MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 was made at a time when the world just wasn’t ready for this particular MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2. There needed to be more of a cooling off period after the first one. We needed some time to learn that MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE sequels weren’t gonna be the elegant balance of smart-people thriller and blockbuster spectacle that Brian DePalma introduced in the first one, and also that John Woo was not gonna ever seem like the exact same filmatist who made THE KILLER, or HARD BOILED, or even FACE/OFF, again. Returning to it now it’s even more evident that it’s best appreciated by watching it like we watch other post-Hong-Kong Woo pictures like HARD TARGET, or his TV ones like BLACKJACK or the Once a Thief series. You just try to enjoy it as some Hollywood bullshit that he tried to add some of his particular style to. Here he treats it as an expensive studio movie love story set against a rogue agent trying to get rich off of a man-made disease and its cure.
Tom Cruise (JACK REACHER) returns as Ethan Hunt, who has graduated from IMF support man to lone wolf and is now so awesome that he spends his vacation rock climbing out in the middle of nowhere with no equipment. He doesn’t have his phone on him (it was 2000) so the agency has to send a helicopter to fire a rocket at him containing douchey sunglasses that give him his mission briefing. This is a good idea because the ol’ “this message will self destruct” means he throws a pair of sunglasses at the camera and they explode into the title, and everybody wants to see that. (read the rest of this shit…)
“It’s hard to explain. A strange series of events made him our ally.”
Akira Kurosawa probly had no idea when he made SANJURO that he was doing a sequel to one of the greatest movies in all of Badass Cinema. He just wanted to have some fun doing another small, funny samurai story with Toshiro Mifune’s character from YOJIMBO. This time the itchy wandering ronin (calling himself Sanjuro, another name made up on the fly) falls in with nine young, idealistic samurai who have discovered corruption in their clan. They want to do the right thing but they’re kinda dumb and inexperienced and he’s an incomparable swordsman and strategist, so he finds himself advising them, assigns himself to their most dangerous tasks and takes on the army and government mostly on his own. (read the rest of this shit…)
“You know the rules. No fraternizing with cyborgs.”
CYBORG 2 has a totally different feel from CYBORG. Apparently it didn’t even start out as a sequel to CYBORG, it was supposed to be something called GLASS SHADOW until they realized the only way I was gonna rent it 20+ years later would be if it was connected to an existing Jean-Claude Van Damme series. It looks more expensive than Albert Pyun’s original (though still in the low budget realm) and plays much more traditional, not an art film at all.
The disease that had ravaged the world in part 1 must’ve been cured. The ROAD WARRIOR type wasteland has become a poor man’s BLADE RUNNER dystopolis with Max Headroom type boardroom villainy. There’s way more talking and stunt doubles and things that happen. And while I took part 1’s robo-lady as a traditional cyborg – human with machine add-ons – now they’re using the C3PO definition: just a robot. We see how it works in a cool opening credits sequence of liquid flesh injected into a female casing over a robo-skeleton.
In LADY DRAGON 2, Cynthia Rothrock de-prises her role as Kathy Galagher, ex-CIA underground fighter out to avenge the death of her also-a-CIA-agent husband. This time she plays Susan “The Golden Angel” Morgan, who in the opening scene defends her professional (i.e. not underground) competitive karate title in the presence of her very much not dead yet husband and famous soccer player Sonny (George Rudy). But then later her husband gets murdered and she has to avenge it.
Meanwhile, criminal maniac Diego (Billy Drago, DELTA FORCE 2, MARTIAL LAW II) and his two flunkies (Sam FLASH GORDON Jones and Greg Stuart [QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER]) are stealing diamonds from the mafia, and then staying in the same hotel as Susan and Sonny. Somehow sensing that Sonny’s fame as an international soccer star will get him brushed through customs without much more than a glance, they stash the stolen loot in his luggage and follow him to Jakarta. But when they go to reclaim the diamonds they’re gone.
Before we move on, let me just say that they call it soccer throughout the movie, they don’t say football, so I don’t have to say it either. Those are the rules. I also say shit instead of shite. It’s how I was raised. (read the rest of this shit…)
In MARTIAL LAW II: UNDERCOVER, our hero Sean “Martial Law” Thompson from the movie MARTIAL LAW has gone so far undercover that he doesn’t even look like Chad McQueen anymore, he looks like Jeff Wincott (MISSION OF JUSTICE). But he’s still with his cop girlfriend Billie Blake (Cynthia Rothrock) and he still opens the movie by stopping some bad guys while in disguise. Last time he was a pizza delivery guy stopping a hostage situation during a jewelry store robbery, this time he pretends to be a confused homeless guy and interrupts some bikers making an arms deal.
