We truly don’t get to see Jackie Chan in major movies like we used to, but this week, the famed Hong Kong actor is actually in two high-profile Hollywood movies. He’s the voice of Master Splinter in this weekend’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and he co-stars with John Cena in Hidden Strike, which is currently No. 1 on Netflix. However, there seems to be a catch when it comes to the action release: not many people seem to like it.
Hidden Strike was reportedly filmed back in 2018 after being announced the same year under the title Project X. That’s a long time between its production and release! After the movie hit theaters in some places overseas in early July, it was decided to ditch a theatrical release in many territories altogether and hit Netflix over the weekend. While the movie is No. 1 on the platform in the U.S. and among the top 10 movies in 73 countries, its Rotten Tomatoes score is rough. The critic driven Tomotometer is 17%, while the Audience Score is 57%.
Per the rating aggregator, Hidden Strike is rotten on both fronts between reviews and thoughts from casual audiences. It looks like the fact that Jackie Chan and John Cena are the stars of Hidden Strike are seriously drawing in audiences this week, with Netflix counting 37.8 million hours viewed in its first two days on the streaming platform.
The movie is about two ex-special forces soldiers who are called upon to escort a group of civilians along Baghdad’s “Highway of Death” to the safety of the Green Zone. The movie also stars Pilou Asbæk and is helmed by Scott Waugh, who previously directed 2012’s Act of Valor and 2014’s Need For Speed movie.
In the rating section of Rotten Tomatoes, there’s definitely some mixed thoughts among audiences. While some comments called it “impressively terrible” and “an absolute crap fest,” other people defended the movie, saying it’s “quite decent” and a “low budget, fun to watch piece of escapism.” Bear in mind, only six reviews are actually counted for Hidden Strike. For many releases, over 100 critics’ reviews are accumulated to make up a Tomatometer score.
Of course, one’s thoughts on a given movie are subjective, and we encourage you to check it out with a Netflix subscription and make your own assumptions about the quality of the film. Given the general consensus, this one’s not a big-budget action movie, nor is it likely to blow your mind. For those itching to see a Jackie Chan and John Cena team-up in a movie together, it certainly checks those boxes.
While it may not be a critical-acclaimed movie, perhaps Hidden Strike's popularity can inspire another action movie starring the badass duo!
