BUDDY COPS: THE STAKEOUT IS COMING SOON!!!!

The makers of the short film BUDDY COPS: THE STAKEOUT has released a slew of character posters and behind the scenes photos as well as a trailer in preparation for it's release.

Here is the official synopsis.

Newly formed St. Louis police duo John Barrow (Raymond Roberson) and Jack Slate (Tyler Meyer) are assigned the task of tracking down and stopping the dealers of a powerful drug ring. Action meets comedy in this new 80's style homage to Buddy Cop action films.

The release date is to be determined with an estimated date of mid February of this year.  Look for it on YouTube. 

Click here for the trailer!

PUNISHER: THE NETFLIX SERIES is very "Bourne-ing."

Let me tell you something, folks.  I am a huge fan of the Punisher.  I have the character's first appearance in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #129.  I have just about every issue of every volume of the Punisher's main run of comics as well as a ton of his appearances in other characters' comics.  I think he is just the tops!  Superheroes are often the outsiders of society.  If that is so then Frank Castle is the outsider of outsiders.  He cannot rely on his superpowers to save the day because he has none!  What a fascinating hero in a world of super powered superheroes. I tell you all of this to assure you that this review is not going to be one of those "It sucks because the show isn't like the comics" kind of reviews.  I promise.  I will say, however, that Netflix's THE PUNISHER is terrible for so many other reasons.  Yea, that's right.  I didn't care too much for this show.  Everyone else seems to love it but I found the show to be a 13 hour endurance test of boring.  It's a thin unimaginative story populated with a bunch of characters that serve as oversize luggage that drag down and get in the way of anything interesting happening.  Oh, and the show is nothing whatsoever like the comics!

The story is another origin story!  Can you believe it?  How ballzy do you have to be to put out another origin story of the same version of the character?  It is like the creators of this show don't know what to do with this guy or are too afraid to write stories that concern what the Punisher actually does.  So in DAREDEVIL season 2 we are introduced to Frank Castle who is hunting down those who murdered his family.  By the end of the show he gets them all.  Now for his new show he discovers that there was one more person left and he spends the entire 13 episodes trying to find out who he is and kill him.  You can rest assure that season 2 of the PUNISHER will feature yet another character tied to the death of Frank's family that he will have to go after for another 13 episodes.

The show starts off with Frank Castle played by Jon Bernthal running around killing the little fish that were tied to the death of his family.  He is wearing the white punishment death skull prominently on his bulletproof vest so I took that as a good sign.  I thought all that stuff with his family was over.  The show can move on into new territory.  But then after he kills them all in the first five minutes of the first episode he burns the vest and retires to hitting concrete walls with a hammer.  What is he going to do for the rest of the season?  Oh, he is going to go around and yet again uncover the conspiracy that got his family made not alive anymore with the help of his new friend and computer whiz, Micro.  Fun?

Jon Bernthal really isn't playing the Punisher.  He is playing a character that should have been called the Revenger.  His motivation is based only on getting revenge on those that wronged him.  The Thomas Jane movie of the same name also made the same mistake.  Once the Punisher has dealt with those who murdered his family what is left for Franky to do?  What would motivate him to go on and wage war on bad guys?  It feels wrong for him to go on killing unless he is unstable mentally which this show insinuates with his apparent PTSD.  If there was any doubt that Frank Castle is not the Punisher the scene where Frank has a gun to the head of Turk, the gun runner who also helped traffic people in the slave trade.  Turk is kind of a running gag always popping up in the previous Netflix Marvel shows like DAREDEVIL and LUKE CAGE.  What was funny about his character is that you knew that he would show up in the PUNISHER show and that he was going to die because Daredevil and Luke Cage don't kill but the Punisher does.  We knew it was too good not to happen but it didn't.  After finding Turk with all his weapons ready to be sold to the city's bad element Netflix's Punisher just knocks him out.  That is when you know that this is not the Punisher.  He is the Revenger.  Turk had nothing to do with the death of his family so Frank had no reason to kill him.

When you see Punisher fan art you usually see Frank Castle armed to the teeth carrying two big guns with two rows of grenades strapped criss-crossed to his vest and ammo magazines protruding from every possible pocket stitched to his clothing with all that weight doing nothing from disrupting his aim as he, with his face frozen in a warriors scream, blasts away at the unseen baddies that most likely lay dead in a hail of gunfire.  This is how we sum up what the Punisher does and how we want to see him do it.  The Netflix seems embarrassed by this character.  Frank doesn't go after drug dealers and rapists.  No, he instead meets and gets involved with Micro's family or dreams of his dead wife over and over again with additional flashback sequences to constantly remind us that he misses his family.  Micro too has his own flashback sequences with his family too.  How many times do we see Micro looking at a computer monitor watching his family on camera?  How many times does Frank dreams or flashbacks to his family?  The show creators can't seem to think of anything interesting to put on the screen.  But they sure do make it a priority to stop any possible momentum the story may have made with these family moments

The name of this show should have been titled THE JASON BOURNE SHOW.  What we have here is an uninspired remake of the Bourne films.  The bad guys are all CIA, FBI or politicians in suits who did bad things during the war.  Now they have to kill the rogue soldier because he knows too much.  Now he has to run from the authorities, beat up two cops then jump down a stairwell and get into unimpressive car chases while killing former military henchmen.  There is nothing in this show that we haven't seen before.  Its a typical American action film in episodic form.

The Netflix original THE PUNISHER simply tells the wrong kind of story.  It should be an action show about a one man war against crime.  This show is more of a family drama wrapped up in a police procedural.  Bernthal could be a good Punisher but his portrayal as a PTSD ridden homeless guy is just sad.  He doesn't emote badassery.  He just cries sometimes or comes across as an upset dock worker.  It should be simple not a bunch of conspiracy nonsense with the usual twists and turns.  The Punisher show should break the formula of telling one long story arch over 13 episodes.  Every episode should be about him tracking down a killer of killers and killing them like a monster of the week kind of thing.  DEXTER did it on occassion. 

So what will happen in season 2?  I predict that he will once again go after another former military bad guy that is revealed to be involved with the death of Frank's family that will also be involved with a bunch of White Supremacists.  Expect more dream sequences and flashbacks of Frank's family too.  I am surprised about how many people who are Punisher fans love this show.  I just don't get it.  I never read or watched a single negative review of it. I'm sure there are some out there but I didn't look very hard.  I figure they are caught up in the Disney/Marvel hype unwilling to accept the fact that the show does not deliver the most basic motivations of the character. The PUNISHER never moves forward always stopping to look at the past developing a character that was already developed in DAREDEVIL season 2.  Just like Frank at the beginning of the first episode hitting walls over and over again with a hammer the show accomplishes nothing and bores the audience with redundancy.  Next time, Netflix let me write the dang show.


Jason

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016) When is a remake not a remake?

Well they did it, didn't they?  They finally did it.  The Hollywood Remake machine has finally claimed another American classic.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed they would have the tenacity to attempt to redo a nearly perfect classic film.  How much more taboo can you be?  The film that I am talking about of course is WORLD GONE WILD.  The post apocalyptic action western starring Bruce Dern is about a hippie from the sixties living in a world ravaged by nuclear warfare.  He lives in a small settlement of peaceful pioneers in the desert who find themselves under threat of Adam Ant and his cult of followers.  Out gunned Bruce Dern goes out and recruits about five other tough guys who manage to fight back and save the town from the weirdo attackers.  Of course the most memorable moment in the film is when Bruce Dern kills a bad guy by flipping a hub cap into his throat with the flick of a stick.  Oscar worthy and totally possible in real life I am sure.

Of course I am being silly.  Yes, WORLD GONE WILD is a remake (or homage) of the classic western, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, which was a remake of the classic samurai film, THE SEVEN SAMURAI, directed by Akira Kurosawa.  But we are here to review the new Denzel Washington film directed by Antoine Fuqua.  I bring up WORLD GONE WILD to make a point.  WGW has the spirit of the original as well as some lines of dialogue and some visual cues as well.  THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 2016 only has a few lines of dialogue from the original.  The spirit of the original is completely absent from the new film.  The new MAGNIFICENT SEVEN barely even qualifies as a remake.  I would argue that it is not a remake at all, but just another "Men on a Mission" movie.  However, the idea that this is not a remake does not make the new movie better.  There is no fresh or new approach to the material.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN from 2016 is about a gunfighter named Sam (Not Chris!) who accepts a request from a recently widowed woman to help save her town from an evil rich guy and his army of bearded, duster wearing, professional gunmen.  Of course along the way Sam (The Denzel) recruits Chris Pratt and five other cohorts to lead the revolt against the army of TOMBSTONE movie enthusiasts.

