Tag Archives: action

A Good Day to Die Hard

The other movie I’ve seen lately is the newest Die Hard. You may recall (or at the least, I do) that I really liked the last one. I am sad to say that I liked this one quite a lot less. But I have a good reason. I mean, I have easy reasons too. It’s all about the chases and the explosions and feels more soulless than most Die Hard movies have, and that would be the easy way out. But there are troubling plot and character failures that make me wonder if it’s possible to make another good sequel in this series.

So, each movie has escalated John McClane’s talent for surviving the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s fair, as far as it goes. But… as of the last movie, he was escalated enough to do unbelievable things, because, as I said then, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter and he had the knowledge that not-quite-as-crazy things had worked before. The problem with A Good Day to Die Hard is that McClane, at this point, believes his own hype. The plot leads him to Moscow, to determine why his son stands accused of murder. So when he shows up, tall and proud and sure of his own importance, every inch the cowboy Alan Rickman once accused him of being and eager to be in the wrong place at the wrong time where before it had always been bad luck and fate, well, naturally he ruins all manner of secret spy plans that had been in place. And I’m okay with that, it’s fine drama!

Well. It’s fine drama if there are consequences to his actions. Instead, cleaning up the mess without any hint of an apology (or even a sense that he fucked things up in the first place) is the perfect father-son bonding activity. And this, in a nutshell, is my doubt about any possible continuance. You can make a movie with an overly prideful John McClane stumbling and having to get back to his feet. But John McClane the bull, smashing everything in the china shop and being greeted as the conquering hero upon his exit? That is not a metaphor I find myself perfectly comfortable with, after the past decade or so. But, political metaphor or not, the straightforward reading leaves him superhuman and undefeatable for the first time. Without some concern about the outcome, is it really worth watching?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

3 Replies

A very long time ago, I played a game and thought it was basically fine, compelling even, but not particularly worth following up on the sequels. I cannot tell you a good reason why I would have thought that, beyond the part where I don’t really play all that many games. But considering this was a game I was highly impressed by and able to play through in just a handful of days, you’d think the next one would have gone on the short list. My best guess is I’m used to the rest of the series’ WWII roots meaning I’d be playing the same game over and over with slight variations. Certainly, the thought of a true sequel never crossed my mind.

But then I got the third entry for Christmas in 2011, and when I popped it in to take a look, I quickly realized that, nope, this has some of the same characters and really is a sequel. Which meant I had to get the second entry and for that matter relay the first one and remind myself what was going on even before that. And then, as it does, time slipped away. Which explains why fully a year later, I have only just now played Modern Warfare 2.

On the bright side, it has every last one of the same benefits of its predecessor. Intricate and exciting storytelling, rapid yet challenging gameplay[1], characters to care about who face ethical dilemmas and real consequences, plus the added benefit of characters you have already previously cared about. My only complaint, minor though it be, is that a couple of the scenes really felt like replays of the previous game; and this is easily balanced by the plot following directly from the plot of the previous game, with amplified stakes and a dark ending that leaves me entirely excited for Modern Warfare 3, whenever I get around to playing it.

[1] I finished over the course of a single weekend!

Jack Reacher

Okay, admission time. Tom Cruise is one of those people you’re just supposed to not like, and considering the way he turned Katie Holmes from an actress into a birthing pod for a few years while simultaneously trying to do the most damage to the mental health industry since we elected an actor to the presidency, well, I get why it would be fair not to like him. But Katie Holmes has been set free and there haven’t been any bizarre mouthpiece moments in a while, and pretty much from the scenes where he made fun of himself in Tropic Thunder until now, the man hasn’t made a bad movie. Which is still probably not enough reason to like him, but dammit, the man has charisma on the screen.

It was my mom who picked us going to see Jack Reacher though, not me. Since I retroactively consider this to be a good decision, it’s probably not fair to disclaim the choice, but, y’know. So, I don’t know much about those books and I didn’t know much about the movie except that action would occur and also that some people were pissed about casting a wiry dude who is probably shorter than me to play a 250 pound slab of giant on the page. (Which, incidentally, has anyone read those? Are they any good? Because my unread bookshelf is not already groaning under its current load or anything.)

…I suppose I’ve given away, by now, that I liked it? Because yeah, if this turned into a franchise, I would keep watching. There’s this guy who has very obviously, with evidence all over the damn place, just sniper-murdered a group of five people walking around on their lunch breaks at the waterfront, but he says he didn’t do it and asks them to fetch along Jack Reacher. Reacher shows up, and, under unlikely circumstances, starts investigating what really happened. And instead of punching his way through everyone involved like the previews kind of implied, there’s a smartly written mystery to be unraveled, with lots of tension and comedy to break the tension, and you know, I laughed frequently and all the characters worked, and what more do I need? Plus, Tom Cruise makes for a pretty great PI type. Also, no worries, there is in fact a lot of the gunplay and car chases and judo that you’d expect from an action movie after all, but there’s a lot more here than what I expected is all I’m saying.

