Oh, by the way, watch The Raid movies. They're awesome!

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

First is the story. Now I'll be honest, yes, it's a very basic story. You're not gonna find anything groundbreaking, but as I've stated many times before, you can have a basic story as long as the journey from point A to point B has a good entertainment factor to it. And Havoc for the most part has that. Then there's the pacing. Then there's the cinematography. 99% of the time the cinematography is gorgeous. First let me show you the beautiful landscape shots.

Those are just pure eye candy. They're perfect. But then we get shots like these.

What the hell is going on?!? These look horrible. Especially that second one. What is that? Tom Hardy looks like he's photoshopped in. Since I'm on the subject matter now it's a good time to transition to the next slight problem. Some of the CGI & green screen aren't very good. Some I didn't mind cause it looked fine, but stuff like this, no. I can't come up with a defense for that. That's bad.

Pros

Let give credit to the thing will came here for, the action. I really liked the action. It's violence with bloody splattering everywhere with some creative kills put in. The biggest standouts were the nightclub scene and the cabin siege at the end. Those were awesome. My last bit of credit goes to Tom Hardy's performance. The character he's playing is a very standard grizzled, morally questionable cop, but Hardy is able to add a lot of depth with his charisma for dialogue moments and physicality when the action ramps up.

While there are issues I can't say I was fully disappointed. There is some fun to be add but yes, Evans' Raid movies are better, but again, still wasn't fully disappointed.

My final rating is, Okay.

So that'll be all for today. Come back on Monday, Apr 28th, for my review of The Accountant 2. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.