Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Monday, September 18th, 2023
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE is the first of two Guy Ritchie films released in 2023. They came out so close together because this one was delayed more than a year for reasons reportedly including the pandemic, the bad luck of featuring Ukrainian gangsters right when Ukraine was invaded, and restructuring of distributor STX. I swear I heard it was going straight to video at one point, but then it suddenly hit theaters pretty much out of the blue, with predictably poor response.
It’s another Ritchie-Statham collab (their fifth), but not a gangster movie. Instead it’s a light-hearted spy caper, not an all-out comedy, but very jokey. It’s got the usual spy stuff: planting trackers, facial recognition software, meeting with buyers, pulling people into vans. And their mission takes them into the world of the super-duper rich, on yachts, in mansions, private jets, charity parties, bodyguards, art collections, jewelry auctions. A team of crafty good guys have to earn the trust of billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant, CLOUD ATLAS) before he sells a dangerous device called The Handle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Bugzy Malone, Carey Elwes, Eddie Marsan, Guy Ritchie, Hugh Grant, Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett, Lourdes Faberes, Max Beesley, Peter Ferdinando, spy
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 26 Comments »
Wednesday, September 13th, 2023
“Ultraman’s the closest thing the modern world has to a god. No wonder people cling to him.”
SHIN ULTRAMAN (2022) is #2 of 3 in Hideaki Anno’s Shin series, which are not narratively connected, but are his takes on iconic Japanese sci-fi characters. The first one was the excellent SHIN GODZILLA and the third was the recent SHIN KAMEN RIDER. I was really excited to see this in its theatrical showing but it was two nights only and it turned out night two was dubbed. But now it’s on blu-ray (ironically with kinda messed up subtitles on my copy, but apparently they’ve fixed that).
Though this one is written by Anno, it’s directed by his SHIN GODZILLA co-director Shinji Higuchi. While Anno had done live action movies before (such as CUTIE HONEY), he’s primarily known as the anime visionary behind Neon Genesis Evangelion. Higuchi is maybe a more natural choice for something like this – he did storyboards for some anime, but he came up in the world of kaiju movies, starting as an assistant modeler on THE RETURN OF GODZILLA, and then as effects director of the excellent GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE, GAMERA 2: ATTACK OF LEGION and GAMERA 3: REVENGE OF IRIS, where he was a real pioneer in the field of combining traditional rubber suit monsters and animatronics with early digital FX. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Hideaki Anno, kaiju, Masami Nagasawa, Shinji Higuchi, Takumi Saitoh, tokusatsu
Posted in Reviews, Action, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, September 12th, 2023
disclaimer: Netflix sucks, needs to admit that their business model is a scam and figure out how to pay the artists who make their shit.
HEART OF STONE is Netflix’s attempt at an action franchise for Gal Gadot (TRIPLE 9). It’s certainly not as well executed as EXTRACTION or EXTRACTION II, and I think THE GRAY MAN is trying to do a few more interesting things visually and otherwise, but I enjoyed this one for its straight-faced use of hokey action/spy movie tropes with a fun tone and high production value (though not compared to the somewhat similar and obviously way better MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies). I really think this is the best way to explain it: it’s called HEART OF STONE and it stars Gal Gadot as “Rachel Stone.” If that makes you say “fuck yeah” like it did for me, you may enjoy it. If it makes you roll your eyes, then you know what to do (watch it anyway and then complain about it).
It opens mid-MI6 mission, a team stakeout at an elite ski resort/casino in the Alps, with agents Parker (Jamie Dornan, ROBIN HOOD) and Yang (Jing Lusi, Gangs of London) trying to catch a notorious arms dealer. Stone is in the van, doing computer nerd stuff – she’s the Simon Pegg. But she loses her connection, realizes she could hack the head of security’s phone from the blackjack table, and disobeys Parker’s order to “stay in the van – you’re not a field agent!” (read the rest of this shit…)
Posted in Reviews, Action | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, September 6th, 2023
Back in 2020 there was a pretty cool indie action type thing called BECKY. Lulu Wilson (The Haunting of Hill House) played a sullen thirteen year old trying to emotionally survive a cabin retreat with her widower father and his new fiance when suddenly she has to physically survive a home invasion by a neo-nazi gang. They killed her family (except for her dog Diego) so she hides the mysterious, possibly-mystical key they’re looking for and turns into kid McClane, violently hunting them using household and treehousehold items and wearing a cutesy knitted chipmunk hat.