Red Dawn (2012)

Dude, this movie. I have very little to say about the Red Dawn remake, because it only really ever hit one note. Sure, it hit it to hilarious effect, but since it was not the intended effect, I cannot give them even that much credit. …and since it hit a note that Team America: World Police had already hit (on purpose!), it’s not like I was already offering much credit in the first place.

See, there are these kids in Spokane living their Teen America lives, when all of the sudden, North Koreans start paratrooping in and taking over. So what’s a bunch of newly orphaned American heroes to do? That’s easy. Head off into the woods, get some guns, wander back into town, use those guns to steal better guns, then high-five each other a lot, wave their guns around while collaborators sneer (and then get blown up) and the downtrodden non-resisters cheer (and then never get shot by their occupiers), and eventually pull the USMC’s bacon out of the fire.

If all of this sounds like a NRA fantasy without the blue helmets, well, I did say it was entirely hilarious, right?

Skyfall

Leave a reply

So, no tension here: I really liked Skyfall. I mean, yes, James Bond movie, cars, girls, guns, explosions. But I especially liked it, because of what a personal story it told. Mostly Bond is the opposite of personal, right? And Daniel Craig’s Bond moreso than most, nevermind how tragic that one Vesper Lynd scene might have been. If anything, it sealed his “no personal stuff”, er, persona.

Anyway, it seems some years have passed since the first pair of movies. Bond is a seasoned agent and M is nearing retirement in the wake of a pair of pretty large disasters. But when MI6 blows up, everything is suddenly much closer to home. And to put in perspective what I mean about it being a close, personal movie: blowing up MI6 is about the smallest of the personal things that happens, and it’s not even the first one in the movie.

What Skyfall reminded me the most of was On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. And no, Bond does not get married. This is a tone issue, and I was grateful to see it, because Lazenby was the most underrated by history of the Bonds thusfar, and it’s nice to see someone finally pull off that degree of empathy for a character who is usually a sociopathic, albeit cool, cipher; even nicer to see it done by a Bond already ajudged to be a success.

Otherwise, there’s little I can say other than pure spoilers, but I must add what a delight it was to watch Javier Bardem chew the scenery. It’s been a while since there was a really solid Bond villain, you guys. I am, as usual, relieved that James Bond will return. Pretty weird that he turned 50 this year, though. (I mean, the cinematic version of him did. The book version is, of course, older.)

Resident Evil: Retribution

Leave a reply

I haven’t reviewed anything in like a month, which would be embarrassing enough in any event, but is possibly more embarrassing because of all the movies I’ve seen over that period. So, I guess it’s time to catch up?

The first thing I saw was in the dollar theater, since (for some inexplicable reason) the fifth Resident Evil movie did not stay in theaters for even a month. It’s almost like people think that series is trashy and has no staying power? I don’t buy that for a second, of course. Any movie that takes zombie ass-kicker Milla Jovovich and puts her in a clone-filled series of cityscapes in a secret base under the Arctic ice shelf[1] and makes her fight her way through zombies from half a dozen ethnicities, not to mention a skinless, brain-exposed[2] saber-toothed cat-looking thing and Michelle Rodriguez, can be described as a lot of things, none of them trashy nor lacking in rewatchability.

And now that all of you are (incorrectly!) backing away from your screens, shaking your heads in mute disbelief, I’ll go ahead and cut short the review, since it’s not like I’ll be able to add anything else convincing. But I should mention there are strong hints that the next sequel will also be the last[3]. I should also mention, in fairness to equal time, that the series has a hard time deciding how doomed humanity is at any given moment in the sequence of events. I mention this latter because it’s really the only major plot hole in an otherwise tightly plotted- …oh come on! Fine, I’m done.

Sheesh.

[1] I mean, maybe it was the Antarctic? But as I saw no giant flying zombie penguins… no, wait, those are in the Arctic circle, aren’t they? I’m so confused.
[2] Or maybe those are radar pods?
[3] To be fair, the film was in the can long before Star wars Episode VII was announced, so they may change their minds.

The Bourne Legacy

Leave a reply

The number of weeks that have passed since I actually watched The Bourne Legacy should not, per se, be taken as an indication of how well I liked the movie. For one thing, my reviewingness has been spotty at best since I took the job where I make other people make the internet go for stock traders. No, when I think about it further, that’s not just one thing, it’s the primary thing. But okay, I still do stuff now and again, enough things that not only did I watch the third Bourne sequel, but it’s actually the first of three things I am behind upon, so let’s fix that, shall we?

So, movie.  It’s like, on the one hand, I remember Bourne flicks being pretty good. Lots of actions and explosions and I cared what happened to Matt Damon. But then they ditched him (or he ditched them?) in favor of a bunch of alternate super-spies who have been similarly modified, and this is the story of another such individual and his romantic entanglement, because action movies need love interests apparently. OR, you can watch the movie like I did, which turned out pretty okay.

