The Gauntlet (2013) Reviews

• Seriously?

  didgee72014-11-27

  Just finished watching this movie and I am a bit shocked as to how bad it was after expecting a good one given the ratings and the trailer. I am sorry I cant waste my time to write a proper review on this one ..In short very bad acting with no credible figures,predictable story, (very predictable)the set up is not bad so the idea despite far from original could have gone further if they choose IMHO better actors and overall almost everyone who made this movie surely had to be a beginner at film making.. This movie could have been very good if it was watched 20 years ago.Its ridiculous at 7 starts at current rating.Fair rating is at 5 or 6 at the most.(And you will not see that costume either thats on the poster.In fact that poster has nothing to do with this movie~)

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• I wish I could get my 80 minutes back!

  Turambar-32017-02-15

  I'm sure there are some people who will be convinced this movie contains some sort of hidden truths, but I'm not. There's almost no plot, not much dialogue and we learn very little about the characters - worse, we don't care about any of them anyway. What little plot there is, as it turns out, ends up with several big holes in it. The ending takes place in the last 5 minutes, because the writer obviously just ran out of ideas (or paper). It's trudge, trudge, trudge for 75 minutes, then a disappointing ending so devoid of anything useful that the viewer just ends up with nothing. If someone had suggested to me that this movie might end this way, I'd think he was kidding. This movie was showing on HBO one Sunday against all of the infomercials, and I got curious. I thought it might be a fun little action flick, but an old Jackie Chan movie would have been a hundred times more entertaining.

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• You could do worse, but the problem is you could do better as well

  jimbo-53-1865112018-05-12

  In a sunken castle, 5 people awaken with little to no memory of how they got there. They quickly learn that they are being tested and find that they must band together to try to figure out how to escape. But who is responsible for their imprisonment and why have these 5 specific people being chosen? The Gauntlet or Game Of Assassins as it is otherwise known is very similar in feel to Cube (another film where a group of strangers are locked in together and must work together and solve puzzles to escape). Predictably this results in a film that isn't particularly fresh or original... Having said that, in this film it really doesn't matter too much as the camera is always busy and the film rarely sits still - there is just about enough exposition and character development to get an understanding of what is going on, but it's never overdone here and although this film is flawed it is never dull. One complaint I did have with this film was the dark and dingy look of the film; sure it's necessary to an extent due to where they are located, but at times it was impossible to see what was going on which in some ways removed some of the tension from proceedings. The editing and choreography of some of the fight sequences was also poor and amateurish which resulted in a lot of these fight sequences being a bit laughable. The cast are all OK, but no-one really makes much of an impression truth be told and they do all feel like clichés of characters that I've seen before. I don't want to be too harsh on this film as it is, to be fair, moderately entertaining and at only 80 minutes long it gets the job done without any needless filler, crass subplots or soppy romances. However, it's never as good as the films that it has borrowed from which is problematic and ultimately renders it as a second-rate variation.

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• I Thought It Would Stink, I Was Wrong

  chrismackey19722014-09-19

  I just finished watching this, and I was pleasantly surprised. It's about 5 people who get trapped in some sort of ancient-like dungeon. There are a couple different rooms they have to get into in order to escape the gauntlet - which was the original title of the movie - and each room has a puzzle they have to solve before they can advance. Generally, a blood sacrifice of sorts has to be made. Bai Ling (Red Corner, The Crow) and Warren Kole (24, The Following) lead the cast. This is probably the first movie since Red Corner that Bai Ling has been in in which she did not play some tramp, slut, or bimbo. She was actually allowed to act, and she did a good job. Plus she looks really good. She's close to 50, but looks half that age. I always thought she'd be a Chinese superstar like Li Bingbing and Xiang Ziyi, but for some unfortunate reason that didn't happen. There are deaths in this movie, which I knew there would be, but I was still surprised at some of those who were killed. I can't say this was all that original, but it was pretty well done for what it was. The poster for this film doesn't make much sense when compared to the actual movie. I recommend this movie. I gave it a 6-star rating. I might revisit that later, but I tend to rate a movie based on how I feel right after viewing it. Perhaps this deserves more like a 5-star rating, but even though the material has been done before, as I said earlier, they did a good job on it.

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• What the hell was that?

  tedeadite2018-05-12

  A movie supposedly based on Catholic doctrine featuring East Asians who may not know such things.The clues are pictures that we can't see properly or mumbled bits of lore we can not hear properly.Things keep happening for no reason and everyone suddenly changes character. Its like kids playing a game,changing and making up rules as they go along,but without the charm of that.

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