Category Archives: Movies

Movies

4 Inappropriately Awful Final Movies of Great Actors

A fascinating list from Cracked.com regarding the above:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-inappropriately-awful-final-movies-great-actors/

I found it eerie that the last John Candy and Chris Farley comedy films were, at least in terms of setting and the fact that there were two leads, eerily similar.  They also shared the morbid similarity of having these actors die before the film was completed, therefore necessitating considerable (and, by the looks of it, failed) work to get the picture completed.  I haven’t seen either Wagons East or Almost Heroes yet recall when both were released to considerable critical scorn and very little financial success.  A sad last legacy for both successful comedic actors.

As for Raul Julia in Street Fighter, I always wondered why he took on that particular role and the article offers the explanation:  His kids loved the video game and therefore he wanted to be in the film.  Raul Julia was a great, very talented actor and, truly, Street Fighter was a bad, bad way to finish a promising career…not that he envisioned it as his finale.

As for Sean Connery and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen…I don’t understand all the hatred directed at this film.  No, it isn’t a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t think it is quite as bad a film as many make it out to be.  I suspect much of the hatred directed at it comes from fans of the much more ambitious original Alan Moore penned comic book that inspired the movie.  Yes, they took Mr. Moore’s writings and dumbed them down considerably to make the film, but all in all the film didn’t really strike me as the stinker so many people feel it is.  I would quickly hasten to add that neither do I feel the movie is a particularly great accomplishment, either.  A quick look at Sean Connery’s many films on IMDB shows he has had a hand in several movies I feel were far, far worse than this one.  The Avengers (1998), Just Cause (1995), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), and  Family Business (1989) are just a few he was involved in toward the later third of his career that were, IMHO, far worse.

An actor not mentioned in this list but should be is Steve McQueen.  During the 1960’s and early 1970’s he was one of Hollywood’s biggest, best known actors.  While still at the height of his success, however, he withdrew from the public eye and seemed to all but disappear.  1974’s all star disaster film The Towering Inferno featured Mr. McQueen alongside his longtime acting rival Paul Newman in the starring role, but it would be four long years later that Mr. McQueen would reappear in the never theatrically released An Enemy of the People.  That film was shelved by the studios and, because there was no home video market in those days, it wasn’t until 1980 that audiences once again saw Mr. McQueen, first in Tom Horn (a cowboy film that was a box office and critical dud) and then in his final film, the very mediocre The Hunter before succumbing that very same year to cancer.

The Hunter is one of those films that should have been a hell of a lot better than it was but suffers from a very weak script.  Watching that film fills me with sadness at what could have been.

Movies

Bullet to the Head (2012) a (mildly) belated review

I suspect most people, while about to watch a “new” movie, approach the subject before them with a certain amount of optimism and/or good will.  They hope the film they’re about to see is, at the very least, worth their time.  One feels even more optimistic about the film they’re about to watch when one is a fan of the work of one or more of the people involved in the film.

In the case of last year’s barely-theatrically-released Bullet to the Head, directed by Walter Hill, I’ve noted several times in several posts to being a big fan of his movies.  Starting with 1975’s Hard Times (his directorial debut) and going through such classics (in my opinion) as The Driver, The Warriors, The Shadow Riders, Southern Comfort, 48 Hours (perhaps his biggest hit) and up to 1984’s Streets of Fire, Mr. Hill had quite a run of incredible, testosterone fueled hits.

Following Streets of Fire, however, Mr. Hill hit something of a rough patch.  While a few of the films that followed had their moments, the overall quality of many of the theatrical films he directed after this point was noticeably…less.

Still, I’ve kept an eye out for his new works.  When I heard he had paired up with Sylvester Stallone to make an action film/crime drama, I was intrigued.  I eagerly awaited word of when the film would be released, fully intent on giving it a whirl while it was in theaters.  Time passed.  Then more time.

And more.

It seemed obvious the movie studio bankrolling the film wasn’t all that thrilled with the final product.  BY the time Bullet to the Head was finally released theatrically, it was done with little to no major promotion and, subsequently (and not surprisingly), the movie disappeared rather quickly before reaching the home video market.

Did the film deserve this fate?

