Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Thursday, June 5th, 2025
In the 15 years (!) since the KARATE KID remake Iâve occasionally found myself telling people, âNo, seriously, itâs pretty good!â Which is not really what I said in my review at the time, now that Iâm re-reading it. So who knows, but I donât think Iâll be saying that about the new movie KARATE KID: LEGENDS. I won’t try to convince anyone itâs a particularly good movie. But I kinda liked it. Let me say this: itâs definitely way better than THE NEXT KARATE KID, which actually I have to admit I kind of enjoy too.
The cleverest thing about LEGENDS is what we already knew from the trailers: it finds a way to say that the 1984 original and its 2010 remake are not mutually exclusive. In this one the remakeâs shifu Han (Jackie Chan, DRAGON BLADE) recruits o.g. karate kid Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio, HITCHCOCK) to help him teach a student, and this in turn is a way to make sense out of the weird title discrepancy that they wanted to make a movie called THE KARATE KID but they cast Jackie Chan so it was about kung fu. Now screenwriter Rob Lieber (PETER RABBIT) invents a relationship between the Han and Miyagi families, and therefore between their kung fu and karate styles. So when one of Mr. Hanâs students wants to enter a karate tournament, the shifu wants him to learn specifically Miyagi-do karate from its last known teacher. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Baniaga, Aramis Knight, Ben Wang, Jackie Chan, Jonathan Entwistle, Joshua Jackson, Ming-Na Wen, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lieber, Sadie Stanley, Tim Rozon, Wyatt Oleff, Xiangyang Xu, Yankei Ge
Posted in Reviews, Action, Drama, Martial Arts, Sport | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
RETURN OF THE BASTARD SWORDSMAN (1984) is indeed about the Bastard Swordsman returning. Itâs not like BATMAN RETURNS where the title character hasnât actually gone anywhere and is only returning to the screen – at the very end of BASTARD SWORDSMAN our guy Yun Fei Yang (Norman Chui, LEGEND OF THE LIQUID SWORD) had overcome his fate as a bullied servant of Wudang by mastering Silkworm Skill and defeating the prick who framed him for the murder of the chief and took over the clan. So he becomes their de facto leader but instead of letting them give him a parade or something he immediately walks away with his crush Lun Wan Er (Leanne Liu, WHITE HAIR DEVIL LADY).
Honestly the returning is kind of a bummer, I liked the idea of him traveling around having adventures. Instead this continues the story of Wudang and their feud with Invincible Clan. If you remember, the maniacal Invincible Clan leader Dugu Wu Di (Alex Man, CHINA WHITE) had left for two years of seclusion to further advance his use of the clanâs secret technique Fatal Skill after defeating Wudang in three consecutive duels over 20 years. In this one he comes home and itâs like he woke up out of a coma, he has to hear all this shit that went on in the last act of part 1 with Yun Fei Yang coming out of a cocoon and shit. So Dugu goes to Wudang to demand a duel with our bastard and they donât want to admit that their chief ghosted them so they act like he just went out for smokes or something, which gets them a weekâs reprieve to try to find him. But oh by the way if anyone leaves Wudang during that time they will be killed on sight. That Dugu always has some hardcore stipulations to his offers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Man, Chen Kuan-tai, Lau Siu-Kwan, Leanne Liu, ninjas, Norman Chui, Shaw Brothers
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025
June 3, 2005
Finally getting around to watching LORDS OF DOGTOWN was a good enough reason to do this series. I remember at the time it got a pretty tepid reception. People were still high on Stacy Peraltaâs documentary about the same subject, DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS (2001), and didnât need to see it re-enacted. I get it – when I saw the trailer for Benny Safdieâs THE SMASHING MACHINE I couldnât understand the point of (from the looks of it) just trying to re-enact footage from the documentary by John Hyams. Why not use the power of cinema to create a perspective of these events that does not already exist on film?
But thatâs the thing, thatâs what director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Peralta do here with the story of Peraltaâs circa 1975 Santa Monica surfer buddies becoming an early influential skateboard team and changing the world. The story centers around cheerful Stacy (John Robinson, ELEPHANT), angry Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch, THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS), incredibly talented Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk, RAISING VICTOR VARGAS), and their rich kid friend Sid (Michael Angarano, BABY HUEYâS GREAT EASTER ADVENTURE), who canât skate as well because of inner ear issues, but heâs still their homie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexis Arquette, America Ferrera, Bai Ling, Catherine Hardwicke, David Fincher, Elliot Davis, Emile Hirsch, Heath Ledger, Jeremy Renner, Joel McHale, John Robinson, Johnny Knoxville, Melonie Diaz, Michael Angarano, Nikki Reed, Pablo Schrieber, Rebecca De Mornay, Shea Whigham, skateboards, Sofia Vergara, Stacy Peralta, Victor Rasuk, William Mapother
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Sport | 2 Comments »
Monday, June 2nd, 2025
June 1, 2005
I wasnât sure if I should watch THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS for this series, wasnât sure if Iâd get anything out of it, and certainly I donât know how to go into as much detail about a movie like this as I do the ones about some sort of punching or slashing. But, you know, itâs a drama aimed at young women, based on a popular young adult novel, not the sort of thing I pay attention to, and yet it was enough of a phenomenon that weâve all heard of it. It got a sequel, its cast went on to bigger things, it is notable. Now, I wonât go into detail about questions like did I find myself producing tears at certain parts, or did I not do that… I mean, whoâs to say, really? There are many different perspectives, and what relevance does that have anyway. We donât need to get into that. Letâs stick to the movie. Come on guys stop clowning around.
