Machete (2010)

My life-long question of "what would a movie based on a fake trailer made for another movie look like" has finally been answered.

Now to think about whether I actually needed the question answered.

My Very Quick Review of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Well, yes...it was pretty awful.  But not nearly as awful as I thought it would be.  The action scene with Duke and Ripcord running through the streets of Paris in their accelerator suits was actually kinda fun, and Joesph Gordon Levitt's role is so over the top ridiculous that I couldn't stop laughing every time he was on the screen.

But other than that?  Yeah...atrocious.  It's level of unintentional silliness can best be summed up by one decision that having seen the film I can't imagine how anyone thought it could be a good idea:  Snake-Eyes, the ninja who doesn't say a word the entire film, has lips molded into his mask (you can kind of see them in the image above).

Big, bold, luscious lips.

Do I ever want to see it again?  No.  Am I glad I saw it at least once?  Not really.  But it looked like it might be pretty on Blu-ray, and that was the reason I rented it.


Coming soon: having lost all reason, I rent 2012.  It can't be all that bad, right?

Right?

Binder Challenge #1: I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK

Small cheat: I actually started the Binder Challenge on my personal blog a few weeks ago, so as I get the latest one ready here's the kick-off, a smaller-seen "tweener" film for Korean superstar Park-Chan wook.

Coming off the heels of LADY VENGEANCE, the final entry in the critically acclaimed Vengeance Trilogy (the other two films being SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and the global phenomenon OLDBOY), Park Chan-wook decided to travel off the well worn path of revenge thrillers and brutal violence and move in an unexpected direction: a romantic comedy. of course, this being a Park Chan-wook film, it's a romantic comedy filled with brutal violence and revenge.

Did you expect anything less?

I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK is a bit of a mouthful, barely mentioned in his Wikipedia entry, and a disappointment at the Korean box office. On the surface this seems a bit odd, as the film is filled with his signature style: everything is framed wonderfully, the camera zipping along inhabiting the world as if it's its own character. Chan-wook employs a color palette, and the film is peopled by an oddball cast that are all given their small moments to develop and shine. And of course there's the violence - played for laughs, sure, but still readily apparent. So all the boxes are checked and we're on target to be blown away. But unlike his other films, and unlike the films I'M A CYBORG... brings to mind (I was specifically reminded of the works of Terry Gilliam, Stephen Chow, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet), the images and moments fade away almost as soon as the credits roll.

It's an interesting premise: Young-goon is a timid factory worker who, in the opening scene, attempts to "charge" herself by slitting her wrist, inserting exposed copper wires and then plugging herself into a wall outlet. You see, she thinks she's a cyborg (but that's OK), and needs to charge her batteries instead of eating food. It's a gorgeously choreographed sequenced, mixing the humor of the situation with a visceral punch as the blood flows down her arm. Young-goon is admitted to an asylum where, in typical movie fashion she comes across an motley crew of misfit patients, including Park Il-sun (played by SPEED RACER/NINJA ASSASSIN/Asian singing sensation Rain in his debut film), a bunny mask-wearing kleptomaniac who "steals" the problems of his fellow inmates.

The meet cute/fall in love plot-line is confounded by Young-goon's insistence that not only is she a cyborg, but that she needs to charge up so she can fulfill her mission to kill all the "white-uns" for taking her grandmother away from her. Park Chan-wook shoots a number of fantasy sequences where Young-goon's fingertips open up to display gun barrels, allowing her to blow everyone away in the hospital as her mouth spits out empty shells. Park Il-sun, barely equipped to handle his own psychological problems, uses Young-goon's delusions to keep her safe as they both fall in love.

The film comes together in a few quiet, beautiful moments, such as Park Il-sun "implanting" a food converter Young-goon's back. Even as you acknowledge the absurdity of the situation, the care and delicate movements serve what would in another film be a bland, typical love scene. Later, both are locked in confinement, and their method of communication demonstrates a playfulness and innocence that shines in even the darkest portions of Chan-wook's other films. But those moments are few and far between, and large sections of the movie go by that, while visually dazzling and "cool" (the first time you see Young-goon go into her Terminator mode it's hard not to gasp with geek delight) don't leave much of an impression when the scene ends.

Just writing about the movie makes me almost think I liked it better than I did. The problem is, for all the dazzling visuals and comedic beats, I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK feels flat when all is said and done. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it's missing the spark that fused his other films together, leaving this as a footnote in an otherwise exemplary career.

Valkyrie (2008)

The one-word movie reviews continue, in an effort to stop from thinking about all the myriad issues in TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF MICHAEL BAY. My interest in seeing VALKYRIE waxed and waned while it was in the theater, but a chance to see Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie work together again intrigued me enough to see if the lightning they captured in THE USUAL SUSPECTS could again be bottled.

