Posts Tagged ‘Dolph Lundgren’
Monday, March 4th, 2024
Note: in conjunction with this review I also made my third appearance on I MUST BREAK THIS PODCAST, discussing the movie with Sean Malloy. Thanks for having me, Sean! Always a fun time. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE.
WANTED MAN is the latest film by director Dolph Lundgren (MISSIONARY MAN). If you’re not aware, Lundgren is also an actor, so he stars as Mike Johansen, a way-past-his-prime cop. He’s introduced taking a morning beach jog, and of course he’s Dolph Lundgren (or stunt double – his hood is up), but he’s kinda limping, lumbering around. He has to take a bunch of pills. Later we find out he needs ankle surgery.
And he’s also in hot water. When he pulls up to the station and the protesters and media say, “That’s him!,” we realize oh shit… he’s the cop they were talking about on TV, the one that brutally assaulted a “migrant driver.” He sees the protesters and kinda does a whoops! and comically turns his pickup truck around. Later we see the indefensible bodycam footage, where he repeatedly slams a car door on the poor guy, yells about Mexicans and punches another officer trying to pull him off. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron McPherson, Christina Villa, Daniela Soto-Brenner, Dolph Lundgren, Erma Giron, James Joseph Pulido, Jesus "Rocko" Reyes, Jose Trujillo, Kelsey Grammer, Mexican border, Michael Pare, Michael Worth, Roger Cross, Tony Messenger
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, February 28th, 2024
SHOWDOWN AT THE GRAND is a little indie movie with a premise and setting that are right up my alley. It’s sort of like MATINEE for people fixated on the movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s instead of ’50s and ‘60s. To me it doesn’t really build much from there, but it uses two top shelf actors in novel ways, applies elbow grease to areas where I didn’t expect it to, and has an overall enthusiasm that makes it worth recommending.
Dolph Lundgren (JOHNNY MNEMONIC) is in this movie, and that’s obviously what brought my eye to it, but the star is Terrence Howard (HUSTLE & FLOW), who plays George Fuller, owner of an old time one screen theater called the Warner Grand. He’s a larger-than-life figure who dresses like a cowboy and lovingly lectures everyone he sees about the supposed greats of forgotten exploitation movie history, making it sound like a religious sermon. Showing movies is his life, and maybe his home – if he has a house or apartment outside of the Grand we never see it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Dolph Lundgren, Elizabeth Righetti, John Savage, Jon Sklaroff, Mike Ferguson, Orson Oblowitz, Piper Curda, Terrence Howard
Posted in Reviews, Action | 10 Comments »
Thursday, January 11th, 2024
Man, it’s too bad. AQUAMAN was the wackadoo James Wan super hero movie that somehow won over skeptical audiences and literally made a billion dollars. It was set up in a couple other DC Comics movies, so it’s technically connected to them, but it takes place off in its own weirdo fantasy world where people ride giant seahorses and can talk underwater. If any modern super hero movie was gonna get a sequel with BATMAN RETURNS or BLADE II type boldness, it should’ve been this one. Didn’t quite turn out that way, I’m afraid. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amber Heard, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, DC Comics, Dolph Lundgren, James Wan, Jason Momoa, Martin Short, Nicole Kidman, Patrick Wilson, Pilou Asbaek, Randall Park, Temuera Morrison, Thomas Pa'a Sibbett, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes | 23 Comments »
Monday, September 25th, 2023
EXPEND4BLES is the official title, not just the internet nickname, for the fourth EXPENDABLES movie. It’s hard to believe that this series has now been going for 13 years – the first one is as old as COP LAND, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA AND AMERICA, THE PEACEKEEPER, THE JACKAL, BATMAN & ROBIN and DOUBLE TEAM were when it came out. So most of us have long since given up on our dream of what we thought an all-star team up of iconic action stars could or should be. THE EXPENDABLES was never a return to the glory days of ’80s and ‘90s action, always hamstringing itself with misguided attempts to appeal to some other audience. It was never an amplification of the stars’ powers, as they had to work so hard to fit them all in that most of them didn’t get a chance to shine. And it was never the action genre at its best, as the scripts were never focused enough, they were often too winky, with jokes that were so basic they arguably don’t even count as jokes, and even the one Stallone directed had him trying to fake some bullshit modern style instead of do what he did best.