In case you forgot, he’s called Martial Law because he is a lawman who does martial arts. In fact he does so many martial arts that this time he gets a credits sequence where he’s silhouetted doing katas in front of flags while smooth jazz plays. He just made detective, but he gets transferred to another city to start a martial arts training program for the police there. He and Billie have the kind of relationship where that’s okay, you can just move away and it’ll be okay, no discussion necessary. (read the rest of this shit…)
The first DELTA FORCE movie, directed by Menahem Golan, seemed like it was trying to be a prestige Chuck Norris movie. You got Lee Marvin, Bo Svenson, Robert Forster and Steve James in the cast, but also Martin Balsam, Joey Bishop, George Kennedy, Susan Strasberg and Shelley Winters. There’s a long section in the middle that has no Chuck Norris at all and is based on a real life hijacking incident.
But DELTA FORCE 2 (arguably subtitled THE COLOMBIAN CONNECTION) is directed by Chuck’s brother Aaron and it’s pretty straightforward about just being about Chuck’s character Colonel Scott McCoy going around being more awesome than everybody else. He’s introduced having dinner with his friend Major Bobby Chavez (Paul Perri, MANHUNTER) when three punk rockers cause a scene elsewhere in the restaurant, so he excuses himself to go beat them up. He says he likes the food and slams a guy’s face into a plate of rice in a possible homage to a way better part 2, A BETTER TOMORROW 2.
The villain is the straight up blatantly evil South American drug lord Ramon Cota (Billy Drago). We know he doesn’t have a human soul because he goes to visit the coca fields where poor villagers are forced to work and he immediately gets angry that one of them (Begonya Plaza, HEAT, ‘R XMAS) is tending to her baby instead of the plants. He has his men take away the baby and stabs the father right in front of her.
There’s a precedent for people who star in low budget movies just to help a buddy out but then keep acting and end up with big careers almost by accident. Bruce Campbell in THE EVIL DEAD, for example. Or Owen and Luke Wilson in BOTTLE ROCKET. You could even say Sharlto Copley, a filmmaker who Neil Blomkamp wanted to put in DISTRICT 9, and the next thing you know he’s a member of the A-Team!
So it’s not surprising that Robert Rodriguez’s buddy and co-producer Carlos Gallardo’s starring role in EL MARIACHI wasn’t his last. Sure, he was replaced by Antonio Banderas in the sequel (and knocked down to a smaller role), but in 1998 he got to play another title character in the mostly-English-language Mexican production BRAVO. This time he’s not a regular guy, he’s “best of the best” Mexican Secret Service agent Carlos Bravo, who’s secretly in love with the president’s daughter. (Don’t worry, she’s an adult.) Rather than guitar he plays pretty violin music for her (badass juxtaposition).
But when the daughter is spotted sneaking out of Bravo’s room he gets fired. Luckily he has his leather jacket there and his hog parked at the front door, so he’s able to drive off into a new life. (read the rest of this shit…)
When Robert Rodriguez made EL MARIACHI in 1992 he was just some regular 23-year-old dude from Texas. He didn’t think he was ready to make a grab for his Hollywood dreams yet. He had no idea he would catch the attention of the Weinsteins, ride the wave of mainstream indie movies of the ’90s and eventually have his own cable channel and a mini-studio where he makes wide release movies without having to get out of bed.
Though most anyone would consider EL MARIACHI superior to most or all of Rodriguez’s modern output, at the time he didn’t even consider it a real movie. He only set out to make the first in a trilogy of practice movies to get him ready to make his first for real one. His original plan was to sell it to the Mexican DTV action market to get enough to make the next one. It wasn’t a cynical Asylum-type “this crap should be good enough for them” attitude, though, it was more like youthful bluster. I can’t compete with JURASSIC PARK, but I can compete with these movies. I can do better!
He came to L.A. to sell it to a Spanish-language video company, but they took too long sealing the deal and meanwhile he got signed to a major talent agency who sent it around to real studios and got him a deal at Columbia. His hope was to get a real budget to do a remake. When he realized they wanted to release it pretty much as-is he tried to stop them, thinking it would kill his career before it started. (read the rest of this shit…)
There are many things I don’t understand about the sci-fi world and story of VIRTUOSITY. It opens with Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington) in a Captain Panaka cosplay outfit chasing a killer through the business district, where everybody is in a suit carrying a briefcase, like they’re in The Matrix. It does turn out to be a virtual reality simulation and Parker turns out to be a prisoner, though he was formerly a cop until he accidentally killed an innocent(ish) journalist while killing the guy who killed his family.
But what is the reason for this simulation? I guess it’s supposed to be for training? But then why are they training prisoners? I guess because it’s still in Beta testing. With its current calibration, getting killed in the virtual world can cause the player to go into convulsions and die in real life. (You hear that, Wachowskis? See if you can take that idea and do something better with it.) (read the rest of this shit…)
It’s been a joke for quite some time that Tom Cruise, like Prince or Keanu Reeves, never ages. Actually, now he’s starting to show some age, and I like it. He has a few more lines on his face, a little more character. Good work, Tom. Also his new MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie is good.