VALKYRIE is based on the famous assassination attempt and political coup on Hitler and the Nazi regime in the final days of WWII by a section of his trusted inner circle, led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenburg, as played by Tom Cruise. The problem with a movie like this is the burden of history: you know the attempt fails. Overcoming that hurdle is a tough job, and when Singer and McQuarrie get down to the business of executing the attempt and what occurs in its aftermath, VALKYRIE really shines. A large share of thanks has to go to the performances of everyone involved, particularly Tom Wilkenson as a Nazi general who slyly plays both sides of the coup, and Bill Nighy, as the colonel battling his own fears and doubts as he moves to do what's right. Cruise, after a very wooden start in the first half of the film (there's a lot of "Tom Cruisey-ness" in his early scenes) explodes in the second half, really letting you feel the anger and doggedness of his conviction that his attempt has succeeded, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

The best part of VALKYRIE is not its action, but its beauracracy, as the coup is commanded from offices and telephones, teletype machines and switchboard operators. The tension is ratcheted up to a tremendous degree, proving that it's not the end, but the path to the end that's important. If Singer and McQuarrie had only tightened up the first half of VALKYRIE to equal the second half, they would have had a modern classic on their hands. As it stands, VALKYRIE is still an above-average thriller with enough ideas and visual style to recommend to anyone looking for a good story.

Taken (2008)

TAKEN is quite possibly the greatest season of 24 ever, if 24 was condensed to a more manageable 1.5 hour running time, Kiefer Sutherland was replaced by Liam Neeson, and the daughter was still annoying. Unlike TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE FALLEN, I feel completely as ease with the ridiculousness of the plot, the shallow characterizations, and the cringe-worthy coincidences. TAKEN is a film that knows exactly where it sits in the pantheon of modern film, and is content to be as fast and furious an example of that place as possible.

That it succeeds is due to two things: the direction by Luc Besson disciple Pierre Morel, who proved he can do this type of film admirably with the first TRANSPORTER film and the under-appreciated UNLEASHED, and the gravitas brought to the main role by Liam Neeson, who with this one film has become in my mind the most badass Dad in modern film history. Your typical action hero doesn't get to display too wide a range of emotion, but Neeson's got the chops, and one of the best things Morel does is let his star's face take over the frame long enough to convey the horror and pain he's going through with the abduction of his daughter. The trailer for TAKEN is one of the most thrilling advertisements I've seen in some time, and does a far better job of precisely explaining what you're going to get out of this movie than I ever could, so check it out below:

Click the link to see it; I'll embed the trailer later

Refrains of "I will shoot you in the LEG!" echo through our house at regular intervals, coming from a previous season of 24, where CTU agent Jack Bauer threatens to shoot a suspect's wife in the if he doesn't give Jack the information he wants. There's a scene in TAKEN that takes this jokey moment and amps it to 11. Just for that I love this movie.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Before my brain turned to tapioca pudding during the 2 1/2 hour visual onslaught that is Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, I managed to learn or confirm the following tidbits:

1. Giants robots fighting each other = Awesome
2. Everything else = not so much

There's been a lot of talk that REVENGE OF THE FALLEN was conceived and plotted out during the Writer's Strike, which makes a lot of sense when you try to follow what little story there is. Apparently the Transformers (as they're called in the movie - which sounds really awkward when you hear it come out of people's mouths) have been on Earth before, and they built a machine that generates their Energon cubes by blowing up the Sun. An old, evil Decepticon known as the Fallen wants to do just that so he can repopulate the Decepticon Race. The problem is, he needs the information in Sam Witwicky's head, which got there because a shard from the Allspark was stuck in his jacket and he touched it and...and...and...

Forget it. I'm already confused and I only saw the movie an hour ago. Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox return as the only humans who know what's going on, and although they both sell the story as best they can, it's incredibly distracting because Bay can't film them without rotating the camera around like it's a Aerosmith video. It's a shame - LaBeouf's got charm to spare in everything he does, and Megan Fox gives the impression of having more than just the body of a goddess to sell as an actress, but that's not the kind of thing Bay's interested in. He just wants explosions, and unlike the first film, which did (I think) a fairly good job at balancing the human drama with the technological overkill, this time his human cast members are relegated to being damsels in distress for the machines or convenient plot exposition to rescue.

