Carter was a style over substance dizzying 132 minutes of utter ridiculousness, ruined by horrible camerawork and a convoluted story. Huge props to lead actor Joo Won, all the skilled stuntmen, insanely choreographed action scenes and the great action set pieces and visuals, but sadly, all that effort was wasted on unwatchable dizzying, seizure-inducing, single-take-looking headache-inducing camera work - and just as bad editing. Had all the great action and fight scenes been shot normally - with tact, intelligence, and aim, this film's action could've topped the Mission Impossible films. But instead, it was like a drunk on meth, with one fancy camera drone trying to keep up with the action. Then add a decent conceptual story, that ended up being incoherent and tried too hard to be smart with convoluted twists, and drag it out with unnecessarily repetitive long action scenes - for over 2 hours. It was frustrating, exhausting, and a huge missed opportunity to be a great action film. If you want to see it done properly - with great action and a great story, watch The Roundup with Don Lee. Writer and director Byung-gil Jung needs to stick to basic camera work and lessen the overbearing dramatics, as well as work towards better story-telling - in under 2 hours.
