Tag Archives: Movie Reviews

Army of the Dead (2021) a (Right On Time!) Review… Now With Bonus Comments!

Have to say… I was looking forward to seeing this film.

While I’m one of those nut-cases that defended -and continue to defend- Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman despite so many hate-hate-hating the film, I kinda loved it, especially in its Extended/Director’s Cut (truly, that version made the theatrical cut unnecessary).

Having said that, I’m not a Zack Snyder uber-fan. In total and before seeing the above film, I’ve seen a grand total of two of his films start to end: Dawn of the Dead and Batman v Superman. I’m well aware of his other films, including Man of Steel, the film that led to BvS, as well as the very recently released Zack Snyder’s Justice League, his version of the infamous film which has received quite good reviews. I intend to see that later film as soon as possible.

Regardless, I was a little more curious to see Army of the Dead and, voila!, that’s what I’ve done.

Army of the Dead, a Netflix exclusive film, was released yesterday and I wound up seeing it in two sittings. It is a long film and, frankly, with one hour of it left yesterday, my poor (increasingly) old body wasn’t up to catching the full thing as night was closing in and I was very tired.

Lest you think otherwise, though, I would have sat through the whole thing if I had the energy.

It was quite good!

Here’s the movie’s trailer:

Army of the Dead brings director Zack Snyder back to the “zombie” genre he had so much success with in his first feature film, the remake of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

I recall when word came out that he was remaking it people thought it sacrilege: How could anyone dare to remake what is probably the all time best zombie film ever made? (I know, I know… there are those who think Night of the Living Dead, George Romero’s first zombie film, is his best… I think it, along with Day of the Dead, are both incredibly good, but Dawn IMHO is his very best)

Incredibly, Zack Snyder and screenwriter James Gunn (yes, the very same James Gunn that would go on to make Guardians of the Galaxy and the upcoming Suicide Squad film) did the near impossible: Create a film that touches upon George Romero’s classic -at least with regard to the movie’s setting- yet goes down its own fascinating path.

And that opening sequence…!

Fast forward to yesterday and, as I said, Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead is released and once again we’re back to those darn zombies.

First though: Army of the Dead (let’s call it AotD from now on, ok?) is not a direct sequel to Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead.

While it does feature zombies, the cause of their appearance and the setting is vastly different from the end of the world scenario presented in Dawn of the Dead.

AotD’s plot goes like this: Las Vegas gets a zombie infection, is closed off (a la Escape From New York) and, maybe a few years later (or a little less), a very rich Japanese businessman approaches Scott Ward (Dave Bautista, quite good) one of the “heroes” of the Las Vegas evacuation who helped save many others, including a VIP right as it was closing off, to “break into” Las Vegas (again, a la Escape From New York) to get to a vault in one of the city’s buildings and steal back some 200 million dollars in it. He stands to claim $50 million of it and split it however he wants with his crew.

Tempting though the offer is, Ward, who turns out to be suffering PTSD from the events of the evacuation of Las Vegas and has nightmares and visions, including the death of his wife, of that time, isn’t willing to say yes right away. Though he’s working in a greasy hamburger joint and is estranged from his daughter and could use the money, it takes him a full day to agree to the job and gets his old crew together for it.

But Ward is no amateur: He knows there’s more here than meets the eye and doesn’t trust his employer at all.

Among the old group he gets together are Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), Vanderhoe (Omari Hardwick), safecracker Dieter (Mathias Shweighofer), and helicopter pilot Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro). But as the group is about to leave, they’re thrown a curve: the billionaire who hired them insists one of his security men, Martin (Garrett Dillahunt), accompany them.

Further complicating things a little later on is that Ward needs his estranged daughter, Kate’s (Ella Purnell) help to get them into Las Vegas because she’s a volunteer at a shelter just outside the city and that, in turns, leads them to Lilly the Coyote (Nora Amezeder) who knows just how to do this but may not have the group’s best intentions in mind.

Each and every one of the actors are damn good in their respective roles and a further note should be made regarding the ingenuity of Zack Snyder with regard to Tig Notaro’s role.

For those unaware, the film was completely shot with comedian Chris D’Elia in the helicopter pilot role. However, after the filming was complete serious sexual misconduct accusations were leveled against Mr. D’Elia and Zack Snyder chose to scrub the comedian from the film. He was digitally replaced, in post production, with Tig Notaro (you can read more about that here).

While the end product isn’t completely seamless, it is damn close and Notaro’s interactions with the cast -which she never had!- work an incredible 99% of the time. In fact, there was only one occasion where I felt it was obvious she and the others weren’t acting against each other and that was the very first scene where Ward and Maria Cruz meet and recruit Notaro’s Marianne Peters. That was the one, and only scene, where it felt obvious their performances were pierced together.

Incredible end result, truly!

So the various characters eventually make their moves and more intrigue forces compromises -I won’t spoil everything!- to their group. Once they do make their entry into Las Vegas, the zombie plague they expected to find isn’t quite what many thought it would be and the zombies may not be completely brainless murderers after all.

