Brick Mansions (2014)
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Critics Consensus: Choppily edited and largely bereft of plot, Brick Mansions wastes a likable cast on a pointless remake of the far more entertaining District B13.
Critics Consensus: Choppily edited and largely bereft of plot, Brick Mansions wastes a likable cast on a pointless remake of the far more entertaining District B13.
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Movie Info
In a dystopian Detroit, abandoned brick mansions left from better times now house only the most dangerous criminals. Unable to control the crime, the police constructed a colossal containment wall around this area to protect the rest of the city. For undercover cop Damien Collier (Paul Walker) every day is a battle against corruption. For Lino (David Belle), every day is a fight to live an honest life. Their paths never should have crossed, but when drug kingpin, Tremaine (RZA) kidnaps Lino's … More- Rating:
- PG-13 (for frenetic gunplay, violence and action throughout, language, sexual menace and drug material)
- Genre:
- Drama , Action & Adventure
- Directed By:
- Camille Delamarre
- Written By:
- Luc Besson
- In Theaters:
- Apr 25, 2014 Limited
- On DVD:
- Sep 9, 2014
- US Box Office:
- $20.4M
Cast
-
Paul Walker
as Damien Collier -
David Belle
as Lino -
The Rza
as Tremaine -
Gouchy Boy
as K2 -
Carlo Rota
as George the Greek -
Robert Maillet
as Yeti
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Critic Reviews for Brick Mansions
All Critics (88) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (65)
This is ultimately a movie about class warfare and social oppression that isn't remotely science-fictional. It's real, and as dumb as this remake is, it sends you home thinking.
Follows the bog-standard formula perfected by Besson: combining functional storylining with competent action highlights and an occasional air of whimsy.
It's fun to see Walker do a double take at a perilous move of Belle's and then find a less risky alternative. The pair seem like they're having a good time in this buddy action movie. It seems a fitting curtain call for a likable actor gone too soon.
Almost no one in this film is allowed to play to their strengths.
It should be wilder, funnier, nuttier.
Brick Mansions is a non-starter: It chokes on its déjà vu, the hyperactive Mixmaster editing is exhausting and the characters' banter is so leaden it might violate federal emission standards.
"Frankly, there are a lot of actors who have a lot of worse 'last films' on their credits."
Routine all the way, although Belle's moves are thrilling to watch.
Steer well clear.
Favouring vitality over originality, this needless remake of District 13 comes with fleet-footed sequences but plenty of stumbles, and strains far too hard to be 'cool'.
It's solidly unsurprising (and often quite boring) generic fare, spiced up with steroidal pectorals and fetishy catfights.
Watching Belle perform his gravity-defying leaps and bounds is still exhilarating, but first-time director Camille Delamarre's overuse of slo-mo effects and flashy editing diminishes their impact.
It's so forgettable though that if you do see it you may want to make note of the title so that you don't accidentally rent it when it comes out on DVD.
Too much muscle-headed action, too little parkour (Belle is getting on a bit) - this property is condemned.
There are gunfights and car chases galore, but none of them are especially exciting since the film's characters are so lazily sketched.
The film is poorly directed, edited, scripted, acted and everything else, and does scant justice both to Walker's presence and Belle's prodigious free running skills.
This film lives down to my expectations, with a ludicrous plot involving civic pride and a neutron bomb, and a final twist so risible that it almost turns the whole thing into a comedy.
An abject lack of creativity to the writing and cohesion to the direction scupper any chance of the movie transcending its mundane status.
Belle's balletic badassery and RZA's amusingly eccentric criminal cooking connoisseur only go so far to enliven an underwhelming whole.
The Raid 2 got most of its kicks in situ; this deploys a lot of edit-suite trickery to generate only moderate dynamism.
This absurd and pointlessly convoluted remake of a decade-old French action flick feels dated and out of step in more ways than one.
Unfortunately, Belle's amazing athletic agility cannot alone sustain this undercooked remake of the only slightly more interesting 2004 French film District B13.
If you can look beyond the preposterous nature of this cartoonish retread, there's fun to be had thanks to a series of inventive action setpieces ...
Speak as you find, it's a superfun romp, solidly made.
Ultimately, this is a particularly pointless and badly made remake that fails to improve on either District 13 or its 2009 sequel.
Audience Reviews for Brick Mansions
The action sequences are over edited until you have no idea what's going on and the plot is not engaging at all. Throw in an extremely wooden antagonist and Brick Mansions cannot be saved by the likable Walker and the parkour.
MoreSuper Reviewer
Fans of the original french classic will love this movie. It's solid and exhilarating escapism. An adrenaline-injected and heart-pounding action-thriller. It's a flat-out edge of your seat action-packed thrill-machine the delivers an incredible body of work involving parkour, martial arts, gun fights and chases that will make this nothing but a true guilty pleasure for a fun 90 minute running time. A consistently enjoyable and tremendously entertaining action movie. A sizzling and explosive knockout from start to finish. Producer-Writer, Luc Besson breaths new life into his original material with Director, Camille Delamarre, they pay great tribute to the original work but paves its own way and makes it's own movie. Paul Walker and David Belle are in their element. Belle soars to all sorts of heights with his amazing athleticism in his craft and gives a terrific performance in his role from the original movie. Walker is thrilling, he gives a charming, sharp and gritty performance that establishes himself as an action hero just fine. Rza is fantastic.
