2 - Haywire

    A female secret agent finds that there's a conspiracy to frame her for killing someone, and she does what she can to overcome other agents in an effort to clear her name.
    I saw this last year, and this time, I showed it to Cathy.  This time, I saw it on Blu-ray, which was a very nice looking transfer.  The picture has some interesting tints, leaning toward the blue and green end of the spectrum.  I also noticed that most light sources were slightly over-exposed.  This is actually a unique look, and I liked seeing this type of photography.
    I love the action in this movie, since it feels both nicely choreographed, but also very natural.  The fights all feel very brutal.
    The pacing of the movie is pretty slow.  It's only an hour and a half, but after an opening that moves pretty quick, there are a lot of longer, more lingering shots.  I had noticed this, but I didn't assign any particular importance to it.  Cathy pointed it out, and after thinking about it, this may have been an effort to push the realistic angle a little more.  There's a bit more downtime, and more time is spent trying to figure out what other people are going to do.
    There's still another thing that Cathy mentioned that I can't defend.  There's a lack of character development.  There are a few moments that you could take as development, but there seems to be a lack of work done in this area.  Of course, I rarely notice this in action movies, (although I've been enjoying that aspect of the more recent Bond movies) but when you combine the lingering shots with a lack of character development… it probably annoys some people.
    This would explain some of the problems that I've seen people have with this one.
    Still, I found this one really satisfying.