Tag Archives: action

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)

There’s not a lot for me easily to say about this movie, because the premise is so simple. It all worked, I’ll say that. Good comedy, good action, good acting, a few bits of true cleverness. It made me (and the rest of the sparse early Sunday audience) giggle throughout.

The previews spell out the plot pretty well, so I consider this plot synopsis to be spoiler-free: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (who looks as good as ever, I must say) are assassins who don’t know about each other despite several years of marriage. The marriage is drying up, when suddenly they discover the Truth. Hijinx ensue.

I spent the first forty-five minutes or so enjoying myself, but slightly confused. It was moving way, way to slowly for the action-comedy I was expecting to see. Then, something shifted in my head, I reclassified it as a comedy of manners but with assassins (dark, sure, but not even black comedy), and instantly it worked better than ever. Probably better than the average comedy of manners if you’re me, because of how assassins are more interesting than the rich people that usually fill out that subtype.

xXx: State of the Union

…then, at the end of the weekend, after everything had been packed up, loaded, and unloaded, I caught the final Sunday night show of XXX: State of the Union, only to find that it was not a porn flick with characters that are meant to represent real people, like the First Lady and Vice-President, but instead have made-up porno names, like Laura Bush and Dick Chainy, and so forth.

Based on the facts behind the thoroughly forgettable action film genre, that was supposed to be the start and end of my review. Unfortunately, XXX was so pedestrian that just by having a script that made a lick of sense on its own behalf, instead of being a thinly veiled excuse for the next eXtreem stunt, this became a sequel that surpassed the original movie. That’s a rare enough occurrence that it deserves the recognition.

Samuel L. Jackson was phoning it in, which happens a lot these days. It’s nice for him that he can still look more talented than most people on the screen while doing so, but sooner or later he’s going to have to be cast in a good role again, or else devolve into permanent self-parody. (John Malkovich is also always teetering on this brink.)

Also, if you do see it, and the last few lines of the movie strike fear in your heart as they nearly did in mine: I’m pretty sure they were making fun of themselves, and not actually sowing the seeds of another sequel.

Sahara

The thing about buddy action-adventure flicks is: hard to talk about. Because, we’ve seen it all before. In Sahara‘s case, it’s James Bond (they nearly always are), but if he had retired from the secret service to become a deep-sea diver, and also if he had made friends with some guy at some point in his life.

The rest of it is exactly what you’d expect. Is there a pretty girl in danger because she’s stumbled across a secret that could threaten the fate of the world? Is there a power-mad industrialist willing to protect that secret at any cost? Is there a boss somewhere that wants the world safe, of course, but wishes his stuff would not get destroyed quite so often? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then there are more seminal works that you ought to see instead. If you do, though, this one is pretty good. They found the right balance of drama, comedy, and explosions. Plus, there’s a civil war treasure hunt, just to add a new flavor for the palate.

This Dirk Pitt guy seems alright. If I can figure out what the first book of the series is, I’ll probably pay Half Price Books a visit and attack the stories from multiple angles. The problem being, my to-read shelf is failing to get smaller. You’d think with the moving and packing things up, I’d have a little bit more discretion. Well, maybe you wouldn’t, but I really thought I would. In fact, though: I would not.

Constantine

When I first saw the preview for Constantine, with the hot Mummy chick getting pulled through a building and Keanu chasing after her, I really thought they were making another Matrix movie for some reason. This guess is not as far off the mark as you might think. It made about as much sense as Matrix Revolutions, but I feel better about it because of differing expectations.

Keanu’s acting worked pretty well for me in the John Constantine character, bearing in mind that I come to the movie untainted by the comic. Basically, his acting in any role (leaving aside the Theodore Logan aberration) works well, as long as the character is a cipher who never gets angry. He can emote detachment quite well, but detached shouting is oxymoronic. You may claim that ‘detached’ is not an acting skill, but there are a lot of characters in Hollywood with that as the defining characteristic, and actors have been filling those roles for all the years they’ve been written, some of them quite well. See also Charles Bronson.

