Amazon Watch: The Wrecking Crew (2026)

Watched:  01/31/2026

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Angel Manuel Soto

So, I was a fan of The Expanse, and I saw Frankie Adams - who played Martian Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper on the show - was in a new action movie with Jason Mamoa and Dave Bautista.  So, despite some negative stuff I'd seen online, I put on The Wrecking Crew (2026).  

Positives:  

• it does have Frankie Adams
• there's some bits about Hawaiian culture I didn't know
• you get to see Hawaii

Negatives:  

• this movie is terrible

Sure, it's going to appeal to a certain segment of people who are mad they quit making steroid-laden action films after The Matrix.  And maybe to people who weren't around for the glut of brain-dead actioners that filled shelves of video stores in Ye Olden Days of Cannon Films.  I mean, it's basically every one-off action movie I saw between 1983 - 1993 that starred someone who wasn't Arnie.  Ie: if you ever saw a Seagal or [fill in bad-ass here] movie that involved a solo hero tearing through unlikely and impossible odds - same thing.   But it's also basically a buddy-cop movie where the buddies are brothers.  

It's essentially what would have been a cheap, one-off movie back then, but now with a $200 million budget.

Oddly, and likely a sign of the times, the movie indulges in homophobia and fat-phobia in a way I haven't seen in a movie in a while, not to mention a sort of approach to women that feels squarely at home during the first Bush administration - and it feels really, really weird.  I guess we're back to he-men being dicks on screen.  Which... I want to leave room for all kinds of characters.  I just haven't seen it in a while and...  it does not improve anything.

The fight choreography is okay, but recycled from things you've seen before, but now with CGI and AI.  It's the kind of action movie where people suddenly don't have guns so we can have another hallway fight.  And despite the fact our villain has kidnapped the sister and wife of our heroes, he doesn't just execute them when the heroes attack.  

And, of course, the structure is a video game, including long fights and then a cut scene to move to the next fight.

Look, I don't want to go through every thing that's dumb about this movie.  

It's 100% a postcard movie.  This is how you get actors to participate in dumb movies - you put them up in Waikiki for two months and give them time off.   I can only imagine co-star Morena Baccarin signing as fast as humanly possible for maybe two or three week's work.

Sadly, they don't let Frankie Adams do anything.  I get why they hired her, and she does a great job of hiding her Kiwi accent, but seeing her place smart-but-helpless-girl felt wrong.  But the politics of this movie absolutely have one foot squarely in 1987.  

I guess people are also excited about fight scenes to incongruous pop songs, and that's fine.  Nothing is topping the Mr. Terrific fight sequence from Superman,* but that's just me.

Also, it really feels like Dave Bautista just doesn't want to be there the whole time.  I worry about him sometimes.

*or, indeed, James Gunn making this his signature