Summer Fest 7 Recap (Day One): Terminator Genisys, Kung Fury, and Revenge of the Ninja

 After seven long years, it was time to have another Summer Fest Field Trip Movie, and while they can't all be The Happening, you have to give an "A" for effort to this year's outing. I have a pain in my brain, and its name is Genisys. I could maybe live with the fact that this mediocre (at best) fifth Terminator film undoes all of the other movies in order to create a dumber multi-verse if it made any sense. Or even just adhered to its own internal logic, such as it is. But no. It doesn't do that. I could tell early that Genisys was already losing the brave souls who joined me when Skynet had a voice announcing that the time machine was activated and to send the T-800 back to 1984. Let's stop right there. Since when does an automated system like Skynet need to tell itself what it's going to do? Oh, it's for the audience members too stupid to keep up with what is obviously going on? Because this is the first Terminator movie they've ever seen? Okay, fine. Believe me, if that bothers you - and it did for at least two people sitting with me - that's nothing compared with what's coming.

 Guess what? I'm guessing you're not going to see Genisys until it's on the Syfy Channel one Saturday afternoon and you're waiting for Sharknado 5 or something like that. I mean, it's pretty obvious nobody is going to see it on the big screen; there were maybe 11 people at a 7:35 showing on a Friday night, and the multiplex had already dumped Terminator Genisys into one of its "crappy" auditoriums. How do I know? Well, you don't usually go to a theater to see widescreen bars at the top and bottom of the screen. But there they were, because Crossroads 20 couldn't be bothered to put it on anything better than a screen matted for 1.85:1. That's how much they cared about Terminator Genisys.

 I could give you a laundry list of things that would make you simultaneously want to watch Genisys and also to run away in horror, but maybe you'll split the difference and pay two dollars for it in a couple weeks. Or watch it for whatever you spend on cable television next year. Honestly, I'd go for the two dollars, because you can be baffled along with the other four or five people who pay to see it. We can start with recreating scenes from The Terminator (specifically the Griffith Park Observatory and Kyle Reese arrivals), but making them way dumber by throwing in an extra Terminator (old Arnold digitally young-ified) who fights an all digital 1984 version (Bodybuilder Brett Azar replaced completely with pixels), or having a T-1000 chase digital actor Jai Courtney (I think he's playing Kyle Reese, but nobody bothered finishing the "acting" job in the computer) until Sarah Connor (also digital actor Emilia Clarke, similarly unfinished) bursts through the department store and shoots guns. So many guns.

 Anyway, The Terminator never happened. T2 never happened. Terminator 3 never happened, and mercifully, Terminator: Salvation probably won't happen. I'm not even clear how Genisys happens, because after old Arnold Terminator who came back in time to 1974 to protect younger Sarah Connor uses a homemade time machine to send Kyle and Sarah to 2017, there's no way they can still have John Connor and he'd be the right age to send Kyle back.... agh. My brain hurts. Hey, remember "Bad Boys," also known as the theme song from COPS? That's in this movie, for a "being arrested montage" which includes the second of three "Arnold tries to smile" jokes from the deleted scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Also Matt Smith (Lost River) has replaced Helena Bonham Carter as the embodiment of Skynet and he turns John Connor (Jason Clarke) into a machine/man/something and then sends it back to 2014 to ensure Skynet will be created with the help of Miles and Danny Dyson, except now it's called Genisys and is an operating system that controls all of our devices. Kyle tells his younger self this because the timeline has been changed and now he has memories of both lives because Nexus point blah blah blah Quantum Magnetics.

 Quantum Magnetics.

 Terminator Genisys is such a stupid movie that I insist you all see it. There are multiple plot holes (like who sent back Pops, er, Guardian... er, forget it, Old Arnold?) that are designed to be addressed by sequels that probably won't be made because that's what happens when you come in 9th on your opening weekend. America has spoken, and it wants Minions. And, uh, they're probably right, but Terminator Genisys was the movie that Summer Fest 7 deserved. I gave it to 'em, and I don't regret it one bit. And look at it this way: if you're Phil Collins, from now on when someone talks about how much they hate Genisys, you can at least be uncertain for a few more seconds...

