Tag Archives: action

The A-Team

Do you know, it’s been since Monday that I saw The A-Team, and yet, still nothing here? It turns out that my job keeps me pretty busy all the time even when I’m not answering customer calls, much less on days like today. But I’m free of that now, and all my other obligatory writing for the week is complete, so I suppose I ought to get a move on, right? Anyway, here is where my shock kicks in. Because, and especially after I saw The Losers, I could not bring myself to believe this would be a good movie, right? I mean… let me adjust expectations here. If you’ve ever seen the TV show upon which it is based, you understand that the critical acclaim aspect of “good” does not apply. It’s a popcorn movie, with far more loud explosions than moments of soul-searching, and if the plot is action-movie convoluted, it is no more than that. So, y’know. But my point was, The Losers covered the same basic subject matter as this, and how can you believe there will be two good movies of the same type in a row?

But even before I saw that, this one is another retread of an ’80s property, and those have only gone so well[1], really.  But the thing is? It had the perfect philosophy about itself, plus a really good cast and a good budget on, y’know, explosions. But mainly the philosophy part, as that’s where it would have gone terribly wrong, if it had done. Plot summary: well, it’s an origin story to fill in the gaps around the TV show’s introductory blurb, week after week. Which is to say, there’s this military commando unit that is known for completing missions in brilliant and insane ways. But then they are sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit, and must break out to prove this and clear their names. That plus explosions and quips? It equals your movie. Which, not to belabor a point, might have been generic nostalgia and nothing more except for that pesky philosophy, which was placed into the mouth of the main character, Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith[2]: “Overkill is under-rated.”

Try and tell me you need to know anything else about the film to decide whether to go see it. I dare you.

[1] Where “so well” is a bar that more closely resembles the word’s noun than adjective form, if you see my point.
[2] Here I crib notes from the Fresh Air review and must agree that it’s cool that Liam Neeson has re-invented himself as an action hero lately. Good for him!

Robin Hood (2010)

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Last night, I learned something obvious about the new digital projector systems that are gradually being rolled out to every screen in America, signalling the death of spools of film stacked man-high in old Hollywood basements and an inability for my children to understand what’s going on during the climactic scene of Inglourious Basterds; if my life had taken a small enough turn somewhere in the past 15 years or so, I would mourn this far more than already I do, but luckily I only collect books, not spools of film. So, the obvious thing I learned about digital projectors, though? It’s that they can crash. Also that, less obviously, their crash screen is colored digital snow. And then you suddenly get free passes to the theater! So in many ways, the downside was not so much of a much, but I can imagine it happening in a fuller theater, for a newer movie, and actually during the movie instead of at the end of the last trailer, and man, that would be a pretty miserable day for the theater. It’s not like film projectors don’t run into their own problems or anything, I can just tell I’m living in the modern era when my movie had to be rebooted.

I will not make a clever “speaking of reboots” segue here, because the thing about Robin Hood is that it’s always a reboot. It might be on TV sometimes, and they make movies every so often, but each iteration is distinct. It’s just, this one was more distinct than usual. That said, it was a pretty interesting take. Basically, the story is written for maximum veritas, the kind of story you might have heard peasants telling their children before memory became the legend we know today. This accounts well for some of the oddities of the story, such as why a land-owning noble would have been an archer instead of a knight. Within these historical-minded confines is a pretty decent story of political betrayal, war, and romance. Just be aware that at some point there’s going to be a pre-enactment of D-Day performed with longbows. As long as you can swallow that, the rest of the movie should be just fine.

Also, if you are unfamiliar with the basic Robin Hood story such that you needed a more plot-minded review: really? I mean, really?

Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2: I liked it. That has kind of an epitaphy feeling, which is not precisely what I’m going for, as I decidedly do not presume that it marks the gravestone of a franchise. I think I may be mildly disappointed with it relative to my expectations, though, mostly based on how Spider-Man 2 turned out. ‘Cause there was a pretty great sequel. Still, though, on the whole it was a thoroughly entertaining sequel to an even better first movie, with nothing to particularly dislike about the new execution. Spectacle plus franchise equals success, right?