When I put the film into my DVD player, I hoped for the best while, in the back of my mind, I braced for the worst.  For the first twenty or so minutes of the film, things looked good.

Mr. Stallone plays James Bonomo, a hired killer.  He and his younger partner take on their latest target and eliminate him.  Afterwards, they go to a bar to unwind and pick up the second half of the payment for their job.  Bonomo’s partner, however, is viciously knifed and killed.  The assassin, Keegan (Jason Momoa), tries to do the same with Bonomo but fails to take down the more senior of the two hit men.

Enter Taylor Kwan (Sung Kang), an out of town cop who arrives to investigate Bonomo and his partner’s latest victim.  Turns out he was Kwan’s boozy ex-partner and a man who may have incriminating evidence related to some very powerful interests within this big city.  Kwan quickly connects Bonomo to the hit and manages to meet with him.  Both men, interestingly enough, seek the same thing: The people who hired Bonomo to perform this latest kill.

Thus, we have the set up for this buddy action/adventure/crime drama:  A by the book cop and a bloody hit man are forced to partner up to get to the bottom of this case.

Sadly, despite starting well enough, the film loses steam with each passing minute.  Both Bonomo and Kwan are simply not very intriguing characters and their “bickering” is never terribly funny or engaging.  The story, too, unfolds in a highly predictable manner, offering few surprises along the way to a rather unimpressive climax.

While I wish I could say that Mr. Hill has delivered a film worthy of his early classics, Bullet to the Head is ultimately a very average film.  It is certainly not terrible, but neither is it ever all that much more than mediocre.  A real pity.

Movies

Olympus Has Fallen (2013) a (mildly) belated review

With many, if not most action films, you often are forced to overlook dumb/improbable things that occur in order to enjoy the feature.

For example, nearly every James Bond film has that scene where our hero is captured by the villain.  Instead of pulling out a gun and putting a bullet through Bond’s head, ending all unpleasantness right then and there, our villain inevitably decides now is the perfect time to tell Bond all about his plans before (usually) leaving him alone in some overly complex death trap he will inevitably figure a way out of.  Thus, when Bond is free once again, he knows where to go and what to do to triumph.

Moving away from Bond specifically and into action films in general, its hard not to notice that when bullets fly, they seem to have a really hard time finding the hero…but a much easier time finding the bodies of the villain and his henchmen.

I could go on and on with other, perhaps lesser examples, but suffice it to say I offer the above to segue into this:  Olympus Has Fallen is an awfully dumb action film.  Perhaps one of the dumber ones I’ve seen in a long time.

And yet…I can’t deny finding it entertaining as well.

Olympus Has Fallen is the first -and lower budgeted- of the two “White-House-gets-nuked-by-terrorists” films released this year (White House Down being the other, bigger budgeted one).  The movie opens with a sequence that, frankly, didn’t even need to be in the film at all:  We see the President (Aaron Eckhart) leaving Camp David with his wife (Ashley Judd, in what amounts to a very small cameo) during a snowstorm and their limo winds up crashing through a bridge guard gate.  The President’s personal bodyguard/secret service man, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), is forced to pull the President out of the limo just before it falls off the bridge but is unable to save his still trapped wife.

Eighteen months later, we find that Banning is now working for the Treasury (the President doesn’t want him around as his personal bodyguard because, even though everyone, including the President know his actions were correct, the mere act of Banning being around the President reminds him of this loss).  Banning wants to get back into his old job but knows it is difficult to get past the emotions.  Therefore, he does his paperwork and hopes to one day move back into the job he was meant for.

Enter: tensions between North and South Korea.

We find that a delegation of South Koreans, including their Premier, are coming to the White House for high level negotiations.  In the middle of negotiations, a large, U.S. military aircraft starts strafing Washington D.C. with high caliber bullets, slaughtering many people and causing incredible mayhem.  The President and the South Korean delegation head to the “bunker” under the White House where it is revealed the security detail of the South Korean leader are, in fact, a group of terrorists.  They take out the security details around the President and now have him and his immediate staff under their control.

Outside, a small army of North Korean (?) terrorists have emerged from hiding and are locking down the area immediately around the White House.  Banning runs from his job at the Treasury Department and makes it into White House grounds before the area is sealed.  By the time he reaches the doors of the White House and enters the bullet ravaged structure, he alone is left to fight the terrorists off…and free the President of the United States.

