Posts Tagged ‘Randy Couture’
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, March 11th, 2019
THE HARD WAY starring Michael Jai White is not a remake of THE HARD WAY starring Michael J. Fox. It’s a totally different story and he’s co-starring with Luke Goss and Randy Couture in a picture that as far as I can tell has gone straight to Netflix (no disc release). I gotta be honest, I had low expectations, because I first heard of it in an awkwardly worded tweet from co-writer Thomas J. Churchill (LAZARUS: APOCALYPSE), illustrated with key art that looks like the cover for a self-published Christian thriller novel. The director and co-writer is Keoni Waxman, who has churned out more Seagal movies than anyone else (THE KEEPER, A DANGEROUS MAN, MAXIMUM CONVICTION, FORCE OF EXECUTION, A GOOD MAN, ABSOLUTION, END OF A GUN, CARTELS, CONTRACT TO KILL and eight episodes of True Justice). He also did the Stone Cold Steve Austin movie HUNT TO KILL. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Grant Campbell, Keoni Waxman, Luke Goss, Michael Jai White, Randy Couture, Thomas J. Churchill, Tim Man
Posted in Action, Reviews | 27 Comments »
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 »
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 »
Sunday, August 19th, 2012
THE EXPENDABLES 2 is a sequel to THE EXPENDABLES. It is the second one. And all that that implies.
Like part 1 it has an incredible cast of action stars that you never thought could all be in a movie together, making a movie that is not worthy of all of them being together but does get by on the strength of, you know… those guys are all in it.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jason Statham, JCVD, Jet Li, Liam Hemsworth, Nan Yu, Randy Couture, Scott Adkins, Simon West, Sylvester Stallone, Terry Crews
Posted in Action, Bruce, Reviews | 311 Comments »
Sunday, December 18th, 2011
By now most of us have seen the teaser for next summer’s EXPENDABLES 2, directed by Simon “the remake of THE MECHANIC was okay at least although the action scenes sucked” West. Of course it’s a teaser, it doesn’t show much, and it’s a movie that most of us feel guilty for having any glimmer of hope that it might be good. But those are not good enough reasons to stop my from going through it pretty much shot-by-shot so we can discuss it. Sorry.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgren, Expendables 2, Jason Statham, JCVD, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Scott Adkins, Simon West, Sylvester Stallone, Terry Crewes
Posted in Blog Post (short for weblog) | 116 Comments »
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
From the director that brought you BEATDOWN and the letters that brought you STEP UP comes SETUP, Bruce Willis’s first DTV action movie. (I’m not gonna count ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT). So I raise a glass to you, Bruce, on this historic occasion. They might’ve meant it to be a theatrical release, but if so they should’ve told that to the guy writing the script (Mike Behrman, GHOST RIDER: INSIDE THE ACTION). Doesn’t seem like he was expecting that level of scrutiny. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 50 Cent, Bruce, Bruce Willis, DTV, James Remar, Jenna Dewan, Randy Couture, Ryan Phillippe
Posted in Action, Bruce, Crime, Reviews | 59 Comments »
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
My friends, I write this review with a heavy heart. I know you’ve been waiting patiently for me to review THE EXPENDABLES, but first I had to process it, and what it has done to us. Sometimes a man must go on a journey to find himself before he can rise in the morning and face others. Ever since I was a young (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce, Bruce Willis, Eric Roberts, Gary Daniels, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Millennium Films, Randy Couture, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Sylvester Stallone, Terry Crews
Posted in Action, Bruce, Reviews | 334 Comments »
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Part of the reason for my Countdown to The Expendables was to expand my action movie horizons. I didn’t want to just revisit movies I’d seen before, so I gave myself some rules: for each major EXPENDABLES cast member I wanted to review a movie I’d never seen before. Not just one I hadn’t reviewed or hadn’t seen in a long time, but one I had no experience with at all.
But with Randy Couture this is a problem, because he doesn’t have 50 movies to his name like Gary Daniels. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Countdown to The Expendables, David Mamet, Randy Couture, TV
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 68 Comments »
Monday, August 18th, 2008
THE SCORPION KING 2 RISE OF A WARRIOR is the story of a warrior who rises. In movies we’ve seen many people and things rise, including The Machines, Carlito’s Way, The Silver Surfer, Leslie Vernon, Taj, Cobra, the Lycans, Gator, Jack Johnson, and Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. But never before have we seen the RISE OF A WARRIOR.
In this movie there are actually a bunch of different warriors but in my opinion the specific warrior who is rising is the one who will later be called the Scorpion King, not in this movie but in the very end of a different, better movie called THE SCORPION KING. What I’m trying to say is that this is the prequel to the prequel to the sequel to THE MUMMY, a movie I thought sucked. So the fact that this one is above average for DTV is pretty impressive. If you met a guy whose great, great uncle by marriage was a Nazi or a serial killer, but the guy you met wasn’t that big of a dick or anything, you would think “Good for him.” Same goes for THE SCORPION KING 2 RISE OF A WARRIOR. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, DTV sequels, Randy Couture, Russell Mulcahy
Posted in Action, AICN, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 1 Comment »
