Cross: Rise Of The Villains

Director Patrick Durham & Paul G. Volk
Starring Brian Austin Green, Danny Trejo, Vinnie Jones
Rated MA
Score 2/6

Armed with an explosive powerful ancient cross amulet, Callan is back with his extraordinary team of weapons experts to defend Los Angeles from its biggest threat yet—super villains Muerte and Drago. Callan will have to join forces with his once mortal enemy, Gunnar, to try to save the city.

Okay I think that this just might be the first movie of the year to make me think ‘WTF’ and along with that regret not doing my homework and re-watching the other two movies in the franchise (Cross released in 2011 and Cross Wars released in 2017).

If you haven’t heard of this franchise it really wouldn’t surprise me. The acting isn’t what I would regard to be memorable (maybe with the exception of Juhahn Jones’ performance as Blackfire) and fans of the Marvel and DC universe would be taken aback by the comparisons that can be made to the special effects, especially if you take into consideration the budget for Cross is a drop in the bucket compared to the Marvel or DC movies, the special effects used in the Cross franchise are on the level of what you expect to see from a movie released in the 80’s or 90’s.

Even though to the best of my knowledge the Cross franchise is not based on a comic book property what it has done very few movies based on a comic book property have done is to embrace some of the visuals that you would usually see in comic books such as the use of panels and the use of an alternate realm, which was the source of my ‘WTF’ moments throughout the movie (if I had done my homework I would have had a better idea of what I was letting myself in for). However, towards the end of the movie I will admit that the ‘Comic Shop’ realm could have been used to adapt the movie into something a little more interesting with ‘press the button now’ moments.

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