Tag Archives: action

The Gorge

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A few days ago, before I got entirely sick, I watched The Gorge, whose preview I had been intrigued by while watching, I don’t know, probably an episode of Severance? I cannot say with any certainty if it was entirely a popcorn flick or if the fault is my being sick, but yesterday when I was preparing to write this interview, I had no idea what I had watched, only that I was pretty sure it was, y’know, something.

So there’s this guy who’s a sniper who is completely detached from his life and his job, just adrift, you know? And Sigourney Weaver offers him the chance to get away from it all via a year-long, top secret, completely isolated assignment. Like, too secret for her to even explain it, but when he gets there (via parachuting and a several mile hike), the guy he’s replacing is there to explain the deal.

Here, then, is the deal. Two towers, on opposite sides of a gorge. He is on the western side, representing the countries of the west, who have been tasked to guard the gorge from there. Also, there’s an agent in the eastern tower representing the countries of the east, who presumably has been offered the same deal, but since the two towers are not allowed to have contact, it’s impossible to be sure. In the gorge is… something. Perpetually clouded, but things crawl out sometimes, and the whole mission is to prevent them from escaping. Premise: set.

Execution: well, mostly good? Lots of exciting action set pieces, yay. Anya Taylor-Joy as the eastern agent was just fun all the way around. The main dude was… well, okay, more than a little wooden, and I could not decide if it was the character or the actor, so that’s at least better than it could have been on average, but honestly a wooden character isn’t much fun, either, so. Effects were, I was going to say A+, but all special effects these days are either great or (rarely) abjectly terrible, such are these days of the future.

Mostly worth checking out, with one caveat: the last line of the film is just an awful stinker. Be warned!

Fast & Furious

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Finally, after one side movie that was only a sequel for one character and one side movie that was basically its own thing (and for no apparent reason), The Fast and the Furious has a true sequel with all of the original characters involved[1]! It is, how you say, about time.

The wildly original title, Fast & Furious, conceals a halfway decent plot. Paul Walker has been reinstated to law enforcement, as part of the FBI. (Or maybe he was in the FBI in the first place? Impossible to know.) He is honestly still no better of an FBI guy than he is an actor, even though five years have passed in the story world and eight I suppose in the real world. But that’s okay, because he can still drive. Vin Diesel is still on the run from the law and still using fast cars to jack trucks. So nothing much has changed, despite the two prior movies that would pretend a lot has happened. I’m not saying they are eminently skippable, but… oh, wait, no, I totally am saying that. It’s the central thesis of this paragraph, in fact.

“Halfway decent plot,” I said. So, after being on the run for all these years, Diesel’s Dominic is back in LA investigating the murder of a close friend. Meanwhile, Walker’s Brian is investigating a Mexican drug lord who is trafficking a lot of heroin across the border, somehow. They are suddenly thrown together when Dom’s murder and Brian’s infiltration end up at the same street race audition to be one of the drivers for the drug lord’s smuggling operation.

Can they get hired so their investigations can continue? Can they get over the sins of the past and learn to work together again? Can they stop destroying so very many fast cars? Can Brian finally seal the deal with Dom’s sister? Can Dom seal the deal with Gal Godot[2]? Oh, right, and can they solve their cases?

The answers to these questions might surprise you, but, well, I bet they don’t. That’s okay, though, as they are mostly not the point. The point is car stunts and an incremental progression in the lives and relationships of these characters. And, the movie finally delivers on that second thing, in a way that episodes 2 and 3 decidedly did not. Hooray!

[1] Okay, that was 2009, which is as of this writing a pretty long time ago. But it is “finally” in my personal chronology. So.
[2] In what is essentially her first role. Who knew?

Close to the Sun

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In the second half of December, right after I started the new Indiana Jones game and got my new PS5 Pro (halfway or more through the 5’s lifecycle), I… played none of those games, because I learned that a Nikola Tesla themed game I had been interested in was leaving Game Pass. Hence, another entry in my ongoing series of timely reviews for games you can no longer just get, as in for “free”.