I was shocked to see according to IMDB that the new MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was two hours and thirteen minutes long.  That is five minutes longer than the 1960's version!  How can the longer film have less story?  The new movie has gutted the story and replaced it all with guns, guns and more guns.  The movie becomes more of a standard revenge Western than an epic tale of men of questionable character deciding to fight for a noble cause with little chance of winning.  Yes, that is right I said "revenge Western."  Spoiler!!!!  At the end it is revealed that the rich bad guy, Bartholomew, had murdered Sam's family.  That revelation undercuts the whole point to the story.  The story narrative is incredibly important.  The filmmakers didn't trust the audiences to understand a motivation that wasn't revenge or getting gold and stuff.  The concept of fighting because it is the right thing to do seems to be too much of an abstract concept nowadays.  When Sam says the line from the original "I have been offered a lot, but never everything" it now suddenly has no meaning because he is only joining the cause for revenge.  Contrast that with Yul Brynner's character, Chris, who is moved by the gesture of poor farmers scraping together everything they have just to hire him to fight.  Which movie has more depth of character?  Which movie is going to move you more on an emotional level?

Akira Kurosawa's film was called THE SEVEN SAMURAI.  It is about seven samurai.  The 1960's MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is about seven gunfighters.  The new movie's cast of characters have different occupations.  You have Sam and the Mexican as gunfighters, a knife expert, a former Confederate who is now a sharp shooter, a Native American who joins for no reason, a mountain man and a gambler.  The diversity of their occupations doesn't hurt the modern film because there is no attempt to bring a connection between our protagonists and our super rich and super mean antagonist.  There is no time for character development despite the longer run time.  Longer run time means longer gun fights at the end.  1960's MAGNIFICENT had a cast of nothing but wandering gunfighters just like the wandering samurai from the source material.  These seven gunfighters are fighting a large band of outlaws who are also gunfighters.  They have similar job occupations.  Eli Wallachi leads the gang of outlaws who steals from the poor defenseless farmers.  Near the end he out smarts the heroes and takes over the small village but he doesn't kill them.  He respects them.  He sees himself as one of them even though he doesn't understand why they are fighting for some pathetic farmers.  The new movie has a stereotypical wealthy bad guy.  Only at the end is there an attempt to establish any connection our heroes and villain and it is only the deflating revelation that the bad guy killed Sam's family back in the day.  Standard stuff you would find in any Western.  That is why I really don't consider this a remake.  It is too far gone from the source material.  It is in name only that this is a remake.

Location.  Location.  Location.  The location is so important to both versions of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.  For the original it helps emphasize the thoughtful nature of our heroes.  They choose to fight the odds in a foreign land far away from anyone who will ever know their sacrifice.  There is no reward for what they are doing.  No one will remember them except for the farmers and villagers they help save.  They are alien to the Mexican culture.  Through the course of the film, however, the gunfighters envy the farmers for having a life worth living full of family and friends.  The farmers and the gunfighters learn from each other and develop a kinship.  Also the village is in the middle of nowhere far from any form of law enforcement which is ideal for Calvera and his men to take as they please.  The villagers are so desperate to hire men that are good with guns that they scrounge all of their most valuable possessions together making themselves even more poor than they were before.

The location of the remake takes place in the United States.  The townsfolk are not poor when compared to the farmers of the original.  The townsfolk gathering up their possessions to pay for their own Magnificent Seven isn't as meaningful.  They probably have more wealth where that came from.  Just look at how prosperous their town looks.   These people have jobs.  It feels disingenuous.  Being in the United States means there is some kind of government law somewhere about.  I know the film gives the classic cliche that the evil rich guy owns the law but if you are going to seek help from an army of bad guys, you don't buy gunfighters.  You go to a nearby fort and find the United States Army and ask them to help for free.  Does the bad guy own the Army too?  Not bloody likely.  Maybe there is some kind of HEAVEN'S GATE situation going on the movie doesn't mention.

Calvera played by Eli Wallachi is bombastic, deadly and a true threat.  He is a bandit, a killer, a man who has lived the life of adventure.  He lives outside of the law just like our heroes.  Contrast that to Bartholomew Bogue the wealthy murdering businessman.  Peter Sarsgaard is a great actor and he does his job well playing the antagonist but his diminutive size and stature does not present much of a menace to our stalwart band of larger than life heroes.  Being a man raised in great privilege makes him look soft having armed guards do his dirty work.

So what are we left with?  A descent action western and not much else.  Its not great but it is entertaining for the most part.  All the actors are great in their respected roles.  Denzel is always good.  You can never accuse the guy of giving a bad performance.  Chris Pratt is pretty much an early relative of STARLORD but that is a good thing for this film.  The Seven do have some good chemistry between them all that musters some attachment from the audience.  I like Byung-hun Lee as Billy Rocks the knife expert and his partner Goodnight Robicheaux the sharpshooter.  These two have an fun and sympathetic friendship where Billy keeps Goodnight in check from completely falling apart from his past experience in the Civil War.  If they had survived the movie they should have had a spin-off movie exploiting their further adventures.  Oops!  Spoilers!  Antoine Fuqua is a really good action director and he brings his "A Game" for this one.  There is a ton of glorious six gun blasting action in this movie and it's well staged and easy to follow.  No busy editing to distract form the action.  I particularly like all the horse stunt work Denzel does shooting bad guys from atop his magnificent black steed.  He is like a gymnast on a pommel horse.  Don't worry, folks.  The horse survives.  With all the shootings, stabbings and other major impalement issues I am surprised that this film managed to squeak out a PG-13.

Its funny.  Antoine Fuqua made another actioner that came out back in the old days of 2003.  It was TEARS OF THE SUN.  It starred Bruce Willis as a Special-Ops commander who leads a small group of soldiers who are sent into Africa to retrieve a doctor played by Monica Bellucci but find themselves ignoring orders to save a bunch of refugees fleeing a murderous army that seeks to kill them all.  Its an okay movie.  Tom Skerritt pops up in the film as an added bonus.  TEARS is way more closer to a MAGNIFICENT SEVEN remake than the Denzel movie.  Men in a foreign land who fight against a much larger army to save some people they have no apparent commonality with.  Sure it doesn't take place in the same time period and it lacks the memorable dialogue of the original but it does have the same core concept of few against many for the lives of strangers and the greater good.  See it for yourself.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN has more in common with any generic action movie (WORLD GONE WILD) concerning men recruited to undertake a dangerous mission than it does with the classic Western the movie steals it's title from.  Still the new movie is enjoyable with it's colorful cast and impressive amount of shoot'em up fun.  It is just too bad they didn't approach the material as an epic rather than just another BANG-BANG action movie.

Jason

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER (1974)

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER sounds more like a title for a Spaghetti Western than a modern day Eurocrime.  I'm sure this film has many different titles and translations depending on what market of the world it was distributed to.  Director Fernando Di Leo has made an excellent entry into the genre.  The first thirty minutes or so I wasn't very impressed.  The film is kind of ordinary in it's initial appearance.  Most likely the film was quickly shot.  There isn't any well thought out creative camera angles and compositions to make the film any different from all the other hastily made Dirty Harry knock offs from seventies Italy.  I can't even remember the music.  However, if you wait you will be rewarded with a simple but very compelling story about the consequences of police corruption.  Its the story that makes SHOOT FIRST worth a watch.  The ending is great too which I will be spoiling completely in this review because I love it!