Except for the part where lots of things were stated but not really backed up (Why is Constantine of so much interest to hell? What’s so special about this particular time that the neutrality thing is being breached?), the story was sufficiently comic-y to make me happy on that count. Also, Keanu has that look. Really tall, really thin, he just looks like a comic character. I’m sure a big part of that was the cinematography and wardrobe choices, but it was well-done enough that I want to emphasize it. For your comic movie to work, at least someone should look like a comic character.

Anyway: story, schmory. It had a good look, the Hell sets were really cool, and lots of demon-fighting. This is plenty to keep me happy with a February movie. Also, in a bow to gratuity, hot Mummy chick stayed soaked for the final half of the movie. That’s just good directing.

Elektra

The thing about being sick is that you kind of look forward to it. An excuse to not have to go to school, say. Or to work, which is even better, because the concept has been institutionalized. There are entire “sick days”, which are for the sole purpose of saying, ‘no thanks, I’m not going to work today, because I’m taking a sick day. It’s because I’m sick!’

It’s all a trick, though. The cold reality is that when you’re actually sick enough to not be at work, you won’t enjoy yourself. You’ll go to the doctor, get your prescriptions, get them filled over the course of an hour in which, sure, you have a book, but you’re sick enough that being in the same place all that time will start to make you more uncomfortable even than you started out, and it’s really hard to concentrate on reading for more than ten minutes at a stretch, what with the sinus headache, and on top of that, you get your first taste of just how bad the company drug insurance has become when they finally tell you it’s time to leave.

All of which is probably a close approximation of how Jennifer Garner felt in between Daredevil and Elektra. She had just been in a terrible movie, her character died, and… okay, that’s really all I know about her. I’ve never even seen Alias. So I guess the metaphor broke down, a little. I’m sick, sue me.

Luckily for Miss Garner, her quasi-sequel is substantially better than her last turn in Affleck’s doomed vehicle. It has a lot going for it. An old-school Campbellian plot about the motherless daughter at the heart of the ancient, hidden battle between Good and Evil, lingering, mood-setting camera work that mostly hides the TV episode-length story being stretched into a 90 minute feature, a crew of bad-ass enemies with spooky mystical powers, a boatload of ninjas, and most importantly, nary a hint of its Hollywood forebear.

All this plus decent sequel potential, and the obligatory child actor wasn’t all that bad. And did I mention the ninjas?

National Treasure

I drive. A lot. Also, I hate driving. This makes for hours per month of unpleasantness, and leads me to spend too much money on pleasant cars that improve the experience, and it leads me on fruitless searches for good radio stations, books on CD, and such. At least it used to, but now I’ve found enough good talk radio to keep me in business. Music is lame about 75% of the time, and I love a good discussion, so it was a perfect match for me, and now I find the majority of my driving accompanied by someone to argue with, even if they can’t hear my side. Hey, it’s enough to keep me awake and lively, so I’ll take it.

Which is how I found myself winning a contest on my way home after Thanksgiving, picking up the prize on Monday morning, and strolling into the theater to see National Treasure on Monday afternoon. (The other alternatives were Ocean’s Twelve, which I very much want to see, and Blade: Trinity, which I’m sure I will see at some point, if only to determine if it was a bigger techno nightmare than its sequel predecessor, but this was basically free, so a-Cage-in’ I did go.)

I haven’t seen a lot of CSI, but I’ve seen enough to know that Jerry Bruckheimer is enamored of it. I can say this with great certainty because the first third of the film was chock full of the trademark CSI speculative flashes back and forward, while l’il Nicky Cage learns to be a treasure hunter and follow those clues all over the northeastern US. Unfortunately, he’s being hounded by one-time partner Sean Bean, who wants the treasure for himself. Presumedly because he heard it contains the Ring of Power.

Luckily, our plucky everyman-with-sad-eyes hero is accompanied by WiseCracking Cowardly Sidekick and Blonde Love Interest Who Is A Strong Woman, Really, But Sometimes Just Wants/Needs To Be Rescued. All the guns and money in the world can’t stand up to a trio like that, now can they? I assume they had names, but I honestly can’t remember what they are, especially since my head is full of the lead treasure hunter being named Benjamin Franklin.

So, typical Bruckheimer flick, with the paper-thin characters, vaguely unplausible premise, and lots of cool visual scenes. If that kind of thing makes you hate Hollywood for being so carbon-copied-crappy, then this is exactly what you’re talking about. If you enjoy watching people run around being shot at, blown up, or actioned in other various ways, well, it’s Bruckheimer, and I think we all know he delivers. If you wonder why it came out in November instead of late June, then you’re just like me.

To the movie’s credit, there even is a bit of a mystery. Sure, it’s impossible to doubt that Cage will solve all the clues and elude the bad guys, but is there really a treasure at all? And is it being guarded by horrifying Egyptian (or possibly Bavarian) jackals, golems, spirits, and pit traps? For that, you’ll have to actually watch it.

Team America: World Police

It’s always feast or famine, they say. Don’t get me wrong, they say a lot of things, and frankly I wish they’d get off their goddamned high horses and stop saying things, because we’re all pretty much sick of them. ‘Look at me, I’m saying something!’ Pricks.

Um. Right. Feast or famine. That was proven true this week, when after a lifetime of never having seen anatomically correct doll breasts, I’ve now seen four over the course of my last two movies. I’m fairly sure this won’t happen again, but it was a strange confluence of events, without doubt.

In this case, they came in the sex scene from Team America: World Police, a scene that I’m told was edited heavily to get an R rating for the film. After having seen it, I fear for the director’s cut. Everything they left in would have bypassed late night Cinemax rules. So, the movie had that gimmick going for it.

It also had the puppets themselves, a gag that I bought into for the first hour of the film (what I thought was the first 90 minutes of the film, and that’s never a good sign). After that, it had to stand on its own merits. Which existed, but not for movie length.

Basically, you have the South Park crew saying the same thing they say in every global episode of the show. That Americans suck ass, but everyone else in the world sucks more ass, except for all those people who say the things they keep insisting on saying long past the point where we’ve stopped listening (And you thought I wasn’t going anywhere with that they thing at the start, admit it. Well, ha!), who suck the most ass of all. I must say, it’s an argument that I often find compelling. But it is not an argument that can sustain 100 minutes of film. On the bright side, they brought along some of the music they’re so good at. On the less bright side, the argument still isn’t enough to sustain the other 75 minutes of film.

In short, I liked it and found it often funny, but I wish they’d made a two-part South Park episode instead. The puppets were cool and all, but not that cool. Kim Jong Il’s panthers were brilliant, though, and will be worth the price of a netflix rental.

The Incredibles

If this log is to be believed, it’s been 45 days since I last saw a movie in the theater, on DVD, or etc. It, largely, is to be believed. (I mean, not counting classic porn, which frankly I wouldn’t know how to go about reviewing, were I so inclined.) But, I finally broke the drought by catching The Incredibles last weekend. So that’s something. I still definitely need to do more, though.

So, yeah, I liked it. Pretty common opinion, so far as I can tell. The thing is, I didn’t love it, which seems to be much less common. Pretty good superhero story. You can’t just have the hero go out and save the world anymore, there has to be depth, because we’re all so damn jaded. Most movies create depth by exploring the psyche of the hero as he (or she) goes out and saves the world. Pixar had the idea of creating depth by making the superheroes unpopular. They cause too much damage while apprehending supervillains, sprain the ankles of people they’ve just saved from certain death, that kind of thing, and so are driven out by a litigious society. They promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them… no, wait, that’s someone else.

Anyway, fifteen years later, the few superheroes that have kept in contact (including the family after which the movie is named) are going about their average lives, but still wishing they could use their powers to keep people safe. And then, opportunity rises in the form of a request to save a government facility from a robot that has broken its programming and gone on a rampage. How is a superhero to resist the chance to save people and rake in the dough?