 Since I'm such a nice guy, when we got back to the Blogorium, I put on Kung Fury. In case you somehow avoided the internet a few weekends ago, it was all the rage on social media and everybody was reposting the link on Twitter and Facebook and, what the hell, let's pretend someone still uses MySpace. Fortunately for me, the masochists who followed me back from Terminator Genisys had somehow missed all of that, and had no idea what Kung Fury was. In truth, explaining what the short film is actually makes it sound worse than the finished product, but I'll do my best.

 Try as I might, there have been very few movies in the "neo-Grindhouse" movement that the Cap'n has actually enjoyed. Planet Terror had a fun John Carpenter vibe, but Hobo with a Shotgun was to relentlessly dour to really enjoy its grimy, 80's inspired aesthetics. Wolfcop pretty much went nowhere, and I've tried to avoid the glut of other, VHS-era inspired independent films because they promise a lot and rarely deliver. All of this is a means of explaining that Kung Fury is one of the rare "inspired by the 80's" concept films that actually does what it sets out to do. It's compact, wildly entertaining, and continually finds ways to surprise you and up the ante. Fest-er's laughed out loud repeatedly by its audacity, even though they'd groaned audibly when I told them about Triceracop before watching it.

 And that's the catch, because yes, there's a Triceratops wearing a police uniform, and of course he has a British accent. He's Kung Fuy (David Sandberg)'s partner, although Kung Fury doesn't want a partner. He works alone, after his original partner was brutally murdered by a kung fu master and then he was struck by lightning and bitten by a cobra at the same time. That's how he became Kung Fury, a cop in Miami, circa 1985. And by that, I mean a few actual sets mixed with liberal usage of green screens, playing in what looks like a grimy ambience of an oft-used VHS tape. Tracking errors are used to mask budget limitations early in the short, when Kung Fury is fighting an out of control arcade box, but everything is so over the top that it's really hard to find fault in the way that Sandberg (who also wrote and directed) presents it.

 Leave it to the Swedes to give us a short film where the hero hacks his way back in time to fight Hitler (The Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone) - pardon me, Kung Fuhrer - but goes too far and ends up in "Viking Times," which means Laser Raptors, Direwolves, and Gatling Guns. I'm not even going to tell you what happens after that, because telling you too much about Kung Fury ruins the fun of discovering just how far down the rabbit hole Sandberg is willing to go. I will take a moment to note my appreciation for Triceracops preferred method of killing Nazis - it only makes sense, in that it doesn't make any more sense than anything else that happens. And, of course, the song that plays over the end credits is performed by David Hasselhoff. It's kind of great, and quite appropriate for Kung Fury. One of our Fest-ers described it as "the best thing to come out of Kickstarter," which is true. As I understand it, the short is Sandberg's "proof of concept" to secure funding for a feature length film, and if he can sustain this level of manic energy for 90 minutes, count me in.

Now, it's a high mountain to climb to top the level of 80's cheese-tastic-ness that was Kung Fury, but I had no doubts that Golan-Globus could deliver the goods with Revenge of the Ninja. Remember, after all, that the 1983 not-exactly-a-sequel to Enter the Ninja is, in many ways, a template for the kind of "that can't happen" action movie Kung Fury is drawing from. We're talking about a film that begins with a ninja attack in progress, one that wipes out Cho (Shô Kosugi)'s entire family - save for his infant son - while he's hanging out with art dealer Braden (Arthur Roberts). They return to his home to find his entire family dead, and Cho - who I swear everyone pronounces his name as "Joe" - takes out the evil ninja clan single-handedly. Okay, I guess Braden shoots one of them. And then, without missing a beat, Braden offers Cho a job in America working at his art galleries.