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER opens with a large bow tied mafia boss named Pascal having a bunch of local drug dealers shot in the legs for doing business behind his back.  Later an eccentric old man tries to leave his house to get milk for his cat but his gate has been blocked by a couple of cars to where he can't get out.  This prompts the old man to file a police report.  Meanwhile police officer, Domenico (Luc Merenda) busts some gun runners.  After being glorified for busting them Domenico gets word to show up to a meeting.  That meeting ends up being with Pascal.  Domenico is actually working for the mob!  They inform Domenico that there was a report filed involving the parked cars that links Pascal to a recent murder.  Domenico is to get rid of that report.  The problem is that with the escalation of the murder investigation everyone involved with filing that report is now a witness and Domenico knows it.  The police officer who wrote down and filed that report just happens to be Domenico's father.

Domenico is a carefree kind of cop.  He busts the bad guys, gets into high speed car chases through the crowded streets of Milan and at the end of the day goes to his girlfriend Sandra's apartment to make sweet sweet love.  He does all of this and helps out the mob with their coffee and tobacco trade.  For Domenico and his partner Garrito (Rosario Borelli) this is small time harmless crime and easy money.  They see no wrong in it.  He doesn't realize that the Mafia are expanding their trade into guns and drugs until Domenico busts two Portuguese gun runners that are dealing with Pascal.  Domenico learns the hard way that working for the mob is not harmless fun and the only thing he needs to buy with his ill gotten gains is a fancy new casket.

What a great movie!  The first thirty minutes sets up the true drama that comes later almost unassumingly.  The movie comes across as just another silly tough guy movie but the moment you see that Domenico is corrupt everything changes.  There is an invisible noose around Domenico's neck that tightens with every passing scene as he tries to get that report out of the hands of his father.  We see that his father is very proud of him.  When Domenico has to reveal to his father that he is working for the mob it breaks his father's heart.  His father reluctantly brings Domenico the report breaking the law and making his father corrupt too.  His father never forgives him and he isn't given time to do so because he is murdered after giving the report to Domenico.  This propels Domenico into going after Pascal but doing so costs him everything.  

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER is about the price one pays for being corrupt.  Though he doesn't realize it, Domenico has lost his soul.  Our protagonist is not any better than the bad guys he gets revenge on.  One of the best and most revealing moments of the film is when Domenico, Garrito and another cop who we see early on is not part of the police corruption go to Sandra's apartment to save her from some hitmen.  After pulling up to the apartment Domenico sends the innocent cop to the front door to ring the bell.  Domenico just watches and waits as if he already knows what is about to happen next.  BOOM!  The cop dies from a rigged explosive after ringing the door bell.  Domenico shows no concern as he charges into the apartment only to find his girlfriend dead on the bed.  He sent the cop to die and it didn't bother him.  Domenico is truly lost to the world of sin.

Throughout the film Domenico tries to stay ahead of the mob.  He avoids their traps and bullets.  Finally he strikes a deal with Pascal's lawyer and second in command, Mazzanti played Richard Conti.  A meeting is set up where Domenico meets with Pascal face to face.  Pascal offers his hand to end all the trouble but Domenico shoots him in the face.  Mazzanti and his men leave but Garrito walks up behind Domenico and shoots him in the head.  And that is how the film ends.  You can never truly escape the consequences of corruption.  Its a cruel and unforgiving ending.  Garrito was a trusted friend. At the funeral for Domenico's father Garrito is the only one with tears in his eyes.  After going back and watching the movie again I have to wonder if he is crying for Domenico's loss or is he upset that he has already been tasked to kill his best friend?  Will Garrito have a similar fate in the future?

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER has some good tough guy moments to help pass the run time but it is the story that makes this a definite must watch.  Luc Merenda as Domenico is a surprise.  At the beginning I dismissed him as just another tough guy actor but his acting chops shine through in the scenes involving drama between him and his father.  You feel for him as he tries to persuade his father that what he did wasn't all that bad.

The Italians know how to have a good surprise ending.  They have to for having so many similar films produced at the same time.  I like the endings where at the end when all is said and done our hero still manages to get themselves perished at the hands of a friend or random thug.  BIG GUNS has a similar ending.  If you feel like you have seen everything then let me recommend the horror and Eurocrime films from Italy.  You never know what you are going to get.  Over the years I have become a reluctant fan and now embrace them looking for the next surprise.  The search never gets old.

Jason

2014's TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES is 'TURTLE-BLE!'

What a lazy and horrible title for this post, isn't it?  You probably clicked on this post just to mock the writer of such a title and you would be right to do so.  But let me ask you this.  Does the new TMNT movie deserve a better effort?  I think not.  What a way to mess up a potentially terrific franchise from the start!  You would think that a movie about teenage mutant ninja turtles would be full of originality and with today's special effects the look of our heroes in a half shell can finally be made to look right.  Nope!  This movie is a rehash of what we have already seen before which is fine to establish key elements of the Turtles but then you realize that you have seen all of this in recent movies from the past few years as well.  Heroes in a half shell?  More like heroes in a half-assed story.

I am going to get real stupid when describing the plot so bear with me on this one.  I want to show how stupid the story is by being stupid myself.  So  a rich guy and a ninja watched THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and THE TRANSFORMERS and decided to be bad guys and put a thing on top of a building that makes a poison cloud to poison the city for the sole purpose of being rulers of the world and really really rich.  They are already rich but whatever.  Don't pay attention to that part of the story.  Teenage mutant ninja turtles show up and stop them.  There are some hijinks that happen along the way, some weirdo shows up in what looks like an inflatable Whoopi Goldberg costume but very little in the way of real character development or bonding occurs.  We the audience are never drawn into the story.  Maybe we are amused by the colorful special effects and flashy camera work or distracted by the haphazardly strewn random shots of movement that make up most of the poorly staged fight sequences.  In any case it looks like a wreck..

The good news is that the turtle characters are each unique individuals.  Each one stands apart from the other in personality and design.  Other than their disturbingly too human faces they look great.  There were a couple of times Michelangelo actually said something that made me laugh.  He is the funny one.  That is what he does.  Leo is still the leader.  Don wears googly goggles to indicate that he is into high tech gadgets and stuff.  Raph is still the wannabe loner that loves his brothers too much to be apart from them.  They are likable enough to give me hope for a better sequel.  The turtles are fine except for one glaring problem.....

They are not ninjas!!!

Remember when us Turtle geeks were in an outrage because supposedly the studio was making the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aliens instead of mutants?  I remember.  Studios love jacking up important details of characters from comics and cartoons when making a movie version of them.  It happens to them all but this was too huge of a change.  Apparently that whole story was a lie or the studio changed it back to not upset the target audience.  Now that the movie is out and I have seen it and had time to ponder it I have realized that the 'Ninja' part of the Turtles is not true at all.  Master Splinter isn't a master of anything.  He found a book of martial arts in the sewer that was probably written by Napoleon Dynamite and suddenly they are well trained ninjas.  What would a rat know about ninja stuff?  The only thing I know about ninjas is that they wear black pajamas and have their butts handed to them by Michael Dudikoff.  Its a good thing Splinter didn't find a cook book.  What would motivate them to train so hard and become martial artists anyway?  Its not like they had any connection to Shedder or expected him to show up sometime in the future.  He was just in the same building they were kept in before they became mutated.  The foundation to build a strong character confrontation is absent.  They have no past together.  When Shedder and Splinter meet for the first time down in the sewer they act like they know each other but we know they don't.  The whole scene has no effect except to highlight the badly written first draft story.

Shredder poses no threat to the Turtles whatsoever.  The movie hyper sizes everything.  The Turtles are pretty much four Hulks running around with super strength.  There is no reason for them to have martial arts training.  Their mutation has made them super strong and super fast.  Shedder who is trained in martial arts and ninja stuff could do nothing to them.  Thankfully he is really really into the TRANSFORMERS movies and made himself a fully functioning Megatron suit.  If he hadn't happened to make that suit he would be no adversary.  Why would a ninja who relies on his own physical abilities create a robot suit?  No reason. I guess originally Shedder was the white dude.  That would explain the suit sort of.