Before we go any further, let’s get to the dumb stuff.  I suppose I could enumerate all the dumb things that happen in the film but, in the interests of brevity, let me point out three of the juicier ones (Some mild SPOILERS follow):

1) Perhaps the biggest dumb thing this movie wants us to accept is the idea that an unauthorized military aircraft essentially can make it alll the way to the Washington monument while strafing the grounds with countless bullets before finally being taken out.  In pre-9-11 times I could envision something like this taking the U.S. defense forces by surprise.  Post 9-11…it is an awfully hard thing to swallow.

2) I keep having visions of Banning just outside the entrance of the White House, crouching behind a cement pillar in relative safety while wave after wave of soon to be dead (and most certainly brain dead) Secret Service members run out of the structure only to get mowed down by heavy machine gun fire.  Perhaps we needed better editing in this sequence, but all those supposed “professionals” came out looking like lemmings!

3) The traitor.  The moment I saw this recognizable actor in what appeared to be a “minor” role, I KNEW he was going to revealed as a baddie.  After this revelation, he delivers some ferociously nasty lines to the captured President of the United States and looks, for all intents and purposes, VERY willing to kill him.  But when he is sent (alone, of course) after Banning and the two eventually clash and Banning has him at his mercy, it takes a grand total of two seconds for the traitor to completely flip.  He agrees to help Banning out against the terrorists as his last act.  Seriously?!?

Ok, so there are a few of the really silly ones.  But the bottom line is this:  As silly as the film was, it moved.  There was very little fat -other than the opening sequence- to take up your time.  The good guys are good (if a little bit slow) and the bad guys, including Rick Yune as Kang, the head terrorist, are deliciously bad.

The movie never really lets up once it gets going, delivering a higher body count combination of 24 and Die Hard while entertaining you just enough to (almost) forget the silliness.  No, we’re not talking Oscar caliber material here…but if you’re in the mood for some pretty good action and aren’t the type to get too hung up on dumb plot points, you could do a whole lot worse than check out Olympus Has Fallen.

Movies

Solomon Kane (2009) a (mildly) belated review

Pulp author Robert E. Howard’s best known creation is, most likely, Conan the Barbarian.  Despite this, it is his another of his major recurring characters, Solomon Kane, that remains my personal favorite.  Surely it has something to do with the fact that the character is a religious 1600’s era Puritanical “Dirty Harry” that most intrigues me.  He hunts evil…and deals with it mercilessly.

A few years back, when word came that a Solomon Kane film was in the works with James Purefoy in the lead role, I was eager to see it.  The film was made and there was word of a coming release and then…nothing.

The movie, a European production, was eventually released to theaters in Europe but, as far as I can tell, didn’t make it to United States theaters.  If it did, it was very a very limited release.  More time passed.  Eventually, I found the movie was released to the video market, again in Europe, but it remained left out of the U.S. markets.

Until, that is, last month.

Now, four years later, I finally had a chance to get my hands on Solomon Kane and give it a shot.  Would it live up to my expectations?  More importantly, would it live up to Robert E. Howard’s original stories?

In a word…kinda.

Solomon Kane is a low budget movie and, like many low budget features, suffers at times from a lack of spectacle.  While this can hurt movies that strive for “big” stories, it doesn’t hurt the film all that much…at least until the end (I’ll get to that in a second).  Where the film may bother Solomon Kane fans is in the story it tells.  Solomon Kane is, essentially, an “origin” story for the character and this winds up being the worst -and most unnecessary- part of the film.  Worst because the character’s story arc from bad to good feels way too compressed and -given what we see- unlikely.  Unnecessary because the movie’s makers could have eliminated almost all that back story and still given us almost everything presented…only without that clutter.

Robert E. Howard never bothered to give Solomon Kane much of an origin, though one of his best Kane stories -in this case a poem- involves Solomon Kane’s return to his home town.  It was this poem, I suspect, that was the primary inspiration for this movie.