Close to the Sun tells an extremely alternate history of the 1890s, where Tesla was successful enough with his electricity plans to corner that market worldwide, and then he built an enormous scientific research vessel, to which the main character has been invited by her sister. When the reporter sister arrives (as opposed to the scientist sister, you see), she discovers that nobody is home, but there’s a giant quarantine sign[1] and a lot of damage and weird shimmering images of people walking around.

Thus commences the barely not a walking sim exploration of the ship, to find and rescue her sister, figure out what went wrong, and ultimately escape, one hopes. As a game, it was I think only okay except for my interest in the whole Tesla / Edison thing, which elevated it somewhat. The four characters were all pretty good, the mysteries were mostly compelling, the ending was, I will say, “rushed”. All in all: decent and short enough to not crazy overstay its welcome, but marred by a truly awful save system that meant if for any reason I did not finish a chapter, I would have to start it over. So, be prepared to play for a while at a time whether you like it or not, since the XBox’s quick resume system is a complete failure on this game in particular as well as the lack of good saving I already mentioned.

In further conclusion, maybe it’s better as a game than I’m giving it credit for, and mostly the technical issues are why my estimation rounded downward a bit.

[1] I cannot explain precisely why, but it was particularly affecting to me that the quarantine sign was painted over the exit to the internal docks, in case anyone wanted to leave, but with no hint of any warning to anyone coming in.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

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I really do not understand how this movie got made. It’s just so so so implausible.

In the third Fast but also let us not forget Furious movie, a young drifter moves to Tokyo, only to discover that the title was actually a pun. See, he’s a drifter because he keeps getting into trouble for doing dumb high school racing things, and got sent to live with his father in Japan as a last ditch effort to keep him out of jail for driving through a house under construction and being assaulted by another high school car guy. None of which is how any of that would work, as far as I can tell?

Anyway, he drifts into Tokyo, I was saying, only to learn that it’s also called drifting if you left the back of your car skid ahead of you as a way to make 0 point turns instead of 3 point turns. Did drifting really not exist outside Japan before this movie popularized it? No clue, though it seems unlikely somehow. But so anyway, this kid gets mixed up in drift racing and the Yakuza, because of course he does, and that’s the rest of the movie. (Also, there’s a girl.)

Except for a brief cameo in which a previous character says he used to hang out with the only character in the whole movie who was worth the time of day, there’s nothing that would make you think this should have been tagged as part of the series. In fact, if I were to make a gamble on today of all days when my gambles in general are not going so well as I’d prefer, I’d bet that the secret cameo actor heard about this movie and thought, hey, if I can tie it into my series, maybe I’ll still have a series and get to make a third, no wait, it would be fourth now, wouldn’t it? movie.

That does not help me understand how such a gamble paid off, to be clear. Tokyo Drift isn’t a bad movie, but it is extremely paint by numbers, and I am once again left scratching my head as to how these three (now) movies could have resulted in a powerhouse franchise.

But, as I intimated already, tons of things I don’t understand today, aren’t there?

Jurassic World: Dominion

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I am really ambivalent about Jurassic World: Dominion, now that I’ve finally seen it[1]. If you are unaware, it’s the follow on to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, in which dinosaurs are now a worldwide phenomenon after the events of that movie saw them rescued from Isla Nublar and then let loose. My ambivalence is as follows: on the one hand, it was a perfectly serviceable dinosaur action movie, with thrilling set pieces and characters that we have collectively cared about for decades, all getting a deserved swan song.

But on the other hand, after 24 hours to think about it… it was obligatory without being hardly anything else. Here’s the thrilling velociraptor chase through the streets of Malta, because there was a bad guy with tech from the last movie! But really all it does is make it harder for our heroes to board a plane out of town. Here’s the ice lake dinosaur in the southern Alps keeping our heroes from reaching a door on the far side of the lake. And it’s like, obviously I want thrilling dinosaur chases and dangerous stalking dinosaurs, but… I guess it’s that for most of these set pieces, there were no believable stakes or sense of danger. And Chekov’s knife fight remains, as of this writing, unfought on the mantel, about which I am personally offended.