 (SPOILERS ABOUND) Braden is, of course, evil, and is using Cho to traffic heroin in the dolls he delivers to the galleries. While Revenge of the Ninja never directly addresses this, I think we can all safely assume that Braden arranged for Cho's family to be killed. Again - if at any point any character says this out loud, I missed it. Instead, I just kind of guessed it when someone asked why Cho was a character in this movie at all. That's because, despite the fact that we spend inordinate amounts of time with Shô Kosugi, his son Kane Kosugi, and "Grandmother" (Grace Oshita), they're actually completely superfluous to the plot of the movie. Revenge of the Ninja is, for the most part, about Braden's drug dealing and dispute with the Mafia. Braden is actually also a ninja (with a ridiculous silver mask), and he decides to take out the mob without Cho having anything to do with the story. I mean, at all. For all intents and purposes, the title could refer to Braden taking "revenge" on the Mob for screwing him out of a drug deal.

  Cho eventually finds out about the drugs, which leads to Braden hypnotizing Cathy (Ashley Ferrare) into kidnapping Kane, and thugs try to kill Cho (and fail). Since "only a ninja can kill a ninja" or something ridiculous like that, Cho also has to dress up as a ninja and infiltrate the mob compound after Braden has so they can have the most drawn out fight possible.  Also, I guess he's going to save Kane, but since Kane saves himself (and Cathy, who is inexplicably placed in the worst "death trap" possible - it involves a Jacuzzi) and Cho never even looks for him, let's stick with the fight scene. I mean, you don't hit 80 minutes with the story they've got.

 I mentioned that Revenge of the Ninja isn't really a sequel of Enter the Ninja, and by that I mean it isn't in any way a sequel to Enter the Ninja. It's also not a prequel to Ninja III: The Domination - a previous Fest favorite - but since all three feature Shô Kosugi in some capacity, they form the loosest definition of a "trilogy" you're likely to see. This is the only one to outright star Kosugi (and his son), but Cho is so incidental to the actual story that you'd be forgiven for thinking he's just another supporting character. That said, Revenge of the Ninja has all of your favorite elements of 80s action cinema, including ethnic stereotypes: not even just the odd interpretation of "ninja," but also the Mafia goons and their one hired assassin who is dressed like a Native American and of course uses a Tomahawk. Revenge of the Ninja also features what may be the most uncomfortable fight scene in the history of Summer Fest, when Cathy is sent to kidnap Kane, and we're forced to watch a grown woman fight a six year old boy. It's much more of a back and forth battle than you'd think, but I'm not really sure that benefits anyone.

 After that, we realized we were old and tired and boring, so everybody went home without watching Traxx or Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. Fortunately, there's always tomorrow...

Bad Movie Night Recap

 The time has once again come for Bad Movie Night: my shameless celebration of the movies that just aren't quite good enough, but also aren't so terrible they become unwatchable. It's a fine line, and sometimes it's just the right goofy element that pushes it over. Sometimes it's just who you watch it with, and the Cap'n has a fairly loyal crew of masochists willing to descend on Blogorium Headquarters every year. Even though I subjected them to Things last year, they came back. What that says about their cinematic fortitude is up to you, but I'm proud to call them my friends. This year, I opted to give them a less agonizing experience, but not without some serious brain bending. Let's take a look at what you (hopefully) missed out on:

 We started with Devil Girl from Mars, based on the hit London stage play (or, that's what I'd like to believe), and it shows. Despite the fact that a Martian spaceship lands outside of a remote Scottish Inn, most of the motley crew of patrons are concerned with their own stupid problems, leaving time for Naya, the titular character, to enter and exit through the same door, repeatedly. At least it's nice to know that Martians also call their planet Mars. They - well, she - arrived on Earth with her new prototype spaceship, which has organic metal and runs on an engine that creates nuclear reactions that explode inward, creating perpetual motion. Their science is vastly superior to ours, but in the great war of the sexes, all men were wiped out and they need some breeding stock, if you catch my drift. Perhaps if she'd landed in America, rather than Scotland, this would have been an easier task, because the citizens of the United Kingdom are more interested in cockamamie plans to shoot or electrocute her, to no avail.