There are all kinds of weird moments that don't make much sense when you think about it.  Splinter gets mortally wounded and the Turtles decide to get the ooze that transformed them because that will heal him.  Since when did the ooze have healing powers?  I could be wrong but the ooze was never considered something that could heal.  It just mutated you into whatever thingy that could be made into an action figure and sold in stores.  In TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2: SECRET OF THE OOZE was the secret that the ooze had aloe vera in it?  Did I miss that part?  I think it would be funny if the Turtles got the ooze to Splinter and tried pouring it down his throat and he said "Why are you feeding me toxic waste?"  That is what the ooze is anyway.   Another time Raphael is the only one not captured by Shedder.  Raph goes to save them but when he finds them Shedder shows up as Megatron and beats the poop out of our turtle hero.  Instead of killing or capturing Raph, Shedder just abruptly walks out of the room like some kind of badass.  Maybe Shedder was just caught up in the moment to realize that he just left Raph alone to free his brothers and eventually ruin Shedders plans.

People need to stop blaming Megan Fox for the film not being very good.  She does a fine job with what she is given.  Her character is given plenty to do even if we the audience don't care.  She is just a victim to the bad script.  Hopefully in the next installment things will come together with a more pleasing outcome.  Hey, at least they have casted Steven Amell as Casey Jones in the next installment.  That's a good start.

Jason

The new ROBOCOP is ROBOCRAP!

What makes a movie smart?  What qualities must a film have to be considered intelligent?  Good acting?  Terrific cinematography?  Big name actors?  Perfect directing? Complex stories and characters?   I will tell you.  It is knowing what kind of movie you are making.  That is the first thing that must be established before writing your script.  ROBOCOP 2014 doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be.  It doesn't understand what we the people for the most part want to see in a movie about a cop that was turned into a robot.  ROBO2014 wants to be a personal drama about a man losing his body and humanity while obligingly putting safe and slick action pieces that is also punctuated with corporate satire.  The problem is that the film never finds the right mix or balance.  The result is a boring, forgettable bland experience which is the ultimate crime for a film.

ROBOCOP 2014 tells the story about a corporate big wig played by Michael Keaton who wants Congress to pass a repeal of a law that prevents robots from policing the country.  The rest of the world allows it which makes him already rich but I guess he wants America to allow it so he can make a little more money.  He employs a scientist to create a robot that is part man to be a loop hole to the law that will lead Congress to rethink it's stand on the whole robot policing the world issue.  Excited yet?  Then this cop who everyone keeps calling  "Murphy" shows up and starts telling his police Captain this long back story about him and his partner busting bad guys and getting into a gun fight to keep the audience interested in the film.  He gets blown up in a car explosion reminiscent of the first PUNISHER film starring Dolph Lundgren and then turned into a robot.  The rest of the film is about Murphy dealing with being a robot and connecting with his family and eventually solving his own attempted murder.  After the main bad guys are dead the film still has 30 minutes left so Michael Keaton has to do something bad enough to justify Robocop going after him and killing him so there can be more action and stuff happening.  In the end Robocop lives and gets to be a cop and spend time with his family.  A perfect happy safe non challenging PG-13 ending the kids will enjoy.

This is a long film.  It tries to be smart but ends up being stupid by cramming many different stories in an attempt to hit all the complex concepts of the original film.  We are left with the feeling that we are not watching a movie made for the theater but a pilot to a t.v. show that was made in the mid 90's.  The whole narrative is a wet noodle, limp and derivative.  The rhythm never develops.  Clumsy scene after boring scene follow one after another taking great pains to explain everything.  We have to explain the back story of Murphy to fit him into the larger story of a corporation trying explain why they need to get robots to police the U.S.  We are constantly told that Murphy is part robot and he has his own will and then the movie becomes about  the scientist Gary Oldman taking away his will for a short time and feeling bad about it.  So what?  Who cares?  This is not what we want to see.  We want to see a clever shoot'em up.  It is that simple.

The first ROBOCOP was a revenge film.  It was about Alex Murphy regaining his humanity as he tracked down the bad guys that murdered him which led to him being recreated as a cyborg.  The film has a sharp wit that is never heavy handed and never slows down to explain itself.  The film never compromises with it's depiction of violence nor bogs down into the mire of showing his family being sad and going around making scenes uninteresting.  The original ROBOCOP is impossible to forget making it an iconic film of the 80's.  Who is going to forget toxic waste guy who explodes into gory wet pieces when hit by a car.  That guy haunts me even into my thirties.  The movie filled the screen with bad guys who are more entertaining and interesting than a mother and kid and scientists and boring corporate suits.

Why bother making a sequel if you are not going to out do the first?  The horrible realization is that this is a film made only to cash in on the name recognition.  ROBO2014 is nothing new.  The new Robocop design looks generic and over used from all the soldiers who have appeared in all first person shooter video games made in the last ten years.  Some of the over view city shots with drones flying in the sky look heavily inspired by the recently released much superior DREDD film.  Maybe if you are new to film and was just born in the last 10 years the new ROBOCOP might hold some interest if you can get by all the boring dialogue and miss handled action scenes that fail in every way to excite..

ROBOCOP 2014 serves as a foreboding premonition of things to come.  The makers didn't understand ROBOCOP.  Why would Robocop have one single human hand?  To show that he was more human?  That is what I would consider and rather large chink in his armor.  I hope a bunch of soldiers and robots don't shoot thousands of bullets at him all at once.  Oh, wait!  They did!  I guess we just have to assume that they didn't shoot his detached human hand somehow.  Do you think the makers of THE CROW remake know what kind of film the original was?  It was a Hong Kong style revenge action movie in case you were wondering.  They put an action star in the lead role by the name of Brandon Lee.  Have they done that with the remake?  Nope.  Good luck with that one.  I am just going to predict right now that the CROW remake is going to suck and be sloppy with it's story and concepts similar to ROBOCOP 2014 or that LONE RANGER movie.  We will have to wait and see or not see which is what I might do.


Jason

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Do you want to know what my favorite film of all time is?  Well I am going to tell you anyway.  Obviously from the title of this post it is the truly great FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.  This horror masterpiece combines multiple genres perfectly to create something original, bloody and fun.  The film showcases George Clooney's greatest role ever.  We get to see Tarantino actually do some great acting which hadn't happen since his good acting RESERVOIR DOGS.  There are monsters, blood and guts galore and Tom Savini in a badass role killing vampires like a freakin pro.  Everything could be explained in hyperbole and you would not even come close to describing how amazing and over the top this film is.  Its a crazy good time but it is full of classic film nods celebrating horror movies and westerns of the past.  My two favorite genres by the way.  You have to love a movie that makes reference to Peter Cushing killing vampires.

How great is this story?  Two bandits fresh off a bank heist and prison break are running from the law trying to cross the border.  After taking a family hostage they cross safely into freedom and go to the predetermined meeting place at a strip club out in the middle of nowhere waiting for their ride.  Suddenly vampires happen.  Good stuff.  Wish I thought of that story.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN subverts audience expectations in a couple of ways.  An unsuspecting audience member might come into the film thinking they are watching a modern day gangster movie.  Vampire stuff isn't even remotely alluded to until people start finding bat-faced strippers gorging on their necks.  I am sure that would be shocking and exciting to someone out of the know.  Our heroes are two killers, Seth and Richard Gecko.  The closest thing to a real hero is an old sheriff who gets shot right away at the beginning of the film and John Saxon who is too busy being on t.v. and miles away to do any to stop our two villains/heroes.  I know there is the preacher and his two kids but they are supporting cast and are not as interesting as Seth and Richard.

George Clooney as Seth Gecko is a powerhouse, domineering in your face force throughout the film.  You just know he is going to make it out of all this heck without a scratch.  He is a thief we end up sympathizing with because he doesn't want to kill anyone and actually shows some discomfort when he threatens a bank teller the two brothers have take hostage.  He is one of those guys that kills when he has too.  It is not something he enjoys doing.  Richard on the other hand is a complete psychopath who finds any excuse he can to kill.  He comes across as an awkward geek but he is anything but.  He is a killer through and through yet we still kind of like him.  It is their bond as brothers that gets them through this life with Seth doing what he can to keep his brother from murder just short of committing Richard to a psychiatric hospital or prison.  He ignorantly expects him and his brother to live a normal life when they cross the border.  Even if vampires hadn't shown up eventually Seth would have to "Of Mice and Men" his brother for not being able to stop killing and steering unwanted attention their way.  That would be a great movie too.