If youâre like me and didnât really know exactly what this was, hereâs the deal. Four girls in Bethesda, Maryland have been best friends since birth (because their mothers met in an aerobics class for pregnant women). As teenagers Lena (Alexis Bledel, SIN CITY), Bridget (Blake Lively in her first major role), Carmen (America Ferrera, REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES) and Tibby (Amber Tamblyn, THE RING) are about to spend their first ever summer apart, due to various vacation plans. On their last shopping trip together before parting ways they find a pair of used jeans that have the magical quality of fitting perfectly on each of them despite their very different body sizes. Then they break into the abandoned studio where their moms had that class (just go with it) and do a little ritual where they come up with rules for how to share and respect the pants. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamblyn, America Ferrera, Ann Brashares, Blake Lively, Bradley Whitford, coming of age, Delia Ephron, Denise Di Novi, Elizabeth Chandler, Emily Tennant, Jenna Boyd, Ken Kwapis, Kyle Schmid, Leonardo Nam, Michael Rady, Mike Vogel, Nancy Travis
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 10 Comments »
Thursday, May 29th, 2025
BASTARD SWORDSMAN is a 1983 Shaw Brothers production that tells the story of Yun Fei Yang (Norman Chui, HEROES OF THE EAST, ZU WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN), a miserably treated servant of the Wudang kung fu school. He cleans floors and delivers soup and stuff but also in the opening scene the motherfuckers make him run around holding wooden targets for knife practice. When he complains that theyâre throwing the knives at him instead of the targets he gets chewed out and called a bastard.
âYou can beat me, but donât call me bastard,â he says, so they immediately beat him and call him a bastard. Sister Lun Wan Er (Leanne Liu, HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD), daughter of the chief and only female student at Wudang, not only intervenes but brings him to the Hall of Justice to report what theyâre doing to him to the uncles. She means well but all it does is get him dressed down some more and told âYouâre being unreasonable.â
When Sister says the uncles are being unfair one o them says, âNonsense. If we were unfair would the chief assign us to be guardians of the law?â In other words authority is always correct by reason of being authority. And authority has decided that the bullies get to keep bullying but Yun Fei Yang has to carry fifty water pails a day. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Man, Leanne Liu, movies that have Wu-Tang albums named after them, Norman Chui, Shaw Brothers, Tony Liu, Tony Lou Chun-Ku, Wang Yong, wuxia, Yeung Ching-Ching, Yuen Tak
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, May 28th, 2025
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING does not necessarily seem like âwell guys, thatâs the last oneâ at the end, but as a whole it definitely does play like theyâre trying to wrap things up. Though the seven previous films in the series have been mostly disconnected, this one follows the series’ only cliffhanger, and has multiple instances of people discussing the past adventures of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, THE MUMMY), complete with clips. It has two big story threads that tie directly to Brian DePalmaâs part I, plus a connection to J.J. Abramsâ part III. Both the NOC list and the Rabbitâs Foot come up – mcmuffin reminiscences from a movie series that has lasted more than four times as long as the TV series it was based on. And that ran for seven seasons!
I think it lives up to the series’ 29-year-long tradition of great entertainment, but it is also by far the sloppiest chapter. That’s not to say it’s lazy – quite the opposite. I think it just got too wild and out of control to ever sculpt it into an elegant shape. They might still be chiseling away at it as we speak.Â
Iâm not one to complain about long runtimes and unnecessary scenes, especially when the format demands zipping around through a string of incidents, but the first 45 minutes or so of this thing alternately feel like they didnât have time to finish the edit or like weâre watching consecutive episodes of the worldâs most expensive Quibi series. It opens with Ethan watching a VHS tape thatâs his âyour mission should you choose to accept itâ message, though this time from President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett, F/X), and itâs a very long âas you knowâ type explanation of what happened in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, what has happened in the months since, and a reminder that he has the âcruciform keyâ everyone wants, that he can use to open a thing in the sunken Russian submarine the Sevastapol for access to the source code of the rogue artificial intelligence known as âThe Entityâ that he wants to destroy and everyone else wants to control. Though itâs obviously ridiculous for her to be telling him this stuff he already knows, and itâs awkward in its length, the forced exposition kicking off a mission is part of the fun of this series. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angela Bassett, Christopher McQuarrie, Esai Morales, Greg Tarzan Davis, Hayley Atwell, Henry Czerny, Katy O'Brian, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Nick Offerman, Pom Klementieff, Rolf Saxon, Shea Whigham, Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 54 Comments »
Tuesday, May 27th, 2025
Peter Andrews
is
PRESENCE
Somehow in the last several years Steven Soderbergh became mostly a streaming guy. MAGIC MIKEâS LAST DANCE played theatrically, but other than that since 2019 itâs been HIGH FLYING BIRD and THE LAUNDROMAT on Netflix, LET THEM ALL TALK, NO SUDDEN MOVE, KIMI, the great mini-series Full Circle and the… app (?) Mosaic on HBO MAX, plus a web series called Command Z. So itâs good to have him (briefly) back on the big screen. PRESENCE was the first of two Soderbergh joints released in theaters this year. I caught BLACK BAG but this one came and went too fast for me despite being released by Neon.