Also in the win column, Robert Downey Jr. maintains his essentially perfect portrayal of a billionaire superhero who is always secretly dying, having trouble forming real attachments to women, and drinking a lot. (It occurs to me that this may not be an acting job, ‘dying superhero’ aside.) This time he is facing trouble from the U.S. government, a rival military industrialist, and a brand new supervillain that shares characteristics with a couple of people from the comic book, most notably Whiplash. And while a bad guy who can split metal with his special whip may not seem all that interesting in a comic book[1], it works a lot better when he is using Stark’s own ARC reactor technology to create really cool-looking energy whips; also, when he is played by Mickey Rourke. The plot was probably a little bit muddled, but the pace was fast enough for me not to care, when combined with my knowledge that comic plots are often at least a little bit muddled in the first place. But then again, any time you sit me down in front of a movie screen where Downey either gets to be constantly awesome or gets to relearn how to be awesome after some kind of setback, that will be enough to satisfy me regardless of anything else that happens.

Also, if the spoiler-laden transition of Stark Industries’ CEO position never happened in the comics run? It should have. (I mean, the details are spoilers, the fact really isn’t. So please don’t misunderstand this as me having given away the farm, over here.)

[1] For my money, that seeming is fully accurate, though he’s only appeared in one story I’ve read so far and may get better later.

Kick-Ass

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MV5BMTc0Mjg4ODc1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTUwNjEwMw@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_Here is an interesting true story for you. In addition to seeing Kick-Ass yesterday evening, I also happened to read Marvels (by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross) the same day. I should probably review it separately, but since I read them as someone’s loaned comics instead of in a book, I have nothing to reliably link to, which is one of my lines for “shouldn’t get reviewed after all”. But also, it makes a very convenient companion piece, and so here we are. So, quick nutshell: Marvels is a four-issue comic that shows stories from the golden and silver age through the eyes of a news photographer, a regular guy who is the stand-in for the audience. Pretty much, a reaction shot to stories that the reader is theoretically already familiar with. A way to show not what being a superhero is like, but what living in a world with superheroes is like.[1]

But, anyway, Kick-Ass. It is almost exactly the same thing, except that the world doesn’t really have superheroes (or does it?), and the stand-in character wants to be one. Named Kick-Ass, as you may have already surmised? And I understand that this doesn’t really sound the same at all, but I don’t want to go much further into the plot, because it works extremely well fresh, or at least I thought so. The similarity is that Kick-Ass is in far over his head, in a world that he doesn’t yet know the rules of and has no real power over, and yet he still struggles to impose his values upon it. To the good of the world? To the good of himself? Neither? I say, just as in Marvels, that this isn’t the point; the struggle is.

The only problem with this review is that I’m making the movie sound far more high-minded than it is. I think it is high-minded, don’t get me wrong, but only in the deep undercurrents that I could for that matter be imagining. On the surface, it’s an insane, ultra-violent[2] romp through several origin stories and culminating in an over-the-top spectacle of a battle royale with the supervillain, the way most comic books movies want to be. And it is threaded through with the essential humanity of every one of its characters, the way more comic books and their movies should aspire to, but frequently do not.

[1] It’s also pretty good / recommendable, if that matters.
[2] I am utterly mystified how it got a PG-13 rating.

Date Night

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Despite the near-universal panning of Date Night, I pretty much had to go see it, because of my very great love for Tina Fey. And the thing is, it’s honestly not all that bad. But it is barely north of mediocre, which fails in every way to match the talent involved. (I include Marky Mark in this assessment, as undoubtedly do you.) I expect its flaws were highlighted by the conditions in which I saw it, those being a completely empty theater yesterday afternoon. Inherent irony of that venue aside, I really think it needed the crutch of other people laughing aloud at things I only found amusing.

So, anyway, there’s this married couple, and they are in exactly the kind of couple-rut that has spawned so many movies in which the woman empowers herself by finding someone who is more attractive, more stylish, smarter and more funny but for whom she inexplicably didn’t look in the first place, in favor of screwing over a perfectly decent but not movie-quality husband-or-boyfriend that never did anything wrong except for failing to create the fairy tale she was expecting, and has now finally found.[1] Thankfully, this is the rarer movie that shows them trying to struggle past that and rediscover each other, actually admitting that there was a reason they were together in the first place. They break out of this rut by, you guessed it, taking over the reservation of a missing party at a swank Manhattan dinner spot, and thereby accidentally getting tangled up in a case of mistaken identity involving secret information on a flash drive, hired guns, a mafia boss, and Mark Wahlberg’s pecs. (Possibly his abs as well.) Which sounds like a perfectly serviceable zany action/comedy, except that for some reason it just wasn’t funny the way you’d expect that to be. Script problems are an inevitable aspect, and the credits make it clear that the funniest scenes were adlibbed multiple ways by Ms. Fey and Steve Carell anyhow. But I also kind of figure that they tried too hard to be both a good romantic comedy and a good action comedy, and neither element came out as well as they might have if it had been a single-genre flick.