Surprisingly for a part 4, and one that came out a full 7 years after part 3, EXPEND4BLES is not trying to reinvent the wheel or correct any of those missteps. It’s just like yeah, we’re stilling doing these, why wouldn’t we? It looks cheaper than the others (with the most generic settings imaginable, even when they’re just fake looking green screen backdrops), but for the most part not all that much worse or better than I remember the others being at the time, though admittedly I haven’t rewatched them. This has a few funny ideas, a few okay fights, some funny splatter moments (digital), but mostly its strengths are that it still has some of the same guys, who I enjoy seeing in movies, and also it has some new guys who I enjoy seeing in movies. Even though this is none of their best work. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 50 Cent, Andy Garcia, Brian Smrz, Dan Chupong, Daren Nop, Dolph Lundgren, Eddie Hall, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Jason Statham, Kurt Wimmer, Levy Tran, Megan Fox, Mike Moller, Randy Couture, Scott Waugh, Spenser Cohen, Sylvester Stallone, Tad Daggerhart, Tony Jaa
Posted in Reviews, Action | 58 Comments »
Monday, November 21st, 2022
SECTION 8 came to VOD a couple months ago and now is on disc and I guess AMC+. It’s a solid and enjoyable movie of its type, with a good cast, some good fights, and liberal use of familiar action conventions that tend to be enjoyable. However I’m gonna show it a little tough love in this review because, as we agreed when I went on I Must Break This Podcast to discuss it last month, it’s pretty representative of where VOD/DTV action is at right now, for both good and bad. So there might be some value in going deep.
It has not one, not two, but three significant action stars in the cast – not as the lead, but in those we-can-afford-them-for-this-many-days-and-if-we-put-them-on-the-cover-we-get-financing type roles that are the bread and butter of this industry right now. One of the three is I think not used very well, one I did enjoy, another I think we will all agree is clearly the best part of the movie. All of them are added value along with Ryan Kwanten (RED HILL, 
), who stars, and Dermot Mulroney (SUNSET, THE GREY), who plays the villain with a grey beard that makes him look kinda like present-day-Mel-Gibson on the cover.
The story begins in “Mosul, Afghanistan” (uh… whoops) where Jake Atherton (Kwanten) is, we’re told, a really great marine, but his platoon is ambushed by the Taliban and only he and his mentor Captain Mason (Dolph Lundgren, HAIL CAESAR!) survive. I’m kind of unclear what happens, but later we’re told that Mason saved Jake’s life and also received a career-ending leg injury. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: assassins, Chad Law, Christian Sesma, Dermot Mulroney, Dolph Lundgren, Geoffrey Blake, Josh Ridgway, Justin Furstenfeld, Luke LaFontaine, Mickey Rourke, Robert LaSardo, Ryan Kwanten, Scott Adkins, Tracy Perez
Posted in Reviews, Action | 12 Comments »
Sunday, October 9th, 2022
I just made my second appearance on “‘I Must Break’ This Podcast,” where I seem to go to discuss movies that Dolph Lundgren is briefly in. The first time it was for the excellent Amy Johnston vehicle FEMALE FIGHT SQUAD, and this time it’s for SECTION 8, the new one starring Ryan Kwanten, Dermot Mulroney, Mickey Rourke, a little bit of Dolph and a great guest appearance by Scott Adkins. I’ll probly do a written review soon with more detailed thoughts, but it was a good discussion with Sean Malloy and a good excuse to talk about the current state of the genre, since this movie is pretty representative of where we’re at.
Tags: Dolph Lundgren, podcasts
Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | No Comments »
Friday, July 29th, 2022
“Who the hell are these guys?”
When UNIVERSAL SOLDIER arrived on screens on July 10, 1992, it launched Jean-Claude Van Damme to a new level of movie stardom. DOUBLE IMPACT, with its wide release, increased budget and improved acting performance had been a big reach into the mainstream for the star of Cannon fighting tournament movies, but it just wasn’t the big crossover hit he needed. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER was.
Part of the appeal was that it pitted JCVD for the first time against fellow action icon Dolph Lundgren (in his followup to SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO). They tried to play up some sort of rivalry between the actors, even staging an argument and shoving match on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Carolco (FIRST BLOOD, TOTAL RECALL, THE PUNISHER, T2), distributed by TriStar Pictures, and featuring the sort of badass metallic title font one should expect from those origins, it was a $95 million hit in theaters, proving that these guys were more than just the stars of videos you rented to watch with your buddies.
