Posts Tagged ‘Dolph’

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (aka Universal Soldier 3)

Monday, January 25th, 2010

tn_usregeneration

“Why me Lord? What have I ever done / That was worth even one / Of the pleasures I’ve known / Tell me Lord, what did I ever do / That was worth loving you / or [Universal Soldier 3].”

–Kris Kristofferson, “Why Me”

Holy shit fellas, I didn’t see this one coming. I was excited about the idea of Van Damme and Lundgren doing a movie together again, but honestly I assumed they (and everybody else) would be phoning it in. Man, was I wrong. There are no phones used at all. This is a masterpiece of DTV.

I mean seriously, how did this happen?

It comes out February 2nd and I can’t wait to discuss it with everybody here after you’ve seen it. For now the review is up at The Ain’t It Cool News.

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Command Performance

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

tn_commandperformanceNote: I sent this in to Ain’t It Cool last night but they didn’t post it, so what the hell, outlawvern.com exclusive. I’d kind of feel bad posting it there anyway because it’s not a very positive review and I don’t want to bum everybody out. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do I guess.

In COMMAND PERFORMANCE, director/co-writer Mr. Dolph Lundgren also steps out from behind the camera to star as the hero Joe. He’s just a regular guy, your usual American biker who hates guns and lives in Moscow and plays drums for a band called CMF who are opening for an American pop singer performing for the Russian president and his daughters when they’re taken hostage by vengeful terrorists and has to save the day. In other words, DIE HARD in a rock concert, with Dolph Lundgren on drums.

I know there are a contingent of you out there who are as excited for this one as I was. It’s the most anticipated DTV movie of the year besides the Scott Adkins/Isaac Florentine joint NINJA. So it kills me to say this but I don’t think COMMAND PERFORMANCE is one of Dolph’s better efforts. (more…)

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Men of War

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

tn_menofwarMEN OF WAR is a Dolph Lundgren mercenaries-on-a-mission movie. In the surprisingly atmospheric opening Lundgren’s ex-Special Forces character Gunar is hanging out on the streets of Chicago, wearing a hat he could wear if the movie was set during the Depression, his breath showing in the cold air. Some tough guy rudely tells him to talk to somebody, gesturing to a limo. “In the back seat?” Gunar asks and when the answer is yes he bashes the guy’s head through the backseat window and leans in to talk to the passenger. So you don’t have to wait too long for the movie’s declaration of badass intent. (more…)

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Universal Soldier

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

In the ’80s Sylvester Stallone took action movies through a whole cycle of American self esteem issues. In FIRST BLOOD he dealt with Vietnam vets coming home and feeling abandoned. In FIRST BLOOD PART 2 he actually flew back to Vietnam, discovered the war was not quite wrapped up yet, and took home the gold with an amazing hail mary pass to save the POWs. In ROCKY IV he moved on to the Cold War and sewed that one up through a sporting event. Only in 1991 did notorious shitmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin dig up Stallone’s ROCKY IV enemy Dolph Lundgren, pit him against Jean-Claude Van Damme, and cut into those Vietnam wounds again. You know, for a super soldier movie. Don’t worry, it’s not exploitative. They’re artists.

What did happen to all those MIAs in Vietnam? FIRST BLOOD II said some were still alive, being tortured by sadistic Viet Cong who’ve yet to move on with their lives. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER posits that they were killed in action and their bodies were experimented on by Jerry Orbach, who resuscitated them as mindless super soldiers with super-healing powers when kept at low temperatures.

Dolph plays a sergeant gone nuts, wearing a necklace of ears and trying to get Jean-Claude to kill some villagers. Jean-Claude tries to save them, he and Dolph shoot each other and their bodies are donated to science. One great touch: closeups of their faces being zipped into body bags before each of their names on the credits.

So in the early ’90s they’re alive again, wearing camcorder eyepieces and raiding a terrorist takeover at a dam. Jean-Claude starts to have memories from ‘Nam and fails to take his regular injection. Then when a reporter (Ally Walker, later of THE PROFILER) is sneaking around the base there’s basically a repeat of the past: Dolph kills an innocent, Jean-Claude disobeys orders to protect one. He goes on the run and the movie is basically a cross-country chase with Jean-Claude trying to find out who he is and Dolph and the Universal Soldiers (including Ralph Moeller and Tiny Lister) trying to kill him. There’s plenty of kicking (including a bar fight), a bus flipping, some guns, explosions, gore. Jean-Claude shows his ass again but does not do the splits. (more…)

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Army of One

Sunday, July 27th, 2008

Recently I was discussing the upcoming James Bond movie with some buddies. I was joking that the trailer should say “from the director of FINDING NEVERLAND.” That dude’s movies are all over the map, but nothing ever hinted that he would end up directing a 007 movie. One of my buddies said that it didn’t really matter that he didn’t do action because usually the action in Bond movies is shot by a second unit guy named Vic Armstrong.

