Tag Archives: Movie Reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.

Django Unchained (2012) a (mildly) belated review

After sitting around for several weeks, I finally plopped the Django Unchained DVD into my machine last night and gave it a whirl.  As it started up, I thought back to the very first time I ever heard of director/writer Quentin Tarantino.  It was many, many years ago, back in the pre-internet intensive days of 1992 when his first major motion picture, Reservoir Dogs, was making quite a buzz at film festivals and newspapers (remember those?) lauded the work of this wonderful new director.  By the time the movie finally reached my area, I absolutely had to see it.

Watching Reservoir Dogs proved quite the experience, like sitting in the passenger seat of a car which was being driven by a complete maniac, all the time wondering when/if you’re going to crash.  Other than the somewhat ambiguous ending, I loved, loved, loved what I saw.  Never mind that later we found the movie “homaged” (or, if you’re less tolerant, ripped off) City on Fire.  Regardless, Reservoir Dogs was such an incredibly unique experience, at that time, that I had to see more of Tarantino’s works.

His follow up film, 1994’s Pulp Fiction, cemented his reputation as a director/writer to watch, but as much as I liked it, it wasn’t as good an overall film, IMHO, as Reservoir Dogs, mainly because for me the Bruce Willis segment was lacking (though I would hasten to add that I did love both the prologue to this segment, featuring Christopher Walken’s demented “watch” sequence, and the non-chronologically revealed fate of John Travolta’s Vincent Vega).  Mr. Tarantino’s follow up films, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill (Volume 1 and 2), unfortunately, didn’t do all that much for me, though I’ll admit up front I’m in a minority with those particular feelings.  Jackie Brown, for all the fascinating actors, never really engaged me story-wise.  Kill Bill appeared to be Mr. Tarantino doing his personal version of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, only using 70’s karate-type action instead of the wild west.  The question I had after seeing the film(s) was why bother with Mr. Tarantino’s version when I can just watch the Eastwood original?

Mr. Tarantino’s next major motion picture, Deathproof, part of the two-part Grindhouse motion picture set, was absolutely great…at least in the latter half of the film.  I absolutely, positively loved the film’s second act while absolutely, positively felt the complete opposite about the surprisingly uninteresting dialogue-filled first half.

Inglourious Basterds was next and proved one of the first BluRay purchases I ever made…but I have yet to actually see the film.  One day soon.

Which brings us back to Django Unchained.  As you can probably imply from the above, my one time love for Quentin Tarantino’s works has fizzled over the years.  Given that I haven’t found the time or inspiration to sit through his last film and the length of time it took me to get to his most recent one, my frame of mind while watching it wasn’t the best.

Yet as Django Unchained rolled out, I was very much into the film.  It was bloody, it was violent, it was profane…and yet also quite hilarious (the movie’s best bit has to be the whole pre-“hooded raid” segment…the dialogue there by the actors, and Don Johnson especially, was hysterical).

Sadly, this highlight of the film led into the second and final act, which while reasonably entertaining was nowhere near as good as what preceded it.  Like Death Proof, we had roughly one half of a great film.  Unlike Death Proof, the better stuff was in the first half.

Before I go any farther, a quick recap of the film’s plot:  Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave in the days just before the Civil War.  He was separated from his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) and longs to get her back to his side.  In comes Dr. King Schultz (the excellent Christoph Waltz), a bounty hunter, who needs Django to identify a trio of criminal brothers he is hunting.  He frees Django and, after getting his prey, takes a liking to his new partner.  King asks Django to continue to work with him for the winter and, following that, will help him find and free his wife.

It is after winter (and the aformentioned Don Johnson sequence) that we proceed to the movie’s second act, where King and Django find that Calvin Candie (a slimy Leonardo DiCaprio) purchased Broomhilda and has her at his plantation.  The duo attempt a variation on the Trojan Horse (this movie features plenty of echoes to mythology) to try to spirit the woman from his clutches.