MoreSuper Reviewer
some really epic fighting in this movie, was great to see Paul Walker up there one last time and kicking ass. I know this was inspired/remake of an original masterpiece which I will track down after this. I totally suggest checking this one out if you wanna go WOW cool.
MoreSuper Reviewer
There were two reasons that convinced me to see "Brick Mansions" aside from liking the original "District B13". The first was David Belle who for some reason decided to play the same character twice was in front of the camera again. Second reason is I like Paul Walker. When it came to playing stoic heroes he fit the bill understanding these kind of roles. While this was the last film Paul Walker completed, thankfully it's not the last film he appeared in (thank goodness for Fast and Furious Seven). This remake is a lazy carbon copy of the original adding insult to injury are it overabundance of action scenes that makes it feel longer than it actually is.
Brick Mansion follows an undercover Detroit cop navigating a dangerous neighborhood that's surrounded by a containment wall. With the help of an ex-con in order to bring down a crime lord and his plot to devastate the entire city. If you've seen "District B13" you've seen "Brick Mansions". Nothing about the story is given the tiniest thought of effort as it copies every plot point used in "District B13". It's one tedious experience for fans of the original film as it offers no new surprises and the few insignificant changes (like the hostage this time being a former girlfriend instead of a character sister) it does make are pointless. Most astonishing for this viewer is how it manages to contains even less story. The difference here is primarily quantity in action. Whereas the original film knew when to take a breather no matter how small it was and not over saturate itself with action scenes. In "Brick Mansions" in my timing experiment (that's how bored I got) the longest it could last without an action sequence is almost nine minutes and the shortest it could last without an action scene was around fifty seconds. Now does that in any way sounds like good pacing with that little amount of breathing room. In execution it's far worse whenever you expect the story to return at any moment. Characters are either getting chased or fighting repeatedly since there's little substance to sustain viewers attention.
If you've never seen the original "Brick Mansions" feels like an endurance test. This is one of those instances where highlighting characters and story become part of the issue. Since it doesn't have a single engaging character the overabundance of action scenes that come one after another become yawn inducing. With an overabundance of action scenes the story is not given any time to developed naturally. A double edged sword crippling itself in anything it attempts to do. The writers of the remake are so indolent in their position they don't bother to write good original dialogue. "Sometimes you don't gotta be a rocket scientist. You just gotta have a rocket" is said by the film villain while he's cooking after revealing his rocket. All characters are stock action archetypes, filled with cheesy moments poorly contrasting the more gritty side of the material, and every scene not involving our characters fighting to remain alive pulls out action cliches after action cliches. It believes its clever throwing off audience expectations with it twist, but in this remake they don't work as sufficiently as they should. Much like everything else in the story it appears nothing translated well in this remake from the original film.
Camille Delamarre (editor of Taken 2) makes an unengaging action movie even worse with his inability to film or edit an action scene properly. Action scenes ranges from meh to passable in terms of staging and choreography, but with Delamarre direction he downgrades what should have been solid set pieces. They all generally suffer from being over edited having too many quick cuts that makes it look erratic. There's no fluidity to be found in how these action scenes are cut together. What makes this worse is you know there's some good stunt work to enjoy from the setup provided in them, but is framed to close or cuts off an important visual from your sight. Paul Walker is likable in the leading role, but his role doesn't demand much of him. Walker remains stoic throughout the film letting his supporting cast react to what's going on around them. David Belle performance is passable. His lines are dubbed (some bad lips syncing included) so when he has to talk it shows his inexperience, but where Belle shine is in his action scenes. He performs them convincingly whether he's performing parkour or doing a fight scene. Unfortunately Belle and Walker don't have any chemistry with one another. There's always a disconnect with them whenever they have to interact with one another. It doesn't help the actors we follow most has only one that could act and the other could only do action scenes convincingly. RZA plays the film the villain and not a single line said is convincing. Granted his lines are terrible, but he plays a clearly cartoonish villain rather straight. Instead of being loose and over the top he delivers everything at face value. The rest of the supporting cast is also passable without outshining the leads.
Brick Mansions short and simple is the definition of indolent remakes. It copies the story without significant changes and since it wants to highlight its characters it makes it that much more noticeable how weak they are. More than half of the action scenes are copied from "District B13" except this time are poorly framed being unable to enjoy the stunt work and overly edited that it become distorted. If one were to remove the fact that this is Paul Walker last starring film there's nothing much of value to appreciate once it ends. By the end of the film the first thought that came to my mind was "Thank goodness this wasn't Paul Walker last movie". Just for even making me think that is enough for me to consider "Brick Mansions" a failure of a film.
Super Reviewer
Brick Mansions Quotes
- Tremaine:
- Sometimes you don't gotta be a rocket scientist. You just gotta have a rocket.
- Damien Collier:
- Better buckle up.
- Lino:
- I prefer to be free.
- Tremaine:
- Not only do I got to shoot the sheriff, but I also got to shoot the deputy!
- Damien Collier:
- He's pissed!
- Damien Collier:
- Different method, same result.
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