Premium Rush (2012)

Despite my plans to start off the week with a more positive note, I figured to review Premium Rush instead and it most likely will not end well. As I watched this with a friend while I was in Estonia, I guess I really didn’t concentrate on its bits and pieces that were bothering me and I was rather enjoying my time and of course the always my favorite Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Compared to his previous movies, many of them my all time favorites, I doubt this is the one for the DVD collection but I guess everybody makes mistakes, even the best ones.

Let me set the overall mood of the review, I will not focus on the actors, I will try to ignore that fact because I think that what he had to work with, he did a great job with. And though I didn’t really like Michael Shannon, I’m sure he is a nice guy. The whole dislike, thinking back to Premium Rush, is the story build up. Because, if we think, those who have seen the movie, how the plot would sound in a single sentence, the movie has a solid premises to be amazing. Then, when you start to tell the movie as it was from event to event, you will suddenly realize that the excitement and the thrill left the building and never came back. To be honest, I liked to movie quite a lot up until the moment they finished with describing the detective’s day as a flashback or a time-jumping-scenario what ever it was, because I was getting bored of it being predictable.

The beginning might not be as great as I see it in my head, I do think my personal feelings come to play in terms of seeing him on the screen again, but there was that moment where I just started to wait for the end. Oh and the ending, it only had just a minute or a minute and a half of BMX stunts! Despite the entire movie which brought up the topic of riding dangerously over and over and over again as if he was capable of doing something out of this world. Though, my friend did find it awesome and I guess he knows more about it that I do. Still, at least have the decency to show 5 minutes of stunts when one has watched an hour of bike riding and a cop riding a bike and a girl riding a bike and a self absorbed black guy riding a bike and the detective acting like Nicolas Cage at some point. Seriously, was it just me or did Shannon look like Cage at one point?

Based on this, yes, I didn’t like Premium Rush but I can’t say that I hated it, even if I tried really hard. I guess it wasn’t the best nor the most exciting one, but when one has good food, a beer (or in my case juice) and great company, the movie doesn’t end up being the worst in the bunch. As I say this, I really do want to state that the way I saw this movie, was just staring at Gordon-Levitt riding and looking all muscley so I’m not an objective critic at the moment. BUT don’t get me started with his lady! (And the other lady who was the one with the problem) Sorry, but no and just no, and all types of other no’s that I can think of because not only did I dislike her character through the plot, I didn’t really like her as an actress in that role as well. Maybe it’s because this was a kind of a different role for Gordon-Levitt and it was impossible to picture him with a “normal” girl. I mean, Zooey Deschanel quirky kind of different, yes please, but somehow with the Premium Rush love couple I never saw nor felt the chemistry, it was just plain awkward. I mean, even Gordon-Levitt and the cop had a better chemistry and I-play-with-you-you-play-with-me situation going on.

That being said, Premium Rush had its flaws and its falling apart plot with not so matchable roles, but at least I got to see my man on the screen again and I’m never sorry about that. Next up, Don Jon’s Addiction which is written and directed by him! Although I am not sure how much I want to seem him with even more muscles…