Posts Tagged ‘Besson productions’

Taken

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

TAKEN has finally hit American shores many months after everybody else in the world already saw it and emailed me about it. As reported, it is a Luc Besson-produced version of a Seagal-type scenario: ex–CIA badass’s daughter gets kidnapped in Paris, he goes and gets her back. An old favorite. The hook is that this badass is not played by a Seagal, or even a Statham. It’s Liam Neeson (SCHINDLER’S LIST).

Okay, so admittedly action is not completely new for Neeson. He was a swordsman in both BATMAN BEGINS and PHANTOM MENACE. A long time ago he was Darkman. He even co-starred in a (not very good) Patrick Swayze action picture called NEXT OF KIN. (The one where not-famous-yet Ben Stiller plays a mobster’s douchebag son.) But mostly he’s moved beyond that, and I think most people consider him a Serious Actor. You know – MICHAEL COLLINS, KINSEY, GANGS OF NEW YORK, Spielberg’s choice to play Lincoln. And here he is playing a role that the first Ain’t It Cool review complained could’ve been played by Jean-Claude Van Damme. But of course you and I agree that’s why it’s so cool. We want to see a Van Damme movie but with Liam Neeson. Or how about a Michael Dudikoff with Frank Langella? Or a Bolo Yeung with Daniel Day Lewis? A Cynthia Rothrock with Susan Sarandon?

In TAKEN Liam Neeson gets to do all the badass ex-CIA shit that was so sorely lacking in ETHAN FROME and LES MISERABLES. Lots of quick, blunt chops to dispatch foes, appearing out of nowhere to beat people up, outsmarting and outfighting police and organized crime to find out things he’s not supposed to know and get into places he’s not supposed to be, working his way through the chain to find his daughter. As a bonus he thwarts a knife attack on a pop star. (more…)

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Transporter 3

Friday, November 21st, 2008

Here’s a test for you. How many times did you rewind the part in TRANSPORTER 2 where he sees in a reflection that there’s a bomb on the bottom of his car so he drives the car off a pile of junk, flips, successfully hooks the bomb onto a nearby crane and lands the car safely?

If you answered 3 or more, like me, then you will probaly be disappointed in TRANSPORTER 3, like I was. If you prefer part 1 then all bets are off, but me, I’m strictly a part 2 man. The first one had some good action scenes, like the sliding-around-in-oil-on-the-ground fight. But it put too much emphasis on the melodrama. I don’t care how cool he looks in a suit, that’s not gonna make it interesting to hear him keep talking about his fucking “rules.” Oh geez I wonder what would happen if he ever broke one of those rules he won’t fucking shut up about, I guess it’s kind of a moot point though because obviously he would nev– WHUH? He broke his own rules? What’s gonna happen now? We’re through the looking glass, people.

Part 2 was a work of beauty though, a complete re-engineering that chops out everything that was dull and fills the empty space with added awesomeness. They still have the elaborate Hong Kong style fights, they raise the level of preposterous stunts/effects shots, they introduce more colorful characters. They got all kinds of crazy shit: a skeleton thrown at a guy, a firehose as a weapon, a car straddling two buildings. Frank jumps a jetski onto a street, jumps over two colliding cars, has a kickboxing match inside a spinning plane. How many movies have a female assassin in a sexy nurse costume, garters and Tammy Faye style smeared makeup driving a stolen police car? Not many. Later she is impaled on a wall of spikes in her boyfriend’s apartment, which in my opinion was an unsafe thing to have but I guess that’s easy for me to say, I wasn’t there. Hindsight is 20/20. Anyway, the point is that I love unapologetically over-the-top action when it’s well executed, and TRANSPORTER 2 delivers. (more…)

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District B13

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

(originally BANLIEUE 13)

I’m way behind on this movie. I remember a couple years ago I went to see some movie at the film festival here, and this one was just getting out on the same screen. I saw some people I knew coming out and I asked them how it was. They said it was ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK except in France, and with some weird martial art where they run up walls and shit. I knew it was a Luc Besson joint so I thought wait a minute, is this related to that YAMAKASI movie I saw? The art of climbing and flipping?

Now it’s years later and the movie has long since played American theaters and DVD players in a dubbed version called DISTRICT B13. The advertising campaign has tried to convince us we know what the word “parkour” means. Another practicioner of the art has battled (and lost) the new, badass James Bond. Now it’s old news, the excitement has worn off, so I saw it now. That’s just how I roll.

