Apostle Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

2. The Lack Of Action Might Disappoint The Raid Fans

The Raid 2's jaw-dropping action sequences left everyone gagging for more, and clearly most of Evans' fans were hoping that Apostle would effectively adopt a similar style and tone albeit in a more rustic period setting.

Ultimately that's not really the case at all, and this couldn't feel much further from the martial arts shenanigans of Evans' prior efforts. With its feet planted firmly in the horror genre, action beats are precious few and far between, with the first half of the movie featuring just one significant and extremely brief burst of violence.

The third act does feature a few grisly set-pieces, sure, but if you were hoping for balletic brawling, there's absolutely none of that here. The fighting that does occur is generally very rough and over rather quickly.

To both Netflix's and the director's credit, though, they didn't market the movie by focusing on the action, so you can't accuse them of misrepresenting it in any way. Even so, some may feel a tad deflated at just how sparse the carnage tends to be.