Ever since I watched the trailer of this movie months back, I looked forward to it's release with excitement and much anticipation. I am a fan of Maggie Q and Samuel L. Jackson who are the principal actors in this movie.
In times past, the main actors in action/thrillers were always men but in recent times, we have witnessed more action movies with women as the lead characters. It's satisfying.
Maggie Q had previously starred in some action movies such as Mission: Impossible III (2006), Priest (2011) and one of my favourite tv series, Nikita. I understand she does her own fight stunts which shows how amazing she is or badass!
With the formidable duo of Maggie Q and Samuel L. Jackson, I had anticipated I would not be disappointed with The Protégé.
PLOT
This movie is an American action-thriller that focused on Anna (Maggie Q), an assassin who was rescued at a young age by Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) when her family was murdered by a local gang. Moody trained Anna to be an assassin and they both specialised in finding people 'who do not want to be found'.
When Moody decided to find the child of one of his past assassination targets, a group of killers came after him and Anna. Anna escaped, found her way to Moody's mansion only to find him dead in a bathtub. Anna began her revenge mission.
She was captured along the way, tortured and somehow escaped again. Eventually Moody showed up, disclosing that he faked his death. Both characters then worked together and went after the villain of the movie, Edward Hayes, a very rich man who paid the killers to come after them in the first place.
REVIEW
I'd always favoured Maggie Q's movies and acting but was highly dissatisfied with this one. First, the storytelling is disjointed and not easy to follow or understand. Most probably due to the flashbacks to when Anna's family was murdered. I believe the flashbacks were not well placed in the storyline of the movie for easy grasp and understanding.
Most viewers were quite excited to watch this movie like me only to be disappointed with the slow pace. The movie did not pick up the action and thrilling parts fast enough. It was a bit boring and tedious within the first fifteen minutes.
Also, a viewer would not be able to quickly grasp why Edward Hayes wanted Moody and Anna dead because the storytelling is disjointed.
No doubt, the scenes and pictures are quite lovely, and the acting superb thanks to the star actors. But where is the fun in watching a movie when you can barely understand the plot and make sense of it?
I would rate this movie a C+. If you are in for the action/thriller parts and a fan of the main actors, I recommend you watch it. I'm not sure there would be a sequel but if there is, I hope the movie makers do a better job.
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Poster image source Other images are screenshots from the movie