Unfortunately, while the poem was wistful and grand, the movie is decidedly smaller.  We start with Solomon Kane as a berserk killer, a privateer lusting for gold and mayhem and willing to kill anyone that gets in his way.  On his latest adventure his pirate crew invades a castle in search of gold.  As they climb the castle, however, evidence of dark magics appear.  Eventually, Solomon Kane’s entire crew is butchered while the bloodthirsty man is confronted by one of the Devil’s own…a demon who wants to drag evil Solomon Kane to Hell.

Solomon barely escapes with his life and, years later, we find that the encounter with the Devil’s minion has made Kane renounce his evil ways.  He now lives in a monastery, alone and non-violent, and is trying his best to repent.  Alas, and as I said before, this is the part of the movie that just doesn’t work for me.  Why?  Because rather than the Robert E. Howard vengeful zealot, we have a man that, for lack of a better word, was scared shitless into becoming “good”.

Seriously?

Anyway, the monastery decides its time for Solomon to leave their grounds.  They can’t keep him anymore and he ventures off, only to run into foul deeds performed by a rumored sorcerer.

Once again, I was bothered by this whole introductory segment.  Not only is Solomon presented as a bloodthirsty murderer who was “scared straight”, but he’s also forced to leave the Monastery when they don’t want him anymore.  Had this not happened, would the fearful Solomon Kane remain hidden for the rest of his life?

An instant fix that might have worked better:  Eliminate the whole privateer thing and introduce audiences to Solomon as a mysterious figure in the monastery, a man who knows the devil has chased after him all his life and decides, on his own, that the time has come for him to leave the safety of the monastery and confront his nemesis.  The monks beg him to stay, but he refuses.  He will not live in fear anymore.  On his way out the door, he tells the head monk regarding his eventual, inevitable confrontation with the Devil: “We’ll see who’s left standing”.  After saying this, he walks out the monastery gates.  No more “scared” Solomon, no more silliness.

Anyway, back to the real movie…

So Solomon Kane is out and about and, because he has renounced all violence, suffers from this, especially when a family he falls in with are for the most part butchered by the sorcerer’s soldiers.  This wakens the grim Solomon and he vows to save a kidnapped maiden and rid the terrorized lands of the sorcerer and his army.  The climax, if you haven’t guessed it already, leads Solomon Kane back to familiar ground and the poem I referenced above.  Unfortunately, the final battle features some CGI effects that may work better in a DOOM type game rather than Solomon Kane.  Ah well.

Even with the faults I mentioned above regarding the character’s origin, Solomon Kane is a reasonably entertaining film, but one that could -and should- have been much better.  Even ignoring the unnecessary origin aspects for a second, the film, at least to me, never really catches fire.  Mind you, it moves along well enough and doesn’t bore…but neither does it draw you in with bated breath like a good action film should.  The bottom line is that while you may be entertained, you’re likely not to be terribly impressed.

On the plus side, and despite the silly origin aspects, the filmmakers clearly were familiar with the Solomon Kane stories and tried hard to make a film that honored them.  A bigger budget, a rethinking of the origin aspects, and a more exciting pace would have surely helped make for a better film.

Despite this, I would cautiously recommend Solomon Kane to fans of the stories.  Others may want to stay away.

Movies

Summer of the mega-flop…?

Like many of you out there, movies have been ever present in my life and I’m a huge fan.  When I was younger I used to be one of the first people in line for new films and eagerly read up on what my favorite actors were up to.  Lately, however, I’m almost always in some kind of time crunch and don’t have the opportunity to get out to the theaters like I used to.

So now, watching the fleet of summer films come and go from afar is a curious experience.  Especially this summer’s crop.  As I mentioned in my previous blog review of The Heat, I’ve seen exactly two “summer” films this season, that and Star Trek Into Darkness.  It’s been hard not to notice all the films coming and going, like cars whose drivers are leaning hard on their horns as they whiz by you on the highway.  These movies try to get your attention and do so for a fleeting moment before they’re gone and the next one inevitably drives by.

Given all the stimulation out there, be it music to movies to TV shows to books to video games to facebook/instagram/etc, our culture appears to be succumbing to a new kind of attention deficit.  We’re constantly being stimulated and now seek out the “new” thing, because whatever we just saw/experienced is done and often all but forgotten.