I had some issues with BECKY but I enjoyed it enough to be excited by the prospect of a sequel with the pulpy title THE WRATH OF BECKY. It got a limited theatrical and VOD release back in May and has since come out on DVD (but not blu-ray I guess?). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Denise Burse, Lulu Wilson, Matt Angel, Seann William Scott, Suzanne Coote
Posted in Reviews, Action | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, September 5th, 2023
THE EQUALIZER 3 is another fine entry in Academy Award winner Denzel Washington’s only ongoing franchise. It has a very different setting than part 1 or part 2 and he’s up to slightly different things, so it’s not exactly a rehash, it’s pretty different in a way. In another way it’s exactly the same as the other two, or any number of movies starring Liam Neeson. Very solemn and serious, but also over-the-top and absurd. Kinda melancholic, but also kinda awesome. And that’s what we want. If you don’t want any part in a “we” like that then that’s fine, you know what to do.
Washington (VIRTUOSITY) stars as Roberto McCall, née Robert, former Marine and DIA officer turned pro bono bad guy slayer. In the first one he took on the Russian mafia and corrupt police while working at Brand X Home Depot, in the second one he took on mercenaries, kidnappers and gangs while working as a Lyft driver, and in this one he takes on the Camorra (afiliated with Syrian terrorists) while chilling out like a retiree in gorgeous Altamonte, Italy. He gets there by accident, though. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alessandro Pess, Andrea Dodero, Andrea Scarduzio, Antoine Fuqua, Bruno Bilotta, Dakota Fanning, David Denman, Denzel Washington, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Gaia Scodellaro, Liang Yang, Remo Girone, Richard Wenk
Posted in Reviews, Action | 37 Comments »
Wednesday, July 26th, 2023
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE DEAD – RECKONING PART ONE is a top shelf spy action blockbuster. There’s plenty for people to quibble with about how it compares to its six predecessors, but to me it’s another strong variation on and evolution of a series that has managed to go for 27 years and still feel special each time out.
After only a few weeks of release, conversation in movie lover world has already moved on, except to note that DEAD RECKONING is unlikely to make back its huge budget in theaters. I’ll be sure to send a sympathy card to the bean counters, but I appreciate this case of a movie going overbudget to (on top of COVID delays) allow leeway for the filmmakers to tinker with it and take the time to try to meet their enormous ambitions. Director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie has a weird, partially improvisatory way of building these that other filmmakers shouldn’t copy, but it sure seems to work better than rushing everything to meet a deadline.
Part of the magic of these movies is their mixture of simple and complicated. They’re simple enough that they can advertise this as the one with a motorcycle jump and a train crash and know we don’t need more than that. And boiled down the premise is as simple as that a nefarious A.I. known as “The Entity” has infiltrated all databases around the world, including the entire knowledge base of every intelligence agency, threatening to mix it all with bullshit to destroy our whole civilization’s understanding of reality, so various parties are fighting over two literal keys they believe lead to the only way to get at The Entity. Everyone wants to control it, except Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, LOSIN’ IT), who wants to destroy it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher McQuarrie, Esai Morales, Greg Tarzan Davis, Hayley Atwell, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Rebecca Ferguson, Shea Whigham, Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames
Posted in Reviews, Action | 47 Comments »
Monday, July 24th, 2023
disclaimer: I support the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and I think Netflix is the primary instigator of the current problems in the movie industry. I believe they used venture capital money to run an unsustainable rent-by-mail service until most video stores were out of business, then pivoted to streaming on a model that requires not paying artists their fair share. And then all the studios jumped in after them, so it’s a bunch of business asshole CEOs trying to last as long as they can without admitting to their stockholders that they fell for a scam and have no way out except to rebuild streaming in a totally different way that doesn’t fulfill Wall Street’s insane lust for preposterous growth. They fucked themselves over, which is fine, but they also fucked movies over, which is unforgivable.
That said, the bastards occasionally spend some of their plunder on making good movies, including EXTRACTION II. Please enjoy my review!
