"Are you a serial killer?"

I don't know that I've ever sat through a longer movie. Gunpowder Milkshake is the deranged lovechild of someone who took the over-the-top stylistic choices of Kill Bill, the action of John Wick, and the personality of Drive, then shredded them all up and took only the worst parts of what remained.

While some films blend multiple genres together to make an interesting and lovable amalgam of cinema, Milkshake does not. In Gunpowder Milkshake you will be treated to 80's visual vibes, 60's and 70's Western scores and themes with some confused pieces of early 00's Gothic drama thrown in, and another late 00's failed attempt at writing a meaningful female led action film.

The whole film revolves around two parties:
1. The Firm - an all male led organization that "make(s) all the rules and change(s) them when it fits their needs"

2. The Librarians - an all female group that runs a weapons emporium masquerading as a library.

Neither of these groups are ever justified or fleshed out... nor do they make sense even in universe. They have no personality other than The Firm is men and bad and The Librarians are women and tired of the bad men. I can't quite tell if this is an alternate reality very similar to our own like The Lobster where we just have to accept some strangeness from the world, or if it's just a really ham-fisted metaphor, because neither organization serves any purpose or has it’s existence validated beyond a few lines of establishing dialogue that allow them to exist at all.

The writing isn't funny, it isn't clever, and it isn't meaningful. We had some real opportunities to do something witty with many of the characters, and the best we get is completely flat and meaningless banter between the three Librarians that serves as the entirety of their personalities for the rest of the film. The editing is bad and misses several chances to do clever or unique cuts and fades between scenes or locations. Instead, we're treated to a 2-hour long movie that should have been closer to 1:45 and feels like 3. The score is inconsistent and always manages to be completely out of place; ranging from 80's inspired synths in the opening scene, to something straight from Sherlock Holmes, to some goofy bit I'm pretty sure was ripped straight from 2005's Son of the Mask. From a technical perspective, Milkshake was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

From a plot perspective, Gunpowder Milkshake is the Who's Line is it Anyway? of film. As they say, "The rules are made up and the points don't matter." The plot is completely meaningless and virtually never fleshed out. Our lead is forced into the life of an assassin(?) because her mom left her with a guy from The Frim when she was a kid(?) and now that she's grown she's made a whoopsie similar to her mom's and has gained the ire of The Firm. That's an alright basis for a plot (in Wick the basis is he's an ex-assassin and some people killed his dog), the problem is that it never grows and nobody we meet ever adds anything to it. By the end of the movie we still know nothing about almost anyone involved that we could haven't guessed just by their character name or title. Most of said characters have little to no actual involvement in the world other than existing in the single space where we meet them, and there are several instances where characters do things that are never resolved, or something happens that has no justification at all and is never ever mentioned or explained. Don't get me wrong, things can (and should) happen in film without guiding the audience directly to the answer, but that is NOT what happens here. In fact, the entire conflict of the movie could have been explained away with a single conversation but, instead, our lead just tells the antagonists, "It's gone," instead of telling them what really happened...

While there are a few decent shots in the film, Milkshake is a technical nightmare and Netflix should have kicked this one back to the writers before ever allowing it onto their platform.

I want GOOD female led action movies, not paltry garbage. I want witty and strong women leading the charge and beating up waves of bad guys, shooting and rolling and stabbing and driving like we've seen men do for decades now. I want cheese, I want flair, but I also want consistency and meaningful stories. We can have that. I want to see a bi, POC, nonbinary Bond that kicks ass and hypersexualizes everyone with the tongue-in-cheek awareness of the former films' history. I want to see Drive with a female lead. I want Dredd 2 or Robocop 2030 to feature women in the same hardcore roles their male counterparts have dominated with all the corn that comes with those series. I want that, I do not want this half-baked, hair-brained, pandering nonsense anymore. We can do better.

"I have an army
--Oh yeah? Well, I've got my mom!"