Maybe next time! I’m pretty sure chemistry was not the issue, so letting them try again would be worthwhile.

[1] …what’s your point?

The Losers (2010)

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I think that I had been vaguely aware that The Losers was based on a comic book title of some kind. But even if I hadn’t been, the editing wastes no times providing that information, and the plot doesn’t wait much longer to clear up any lingering doubts. Another thing about the plot is that it would have been pretty reminiscent of the A-Team premise even if I hadn’t seen a preview for that summer movie shortly before the credits rolled. On the bright side[1], this is likely to be the better of the two iterations of the same premise for this particular Hollywood season. So, anyway, comic book movie about a group of commandos on the wrong side of law and order but the right side of morality. With me so far?

This particular plot revolves around said commandos finding themselves in a lot of trouble on behalf of a shadowy government agent known only as Max, after they defy his orders to blow up a druglord’s house on the grounds that it happens to be full of Bolivian children. And then, in typical action movie planning montages and execution vignettes, they proceed to fight back against Max, who is the kind of cartoonishly evil villain that lets you know that absolutely for sure, this was once a comic book. In any event, it’s a perfectly fun action movie that may or may not do a good job of translating its source material but has left me interested in both that material and any sequels derived from the film itself or the source material.

[1] At least, for this month. Later, when the other movie is the current one, the side will be less bright if I’m right, or on the other hand both sides will be pretty damn bright if I’m wrong.

Cop Out

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What I found strangest about Cop Out was the wide disparity between its previews and its actuality. Instead of a zany comedy with cops as the main characters, it was exactly the same buddy action movie you’ve seen dozens of times before. I mean, sure, there were the differences in buddy: Bruce Willis is an inspired choice of straight man because he has long-standing comedic acting chops that possibly a lot of people have forgotten about, while Tracy Morgan is… well, I don’t know how to describe it, but how are you not already watching 30 Rock to know exactly what I mean? But the film itself? There is no newly unearthed buddy-flick arcana here; in fact, there are probably no surprises here at all.[1] But if you aren’t allergic to the genre and like things that are funny, this is a good way to spend an afternoon.

Also, and I say this with no trace of approbation, but there were multiple points throughout the movie where it really did seem like the lead actors had no script at all and were just directed to perform a skit about being cops. “Hey, guys, for this scene, we’re going to do a skit about an interrogation room. Now, for this one, let’s do a skit about a stake-out.” I do not know which of the script-writer or the actors (or possibly the director) I should be complimenting for the way those scenes turned out, but someone is getting a metaphorical basket of flowers right now. And, since it’s only 6 AM on the left coast, they’re probably a little pissed about it.

[1] I lie. The Brooklyn homeowner defending her property? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before, and it was a little bit amazing.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

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I should admit off the bat that, although I have read two out of the three of my volumes of the complete Sherlock Holmes as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I am not an obsessive fan of the type that I know exists. People who argue these books up and down the way people I know (and, okay, also people I am) used to discuss the minutiae of Robert Jordan’s books, only since there’s no new Doyle forthcoming, I think the Holmes fans are a bit more hardcore. My point is, I like the guy, and I want to reread the books I’ve read, plus certainly read the final volume that I haven’t ever done. And I know, from my perspective of entertained reader rather than fan, there’s all kind of reasons that I perhaps should have to hate the new Sherlock Holmes movie which have managed to elude me.