AotD, to its great credit, doesn’t fully take itself seriously. There’s plenty of tongue in cheek elements and humorous interplay along with the serious -and at times gory- elements. The last hour/climax of the film, in particular, left me pretty breathless but that worked so well because the buildup made me care for what happened to the various characters in the end.

Still, there were little things here and there that annoyed me, particularly Mr. Snyder’s use of out of focus frames here and there. I know he gets a lot of grief for using too much slow motion -he really didn’t do so here- but this time around he seemed enamored with doing these hazy out of focus shots and, at times, they were perhaps a little too much.

The film is also quite long, clocking in at 2 and a half hours and maybe some might consider that a little too much. There’s a CODA as well that, for me, maybe was better left either on the cutting room floor or after the credits rather than in the film proper.

But that’s just me!

Regardless, if you’re in the mood for some good action/suspense and aren’t too burned out with the zombie genre, AotD is a perfect time killer.

Recommended.

POSTSCRIPT:

I’ve been intrigued to see the various comments from people regarding this film, mostly very negative.

Over on rottentomatoes.com, Army of the Dead is currently earning a very good 70% positive among critics and a 76% positive among audiences.

And yet… I see plenty of online posts in the various blogs and places I visit with people quite literally wondering why anyone would like the film.

One of the bigger criticisms I see involves the character of Martin who joins the team at the last minute and works for the billionaire who hired them originally. To everyone -including the members of the team- he clearly has an agenda of his own, and later in the film we find out that the money the billionaire claims to want to recover is not as important as getting the head/blood of one of the uber-zombies.

Later in the film he, along with the “Coyote”, capture the female uber-zombie and he decapitates her, taking her head with him at that point.

However, these people point out, early in the film they first encounter the female zombie and her companion, and he could have captured her then and taken off, leaving the others to get the money on their own.

I suppose… but…

This was early in the film and Martin had yet to have any interaction with the Coyote character and, like everyone else, wasn’t as sure of the so-called “lay of the land” within Las Vegas. Because of that, attacking her at that point might have resulted in a really big attack on them.

So, yes, I can see why he didn’t act at that point and it wasn’t such a huge plot hole to me as some feel it is.

Regardless, there are those who feel the film was terrible even without this particular issue. They feel the film was either too slow or too long. Both criticisms, IMHO, are certainly valid to these individuals. The film is 2 and 1/2 hours long and I can certainly see people becoming anxious for it to move along. For me, this too wasn’t such a big bother.

Another criticism is that the movie’s ending is too much of a downer, that (SPOILERS!!!!!) all these characters die out so quickly at the very end.

This I kinda don’t understand.

Zombie films, especially those by George Romero, tend to end on a very downbeat nature and with most of the main cast annihilated. Thus, people we’ve come to like generally tend to not make it to the end. Further, this is also a heist film, and if you’ve seen many of them, they don’t always follow the lighthearted pattern of an Ocean’s 11 (the original or remake). In fact, more often than not these films are about not only the heist, but the disintegration of the team after said heist. Often, characters are double crossed or captured and/or killed before they can spend their ill-gotten gains.

I’m talking about films like The Anderson Tapes or The Killing or The Brinks Job.

So, again, not much of an issue for me.

Elsewhere, I found it interesting when I interacted with someone over on i09.com and s/he noted that perhaps because we are dealing with a Zack Snyder film, there is a certain amount of baggage inherent in people’s reaction to it, not unlike they have a certain reaction to the works of J. J. Abrams or Michael Bay.

It seems to me this may be a valid issue, at least with some people’s reactions out there, but I doubt it has to do with the vast majority of the negative reviews I spotted.

Understand: To me, people’s opinions are just that. What may work for me may not for you and vice versa and therefore I take people’s criticisms at face value and try not to look beyond it at possible agendas that may -or may not!- be there.

Still, its intriguing how many people had a very negative reaction to what I thought was a decent action/suspense film!

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), A (Mildly) Belated *Sorta* Review…

Well…

Spider-Man: Far From Home. The second Tom Holland starring Spider-Man film.

Very popular among both audiences and critics where, according to rottentomatoes.com, it boasting an incredible 90% positive for the critics and 95% positive to audiences.

Which means that a miniscule 10% of professional critics didn’t like the film and, of the audiences that showed their opinions, only 5% didn’t like it.

Man, sometimes it feels lonely being in the minority.

But before I get into that, here’s the movie’s trailer:

Now the reason this is a Sorta review is because I didn’t see the entire film.

I know, I know… how can you review it if you didn’t see the whole damn thing?

Welp, here’s the thing:

A few months ago I tried very hard to watch the film start to end and the opening 40-50 minutes were so godawful to me that I simply couldn’t watch them without shutting it off.

Multiple times.