Once the vampires start feasting on bikers and truck drivers all heck-ola breaks loose.  A whole other film emerges.  Gone is the sunny dry dusty modern day western replaced with the gross out splatter action horror movie.  The screen is doused over and over again with blood, gore and rubbery body parts.  The special effects range from excellent make-ups and mechanical creatures to out of place C.G.I. morphs and cheap stiff exploding mannequins.  The good with the bad effects actually makes the film visuals look better and add variety to the artistry of the production value on display.  Special effects do not have to look perfectly real to be good.  Bad special effects add to the art of film.  A great example of this is the EVIL DEAD trilogy.  Also bad special effects let us know that we can have fun with this film just like the makers had fun when creating this movie.

There is a lot going on in this film and director Robert Rodriguez has full control of the material.  Balancing two different kinds of movies in the same film he shows how energetic and crafty he can be in different ways.  The beginning of the film is slow and steady like a western allowing the camera to take in the cool and collected (sometimes) Seth Gecko.  The second half is turbulent with a lot a quick but not too quick cuts going around the bloody bar making sure we the audience can see every bit of carnage going on.  No one else could have made this film.  

Never a dull moment FROM DUSK TILL DAWN is a hard movie to top on my top ten list.  That reminds me.  One of these days I should make a top ten list.

Jason

JOHN CARPENTER'S GHOSTS OF MARS

GHOSTS OF MARS is a great John Carpenter film.  I say that in protest to the many critics who truly love the director's previous work but can't seem to love this film as well.  The critics are not entirely wrong.  GHOSTS has its problems but the movie is strong with Carpenter's style.  The story is familiar territory with a small group of protagonists grossly outnumbered and surrounded by a vicious army of killers.  The only difference is that this time instead of the setting taking place on Earth we are transported to Mars in the future.  It is an action/sci-fi/western film with a good dose of supernatural horror mixed in for good measure.  Carpenter can't go wrong with that combination and in my humble opinion he delivers.

GHOSTS is a story about a few cops and local survivors who find themselves trapped in a police station on an small outpost town on Mars surrounded by an army of people who have become possessed by the ghosts of the ancient alien race that once ruled the land.  Back from the dead these ghosts want to retake the planet from the now occupying humans.

Visually everything works together to create a futuristic world that maintains traces of our past.  Carpenter's camera picks up every moody detail presented on screen.  The costuming is elaborate whether it be the police uniforms, civilian attire or the tribal mutilation make-up effects.  The sets look authentic.  Despite being about ghost aliens the movie feels down to Earth.  Imagine if this movie was made today.  Half the people, props and sets would be cartooned in with computers.  Remember how fake everything looked in ESCAPE FROM L.A?  That mistake is not repeated here.  The realism of the world helps us get more involved with the story and less distracted with visual hiccups.

Actionwise GHOSTS kicks a lot of butt.  This is an R rated film for sure with blood and severed limbs strung about when necessary.  People have a tendency to lose their heads in this one.  Things get pretty exciting when the ancient warriors in their new meat suits storm the police station.  The survivors band together and organize a tactical defensive to keep the native alien race at bay just enough to find a way to survive.  It is nice to be able to tell what is going on in the action scenes.  That is always my biggest complaint for modern action films with the shaky camera work and heavy use of quick edits.

I only have one complaint about the film and that involves the leader of the alien ghost people, Big Daddy Mars.  He looks like a total badass.  He is big, looks like Marylin Manson from Hell and definitely an imposing figure.  But he doesn't do much besides scream and get caught on fire.  He never really does anything to strike fear into the audience.  I think that is because the character isn't given enough screen time.  We already know where he comes from and what they are but his character is no different than the other possessed people that surround him.  He just looks more badass but doesn't do anything to stand out.  At least he isn't C.G.I.'d over and made a cartoon like they did to that one orc in THE HOBBIT 2.  Nowadays they would do that so Big Daddy Mars can jump around and do crazy acrobatics and stuff to be more thrilling to the kiddies that watch these movies.

I take that back I have another complaint to make about GHOSTS.  I don't like the fact that when you kill a possessed guy the ghost leaves and is free to roam about and posses anyone they want.  This does two things that are bad.  It creates a big plot hole because why are all the survivors not possessed when they kill hundreds of ghost people?  You would figure the newly freed spirits would just float into the prison and possess them all.  Also it makes the idea of shooting the bad guys a bad one because that releases the ghosts.  That kind of ruins the action element of GHOSTS because every time a ghost person goes down you wonder why the survivor who shot them didn't just become immediately possessed after.

I think why people who grew up loving Carpenter do not like this film so much is because they fall into the same trap that older critics did when Carpenter films first came out.  They don't get his style and focus too much on what could be a too simple story for them.  Maybe they want his stories to have some political statement like so many other horror films out there.  John Carpenter is a storyteller and that is what he wants to do.  Tell stories.  You can pull out some political or social statement out of GHOSTS OF MARS if you want but that is not his intention.  Hopefully like the old critics of the past those who do not like this film now will eventually come back to it and appreciate it a little more.  I think that will be easier to do since nowadays films similar to this one are so C.G.I. heavy that it is hard to take anything happening on the screen seriously.

GHOSTS OF MARS is one of the few JC movies I got to see on the big screen.  Despite some flaws I had a blast watching it.  I hope in time others will find this one to be as enjoyable as I did when I first watched it.  Great soundtrack too.

Jason

RYUHEI KITAMURA'S VERSUS: These zombies use guns and know kung-fu!

VERSUS is a hyper-kinetic, ultra-violent, low budget kung-fu, Yakuza vs. zombies masterpiece.  The movie makes no sense for the most part but you would hardly notice with all the body parts flying around.  The movie is sleek and cool with precision camera movements.  There are fights and gore galore with very little boring romance to get in the way.  If you like gun fights, sword fights and fist fights with zombies and mobsters involved then VERSUS is the movie for you.

So there is a Forest of Resurrection where a small group of Yakuza have brought a newly escaped prisoner and a young woman for some unknown purpose.  They wait for the boss to show up but things get complicated when they discover that the dead are coming back to life and our hero the prisoner escapes with the young girl.  The bad guys follow but realize that they bury a lot of their victims here so they got to deal with that too.  Worse yet these zombies can use guns.  Whoops.  When the boss shows up he wants to fight the prisoner to the death to open some portal to the netherworld where he will become all powerful.....probably.  The movie is very vague about the details of what is going on.  All you need to know is that the prisoner is "good" and the boss is "evil" and they have to fight each other every so often in different lives.

VERSUS is a low budget but it is hard to tell because it is so well filmed with it's elaborate fight sequences and shots.  The fighting is perfectly framed and thrilling to follow.  The movie cuts corners with it special effects by using the editing process to it's advantage.  A bad guy can appear and reappear without the use of digital effects by simply showing a person's reaction to someone disappearing before their very eyes and find them in the same shot.  Director Ryuhei Kitamura is a genius with this and the rest of his directing style.  The camera moves quick but precise capturing the important moments of motion to generate his hyperactive visuals.  You get so much of what is going on with the action with being shown so little.  There was a lot of thought put into each shot of the film.

The movie is far from perfect.  To be honest the story seems to make itself up as it goes.  There is a certain ritual that must be performed through a series of events which leads up to a final battle between good and evil.  The evil boss performs part of the ritual but nothing happens and he is stunned but then he goes about himself like he knew it all along.  Why go through the hassle of performing a ritual that you know won't work then act like you are surprised that it didn't and then say that you knew it all along?  You have to see it for yourselves to get the full gist of what I am saying.  Now I am being vague.  Also this is a movie about people fighting in a forest for two hours.  Does the movie really need to be two hours?  These are small gripes though.

If you do watch the film then I would recommend the UNRATED cut and not the R version or the UNRATED DIRECTORS CUT WITH NEW FOOTAGE FILMED AND INSERTED INTO THE MOVIE JUST LIKE GEORGE LUCAS DID WITH THE STAR WARS version.  Its not worth seeing what was added in.  The new shots stick out like a sore thumb and it makes what is already an overly long film even longer than necessary.  The new footage is impressive with new fights but really it is not needed.