So if that were the only problem, things would be fine. I mean, stuff DOES blow up real good, and when you can understand the fighting (like the incredible fight scene in a forest), it's, well... breathtaking. But apparently Bay and his cadre of writers wanted to be sure they injected enough sophomoric humor that everyone's IQ would diminish just a little bit more. It was hard enough to swallow Jazz's break dance move from the first movie - here we have, among other offenders in poor taste:

1. A tiny, Joe Pesci robot that humps legs
2. An evil appliance transformer that shoots bullets out of an erect phallus equal in size to his height
3. Two good robots who are either in black face or doing a really bad ghetto stereotype
4. A robot with massive testicles, and finally...
5. Multiple robots farting

All this being said, I can't find it in my heart to work up the vitriol for TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN other reviewers have expressed. Yes, it's extremely stupid, a lot of it's in bad taste, and the story/script is barer than Megan Fox's mid-drift. But none of it seems to have been done with any forethought of malice, and like I said, them robots blow things up REAL GOOD.

Make of that what you will. And now, because I can...

Terminator Salvation (2009)

It’s impossible to point a finger at any one person or thing that brings TERMINATOR SALVATION down to such a mediocre movie. Movies are a collaborative process (so “bunk” to the whiners who argue over whether the screenwriter or the actor or the director is the sole architect responsible for a film), and as much as I would like to lay blame on the all-over-the-place script, Christian Bale’s performance or McG’s overall direction, I can’t. Everyone has a piece of this mud pie.

It’s not a total disaster by any stretch of the imagination, and I went into things hopeful for some fun action if nothing else. And I got that – the action scenes are spectacular. McG rails against the current fad of close-up, shaky camera movement that turns most action scenes into a jumbled mess (which is why it’s so weird that the fad persists) and keeps everything very clear and fluid, never letting the audience get lost in the sequence. When he struts his stuff it’s amazing: there’s a helicopter crash scene that’s perhaps one of the best camera moves I’ve seen in years.

There are some good performances to be had as well: Sam Worthington plays the real “lead” (as far as I’m concerned) of TERMINATOR SALVATION and gives us a preview of what he’ll be bringing to the table in the much anticipated AVATAR coming later this year, and Anton Yelchin does a great Michael Biehn playing a young Kyle Reese, which is kind of funny when you think about his role in STAR TREK channeling Walter Koenig’s Chekov. Even Moon Bloodgood, whom I only know as a television actress brings a spark to the scenes she’s in.

But unfortunately none of that is enough to overcome complete non-performances from the likes of Bryce Dallas Howard and Common, both of whom have proven they can give good performances in other films. But the real culprit is bale, who uses one setting the entire movie, which is basically a riff on his BATMAN persona. His John Connor scowls and broods, shouts odd phrases for no reason, and basically detracts from the story in almost every scene he’s in. I’ve heard that originally John Connor was supposed to be a minor role in SALVATION, which the focus being on Worthington and Yelchin’s characters, but when Bale came aboard the script was overhauled to feature him.

Bad mistake if that was the case. Connor’s presence only serves to cut from a more interesting story, one that has parallels to the other TERMINATOR films. And since those scenes need to be cut into the film, the story of Worthington’s Marcus Wright, a condemned man in 2003 who awakens in 2018 in the middle of the war between humanity and the machines, suffers.

I feel bad for McG. He’s got a definite eye for things, and even though I wasn’t the target audience for them, the CHARLIE’S ANGELS films were fin and striking in a way that was fresh and new at the time they were released. Maybe a lot of this was studio interference: how else to explain the cumbersome and sloppy prologue that’s tacked on to the beginning, the text exposition that immediately follows? All of this could have been integrated with a lot more finesse into the middle of the movie, except that no, we have to make room for all the Bale brooding. The editing and assembling of the different storylines does nothing except to ramp up tension only to deflate it a few moments later.

I wish we had a great TERMINATOR film for the 21st century. I wanted this to be it. My hope now is that the inevitable deluxe/ultimate/limited DVD that comes out has some sort of “Director’s Cut” that addresses some of these issues. A few suggestions from this humble (and admittedly inexperienced, as mentioned before) writer follows:

1. Ditch the opening scene with Marcus and Helena Bonham Carter’s Cancer Lady character, as well as the scrolling exposition. Open with the battle. You can always communicate the lost information later in the scenes between Marcus and Bloodgood at the fire.
2. Cut back Bale’s role. After the opening battle, let’s stay on Marcus’s story until he’s brought to John Connor at the resistance headquarters.
3. Ditch Bryce Dallas Howard all together. Nothing against her, but she’s useless in this particular role. It’s kind of embarrassing, actually.
4. The ending: without giving too much away, there’s a great opportunity to “fix” John Connor in the labs, essentially making him like Marcus and setting up a larger inner conflict for future use instead of the ultimately wussy “heart” scene that coincidentally makes John Connor look like a huge dick instead of the hero he needs to be.

Come on guys, I know there a really good, if not great movie in here somewhere…

Movie #16: Death Race (2008)

I think we've gotten to the point in Jason Statham's career where it's no longer necessary to give a reason for why he's such a badass. He just is. In DEATH RACE he plays Jensen Ames, a former racing champion who at the start of the film is getting his walking papers from some industrial factory that's being closed down.