I would watch, say, 10 minutes before it proved too much for me and off the movie went. Then, perhaps even the very next another day, I’d try again, this time going through another 10-15 minutes before -once again- shutting it off. I did this in total some three or four days more or less in a row and, to put it bluntly: That first half of the movie proved almost completely unwatchable to me.

The plot goes like this: Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s (Tom Holland) class is going on a European field trip and Parker is hoping to express his love to “MJ” (Zendaya) while his friends and rivals and two teachers chaperoning them all have their own adventures.

Slowly, oh so very slowly, it is revealed there’s a danger in Europe and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) wants Spider-Man to look into it while he tries to advance his romantic life and “enjoy” the field trip.

Turns out there’s a new super-powered being, Quentin Beck aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) who claims to come from another world that was destroyed by this threat coming to Earth.

But, for those familiar with the comic book character, its pretty obvious there’s much more to him than meets the eye.

It was, again in my opinion, painful to watch. The humor was beyond obvious and groan-inducing. The set up toward the danger moved along at a snail’s pace.

Those opening scenes proved simply too much for me and, after 3-4 attempts at getting through the first hour of the film, I gave up and thought that was that.

Not everything works for you as a viewer and, while I have absolutely nothing against the vast number of people who loved the film (good for you!), I just couldn’t do it.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago.

While flipping through the channels I found one of them showing Spider-Man: Far From Home and it was, I’m assuming, from roughly the point where Spider-Man first realizes Mysterio is actually a villain and the web-slinger has his first major fight against him.

While the sour feelings I had toward the film’s first half lingered, I nonetheless decided to watch and…

…it wasn’t bad.

Not at all!

So I kept watching, catching roughly the last 40 plus minutes of the film and found that section was pretty exciting stuff with some really great CGI effects.

Ladies and gentlemen: I really liked what I saw!

…but…

It didn’t diminish my very negative feelings toward the film’s first acts.

Though I haven’t seen the entire film (there are probably some 20 or so minutes of the middle section I have yet to see), I find myself with some really contradictory feelings about Spider-Man: Far From Home.

The first parts are and IMHO remain absolutely dreadful. The conclusion, on the other hand, is quite exciting and very much worth catching.

Perhaps this is the first review where I’ll say: If you’re like me and are interested in seeing the film and find the first parts not to your liking, then fast forward the film and watch its conclusion.

That part is quite good!

Omega Doom (1996) A (Apocalyptically Belated) Review

Ah, Rutger Hauer.

Probably one of the bigger influences on my creative works through the 1980’s. The character of B’taav, the Independent who is one of the protagonists in my Corrosive Knights series, was based on Rutger Hauer and French actor Jean Marais

Amazon.com: The Last Flight of the Argus (Corrosive Knights Book 2) eBook:  Torre, E. R.: Kindle Store

I loved his appearances -brief yet stunning as it was- in Blade Runner, which will probably be viewed as his seminal role. But he was so great in The Hitcher, Ladyhawke, and Nighthawks.

He was also great, IMHO, in lesser films like Wanted: Dead or Alive and Split Second.

If you go over to Mr. Hauer’s IMDb page, you’ll find a massive 175 acting credits to his name. Looking over the many works he did post 2000, it was clear that though he remained quite active and in demand, his greatest days were behind him before he passed away in 2019.

The reality, sadly, is that even in the later 1980’s Mr. Hauer was beginning to appear in lower budgeted films, some of which were …uh… questionable in quality.

In 1996 he appeared in the film Omega Doom, which some consider the absolute nadir of Mr. Hauer’s starring films. Here’s the movie’s trailer:

Let me start by saying until yesterday I never saw this film. Further to that, my understanding is that the film is related, perhaps obliquely, to the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme film Cyborg. This is because the movie’s director, Albert Pyun, was behind both films as well as a few others set in the Cyborg universe.

Anyway, let’s get this out of the way: The film is quite terrible.

It features a meandering plot which directly lifts -or rips off, depending on how kind you want to be about it- Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars.

The plot is that in a post-apocalyptic world, the sole survivors are robots that were built to destroy humans. The robots have formed their own “tribes” and fight against each other but one robot, Hauer’s Omega Doom (yeah, that’s the character’s name!) sustained an injury to his head which made him lose his original murderous programming. He’s effectively become a “good guy” who roams the apocalyptic world and happens to stumble upon a small town which has two robot sides -who would normally be fighting against each other- living in a weird uneasy truce. There’s also a bartender and a robot “head” being kicked around.

Omega Doom enters this town and, like Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars, he will work both sides against each other. But the story is presented almost incoherently and at the end two prominent characters introduced early on simply disappear, never to be seen again.

What happened?

Further, the movie’s effects are mostly amateurish at best and downright embarrassing at worst. Oddly enough, I would have been more forgiving had the film been released in the 1980’s rather than 1996.

…and yet…

The acting in the film is actually pretty damn good. Much better than one would think.

Then there’s Rutger freaking Hauer.

He’s very good in a role that, as I mentioned before, is essentially a re-tread of Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo and Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars. Don’t get me wrong: He doesn’t necessarily goes outside his comfort zone yet he’s got his charisma going and is an intriguing presence.