With the movie industry, this can be a very frightening thing.  If you’re investing several hundred million dollars on a film, you obviously hope your film will succeed.  To succeed, it needs to have some kind of staying power.  If it doesn’t, the enormous budget is a mighty huge chunk of change to lose out on.  This summer, more than others perhaps, seems to have spawned an inordinate number of “mega” flops, motion pictures with a huge budget that met with near complete indifference.

There have been other flops in other summers, to be sure, but Ben Kingsberg at Slate magazine offers an interesting article about this particular group of summer movie duds:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/steven_spielberg_hollywood_imploding_how_he_predicted_a_disastrous_summer.html

I don’t think there’s much to argue with his essay, though I believe part of the mega-flop problem lies in films that needed far better scripts/stories.  With the exception of Pacific Rim, which audiences seem to like but which is nonetheless underperforming in the USA, most of the other mega-flops listed appear to have left audiences and critics alternately bored or turned off, usually because of weak stories.

A $200 million film, in the end, is only as good as the script/story being presented.  Extreme action and CG effects can temporarily dazzle the eye, but if the film itself never really gels, then its no wonder people are eventually turned off.

Movies

Franchise Fails

Interesting article by Daniel D’Addario for Salon.com concerning several recent films which were meant to be part of a franchise…but whose weak box-office receipts pretty much ended that possibility:

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/25/franchise_fails_the_planned_sequels_well_likely_never_see/

I enjoyed the list but found it was, as mentioned above, rather too “recent” in its sampling of failed movie franchises.

Regardless, I’ve always felt it takes a dangerous amount of hubris to make a film that you’re already thinking will make for a good “series” of films.  The danger lies in thinking about what’s to come rather than focusing on making the one good film you have in front of you first.

The Green Lantern film, I believe, is a great example of this.  What could –should– have been a good first film was ultimately buried in far too many irrelevant plot/character elements.  For example, why include Sinestro, who probably should have been the movie’s villain, unless you intend to use him that way?  The movie featured a far weaker set of villains as it was, leaving us at the tail end of the film with a little snippet showing us Sinestro was going to be the villain next time around.  Big waste.  But not the only one.  The film also featured the character of Amanda Waller.  She has considerable back story in the comic books but, in the context of the film, wasn’t all that relevant.  Why did the filmmakers not only include her but also waste our time giving her an “origin” story?

However, planning for sequels when making your first movie doesn’t always result in failure.

Way, waaaaay back when I saw the original Star Wars in 1977, the far younger me was bothered by the way that Darth Vader was clearly shown to have survived the events of the film.  While the young fans around me were instantly clued in to (and absolutely delighted by) the idea there were going to be sequels to the smash hit, I felt showing Darth Vader survive so clearly and broadly hinting at a sequel was arrogant film making.  Bear in mind, in 1977 the idea of movie sequels or franchises was limited to only one: James Bond.  Most movies released were “stand alone” features and while some might have had the possibility of sequels (would have loved to see more of the adventures of Bullitt!), their stories often started and ended with the first movie.

Luckily for Mr. Lucas and company, my opinion was a lone voice in a world filled with adulation, and the sequels came and did incredible business.

One film not included on the above list is Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.  If only by the title we get a great example of the movie-maker’s hubris in action.  I mean, The Adventure *BEGINS*?!?  How much more do you need to say to imply you think there will be more adventures to follow?

In the case of poor Remo, his adventure began and, with the exception of a failed and long forgotten TV pilot that came afterwards, ended right there.  Still, arrogant as the tile was, I have to admit the film wasn’t all that bad.  It just wasn’t all that “great”, either.

Ah well…

Movies

The Heat (2013) a (almost right on time!) review

The 2013 edition of the Big Summer Movie Extravaganza! is slowly, inevitably, winding down.  Audiences have been “treated” to all manner of big spectacle, though it felt like every other film being released every other week was either a) a superhero adaptation and/or b) a big sci-fi effect extravaganza.  To be sure, there were others genres in the mix, but given the spate of films released, many of whom wound up eliciting yawns from the movie going audience, one almost feels a sense of…relief…that the summer movie season is just about done.

I suppose its a sign of the times (and my relative lack of it) that to date I’ve seen exactly two (2) of the many movies offered thus far.