(I looked it up, and Armstrong actually hasn’t worked on the Daniel Craig ones, but he was stunt coordinator and/or 2nd unit director for DIE ANOTHER DAY, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, TOMORROW NEVER DIES and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and stunt double for 3 other Bond movies.)

A couple days later I was reading an article by Moriarty about Rob Cohen and THE MUMMY 3: DRAGON TOMB EMPEROR ETC. In this article he goes into a whole thing about how Vic Armstrong was the stunt coordinator and stunt double for the first three Indiana Jones movies, but didn’t do KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL for mysterious reasons, and is getting revenge by doing ROB COHEN’S M3 instead. (more…)

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Showdown in Little Tokyo and Bridge of Dragons

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

The Dolph Lundgren vs. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Saga
SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (1991) and BRIDGE OF DRAGONS (1999)

As I continue to learn about the works of Dolph Lundgren (no, sorry, I’m not writing LUNDGRENICS, I’m just trying to become a more well-rounded individual) it’s refreshing to find that he has many movies where he is a charismatic action hero and not just some grunting oaf. SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO is one people have been recommending to me for years because it has him teamed with Brandon Lee, which is a pretty big deal for somebody whose most notable co-stars are often talk show hosts like Jerry Springer or Montel Williams.

Basically this one is a cop buddy picture with Dolph as the line-crossing, bushido practicing white cop on the Little Tokyo beat who by the way is out to avenge the deaths of his parents by a samurai, but that’s neither here nor there. We know Dolph is a bad motherfucker right away because he single-handedly busts up an illegal underground fighting circuit by rappelling in from the ceiling in the middle of a match and then taking on those who disagree with his decision. Later he’s in a cafe when he happens to see some of the same Yakuzas bullying the old lady owner for protection money. In the middle of the brawl that ensues he’s introduced to his new partner, Brandon Lee.

I feel like an asshole saying it but I kind of have mixed feelings about Brandon Lee, the O.G. Mark Dacascos. He was a good martial artist, a decent actor, obviously it was such a tragedy what happened to him, and it was cool that Bruce Lee had a legacy in him. But he was maybe too good at playing an uptight nerd like this character. It’s a funny idea that Dolph knows more about Asian culture than he does, so I’m not complaining. I’m just saying for all the hype Brandon Lee gets I’m not sure he had the presence of a superstar. He was more of a foil or a sidekick. You definitely like Dolph better than him in this one. I don’t know, maybe that’s blasphemous to say. I’ll watch some of his other movies and hopefully I’ll be wrong and I’ll repent. (more…)

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Miisionary Man, Chaos and Rockaway

Friday, January 11th, 2008

Vern’s DTV Triple Header: LUNDGREN vs. SNIPES/STATHAM vs. SOME DUDE FROM TV I NEVER HEARD OF!!!

I try to watch alot of DTV movies, but I don’t always succeed. Most of you have probaly never watched them, and you may assume that they are very good and enjoyable, and capable of adding meaning to one’s life. However, this is almost never the case. In the world of DTV filmmaking it seems pretty clear that nobody gives a shit. Most of them are trying to just reach 90 minutes and throw the shit on a shelf. You could argue that more effort goes into pornography, since some poor girl has to take it in the ass. That’s elbow grease.

So this is an unusual couple of days because I’ve managed to watch a bunch of DTVs and all of them were actually okay. So okay, in fact, that I was able to watch them in two or less sittings. In this world that’s almost a miracle. Either that or I have somehow increased my attention span overnight.

But what about the DTV viewer on the go who only has time to watch one of the three? Which one should they watch – which one was the MOST okay? Good question.

The candidates:

MISSIONARY MAN by Dolph Lundgren
CHAOS with Jason Statham and Wesley Snipes
ROCKAWAY starring various (more…)

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I Come in Peace

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

I COME IN PEACE aka DARK ANGEL

Craig R. Baxley’s second directorial work (after ACTION JACKSON, before STONE COLD) is probaly his weirdest. It’s kind of like the cop movie version of BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET. Dolph Lundgren plays a plays-by-his-own-rules cop whose partner dies in a drug sting that happens to also be interrupted by an alien invader with a trenchcoat and glowing eyes. This guy, I don’t know what his name is but he’s not a lovable E.T. type alien, he’s just a tall scary dude who goes around and says “I come in peace” but then shoots a weird tube out of his palm into your head and sucks out your endorphins. I could’ve sworn he stole the heroin from the drug dealers, but the reason he’s on earth really is not to steal heroin, it’s just to farm people for endorphins. We learn later from an outer space cop who’s chasing this guy that endorphins are a valuable drug on whatever planet they’re from, I guess we’ll call it Planet Icomeinpeace. He must be stopped because if he goes back to Icomeinpeace and gets alot of alien space dollars for his endorphins (or “dorph” as I bet they call it on the space streets) then other aliens are gonna figure out how easy it is to cop dorph out of our heads and it’ll be over for the human race.