As I also mentioned, most of the small cast around Mr. Hauer are pretty damn good as well.

Anna Katarina is very sympathetic as the Bartender who wishes all the violence would stop. Likewise, Norbert Weisser is fun as the “Head”, a decapitated robot head that is battered around but is helped by Hauer’s Omega Doom.

The other actors -and there aren’t that many!- playing the various villains are also quite good.

One can’t help but wonder if the film had a better budget and stronger effects along with a more polished script this movie might have a far better reputation than it does.

As it stands, though, I can’t recommend Omega Doom to anyone out there other than big fans -like me- of Rutger Hauer.

Premium Rush (2012) a (very) Belated Review

There was a time when I would have described myself as something of a movie snob. I enjoyed the hell out of watching films, mind you, but I was the sort of fan who would nitpick all the faults I’d see in films, even the ones I adored.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve mellowed out considerably. As an author, I know the hard work that goes into making something and I know that as a creator you simply can’t do everything you want with whatever work you’re involved in. Sometimes, you may be a victim of a time crunch. Other times, you simply miss out on something that others may notice (the dreaded not quite seeing the forest for the trees cliche). Other times you did the best you could and need to let a project go -you can literally spend your whole life revising and revising and revising a work if you let yourself.

Anyway, long story short, the 2012 film Premium Rush was on yesterday on one of the premium cable stations and I started watching it and damned if I didn’t find it interesting enough to keep watching it through.

Here’s the movie’s trailer:

Let me state up front: This is a popcorn film through and through. There’s no intention, by the actors, producers, directors, and screenwriters, to make something deep which explores the human condition.

The story involves Wilee (as in Wile E. Coyote) a bike courier (Joseph Gorden-Levitt, enjoyable as our protagonist) versus Bobby Monday, a corrupt cop (Michael Shannon, not quite chewing all the scenery and never presented as too terribly evil… but evil enough) who hides his true identity behind the phony name Forrest J. Ackerman (a nice, though coming out of nowhere in-joke for movie fans).

Wilee is hired to deliver a letter and Bobby Monday very much needs to intercept it and get his hands on it.

The movie involves the efforts by both to take care of this McGuffin letter.

I won’t get into too many spoilers about what the letter has -this is explained, naturally, in the course of the movie- but suffice to say there’s a noble reason to deliver the letter and an evil reason by our corrupt cop to get his hands on it.

The movie could have been dark, presenting the villain as an out of control killer and New York as a slaughter ground for bike couriers, but instead decided to go for a much lighter presentation. The film is amiable, surprisingly so, and the interactions between Wilee and Bobby Monday are often semi-humorous, though the tension is always there.

The only debit I’d place on the film is that, like the Road Runner cartoon character Wilee’s name is based on, there isn’t much “there” there. The plot is pretty simple, the various characters’ motivations too, and by the time the story unfurls, one can’t help but feel the movie would -and maybe should- have been much shorter. To expand the time, the film often goes back in time to fill us in on events which led to where we are “now”. At times its interesting though at times these little past interludes feel like they break up the movie’s momentum.

The director/co-writer of the film is David Koepp, who is perhaps best known for screenplays rather than direction. Among the movies he’s written screenplays for are Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, Mission Impossible, and the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man. Most recently he directed the suspense/horror film You Should Have Left with Kevin Bacon. He does a decent job here, clearly showing us the action and immersing us in this version of New York City, full of people and buildings and cars… plenty of obstacles your average bike courier has to deal with.

Again, while the film may not be a masterpiece of cinema, its a pleasant enough time killer with a pleasant cast of characters. You could do far worse than spend a quiet afternoon watching Premium Rush.

Radius (2017) A Mildly Belated Review

In spite of the Coronavirus and the fact that I’m at home more than out nowadays, its tough to carve out the free time to watch films and, frankly, it frustrates me to no end having so many other things to do and not have that free time for myself.

Now and again I’ll go over the “sales” over on VUDU and check out which films I can get digitally for very low prices. I suppose its the digital/web equivalent of searching through the $5 bins of DVDs from yesteryear.

Anyway, a week or two ago I spotted the film Radius (2017) among those on sale and I had never heard of it.

At all.

However, VUDU is clever in that when you hover your pointer over any movie you see its ratings and Radius, I saw when my pointer was over it, had a very high 93% positive rating.

That, along with the bargain basement price it was available at and its intriguing premise, were enough to make me purchase the film.

Here’s Radius’ trailer:

So intrigued I was with the film’s positive rating and some of the critical reactions I read about it that I made myself some time to *gasp* actually sit down and watch it yesterday, which I did.

And I must say, I’m very impressed.

To begin, Radius is an extremely low budget film. I say this without the intention of being snarky or demeaning, but the film features a car crash -an element central to the movie’s plot- and the folks who made the film couldn’t show us said car crash and instead had to use camera tricks to simulate a crash happening by showing the car’s passengers reactions.

