I THOUGHT THE ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THE exhibit were slick and eye-popping. Besides print ads there were thirty second television ads that showed a stately grand staircase followed by an old photograph of the historic structure. There was a dark Grecian cherub perched on the top of the bottom newel post of the staircase, like a greeter welcoming guests to walk up the steps. One of the print ads had a photo layout of various one hundred plus years old objects that were recovered; they ranged from ceramics to furniture to utensils to decorative art. The thing that I found to be the oddest was the exhibit was being held in an abandoned department store, in the middle of a suburban shopping center. I would have thought something of this magnitude would have been held at a museum or cultural center, not a retail store. Were objects going to be used to fill up the store’s empty shelves? Were they going to incorporate the mannequins into the exhibit; it all seemed odd to me. Nonetheless, I did want to see this, if for nothing else, for historical value. The event that happened over a century ago led to the creation of this traveling exhibit and I wanted to experience it.      DRIVING INTO THE SHOPPING CENTER, WE were directed by signs to the front entrance. As we drove around the empty department store, I noticed all the entrances had some type of black material covering them with locked gates across the front. Maybe I have seen too many horror films, but I wondered how creepy it would be to walk around an abandoned store. Would there be clothes racks scattered about with hangers littering the floor? I got the answer once we walked through the designated entrance. There were temporary walls, painted in a dark blue color, set up with track and spot lighting hanging from the ceiling. Once past the ticket counter we entered a large room without a ceiling, except for the high corrugated metal ceiling of the store, where there were glass display cases spread out through the space, each individually lit from the inside. In the first case, I saw ancient, printed tickets and brochures. The next case had artifacts but the little plaques underneath them stated they were reproductions. The further I went through the exhibit the more I realized many of the items on display were not original or if they were, more than likely they came from the same manufacturer but from a different venue. It was disappointing and no where in the advertisements was this mentioned. I do not want to say I felt cheated, but I could have stayed home and seen photographs and videos of the original stuff. I had a similar reaction to watching this action thriller; I could have watched an earlier film in this genre that was better and more original.      A NAVY SEAL’S PLANS TO ACCOMPANY a terrorist suspect to Washington D.C. get derailed when the airport is attacked by mercenaries who have their own reasons for capturing the suspect. With Scott Adkins (Day Shift, John Wicks: Chapter 4) as Jake Harris, Michael Jai White (Blood and Bone, Black Dynamite) as Robert Jackson, Alexis Knapp (Pitch Perfect franchise, Project X) as Jennifer Lomax, Tom Berenger (Platoon, the Big Chill) as Mike Marshall and Waleed Elgad (Four Lions, Mosul) as Amin Mansur; this action thriller lacked creativity and originality. The script was predictable with rudimentary dialog, which made the acting look worse than it may have been. I thought the whole look of the picture came across as low budget quality. And I was surprised to find out this movie was a sequel. I had no idea and do not know if my views would have been any different if I had seen the previous film first. The only positive thing I could see was how the director tried to make the film look like it was one continuous shoot; but outside of that, I thought this picture was a basic no-frills package.

1 ½ stars