In the end, I’m not saying it was bad. I had legitimate fun, and it was nice catching up with old friends and seeing a vision of a fundamentally altered world. But I am saying that I’m glad this story is over. It seems like they’re moving on to a new story next year, and I’m good with that, because I like the world they’ve made. But yeah. It’s good to let stories end.

[1] Full disclosure: the only reason this movie bubbled to the top of the list is that we both want to see the new season of Camp Cretaceous on Netflix, which is set near or after the events of this movie, and certainly was released years after. (That said, it was pretty cool seeing technology from the original show referenced in Dominion, as though it really is all one giant continuity. I like those, and am annoyed when it’s not a two-way street between movies and streaming.)

2 Fast 2 Furious

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As you may but plausibly may not be aware, I laid out an intention to watch the Fast and/or Furious series. Said intention was laid out seven years ago, so I cannot really say I’m nailing it here. I started to watch the second one between 3 and 5 years ago, but something interrupted me like a third of the way through, I guess? Anyway, last night I came back for a second attempt, which was victorious!

In a way, this is exactly the same movie: blond guy, cars, crime. Paul Walker has been burned by the events of the prior movie and moved to Miami, where he is still a street racer. But due to his actions in the first movie, he finds himself beholden by Eva Mendez to do runs for a local cartel drug lord guy who likes to heats metals buckets so the rat inside will chew through the person the bucket is shoved up against. Because[1], you know, he’s good at driving now. Thanks, Vin Diesel!

The main things I get out of watching this movie are a simultaneous confusion that it will eventually turn into a juggernaut franchise and complete understanding of why the next movie has only new characters, on the other side of the world. It’s not that 2 Fast 2 Furious[2] is bad, exactly. It’s aggressively mid in most ways, excepting fun stunt driving to watch. There was a line by the secondary main character[3], and I heard it, and immediately knew that not only had it been used in the previews (which I later confirmed) but that it almost certainly was written to be a line in a preview. It’s just… how do I watch the two I’ve seen so far, and then a third one with no existing characters, and then somehow those three movies convince people to launch this successful franchise that I know for a fact now exists? It’s weird.

I wish they had made more movies about Suki and Tej, though. Them, I could have watched all day.

[1] Er, that is, he’s doing runs because he’s a good driver, not the drug lord guy is doing the bucket rat thing for that reason. That would be insane!
[2] I mean, except the title. Wow.
[3] “Guns, murderers, and crooked cops? I was made for this, bruh.”

The Fall Guy (2024)

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Here is 100% of what I remember about the ’80s TV show named The Fall Guy: it starred Lee Majors as a stuntman who I’m pretty sure did something besides movie stunts; best guess is, solved mysteries, for some reason? And also Heather Locklear or Thomas. And I had a lunchbox of that show in elementary school, which implies that I liked it quite a bit when I was like 6 or 7,

So when they made a movie of it earlier this year, I was not what you would call entirely sold on the idea of that movie. And yet here we are a few months later, and I saw it on the ‘Cock, and I thought, hey, why not? I haven’t watched a generic action movie in a while[1], right? But here’s the kicker: I really liked it!

So Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seaver, the kind of name you’d expect a college quarterback to have, and he’s a stunt guy best known for having a pretty enormous fall[2], such that he broke his back and got out of the game. But, in a grand tradition going back to Michael Corleone, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, or arguably even Brutus, someone pulled him back in. So now he’s trying to save the movie, solve the mystery, and get the girl, and if you stop there? Yes, it’s a generic action movie. But what I didn’t count on is that Gosling has a bonkers funny dry delivery, and that he and Emily Blunt have some pretty solid chemistry, and also that the stunts would in fact be pretty cool.

I’m not saying to see it on its own merits; it is not high art nor probably will it be a necessary pop culture touchstone. But I am saying to see it if you find yourself in the situation I was in, wanting to see some generic action movie because why not? It will absolutely exceed those expectations! Which sounds like not much until you remember how many of them don’t.

[1] No regrets, but in retrospect I should have watched 2 Fast 2 Furious, if I wanted a generic action movie. Kinda forgot those are on my list.
[2] Get it?

