Survivor (I) (2015)

Under the guardianship of the Wachowski siblings, director James McTeigue made the excellent V for Vendetta and the very entertaining Ninja Assassin. However, on his own, his career considerably decreased with the mediocre The Raven, and more recently, the awful Survivor. And the worst thing of all is that Survivor counted with some ingredients for a solid action film: good actors and enough money to shoot in various countries and bring a cosmopolitan atmosphere to the film. Unfortunately, those elements are wasted due to a bad screenplay with no rhyme or reason. Or maybe, the fault was mine for having expected a dynamic and stylized film from McTeigue, supported by two solid actors (Pierce Brosnan and Milla Jovovich) in the leading roles. Instead of that, I found a bad episode of Covert Affairs (I even feel I'm insulting it; my apologies to the fans of that series). It wasn't a bad idea to focus on the proceedings of an embassy; however, the logic of the screenplay of Survivor (let's not even talk about credibility) immediately crumbles when the affair of the visa unleashes a major assault whose only result is drawing the attention to the terrorists' plan. And things go from bad to worse when we find out the fact that said plan makes no sense, besides of the fact it could easily be avoided if the heroin didn't make such absurd decisions while she tries to solve everything on her own. On the other hand, we have "the best assassin in the world" with an awful aiming and null physical aptitude. And the least I say about the "tense" conclusion developed in a huge public event with one million of people, the better. And don't expect to find the attractive visual style displayed by McTeigue in V for Vendetta and Ninja Assassin; Survivor never overcomes the appearance of a TV movie. I wish McTeigue better luck with his next film; I just hope he hasn't missed the telephone number of the Wachowski siblings.