Haywire - Yeah, Not So Much

The bitter-cold, Boston winter brings about one good thing; I now have a valid excuse to spend all day on Saturdays at the movie theater. I feel less lazy about sitting in front of a screen all day if it is in a dark theater rather than my couch. I think that has something to do with the fact that I join society for several hours instead of being a hermit. Usually, I even enjoy the crappy movies, but this past weekend even Channing Tatum's good looks could not salvage Haywire.

I'm honestly not sure how this movie is getting such good reviews. If you just looks at the names involved with it then , sure, it should be fantastic. Soderbergh directing, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Gina Carano....sounds like a recipe for a lot of fun, right? WRONG.

The plot is shotty at best. It is hard to follow and, yet, completely predictable. It's your regular government-turns-on female-heroine-while-completely-underestimating-how-bad-ass-she-is movie. And I'm really not giving anything away here. You get all that in the trailer. Carano's acting is lacking. It seems forced at all times. Her being romantically involved with any character was just unbelievable. It was constantly awkward.

Also, she walks really funny. It bothered me the entire movie. And that is mainly because there were long, drawn-out scenes of her walking. For no reason. Did someone think "Oh, we should stretch this out for three or four minutes and Gina can just walk around in that hoodie for a while. People will love it"? No, we didn't love it. It made me sit there for three or four minutes trying to figure out why she walked like that. Are her legs a little short? Is it that she's too muscular? I never got it. Oh well.

I will say, her fight scenes are fantastic. Seeing as she was an MMA fighter for all those years, I would expect nothing less. Obviously, she did all her own stunts. The backflips off of walls are pretty great. That was one enjoyable thing. Also, I loved Michael Douglas. How can you not? But that was all that I liked about the movie.

There were a couple little things that really pissed me off too. The main one being that, at one point, they show Carano with corn rows in her hair, supposedly this is just a couple hours after they show her with her hair down. Everybody knows that corn rows are incredibly time consuming. There is no way that she had time, #1, to get that done or, #2, to do them on her own. Sorry, not possible. Then she lets her hair down again and a little bit later it's back in the corn rows. I call B.S.

You may be thinking "Who cares about corn rows? Get over it, Heidi," but there is a point there. The plot was so bad that I spent at least 10 minutes mulling the corn row situation over in my head and I still did not miss anything in the movie. Actually, I think my brain welcomed the distraction.

One other thing also pissed me off. This is for the girls. Channing Tatum remains fully clothed the entire movie. Now hear me, Tatum is not a bad actor, but he's not an incredible one either. He is, however, very attractive. If you put him in a movie, women are going to go see it and they want to see him shirtless for at least 30 seconds. I do not think that is too much to ask. Sex sells, folks, especially if Channing Tatum is having it. But, alas, there was no sex in this movie.

I said earlier that Haywire got some good reviews, and it really has. I am baffled by this. The action scenes were decent but everything else was terrible. I would tell you to decide for yourself but wait until it hits Redbox or Netflix because it's not worth spending the cash to see it in a theater. Unless you have a Groupon like I did.

Check back here next week for more reviews!