 Brave newspaper columnist Mike Conner (or Carter, depending on who's saying his name) has the scoop of a lifetime, but would rather his on a fashion model hiding out in the inn. Thankfully his indeterminate accent doesn't bother her, and she even falls in love with him in the two hours between when they meet and when he agrees to join the Devil Girl on her ship. That, of course, is a ruse for him to try to steal the remote control for Johnny, a robot who "looks very similar to you Earth people," in that he looks nothing like humans but instead a guy in a robot costume. Naya has a ray gun that's effective on everything but glasses, constructs an invisible wall that the only scientist in the group somehow runs into headlong, and loves to open the same doors over and over and make sweeping pronouncements about how stupid we humans are. There are other characters, because we clearly care about an escaped adulterer who murdered his wife or some dumb kid, but the innkeeper's husband's name is Jamie Jameson, which is amusing. Also, they sit down to eat dinner at 10 o'clock at night. If only Mike and the Professor had taken the turn to "Loch Something" (actual line), they might have missed this unfortunately duller than it sounds movie.

 Speaking of dull, I hadn't seen Disney's knock-off of Star Wars, The Black Hole, in close to 25 years, so I didn't remember what a bore it was. Fortunately, I also didn't remember a lot of other things about it, like the fact that a 90 minute film had an overture and that all of the music - by James Bond composer John Barry - sounded just like any other Bond music. I did remember the robot with the Texas accent, and that Event Horizon lifted quite a bit from this terrible, terrible movie. When it's not ripping off Star Wars, it's borrowing liberally from the released-the-same year Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Forbidden Planet, and Battlestar Galactica, and pretty much any other vaguely popular science fiction film they could think of. To be perfectly honest with you, we lost interest about fifteen minutes in, started talking about the new music on Star Wars and about The Hobbit, and eventually made some jokes about Ernest Borgnine's libido and the movie Alligator, while pausing to note just how badly one could steal from George Lucas. I might have even said something kind about The Phantom Menace, which might be a first for the Cap'n.

 High School Confidential! eased us out of the "boring" zone of bad movies - hey, I try, but sometimes things just don't land with the crowd - by being entirely too interested in being "hip" and "with it". That works wonders in its favor, because the ridiculous overuse of slang, coupled with what seems to be not even veiled suggestions about incest between Tony (Russ Tamblyn) and his aunt Gwen (Mamie Van Doren). In Tony's defense, it's mostly one way, and given there's a twist, I guess it's possible that they maybe aren't related, but why would he refer to her as his aunt behind closed doors? There are a number of questionable "bait and switch"-es in High School Confidential!, a movie about Tony moving in to town and taking over the high school drug trade in the course of two or three days. He's tough talking and backs it up, and pops his collar, even when it's on a sweater. Why? Because he's hip, daddy-o.

 There are so many ways to address how hard the writers are trying to sound "cool" and failing miserably: the hip version of Columbus that J. I. Coleridge (John Drew Barrymore) "lays" on his class, or the awful (even for Beat Poetry) performance at a "Jazz Club" the kids all go to. Or the notion that marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin, and nothing else. Tony, a "7th year" high school student, immediately starts hitting on his teacher and also moves in on Coleridge's girl, who turns out to be a junkie. The drug kingpins in town are played by Charles Chaplin, Jr. and Jackie Coogan. Yes, Uncle Fester forces Tony to shoot up to prove he's not a narc. But wait, he is! (SPOILER) Tony is really Mike, who works with the cops, and there's a big shootout at the jazz club when a deal goes bad. Fortunately, the leader of The Rangers - played by Michael Landon - is there to help out, even though they're the rival gang to Tony's Wheelers and Dealers. Also, Jerry Lee Lewis begins and ends the film playing the title song, in what appears to be the same shot.

 High School Confidential! picked up the pace a bit, and after a musical interlude, it was time to dive right into Raw Force. It's an almost perfect storm of kung-fu zombie cannibalism interspersed with gratuitous nudity and hokey special effects. And yet, some people were grumbling, perhaps because I oversold the "cannibal monks who raise kung-fu zombies" part of the movie. Yes, most of Raw Force's 86 minutes is devoted to a Kung-Fu cruise to "Warrior Island," where disgraced martial artists are buried. It's also where Hitler sells prostitutes in exchange for jade. Is his name Hitler in the movie? I honestly don't remember, but if he looks like Hitler and talks like Hitler, we're going to go with "that guy is Hitler". The cannibal monks eat the girls because it gives them power to raise the dead, which they use (eventually) for the final showdown.

 In the meantime, there's a lot of showing off of kung-fu skills, coupled with late 70s / early 80s clothes, music, and nudity aboard the cruise ship. Almost everyone on the boat - from the cook to the bartender - seem to know how to fight, and are therefore well equipped to handle Hitler's lackeys. You see, despite the fact that Warrior Island is the home of an illicit human trafficking ring, it's also the subject of its own tourism guide. Because, why wouldn't it? When the cruise ship catches on fire (or, rather, has fire overlaid over the image), some of the passengers escape, and the rest are presumably killed. We never hear from them again, so let's just assume they died. What's important is that the life raft lands on Warrior Island and the monks raise the dead. There's lots of chop sockey, some decapitations, some dynamite, and piranhas. How are there piranhas in salt water, in the ocean? My guess is they couldn't find any stock footage of sharks. So Hitler gets munched on by piranhas (SPOILER).

 Rather than launching into the "Luc Besson Presents an Affront to Science" double feature as promised, I gave them the option of getting the Trappening out of the way, which they decided was best. What they didn't know was that this year's mystery feature wasn't just a Bad Movie - it was a Great Bad Movie. By no stretch of the imagination could one call Commando a "good" movie, but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the most fun films to throw conventional cinema out the window. Continuity errors? Check. Bad one liners? Yessir. Gratuitous nudity? Well, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fight scene, so yep. The mall from Chopping Mall? Sure is! Arnold Schwarzenegger killing an entire army, single-handedly? You know it.

 To get Alyssa Milano back, Arnold will plow his way through David Patrick Kelly (John Wick), Bill Duke (Predator), Dan Hedaya (Alien Resurrection), and finally The Road Warrior's Vernon Wells (Weird Science) for the mother of all bad puns. Oh, and his name is John Matrix, because Rambo is a pansy. I firmly believe that Commando is what everybody thinks all action movies from the 80s are like (that, and First Blood Part II), and why they hold the admittedly average Expendables series to an impossible standard. Matrix is introduced hauling a log down to a cabin (on his shoulder), and then eats ice cream and feeds a deer with his daughter. Because he's tough, but sensitive. Until you steal his daughter, and then he just kills you. Rae Dawn Chong's Cindy isn't even developed enough to have Stockholm Syndrome when she assumes the role of "new mom" at the end, having been kidnapped by Matrix less than twelve hours before. Commando is all killer and no filler, but I asked attendees to give it the same scrutiny as any of our other howlers, which is exactly the point at which you realize the many logic gaps and inherent flaws that make it technically "Bad." Now that everybody was in a great frame of mind, it was time to throw common sense out the door and let Luc Besson insult our basic intelligence...

 I've been hosting official fests for nearly a decade now, and in all that time I have never heard the phrase "wait... what?" as many times as I did during Luc Besson's Lucy. Perhaps the mini-review in the "Worst Of" recap didn't quite convey just how painfully cavalier Lucy is with the concept of "science," but the reactions were hilarious. During the film, at least one large bottle of Kraken was consumed, and descriptions of what they'd seen ranged from "an atrocity" to "amazing." A friend of mine whose dissertation is on Philip K. Dick insists that it's not science fiction at all, but rather a brilliant example of "slipstream," a newer iteration of magical realism. The entire room erupted with laughter when Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) explained that she could "feel her brain" in what's supposed to be heartfelt scene over the phone with her mother. The comical, video-game-esque use of brain percentage "unlocked" was also a source of enjoyment, but nothing stood out quite as much as figuring out how long it took for Johansson to "say this horseshit with a straight face." One viewer worried that she could no longer take Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole seriously after seeing him in Lucy. I freely admit that Lucy is a bad movie, but it's a very entertaining one, and it was somewhat validating to see the baffled reactions as they tried to take Besson's affront to science seriously.