So far no reason to suspect he's capable of his next action: beating the hell out of a group of riot police who comes to quell the uproar over the closing of the plant.

No explanation needed: the dude is just badass.

Soon after Ames returns home to his wife and daughter, is knocked out, and is framed for the murder of his wife. He's sent to Terminal Island Prison, where he's forced to participate in the infamous Death Race, a three-stage no holds barred car race that is the most popular televised event in the country. The evil warden (played by Joan Allen of all people) is holding his baby daughter hostage, so you know Ames is gonna have to not only win the race, but escape, get his daughter back, and engineer an especially brutal demise for all the baddies as well.

Does this come to fruition? Well, of course it does...what kind of movie did you think this was? DEATH RACE seems perfectly content to wallow in its B-movie mechanics, and for once writer/director Paul WS Anderson doesn't get in the way of that. The entire film is loud, fast, and tweaked to emphasize (or de-emphasize) colors and tones accordingly. The editing is the same old 100mph flashy cuts and slow-motion lingering, especially when the female prisoners who act as the race navigators are bussed into the prison. In another film it would be tired, and maybe it is here, too, but I get the sense that this is exactly what DEATH RACE is aspiring to, and that kind of makes it okay. The cast seems to be having fun: Allen in particular, because I guess I just never pictured her doing a film like this. Ian McShane is the obligatory old guy who acts as chief of Statham's pit crew and quasi-mentor, and he's gleeful in the few choice moments he has.

The race itself is probably the best thing in the film: chances are you won't see another race this year that has this much car flipping, machine guns, spouts of flame or blood. This is where Anderson does some of his best work - say what you want about the guy (and man, after ALIEN VS. PREDATOR you have every right to), but the racing in this movie is spectacular. In a bloody, flame and bullets kind of way.

Ultimately, DEATH RACE rests on the shoulders of one tiny, ridiculously ripped bald dude, and Statham rises above whatever silliness the script requires of him. There's no denying he has an easy charm and charisma, but it's a shame that for every great role he gets (SNATCH, THE BANK JOB) he has to do a couple lesser pictures. This is a guy screaming to be used correctly; hopefully there'll be a few more meaty roles to stretch his range a bit.

Long story short: DEATH RACE is by no means a good movie, but it certainly is a fun movie, and probably worth the price of a rental, a couple of six packs and a group of friends to sit around and watch it.

Movie #8: Skinwalkers (2007)

How's this for a kick-ass opening?

A young boy is walking down the street with his dear old grandmother, on their way to pick up his mother at the local hardware store. They pause at the corner, and the grandmother looks up, alarm on her face. An eagle screams, passing just overhead and soaring across the street to a rugged, scruffy motorcycle type, who flexes his muscles and levels a murderous stare at the pair.

"We only want the boy," he says. The sweet grandmother reaches into her purse to pull out the largest pistol I have ever seen a grandmother carry. "Run, Matthew!" she cries as she starts firing. Another biker type appears and starts blasting. The mailman sees what's going on and cries out, grabbing a sawed-off shotgun from his mailbag as the bullets start flying everywhere.

SKINWALKERS doesn't start like that; you have to wade through an almost unwatchable 20 minutes before you get to this scene. But it should start like that - thrust us directly into the action to learn what's going on along with Matthew and his mother as their eyes are opened to a world of Skinwalkers: shape-changing werewolves at war with each other. The evil baddies, led by Caleb (Jason Behr looking, as others have noted, like the lead singer from a late 90s rock band), wish to kill Matthew because it is prophesied he is the one who will bring about their destruction by ending the curse that gives them their power at the change of the moon. On the side of right is Jonas (the always creepy but watchable Elias Koteas) and his extended family, who want Matthew to end the curse and give their kind the freedom of a normal life.

The problem with the first 20 minutes of the film is all of this is explained in the most banal way imaginable, using trite, bland storytelling like scrolling prologues and pages of useless exposition. Useless, because once the action starts we're put in the place of Matthew's mother (played by rising action hottie Rhona Mitra of DOOMSDAY) who has to quickly understand everything that's happening to her and her son anyway, which is an infinitely better way of moving the story along. Director James Issac revels in the B-movie feel of SKINWALKERS, and loads the film with tense moments and a bevy of twists and turns to keep the story from falling flat.

The werewolves fall more into the "Wolf-man" Universal Monsters look than THE HOWLING or the more recent DOG SOLDIERS, and credit fore that should be given to legendary FX man Stan Winston and his team, who had a hand in the production. They look descent for the budget, and Issac does a lot of lighting and film speed tricks to hide some of it. But SKINWALKERS, despite its supernatural leanings, is a solid B-movie action flick.

Just do yourself a favor and shut your TV off, fast-forward 20 minutes, turn back on and enjoy.