I already reviewed this one back in 2008, and it’s a pretty good review, so check it out. But I figured it was worth another look in the context of ’92. It’s an interesting study in summer releases because it’s in that sweet spot between a b-movie and a blockbuster. It was Van Damme’s most expensive movie to that point, but that still meant only 2/3 the budget of LETHAL WEAPON 3, and less than half of BATMAN RETURNS or ALIEN 3. Director Roland Emmerich did not yet have a track record of making blockbusters – this was his second English language movie first Hollywood movie, and follow up to MOON 44 (1990) starring Michael Pare. The success of UNIVERSAL SOLDIER would get Emmerich in the door to do STARGATE which would hook him up to do INDEPENDENCE DAY, which would apparently give him a life long pass to make gigantic, very stupid movies that everybody complains about and swears are worse than the earlier one they like. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ally Walker, Body Count, Carolco, Christopher Leitch, Dean Devlin, Dolph Lundgren, Ed O'Ross, JCVD, Michael Jai White, Ralf Moeller, Richard Rothstein, Roland Emmerich
Posted in Reviews, Action, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 18 Comments »
Saturday, June 4th, 2022
I was shamefully unaware of this until recently, but there’s a podcast called I MUST BREAK THIS PODCAST that’s all about the films of Dolph Lundgren. And it’s up to episode #87!? That’s the one where I got to come on and talk about the 2016 film
FEMALE FIGHT SQUAD starring Amy Johnston. Dolph plays her dad. I’m glad I had an excuse to watch it again because I remembered it being good but it was still better than I thought it was gonna be.
Tags: Amy Johnston, Dolph Lundgren, podcasts
Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, August 25th, 2021
“Y’know – this is a weird part of town.”
August 23, 1991
SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO is a movie I have long enjoyed (here is a pretty dumb review of it I wrote 13 years ago). It’s a buddy cop movie starring Dolph Lundgren (between COVER UP and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER) and Brandon Lee (between LASER MISSION and RAPID FIRE), so any possible deficiencies are easily overcome by their great charisma and the unrepeatable novelty of their team-up. Watching it in the context of these other ’91 movies it does seem slightly primitive; it’s a Warner Bros. movie, but the budget was $8 million, which is less than DOUBLE IMPACT – or even non-action stuff like DEAD AGAIN, THE COMMITMENTS, BINGO, RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON and LIFE STINKS – let alone the new state-of-the-art represented by POINT BREAK and TERMINATOR 2. Fortunately it’s in the capable exploitation hands of director Mark L. Lester (STEEL ARENA, CLASS OF 1984, FIRESTARTER, COMMANDO, CLASS OF 1999), so it has heavy doses of The Good Shit. He always gives you something extra.
Just as MYSTERY DATE has its two leads getting into trouble with gangs in Chinatown, this is about two guys fighting a Yakuza drug ring in L.A.’s Japanese district. In this case that’s in their job description as members of the LAPD Asian Crime Taskforce. Dolph’s Sergeant Chris Kenner gets the kind of introduction all his characters deserve: he single-handedly raids an illegal fighting circuit by climbing through a skylight, swinging into the ring on a rope and saying, “Haven’t I told you this is illegal, and it pisses me off?” Then he’s announced as the new challenger and has to fight the guys in the ring. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al Leong, Brandon Lee, Branscombe Richmond, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Clint Cadinha, David Michael Frank, Dolph Lundgren, Gerald Okamura, James Lew, Mark L. Lester, Pat E. Johnson, Philip Tan, Reid Asato, Renee Griffin, Roger Yuan, Simon Rhee, Stuart Baird, Summer of 1991, Terry J. Leonard, Tia Carrere, Vernee Watson
Posted in Reviews, Action | 36 Comments »
Wednesday, June 12th, 2019
This year my summer review series will be a little different. I knew I had to write about the 30th anniversary of a certain culturally phenomenal event movie that gave the town of Hollywood an enema, taught us to keep bustin and set us on a path to pretty much our entire current era of entertainment. And when I looked at the other movies that came out that year it reminded me how different summer movies used to be, for better or worse. In those days they were less genre, less special effects, more straight ahead action. And it seems to me the summer of ’89 was a transitional period bridging the prevailing action movements of its decade to those of the next. So I’m going to be taking a look at 1989: The Last Summer of ’80s Action. (title pending)
Note: To help remind you and myself what it was like back then I’ll often be mentioning Billboard‘s #1 single for a particular week. For example, when RED SCORPION came out it was “She Drives Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals. But the truth is that’s not what I was listening to at the time. To re-create my summer of ’89 audio experience I’d have to get a portable radio with auto-reverse tape deck and listen to a dub of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back over and over all day every day.
PROLOGUE
The 1980s. A time of sweaty chests and bandoliers. Half a decade after the smash success of JAWS, summer was cemented as the go-to season for mainstream crowd-pleasing movies. For the purposes of this study I’ve chosen to define summer movies as anything released from the beginning of April to the end of August – the months when kids are out of school, with some leeway at the front for Spring releases intended to play well into the summer. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al White, Brion James, Dolph Lundgren, Jack Abramoff, Joseph Zito, M. Emmet Walsh, Paul Erickson, Summer of '89
Posted in Action, Reviews | 60 Comments »
