David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Dichen Lachman’

Aftermath

Director: Patrick Lussier

Cast: Dylan Sprouse, Mason Gooding, Megan Stott, Dichen Lachman, Kevin Chapman, Nick Apostolides, Mark Irvingsen, Shahjehan Khan, Will Lyman

Running Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Los Angeles based Voltage Pictures delivers a good old fashioned American action film with no frills. A simple plot all taking place one night on the cantilever truss Tobin Bridge in Boston in the new film by Drive Angry director Patrick Lussier called Aftermath starring Dylan Sprouse as Eric Daniels a tough soldier who along with his sister Madeleine played by Megan Stott get trapped on the bridge when a crazy paramilitary private contractor group led by the delusional Captain Chaos played by Mason Gooding son of Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr (Jerry Maguire).

Aftermath is pure action as Eric Daniels overcomes any residual PTSD from his days in Afghanistan, to man up and fight captain chaos and his group of heavily armed group of mercenaries who trap civilians on the famous Tobin Bridge over the Mystic River in Boston, Massachusetts. In an effort to protect his teenage sister, Daniels teams up with the hardened Samantha, an ex-convict who spilled a bunch of military secrets linking private military contractors to incidents of mass civilian casualties.

Samantha is dutifully played by Tibetan actress Dichen Lachman who was in the brilliant series Animal Kingdom and recently seen in Jurassic World Dominion.

While the plot of Aftermath is about as murky as the moonlit Mystic River over which the bridge hangs precariously, the action is top notch with a great rescue operation in which Daniels, well played by Voltage Pictures big star Dylan Sprouse quickly starts eliminating Captain Chaos’s team, while the crazed ring leader with a death wish is hell-bent on utter destruction.

Fantastic night visuals include drone footage and an atmospheric tension on the bridge in which minor characters like Will Lyman as Kozak and Shahjehan Khan (Succession) as Ozzie assist the hero in catching and outwitting the violent and crazy villain, whose sole concern is to get online publicity as he livestreams the terrifying bridge hijacking.

Aftermath delivers in terms of entertainment and judging by a packed cinema on a rainy Sunday afternoon, this is the type of standard action fare that excels at the box office.

Director Patrick Lussier delivers as a resourceful director of an electrifying action film and Aftermath is worth seeing as an engrossing simple action film all set on a bridge with explosives. What could possibly go wrong?

Aftermath gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is an unpretentious action which will keep viewers you riveted. Recommended viewing.

Jurassic World: Dominion

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Campbell Scott, Omar Sy, Isabella Sermon, DeWanda Wise, Dichen Lachman, Mamoudou Athie, Cokey Falkow

Running Time: 2 hours 26 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

To round off the reboot trilogy of Jurassic World which started in 2015, director Colin Trevorrow returns to the director’s chair for the third and final instalment Jurassic World: Dominion reuniting the new cast Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard with the cast of the original 1993 Jurassic Park film consisting of Oscar winner Laura Dern (Marriage Story) as Ellie Sattler, Sam Neill as Alan Grant and the ever quirky Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm.

In the 2022 version, Dinosaurs mix freely with humans in a bizarre social world however something is amiss when giant locusts start attacking the food supply in West Texas.

Campbell Scott (The Sheltering Sky) plays a peevish version of a Steve Jobs type character, Lewis Dodgson who runs an extremely shady Biosyn Tech company in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy and is involved in all sorts of weird genetic engineering, playing God with creatures which just become more lethal and uncontrollable as the story unfolds.

Dodgson and his gang of thieves kidnap Maisie Lockwood from the guardianship of Owen Grady and Claire Dearing played respectively by Chris Pratt and by Bryce Dallas Howard.

In the meantime Sattler and Grant investigate the splurge of these giant locusts at the highly sophisticated Biosyn Tech company headquarters, where literally everything goes wrong including letting loose some Apex predators.

Dodgson’s greedy fascination with genetic engineering and dinosaurs sees him become a pathetic villain. Unfortunately, Campbell Scott is not a strong enough actor to play a convincing villain. For Jurassic World: Dominion, the producers needed a really charismatic actor to play the evil villain who is akin to Hugo Drax in Moonraker.

Before the entire world’s food supply gets threatened, Sattler realises that the mutation of the locusts need to be stopped before the general population is three meals away from anarchy.

The first half of Jurassic World: Dominion is really action packed particularly the chase sequence on Malta however the second half in the Dolomite Mountains is nothing original and is really the same group of characters being threatened by scary dinosaurs. The kids will love it!

DeWanda Wise is fantastic as the kickass aeroplane pilot for hire Kayla Watts and Mamoudou Athie is equally good as the only honest employee left at BioSyn. Audiences should look out for Dichen Lachman from the Animal Kingdom TV series as the ruthless henchwoman Santos.

Judging by how packed the cinema was, Jurassic World: Dominion is not a bad summer blockbuster film and gets a film rating of 7 out of 10.

If audiences enjoyed the first two films, then they will love this one. The third installment has all the ingredients of an action packed exotic film filled with dinosaurs, fascinating side characters and sweeping shots of unbelievable locations from Malta to Texas to the Italian alps.