I was in the mood to turn my brain off witch an action movie I hadn't seen before, so did just that.
I won't do a full review since I'm only 30 minutes in, but the movie is Ambulance, 2022; Jake Gyllenhaal, some black dude, and some hispanic chick.
It's competent enough so far, generally. It's not doing anything too fancy, but I appreciate that from an action movie. But the Modern Audiences™ nonsense is unavoidable. I wish I didn't notice this but, once you know, you know.
Every black person is competent and in a position of power. Every white person is some combination of psychopath, loser, or incompetent. There's only been one woman in focus so far, but she's - no kidding - "the best paramedic in the city," and extremely competent. Hobbled with some newbie white dweeb...who's probably going to die or otherwise get damseled, at a guess.
Gyllenhaal and Black Dude are brothers. Black Dude was adopted by, wait for it, Gyllenhaal's psychotic criminal father. Black Dude is a patriotic veteran who's trying to get his life together, while his white brother is a criminal who drags him into shit. Gyllenhaal's criminal crew are, I believe, all white...and some of the most ridiculously incompetent or insane people around. Hilariously, they're also a very diverse set of whites for some reason; you have I believe an Italian, Irishman, and some sandal-wearing hippy hacker or something. It's bizarre.
It's all so tiresome.
Shear hubris? Drunken stupidity? Unbridled yet entirely unfounded optimism?
Nah, seriously, I like some of the technological advancements, and I have seen some modern action movies that are fun. Boss Level and Baby Driver come to mind. The latter being almost a decade old now. Although you're one hundred percent correct on the next part, and in hindsight I should have avoided modern stuff:
Yup, anything past the '00s is pushing it, anything into the '20s is some Russian roulette shit.
I have a friend who does this. He subjects himself to media he knows sucks. He does not expect to be wrong, he just has a curiosity about exactly how bad it is.
We've dubbed the condition "cinemasochism"
Your friend clearly does not value his time.