Review of War of the Arrows (2011) by Jesse O — 20 May 2012

I'd say this was a very good action movie. The problem is the movie's first 5 minutes are fast and furious, then it slows down for approximately 25 minutes to set up the situation and the 'characters' that drive the movie.

The rest of the movie is pretty much 90 minutes of non-stop action. There's little if any room to breathe and no emotional resonance to the "story", you're not really given a reason to care for these characters past a 'Hero must save his sister from bad guys'.

I'm not even saying that the action was bad. Far from it really, it was exciting, thrilling and definitely better than anything Michael Bay has ever done, but there's too much of it. There's enough action here for at least seven movies.

Because of that, nothing really felt memorable. I can recall almost everything from the battle in New York in the Avengers and I saw that almost a week ago. I just FINISHED watching this movie 2 hours ago and I can recall very little, if anything, at all.

One thing is for sure, this movie is never boring, I have to give them that. And I also have to give them props for having the balls to go for the all-action approach yet never making you feel like you're losing brain cells while you're watching (like Michael Bay films tend to make you feel).

Overall, while I'd say I definitely enjoyed this movie, it could've used a LOT more story and ACTUAL character development. As it stands, it's a good action movie.