I’m a busy man and/or a slowpoke, so I took my time finishing this review. But don’t let that give you the wrong idea: I watched EXTRACTION II (on screen title: EXTRACTIION) the first day it was on Netflix, I’ve rewatched it since, and I’m sure it will be one of my favorites of the year. I’m a fan of the first one – one of the most legit American made-for-streaming action movies – but the sequel is even better. Once again directed by former Captain America stunt double, UNLUCKY STARS villain and ATOMIC BLONDE choreographer Sam Hargrave, it’s a movie made for those of us who appreciate a good old fashioned, straight ahead movie star action vehicle, made with the impeccable craft of the best stunt geniuses, the luxury of theatrical-worthy production value, and a refreshing lack of smart assy, winky-winky bullshit. There’s a little joking around between comrades, but it takes its subject very seriously. Its subject is a guy who is awesome doing awesome shit while going through some shit. I think it would be a good one of these even if they weren’t so rare these days. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 87Eleven, Adam Bessa, Andro Japaridze, Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Bernhardt, Dato Bakhtadze, Golshifteh Farahani, Idris Elba, Joe Russo, Megan Anderson, Netflix, Olga Kurylenko, Sam Hargrave, Tinatin Dalakishvili, Tornike Bziava, Tornike Gogrichiani
Posted in Reviews, Action | 90 Comments »
Wednesday, July 19th, 2023
KOWLOON WALLED CITY (2021) is a diverting and pretty stylish period martial arts movie I found on Hi-YAH!. It takes place I believe in the early ’70s, mostly in the titular Imperial-Chinese-military-fort-turned-enclave-between-Kowloon-and-British-Hong-Kong. But it begins somewhere to the north with its protagonist, the gruff street fighter A’neng (Xing Yu, IP MAN, IRON PROTECTOR), storming through a gangster gambling den and into an opulent bath house to confront a fellow student he blames for the death of his master.
We don’t know who he is yet but he drags people around by their hair and fights through an army of men (and one woman) wearing only towels. Great attention is paid to knocking people through walls and doors, cracking heads on multiple sinks, crunching various ledges and tiled walls with people’s heads, sliding bodies across the wet floor, faces jiggling from the power of fists, bones banging against other bones, making loud thuds or crunching sounds. A’neng carries a small tombstone-shaped tribute to his fallen master, which his opponent kicks in half. A’neng beats him until he’s begging for his life and then stumbles out into the snow, where a drunk man’s singing inspires him to go to Hong Kong. Never underestimate the power of music. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 2 Comments »
Monday, July 17th, 2023
REPLICANT is the second of three collaborations between director Ringo Lam (FULL CONTACT) and star Jean-Claude Van Damme. The first was the theatrically released MAXIMUM RISK (1996), then this came out in 2001, then IN HELL in 2003. I’m pretty sure I watched this when it first came out and thought it was boring, but I’m a different person now. A replicant of what I was before. Or just older, I guess. But the difference is that now I’m much more appreciative of JCVD the adventurous character actor, and this is one where that side of him really shines.
MAXIMUM RISK gave him a dual role, but not at once – he was a guy who dies at the beginning, then he plays his twin. In this one he plays both the antagonist and one of the protagonists, and they’re both fun characters for him to play. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Catherine Dent, clones, fake Seattle, JCVD, Lawrence Riggins, Les Weldon, Michael Rooker, Ringo Lam
Posted in Reviews, Action, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, July 11th, 2023
July 15, 1983
Here’s a win for the Summer of Nub series: introducing me to DEADLY FORCE, an enjoyably quirky thriller I was not previously aware of. It’s just the story of an ex-cop trying to catch an L.A. serial killer, but the ex-cop is played by Wings Hauser, as a Wings Hauser-ian character. It’s not the mystery and action that make it fun as much as the eccentricities and odd details. It really seems adapted from some quirky crime novel, maybe the first in a series.
The opening kinda tells us what we’re in for by showing us the beautiful California coast, helicopter shot flying across palm tree lined beaches, looking at the waves, people surfing, jogging, then a woman in her seventh floor apartment waking up as the sun comes in through the drapes. Her radio talks about the search for “The X Killer” as she takes a shower. She’s not really paying attention, of course. She steps out onto the balcony, drying her hair, smiling. It honestly made me want to be in California, but then a hand missing a few fingers comes into frame, unseen by her. This guy grabs her, slashes her, splashing blood on the curtain, then throws her off the balcony. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al Ruscio, Arlen Dean Snyder, Estelle Getty, Frank Ronzio, Joyce Ingalls, Lenore Woodward, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Paul Aaron, Robert Vincent O'Neill, Wings Hauser
Posted in Reviews, Action, Mystery | 6 Comments »
