‘The Wrecking Crew’: Ángel Manuel Soto Delivers 2026’s First Must-See Action Film
It may be easy to dismiss Ángel Manuel Soto’s The Wrecking Crew as a fake-looking piece of “content” that only serves to fill an ever-expanding algorithm on Prime Video. You could be right to think this way, since none of the promotional materials have fully advertised the film’s pleasures the way they should have. The movie was also essentially dumped on the streaming service with little to no awareness that such a thing even exists, despite being helmed by the director of (the very fun, but underseen) Blue Beetle, while Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista lead the picture.
Within a few minutes, however, we’re treated to the genre-bending fun of Soto’s breezy auctioneer. His skills as an action filmmaker are even more refined during a set piece where Jonny Hale (Momoa) fights off against a horde of Yakuza men looking for a package his late father allegedly sent to him, despite not having communicated with his son for the better part of twenty years.
The Wrecking Crew is the first great action film of the year
The action seems heavily inspired by the pencak silat work of Gareth Evans, but with a more comedic tinge to the multiple ways in which an antagonist will die in extremely violent and surprisingly gruesome ways.
It’s thus no coincidence that Evans’ go-to director of photography, Matt Flannery, collaborated with Soto to give The Wrecking Crew a playful energy and aesthetics that many direct-to-streaming offerings lack. It looks more like a real movie than the current Amazon MGM Studios-distributed film, starring Chris Pratt, playing in IMAX cinemas right now, and is far more suited for the big screen than whatever the hell Mercy is.
Even during its significantly digitized chase sequence, where the four main characters—Jonny and his brother James (Bautista), the former’s ex-girlfriend Valentina (Morena Baccarin, sadly underused), and their friend, Pika (Jacob Batalon)—are pursued by antagonist Marcus Robichaux’s (Claes Bang) henchmen in a helicopter, there’s enough comic-book kineticism to keep us enthralled and moving.
It’s just great that Soto knows how to keep the camera alive and exciting during set pieces of high energy and violence. This gives The Wrecking Crew an edge that few streaming films of that era sadly do. The chemistry between Momoa and Bautista is also excellent, portraying brothers with a fractured relationship who haven’t seen each other in a long time. They put their grievances aside for a moment to figure out who killed their father, who was slain in a hit-and-run by Robichaux, but there may be far more to this than meets the eye.
Of course, none of this reinvents any screenwriting wheel, and the plot is as conventional as you’d think it is. There are virtually zero surprises in this surprisingly overlong buddy comedy that never once justifies a hefty 122-minute proposition.
It’s easy to figure out who the main antagonistic players are in a film whose actors practically scream “BAD GUY” by the way they look at the screen when introduced, even if they present themselves as benevolent figures and supporters of the Hale family. In that case, some may call The Wrecking Crew another tired product that doesn’t offer anything new to the table, but there’s enough to hold onto in places that count the most that it almost doesn’t matter if you’ve seen (most of) this before.
Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista make a formidable pair
Perhaps if the action wasn’t so excitingly dynamic and surprisingly more innovative than I would’ve imagined, I could’ve been in the cynical crowd. The villain in The Wrecking Crew has no texture beyond being this despicable piece of garbage who quickly makes Jonny’s and James’ lives miserable, and none of the side characters do much beyond serving as figures to help the strong alpha male protagonists complete their tasks.
Yet, when Bautista and Momoa team up to enact bloodshed on multiple criminal gangs at once in a true bravura climax that answers the question of why these stars are so beloved within popular culture, it’s not difficult to lock in and enjoy the carnage on display.
I may be one of the few who thinks Momoa doesn’t have it as much as Bautista (although that may more or less be due to the roles he chooses as opposed to his on-screen persona), especially when the latter has broadened his acting chops following Guardians of the Galaxy’s success with complex roles in Blade Runner 2049, Dune (and its sequel), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and my personal favorite, M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin.
However, when paired together, the two are genuinely electric because they work off their opposite (and distinct) personalities. Dave Bautista’s style is more tactical and precise, while Jason Momoa is more freewheeling and comedic. It’s a match made in movie heaven, and the resulting picture that arises with these two icons going off at each other is, as the kids say, loads of fun.
With such an amazing on-screen pair, you’d think Amazon would gladly release this incredibly entertaining actioner in a cinema instead of the pro-AI piece currently playing that looks and feels as if an algorithm made it, or that Melania Trump documentary that seemingly no one will willingly pay money to see. And yet, The Wrecking Crew is getting unfairly dumped on Prime Video when it is genuinely full of vibrant energy that will make anyone hoot and holler at the incredible action on display and the fiery chemistry between Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista.
The jury’s still out on what will likely be Momoa’s most important performance, Lobo in Supergirl, later this year. As it stands, however, he couldn’t have been more at ease with Soto, one of the most underappreciated talents working today. Here’s hoping (with Bautista, too) that this won’t be their last collaboration together…
The Wrecking Crew releases on Prime Video on January 28, 2026.
