Before I can go forward with a review of director Steven Soderbergh’s latest film Haywire, I need to make a confession: I’m a big fan of almost all of his films. Sure, he’s managed to make one or two that don’t exactly work (The Girlfriend Experience comes to mind), but he’s never boring and always tries to push filmmaking and creativity in new and different directions.

Given this, I went into Haywire with somewhat raised expectations due to my fondness for his previous works. As the film unfolded I was struck by several things. First, lead actress and MMA superstar Gina Carano is not only beautiful, I would not want to ever make her angry. She’s that tough.

The film also moves quickly and at a running time of 93 minutes, almost seems a bit short. I think that’s a good thing because at the end, I wanted more.

I was also struck by how similar Haywire is to one of Soderbergh’s earlier films, The Limey (which is also my favorite of his films). I guess one reason could be that screenwriter Lem Dobbs wrote both films.

I’m not saying Haywire‘s similarity to The Limey is a bad thing, it was just interesting. More on that a bit later.

When it comes to action movies, the name Steven Soderbergh may not come to mind first. He’s not really known as an “action director” but after watching his latest film Haywire, that title may just end up being his.

If you’re not familiar with Haywire, here’s some info about it:

Mallory Kane is a highly trained operative who works for a government security contractor in the dirtiest, most dangerous corners of the world. After successfully freeing a Chinese journalist held hostage, she is double crossed and left for dead by someone close to her in her own agency. Suddenly the target of skilled assassins who know her every move, Mallory must find the truth in order to stay alive.

Using her black-ops military training, she devises an ingenious—and dangerous—trap. But when things go haywire, Mallory realizes she’ll be killed in the blink of an eye unless she finds a way to turn the tables on her ruthless adversary.

The film opens tomorrow but to get you ready, we’ve got two new clips from it to share with you today. Both of these clips are scenes from the film and help demonstrate just what we’re talking about where Soderberg’s new title is concerned.

Haywire features MMA superstar Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor and Channing Tatum. Check out both of the scenes after the jump.

The first holiday weekend of the year has come and the big winner was the tender stare of an underwear model. The new Mark Wahlberg actioner, Contraband, came in at number one this weekend with an estimated Twenty-Four million. The impressive total marks one of the highest openings ever for a Mark Wahlberg starring film, and ranks comparably with other January films of this genre.

Coming in at number two was the 3D re-release of the Disney classic Beauty and the Beast. The 3D version raked in eighteen and a half million, which is less than the recent re-release of The Lion King in 3D. Even though the dollars weren’t as good, the sum is still nice considering how long this has been sitting on the shelf. Disney is staying in the 3D reissue business with releases scheduled twice a year for the next few years.

In a number three is the recent box office champ Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which continues to hold remarkably well. It brought in just over eleven million dollars and became the second highest grossing film in the Impossible franchise. This is a big win all around and looks to be a strong start Jeremy Renner’s assault on big budget franchise films.

In the next couple of weeks a very interesting new movie will be hitting theaters nationwide. What makes Haywire so intriguing is that it has a fantastic pedigree, yet it is being released in the January doldrums. Normally this would speak to the poor quality of the movie, but early word has been strong and it is hard to bet against Steven Soderbergh.

The movie is released in a couple weeks, but to help drum up more excitment the first five minutes of the movie have been released on Hulu. For those of you who are unaware of what the film is about, here is the synopsis: