UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING...This movie is on drugs!

Finally after following the production of this film for like two years I am able to watch DOR.  I don't have On-demand and it never played in any theaters near where I live so I had to wait for it on Blu.  It was worth the wait.  Now I really can't write about this film without spoiling a majority of what happens in the film so be warned.  Spoilers ahead.  I will say this.  DOR is one trippy action film.  This isn't your typical finger/toe chopping, bat bludgeoning, machete hacking shoot'em up.  This film will make your head hurt.  Beware the white flashes!

The awesome Scott Adkins stars as John whose family was murdered by Luc played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Since REGENERATION JCVD has escaped the government and has become Marlon Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW.  He has gone up river into hiding converting other Universal Soldiers who are hunting him down.  He has a mind freeing injection he gives soldiers who are programmed as sleeper agents for the government.  When given the injection their vision strobes to white flashes causing the soldier to see the truth and the audience member watching too long at the screen to convulse on the floor uncontrollably and evacuate their bowels into their pants in front of their friends.  At least that is what happened to me.  Word of warning.  Don't stare at the screen too long when the strobing happens.  It will hurt your head.  The piercing sound effects don't help either.  Can't imagine what that would have looked like in 3D.  Absolute hell, I imagine.  JCVD plans on creating his own clone army to fight the government that created the Universal Soldier program.  Fight fire with fire.  That sort of thing.  John is given the injection but it does not work.  His memories help him resist which lead to occasional bizarre episodes of John seeing Luc in mirrors and such messing with his mind.  John has to take the journey up river to find Luc and ultimately himself.  How deep.

Scott Adkins is the new JCVD.  The best way you can tell is that you don't even realize until the end that both JCVD and Dolph Lundgren are not in this film very much.  We haven't had a solid reliable star in the eighties style action film for awhile.  Scott fills their shoes perfectly.  In a way at the end there is sort of this passing of the torch so to speak with Scott defeating JCVD.  The two fights between Adkins and JCVD (who turns into a bloody looking clown from hell) and Dolph are the film's highlight.  All the action scenes are fluid and brutal with blood all over the place and a high body count.  It is exactly what you want to see.  You can tell what is going on and there isn't an abundance of quick stylish cuts and camera shakes.  I also appreciate that the car chase scene was more like two cars battling rather than a boring chase to see which vehicle can drive faster and turn corners better.

One of the best things about this DAY OF RECKONING is how it wasn't filmed in Bulgaria or Yugoslavia like so many other lower budgeted action films including REGENERATION.  They all look too similar with few standing out from the crowd.  DOR was filmed in Louisiana with a nice swamp setting which adds to the whole APOCALYPSE NOW vibe.  The movie takes a big risk focusing a big part of its run time to the psychological element of brain washing, cloning and the whole what-is-real and who-can-you-trust type of shenanigans that usually happen in thrillers and not action movies.  It does work well without being too convoluted.  Even though maybe the film doesn't fully explain itself I did feel satisfied with the whole story by the end. 

DAY OF RECKONING is a better film than REGENERATION.  In REGENERATION the film's main character was Luc but he was barely in it with the film depending on the supporting cast to drive the story.  They did a great job but I want to see my action star throughout the film.  I watch a JCVD film to see JCVD.  Scott Adkins is in DAY OF RECKONING throughout the story.  This is a Scott Adkins action movie.  The film rests on his badass appeal.  DOR is better because Adkins is the star.  He is better as the lead than a supporting character.  Every movie he is in from now on should have his face bigger than everyone else on the poster.  Make it so.  Besides the painful strobing scenes for which there are two of I think the only thing that kind of sucks is that there is not enough Dolph.  He really is fantastic in this film.  But what can I say.  I love the big guy.  Like Adkins he is way too under appreciated.  I would love to see a film where the two team up and take down some bad guy played by a former wrestler or something.  You can throw in Segal for good measure too.  Make it so too.

Jason

EXPENDABLES 2 IS THE BEST MOVIE OF 2012!!!....Prob-Probably.

I realize that I had some pretty low expectations for EXPENDABLES 2 so maybe this movie isn't as great as I think it is.  Maybe after a few more hundred viewings I will see the flaws and missed opportunities that usually come with an expensive high dollar action movie boasting such a wonderful cast.  Just to be safe I lowered the amount of exclamation points at the end of my title to this blog entry to just three instead of ten.  This movie does have a strange small controversy surrounding the original rating for the film.  Stallone himself did say that this was going to be a PG-13 style film but that Van Damme's performance was so awesome that no one would care.  That statement was later denied completely and pretended by Stallone himself to have never been said reassuring us that this was going to be an uncompromising violent film pushing the R rating.  I took that as they filmed for a PG-13 but panicked after nerd backlash (myself included) and pushed for R.  Thank goodness you can C.G.I. blood easily onto digitally filmed movies.  With all that said I can say that EXPENDABLES 2 was blast-tastic.  It was a bloody good time.  It was an action movie fans dream come true.  I really thought the whole movie was really really neat.


EXPENDABLES 2 is about Stallone's crew on the hunt for Van Damme and his personal military force known as the Sang.  What was originally a short mission retrieving plans from a crashed plane quickly turns personal when one of their own dies at the hands (or should I say feet, ha-ha?) of Van Damme.  After watching the trailers I was pretty sure I knew how this film story wise would play out.  I knew who would die and why there was a woman now a part of the crew.  Well thankfully EXPENDABLES 2 threw me a curve ball.  I was wrong.  Way wrong which in this case was a good thing.  The movie is a little unpredictable slightly in that respect.  Most of the time you can call it before it happens.  But that's no big deal.  They try to give you a little surprise at the beginning but you can see it coming a mile away.  But maybe that is just me.  Maybe I watch way too many movies gaining way too much knowledge on how films play on audiences expectations.  Maybe I should stop writing this nonsensical review and go outside and live life to it's fullest..........But there are spiders outside so on I go with this way too positive review.

This movie moves quickly.  In my head I remember it being one extremely long action sequence.  Really though there are some quiet moments here and there to reflect a little on these characters personalities.  The action is filmed fast and sometimes it looks really good but then other times because so much is going on at once it is kind of hard to tell who is doing what to who.  Once I thought I was watching Randy Couture beat the crap out of some guy in heavy shadow but it turned out once the fight moved into daylight that I was actually watching Terry Crewes.  The two were wearing the same hat making their dark silhouettes almost identical.  Overall though all the action scenes were great even if the majority of them were filmed in basic American Acton Movie Style.  Meaning we get shots of good guys firing guns cutting to reaction shots of bad guys who have a strange aversion to taking cover falling down dead.  At least the body count is high.  Very high.  Like probably in the hundreds high.  That's a good action movie, folks.  There are some moments where I think that they really were aiming for a PG-13.  There isn't that much blood for one thing.  It looks like it was all added in post which the first one was but you don't have a lot of guys getting blown into pieces or major decapitations by big knives and such.  At one point Jet Li grabs two frying pans and starts fighting a few guys because he lost his weapons or whatever.  Its a good moment yet I was reminded of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2: SECRET OF THE OOZE where the Turtles stopped using their weapons and started fighting with yo-yo's and other stupid toys to try and appeal to the too stupid to know what TMNT is all about demographic.  EXPENDABLES 2 doesn't go that crazy but it just made me wonder what they were originally shooting for.

Its really cool to see Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis and Chuck Norris fighting side by side.  Their appearances are a little more than simple one scene cameos.  Seeing these guys together is the best thing about this movie.  It is a moment that deserves some reflection.  Who would have ever thought such a movie could be made?  It is kind of a dangerous thing.  I am surprised the universe didn't implode somehow at the epic oddity of Chuck Norris saying a "CHUCK NORRIS FACT".  Just be careful, EXPENDABLES 2 is all I am saying.  I was afraid his acting would suck or be not as good as the others but Norris did a good job.  As soon as Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis are together the movie can't resist but start throwing out their classic one liners back and forth.  Thankfully the movie doesn't descend too far into the tongue-in-cheek territory.  They seem to do it to make fun of themselves and their past persona's.  I guess EXPENDABLES 2 isn't just an action movie but a post-modern action movie similar to ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.  It is an action movie about these guys' past action movies.  That is kind of cool when you think about it.  Another bad thing about getting these three guys together is that the rest of the Expendables take a backseat to the film's focus.  Suddenly at the end the movie seems to be more about them than the core crew of the Expendables.  Yes, even Dolph Lundgren takes a backseat.  Speaking of Dolph I am so glad to see that he is in the entire film.  He is a lot of fun and I would have liked to see more of his interaction with Jet Li.  These two have a unique chemistry together.  I hope they explore it more in EXPENDABLES 3: NOW WE ARE JUST PUSHING IT.  I just hope in the next one if there is one that Segal at least makes an appearance and they bring back Scott Adkins as another character to represent the future of action stars. It is neat to see Adkins and his mentor Van Damme together fighting side by side.

I like that there is a solemn attitude towards death in this film even if it is highly hypocritical.  These guys encountered all kinds of horrors in battle and you can see it on their faces as they reflect on there past when Chris Hemsworth (who plays a young sniper new to the team) starts talking about his past experiences in the Afghanistan war.  Yet the Expendables have smiles on their faces and cracking jokes as they gun down hundreds of bad guys.  Gee, it sure looks like war is fun to them.  Why so glum, chum?  I think having this attitude or acknowledgement of the consequences of violence keeps the movie from becoming a light hearted action comedy.  We don't want another DOUBLE TEAM on our hands here.

For me EXPENDABLES 2 was better than the first one.  I was surprised, excited and relieved that the whole film didn't seem like a watered down bland mess.  It was a near perfect action movie accomplishing what it set out to do.  You can include this one in your conversation as to what are the greatest action movies of all time are.  This one belongs somewhere in the top ten.  Bring on BULLET TO THE HEAD and THE LAST STAND.


BTW:  Second best thing about EXPENDABLES 2?  No SHINEDOWN song to cast a stain on the whole film.


Jason

DOLPH LUNDGREN'S THE PUNISHER is highly underrated because I say so.

THE PUNISHER starring Dolph Lundgren is the second best Punisher film out of the three.  Much maligned by critics and the nerds this action packed comic book movie maybe far from the source material but I say take a closer look.  Is it really?  Is it really as bad as the nerdos on the Internet say it is?  I say this Punisher film is a better made and smarter movie than most action movies in general.......And by "smarter" I mean this movie does what it is suppose to do better than most action movies.

The story, simply put, is about the Punisher getting mixed up in a gang war between the mafia and the Japanese Yakuza.  The Yakuza are as cutthroat as they come killing any and all that get in their way including Peter Bear who apparently "really cares".  After five years of killing mobsters the major crime families unite to stop themselves from killing each other.  Unfortunately for them the Yakuza see their weakness and move in on the mobs territory.  Unfortunately for the Yakuza however, that territory happens to be the hunting grounds of the Punisher.  Whoops.

As an action movie DL's THE PUNISHER is either ahead of its time or the last of the truly great action films before everything went PG-13 emphasising the spectacle over violent action.  There are plenty of scenes of bad guys getting shot up, stabbed, and ran over.  They are all filmed well capturing the excitement of the violence with well choreographed shoot'em up fight scenes.  Often the action flows fast with longer than usual continuous shots similar to a John Woo style action piece.  Heck, even the car chase scene was exciting.  It can get wonderfully excessive too like the early eighties action films.  There is a part where the Punisher and crime boss Gianni Franco (Jerden Krabbe) emerge from an open elevator and begin machine gunning the crapola out of about twenty guards that were armed with nothing but swords.  I know a lot of you nerdos out there think you look cool swinging your samurai swords around and all but a sword isn't going to do much but make you look stupid when a gun is pointed right at you.  The scene reminded me a bit of the kill'em all and make it look easy ending to COMMANDO.  A high body count is always welcome in a Punisher film and Dolph's does it right.

Comic book movie wise THE PUNISHER loses it's 'Street Cred' with the source material.  I only say that because gone is the trademark white Punisher Skull glowing from his chest.  MARVEL wouldn't allow it.  Whatever.  I do feel that the look of the film itself looks very close to the early days of the Punisher comic.  Neither were too colorful with a slight grey overtone.  I don't think this was done on purpose.  It was probably an accident or I am completely wrong and I don't know what I am talking about which seems more probable.  I also like that this isn't an origin story and the Punisher isn't out for revenge even though the majority of guys he kills belong to the crime organization that was responsible for the death of his family.  So there are a couple of things that DL's THE PUNISHER gets right.  I appreciate that.  Oh, and there are ninjas too just like in the comic.  In case you didn't know it was a ninja who killed Microchip's son.  Sadly Microchip does not appear in this Punisher.  They replaced him with a drunk, out of work, homeless thespian (actor) who has a tendency to speak in rhyme.  I actually like this character even though he can be seen as an annoyance.  He serves as the Punisher's informant.  He is the 'funny' character that doesn't belong in any action film.  But he didn't really bother me too much.  I will give him a pass.  That will be my one good deed for the day.

Lady Tanaka (Kim Miyori) is the crime boss of the Yakuza.  They don't get much more eviler than her.  She is bloody brilliant.  As a tremendously strong presence in the film she comes across as unstoppable and superior to all around her.  Her appearance in the film along with her small army of ninjas raise the bar in villainy.  In fact the crime boss Gianni Franco who is a badass himself has to team up with the Punisher who has been trying to kill him the past five years just to come close to bringing her down.  When it comes to movie comic book villains she has to be one of the best and baddest.  Its too bad none of the know-nothing-nerdos out there will ever give her credit because she doesn't shoot laser beams or control metal or whatever the bad guys in comic book movies are doing these days. 

I know the opening credits at the beginning of the film look a little cheap with the same shot of the Dolph turning around and shooting glass figures of criminals and ninjas.  They reuse the same shot over and over again.  It's not too creative but give the movie a break.  Let it do what a good Punisher film does.  Kill lots of the guilty violently as possible.  This is a great movie and one of Dolph Lundgren's best action movies.  He does a great job portraying the solemn tortured and sometimes naked Frank Castle.  Unfortunately he does have some stupid lines trying to be a wiseguy in the face of certain doom.  There is a part where the Punisher is being tortured on a table that stretches him out by his arms and legs.  Lady Tanaka asks a question for which the Punisher responds "Is the answer True/False or Multiple choice?"  Terrible.  Just terrible.  Save the comedy for the professionals, Dolph.  Yea, I know he didn't write it but he is tough enough to punch the writer in the face and make him change the dialague is all I am saying.  I love this movie.  I don't think it gets the credit it deserves.  Watch it and see for yourselves.

Oh, and Academy Award winner Louis Gossett Jr. is in this movie too.  I guess I should mention that as well...................*cough*.


Jason

MEAN GUNS: A good Christopher Lambert movie?

I am just going to come out and say it, folks.  MEAN GUNS is a good movie.  It is a simple, violent shoot'em up that happens to be a little on the unpredictable side.  A crime organization known as the Syndicate has Moon (Ice-T) gather a bunch of criminals together in a newly built highly sophisticated prison and have them kill each other.  Before there was BATTLE ROYALE there was MEAN GUNS.  What is really interesting is that instead of there only being one person allowed to survive this game allows for three.  That adds an interesting dynamic to this movie.  Alliances actually have real meaning.  Nowadays most of these movies only allow for one unless your movie is THE HUNGER GAMES which pusses out a little and changes the rules last second to allow two survivors.  I call that cheating the audience out of good dark drama.  Oh, well I am sure that happened in the book.  That justifies everything I suppose.

Christoher Lambert plays that one guy who didn't have to be there but volunteered anyway just like that one psycho kid from BATTLE ROYALE who volunteered because he enjoys killing and getting stuff blown up in his face.  Lambert insisted on being there.  But he is a little off.  He brought his daughter along and left her in the car in the prison parking lot.  Hey, it was a convertible.  He  didn't leave her to burn to death in an oven with wheels.  At first he is the cool character that kicks all kinds of ass and he has this back story about accidentally killing some kid and now wants out of this life of crime.  He is here for the money so he can start a new life with his daughter.  A noble reason.  Oh, yea I forgot.  I probably should have mentioned that the three who survived get to split 10 million dollars between them.  He is the one guy you are suppose to sympathise with.  But as the movie goes along you can see that he is having the time of his life blasting fellow baddies.  At one point he storms into a room full of not nice people running on top of tables and shooting them John Woo style with double pistols smiling the whole time.  I figure he was probably pretending that the floor was hot lava and the tables were safe.  They had to die.  They were standing in lava.

As the movie goes on however you begin to realize that maybe Lambert isn't the main character of this story.  There is another character.  A calmer more collected character.  I think his name is Marcus but I could be wrong about that.  Marcus is the main enforcer for the Syndicate.  He is a bad dude.  At the beginning of the movie he kidnaps an innocent woman who had pictures of people in the Syndicate doing bad things.  Obviously they want her dead so into the game she goes.  While everyone had to give up their guns before entering the prison Marcus got to keep his.  All the other suckers had to fight over the guns dumped in front of them at the beginning of the game.  Marcus is in the game for one reason.  He is to make sure everyone dies.  The first person he tries to kill is Lambert.  I guess Marcus didn't like HIGHLANDER either.  I feel ya, man.  I would have tried the same thing.  So you get the impression that Lambert is the hero and Marcus is the bad guy.  But Marcus saves and teams up with the woman he kidnapped at the beginning of the movie.  It is Marcus who protects her not Lambert.  Interesting......Well I think it is interesting.  You get that whole "Maybe Marcus is the hero" vibe and you come to the realization that you are not really sure if Mr. Lambert is going to make it through this one.  Even his daughter ends up wanting him dead.  Yikes.  That is when MEAN GUNS gets really interesting.

Director Albert Pyun (Director of my favorite JCVD movie CYBORG so there goes my credibility) gives us a strong Hong Kong style action movie with well filmed gun play battles that are a little ahead of their time.  Nowadays big studios do the same thing but with C.G.I. and none of it looks real or is annoyingly filmed with shaky cam to insure no one enjoys the action.  Take a look at the latest TOTAL RECALL remake.  In the trailer Colin Farrel takes down a room full of guys but none of it looks real.  Its like they all turn into cartoons and fly about the room with the camera roaming around frantically trying to capture every boring uninspired PG-13 moment.  Wow, you got the most expensive cameras ever!  Way to rub our average looking faces in it.  Are you trying to out do Michael Bay in the BIG, BLAND BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE department?  Good luck with all that.

This is one of those movies where everybody dies or at least almost.  At the beginning Moon has his henchmen dump a bunch of empty guns into the room from a balcony. Then they dump bullets for the guns. While the the criminals below struggle for weapons Moon makes his exit but before he goes he casually kills the henchmen as they are about to follow. You understand that everyone is a part of the game. Even Moon. At the end there is a three way stand off between Marcus, Moon, and Lambert. The music playing is inspired by Spaghetti Westerns. I like that even Moon is part of the game. Thom Mathews is in this one too. I figured he would have survived for sure. After all he took down Jason Vorhees in JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13th part VI. How many people can claim that?

My only real complaint is maybe all the bad wigs and fake moustaches I see on some of these bad guys.  You can tell they were just trying to use the few extras they had over and over again to get a higher body count.  That is probably my only real gripe.  Mr. Lambert won me over with this one.  He was a lot of fun to watch even though it was hard at times to understand what he was saying.  Actually I like him in GUNMEN too but that wasn't a very good movie.  It had its moments though.  But if I had to only recommend one Christopher Lambert movie with the word "GUN" in the title I would have to say give MEAN GUNS a whirl.  Its straight up action with no boring love story and absolutely no car chases to play as filler.  If you like action shoot'em type movies with a bunch of extras in bad wigs flopping around from getting shot a bunch of times when one bullet would have done the trick then try this one on for size.  Hopefully you are as easily impressed as I am.

Jason

DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN

Is this suppose to be MAD MAX?

DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN is the only true sequel to the original DJANGO.  I put that in there because I think it is required by law or something to state that fact since just about every review I have read puts that disclaimer in their review.  Director Nello Rossati does a fantastic job of reclaiming the classic Italian Western style going so far as to set the film in the west (technically Mexico) but film in Columbia and to give director credit to his alias Ted Archer.  A whole heckola of Spaghetti Westerns gave European actors and directors English names to trick American audiences into believing they were watching an American western.  There are still a lot of people out there that don't even know that  A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE,  and THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY are Italian westerns.  FOOLS!  Even though its not a better film than the original I think DJANGO STRIKES BACK is better than what it is given credit for.  You can't go wrong with a dude running around with a Gatling gun shooting bad guys in the face, is all I am saying.

Franco Nero returns as the title character for the first time in a long time.  Django has buried his past and has become a monk.  When he discovers that his daughter has been kidnapped by some bad dude on a boat Django digs up his trade mark Gatling gun and sets out on a crusade to save his daughter.  He replaces the coffin for a hearse.  I thought that was kind of neat.  The body count is high and the characters are interesting so you shouldn't have too much trouble enjoying this one.  The main villain is Orlowsky a military officer who captures tribes people in Mexico and uses them as slaves in his silver mine.  He is a similar character to Col. Jackson in the first DJANGO.  They are both racists who kill for fun with no morals whatsoever.  Orlowsky is so bad that the people call him 'El Diablo'.  In English that means 'The Devil'.  I bet you didn't know that.  I didn't.  Anyhoo he loves the name.  In fact a peasant woman is captured that he falls in love with and he actually seduces her to the dark side.  That was pretty creative if you ask me.  Usually the female lead character would resist the villain's charms and eventually hook up with the hero.  Not in DJANGO STRIKES BACK.  That girl gets herself murdered by a jealous slave chick with a whip.  I didn't see that coming. 

I hate to speak metaphorically about films but it is kind of hard to ignore what I think the main theme (or whatever you want to call it) of the movie is.  DJANGO STRIKES BACK seems to be about good triumphing over evil.  I know that is what most movies are about but this one seems to have some strong religious overtones to it.  Django represents God being that he fights for good saving the innocent and comes from a monastery.  He kind of looks like Jesus.  Orlowsky is obviously the devil seducing the innocent or keeping them as slaves and murdering them in some horrible fashion.  At the end when Django is rescuing everyone and all the bad guys are dead he has a duel with El Diablo Orlowsky.  Orlowsky tries to escape but finds himself at the edge of a pit with hundreds of newly freed slaves at the bottom just waiting to get their hands on him.  Django shows up shooting Orlowsky's sword in half.  Then he simply walks toward El Diablo forcing him to walk backwards falling into the pit where he is engulfed by hundreds of arms like flames.  The whole dang thing looks like something out of Revelations where the devil is thrown into the lake of fire.  I don't know.  I am probably just trying to be smart when really I am not.  I don't think the makers where thinking that but the scene reminded me of all that biblical stuff.  Maybe if they called Orlowsky 'Cookie" I would think the whole movie was some kind of violent homage to THE BOZO SHOW.

DJANGO STRIKES BACK is a great action filled western.  They really exploit the whole gunning bad guys with a machine gun aspect of the Django character.  Apparently he is so accurate with it that he can shoot a bunch of baddies with it and miss the wall of innocent people that are running around two feet behind them.  Hilarious.  I think they try to create some similar gothic moments from the original Django using fog and crosses and the same wind sound effects.  Doesn't quite work but it is a nice try.  It is the thought that counts.  DJANGO was the western set in the mud.  DJANGO STRIKES BACK is the western set on the water.  I like that idea.  Too bad there was never a RETURN OF THE DJANGO.

Some thoughts on Quentin Tarantino's DJANGO UNCHAINED.  If you are going to call your movie DJANGO you better have a large body count and a dude lugging a Gatling Gun around and shooting people in the face with it.  I don't think we are going to get that from UNCHAINED.  I know it will be a great film but I am expecting something similar to INGLORIOUS BASTARDS where all the action is taken out and replaced with well written scenes of people talking around tables.  (Oscar gold!!!)  Good but not what we really want.  Do we really need a prequel to JACKIE BROWN?  It would be nice to see Quentin direct an extremely violent action film.  At least he always gives us something that is different.  I know the title DJANGO UNCHAINED is based more on the concept of countless westerns that stole the name 'Django' in an attempt to fool audiences into thinking they were actually watching a DJANGO sequel.  At least Franco Nero will make an appearance.  That will give UNCHAINED some street credit for us nerdos who love Italian Westerns.  Yes, we do exist.

Jason

Whoa!  Calm down, Rambo!

Django is the villain in DJANGO!

DJANGO is the ultimate example of the word 'extreme' in the Italian western genre.  It is violent and shocking with it's use of gore   The body count is the highest in the genre too as far as I know.  Bad guys are blasted left and right flailing their arms in the air or clutching their bullet riddled stomachs as they spin dead face first into the muddy streets of the soon to be ghost town.  DJANGO is the reason why we watch Spaghetti Westerns. From what I understand both Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone both saw YOJIMBO and decided to make a western based off that movie.  While director Sergio Leone completely ripped off Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO with a nearly shot for shot remake titled A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, the other Sergio made a violent messy film that was merely inspired by the samurai classic.  Both Italian films have rival gangs pitted against each other by a mysterious gunman.  Both are stylish and violent with unique visuals like  Eastwood in the serape and Django pulling behind him a muddy coffin.  But what makes DJANGO a more interesting film is the character of Django himself.  Eastwood's character is clearly the hero who kills for money but has a heart of gold.  We have seen that character a billion times before.  Django on the other hand is the main villain of the story who cares for nothing but money.  He is one S.O.B. who happens to be a B.A.M.F.


So the movie starts out with some poor woman named Maria trying to cross a bridge but instead is tied up and bull whipped by a group of Mexican bandits.  Django dressed in a Union soldier uniform is watching from a nearby hill.  Then BANG! all four bandits drop dead.  Before you can say "Hey, I only heard one shot!" another group of villains emerge from another hill.  They shot the bandits at the same time.  Not to be outdone by their rivals in the mean department the new bad guys saved the woman just so they can tie her up to a cross and burn her alive.  These guys are part of a gang that is like the K.K.K. led by the dastardly Col. Jackson who apparently really hates Mexicans.  Django appears before them.  They all have a blah-blah-blah back and forth then suddenly Django blasts them all saving the woman from certain doomy-doom-doom.  If you were paying attention you would have seen your first clue as to the moral character of Django.  Django draws first.  Normally the hero waits for the bad guy to go for his gun first with the hero being so fast that he can draw, fire and kill in an instant.  Django is quick but he isn't interested in being good.  Don't let the fact that he just saved an innocent woman from death fool you.

After mowing down a hundred red hooded clans men in the muddy streets of the a run down town with a Gatling gun, Django strangely lets Col. Jackson escape.  We learn that Jackson killed Django's wife.  So when given the opportunity to kill Jackson twice Django abstains.  Why?  Hugo and his merry men of marauders shows up and reclaims the broken down town.  Hugo is a self appointed general who is planning a revolution in Mexico.  He and Django are good friends.  In times past Django saved his life in prison.  It is kind of a weird back story for Django.  He must have been gone from his wife for a very long time to be in prison and fight in the Civil War.  Jackson doesn't seem to even know who Django is.  They don't really have a back story together.  Jackson just killed Django's wife and that is it.  I guess that is a good thing because the movie doesn't get bogged down in boring flashbacks or long winded tales of who did what to who back in the day.  DJANGO just speeds along to the next violent set piece. 

Django reveals to Hugo that Jackson has a bunch of gold in a fort and with his mens' help they can all be rich.  I can only assume that is why Django did not kill Jackson.  He wanted to make sure Jackson put his gold in the fort.  Hugo is impressed with his old pal Django.  Not only did he wipe out Col. Jackson's gang he also returned Maria back to the flock.  That is right.  Django saved Maria to ensure that his standing with Hugo was solid.  This film should have been titled DJANGO THE BASTARD!  So Hugo, eager to fund his revolution, raids Jackson's fort and steals his gold.  That night Django betrays his old friend and steals all the gold for himself.

Every move he has made to this point in the film was simply to steal all the gold for himself.  Revenge was never in the equation.  That is pretty unique for a simple western.  This is why Django is the villain.  DJANGO is similar to a caper film.  Hugo maybe bad but he didn't betray Django.

Unfortunately for Django life is a bitch and he loses all the gold in quick sand and his former ally Hugo has his men run over his hands with horses.  With his hands pretty much destroyed the 'evil' Django is perished and replaced by the good Django who realizes that his destiny is to kill Jackson for the murder of his wife which he does in splendid unrealistic fashion.

DJANGO is a near perfect Euro-Western.  There is one really slow part where Django is sneaking out of his hotel room on his way to steal the newly acquired gold but other than that DJANGO moves quickly.  A ton of people die in this one and it gets a little gruesome from time to time.  At one point this guy gets his ear cut off and fed to him.  That is pretty graphic for a mainstream film.  This scene inspired the ear cutting off scene in RESERVOIR DOGS.  Many movies were called DJANGO after this but none lived up to the hype the name invokes including the official sequel DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN.  Hopefully DJANGO UNCHAINED does.  Probably won't though.  Most likely we will get another movie about people sitting at tables talking about stuff in a clever manner.  Stop going for the Oscar, QT!

I wonder if DJANGO inspired elements of TOMBSTONE.  Both have a second in command villain named Ringo and both have a gang that is identified by their red sashes.  Makes me think.  Watch DJANGO and THE GREAT SILENCE back to back.  Best double feature ever.

Jason

HARD BOILED: BESTEST ACTION MOVIE EVER MADE!

Directing action movies is a lot like playing with your G.I. Joes back in the day.  Now the way you played with your Joes was the right way to play G.I. Joes.  But the way your friend played with his Joes was the wrong way.  We all play G.I. Joes differently is all I am saying.  I do believe however that the way John Woo played G.I. Joes was the way I played with my G.I. Joes.  His "bullet ballet" style with slow-mo at just the right moments reminds me a lot of how I played with Joes.  I can't tell you how many times I had Snake Eyes jump over an explosion firing two guns and eliminating a bunker full of Cobra Vipers in slow-mo.  If you were to construct a list of the top ten greatest shoot'em ups five of those slots would have to be filled with John Woo films.  The number one spot has to go to HARD BOILED.  There will never be another film that reaches the pinnacle of chaos and emotion that HARD BOILED delivers.  Its not about explosions or car chases and big name A-List stars.  Its about directing style and character driven story lines.

HARD BOILED is a story about two detectives working on opposite sides of the law trying to bring down a big time arms dealer by the name of Johnny Wong.  He has a hidden base somewhere and these two are trying to find it.  Tequila (Chow Yun-Fat) is a detective always at odds with his hot headed superior as the investigation into Johnny Wong's activities escalate into violence.  What Tequila doesn't realize is that his police chief is trying to prevent Tequila from interrupting his undercover agent Tony (Tony Leung) who is working his way up the gangster ladder.  Undercover cops are so deep that they end up getting shot by the police themselves.  The cops have no idea that they are undercover.  The two eventually team up and take the baddies down in glorious shoot'em up fashion.

Inspector 'Tequila' Yun is a great character.  He is a smart ass highly driven cop that will stop at nothing to get his man.  But the soul of this film comes from the drama of Tony.  Tony has to do bad things to get the job done.  The gangsters think he is legit because they can call on him to go out and actually kill someone.  With the exception of the police chief Tony has no allies.  The gangsters or the cops could get him at any time.  What is really interesting is his relationship with his Triad boss, Mr. Hoi.  Hoi is a bad guy but Tony knows him as the person and finds him to be a man of great respect.  His only real crime is trafficking illegal weapons.  That's not so bad is it?  Knowing that Mr. Hoi's end is near Tony tries to get him to retire early but to no avail.  Eventually in order to move close to Johnny Wong, Tony must betray Hoi and kill him.  There is a great scene where Johnny gives Tony a gun to kill Hoi.  At first Tony tries to save Hoi's other men but realizes that he has to go all the way to make a good impression.  So he guns them all down.  You want to see some excellent acting?  Look at Tony's face as he just murdered a bunch of his fellow friends and he must hold back his tears in front of Johnny Wong.  Its good stuff.

John Woo's action scenes are highly detailed down to the point of how actors hold their guns.  Its surprising how some actors don't even know how to carry a gun and look cool holding it.  HARD BOILED pushes the  limits.  People get shot up big time with tons of "Kool-Aid" shooting out of their bodies.  Half way through the film there is a huge gun battle in a warehouse that would usually serve as the climax in most action films but this is only the beginning.  Later on there is one long eight minute (or longer) take of Tequila and Tony shooting up a bunch of baddies in a hospital.  There are squibs and explosions and an elevator ride to a floor above all done in one shot.  They probably killed like thirty bad guys (and one good cop.  Whoops!) in that eight minute take.  Its something I had never seen before.  Who would even try something like that today?  Certainly no one in America.  The closest I have seen was in THE PROTECTOR where Tony Jaa runs up a bunch of stairs beating the crapola out of like thirty guys.  Its close but not better.

There are a lot of action directors who didn't play with their Joes the right way.  (Isaac Florentine is an exception)  A great action director makes his stars look badass.  You can't just have Jean Claude Van Damnme and some cheesy camera editing effects to make a great action movie.  (In the case of Steven Segal it would be lots of heavy shadows and heavier body doubles)  You need lots of well filmed action that pushes the story forward.  Every bad guy killed means less bad guys to deal with later.  Don't complicate the story with a bunch of conspiracy crap.  No one cares.  Characters must drive the story not plot points and twists.  John Woo is the master of effective drama and over the top action.  Its the perfect combination of the two that makes him the greatest action director of all time.  Also I just want to point out that there are no pointless car chases in HARD BOILED.

Jason

PUNISHER WAR ZONE: NO BOOBS, NO CAR CHASES, NO PROBLEM.

PUNISHER WAR ZONE is the best movie to see a guy get stabbed in the face with a chair.  Its also one of the best dang movies ever made.  I do mean that.  Its like number two on my all time favorite movies list.  Maybe I am just saying that because I am a huge Punisher fan.  Maybe the movie really is that good.  Maybe you should stop rolling your eyes and read on to why I like this movie so much, Nerd-o. 

While I did like the Thomas Jane PUNISHER it had way too many faults to really satisfy me.  The Dolph Lundgren PUNISHER had the badass action that was way ahead of its time but very little of the film and it's main character resembled the comics.  The Death Skull the symbol of punishment that branded the Punisher's chest was reduced to a small tiny unimpressive silver skull that tipped the handles of hundreds of knives the Punisher carried.  Oh, and lets not forget motorcycle riding down sewer tunnels!  Show more of that please! 

When they announced a sequel and that Thomas Jane wasn't going to do it I knew the next Punisher film would be poop-tastic.  Who in the world could play the Punisher and not look totally stupid?  When I finally saw the trailer though I thought that the film looked interesting.  I started getting really excited.  I bought all THE PUNISHER MAX hardcover editions to catch up and see if the film followed the comics.  I made sure to force my expectations to remain low.  You want to know how nerdy I am?  The day before I went and saw the film in theaters I actually had a dream that I was watching PWZ in the theater and I said to myself I can't watch this yet so I watched the floor instead.  The only other time I have ever done that is right before I saw INGLORIOUS BASTARDS.  Finally I saw the damn movie.  I couldn't believe it.  They finally did it right.  I can die a happy man.  Now for most of you I figure you probably thought that this was an okay dumb action film that had some good moments in it.  Let me try my best to explain how this film is truly an artistic triumph and one of the best badass films ever made. 

I don't think most people get what PWZ is.  Its a comic book movie.  General audience members see it as a realistic action film that gets way too corny with its extreme violence and over the top characters.  Bad guys having chairs smashed through their faces, heads bursting apart from gunfire, or that parcore guy getting exploded in mid air from a rocket is not realistic.  People think they are smart for knowing this so they say the film is stupid for such unrealism.  Is unrealism a word?  Whatever.  It is now.  But this stuff happens all the time in the comics.  So of course you are going to see over the top things happen in the comic book movie.  People have a hard time understanding that unless the heroes have super powers.  Then its okay. 

You can see that there was a lot of thought put into the visuals of the movie.  Film is art.  The reason why PWZ is an artistic triumph is because it balances reality and the comic book world perfectly.  Notice how colorful the film is.  Scenes are saturated in colors.  One scene will be all red, and the next everything is bathed in yellow lights.  Down in the Punisher hideout everything is colored blue.  Why is that?  When you look through the first few comics of the Punisher Max series you will notice the comics look exactly like the movie.  The color scheme of the comics matches perfectly with the film without it being obvious like 300 or SIN CITY.  I thought that was kind of neat.  The comic book is pretty much the story boards for the movie.

PUNISHER WAR ZONE avoids a couple of cliches that come standard in tough guy action movies.  First there is no car chase in PWZ.  Almost every single American action movie ever made has a car chase.  Car chases are filler.  Rarely are they exciting and they serve no purpose but to add another "action" scene to the picture because that is what the audience likes.  PWZ is a tightly told story with no time for a car chase.  The car chases have been replaced with shoot outs which are real action scenes.  Also, where are the boobs?  As far as I can tell there are no naked chicks anywhere in PWZ.  I kind of like that.  Usually I don't but this time I will allow it.  There isn't that scene where two bad guys are talking in a strip club and some stripper is in the back doing her thing to boost the R rating which they did all the time in the eighties.  The Punisher doesn't fight some big dude in a hotel and throws him through a wall into the next room and startles some couple that was having sex and the woman jumps up briefly to flash her boobs before going back under the covers.  You won't find any of that here.  PWZ doesn't rely on such absurdity.  That's probably because this movie was directed by a woman.  That's pretty cool if you ask me.  You better ask me!

Ray Stevenson is the Punisher.  If they ever do another one he needs to reprise the role.  He is a terrific actor that brings the character to life without being too over the top.  The Punisher in the comics kills his old friend Micro for helping the CIA deal drugs even though they were kind of doing it to go after Bin Laden.  Comic book Punisher is zero tolerance all the way.  Somehow I don't think Ray's version would do the same.  The movie version is a little more believable.  Again the movie balances the character from the comic with real life perfectly.  Also I really liked Jigsaw in this movie.  Finally we get to see Punisher's arch nemesis with the jacked up face made of stitches.  While Jigsaw is nothing like the character from the comics I did like how well rounded he was as a character.  Well rounded like a butt hole.  Nah, I'm just messin with ya.  He is a good villain that is motivated by revenge for being thrown into a glass recycler by the Punisher.  That Punisher can be a real jerk sometimes.  He is way over the top in this movie but he isn't campy or stupid.  He is somebody to be feared.  That's kind of a hard thing to do in comic book movies.  He is kind of similar to the Joker in the Tim Burton Batman movie.  Funny but deadly too.

This is a great movie that tells a story and ends it.  They don't keep Jigsaw alive to show up in a later sequel.  They kill his ass dead.  Its also not another origin story.  We don't see the Punisher's family life which would slow the film down.  But the movie has it's fair share of shenanigans.  I mean Jigsaw is cut to pieces in a glass recycler and the next time we see him (which could only be a few days not more) he is getting his bandages already taken off.  That's a little too quick to heal if you ask me.  It probably would take months of physical therapy just to learn how to walk again.  Poor guy probably doesn't even have his balls anymore.  But its no big deal.  I can forgive the film for wanting to keep the quick pace of the story going.  There is a rather large plot hole at the end concerning the Russian mob showing up and shooting the place up.  The movie doesn't show who survived the aftermath.  I would have liked to have seen like one guy survive all that and then get a chair shoved through his face by the Punisher just to let the guy know that it would have been better to have not survived at all.