Luckily, those reasons did elude me. Because this was a fun, intelligent romp through Victorian England, full of action sequences that were not nearly as out-of-place as the previews hinted, deductions galore, and, surprisingly, apt sexual tension to boot. The plot is pretty good, but I’ll leave it to be discovered on its own. What I loved were the characters. Holmes is exactly the kind of broken man I’ve come to expect from between the lines, a genius in his element but completely lost outside of it, always waiting with barely (if that) concealed desperation for the next case, the next chance to come back to life. And his relationship with Watson… I can imagine thinking it’s just a little too boisterous and funny for the period, but really, I think this is a matter of between-the-lines too. People are people, and I doubt that Victorian propriety as conveyed in the fiction of the time was really as accurately staid as they wanted to believe of themselves. Whatever the case, this interpretation worked for me.[1]

I just hope that it’s accessible enough for the sequel that they all but promised; there was almost never a moment when the script slowed down enough to hold anyone’s hand. As it should be, I think; but like I said, people watching it enough to give me that sequel would be pretty alright too. Anyway, I already said it was fun and smart, right? So go see it already![2]

[1] I feel less qualified to comment on the portrayal of Irene Adler; although I know who she is, I think I’d have to be one of the hardcore fans to really concur with or dispute her place in this movie. But I did appreciate Rachel McAdams nonetheless.
[2] It’s not that I’m above misleading my audience about the objective quality of a piece, if it will get me something (in this case, that sequel) out of it. Because I’m almost certainly not above that. It’s more that in this particular case, I don’t need to mislead anyone, as I’m right about the quality. So why are you still here?, is my point.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

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I visited my parents over the weekend, since my schedule is about to be in flux and it seemed like a good time before the flux takes hold, plus the holidays and all. So I spent just about the whole of Thanksgiving break with them, except that I worked on Friday. That’s nice! While there, I inadvertently treated them to a full-length, multi-hour cinematic extravaganza in the form of a Playstation 3 game. After the success of my recommending Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune when he bought the system and wanted something to play on it (not that he actually plays much of anything, but, you know)[1], he picked up the sequel a few weeks ago. And what began as a way to pass a few hours Saturday night quickly turned into a full weekend obsession during which I played the last third of the game for four hours past when I had planned originally to leave, because I was just sure that the climax was right around the corner, and I didn’t want to make them wait weeks for the conclusion and have time to forget what was going on.[2]

If you’re picking up on an undercurrent of admiration for the game’s writing and seamless graphics in that description of my weekend, well, you’re not imagining it. As to the latter, the only real difference between playing the game and watching its gorgeous cutscenes is that the game-play has fewer close-ups. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves picks up explorer Nathan Drake some brief years after the events of the previous game, convinced by shady friends to join in a search for Marco Polo’s lost expedition, a journey that will take him from the jungles of Borneo to the dizzying heights of Tibet and Nepal, not to mention deep into the legends surrounding Kublai Khan. Along the way he’ll crack wise, make lots of new enemies, and see lots of new ancient ruins! It’s good stuff. But on top of that, the writing is not merely good in and of itself, as it was last time; it actually takes note of the past and uses it. If I had been on the fence about the loss of meaningful breast-motion physics from the Lara Croft games to the Uncharted series, I no longer would be in any measure. I care about these people, and want to know what’s going to happen next. That I also get to play a video game along the way? It justifies the expense, but other than that, it’s purely bonus.

[1] V nz chggvat guvf va ebg13 fb ur pna’g frr vg, ohg V cerqvpg V trg n pbzzrag sebz uvz gung ur qbrf fb lhu-uhu cynl Unyb fbzrgvzrf. (Nyfb, vs V’z evtug nobhg gung pbzzrag bppheevat, vg vf yvxryl gb nfx jung guvf tvoorevfu vf nf jryy.)
[2] To be fair, this applies to me as well.

Ninja Assassin

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Here are the things I learned while watching Ninja Assassin[1]:

1) Human bodies are basically overpressurized bags of blood that will explode at the slightest provocation.
2) Europe has a severe ninja infestation.
3) Ninjas are like cockroaches: for every one you see, there are at least a dozen you don’t.
4) Ninjas are like cockroaches: they really hate it when you shine lights on them.
5) Ninjas will kill anyone, as long as you pay them with one hundred pounds of gold.
6) Ninja stars[3] are every bit as cool as you thought they were when you were eight.

[1] There really was way too much plot getting in the way of my chopsocky, at least for the first third of the movie. But, okay, a ninja with a troubled past[2] and a precocious (let’s say) Interpol analyst team up against ninja hit squads and the police, on a quest for bloody revenge.
[2] I mean, more troubled than that; like, take ninja as the troubled baseline, and then adjust from there.
[3] No, not shuriken. These were definitely ninja stars.