AIR STRIKE (2018) ½ *

Japanese forces bombard China with a series of crippling air strikes during WWII.  As the bombs fall, a group of disparate people try to make their way across the countryside.  Meanwhile, a crusty American general (Bruce Willis) is brought in to make pilots out of the ragtag group of hotshots who want to do their part to sock it to the enemy. 

To put it bluntly, Air Strike is a fucking mess.  The choppy narrative makes it feel like a ten-hour miniseries that was butchered into feature length form in postproduction.  Subplots come and go, and characters pop up randomly and disappear just as quickly. 

To make matters worse, the special effects are so piss-poor that nearly all the dogfights and bombing raids look like cut scenes from a goddamn video game.  In fact, the first half of the movie feels like you’re watching a video game.  Willis shows up, barks some orders, and then there’s a lot of shots of shoddy CGI planes flying around shooting each other before the cycle repeats once again.  

Somewhere around the second act, the effects give way to the human drama, and it’s here where the film really sinks into an abyss of abysmal ineptitude.  There’s a subplot that blatantly rips off Wages of Fear that might’ve had potential.  However, the plot jumps around so much that it never focuses on anything for more than a minute or so.  One minute, Willis is barking orders and the next he’s ordering a pilot to go on a date with a girl so there can be an obligatory romantic scene.  (The editing is so abrupt during transition scenes that it’ll give you whiplash.)  Add to that the fact that the bombing sequences occur every few minutes, just frequent enough to get on your nerves.  I never thought the sight of explosions and mass destruction could be so monotonous. 

Willis isn’t given much to do, aside from looking crabby and yell a lot.  At least he’s awake in this one.  I will say the sight of him sitting inside a WWII cockpit in front of a painfully obvious green screen is hilarious. 

We also get a random ass appearance by Adrien Brody, no stranger to Chinese co-productions after the Jackie Chan flick, Dragon Blade.  He pops up just long enough to grab a paycheck and get his face on the poster.  In fact, if you look at his face on the poster for ninety seconds, it’ll be five seconds longer than he’s in the actual movie.  Heck, I think he gets less screen time here than he did in The Thin Red Line.

If you can’t already tell, this is another one of those Grindstone Entertainment flicks.  I’ve sat through a few of these things lately, and I can safely say this is by far the worst.  This is also quite possibly Bruce’s worst too, although it’s not really his fault.  

A couple of facts before I go:  Mel Gibson is credited as a “consultant” on the film.  Who he consulted I have no idea.  Also, it was produced by the star of Chained Heat 2, Kimberley Kates.  I can only imagine what the movie would’ve been like if both of them were on the other side of the camera.  Then again, hiding their faces and burying their names deep in the credits was probably a smart move of their part because any way you slice it, Air Strike is a bomb. 

AKA:  Airstrike.  AKA:  The Bombing.  AKA:  Unbreakable Spirit.