More like THE C+/B- TEAM if you ask me! Nah, I’m sure somebody beat me to that one, and they probly graded lower. THE A-TEAM is semi-enjoyable but not nearly as good as I wish it was and truly believe it could’ve been even if it’s an adaptation of a stupid ’80s TV show where everybody fires guns and nobody ever gets their head blown off. Directed by Joe Carnahan in a toned down version of his SMOKIN’ ACES hyperactive style, using a script he took over from an individual responsible for THURSDAY, SWORDFISH, HITMAN and WOLVERINE, it’s a movie that only partially earns its swagger. I kind of went back and forth on my feelings about these characters constantly laughing as they pull off ridiculous digitized feats in jets and choppers. It’s kind of relatable and endearing, kind of frat boy and smarmy. It’s the only action movie I can think of where after multiple action beats the characters yell “THAT WAS AWESOME!” (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Liam Neeson’
The A-Team
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010Darkman
Friday, February 27th, 2009I believe you’re all familiar with the director Sam Raimi. You know – kind of a smart ass, wears a tie, master of energetic camerawork, loves the Three Stooges. These days I guess people just think of him as the guy who did the three Spider-man pictures. Nerds curse his name because although the first two touched their hearts and moved their souls the third one was kind of dumb and had a part where he did an evil dance, and apparently in the comic book it is made very clear that the whole point of the Spider-man character is that he would never do an evil dance like that. The Punisher or Blade maybe would do one under the influence of sorcery or an alien ray, but Spider-man – never. So even if Sam Raimi did direct THE EVIL DEAD, EVIL DEAD 2, ARMY OF DARKNESS, SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN 2, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD and A SIMPLE PLAN it doesn’t matter, that’s all moot now, like Michael Richards’ comedy after he used the n word.
But with this review we gotta transport ourselves back to the early 1990 when Raimi was an underdog, a cult director who had done two drive-in masterpieces and one disowned comedy, and here he was trying to break into the post-BATMAN studio game with a movie that was big budget for him but small compared to the movies it was gonna be held up against. It’s kind of like a comic book movie: a super hero origin story, with music by Danny Elfman, and with ‘man’ in the hero’s name. It’s also kind of a horror movie: he’s a mad scientist and a burnt up Phantom of the Opera type freak whose scarring turns him crazy and murderous. But mostly I think it’s like an action movie: it has R-rated violence, he’s getting revenge one-by-one on the criminals who wronged him, there’s explosions and stunts, and one of the screenwriters is Chuck Pfarrer, the ex-Navy SEAL who wrote NAVY SEALS and HARD TARGET.
Future Academy Award nominee Liam Neeson plays Dr. Peyton Westlake, a scientist working on a liquid skin substitute for burn victims. When his girlfriend (future Academy Award winner Frances McDormand) discovers proof that her sleazy boss (Logie award winner Colin Friels) is making bribes Westlake gets caught in the crossfire and a gang of criminals blows up his lab with him inside. Everybody thinks he’s dead but his burnt near-corpse winds up a John Doe in a hospital where the doctors take the liberty of giving him an experimental surgery that severes his nerve endings so he won’t feel the burns. The only negative side effects are that he has lost the sense of touch and that he has very sensitive emotions that can cause him to fly into a blind rage with an adrenaline rush that gives him the strength of ten men. Otherwise everything is fine. (more…)
Taken
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009TAKEN 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…)
Batman Begins
Thursday, June 9th, 2005I got two thrilling stories for you today boys. First up is my review of this new Batman picture. Second is an unrelated, earth shattering movie scoop that you have not seen on access hollywood, E.T. – The Entertainment Tonight, the Michael Jackson trial re-enactments, or any of those shows. Possibly it was in some newspaper column in a city called Rochester, but I have not confirmed that yet. Anyway enough preamble let’s get down.
STORY #1 starring Batman
You know how RAMBO 2 tried to help our nation get over Vietnam? Well this one is trying to help us get over Joel Schumacher. The idea of BATMAN BEGINS is to pretend none of that other shit ever happened and start over. And they do a good job taking a 98.9% different approach.
One thing they figured out, if you want a good comic strip type movie you gotta hire a great maniac to play the super hero. Take for example Eric Bana, who gave one of the best performances of whichever decade that was in CHOPPER. Absolutely brilliant as a lovable psychotic murderer who cuts his own ears off, so they cast him as (The [Incredible]) Hulk. Same thing with Christian Bale here, many of us are most familiar with him as a sadistic yuppie with perfect abs running around naked with a chain saw, biting women on the ass, etc. So he’s perfect for Batman.
This one’s pretty different from AMERICAN PSYCHO. His character (name’s Bruce Wayne I believe) is another rich guy but he wants to make the world a better place and that kind of crap. Not shoot women with nail guns. But at first we don’t know that, we first meet him as an american con in a hellish Chinese prison. He’s a bad motherfucker we know because 1. he’s probaly gonna turn out to be Batman I bet and 2. he purposely goes to Chinese prison to practice on criminals. Good stuff. (spoiler note: unfortunately we do not get to see some sort of badass escape from Chinese prison, a forgivable offense but also the first sign that this is not a perfect movie sent down from the Heavens like the internet would have you believe. Let’s have realistic hopes here, fellas.) (more…)
