Land Of Bad (2024) - Great Action Scenes - Review

It seems that the year started with some movies that where an enigma of how good would they bee, turns out having a great cast is not enough that is the case of Argylle (2024) that had a very good one and then The Beekeeper (2024) that only had Jason Statham with a couple of supporting actors and did a good job. Land of Bad two main characters are played by Liam Hemsworth as Sgt. Kinney, a JTAC operator who is involve into a very improvise mission; and Russell Rowe Cpt. Grimm aka Reaper, a drone operator who is very strict at work.

I wanted to mention Beekeeper because if you like it then you are going to like "Land of Bad", regarding my rating I personally take humor as a big part on any movie and some of the jokes and "funny" scenes on Beekeeper were just too silly for my taste that's the main reason I give Land of Bad a higher rate, in terms of action scenes they are very close.

To avoid telling the entire movie and spoil it, I'm going to talk about the things I like and some I didn't, only key points that wont tell you the complete outcome.

The movie does start very random with Sgt. Kinney just looking down at two boxes of cereal like not knowing what to pick, Froot Loops or Frosted Flakes then he is given instructions by Master Sgt. Sugar to get ready for his next mission, Kinney got off guard because this includes going into a Halo jump, basically a very high jump for an aircraft that he is not qualified for but Master Sgt. Sugar said fuck it you will be fine. Capt. Grimm a veteran drone operator who has too many ex-wife and kids that he needs extra bonus pay outs so he can cover child support and is taking over the operation Sgt. Kinney will be on, Kinney is a JTAC basically he is in charge of giving orders to drone operators and other aircraft assign to the operation to strike and look forward their field of view, eyes in the sky.

With Kinney to other operators that's Sgt. Bishop and Sgt. Abell, there is an interesting debate between Bishop and Kinney about how tech helps and separate men from warfare acts, in the case of Kinney he things it help to take out the barbaric side of it although Bishop understand its the same thing no matter if you drop a bomb or pull the trigger, you still killing someone.

During the movie they show how a drone operator station would look like, two person operate the drone, one operates the camera the other operates weapons and direction, this tech is not futuristic anymore as we have "similar" software for drones now days and I say similar meaning very basic functions compare to ware drone operators. Kinney has what looks like a cell phone where he gets the image feed of the drone and can tell them where to look and attack based on coordinates given by him, in the past this was a thing of video games only, now days its totally possible as mention.

The initial mission is to do some recon on a terrorist base, Victro Petrov; who is selling weapons to other terrorist but at the same time an asset, JSOC that is MIA; if possible rescue him since its very possible he was capture, last time seen was on this area.

All four operators in position ready to start a strike witness how the mission shifted very quickly, mission was to strike and rescue then turns into destroy and rescue, after another terrorist comes in, Saeed Hashimi and decapitates Victor's wife and then was about to do the same to his son, probably as a way of pressure, Bishop was not going to stand there and watch him do the same to the kid so he revile their position after he fire the first shot and hit Hashimi on the leg.

Here goes WHY and WHAT I didn't like about the movie because it starts here, they kinda abuse of the slow motion effect specially when they were firing, on this image we got Sugar and Bishop and then Kinney getting close rocket hits but for some reason it was on a few scenes and not all of them. For weapon experts the movie might not be too accurate, I'm not a weapon expert but Bishop was probably working a 50 cal, if that thing hits you on the leg its probably to brake it in half, Hashimi got hit by Bishop and it was like oh I'm hit but I can still walk.

The first attempt to take over Petrov base failed and Kinney ends up alone in the middle of the jungle, he still have eyes in the sky and manage to get to the first extraction point but they were tracking him down, then the shopper arrive all kind of enemies pop up and start shooting, this is one of the best parts of the movie where both Cpt. Grimm drone fires everything he has and on top a yet fighter also starts to let rain come down with a full blown attack from the air. They manage to take down most of the hostiles but both the drone and yet fighter run out of ammo; this is hard to believe although its a movie, Kinney had to get out of there and now Cpt. Grimm has a second extraction point but its on the opposite direction and Kinney has to get to the top of a hill.

This is a very entertaining movie, it has great action scenes and the dialog is not bad although what makes it only a basic 7 is that the villains has almost nothing to do with the movie and this is where it lacks, most of the reviews I have read online are divided but they are on the same conclusion that the movie does lack context and plot almost everything focus around the action scenes, this is suppose a survival movie but don't expect it to be a master piece like Lone Survivor (2013), the movie is entertaining, has good suspense scenes where Kinney and the rest are hiding or running away in the jungle, Russell Rowe has a few jokes but nothing that is going to crack you up. Most reviews from different blogs including IMDB and RottenTomatoes state the same, a movie with great action scenes but falls short towards the end, its all about the mission not the drama, is this a movie for theaters I say yes because you want to take advantage of the theater sound system and big screen to increase the dopamine rush.