This is not a bad thing, mind you, only that I point this out because if there are any glaring faults I found in this film, they are a result of the film’s very low budget.

The plot, as much as I’m willing to reveal, involves Liam (Diego Klattenhoff, perhaps best known nowadays for his role in the long running TV show The Blacklist) awakening from a car crash. He’s bloodied and confused and finds himself in a very rural area.

He is all alone and walks down the road, following signs to a small (very small!) town and shortly before arriving there a car drives near him, he waves it down, and the car moves to stop for him… but goes on, very slowly, nearly running him down before its momentum is stopped.

Liam, unsure what is happening, approaches the car and finds the female driver within is dead and her eyes are a milky white.

What follows is the mystery of what is happening around Liam and, eventually, how he comes to know another person, Jane (Charlotte Sullivan), who we will find is also intricately involved in the mystery surrounding Liam.

If you noticed -and I don’t see how you couldn’t!- I’m not giving away many details at all.

This is a unique film whose story -and the many mysteries surrounding it- unfolds in an extremely satisfying manner. You think you have a grasp of what’s going on only to get another piece of the puzzle which takes you in another direction, then another, then another.

It all leads up to a shattering climax which reveals everything, and makes you re-examine everything as well.

This is not a perfect film and I suspect it would have benefitted from a little more budget, though not necessarily so they could show the initial car crash. I feel like the movie’s climax could have used a little more *umph*, that they were a little more restrained than they needed to be.

But these are incredibly small quibbles for what is truly a miracle of sorts: An extremely low budget film that presents a rock solid script filled with unfolding mysteries that not only keep your attention but truly take you on a trip into the unknown.

Highly recommended.

Avalanche Express (1979) A (Snowy) Review

There are plenty of very good films either set within a train or featuring extended sequences involving a train. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes and North By Northwest (the former took place almost entirely on a train, the later had some great sequences within a train) are two good examples. Others include the first Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor film, The Silver Streak. There’s the original The Narrow Margin, considered by many one of the best B movies ever made. Perhaps Agatha Christie’s best novel, which was twice made into pretty good films, Murder on the Orient Express, takes place almost entirely on the aforementioned train.

Alas, the 1979 film Avalanche Express, which takes place almost entirely on a train traveling through scenic Europe, doesn’t belong in this list.

What a strange, strange film. Here’s the trailer:

Perhaps no film is known as much for the misfortunes that happened behind the scenes rather than the film itself than 1979’s Avalanche Express.

Both Producer/Director Mark Robson (who is known for, among others, another “train” film, Von Ryan’s Express) and actor Robert Shaw both died during the film’s production. While Robert Shaw appears to have completed most of his scenes, he was quite sick during the making of the film and his dialogue was ultimately almost completely dubbed. Quite badly, I might add.

Oh, and to be clear: There are a few sequences here and there where we see the back of Robert Shaw’s character and I’m assuming that was a stand-in, though there isn’t anything along the lines of Bela Lugosi’s clumsy replacement in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Nonetheless, there is one major plot element missing which I’ll get to in a moment which may be explained because Robert Shaw was no longer around to film it.

The film opens with Robert Shaw’s character, Soviet General Marenkov, having a meeting with his fellow Soviet Union/Communist bigwigs. Among them is Maximillian Schell’s Colonel Nikolai Bunin, who is told to leave the room for a moment while Marenkov talks about how their computer systems are being breached. Marenkov makes some snide remarks to Bunin after the meeting that he was in charge of the security, and then they talk briefly about how to find the mole in Europe.

Next thing we know, we’re introduced to Lee Marvin’s spy group. This group consists of Haller (Mike Connors, the leader or co-leader of this group, its never made terribly clear), Elsa Lang (Linda Evans), Leroy (Joe Namath (!!!!)), and of course Lee Marvin’s Colonel Harry Wargrave.

They’re a sorta/kinda Mission: Impossible group of professionals who are stationed in Europe and deal with the Soviets during these waning days of the Cold War.

Sadly, Lee Marvin was looking rather old for this action role and especially too old to be the Linda Evans’ love interest but there you have it.

While its never explained very well (this might be where a sequence was not filmed due to Robert Shaw’s passing), they are informed Marenkov has defected.

Again, it isn’t explained how we went from Marenkov briefing Communist big-wigs into looking into a mole in Europe to him defecting. If I understand it right, General Marenkov is disillusioned with the Soviet Union’s …uh… terrorist ways?… I think, and Bunin, who he was talking with in the movie’s opening act, is one of the people who are using the Soviet Union’s security apparatus to cause the terrorism. Now that he’s defected, Bunin is after Marenkov and wants to eliminate him.

Marenkov defects directly to Wargrave and his group and they realize that this is a superb opportunity to clean out all of Europe of the worst “hawkish”/terrorist elements of the Soviet Union.

How?