Remember Thor and The Avengers? Take this as an origin story for Hawkeye. Then, try to tell me a) that it doesn’t work and b) that it isn’t better than the plot that was presented. No, seriously, do that. I want to be challenged. But I’m pretty sure I’ve nailed it here.

The Dark Knight Rises

I hate it when I have to review something that I want to reveal basically nothing about. Okay, let’s start with premise, that’s always safe ground. The Dark Knight Rises is set some eight or ten years after the events of The Dark Knight. Batman has not been seen in all this time, after having been branded a public enemy for his alleged murder of district attorney Harvey Dent. On top of that, Bruce Wayne hasn’t been seen much more often, which hasn’t exactly spelt sunshine and puppies for his various financial holdings and charities. And then, of course, something intriguing happens and something terrible happens, and our various characters are suddenly knocked out of their stasis.

Okay, and that’s enough. As with my previous review, there’s nothing in there that doesn’t happen in the first fifteen minutes or so. I will say only a couple of more words before I send you on your way to the theater, unless you are wiser and more appropriately unbusy than I. Although the first one is a little bit of a story: someday, I may choose to re-read a series I first caught as a young teen, Stephen Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. People have left me with the impression that I may fail catastrophically, but I’m interested to see how it goes, so I may. Anyway, the point is that as the second trilogy opens, Thomas Covenant, storied “hero” of a faraway, possibly hallucinatory land, has a terrible life. Sure, he may have defeated some dark lord or other, but back on earth he’s still a miserable leper. And one of his foes has an opinion on how to strike out at him that has always stuck with me. “What do you do to hurt the man who has lost everything? Give him something back, broken.”

It seems to me that Christopher Nolan has taken that advice to heart here. He doesn’t give Bruce Wayne something back broken so much as he gives him everything back broken, starting with his body, continuing right through his city, and stopping…. well, in theory, nowhere. You’ll have to see for yourself, of course. While this singular focus leaves me with an impression that some pieces of the plot are contrived, none were so glaringly contrived as to detract from my overall enjoyment. Plus, he made that bleakness up to the audience by also giving us the second thing I had wanted to mention, Anne Hathaway in a leather catsuit.

The Amazing Spider-Man

MV5BMjMyOTM4MDMxNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjIyNzExOA@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_I’ve been putting off my review of The Amazing Spider-Man, mostly because I wanted to watch it again before settling on an opinion. But I’m about to finish a book, and what if I see the Batman movie soon (or something else could happen, I reckon), so yeah, it has become time. Anyway, it’s not like I missed anything or was confused, I think maybe the problem I had was concern that I’m going to be too effusive, and I wanted to look for flaws that revealed themselves on a subsequent viewing.

It’s not that it was an amazing movie (despite the pun potential; it was certainly good), nor that the acting was incredible (though, y’know, it was good too) or that the plot was intricately mind-blowing. In fact, that right there is where I got all my happiness from. Because do you know what the plot was? A multi-issue comic book arc put to film. Not quite the density of a ’60s arc, modern sensibilities rule such things now, but it had all the aspects of those old books except foe-density. Solid measures of Peter’s personal life (after the origin had been settled[1]) interspersed with web-slinging and Lizard-punching, plus occasional glimpses at the forthcoming story arc, a panel here, another one there, just enough to make it clear this is an evolving world with a past and a future, whether we get to see them or not. I don’t think anyone else has made that movie. I mean, yes, the Avengers cycle hints at what happens next, but always as an after the credits teaser, not just matter-of-factly built into the script.

So that’s what made me like it so much. It wasn’t a perfect movie, but it may have been the most perfect translation of a superhero comic into a movie.

[1] So, if you want a flaw? That was a pretty huge flaw, bothering with the origin. I guess they had to if they wanted to explain to the broader public why his web spinners were mechanical instead of organic, but it was probably worth losing that nod to purity to make a movie that was leaner or that had time to work in a little bit more plot that wasn’t rehashed from only a decade ago. (Though I will admit Martin Sheen’s Uncle Ben was nearly as revolutionary to me as Bendis’ Aunt May has been.)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Leave a reply

There was a time when I said about the book of the same name that its premise, while potentially pointlessly silly, was not required to be so. Having gotten that out of the way, I must acknowledge that it is certainly possible to go the pointlessly silly route instead.

Except that’s not entirely fair. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was incredibly silly, don’t get me wrong. It was, in fact, exactly what you would expect from the title, drawing elements from as many as many genres as its name implies, and when you are crossing a biopic with a balls out action movie with a period horror, things are just naturally bound to get a little bit messy in the tone department at least, and probably in the continuity department as well. But that’s my point, I guess, is that while it was a far sillier enterprise than the book, it still took itself seriously and told a coherent story, and y’know, I can’t find anything pointless in that.

Plus, it was just stupidly awesome. I believe it is fair to say that if, in any given scene, you are going to ask if they went over the top, my answer is that you cannot actually see the top from where they were filming, because of how very far below there the top was. …still, it was no Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

(No, I kid. It was so very much better. If you were comparing them, the conclusion that AL:VH is a legitimately good movie in context would be inescapable.)