It has been a tradition in the series to have a respectable actor in a position of authority over Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his Impossible Mission Force team. In part 1, Jon Voight played the boss and mentor. In part 2, Anthony Hopkins sent Hunt on his missions. In part 3 there was Laurence Fishburne to question his actions, and in part ghost Tom Wilkinson was “the Secretary.” Now in part 5, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION (M:I-RN), we have the most involved of all of these characters, Alec Baldwin as CIA director Alan Hunley. He gets the entire IMF agency disbanded and tries to capture or kill Hunt, who is still in the field trying to finish his last mission.
What I’m getting at is that Alec Baldwin’s famous narrator voice gets to deliver a very good Just How Badass Is He? speech for Ethan Hunt, which includes the appropriately hyperbolic phrase “he is the manifestation of destiny.” That’s one of the many advantages of having Christopher McQuarrie aboard as director and co-writer. The man made JACK REACHER. He loves a good Just How Badass Is He? speech. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
PetrosMT on G20: “Hey Vern it’s always an honour to have a reply. 2 things though. Not establishing how your almost 60yo president…” Apr 20, 08:26
Mr. Majestyk on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “I have a copy of HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD somewhere but it’s non-anamorphic so I never seem to…” Apr 19, 08:52
Aktion Figure on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “I can’t ever get these to work but I’ll try: https://youtu.be/E1ZgL3fTU44?si=sqxTbrXefUTE88IK” Apr 19, 00:54
Aktion Figure on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “Since we’re doing this here, Maj, may I pour one on the curb for “Holy Flame of the Martial World”?…” Apr 19, 00:50
burningambulance on The Order (2024): “This is on Hulu now for anyone interested in seeing it.” Apr 18, 21:40
Jules on Ocean’s Eleven (2001): “I love the first Oceans. The challenges and stakes are clearly set up and the solutions are clever. The stars…” Apr 18, 18:09
Adam C on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “Thanks! Haha, yeah I would have been so pissed if he had stuck around and took over. Fuck those guys.…” Apr 18, 16:53
Aktion Figure on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Nah Vern, this is all on me. I’m trying to parse out why I had that knee-jerk reaction to a…” Apr 18, 07:41
Mr. Majestyk on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “Solid review. What got me about the ending was how it recontextualized what up until then I had thought was…” Apr 18, 05:37
renfield on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Glad you caught this one Vern. Chapo Trap House did a cool interview with the filmmakers… the details about how…” Apr 17, 23:11
Adam Caka TaumpyTearrs on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “I finally got my epic Bastard Swordsman write-up done, and Maj I linked your remix in my review! https://adamsoverduereview.wixsite.com/adam/post/bastard-swordsman-1983 Still…” Apr 17, 22:36
VERN on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “I mean, maybe it’s a spoiler, but the fictional characters aren’t poseurs. They do blow up a pipeline. I guess…” Apr 17, 21:59
Mr. Majestyk on Cosmopolis / Maps To the Stars: “Miguel: Thank you for bringing GINA to my attention. I loved every second of it. A sleazy exploitation thriller, a…” Apr 17, 21:00
Glaive Robber on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Oh, a little off-topic… has anyone heard about this new martial arts movie Absolute Dominion? Directed by Lexi Alexander, with…” Apr 17, 20:31
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 was made at a time when the world just wasn’t ready for this particular MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2. There needed to be more of a cooling off period after the first one. We needed some time to learn that MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE sequels weren’t gonna be the elegant balance of smart-people thriller and blockbuster spectacle that Brian DePalma introduced in the first one, and also that John Woo was not gonna ever seem like the exact same filmatist who made THE KILLER, or HARD BOILED, or even FACE/OFF, again. Returning to it now it’s even more evident that it’s best appreciated by watching it like we watch other post-Hong-Kong Woo pictures like HARD TARGET, or his TV ones like BLACKJACK or the Once a Thief series. You just try to enjoy it as some Hollywood bullshit that he tried to add some of his particular style to. Here he treats it as an expensive studio movie love story set against a rogue agent trying to get rich off of a man-made disease and its cure.
“It’s hard to explain. A strange series of events made him our ally.”
“You know the rules. No fraternizing with cyborgs.”
In LADY DRAGON 2, Cynthia Rothrock de-prises
In MARTIAL LAW II: UNDERCOVER, our hero Sean “Martial Law” Thompson from the movie 
The first 
There’s a precedent for people who star in low budget movies just to help a buddy out but then keep acting and end up with big careers almost by accident. Bruce Campbell in THE EVIL DEAD, for example. Or Owen and Luke Wilson in BOTTLE ROCKET. You could even say Sharlto Copley, a filmmaker who Neil Blomkamp wanted to put in 
When Robert Rodriguez made EL MARIACHI in 1992 he was just some regular 23-year-old dude from Texas. He didn’t think he was ready to make a grab for his Hollywood dreams yet. He had no idea he would catch the attention of the Weinsteins, ride the wave of mainstream indie movies of the ’90s and eventually have his own cable channel and a mini-studio where he makes wide release movies without having to get out of bed.
It’s been a joke for quite some time that Tom Cruise, like Prince or Keanu Reeves, never ages. Actually, now he’s starting to show some age, and I like it. He has a few more lines on his face, a little more character. Good work, Tom. Also his new MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie is good.