The first, Star Trek Into Darkness, was a film that I enjoyed reasonably enough while watching it and immediately afterwards.  In the days/weeks since, the film’s stature has decidedly shrunk in my mind.  No, I haven’t changed my mind and now feel the film was bad…but…well…let’s just say that Star Trek Into Darkness is one of those films of the moment, and the moment has passed.

The second and so far last of the 2013 summer movie films I’ve seen is The Heat, the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy action/comedy.  Truly, more comedy/comedy, as the action sequences aren’t really all that spectacular and are few and far between.

NOTE: This is not a knock against the film!

In fact, The Heat, while perhaps not a comedy “masterpiece”, is nonetheless exactly what it aims to be: A female version of the foul-mouthed “at-first-enemies-but-eventually-friends/allies” buddy cop films.

Sandra Bullock plays the “uptight” Ashburn while Melissa McCarthy plays the vulgar, streetwise Mullins.  They are drawn together in Mullins’ stomping grounds of Boston because of the emergence of a mysterious drug lord.

To get into the plot details is an exercise in describing pointless cliches.  Yes, the couple spar at first.  Yes, they have to deal with unsupportive higher ups.  Yes, they do things “their way” and, eventually, become a true crime-fighting team.  Finally, they take down the drug lord.  Duh.

The plot, let’s face it, is just an excuse to get at the meat of the movie, which lies in the way the two actresses play their respective roles and build a relationship.  This is where The Heat succeeds very well.  As a bonus, the film even manages to deliver a touching moment toward the very end concerning Ashburn’s old high school yearbook…before following that up with a brilliant joke involving a certain animal.  I love jokes that are set up early in a movie and followed up later on.  In this case, the set up and payoff are wonderful.

So if you’re in the mood for a good, old fashioned vulgar buddy cop “R” rated comedy (with no nudity!) that happens to feature two female leads, then The Heat is very much worth your time.

Movies

Save the Movie!

Fascinating piece by Peter Suderman for Slate magazine concerning the increased use of a writing formula, specifically the 2005 book Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder, has influenced the structure of recently released movies:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/07/hollywood_and_blake_snyder.single.html

Being an author myself, I’m always curious to read things like this.  There is a certain curiosity to finding the works you create, to some degree or another, follow story structures that have been around for many, many, many years.  But it’s one thing to realize you use certain story structures in place for centuries and its quite another to slavishly follow a formula.  Any formula.

For me, the big payoff of Mr. Suderman article concerns the above and comes with this paragraph, which all too clearly spells out the dangers of following this particular story formula too closely:

Yet once you know the formula, the seams begin to show. Movies all start to seem the same, and many scenes start to feel forced and arbitrary, like screenplay Mad Libs. Why does Kirk get dressed down for irresponsibility by Admiral Pike early in Star Trek Into Darkness? Because someone had to deliver the theme to the main character. Why does (ACTUAL CHARACTER REDACTED BY ME TO AVOID SPOILERS) defect to the villain’s team for no reason whatsoever almost exactly three-quarters of the way through Fast & Furious 6? Because it’s the all-is-lost moment, so everything needs to be in shambles for the heroes. Why does Gerard Butler’s character in Olympus Has Fallen suddenly call his wife after a climactic failed White House assault three-quarters of the way through? Because the second act always ends with a quiet moment of reflection—the dark night of the soul.

As I said before, a very fascinating and enlightening piece.

I am curious to read Mr. Snyder’s book, but on the other hand perhaps he offers too easy a “cheat sheet” for authors to use, and abuse.

Movies

Evil Dead (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Expectations and hopes are a tough thing to overcome.

When I first heard that they were remaking the original 1981 The Evil Dead, and more importantly that the original director Sam Raimi and the original star of the feature (and cult hero) Bruce Campbell were involved, I was really, really hoping this remake would be good.

When it was released, I was dying to see it in the theaters but, as has happened all too often, I simply didn’t have the free time available to make the trip to my local cinema.  I did read some reviews and became…concerned.  On Rotten Tomatoes the film scored a decent 62% positive among critics and a similar 68% positive among audiences.  While these scores were enough to label the film “fresh”, the rating was hardly a strong endorsement.  Nonetheless, I had to see it for myself.  When it finally reached the home video market, I gave it a twirl.

So…what did I think?