The problem with this half of the film is two fold.  For one, it feels disjointed, as if Mr. Tarantino realized belatedly while filming that the movie was running too long and was forced to cut a lot of material in the telling of this last half of the film.  For example, Candie’s sister Lara Lee (Laura Cayouette) is presented in a total of perhaps three or four very brief scenes and barely has any dialogue…and yet I get the feeling the audience is supposed to view her as every bit as evil and slimy as her brother.  However, we simply see too little of her to get much more than a hint of possible incest between brother and sister and almost no real sense of evil.  We’re also briefly introduced to Candie’s “trackers”, a group of mysterious gunfighters in the man’s employ, and the most intriguing of the group is Zoe Bell’s female tracker, a woman who is seen a grand total of maybe two times, who wears a blood red scarf to hide the lower half of her face.  Who is she?  How did she end up being part of this all male gunfighter group?  Is she indeed a deadly gunfighter?  Why does she hide the lower half of her face?  All good questions, NONE of which are ever resolved.  She appears very briefly in one scene and the next time she appears Django kills her and her crew in a matter of a few seconds.

Really?

So, assuming I’m right, Mr. Tarantino was forced to trim an awful lot of material from the second half of the film and it hurt.  But nothing hurt the movie so much as what he had Dr. King do toward the film’s end.  I won’t spoil things too much, but suffice it to say that after all this time, I would have expected this professional bounty hunter to act in a far more professional manner than he did toward the film’s first major climax and not risk his life and the lives of both Django and Broomhilda because of his own stupid pride.

Or, to put it more succinctly for those who have seen the film:  Really?  All you had to do was shake the man’s hand!  Shake it already!

Still, despite a weak and at times confusing closing half, I enjoyed enough of Django Unchained to recommend it, especially to fans of Mr. Tarantino’s unique mix of humor and violence.

The Last Stand (2013) a (mildly) belated review

“Like riding a bike.”

That old quote suggests something that once learned is difficult to forget.  Watching The Last Stand, and more specifically the acting of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first major motion picture starring role -excluding the various small and larger cameo appearances in a handful of films- since Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in (gasp!) 2003, one is struck with the fact that acting, indeed, is decidedly not like riding a bike.

At least for Mr. Schwarzenegger.

The Arnold Schwarzenegger I most recall is the one that could be alternately terrifying, charismatic, and even outright humorous in his motion pictures…sometimes even in the context of a single film.  Sure, his acting skills are the type that will likely never merit any serious awards, but at his best he could be a very engaging movie presence, one that audiences flocked to in droves.

Then, of course, Mr. Schwarzenegger moved on to politics and, through a unique set of circumstances got himself elected Governor of California.  He spent years away from movies and, having finally finished his term, dipped his toe back into acting via small roles in both Expendables movies (the second of which featured a larger role than the blink and you’ll miss him appearance in the first film).

With 2013’s The Last Stand, Mr. Schwarzenegger took front and center in a motion picture and the results…well, they weren’t all that hot.  The Last Stand’s box office, given the film was a relatively cheaply budgeted work to begin with, wasn’t all that great, though based on Rotten Tomatoes it maybe/coulda done better (critics and audiences gave the film a near identical rating, 60 and 58% approved).

So, was The Last Stand a worthy re-entry point for Mr. Schwarzenegger?

As I mentioned above, I found the acting of Mr. Schwarzenegger in this film lacking.  He reads his lines (even the “funny” ones) in the same dull tone and appears to my eyes unengaged with the material.  Given how wildly ridiculous the premise of the film is, this becomes a BIG problem.

The plot of the movie goes as follows:  A nasty drug kingpin is boldly broken out of a “high security” Las Vegas prison transport, then heads out of the city in a souped up Corvette, his intention being to drive himself to Mexico and safety.  We find that on top of being a high level drug kingpin, he’s also a professional race car driver, so the Feds are quickly overwhelmed in trying to capture him.  Indeed, it becomes clear that all that stands in the kingpin’s way to freedom is the small town of Sommerton Junction and Schwarzenegger’s Sheriff Ray Owens and his few companions.