As you know I am not a big fan of law enforcement but I appreciate what this space cop is doing, he seems like one of the good guys. I don’t know if he’s necessarily by the book, because who knows what the book is like on Planet Icomeinpeace. It might not even be a book, all the policies could be kept inside a magic crystal or a glowing rod or some weird space shit like that. Who knows. Anyway, Dolph, on the other hand, is definitely not by the book or the glowing space rod. He’s in the post-Dirty Harry period (it’s 1990, still technically almost the ’80s) when it was supposed to be cool for cops to be reckless and break laws and you’re supposed to hate his uptight FBI partner who INSISTS on being accountable to society. This is a decent role for Dolph though, one of those happy times when he doesn’t have to play a Russian or a hulking oaf, and you remember that he has some kind of natural charm that’s enjoyable in movies. It also has an ’80s anti-yuppie, anti asshole businessman kind of stance, with the drug kingpins being portrayed almost as CEOs. (more…)

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The Punisher (1989)

Monday, July 17th, 2006

Two years ago, I saw and accidentally enjoyed the 2004 movie THE PUNISHER starring Thomas Jane. It was another attempt at a movie version of some Marvel Comics Book which had once been made by none other than Dolph Lundgren. After I saw that movie, I wrote a review (see below), then I looked into the eyes of the universe and I made a solemn vow that one day maybe I would see the Dolph Lundgren version, who knows.

Well today I saw Dolph’s version and I’m here to report that it’s okay. I liked Thomas’s version the best but this one definitely has its moments. Like the 2004 one, this is definitely more in the action movie/vigilante style than some kind of Batman or Superman deal. The main comic book element is that Punisher lives in the sewers and has tunnels to bring him everywhere. Also he has a wacky sidekick who is some kind of homeless guy who always claims to be a theater actor, and who always rhymes.

One nice touch is that at the start of the movie Punisher has already been the Punisher for ten years and has killed 125 people or something. So you don’t have to bother with the whole explanation of how he starts out and everything. The movie begins with a news report about how the guy who killed former cop Frank Castle’s family has now been exonerated by the justice system. A reporter asks this bastard if maybe he is worried about this Punisher guy who has been killing all his mob associates. He says no and dares the Punisher to come within a thousand yards of him.

But of course the Punisher is sitting nearby on his motorcycle. We don’t see his face but we know it’s him by the shot of a boot with knives attached to it. He follows the guy home and kills off his bodyguards while he’s getting out the champagne. This is a fun scene because you never see the Punisher, he’s like some unseen force throwing knives and shit. My favorite is when he nimbly tosses a noose around a guy’s neck from a balcony above and lifts him up. (more…)

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The Defender

Sunday, March 12th, 2006

A film by Dolph Lundgren

As you know, I’m a fan of these movies where an action star decides to take matters into their own hands and just direct the damn thing themselves. Participants include Bruce Lee, Tom Laughlin, Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone and most successfully Clint Eastwood and Takeshi Kitano. THE DEFENDER is the first picture directed by Dolph Lundgren (he has also made a second one, THE MECHANIK).

One thing Dolph already blew before you even watch this one is that generic title. I don’t think this is based on the old video game Defender, so there’s no excuse. It sounds like the american title for a Jet Li movie, and probaly is. On the positive side, he actually is a defender in this movie. He defends stuff. Specifically, he is the head of security for the presidential security adviser. So he’s defending her.

As far as stunt casting goes Dolph gets a few points because in this movie, Jerry Springer plays the president of the United States. That’s not quite as ridiculous as some people might think, actually, if they don’t know that before he was a host of staged talk shows he was the mayor of Cincinatti. But it’s still funny to see, and near the end he does a speech about the meaning of America that could pass for “Jerry’s Final Thought.” Dolph previously co-starred with Montel Williams in THE PEACEKEEPER so this might actually be a Lundgrenics trademark. I would like to see him take on that crazy witch lady Sally Jesse Raphael in one of his future works. Maybe Sally Jesse and Montel are abusing troubled teens at a brainwashing camp out in the desert somewhere, and Dolph has to go undercover as a teen junkie (or as a square dad) in order to bust em out. At some point Sally Jesse would get thrown off a cliff and you’d see her falling Hans Grueber style, and she would cackle all the way down. (more…)

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