Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
Did you know that Prachya Pinkaew, the director of ONG BAK and CHOCOLATE, was making an English language movie starring Djimon Hounsou and Kevin Bacon? I didn’t either until a screener wound up in my hands. It’s yet another weird, internationally produced DTV action movie from Millennium Films. (This is an early heads-up review – it comes out May 17th on DVD.)
Hounsou plays Curtie Church, a mercenary hired to take out some sex traffickers in Bangkok to avenge the death of a guy (who played a similar character in THE MARINE 2)’s daughter. Turns out Church being manipulated to start a war between two gangs, so he gets caught in the middle. A young girl from the brothel follows him to his bell tower hideout. To protect his mission he gags her and ties her to a pole, only to eventually (you better sit down and swallow all liquids first, this will surprise you) soften up and start trying to help her out.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Djimon Hounsou, Kevin Bacon, Millennium Films, Prachya Pinkaew, Thai action
Posted in Action, Reviews | 31 Comments »
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
After the one-two Avid fart punch of MAN ON FIRE and DOMINO, I swore off Tony Scott for life. Or, it turns out, for five years. Those two movies sounded up my alley but they were brutally murdered by Scott’s reckless disregard for visual storytelling. I just couldn’t trust him anymore, even if the movie sounded good, which his last couple have not, even if everybody said he calmed down a little.
Now, through the combined magic of blu-ray technology, boredom and Christian forgiveness, I have given Tony Scott another shot with the Denzel Washington-Chris Pine-speeding train motion picture UNSTOPPABLE. The bad news: I didn’t like the movie enough to justify ending my boycott. The good news: at least he’s curbed his instincts to mark his territory by stylistically peeing all over every frame of film.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Pine, Denzel Washington, Jeff Wincott, Kevin Corrigan, Rosario Dawson, Tony Scott, trains
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 67 Comments »
Sunday, February 13th, 2011
Lately alot of us have been noticing the decrease in high quality action movies on the big screen and the increase of them in the direct-to-DVD world. Some of us are starting to suspect that there’s been a switcheroo, that the DTV format – once designated as a 100% crap zone – has become the more reliable place to find good action movies. At least for English language movies it seems like most of the best ones (the UNDISPUTEDs, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER REGENERATION, BLOOD AND BONE) go straight to video, and anything on the big screen, even the ones I end up enjoying (THE EXPENDABLES, THE MECHANIC, NINJA ASSASSIN) you can pretty much 100% assume is gonna be compromised by some blurry, muddy, sloppy, close-up, confusing, de-thrillified action scenes.
Well, I’m not sure if we’ve reached that milestone yet, I might be cherrypicking my examples there. But add this to the evidence file: we got another DTV sequel that is clearly superior to the theatrical original. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Die Hard on a ____, DTV, DTV sequels, DTV sequels better than theatrical originals, Michael Rooker, Roel Reine, Ted Dibiase, Temuera Morrison, WWE Films
Posted in Action, Reviews | 68 Comments »
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Sometimes you find a movie you never heard of, and you just have this feeling that this is the one you’ve been looking for, this is gonna change your life.
But usually you’re wrong. Especially with this one. Some day I gotta learn that just because the cover is printed in special inks derived from 92% organic awesomeness doesn’t mean the movie itself is gonna even be possible to sit through. 1986’s SCORPION is a prime example of a movie where all the greatness was used up in the cover photo and none was left for the movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: karate
Posted in Action, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Monday, February 7th, 2011
If a revenge movie is just called VENGEANCE, somebody might assume it’s gonna be obvious and unimaginative. In the case of Johnnie To’s VENGEANCE they’d be wrong – it’s elegant and poetically simple is what it is. Like a haiku with exit wounds. At this time I would like to ask that hypothetical somebody to admit that they would’ve been wrong.
In the opening scene a family is gunned down by three hitmen. Only the mother survives, and just barely. Her father, just known as Costello (Johnny Hallyday), comes to the hospital, vows to avenge her and gets minor details about the attackers by having her point at words in a newspaper. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Wong, hitman, Johnnie To, Johnny Hallyday, Lam Ka-Tung, Lam Suet, revenge, Simon Yam
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 52 Comments »
Friday, January 28th, 2011
I got mixed feelings about some sucker remaking a Charles Bronson movie. On one hand it’s obviously foolish, because no man has ever been discovered who could stand toe-to-toe with Bronson in badass presence. It doesn’t matter who you get to star, unless maybe Lee Marvin is alive again, or Clint is interested in remaking old Michael Winner movies. Barring that, anybody’s gonna pale in comparison.