What could have been a tense (though silly) feature moves along as if it were a documentary on building a fence.  There is precious little tension, almost no humor, and certainly no feeling of dread.  Once the kingpin arrives in the town (after a big shoot out with his minions), our Sheriff pursues the villain in a Camaro for a bit before going mano-a-mano with him.  However, given how gifted our villain supposedly was with driving and how he was driving a super souped up Corvette, one wonders how the Sheriff, in a far less powerful car, could somehow catch up to the villain.

In the end, I have to side with the 40 or so percent of critics/audiences who didn’t like The Last Stand.  Given the slate of films Mr. Schwarzenneger has coming, one hopes he can get his mojo back.  I’d love to see Mr. Schwarzenneger figure out how to ride that bike once again.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) a (SPOILERY) review

Perhaps the movie I most anticipated for summer release was Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to director J. J. Abrams’ 2009 “reboot” of the original Star Trek franchise.  That film proved to be a big success at the box office and was enjoyed by many Star Trek fans new and old.

I, however, didn’t think all that much of the original film.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it.  It just felt like the film after a while devoted a little too much time making references or shout outs to the “old” Trek.  Further, the movie’s story had its share of trouble spots.  For example, I found it hard to swallow the way –waaaaaay– too convenient manner in which the young Kirk just happens to stumble upon the elderly Spock.  I also didn’t like the way Kirk, in the movie’s climax, has the Enterprise fire upon his enemy to kill him, even though at that point the villain is clearly incapable of fighting back.

Despite my somewhat lukewarm feelings for that original film, I was nonetheless cautiously optimistic regarding a sequel.  Like most everyone else with internet access, it was hard not to pick up on bits and pieces of the movie’s creation.  Early word was that Benecio Del Toro was in line for a part in the film, and that instantly created heavy rumors among fans regarding who he was going to play in this film.  Early rumors had it that Del Toro, a latin-American actor, might be playing the best known villain played originally by another famous latin American actor,  Ricardo Montalban‘s Khan.  This superhuman villain first appeared in Space Seed, an episode of the original Star Trek series and subsequently re-appeared as the same character to menace the Enterprise and her crew in what many (including myself) consider the best Star Trek film ever made, 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

The rumors regarding Mr. Del Toro’s role picked up steam but the studios vigorously nixed them.  By now, most savvy movie goers were only too aware of a similar stunt pulled by director Christopher Nolan with his third Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, wherein the identity of Marion Cotillard’s character was kept hidden but the fan base figured out who she was playing well before the movie’s release.

Now, before I go on, even though I suspect most people are by now aware of who the villain of Star Trek Into Darkness is, I’ll nonetheless issue the following…

SPOILER ALERT!

Still here?  All right, you’ve been warned.

Soon after the announcement of Mr. Del Toro being sought for a role in the new Star Trek film came word he dropped out of the project.  Replacing him, curiously enough, was rising British star Benedict Cumberbatch.  Despite this radical change in casting -at least from a standpoint of ethnicity- the rumors the role remained that of Khan persisted.  More denials were issued and some fans, thinking the studios were being sincere in their denials, looked elsewhere for clues as to who Mr. Cumberbatch was playing.  What was becoming clear is that he was playing some kind of superhuman character and two other possibilities immediately sprung to mind to the fans.

First, was it possible this new Trek film would be a remake of the original series’ second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before?  Could Mr. Cumberbatch be playing Gary Mitchell, a friend of Kirk’s who assumed God-like power and had to be dispatched before he threatened the universe itself?  In that episode, Kellerman played Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, a character that looked an awful lot like Alice Eve, also in the cast of Into Darkness.

Another possibility…was Mr. Cumberbatch playing Zefram Cochrane in a remake of Metamorphosis?

Eventually, Abrams’ and company issued a silly news “release” stating that Mr. Cumberbatch was playing a character called “Jim Harrison”.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, knew Mr. Abrams and company were indeed following The Dark Knight Rises playbook.