PUNISHER WAR ZONE is a better movie than I think most give it credit for.  Its not a dumbed down action movie where everything is exploding all the time and if the Punisher doesn't succeed everyone gets blown up.  In fact I think it was Jigsaw that stopped everyone from getting blown up.  That's interesting.  There is a lot of action in this movie and none of it is filmed in BOURNE IDENTITY shaky cam.  The characters are all interesting and overall you will not be bored unlike how you are now reading this crap.  Enjoy.

I still don't get what was up with that fat guy in the elevator.

Jason

The Expendables. Rambo, Commando, Die Hard vs. ERIC ROBERTS!?!

Oh, man.  You got to feel sorry for poor Eric Roberts.  You know its going to end very badly for that poor bastard.  It is a surreal experience to watch some of the best action stars from the eighties interacting with one another in the same film.  This movie has just about everybody. Rambo is the main star with Commando and Die Hard making a cameo near the beginning.  Rambo has the Transporter, Danny the Dog, and Red Scorpion working on his team of mercenaries with some UFC fighter and the big black guy that likes to beat up wetness and odor to the extreme in those Old Spice commercials.  Lets just say that he blows the crap-ola out of wetness and odor in this film along with a lot of body parts that have been known to cause such.  I do wish Steven Seagal and Van Damme were in it too but you can't have everything in life.

This movie never gets dull.  The Expendables is a simple men on a mission story.  Stallone is given a mission that even Commando would not accept.  But the movie focuses more on the characters than the mission itself.  Its full of car chases and explosions to keep everyone interested for the entire film.  Everyone puts in a great performance with a lot of great lines that aren't necessarily one liners.  I don't remember too many "I'll be back" or "Stick around" moments. Its just funny, clever dialogue.  Not all the lines are good though. Die Hard has one moment where he threatens Rambo by telling him he is going to "chop him up into little doggy treats."  Not a very intimidating to the guy whose mom will shoot you if you don't stop.  I'm just saying

I know a lot of critics will dismiss this film as nothing more than a big, dumb, action movie. There will be a lot of talk about testosterone and no brains but.they are so wrong. I know movies like this where men are men intimidate the hell out of critics.  They can not relate to such characters.  There is nothing dumb about men with no cause realizing there is something to fight and die for. That is what this story is about.  I know that is what happens in all these movies, but so what?  Its better than some movie about walking and talking that wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.  I'm looking at you American Beauty!  Some of Stallone's partners are different stages of the psyche of men who fight in wars all their life.  Mickey Rourke is part of the Expendables as the guy who sets up work for Stallone's men.  He was once a fighter too but he stopped because he was losing his human compassion.  Now he paints, tattoos and bangs chicks all day long.  Dolph is losing his sanity.  He enjoys killing too much.  The Expendables have a respect for the dead.  Crazy ol' Dolph likes blowing people in half and desecrating the dead for fun.  Yeah, they kick him off the team.  He is actually the most interesting character in my opinion.  Especially his relationship with Stallone.  Everyone on the team seems to be close friends.  They aren't just a bunch of pricks with guns who bicker to show they are pricks and determine in what order each one of them are going to die in just like in any other low grade wannabe action film.  These guys are likable. So it is interesting to see that when Dolph's character goes rogue and tries to kill everybody that Stallone is trying to save him.  Stallone doesn't want to end up like that.  After scouting out the target at the island of Vilenna Stallone decides it is too dangerous.  His woman guide is put in danger but instead of leaving when she has the chance she stays.  This affects Stallone's character. He doesn't understand why she did that. She is more courageous than he.  He and his team go back to start all kinds of hell just because it is the right thing to do.  I think that Eric Roberts represents the kind of villain Stallone's character could have become if he stayed in his "only for the money" kind of ways. Or maybe I just think I am really smart and read too much into things. You decide.

Jet Li kind of gets his butt kicked some in this movie.  He doesn't do so well against Crazy Ol' Dolph.  He wants a bigger share because he is so little.  Bullet holes are bigger on him because he is so little. Hilarious.  But there is one moment where he is with Stallone talking about his problems when a bunch of bad dudes show up in cars and try to kill them.  I kind of think this is the most badass moment in the film.  There is a quick shot of Jet Li shooting at his attackers with this stone cold killer stare. I know he is just and actor and he is really small but based on that stare I wouldn't mess with the guy.  Lets just say I am convinced he could kill somebody in real life with no problem.  Now that's what I call great acting.

I do have one gripe though. (Oh, here it comes)  While there is tons of fighting and blood in this movie (you know the good stuff you go to see a movie like this for)  its all filmed frantically with more  close ups and shaky cams than you can shake a cam at.  Its like The Expendables is paying homage to the Transformers movies.  This is so ironic to me.  Here we have the great eighties action stars in a great eighties style action flick but with modern effects to show a bunch of blood and heads exploding filmed like a Michael Bay film.  Stallone decides to film most of it with close-ups, shaky-cam, quick cuts and camera jerks.  This can't be.  Good luck telling what is going on half the time.  This isn't a freakin music video.  If it wasn't for that crazy zippity-doo-da style of filming action I would have said this is a perfect film. But I just can't.

Other than that I love this movie.  I think it maybe the best film of the year for me.  The Expendables is not as predictable as you would think  There are a few surprises in this movie.  I actually expected the middle to be kind of slow. Can you believe that! How stupid am I?  But instead there is a very impressive escape in the middle of the film which could easily be the climax of any other action movie. But it isn't.  There is still more kick-butt destruction still to come.  Its great to see everyone kill in their own style.  Statham and Li like stabbing and kicking people.  If they stab or shoot anybody you know they are going to kick them too for no reason.  Did they really need to double team Gary Daniels (He is kind of a taller Ray Parks)? The UFC guy likes to do his UFC  grabs and slams.  The rest just like to shoot people.  There is a lot of shooting in this movie so watch out.  Every now and then you may have to duck under your seat to avoid the stray bullets coming off the screen. 

Go see it so we can get a sequel fast tracked!

Jason