Oh, and then something goes wrong, and, voila, instant plot.

So, yeah. Fun kid’s movie, but I wouldn’t really say it had a whole special section for adults, like is always claimed these days. If a kid’s movie is okay by you, though, this is certainly above the dross. There was a brilliant microsecond reference to World Domination: The Drinking Game[1], though. And a job for Jason Lee, who should pretty much always be working, if you ask me.

[1] Note: May not actually exist. But it ought to.

Cellular

I had a free afternoon and remembered I’d missed a couple of movies lately, so I took in a double feature this afternoon. (And for a change, I bought both tickets. Go, me.) One thing I don’t understand about movie-goers: what does it take to get them to laugh? I know you’ll hear laughter in a crowded theater when something funny happens, but once you’re down to twenty people or less, whether the movie is a comedy or a drama with tension-breaking dialogue, I find that typically only me and my rare company are the people who actually laugh at stuff. It’s very bizarre. All Village of the Damned-y.

Well, be that as it may, the first show of the day was Cellular. This is the heart-warming tale of Botox Barbie (played by Kim Basinger) who is kidnapped for the crimes of 1) owning a million dollar plus home in upscale Los Angeles on her high school science teacher salary and her husband’s real estate commissions, 2) Having a housekeeper and an alarm system on the same pair of salaries, but not having that alarm system go off if someone smashes the glass on one of the doors, 3) Despite having all of these perks on such tiny salaries, believing that the kidnappers have got the wrong person, and 4) Ensuring that her 11 year old son is the lamest kid in school by walking him to the bus stop every morning.

Luckily (well, for her), she hotwires a busted phone well enough to enlist the aid of beach bum Ryan, who has conveniently just set out to prove to his ex- that he can be responsible. He’s able to accomplish this in record time, running down the halls of a posh private school yelling for one of the kids to come out and trust the crazy man, carjacking $80k cars with alacrity rarely seen outside the Grand Theft Auto series, and line-cutting in phone stores at gunpoint.

Actually, as suspense flicks go, it’s pretty good. The plot holes are reasonably rare, the tension reasonably thick, and the gunplay/explosions reasonably compelling. Plus, you get William H. Macy for at least a good 1/6 of the film. This is a man who can bring gravitas to the act of wiping off a mud mask. Unfortunately for him, this role proves it.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

This is pretty much your average 1930s serial action movie, where the hero Joe Skycaptain and the plucky heroine, Polly Prissypants, join forces in order to stop the invading Germans^W Martians^W Killer Robots^W^W, well, the invading whatevers from generally making earth (by which we mean America, or maybe England) an unpleasant place, and globetrotting everywhere from New York City to Rivendell to do it.

What Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow has going for it to set it apart is that it wasn’t made in the 1930s. Sure, it has a stylistic Metropolis look to it, and the watercolor look of a black and white movie that has been colorized. But it avoids the traps of hammy acting and a special effects extravaganza that would embarrass an avid Doctor Who fan.

Mind you, the special effects don’t make the movie. CGI has gotten just good enough that you can pretend it’s not there as long as the actors aren’t interacting with it. Since pretty much the whole movie outside of the actors is CGI this time, there’s a constant low-grade awareness of it. It’s very pretty, but it’s also very CGI.

No, what makes the movie work is a delightfully convoluted plot, well written (if a little salty for 1939) dialogue, and acceptable acting from the leads. Who, despite the credits, don’t include Angelina Jolie. Don’t get me wrong, that woman can still fill out an eyepatch like nobody’s business, but expect her turn as Major “Hot Lips” Houlihan to feel more like a cameo than worthy of the shared top credit she got. So, if you’re only seeing it for her, it’s not worth the price of admission.

If, on the other hand, you’re seeing it because you have a fondness for the unintentionally campy Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon of yesteryear, or if you want that last bit of popcorn before the Oscar-bait season swings into full gear, or just because you appreciate a gratuitous cow, then this is definitely the movie for you.