With the film performing a 180 on the audience with it's characters this film screams for a sequel but if it hasn't happened by now it probably won't.  Shucks....


Jason

THE PURGE: ANARCHY

THE PURGE: ANARCHY doesn't try to but ends up being the modern day ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.  It just has that vibe to it.  The film presents a recognizable future similar to our modern times with a slightly dystopian twist.  In ESCAPE the government controlled America entirely and sent anyone who disobeyed to prison that happened to be the entire city of New York.  ANARCHY has no walls but an annual government sanctioned event called The Purge where everyone can "purge" the beast within by killing just about anyone they want and it is totally legal.  Both are action movies and both have an action hero lead.  I think that is one of the big surprises with ANARCHY.  I wasn't expecting this film to be so action packed with a strong badass hero.  I also didn't expect this film to a slight variation of the zombie film either.

The first PURGE film took place in a house showing the chaos of the world around them during the actual Purge event through quick glimpses of the television set.  The sequel takes us through that world led by a man with no name and a big gun who reluctantly helps out some folks who were being kidnapped and tries to lead them to safety.  The movie explores the different types of people who participate in the Purge as well as those who don't.  There are some refreshing ideas put on the screen that are not what I was expecting.  One of the best ideas is that most people do not participate in the Purge.  That is a big motivator for the bad guys in this film.  I won't spoil why but I just figured that in a movie like this the writer would just assume that most people are evil and would not spend a second thought to participate in legalized murder.  I believe most people are good and would not participate making the whole event pointless.  The writers take the same approach which adds a different level to the story.  There is a little more of a conspiracy brought out into the light.  Often action movies get muddled in complicated conspiracy plots made to make a dumb action film look smart but here the conspiracy stuff doesn't slow down the movie one bit.

Who would take part in the Purge?  You never know until it happens.  The Purge is a mindset.  The most unlikely of persons who seem peaceful in their everyday life could all of a sudden realize that they have an opportunity to right a wrong or get revenge and it would be legal and encouraged by the government.  It is your right!  Anyone could come to that realization even if they started out the night truly believing that murder is wrong.  That is where the "zombie" element comes into play.  Anyone can become a zombie just like anyone can suddenly participate in the Purge.  No one can be trusted.  It is an exciting concept exploited by this film.  There is a particularly good where this is demonstrated as we see a loving family torn apart because one of the family members decides to participate in the purge over jealousy.  In this society you better be nice to everyone around you because come Purge night they may just come after you.

Frank Grillo should be the next Punisher.  Grillo is amazing in this film.  He was perfectly cast as the man with no name.  He even looks like the freakin Punisher dressed all in black with a armored black car and a full arsenal on him at all times.  He knows exactly how to survive in this world of violence.  Without a doubt he carries this film and thankfully this film focuses a lot of it's attention on him.  He is a man out for revenge and nothing will stop him from getting it.  Will he?  The other characters that accompany him are likable and don't get in the way too much.  There are some genuinely good story arcs to these characters and you do by the end care about who lives and who dies.  Again I wasn't expecting that.

ANARCHY is a well filmed movie with a lot of it's more iconic elements coming from the disturbing costumes of some of the crazies that plan on participating in the Purge.  The camera does get a little frantic when some of the action takes place but it doesn't become excessive to the point you can't follow what is going on.  That is probably my only real complaint about the film.  While it is mostly grounded in reality the film isn't afraid to get a little crazy with some of it's premises.  I particularly liked the part when our heroes are kidnapped and put into an arena to fight some rich folks who bid in an auction to hunt them down.  It is something out of a comic but it doesn't get too crazy with it.  It is just another moment for Frank Grillo to demonstrate why he should be the next Punisher.  Marvel you better be reading this.

Go see this film and try not to think too hard about it.  You may just discover some plot holes I never thought of and that might ruin what is otherwise a great action/horror hybrid.


Jason

THE PROTECTOR 2 brings the wires, the C.G.I. and the boring.

Both THE PROTECTOR (Aka HONOR OF THE BEAST) and ONG BAK were hard hitting films that brought kung-fu back to the basics.  Those two films showcased the amazing martial arts abilities of Tony Jaa who should be considered the next Bruce Lee.  Their focus was on Tony Jaa in fight after fight after fight.  The stories were there if you cared but we were all astounded at Tony Jaa's abilities to run along a crowd of peoples' shoulders or dart up a wall effortlessly or hurdle through a small wreathe of barbed wire.  There was no wires when he jumped.  There was no C.G.I. flames when his legs were lit on fire and he had to kick the crap out of some punks on bikes.  It was all him and that is what made the movies great.  People were really hit in those fight scenes.  All of it was filmed perfectly.  Now, I don't know what happened but THE PROTECTOR 2 (AKA HONOR OF THE BEAST 2 probably.) pretends to do all of that stuff and hopes that we the audience are really into C.G.I. cars, C.G.I. explosions and C.G.I. removed wires.  I cannot speak for you but as for me I am not.

I could spend all day writing about how the plot to this story makes no sense or how the RZA should stop acting in stuff.  I could do that but really even if a martial arts movie has bad acting or a terrible plot the film can still be good if the action scenes are great.  THE PROTECTOR 2 fails on every account.  The best thing about the THE PROTECTOR was Tony Jaa doing amazing feats without the use of wires.  Everything from hits to jumps looked real.  It is probably very dangerous to make a kung-fu movie in Thailand.  But the results are on the screen.  Now every fight scene or action moment is layered with a coat of C.G.I. fakery that lets us know nothing happening is really happening.  Never once do you find yourself invested in the movie gasping as you see Tony Jaa avoid what certainly should have been a near death experience.  All the action is a collection of quick cuts that never allows the punches to hit hard or give the audience a moment to awe over.  Gone is the long track takes of Tony fighting countless bad guys in perfect choreography completely captured on film without relying on different cuts and angles.  There is no flow to the action in this movie.

What makes Tony Jaa so special and so important is lost to the computer technology and the strange desire to go bigger and bigger with every movie.  I am sure the same thing will happen to him when he starts making movies here in the states.  If they made a more simple but better told story with hard hitting action that did not rely on quick multiple edits and computer tech to enhance the visuals then they could make the new standard in action films.  They still seem to be only able to tell stories about a guy who loses something and he needs to go get it back.  You will never forget ONG BAK or THE PROTECTOR.  THE PROTECTOR 2 however is almost immediately forgettable.  I will probably stop buying Thai films for awhile until they get back their reputation of realism.  I don't like the direction the current crop of kung-fu films from that region have been heading.  They are too reliant on wires and computers.  I couldn't even finish watching ONG BAK 3 and I watch anything.  If you are looking for the next best action/kung-fu film then I suggest THE RAID and THE RAID 2.

Jason

THE RAID 2: Uncompromising and BLOODY brilliant!

I know somebody else has already said it but THE RAID 2 is THE GODFATHER 2 of action films.  This is a sequel that builds upon the story of the first one yet destroys the formula set by the first one.  It is a film that does what it wants and it will take its time doing so.  A world is created and this film will explore it.  THE RAID 2 merges bloody action with art house style film making.  It is beautiful and ugly at the same time.  By the end of the film you will dwell on what you have just witnessed and either love it for it's ambition or think that the original was better for it's simplicity.  Either way THE RAID 2 will leave an impression on you and make you want to stay away from hammers for awhile.

After surviving the first THE RAID our hero is immediately put into undercover duty trying to root out the corrupt cops that do business with the Indonesian mob.  The apartment run by gangsters has been replaced by an entire world run by gangsters that our hero is trying to escape.

Remember when DIE HARD came out back in the day?  Remember the sequel and the news of the possible sequels?  They were all about continuing the formula established by the original.  One guy against a group of bad guys that have taken over a building large enough for our hero to cause shenanigans in and not get caught.  DIE HARD 2 took place in an airport instead of a skyscraper.  Part 3 was suppose to take place on a boat but SPEED 2 had beat them to that idea.  UNDER SIEGE was on a boat too and part 2 was on a train.  SUDDEN DEATH took place in a hockey arena.  You get the idea.  The American action film had limited itself to the DIE HARD formula and it showed no signs of coming up with anything new.  These were action movies with location gimmicks.  THE RAID 2 says "Sucks to all that" and comes up with something new.  We are given a real story with characters that we take notice of and want to know more about.  The film takes detours showing us a part of a supporting character's story to enrich the cinematic world for the viewer and then kill that character off just because the movie can.  Sympathy is given to some of the villains as well as our hero.  The bad guys have their own stories to tell.  The movie doesn't limit itself to just our hero's story.