Thatâs okay, itâs not one of his crowdpleasers, itâs one of his Soderbergh-wants-to-try-something movies. Small, simple, kinda raw, built around a simple conceit: a ghost movie from the point of view of the ghost. If you’re thinking “Oh shit, Soderbergh did his first horror movie!” I’d ask you to hold on a second. Technically I think it qualifies, but he’s definitely not aiming for the cover of Fangoria.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Callina Liang, Chris Sullivan, David Koepp, Eddy Maday, Julia Fox, Lucy Liu, Steven Soderbergh, West Mullholland
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Horror | 8 Comments »
Monday, May 26th, 2025
STRIKING RESCUE is not a title I really understand. The movie is not about a rescue that made me say âWow, what a striking rescue!â I guess maybe I was struck by it? I don’t know. But I do know I enjoyed the movie. Itâs a Chinese production, with a largely Chinese cast, but itâs a Tony Jaa movie set in Thailand. The plot is only passable, and playing a character thatâs all anger and no innocence means he lacks some of the usual Jaa appeal, but the action is voluminous and ferocious. He still has it, and tariffs have clearly not depleted the Chinese action movie industryâs reserves of elbow grease.
It opens in classic Jaa fashion, with his character Bai An wrapping those giant fists in ragged tape, practicing his trademark earth-shaking elbows, knees and kicks on a stack of tires and a padded wooden dummy, splattering water and dust through the sunbeam that lights the scene, and CG glass shards through the credits. As he hits harder and harder there are flashes of a car flipped over, a wife and daughter shot, Bai Anâs cries of anguish. And then weâre back to today and heâs out in a crowded market following somebody. Right into it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Eason Hung, Mao Fan, Peng Bo, Philip Keung, Siyu Cheng, Tony Jaa, Xing Yu
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 16 Comments »
Thursday, May 22nd, 2025
May 13, 2005
UNLEASHED (a.k.a. DANNY THE DOG) is a movie I reviewed when it came out 20 years ago, but unlike MINDHUNTERS Iâve rewatched it a few times over the years. In fact I found some notes and screengrabs from an unfinished review when I last watched it in 2021. Itâs a truly international creation, an English-language Jet Li vehicle co-starring American Morgan Freeman, produced and directed by Frenchmen, choreographed by Hong Kong legend Yuen Woo-ping and filmed and set in Glasgow, Scotland, but it feels like it has a unified vision, a very specific take on how to make a 2005 action movie with a big heart.
Li plays Danny, a feral person raised in a cage by the cruel gangster Bart (Bob Hoskins, SUPER MARIO BROS.) and trained to be his attack dog. When Bart needs to intimidate debtors or enemies he simply removes Dannyâs metal collar and he will go ape shit, destroying everyone in the room with blunt martial arts savagery. Danny is severely traumatized – is he also developmentally disabled in some way? This is never discussed, but for whatever reason he’s very childlike, and he doesnât know to yearn for a better life until he happens to find one after Bart is attacked by rivals and seemingly killed. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bob Hoskins, Jet Li, Kerry Condon, Louis Leterrier, Luc Besson, Mike Lambert, Morgan Freeman, Pierre Morel, Scott Adkins, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Martial Arts | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, May 21st, 2025
May 13, 2005
I think itâs fair to say that, at least at one time, Renny Harlinâs MINDHUNTERS held a revered status around here. When I reviewed it a couple years after it came out I was thoroughly won over by what I described as âa movie that is really fuckin dumb, but in a good way.â Many readers shared my joy and when, on some other review I canât find right now, a commenter mentioned being a stand-in the the legendary liquid nitrogen kill scene, we treated him like a superstar. I hold much of this movie in my treasured cinematic memories that I bring up from time to time, but have I ever watched it a second time before now? Not that I remember. So this retrospective was a good idea.
(Note: I didnât re-read the old review until after writing this one, so forgive me if thereâs a little overlap.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Slater, Clifton Collins Jr., Ehren Kruger, Eion Bailey, Kario Salem, Kathryn Morris, Kevin Brodbin, LL Cool J, Lucas Harper, Patricia Velasquez, Renny Harlin, Val Kilmer, Wayne Kramer, Will Kemp
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Horror, Mystery | 8 Comments »
