I actually like Jason Momoa’s mid-budget action movie presence. I’m happy the big guy gets to play in Atlantis or Arrakis from time to time — he’s a tsunami of charisma and can effortlessly anchor all the CGI spectacle in the world with his presence, which counts for a lot. Without that, you’re just watching pixels bounce off of other pixels to little emotional effect. Still, I think he functions best in roles where there’s little digital derring-do; there’s just him, preferably reducing some bad guys to a thin, warm paste, and you can really get a sense of him, both his magnetism and his sheer size (on the blue carpet at the Sydney Aquaman premiere I turned and found myself directly behind Momoa and another step would have been like walking into a brick wall — the guy is huuuuuuge).
So, when something like Sweet Girl comes down the pike, I’ll show up for it. Braven (2018) is probably the pinnacle in terms of what I’m after here, but I’ll even take something like Bullet to the Head (2012), whose main redeeming feature is that Momoa and Sylvester Stallone fight each other with fire axes in the climax. On the small screen, Frontier (2016) is your go-to, which sees Big Jase harrying the Hudson Bay Company as a mixed-descent rebel in colonial Canada. Frontier is on Netflix, and so is Sweet Girl, and if you’re given a choice (perhaps at gunpoint, under threat of a bullet to the head?), go with the former — at least you know what you’re getting.
Read more at Mr Movies Film Blog.
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