Finally, Star Trek Into Darkness was given a sneak preview in Australia several weeks before the general release in the United States and the rumors were finally confirmed.

And then came the problems.

Because Mr. Abrams’ and company chose to go so secretive with the identity of Mr. Cumberbatch’s character, a backlash inevitably grew.  After all, by using the character of Khan, they effectively were remaking the most beloved of the Star Trek films.

The reviews started coming in and, for the most part, they were positive.  Had Abrams’ and company delivered?

For the most part, I would say yes.

Star Trek Into Darkness is certainly not your old Star Trek movie.  I think those critical to the film as being more Star Wars than Star Trek are pretty much on the money here.  For Star Trek Into Darkness is an unapologetic action film filled with one big set piece after another.  There remain logic flaws in the story and there is at least one scene designed to do little more than offer audiences eye candy (I’m referring, of course, to the stunningly beautiful Alice Eve stripping scene, which Mr. Abrams himself has apparently come to realize was unnecessary).

If I had any major beefs with the film, it is in that despite all the well designed action and great effects, the movie’s script could have been so much more than it was.  For example, in the opening segment, wherein Kirk violates the prime directive, wouldn’t it have been so much more interesting (and fun!) if instead of on a planet filled with very primitive peoples, the crew were on one of the more interesting “alternative” worlds as presented in the original series?  How about the same basic premise (needing to do something to help a humanoid race not be extinguished) but instead have the crew deal with what look like 1920’s era gangsters?  Or a world that emulated Nazi Germany?  Or the Roman Empire?

Wouldn’t that have been far more interesting than the primitive people they encountered?

Ah well, it is what it is.

Star Trek Into Darkness, while an enjoyable action film, is nonetheless less creative and “heavy” than most of the good Star Trek features.  When Kirk and Spock confront each other at the tail end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, those scenes carry an emotional weight this new Trek simply cannot achieve…though they certainly try to copy.  Still, the movie remains an enjoyable feature, certainly to my mind better than the first Star Trek film from the same company.

The Outfit (1973) a (very) belated review

Having just seen Jack Reacher the other day and noting Robert Duvall in a small role within the film toward its end, it was intriguing -in a time travel sort of way- to subsequently see a much much younger Mr. Duvall in the starring role in 1973’s The Outfit, based on the third novel in the popular (and many times filmed) “Parker” series.

For those unfamiliar with the Parker character, he first appeared in the Richard Stark (a pseudonym for Donald Westlake) novel The Hunter.  That book would go on to be filmed and released in 1967 as Point Blank and starred the tough-as-nails Lee Marvin.  Author Donald Westlake, for whatever reason, didn’t want the movies to use the actual name “Parker” and therefore in Point Blank Parker became Walker.  Many years later the film would be re-made with Mel Gibson as the Parker character, this time named Porter, in Payback.

The third book in the series, The Outfit, is the focus of this 1973 film.  In many ways, The novels The Hunter and The Outfit are bookends.  They tell a larger story between themselves, one which was trimmed a little to make this film version.

When the The Outfit, opens, we follow two hitmen who find and kill a man.  We then shift to Macklin (Robert Duvall), who is in jail and is in the process of being released.  He’s picked up by Bett Harrow (Karen Black, looking absolutely stunning), who we find is more than a little nervous about being with Macklin.  She has good reason to be, as we quickly find that the man killed at the beginning of the film was Macklin’s brother and the mob wants to get rid of Macklin as well.  In fact, the mob put considerable pressure on Bett -including torture- to pick up Macklin when he got out of jail and had her set him up for a hit.  The mob is upset that Macklin and his brother’s last job, a bank robbery, targeted one of their banks.  Needless to say, the outfit will not tolerate such impertinence.

What follows is an intriguing cat and mouse game between Macklin and the mob.  With the aid of Bett and old friend Jack Cody (Joe Don Baker), Macklin intends to not only put pressure on the mob to call off the hit, but to also force them to pay him and make amends for killing his brother!