In a nutshell: Not all that much, alas.  On a four star scale, with four being a “classic”, I’d give the film at best two stars.  I can only recommend it to fans of the original series who absolutely, positively have to see the remake.  Others may want to avoid it and stick to the originals.

Longer review follows…

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!!!

Unlike the original film, 2013’s Evil Dead is first and foremost a gore fest.  Its main goal and purpose appears to be to try to gross you out as much as possible while, here and there, giving small and larger shout outs to the previous Evil Dead films.  Yes, we have friends going to a cabin in the woods for a weekend.  Their purpose to go there is because one of their group, Mia (Jane Levy), is a drug user and the group of friends along with her somewhat estranged brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) want to force Mia to go through a “cold turkey” weekend and hopefully kick her habit.

On its surface the drug element is interesting but, as the movie plays out, it ultimately is just an excuse to justify why the soon to be un-happy campers stay at the cabin a little longer than they should have.  For you see, it is Mia who first notes the strange things going on in this cabin and is the first to see the ghostly images…and when she tells her friends what she sees, they excuse it as her attempts to get out of the cold turkey treatment and back to more friendly environs.

Anyway, the proverbial shit hits the fan and our group of friends are knocked off one by one in very brutal ways.  Unfortunately, between the start of the film and that point we get so little characterization and therefore develop so little empathy toward most of the group.  Most woefully underwritten is Elizabeth Blackmore’s Natalie.  I wasn’t sure exactly what her relationship to the others was, other than that she just happened to be present.  Despite this, she is given the “honor” of replicating one of the more (in)famous sequences in the original Evil Dead 2.

Speaking of which, of the other characters the one that is perhaps the better developed is Olivia (Jessica Lucas).  She is the nurse and friend who watches over Mia and, unfortunately, is also the one who tells the others they need to be strong and remain through the cold turkey session.  However, she’s also the very first to pass on.  A real shame as she, more than the others, elicited sympathy…at least from me.  If only the director had made her the secondary lead!

And that brings us to perhaps the film’s greatest problem:  Just who is the lead?  Reading up on the film before its release, it was noted many times that this film would give us a “female” Ash (Ash, of course, is the Bruce Campbell character from the original Evil Dead films).  From the beginning it was clear Mia was intended to be the protagonist.

As mentioned, however, she is the first to see and feel the “evil dead”, whereupon she’s completely taken over by them.  What winds up happening is that she spends most of the film “possessed” and then locked away in the basement while the others are being picked off one by one.  During that section of the film, the longest part of the film, Mia’s brother appears to be the protagonist.  But since I already knew Mia was the central character, as the minutes pass I grew more and more impatient to see her do something -anything!- other than be locked up in a basement.

She is supposed to be the female Ash after all.  Let’s see her do something!

Alas, it isn’t until all but her brother are dead that she “comes back”.  Even then, however, her fight against the resurrected demon is (natch) gory but not all that exhilarating.  We even get a repeat -of sorts- of the Evil Dead 2 gag mentioned above (twice in one movie?!), but it plays out rather ridiculously.  The movie ends and we get the credits.  You stick around until they’re over and you get perhaps the movie’s best scene, a very tiny cameo by Bruce Campbell himself.

All right, so the characters are weak and the movie’s focus appears to be more on the gore than anything else.  On the positive side, the direction is quite good and the effects are damn good.  As with many films that have left me wanting in the past, the main problem appears to once again be a script that could use a little more work.

Evil Dead isn’t a terrible film, just not a terribly good one either.  As a fan of the original Evil Dead series, perhaps there’s a little bias in my views.  Regardless, I came in hoping for the best and felt, when all was said and done, that this film could have been a lot better than it ultimately was.

Movies

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) a (mildly) belated review

I know I’ve mentioned this before, so indulge me for a bit.

When I was younger, I was really harsh in reviewing films.  I couldn’t tolerate what I viewed as mistakes, large or small, especially in a feature’s story.  If something didn’t make sense, even if it was a tiny thing that might not have amounted to all that much in the feature’s full running time, I nonetheless blasted it.  If a film was suspiciously similar -at least enough to accuse it of being a rip off-, well ditto.  If the effects weren’t up to snuff, if the acting was off, if the direction and editing weren’t pleasing, ditto again.