On the other hand, alot of Bronson’s movies are (by design) pretty formulaic, they’re all about taking the type of basic situations you’d want to see Charles Bronson in and then putting Charles Bronson in them. Therefore if you do have a new action icon to star in some movies, these are the types of movies you might want to try to put him in. And Jason Statham isn’t a bad candidate, in my opinion. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland, hitman, Jason Statham, Millennium Films, remakes, Simon West
Posted in Action, Reviews | 123 Comments »
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
You know, sometimes life brings you down unexpected roads. I never asked to be the guy who liked Paul Not Thomas Anderson’s gratuitous remake of DEATH RACE 2000. It just didn’t seem like something that would happen to me, especially after I skipped the movie in theaters and everybody told me it was shit. But then the DVD came along and I wanted to see what it was like and I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy it. (In other words I will not be damned. I did enjoy it.)
And this week life struck again. Turns out I also like DEATH RACE 2, the DTV prequel.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Danny Trejo, DTV, DTV prequels, DTV prequels to remakes, Luke Goss, Paul W.S. Anderson, prison, Robin Shou, Roel Reine, Sean Bean, Ving Rhames
Posted in Action, Reviews | 70 Comments »
Monday, January 10th, 2011
In BORN TO RAISE HELL Steven Seagal plays a commanding officer in the International Drug Task Force, a cooperative agency set up after 9-11 because like those ads say the drugs fund the terrorists. This is also a handy way for Seagal to use what he’s been learning as a deputy sheriff in New Orleans in a movie but then film it in Eastern Europe. His character’s partner was killed six months ago (no need for a flashback, they just tell us this) so I guess he’s out for justice or something. It’s not real clear.
While BORN TO RAISE HELL lacks the toughness and entertainment value of URBAN JUSTICE and PISTOL WHIPPED, it’s a little more memorable than most of the recent Seagal pictures, because he seems to care a little more. Admittedly there are some awkward voiceovers (I’m torn on whether it’s dubbed by a double or if it’s his own voice sped up to sound ridiculous), some of the dreaded avid farts and a scene where they use 6 cuts just showing a dude walking 10 feet from his car to talk to a guy. On the other hand Seagal is the sole credited writer and the movie definitely incorporates his recent hobby of taking part in drug raids and some of his beloved themes of brotherhood and redemption and what not.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Darren Shahlavi, Lauro Chartrand, Steven Seagal
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal | 51 Comments »
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
Well, here we are with another new layer forming on top of The Mystery of Wesley Snipes. As of this writing Mr. Snipes recently started his 3 year bid for misdemeanor failure-to-file charges. This is the first but not last of his in-the-can DTV productions.
Unfortunately it’s not worth getting excited about. But when it was first announced it seemed promising, because it was gonna be directed by Abel BAD LIEUTENANT: ORIGINAL PORT OF CALL Ferrara, who last worked with Snipes on KING OF NEW YORK. That’s a guy with a strong voice and raw gritty feel, who at the very least you wouldn’t expect to make it generic. And he’d have a soundtrack by Schooly D. Unfortunately Ferrara left, the schedule was shortened and the script reworked on the fly for Italian TV director Giorgio Serafini.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, Ernie Hudson, Gary Daniels, Robert Davi, Wesley Snipes, Zoe Bell
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 84 Comments »
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
A few years ago when I wrote about ENTER THE NINJA and REVENGE OF THE NINJA I know everybody told me I had to watch part 3 and it was hilarious and all that. And I always intended to get to it but see I was on a serious ninja kick, I wanted real ninja action and not just some dumb bullshit to laugh at because a girl from BREAKIN’ gets possessed by a ninja.
But forgive me, man. I was on the outside. There was no way to really know without seeing it that NINJA III is a must-see.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cannon Films, James Hong, Lucinda Dickey, ninjas, Sam Firstenberg, Sho Kosugi
Posted in Action, Horror, Martial Arts, Reviews | 34 Comments »