The Outfit features plenty of intriguing and familiar faces.  Legendary screen femme fatales Marie Windsor and Jane Greer pop up for a couple of scenes, as do familiar faces such as Richard Jaeckel, Sheree North, Elisha Cook Jr., Joanna Cassidy (in an early, early role), and, as the movie’s main bad guy, Robert Ryan.

The story flows well, never slowing too much and always moving toward its resolution.  If the movie has one big fault, to me it’s the character of Bett Harrow.  While I felt Karen Black delivered a great performance in the film, her character’s story arc was disappointingly small once all was said and done.  Early on in the film Jack Cody states that he and Macklin could do what needs to be done against the outfit without Bett.  Macklin disagrees and she stays in the picture but the movie essentially proves Cody was right.

It’s a minor gripe, to be sure, and while I still believe the best “Parker” film ever made remains Point Blank, to me the director’s cut of Payback (avoid the theatrical cut like the plague!) and The Outfit are neck and neck in second place.  Recommended.

And, just for the heck of it, trailers for Point Blank and Payback

Jack Reacher (2012) a (mildly) belated review

Tom Cruise is…Jack Reacher.  Jack Reacher, of course, is the protagonist of a several books by author Lee Child.  When it was announced Mr. Cruise would play the titular character in a feature film, there was much teeth-gnashing among fans of the novels.

Jack Reacher, as described by Mr. Child, was a mountain of a man, tall and strong, and Tom Cruise…wasn’t.  Isn’t.  So, understandably, fans were incensed that he should be given the role.  I can honestly say the last time I saw that much controversy about the casting of a famous actor in a role familiar to legions of book fans might well have been Tom Cruise again, this time as the vampire Lestat in Interview With A Vampire.  In that case, the author of that book, Anne Rice, was at first just as seemingly aghast at the casting of Mr. Cruise as the fans were, though later on she considerably tempered her words and even acknowledged he did a good job in the role, something I agree with.

In fact, I don’t have much of a problem with Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, either.  He eschews much of his trademark smiling/smirking and instead takes on the role as if he were doing a Clint Eastwood type imitation.  There is very little levity to this particular character, after all.

The story starts with a mysterious man driving his van to an upper level in a parking lot, pulling out a rifle, and shooting five people across the river from his position.  The authorities are quickly on the case and find considerable evidence that points them directly to an Iraq war vet who has a dark past.  The evidence against him is so airtight that, after arresting the suspect, they demand he confess to his crimes to avoid a quick (and harsh) judgment.

The suspect doesn’t, instead asking for ex-military police officer Jack Reacher.  However, before that request is heard by Reacher, he sees the news of the crime and goes to the city it occurred in himself, intent on…well, that is never really made all that clear.  I suppose he went there to rub the subject’s guilt in his face or something.  For you see, Reacher and the alleged sniper had a history in Iraq.  The sniper never killed anyone in combat and when he was very close to the end of his tour of duty he went rogue and took out a group of contractors.  As it turned out, the contractors were criminals and because of that it was decided by the higher ups to hush the entire matter.  Jack Reacher, however, knew the suspect had committed a cold blooded crime and wanted him to meet his justice.

However, upon hearing about the suspect’s request for him and after being convinced by the defense attorney (a lovely blonde played by Rosamund Pike, natch) to take on the case, Reacher decides to investigate.  Soon, he realizes the “airtight” evidence might be just a little too good.

I won’t go into too many more spoilers regarding Jack Reacher, but suffice to say the film is a solid if not outstanding effort, a decent way of passing time but a film that doesn’t reward careful scrutiny.  After the horrific events in the first part of the film, the crime itself recedes into the background and the story becomes a typical good-guy-versus-fearsome-bad-guys drama.

