Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Thursday, August 21st, 2014
Okay, so it’s got nothin on his fighting career, but UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture hasn’t done too bad in his play for an action movie future. He’s had MMA-related bit parts like REDBELT, he was good on a couple The Unit episodes and in some otherwise forgettable DTV pictures (SET UP, and the one with Dolph that I forgot to review), he got punched out by Seagal in TODAY YOU DIE, he plays the villain in a SCORPION KING, he was an Expendable. But HIJACKED is the first real Randy Couture vehicle. He probly shoulda waited for something better, but he’s a worker, you know. He’s gotta work.
Couture plays Agent Paul Ross, member of a CIA task force type deal trying to stop “The Tribe,” some kind of criminal/terrorist group that manipulates global financial markets or something. He finds out they may be targeting Bruce Lieb (Craig Fairbrass, HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN, CLIFFHANGER), the famous billionaire, not the fourth-string Bruce Lee imitator. Also Ross finds out that his estranged fiancee has just been hired to do PR for Lieb and will be on his private jet with him flying to meet with the SEC, so he decides to accept an offer to help with security. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brandon Nutt, Craig Fairbrass, Declan O'Brien, Dominic Purcell, Randy Couture, Vinnie Jones
Posted in Action, Reviews | 23 Comments »
Wednesday, August 20th, 2014
“You know, we are not getting along.”
In MONEY TRAIN that legendary comedy duo of Wesley and Woody play John and Charlie, brothers who are both New York City transit cops who play by their own rules. They get into fist fights with other cops (for example over the fatal shooting of a guy who only snatched a chain), Woody has a gambling addiction, and when they chase a suspect onto the tracks it slows down the train that delivers the apparently millions of dollars of subway fare, getting them on the shit list of Captain Patterson (Robert Blake, Our Gang).
Then they get assigned a new partner. Somebody who’s uptight and doesn’t like their methods, right? No, actually she’s really cool, works well with them and even hangs out with them at the bar after work. The trouble is she’s Jennifer Lopez, so they fight over her.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Nunn, Chris Cooper, Christmas, Christmas crime, David Loughery, Doug Richardson, Flex Alexander, heists, Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Ruben, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., New Year's Eve, Robert Blake, Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 29 Comments »
Tuesday, August 19th, 2014
We’ve all noticed by now that Sylvester Stallone has been trying to settle on the magic EXPENDABLES casting formula. The action icons (Dolph, Wesley, Arnold, Bruce, Jet) are surrounded by a protective layer of athletes (Couture, Austin, Ortiz, Rousey) and youths. For EXPENDABLES 2 he plucked young Liam Thorsbrother from the HUNGER GAMESes, and now EXPENDABLES 3 picked up Kellan Lutz from the TWILIGHTs. I didn’t really know who that was so I was pleasantly surprised when I looked him up and found out he has legitimate b-action experience. He did the sword and sandal ones like IMMORTALS and RENNY HARLIN’S LEGEND OF HERCULES, but also one called JAVA HEAT where he’s an American cop trying to catch a terrorist in Indonesia. And the terrorist is Mickey Rourke.
I should probly check that one out, but when I decided I needed to choose my first Lutz for EX3 supplemental viewing I chose the DTV death match picture ARENA, because I’d come close to renting it before anyway. You know how I am. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Daniel Dae Kim, death matches, Derek Mears, DTV, James Remar, Johnny Messner, Katia Winter, Kellan Lutz, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Giglio
Posted in Action, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Monday, August 18th, 2014
THE EXPENDABLES 3 is another Expendables movie, like any other. It’s got a cast that indicates it should be the ultimate action movie, but ends up being penultimate at best. It’s a weird mix of satisfying appearance of favorite faces and tropes and disappointing execution of these elements. I call that feeling satisppointment, or expendablation. Just like the others I enjoyed it, but with a nagging feeling that this should be something actually great.
But the first stretch had me thinking it might blow the other ones out of the water. It opens mid-mission as our old Expendapals Barney (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy Couture) are in a chopper chasing after a Russian prison transfer train to bust out an original team member who’s been locked up for 8 years. That prisoner is none other than Wesley The Daywalker Snipes as “Doctor Death,” and it’s an excellent welcome home party for the man. He’s got a crazy beard and hair and a spaced out look in his eye, and instead of going with the rescue party he runs across the train, does a slide and a bunch of acrobatics, kills a bunch of his captors and causes the train to crash into the bastard in charge. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Antonio Banderas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Harrison Ford, J.J. Perry, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Kellan Lutz, Kelsey Grammer, Mel Gibson, Patrick Hughes, Randy Couture, Robert Davi, Ronda Rousey, Sylvester Stallone, Terry Crewes, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Action, Reviews | 131 Comments »
Thursday, August 14th, 2014
Wait a minute, there’s a movie that’s Jet Li vs. Jason Statham that I never bothered to watch? How can this happen? Well, I remember I was excited for it when it came out but then everybody said it sucked, and I’ve seen enough generic movies of this type (Statham vs. Snipes in CHAOS) to fear sitting through another boring, lifeless slog that wastes my favorite action stars. Fortunately I think I waited just the right amount of time because while I’d agree it isn’t a proper use of Jet Li that’s not really a crushing surprise anymore, and WAR is more watchable, more of a real movie than what I’d always pictured.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Corey Yuen, Devon Aoki, Jason Statham, Jet Li, John Lone, Kane Kosugi, Philip G. Atwell, Pierre Morel, Ryo Ishibashi, Saul Rubinek, Sung Kang
Posted in Action, Reviews | 42 Comments »
Wednesday, August 13th, 2014
“Thanks for the poncho.”
