Action with disaster of different settings, satisfactory cgi and stunts. But storyline, characther building, camaderie and emotional payoffs lacking.

I havnt reviewed a movie in a long while. Watched this on a weekend with my kids. They were entertained in the rescue scenes. The ooohs and ahhs over helicopters, blast, sinking rig, aeroplane disaster etc etc.

There is also a need for suspension of belief. Personally I dont thk in real life situation rescue missions are carried out when it is deemed too risky, jeopardising rescue mission and endangering the entire team. So in 2 of the missions i did not agree with their call and that they would be given the greenlight to go ahead realistically.

The intro of one of the rescue member (played by Wang yan lin) and his fiance/wife and also male lead (eddie peng)'s son was part of the character building and part and parcel of setting up emotional scenes in second half and the climax. However the flow as well as the lack of depth in writing fails to give the audience enough time to form emotional attachment to them. The storyline is busy from the get go, original pilot leaves, new female pilot enters with her assistant co pilot, then assistant co pilot wants to leave too... blah blah. They com and go and failed to be important to me. The cutting and editing between mission scenes to dailylife scenes were also jarring. At times it felt like two different movies with similar actors trying to mesh together. The poor execution felt like you are forced to buy in with a promise of emotional payout that never comes. Even the ending mission also felt anti climatic. I do appreciate the peptalk and highlight on courage. But that's about it.

You can watch if you are an Eddie Peng fan or if you're in for an action flick on a rainy weekend. Just dont expect too much.