In recent years I’ve mellowed out considerably.  Not that I don’t find films here and there that are, to me, utter and complete failures.  It’s just that I as an author I can sympathize with the heavy lifting that goes into the act of creation and have come to realize that sometimes things just don’t work out, no matter how hard you may try.

A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth (!) movie in the Die Hard franchise (but not the last as a sixth movie is in pre-production for release in 2015), arrived with considerable critical scorn, at least as far as I could see.  The original 1988 Die Hard was a watershed moment in the career of actor Bruce Willis.  While his TV series Moonlighting was popular, his movie career was hardly flourishing.  His two previous motion pictures were both directed by Blake Edwards, first the comedy Blind Date and then the comedy/mystery/pseudo-western Sunset.  Both movies, if memory serves, didn’t exactly light the box office on fire or make anyone think Mr. Willis had what it took to transition from TV actor to Movie actor.

All that changed with Die Hard.

The movie proved a box office hit and the character Mr. Willis portrayed in the movie, Officer John McClane, was funny, witty…damn near brilliant.  Two years later Die Hard 2 was released, and while some now “poo-poo” that film as nowhere near as good as the original, I consider it a great action film as well.  Five years later, in 1995, Mr. Willis and original Die Hard director John McTiernan returned for Die Hard: With a Vengeance and audiences once again were happy to follow the further adventures of Willis’ McClane.

Me?  I didn’t like Die Hard: With a Vengeance all that much, though I enjoyed seeing Bruce Willis return to that role.  It would prove to be the last time we’d see Mr. Willis playing the character until twelve years later, in 2007, when Live Free or Die Hard was released.  As with the previous Die Hard film, I thought it wasn’t all that great.  It seemed the action sequences were becoming waaaay too big and unbelievable while the characterization of McClane was becoming an ever smaller part of the overall picture.

Which, in a nutshell, is the problem A Good Day to Die Hard has in spades.

Sadly, another problem is that Mr. Willis has aged.  He no longer looks like the young man he once was, the young man we could envision doing all those crazy stunts while beating his body to a pulp.  Still, it would be hard to envision a young Bruce Willis doing the action sequences called upon his character in this film.  For the action sequences in this movie are so big, so wild, that it becomes nearly impossible for us as an audience to believe anyone could survive even one of those set pieces, never mind the five or six strung out through the film.

And those action sequences, as good as they might be (I happened to think the initial one, involving what appeared to be the demolition of every road and vehicle in and around Moscow was quite excellent) nonetheless strain our ability to believe what we’re seeing could happen.

In action films, that’s the trick a director/actor/effects crew should be sensitive about.  Can the audience believe what they’re seeing might happen?  Even avoiding that question, the fact is that A Good Day to Die Hard winds up being so enthralled to those same action sequences that the characterization so beloved in the first few Die Hard films is almost completely missing.  This is easily the least “John McClane” film of the bunch.  Bruce Willis could be playing any “good guy” Bruce Willis-type character…he’s that invisible as a person within the context of the movie.

He’s not the only one.

We’re presented with McClane’s son and, to a far lesser extent, daughter in the movie, but both characters are just that, characters.  Jai Courtney, who was nicely menacing as one of the main baddies in Jack Reacher, switches to good guy mode here and isn’t all that bad…but neither is he all that great either.  The blame, as before, lies in the fact that this is a movie built around those all important action sequences.  Jack McClane’s character, therefore, is a stereotype:  The angry, abandoned son who, by the end of the film, grows to love the old man.

Dodging bullets, I guess, will do that to you.

Anyway, near the end of the film we are presented with an interesting switcheroo regarding the bad guy(s) and, I have to admit, I found it a clever switch indeed (Maybe by then I was desperate for anything other than action action action).  In fact, seeing that switcheroo made me wonder what the original screenplay for this film was like.  Could it possibly have been more character oriented?  Could more thought have been put into creating a suspenseful, less pedal-to-the-metal action fest?

Who knows.

We can only judge A Good Day to Die Hard for what it is:  An expensive and near non-stop action fest that features little in the way of character development.  Not the worst action film I’ve ever seen, mind you, but one that desperately could use an infusion of the smart-assed humanity we saw in the earlier appearances of one John McClane.