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

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What you have to remember is, Beverly Hills Cop was not an exploitation movie. The ’80s were just like that. What is the relevance of this opening non-sequitor, you ask? It’s this: although Axel F may be the fourth movie in a series, it is mostly a sequel to the first one. Because, you know, that’s the one people remember.

And it follows most of the rules of a good sequel. All the same characters? Yep. Sort of a whodunnit for the first 20 minutes, but mostly a how does he beat them once he immediately figures out who? Yep. Lots of secret identity chicanery that allows Murphy to mug for the camera? Absolutely. Gunplay and explosions galore? Check. I said “rules of a good sequel”, and what I meant was, “same movie all over again”. This is for sure a Beverly Hills Cop movie, and what else would anyone who turned it on have been looking for?

Except, of course, less exploitative. It no longer makes sense to have a scene in a strip club, just because. Murphy no longer lives in the world after Dr. King and Blazing Saddles when we thought we’d fixed racism and he could just be a black cop in a Detroit Lions jacket without that raising eyebrows in Beverly Hills, back before Rodney King showed us that not only were we wrong, but the police were maybe not so cool after all. And this movie could not just ignore that new reality, nor does it. Which is obviously good, but it makes it harder to believe in the purity of Axel Foley as a character, the way we could back then,

But most of all, this is a movie designed to make anyone who watches it feels old. Paul Reiser’s Jeffrey is fat and ready to retire and could not possibly be the same guy who suddenly realized that this is not his locker. Taggert looks just a little worse than the star of Weekend at Bernie’s, and Rosewood looks worse than that, because you expect Judge Reinhold to be young. Even Eddie Murphy himself is looking worn around the edges, and the scene where he starts to scam himself into a hotel room, then says, you know what, nevermind, I’m too tired for this? He speaks for the movie as a whole and anyone who was around to watch the originals in the theater.

It’s not that this is a sad movie that they should never have made, what were they thinking. It actually works for what it is[1]! It’s just that, as nostalgia mines go, this one at least has the courage to be honest about the state of the miners. I know they volunteered to show up and get paid, I do, but the underlying sadness of it all really seems to say, shame on you for letting us.

[1] A throwback action comedy with a bitchin’ soundtrack.

Dune: Part Two

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Dune: Part One was honestly a pretty solid movie. It introduced a far-flung future that is implausibly focused on a medieval past, but it made up for that implausibility by the accompanying concepts being fun to imagine. And said future is chock full of interesting characters with wildly divergent motivations that are worth watching clash against one another. Shadowy prophecies, a macguffin that you can really understand why people care so deeply about it, betrayals, chases, escapes… I begin to consider that these movies should not be classified as science fiction. Well, whatever, unimportant.

Part Two, on the other hand, is a complete enigma of a film. It clocks in at nearly three hours, and two of those hours are Paul Atreides learning how to Fremen better than any Fremen has ever Fremened before, in fulfillment of messianic prophecy that was apparently set in motion by the Bene Gesserit, which makes it not entirely trustworthy[1], except for how it all keeps coming true nevertheless. And it’s not that these two hours are, moment over moment, bad. It’s that they somehow manage to simultaneously be boring in aggregate while still also managing to feel rushed. I don’t know if that means the five hour version of this movie would fix all the problems or heighten them to the point of absurdity, but it’s pretty definitely one or the other, and I’d like to at least know which, you know?

Then in the remaining hour we see the machinations behind the brutal climax of part one, leading into a brutal climax of part two, which… just straight up did not feel like the end of a story. I think I might have been better able to give long stretches of boring sand punctuated by worms and romance and guerrilla tactics followed by a climactic ending that perversely resolves nothing and arguably leaves things even worse than before, if I had known this was the middle third of a trilogy.

As it is… solid spectacle, lovely acting, total feh at the storytelling.

[1] I don’t mean in the “is it real?” sense, because I don’t know enough about the BG, and the movie does not reveal enough about them, to determine where their knowledge (if indeed they have any special knowledge in the first place) comes from. I mean it in the “is it a trap?” sense, because it would appear that anything they do benefits themselves before anyone else. Also the Kwisatz Haderach, which is probably meant to be something more than a creepy pair of words, but is not particularly elaborated upon in any deeper way in these two movies.