By dangling Marenkov as bait on a trip through Europe by train and then take out all the bad guys as they come after him. Marenkov, as it turns out, wants to be used this way but, again, we seem to be missing a few sequences explaining why he’s willing to go along with this dangerous -to him!- plan.

Avalanche Express was completed by cult director Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop) but the end result is a very odd bird of a film, an action/adventure/intrigue Cold War spy film which features one major sequence that feels like it belongs in your typical 1970’s era “disaster” film.

That sequence, involving the avalanche which the movie’s name is derived from, occurs roughly at the halfway point of the film and, while a decent scene (for its time, anyway) it doesn’t have a lot of logic to it either. The avalanche must be damn slow moving -or coming from a mountain that is literally miles up- for the passengers of the train to both know its coming and then have the time to come up with a way to escape being swept away in the nick of time.

Further, there’s also this sequence earlier on where Bunin’s people stop and have a huge shoot out with those on the train, breaking windows and putting many holes in the train’s body… while the other passengers are still inside!

Once the shoot out and avalanche are done and they reach their destination, its like the passengers have completely forgotten what happened and the train’s bullet holes and broken windows seem to have fixed themselves and they off load as if nothing serious happened to them!

Maybe back in the late 1970’s and during the height of the Cold War, it was a given that riding the rails through Europe involved extreme dangers?!

These are just some of the absurdities you’ll find in this film, and I haven’t even gotten to the very end which features -MILD SPOILERS!- the use of torpedoes (yes, you read that right) and the appearance of one Joe Namath as Leroy, a character that feels like it could have been played by any then semi-popular ex-football players. Hell, if Namath wasn’t available, I’m sure they would have pivoted to O. J. Simpson. It wouldn’t have mattered, truly.

Yet for all its absurdity, Avalanche Express nonetheless kinda entertained me… so long as I let it roll along without thinking too terribly hard about all those absurdities.

The question is: Is it a good film?

Hell no, but with a cast as large and varied as this one, there’s so much stuff to see and enjoy -even for laughs- and given the film’s relatively short runtime (the movie runs just shy of 1 hour and a half) you’re not going to lose too much of your time watching it.

Would I recommend the film?

Only to those who are interested in the actors involved and are particularly interested in seeing Robert Shaw’s final performance.

Otherwise, check out The Silver Streak.

The Last of Shiela (1973) a (very) Belated Review

I saw the clever murder mystery film The Last of Shiela a very long time ago and recalled only one element, the murder of one character (I’ll not say which) but otherwise remembered not much of it. Here’s the film’s trailer:

The Last of Shiela is an interesting curio: It features the only screenplay credits of Stephen Sondheim (known mostly for his work in theater and musicals) and Anthony Perkins (best known as playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho). The two were apparently fond of creating murder mystery games they played with their friends and used this to write the screenplay for this film.

The Last of Shiela is a Hollywood dog-eat-dog story through and through, where the “beautiful” people are revealed to be anything but.

The movie opens with the hit and run death of Shiela (Yvonne Romaine) who leaves a party held by her husband Clinton Green (James Coburn, extremely good as a powerful Hollywood broker and oddball) after getting into an argument with him. As she walks around the Hollywood hills, she’s hit and killed and the driver of the car, after seeing what s/he’s done, drives off.

A year later, Green arranges a party with five of his “friends”, frustrated script re-writer Tom (Richard Benjamin) who’s been out of the game and fears he won’t again get any significant work and his rich wife Lee (Joan Hackett), vicious and nympho Hollywood agent Christine (Dyan Cannon), famous and beautiful “it girl” actress Alice (Rachel Welch) who the paparazzi follow and her rough hued -and far less successful- husband Anthony (Ian McShane) she keeps wrapped around her finger, and veteran director Phillip (James Mason), who may have an unhealthy thing for underage girls.

As in the best of Agatha Christie murder mysteries, while they may outwardly look like beautiful people, its all a mask. None of the characters is particularly noble or nice and they accept Green’s party invitation because each of them hopes that by getting close to Green, they may advance their career.

Thing is, the game Green has planned, which involves getting these five isolated and together on his yacht, seems to be a means of revealing which one of them might have been the one to kill his wife Shiela the year before.

The game, eventually, takes a deadly turn.

The Last of Shiela is a fun, at times nasty murder mystery which rewards those who pay attention to the movie’s details.

While I saw the film before, again, I didn’t recall any details except for the murder of one character. I did, as I watched it again, notice one thing early in the film which revealed to me who the murderer was (I’ll not say what!).

If you catch the details, you’ll figure it out too because the movie doesn’t hide any of its clues and, by the end, reveals all.

This is a pretty great Agatha Christie-like murder mystery. For a film that’s nearly fifty years old, it moves well and is a fun watch.

Recommended!

The Snowman (2017) A (Mildly) Belated Review

I vaguely recall there was some excitement regarding the 2017 release of the film The Snowman.

Based on a novel by popular mystery/thriller writer Jo Nesbø, the film featured Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, J. K. Simmons, and Val Kilmer. The movie was produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In; Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy).