We associate Sylvester Stallone with the ’80s, right? Sure, it was ’76 when he blew up with ROCKY and the ’90s by the time he did CLIFFHANGER. But it was the ’80s when he became Rambo, and RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART II was the height of his worldwide icon status, it seems to me. The one that inspired a thousand ripoff VHS covers and parodies and was quoted by President Reagan. To people who aren’t into his type of action movies he’s a symbol of Reagan era war-mongering and media violence. To us he’s on the Mount Rushmore of the most prolific and larger-than-life era of the genre we love most.
For all these reasons it’s weird to see him playing a lefty student radical, as he does in REBEL (filmed as NO WAY OUT). Released in 1970, this was his second real movie role, the first being the softcore movie THE PARTY AT KITTY AND STUD’S. This time he plays Jerry Savage, an anti-war activist who’s grown tired of useless campus protests and wants to do something that will make a difference. To that end he’s gotten involved with a Weather Underground type group that’s planning a bombing to protest a popular kitchenware company that’s making a side business of manufacturing tiger cages, “animal cages to hold people” that they prove are not only being used cruelly in ‘Nam, but are also being set aside for future use at home. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Sylvester Stallone
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 58 Comments »
Tuesday, August 12th, 2014
It may be shameful but it’s no secret that I’m a fan of the STEP UP series. It’s like the DEATH WISH series in many ways. Okay, in only one way: I like all of them. The first one is enjoyable dumb melodrama, then the second is a surprisingly good and clever sequel, and the third is even better. Part 4, REVOLUTION, was not quite as good but I liked it, it had people dancing on bouncing cars and a ridiculous plot about using flash mob dancing as a tool of political protest and at the end Peter Gallagher thanked the guy for practically humping his daughter on stage in front of him. Because the transcendence of dance or whatever.
I’m happy to report that I liked part 5, STEP UP ALL IN, a little better than the last one, although admittedly they sorta cheat and do it by rehashing parts 2 and 3 and bringing back favorite characters for more than just cameos this time.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 3D, Adam Sevani, Alyson Stoner, Briana Evigan, dancing, Ryan Guzman
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 23 Comments »
Monday, August 11th, 2014
CHERRY 2000 is a quirky post-apocalyptic adventure, one with a cool sci-fi western premise and alot of underlying oddness and satirical observation about life in the ’80s. The action is slightly stilted, and I think director Steve De Jarnatt (who followed this up with the pre-apocalyptic MIRACLE MILE) is more comfortable doing funny twists on the genre than sincerely following its tropes, but I also think there is a good faith effort to deliver the goods. There are lots of machine guns and blowtorches, some explosions, some great stunts involving a car hanging from a crane. When the weinery yuppie protagonist decides to man up he does it by setting fire to a bunch of cars and rigging an explosion that knocks over Tim Thomerson and swarms him with bees. Not bad. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Basil Poledouris, Ben Johnson, Brion James, David Andrews, Lloyd Fonvielle, Melanie Griffith, Michael Almereyda, Pamela Gidley, post-apocalypse, Robert Z'Dar, robots, Steve De Jarnatt, Tim Thomerson
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 14 Comments »
Thursday, August 7th, 2014
“A mercenary that gives a fuck. Great.”
Sometimes I watch a movie that’s hard to even squeeze a review out of. I could do a consumer reports type deal telling you the plot and that it’s boring and mediocre, but I wouldn’t have much of the ol’ insight to offer. Usually if I feel that way I just don’t bother writing anything. This one is borderline, but I’m gonna try to tough it out because I consider it historically important: it’s the directorial debut of Olivier Gruner.
Ah shit, now I looked it up and this is his third movie as a director. So it’s not even a milestone or anything. Why did I watch the whole thing?
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, Eric Roberts, Olivier Gruner
Posted in Action, Reviews | 29 Comments »
Wednesday, August 6th, 2014
ENEMY is a weird, spooky thriller that director Denis Villeneuve and star Jake Gyllenhaal did right before PRISONERS. The arthouse freakout before the expensive studio drama that Lee Daniels got fired from. PRISONERS made me pay attention to the former and gain new respect for the latter, so here I am watching ENEMY.
Gyllenhaal plays a depressed college history professor who rents a movie one day and notices that the part of Bellhop #3 is played by a guy who looks exactly like him. Creepy. He does some detective work and tracks down the actor, who also has his same voice and an identical scar. He’s not sure what the fuck is going on, and he’s fascinated, but he’s weird about it. He calls and confuses the guy’s poor wife. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Canadian, Denis Villeneuve, doppelganger, Isabella Rosellini, Jake Gyllenhaal, Melanie Laurent
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 26 Comments »