At one point in the film, after an extended car chase, Reacher ditches his car and merges into a group of people waiting at a bus stop.  Many, many police cars come roaring in to surround the abandoned car and –extremely improbably given the horrific sniper deaths the city has just gone through- the waiting passengers don’t point out Reacher to any of the police.  One of them even gives him his baseball cap so that he can hide.  (This scene can be found below, toward the end of the film’s trailer)

Good thing the citizens of Boston weren’t quite that willing to accept a total stranger in their midst while witnessing a massive police hunt.

Still, the main problem with Jack Reacher and what keeps it from rising from being a good action film to being a truly great one is that there is never a point you don’t feel like you’re watching a movie.  There is an artificiality to the product, from the suspect whose case is so completely airtight against him -yet who you know is innocent- to the lovely foil to the stalwart strong and silent type hero to the despicable (and ill-defined in terms of their actual end game) villains to the…I could go on and on, but what’s the point?

As I said, Jack Reacher is a good action film that moves well and gives you plenty to see. Just don’t go in there expecting to have your socks knocked off.

Street People (1976) a (very) belated review

First, sorry for the dearth of posts the past two weeks.  Couldn’t be helped as I’ve been remarkably busy…though now it looks like things have calmed down just in time for summer.

Now then, the 1976 film Street People (the film is also known as Sicilian Cross).  Never heard of it?  Neither, frankly, had I.  That is, until I spotted it on Netflix the other day.  The film features Roger Moore as Ulysses, a suave -yet outwardly very honest- mob lawyer who, on the side, is really a two-fisted fixer who, along with his partner Charlie Hanson (Stacy Keach) makes sure that all the crime bosses behave and if anyone engages in any skullduggery, even if they’re his close relatives, they will meet their justice for any crimes.

My review of the film is brief:  If you enjoy 1970’s era Roger Moore, Street People is a passable diversion, though it is far from the most coherent or exciting thing you’ll ever see.  I suspect most modern audiences, especially those not as aware of Roger Moore’s oeuvre, will find little worth seeing.

But me, being something of that 1970’s era Roger Moore fan, was intrigued to find this movie even existed, yet it fit into a pattern of the type of movies Mr. Moore appeared to be pursuing: Films where he shared the screen with other well known movie/TV stars.

Perhaps the genesis of Mr. Moore’s interest in sharing the screen with other well known actors began with the short lived 1971-72 TV series The Persuaders.  In that show, Mr. Moore shared the title role with Tony Curtis.

The same year that Street People was released came the Roger Moore/Lee Marvin pairing in Shout at the Devil.

Two years later, in 1978, Mr. Moore would join a larger cast, including Richard Burton, Richard Harris, and Stewart Granger in The Wild Geese.

The next year, in 1979, Mr. Moore shared the screen with James Mason and Anthony Perkins in the terrorist drama Ffolkes.

That very same year, Mr. Moore was part of a large ensemble cast that included Telly Savalas, David Niven, Claudia Cardinale, and a whole host of others in Escape to Athena.

The year after that, in 1980, Mr. Moore starred with Gregory Peck, David Niven (again!), and Trevor Howard in The Sea Wolves.

Am I making my point?  Well, let me add just one more film:  In 1981 Mr. Moore played a small -yet arguably the most humorous- role in a movie featuring a very large cast and starring Burt Reynolds.  Who can forget….The Cannonball Run?

Ok, so I’ve gone an awful, AWFUL long way to make this point:  I have a feeling Street People (remember that film?  You know, the one this blog post was allegedly reviewing?) features Stacy Keach in a role that looks an awful lot like it was originally tailored for…Burt Reynolds.

In fact, I’m positive the “good-ol’ boy race driver” role that Mr. Keach played in Street People had to have been originally intended for Mr. Reynolds.  As proof, I offer the following clip from that movie:

Much as I like Mr. Keach as an actor, every time he appeared on screen in Street People I couldn’t help but wonder if the film would have been better had Mr. Reynolds played the secondary role.

Perhaps.

Regardless, I doubt he would have made the film all that much better than it eventually was.  Still, an intriguing bit of what it…if nothing else.