And yet, when the film was released, it was met with almost universal scorn from critics and Mr. Alfredson went on the acknowledge his film was a failure, even stating that because of budget cuts, he was unable to film some 10% of the script (!).

The film, needless to say, didn’t do too well at the box-office and was soon gone, if not forgotten.

Yet I was intrigued by the stories regarding the film and its final release. It isn’t often that you get what seems for all intents and purposes a very high profile “A” film with a great cast, director, writer, and producer which turns out to be -if the critics are to be believed- a near complete disaster.

Yeah, I was curious to see this film. I had to see for myself.

I’ll start with the good, which I think is pretty apparent from the above trailer: The film looks gorgeous. The snowy Norwegian setting is both beautiful and, when needed, creepy.

And that’s about all that’s good about this film.

This is a fragmented film whose story is at times difficult to follow because we have things happening here and there and often one sequence doesn’t even seem to be related to another. For example, the entire political subplot involving J. K. Simmons amounts to almost nothing in the context of the rest of the film. And Mr. Simmons isn’t even the only recognizable actor to appear in a nothing subplot. Perhaps one of the most head scratching sequence, a very small cameo appearance by Chloë Sevigny, has her play a victim of the serial killer and her twin sister!! Why? To give Ms. Sevigny three minutes of screen time instead of a paltry two?! Because that’s her entire story arc, victim then twin sister who shows up seconds later to say her sister was a good person, and that’s that.

Perhaps the saddest thing to see is Val Kilmer, who at the time was dealing with health issues and who looked, to be blunt, pretty sickly. Every bit of his dialogue was dubbed, quite badly, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he looks alarmingly frail, you’d laugh at the pathetic attempt to dub his lines in.

Michael Fassbender, a usually reliably good actor, is not terrible but is relegated to playing a one note character, your morose, brilliant, yet alcoholic/burnt out protagonist. His character’s alcoholism has him on the outs with the police department but he latches on to a promising young detective (Rebecca Ferguson) who has secrets of her own and is involved in what may be a case involving a serial killer.

Of course, it turns out that they are indeed dealing with a clever serial killer, one with mysterious motives and possibly years of hidden activity.

While the movie is a mess, in the end one does put the pieces together enough to understand the plot they were trying to present. Unfortunately, even with that knowledge one feels the story was underwhelming.

I suspect in the novel the movie was based on the many weird characters and scenes that seemed to go nowhere mattered a lot more than they do on screen. By the time we reach the movie’s climax and the serial killer is revealed, he turns out to be pretty much who we thought and afterwards wonder why he bothered with many of the actions he took.

As I said before, based on the stories I read about The Snowman, I couldn’t not see it. The curiosity alone made it irresistible.

But the movie is every bit as disjointed and disappointing as the critics said, with the only redeeming element being the wonderful cinematography and winter setting.

Too bad.

The Equalizer 2 (2018) a (Mildly) Belated Review

Back in 2014 Denzel Washington starred in a remake/reworking of The Equalizer TV show starring Edward Woodward which ran from 1985 through 1989. Here’s a bit of the TV show, for those unfamiliar with it…

I was a fan of the original TV series which was basically a clever variation on James Bond… had the venerable agent grown older and retired to New York and decided to continue helping people who needed his “unique” skills.

When the Denzel Washington film came out, I reviewed it (you can read my review of it here) and I thought it was an “ok” film. Not terrible by any stretch of the imagination but neither did I feel it was particularly memorable.

I also questioned why the film was made as a remake of that particular show. To wit: Why take away the one thing that made the TV show so unique, the idea of an elderly James Bond type in New York, and get rid of that completely by having Denzel Washington play an agent who others thought was dead but, through the course of this original movie, ends up where the Edward Woodward show began, with him offering his “unique” services to those in need. Only he wasn’t a “fish out of water” James Bond in a New York milieu.

When The Equalizer 2, the sequel to this film, was released in 2018, I didn’t really care to see it. Again, I didn’t hate the original movie but I was leery of the changes made to the original concept and didn’t feel particularly compelled to go watch the sequel.

A couple years passed and the film showed up on a cable channel and, for the heck of it, I DVRed it. It sat there for a few months and yesterday, for the heck of it, I decided to give it a try.

Though my expectations were low, I found the opening hour or so of the film quite interesting: It took its time to establish the various characters and their situation(s), drawing me as a viewer in to the world of Robert McCall (Denzel Washington, natch) and the machinations that ultimately lead to him having to deal with a group of killers… a group of which he was once a part of.

I don’t want to get into SPOILERS and I won’t, but it was refreshing to see this opening and to see director Antoine Fuqua, who directed the original film, take his time showing us the various characters who play a role in the story to come.

However, as good as it was in the early going, it felt like this went on a little longer than it should have. Still, once the pieces were set and the action really started, it was interesting and tense, even if I would also say it wasn’t necessarily spectacular.