Well, it really is an ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK ripoff – the poor neighborhood District B13 has been walled off just like New York was, and our hero is a badass released from prison to go into B13 and do a mission for the man. Only instead of saving the president he has to find a nuclear bomb that’s in the hands of his enemy, and instead of Ernest Borgnine he’s teamed up with a cop, and instead of having an eyepatch he doesn’t have an eyepatch.

But despite the similarity, the whole look, tone, spirit and poetry of the movie is nothing like ESCAPE. What it’s more like is exactly what it is: an action movie produced and written by Luc Besson. Fun and energetic if not entirely memorable. I liked it though. (more…)

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Transporter 2

Monday, March 27th, 2006

One day not too long ago I was sitting in a theater waiting to watch some movie, the identity of which has by now dissolved into the fountain of time. (that’s not a real saying, I just made it up. My audience deserves new sayings, not the same old shit they’ve heard before and understand.) And suddenly there was a trailer for a sequel that probaly nobody, and definitely not me, asked for. The movie of course was THE TRANSPORTER 2 in case you forgot which review you’re reading here. There was kicking, jumping, cars flipping, things exloding, a half naked lingerie wearing sexy nurse assassin with makeup smeared down her eyes Tammy Faye Baker style, that sort of thing. There was this ridiculous shot where The Transporter jumps his BMW from one parking garage into another and skids out right on the edge of the thing. All that flash and bang got me excited and I realized that somehow, even though I kind of hated THE TRANSPORTER, I wanted to see the sequel. I can’t remember ever being excited about a sequel to a movie I didn’t like. But like Jesus and the correctional system said, you gotta give a guy a second chance.

Well I am happy to report now that I’ve finally seen the thing that The Transporter series is full rehabilitated and ready to rejoin society. This is a real dumb movie, completely ridiculous, and pretty god damned great. It’s credited as directed by the guy who did UNLEASHED/DANNY THE DOG, with action direction by Corey Yuen. (The original was credited to director Corey Yuen and second unit director UNLEASHED guy.) The producer and co-writer is Luc Besson, who used to be an admired director but now mainly just produces ridiculous movies like this. I think it’s kind of his specialty to come up with silly and absurd action concepts and then do them with a straight face, which is what makes this one fun. It used to be a Hong Kong style but now it’s pretty much the domain of Besson.

Jason Statham plays Frank somethingorother, the Transporter of the title. He is a guy who looks cool in a white shirt and black suit and tie, and is good at driving expensive cars, as well as kickboxing. He starts out driving a BMW in this one which makes you wonder what would happen if he fought Clive Owen’s THE HIRE character. I think we got a new alien vs. the predators type deal in the making here, and at the same time advertising cars. Maybe they could each be advertising a different car and whichever car sells more is the one who wins. And then they fight Freddy. (more…)

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Yamakasi – Les samouraïs des temps modernes

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

This movie is about as corny as they make em, but I kinda liked it. Supposedly the stars here are a real group of young fellas who are known for climbing up buildings, jumping off buildings, sliding down ropes and all that sort of shit. Sort of like the poor french man’s cirque du soleil.

So Luc Besson found out about them and decided to make a movie showcasing their talents. This is kinda what Besson does if you think about it. I haven’t seen KISS OF THE DRAGON yet but that was his attempt to make a better English language Jet Li vehicle than ROMEO MUST DIET. FIFTH ELEMENT was a vehicle for the detailed sci-fi world he had created when he was in boarding school. And what was THE MESSENGER if not a vehicle for his lolita bride of the time, Milla Jovovich, who he manages to make look stunning even with a pageboy haircut and splattered with blood and dirt. Now he’s doing the same thing but for some guys who run around and jump off things and what not.

So I’m not clear if these really are the real Yamakasi or not, but the story is about 7 dudes of different nationalities. They are very white bread multi-cultural – you got the asian guy, the other guys, etc. All very hunky and most lacking in personality. However they make up for this with their ability to do flips and shit.

Each has an obvious nickname based on their specialty – for example Rocket runs real fast, Baseball throws objects, Spider slides down a rope. They find ridiculous ways for them to use these talents such as when Baseball stops a mugger, who for some reason steals a purse inside a grocery store (instead of shoplifting), by beaning the fucker in the head with a can of peaches or something.

In the opening scene we learn that the Yamakasi are some kind of rebel folk heroes and loved by all children like Santa Clause or Michael Jackson (in his videos only, not real life). They are so worried about children imitating their stunts that they only climb at dawn. They climb up the side of a building like Spiderman and then huge squads of police arrive to chase them and fail to catch them. (more…)

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