A first person shooter perspective movie, that follows a hectic day in the life of Henry, who wakes up to find himself missing an arm and a leg. After being fitted with a couple of prosthetics by his wife, Henry’s in the process of having his speech apparatus installed when bad guys storm the lab and kidnap her.
The majority of the movie was shot using GoPro Hero 3 cameras.
When the movie is eventually released for streaming/DVD, it will be interesting to watch on one of the virtual reality headsets now becoming available. But I’m not sure I’d want to see it in the theaters.
Just got back from seeing this. The first person perspective is a gimmick but it’s not a bad gimmick. There were a couple of things to like about it. Firstly, it made the movie much cheaper to shoot since you don’t have to worry about getting coverage. Secondly, it made the parkour much more impressive since you could see it was people actually doing parkour. The ushers did warn beforehand though that some people would experience motion sickness and they were handing out refunds for anyone who wanted to leave during the movie.
All in all, it was big dumb fun and done pretty impressively. We got drunk beforehand and that was definitely the right move. If you liked the Crank series, this is basically Russian Crank. Stupid, over the top gore and impressive stunts wrapped in a paper thin plot.
Anyway, I hope they pump out a bunch of sequels and you should definitely check it out if you’re in the mood for some brainless violent comedy.
I saw it a couple of days ago. Definitely an interesting idea and worth something just for that. You have to respect any movie that tries something new. And it was done well. Yes, it was an action thriller but a well-made one. There was enough of a plot to keep it moving along.
I like the concept, the cinematography was interesting, and the effects were top notch, but…I had to leave after 25 minutes. My date stopped watching after just 10 minutes. I didn’t have any motion sickness problems with Blair Witch or Cloverfield, but to be fair I wasn’t feeling that well before I went into the movie. I thought there would be more slow parts to smooth out the camera bob, but there really wasn’t enough. I still want to see the movie, but I may be watching it in five minute chunks when it’s released to home video.
I won’t be able to watch it. I get motion sickness from watching other people play FPS games on a large flat screen. On a large theater screen, I probably wouldn’t last 5 minutes.
I can agree with this. It tried something sort-of new. But it was clearly a videogame made into a movie and thus represented the attitudes and tastes of a 13-year-old boy. I found it disappointing.
It’s as if they said, ‘we’re trying something new, here. Let’s not get carried away with trying to make a real story and interesting characters, too.’
Well, it’s trying something new in that they decided to do nothing but the first person view. Doom did the same thing back in 2005 for a short segment. It wasn’t even the best part of that movie.
Actually it was music videos made into a movie. Biting Elbows is a Russian band; Ilya Naishuller is the lead singer. Naishuller directed videos for two of the band’s songs, “The Stampede” and “Bad Motherfucker”, that used the same first-person viewpoint to tell an abbreviated action thriller. The videos became popular online and fans kept asking for a feature length movie. One IndieGoGo campaign later, Hardcore Henry is the result.
So rather than feel the movie could have been greater, I admire how well-made it is considering the circumstances.