Some of the most impressively choreographed and filmed fights are put to screen.  These fights are fast and brutal.  You have to marvel at how many people didn't die during the making of THE RAID 2.  There is a lot of blood to be spilt but the film never fully relies on the action.  Some of the characters are so well developed that you are not sure what the outcome of each fight is going to be.  In particular there is a fight between our hero and a professional killer in a kitchen that is so intense you are certain that the good guy is probably going to die.  I never felt like that in an action movie before.  In other action films we are assured the predictability of a fight because we know the hero can never lose.  There really isn't much intensity to Steven Segal kicking the crap out of some thug because we know he will never lose.  With THE RAID 2 we just don't know how it all will end.

I will say this that there is some jittery camera work during some of the fight scenes which can be distracting and I wasn't always sure what was going on in the story but THE RAID 2 still is probably the best movie for 2014 in my humble opinion.  It is a rare kind of film that somehow was not overly cut down to a quicker more hip movie to appeal to mainstream audiences unlike the butchered job we were given for THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD and SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO.

Apparently there is an American remake being made for THE RAID.  It will be interesting to see if they make a sequel to that in a few years.  How will they make it?  Will they learn from what THE RAID 2 has done or will they simply repeat history?  I will take a guess and say the American THE RAID 2 will take place in a mall run by gangsters instead of a rundown apartment building.  Let us see if I am right, folks.  Batter up!

Jason

NINJA 2: SHADOW OF A TEAR!

NINJA 2: SHADOW OF A TEAR is an excellent example of how the direct-to-video market is the best place to see true action films.  I guess I could go on about how NINJA 2 contains more than enough perfectly filmed fight scenes to satisfy the most die hard action aficionado.  But I feel there is a lot more going on with this film and other works by one of the greatest action directors ever, Isaac Florentine.  What makes director Isaac Florentine so unique is his appreciation of all the elements that go into making a great action film.  NINJA 2 showcases all these elements in fine form.  What we get with this film is a solid story, a strong well acted protagonist, a dark and strange antagonist and uncompromisingly violent action scenes that deliver the goods.  All of these movie elements are of course put together and maintained by the director who knows how to use the camera to heighten every experience on screen for best dramatic effect whether it be a punch to the face or a emotion expressed by a character.

I think the most overlooked component of Florentine's films is the story.  We get too distracted by all the punching, kicking , flippi-dee-doo marital arts that we forget that we are invested emotionally into the characters of our story.  Two great examples of this our UNDISPUTED 1 & 2.  NINJA 2 is no exception.  Scott Adkins plays Casey a Ninjitsu master whose wife was murdered by another ninja named Goro.  The sequel to NINJA is a little more darker when it comes to the character of Casey.  We see that even though he is the master of the martial arts he does his best to avoid confrontation.  When he discovers his wife is murdered however, he has no problem killing anyone who may have had a hand in it.  That is different from the character he played in the first one where if he killed anyone it was because of the necessity of the situation.  The new Casey at one point kills a guy who he rendered defenseless in cold blood.  Being master-less of his emotions plays a big part of the story which is why NINJA 2's standard revenge formula stands out from almost all wannabe action films out there that complicate their plots in an attempt to make their movies seem smart.  NINJA 2's complexity is more subtle and can be easily overlooked but it is there.

All the fights scenes are great.  Scott Adkins is in top form demonstrating his athletic prowess as he kicks butt on his way to revenge.  Director Florentine shows all relying on the action in front of the camera rather than using shaky camera shenanigans and heavy editing.  There is a lot of martial arts and movie fighting on display.  One fight scene in particular our hero battles five guys in one long uninterrupted sequence.  Another thing I noticed with the fights and overall look of the film is the lack of computer generated graphics.  I don't recall a lot of C.G.I. blood and backgrounds that were more prevalent in the first NINJA.  There seems to be a more back to basics approach to the fight scenes and look to the film.  Everything appears real and on location.

If you are expecting Scott Adkins to run around in ninja pajamas the whole movie you will be sadly disappointed.  Mr. Adkins doesn't don the deadly sleepwear until he assaults the bad guys compound near the end of the film and even then it isn't long until his ninja face cover is removed so we can see his face.  I really didn't care either way but I am sure there are some ninja nerds out there that will cry foul.

This is a film that needs support.  We need more people in the industry to take notice of well made action films.  Big time studio action movies tend to be more concerned about big explosions, car chases and overly using their editing programs.  I hate fight scenes that cut to different angles with every thrown punch or kick.  It is too much of an eyesore.  Florentine gives us hope that there are directors out there that care about action cinema.  Every fight leaves an impact on the viewer.  I think most people who are into kung-fu movies would come out of this one with an eagerness to tell everyone they know to go see it.  It is definitely a film that evokes excitement from those who watch it.  Tell your friends about this one and be sure to buy it, rent it or watch it on THE NETFLIX while it is still available.  Together we can make a better tomorrow for action fans everywhere.

Jason

NINJA 3: DOMINATION

I saw NINJA 3: DOMINATION back in the day when I was a little kid and thought it was the most badass thing I had ever seen.  How could you not be amazed by a ninja that comes out of nowhere onto a golf course kung-fuing four body guards, casually murdering some guy and his girlfriend, throwing ninja stars into the faces of a hundred cops and jumping on a helicopter killing everyone on board allowing it to crash into the water.  Then after all that the little bugger kills a hundred more cops with his ninja sword while getting shot over and over again by the police before throwing smoke and burying himself into hiding.  For a kid in the eighties NINJA 3 was the hella-coolest.  Nowadays I resent the film for reminding of what a stupid kid I was in the eighties.


 Honestly though I do like this movie.  It is good silly fun from the good ol' boys at Cannon Films.  How can you hate a movie whose title can't even count?  Its like hating on some kid in a wheelchair just because he is in a wheelchair.  There is no NINJA 1 and there sure as heck ain't no NINJA 2.  I have to ask where did the '3' in NINJA 3 come from?  Sesame Street?  The big problem with NINJA 3 is that almost all the good stuff happens at the beginning of the film.  The movie decides to put on the brakes and try to form some kind of story to justify all the badass shenanigans that just happened.......It didn't do a very good job.  In fact the story went in the most wrongest direction possible.  The ninja is a bad guy that ends up dying and possessing a nearby female utility worker named Christie.  That is pretty random if you ask me.  Then the movie becomes a revenge movie of sorts where the ghost of the ninja takes control of Christie and goes around killing the last five extras playing the cops who just happened to not die from awesome ninja skills of the ninja.  Of course one of the cops falls in love with the girl and they hook up but really its all rather boring.  We want our nearly indestructible ninja back.  This guy could teach Steven Segal what "HARD TO KILL" means.

There is a weird collection of bizarre heavy special effects scenes suggesting that NINJA 3 was more inspired by movies like POLTERGEIST and THE EXORCIST rather than classic ninja or samurai films from Japan.  There is an actual exorcism that takes place that tries to out do the head spinning in THE EXORCIST with body flipping crazy Christie in a straight jacket.  Then there are the moments when Christie's apartment goes bonkers and there is all this smoke and lasers and moving appliances and floating swords and crap as the ghost of the ninja takes hold of Christie.  I guess it is suppose to be scary like POLTERGEIST but NINJA 3 can barely muster the hair raising suspense usually associated with watching The Jackson 5's TORTURE music video.

There is no doubt you will have a great time watching NINJA 3.  Don't worry though. That won't last long once you realize that all the non-ninja characters in this movie are about as exciting as burnt toast.  If I was giving advice to NINJA 3 on how to make the movie better I would say that I would like to see more ninja in my ninja movie.  Watching some woman walk around and fall in love with some dildo of a cop doesn't make the most exciting ninja film ever.  I guess if anything you could spend the run time laughing at how "Eighties" NINJA 3 is but don't be surprised if a small hint of guilt creeps up squirreling in your belly making you feel like you just got finished laughing at a kid in a wheelchair.  I did.