The best part of the film, IMHO, was the way it presented the idea of a hurricane -yes, the weather system- slowly coming in, scene by scene. I really like the way that the weather deteriorates subtly as the movie goes along, symbolically showing the fury of McCall building. Once we reach the climax, the hurricane -and McCall’s fury- is quite literally all around us. We see McCall at his deadliest against the bad guys as the full force of the hurricane buffets them.

…but…

The bad guys, like in the original film, are unfortunately once again not all that well defined. I practically moaned when their leader explained his evil actions with the cliched “we worked for X so and so number of years and then they just put us out to pasture… we’re not going to let them!”

…but still…

Despite this I enjoyed this movie. In fact, I’d say it was far better than the original Equalizer. While it may not be the best action/adventure film evah, its kinda nice to see one with a lot of thought behind its story and structure and a not insignificant amount of heart.

While The Equalizer 2 does not reinvent the wheel and I’m still not sold on the idea of re-doing a TV show while removing almost everything that made it unique, if you’ve got a free evening with nothing much to do, spending a bit of time with The Equalizer 2 is far from the worst thing you could do.

Recommended.

Tenet (2020) a (Very Mildly) Belated Review

I watched the film yesterday and, honestly, it feels like maybe I should wait until I see it again before offering a review.

However, given the film runs 2 hours and 30 minutes, I don’t know when I’ll get that chance. Besides, I think I got most of what the film was about but will acknowledge it is quite deep and it does, like the best of director/writer Christopher Nolan features, ask the audience to think and not just passively watch what goes on screen.

Having said all that, the film is essentially a James Bond movie -specifically the 1965 film Thunderball– mixed with time travel elements.

Indeed, as the hours passed following seeing the movie, the more and more I realized the movie’s basic plot was indeed a variation of Thunderball. Just for the hell of it, here’s the trailer to that film:

While not one of the best of the Sean Connery Bond films and perhaps the first one (it was the fourth made) to start showing a little wear on the whole Bond formula, Thunderball nonetheless is an entertaining large scale Bond film involving the theft of a nuclear device and Bond’s attempts to get it back before its used to start a nuclear war… and possible Armageddon.

The film’s villain, Largo, is essentially duplicated in Tenet’s Sator (played with menace -and an at times silly Russian accent, by the very British Kenneth Branagh). Sator, like Largo, is very rich and spends plenty of time on his very large and luxurious yacht. Like in Thunderball, Sator is intent on getting a device which could spell the end of the world, only in his case its something that affects time itself.

The movie features John David Washington as “Protagonist”, a no-name hero who, after showing he’s willing to die for his the right cause, is “recruited” into a shadowy world where time is fluid and can run backwards. The fate of humanity is on the line, and with the help of his right hand man Neil (Robert Pattinson in a sorta/kinda Felix Leiter role), they navigate the current situation and devise a way to stop Sator from ending the world.

To do this, they have to go through his wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki, quite good) who is being held on a leash by Sator and suffers greatly from this.

The movie certainly has a Inception-like quality along with its James Bond theme, and there wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t enjoying myself.

However, after the film was finished, there were certain problems with the plot that, at least for me, reared their head. Sadly, when you deal with time travel, especially where various characters are able to do so at will, one begins to wonder why the hero or villain don’t just go “back” to where they can fix things so they succeed and their nemesis fails.

I don’t want to get into SPOILERS, but this is increasingly the case toward the film’s ending. While Mr. Nolan tries to explain away these discrepancies with talk of the Grandfather paradox and fate and history being “set”, the reality is that until time travel is a reality, there is no reason to think we can’t go in time and “reset” the past.

The Grandfather paradox, for example, involves the idea that if we can travel back in time and kill our Grandfather before he conceives one’s father, how is it possible for you (the grandson/daughter) to even exist to go back in time to then kill your Grandfather? Wouldn’t you cease to exist if you were to kill your Grandfather before your father/mother was conceived? But then how did you exist to be able to go and possibly do this to your Grandfather?

It’s a philosophical question, one which has no answer, but I would argue that if time travel were possible (which is an open question, to say the least!) then the idea of multiverses and alternate timelines has to be considered. Thus, you could kill your Grandfather which would change the timeline and mean you now come from a timeline where your Grandfather lived but now, in this new one, the lineage stops yet you can theoretically continue to exist.

I know I’m probably botching the explanation, but its the best I can do off the top of my head.

So, if i do believe that timelines can change, I obviously believe that nothing is set in stone once you move from one time to another. You therefore can murder Adolf Hitler as a baby and, while WWII could still happen, it will do so without Hitler’s presence.

Similarly, some of the things which happen toward the end of Tenet, to my mind, don’t have to happen the way they do. We could simply go back to other points in time to resolve or screw them up worse!

As I said, Nolan movies sure can make you think.

Overall, Tenet is an easy recommendation, a film that borrows the best of James Bond and marries it with some brain twisting time travel. It moves like lightning and is filled with surprises and big set pieces.

Yeah, an easy recommendation.