Havoc is a Gareth Evans movie made in 2021 but released in 2025. It stars Tom Hardy as a cop trying to find and protect a witness from the Chinese mob and crooked cops. The action scenes are not bad, but if you've seen other Evans' movies you know he can make better action scenes.
Is it woke, it is. Firstly, there are five crooked cops four are white and one is hispanic. The hispanic cop is portrayed as the least crooked and rueful. Besides the crooked cops there are no other white characters.
Every male character is incompetent and every female character is hyper competent and twice as dangerous of every male. So tired of seeing 90 lbs girls just taking hits from 200 lbs dudes with no effect, but their little punches have massive effects.
Also not woke but Evans decided to indulge in the shakey cam for this one. I don't remember the shakey cam in "The Raid" or "The Raid 2."
Absolutely.
I showed my wife Alien 2 / Aliens for the first time a couple months ago, and we were both struck by how well the effects still hold up, especially when they’re walking the surface of the planet, weyland yutani dropships are taking off and landing, and of course those around the aliens themselves. Went and watched one of those “making of” documentaries afterwards and yip, it was all miniatures, animatronics with clever use of lighting, and good old fashioned stuntmen in rubber suits.
The older tech necessitated talent and creativity from the film makers, nowadays any woke dipshit can call themselves a Hollywood director so long as their PC is stacked.
It's like how automation reduces craftsman skills over generations. It can also be seen in modern software and game dev not knowing how to do anything competently, like optimization. It's only going to get worse with AI.