Jason

CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX

CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX has no nudity.  I know that is the first thing you would be wondering so I just thought I would get that little fact out of the way.  This is a video game movie that apparently is a remake of the ONECHANBARA movie.  It is not a sequel.  I guess someone saw ONECHANBARA and decided that they could make the same movie only with less story and more shots of fake cartoon blood splattering the camera lens.

Aya (Yu Tejima) is a bikini wearing, double-samurai sword wielding cowgirl that roams the zombie filled wastelands with her step-sister Saki killing the undead because they haven't got anything better to do.  This woman shows up and says her name is Misery and she can help find the evil woman, Homiko (I think that was her name) who is responsible for all the zombie nonsense going on.  Turns out Misery is actually Homiko and she needed help (supposedly) kidnapping some little girl who has special blood.  Saki betrays Aya and helps Homiko with the promise that Homiko can bring back her dead parents.

You would think that a movie about a bikini wearing, double samurai sword wielding cowgirl would be an extremely entertaining movie with extremely striking visuals.  Sadly  CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX is nothing but an eye sore.  Every aspect of this film seems like a step down from the original with the exception of Yu Tejima playing the new Aya.  Visually CHANBARA is uglier than the first.  Every set is the same as the last.  The barely there story wades through from scene to scene with little change in the scenery.  It looks like the whole movie was filmed in the same abandoned school/warehouse/apartement building.  It is all bland, bleak, boring and uninspired.  The visual effects are just a bunch of bright computer blurs and distortions that add little energy to a movie that is about two people walking from point A to point B.

At times the fight scenes begin to muster some enthusiasm for the film.  Aya kicking zombie butt is a blast at first but they keep throwing blood at the screen over and over again to the point that you never ever want to see another movie that does that particular gag ever again.  The end fight between Aya and Homiko is repetitious  at best and doesn't seem to want to ever end.  The fight scenes never quite hit the hyper kinetic energy you get from a really good Japanese action film.  A few good examples of one that succeed in that are VERSUS, DEATH TRANCE and the HARD REVENGE MILLY movies.

CHANBARA BEAUTY WHATEVER is at best a forgettable film.  How ironic.  I don't believe the choices made on every level of production were correct.  It would be nice if they had a solid interesting story that had some heart to it.  At least the original made you care for the characters which is a strange thing to say about a movie with an obviously silly premise.  There is this really hot gun toting woman who you would think would help Aya like she did in the first one but instead the choice was made to make this annoying guy who does nothing but annoy and not get killed (when clearly he did get eaten by a bunch of zombies but he shows up and acts like it is no big deal) be Aya's tag along.  He is the film's Jar-Jar.

I think the guys who made this movie didn't care about anything except the attractiveness of the lead character.  Everything else production-wise was added in as an after thought.  If you have a fetish for Japanese women in bikinis and cowboy hats fighting zombies with their double samurai swords then this is the movie for you.  But I will assure you that after watching CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX you will have that fetish no longer.  Though not the worst or the most tasteless this movie should have been at least memorable.  Maybe the next remake will be better.  Hope for a remake, folks because a sequel to this movie would be a flashy, fake blood on the screen with a giant glowing "X" across the screen soul sucking blandfest.

Jason

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION is NERD-A-ROONY!

I know G.I. JOE: RETALIATION might be one of those movies I had low expectations for and when it exceeded those expectations I found myself giving it a possibly unearned good review.  Perhaps after a second viewing I will see the film's flaws and decide that the whole movie is sucktastic.  I don't think so though.  I think RETALIATION did some things right.  Things I didn't quite expect in this day and age where everything in movies has to be bigger and more explody than the last big movie.  There really isn't much for me to complain about.  I had a fun time watching the latest in the G.I. JOE franchise.  There is a good mix of live action realism with impossible over the top visuals expected from a cartoon.  It is better than what you would expect.  At least that is how it was for me.

PLOT:  G.I. JOE goes BOOM!  COBRA tries to take over the world.  DONE!

RETALIATION has the luxury of not being hampered of going through the predictable motions of being an origin story.  We can move on and get into the movieverse where G.I. JOE is battling COBRA, a terrorist organization determined to rule the world if you didn't know.  I think the only bad thing about part 2 is that they give us a story that probably should have taken place in either the inevitable part 3 THE REVENGE OF COBRA or part 4 THE RETIREMENT OF COBRA.  It is too early to start our story by killing off all but four Joes.  Too soon I say.  Killing Duke off was a major mistake too but I will get to that later.  We never really get to know any of these characters and not too many of them return from part 1.  Where did they all go?  To the mall to buy shoes?  I guess the only good thing about their absence  is we don't have real life Jar-Jar Binks himself Marlon Wayans returning playing the ancestor of the thief character he played in the poopular DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS.  Maybe it would be worth it if he showed up and got all blowed up. Nah!

Part 2 visually is a lot smaller in scope compared to most of the recent blockbusters in the last ten years.  RETALIATION keeps the visuals in control to aide the story and not just blow a bunch of crap up because producers think that audiences are still impressed by explosions that destroy half the world.  There is a scene where they blow up a whole city but the film isn't constantly trying to out do other films in the giant spectacle of stuff being destroyed category.  What this means is that there is more focus on smaller details.  Smaller moments have greater impact.  Even though the whole movie moves through it's story faster than an actual episode of the classic cartoon series it does take time to focus on the smaller badass moments.  There is a great moment of Cobra Commander simply walking looking like a total imposing badass.  He is someone to fear and he almost gets the world to bend to his will and you are impressed by it.  You are given a chance to see great costume and vehicle designs as well.  Characters have more of a solid presence.  They aren't as forgettable as they are in the first one.  I didn't even realize that Channing Tatum was Duke in the first one.  The only time the film wavers a bit is in the mediocre PG-13 style action scenes.  There are some good humorous moments as well that were a little unexpected.  The movie almost feels like a sequel to 21 JUMP STREET at one point.

Let's talk about the nerdy aspect to G.I. JOE part 2.  Snakes-Eyes is to G.I. Joe as Wolverine is to THE X-MEN.  The nerdos love him so they got to make a large part of the story involve Snake-Eyes doing stuff that makes him look all badass doing his twirly sword thingy.  Oh, and Storm Shadow is back doing just fine after being killed in the first one.  Only in the movies, folks.  You can tell that whoever wrote part 2 had a thing for the ninja aspect of G.I. JOE.  All the ninjas from the cartoon show are in this movie even the ninja that isn't a ninja but looks like one so when you were a kid you pretended he was one just so he would fit in, Firefly,  Its raining ninjas in G.I. JOE: RETALIATION.  In fact if you didn't look like a ninja they killed you off.  Sorry, Duke.  I know you were like the main character and the guy who played you was an emerging Hollywood star with a string of majorly successful films under his belt but you didn't wear pajamas that covered you head to toe and you don't know nothin about nun-chucks.  Every nerd in the world that has katanas or samurai swords hanging proudly on their wall should adore and make sweet but unwelcomed love to this movie.

Where the TRANSFORMERS movies failed the G.I. JOE ones succeed.  RETALIATION isn't about a couple of kids that find some device which find themselves being pursued by COBRA and eventually G.I. JOE showing up and saving the day towards the end of the film.  G.I. JOE movies are about the G.I. Joes.  I don't know why these movies based on toys have to focus so much on characters that have nothing to do with the figures we played with.  MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE did the exact same thing. 

G.I. JOE:  RETALIATION does a great job incorporating the cartoon aspect into live action.  It is kind of cool seeing Cobra Commander retreat like he did in the cartoon.  Remember when we were kids and we called "B.S." on guys ejecting from their vehicles just as they were about to explode?  It is nice to see that that doesn't happen in the live action movies.  I am sure in the next one if they can afford it they will bring back Tatum to play Duke again.  If Storm Shadow can survive a major impalement issue right before being dropped in arctic freezing water then I am sure Duke can come back after being blown up and left for dead by his friends who didn't even check his pulse.  Oh, I bet Duke comes back pissed.

Jason