 That said, I made a critical mistake in putting Lockout after Lucy, because by comparison, the former is just a "run of the mill bad science fiction film". It's true that after you've heard Scarlett Johansson explain what it's like to feel your bones growing, or to become the monolith from 2001, a high speed unicycle chase just doesn't have the same impact. Even my favorite line of awful science, "the gravity should keep you floating" just can't compete with Besson's double-down on Insane Clown Posse-like disdain for science. Lockout is still a bad movie, and it's insistence on identifying everyone and every location on screen (repeatedly, in the case of the latter) is amusing, but it just wasn't the same head-scratcher that it was in 2012. On the other hand, the outcries of mental anguish reconciling what Lucy was saying vs. what they knew to be true was more than worth it.

 By the end of Lockout, just about everybody was ready to go, but a few stragglers felt like they had one more Bad Movie in them. Despite the fact that it meant Cap'n's Choice - I hadn't planned on anything past Lockout - they were willing to suffer through another one. Being that it was late, or comparatively late (we can't do movies until sunrise anymore), I opted to go short and show Cranpire a "Cranpire Movie": Sorority House Massacre II. As I'll be writing about that and the first Sorority House Massacre soon (and possibly Hard to Die), I won't go too into detail about it, but he enjoyed it. There's barely a plot, and most of the first half of the movie is devoted to showing as much gratuitous nudity as possible, followed by another 30 minutes or so of women running around a house in their nighties and going out in the rain for no good reason. Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall) even takes a pointless side-trip to a strip club to shoehorn in more nudity under the specious logic that one of the characters from a flashback is now dancing topless. Classy stuff.

 For the immediate future, I think I've hit my quota of schlock (although that doesn't rule out watching Furious 7). There's enough time to reload the queue in time for Summer Fest, where I think 80s cheesefests Without Warning and Deadly Eyes are going to be a hit. Thanks to everybody who made it, and to the folks at home who didn't, you now have a roadmap for your own Bad Movie Night. Just have alcohol and a good support system of friends nearby. And whatever you do, don't watch Things.

Blogorium Review: The Expendables - The Third One

 Here we go again. Again. There are a few factors weighing heavily against the third Expendables movie, a series ostensibly devoted to being throwbacks to action flicks of the 1980s. You know, the kind we don't see anymore because all action today is terrible, etc. It has a PG-13 rating, so that means less blood spraying everywhere (digital blood, for the record). That also means only one "F" bomb (strategically placed, we can hope), which, in the minds of action fans of the 1980s, means the film has been "neutered" and will therefore suck.

 Furthermore, rumors abound that the film underwent some serious changes between shooting and release, altering one character's arc and removing at least one subplot / character. There's also the always problematic issue of including Mel Gibson as the villain, as Gibson has (mostly by his own doing) become a lightning rod for controversy and many people won't see anything he's involved with. That's not an opinion so much as it is a fact - did you see The Beaver, Get the Gringo, or Machete Kills? I did, but I know a lot of people who didn't and won't purely on principle. Also, one of them really sucked.

  Also, there's the little matter of the entire movie leaking online three weeks ago in the form of a screener, allowing people who don't mind pirating a movie the ability to see a movie they weren't sure they wanted to pay for. These things do not bode well for The Expendables 3.

 With that in mind, I should probably go ahead and tell you that if you liked The Expendables and The Expendables 2, then you're going to like most of The Expendables 3, even if the narrative is totally unbalanced. The new additions to the cast are, for the most part, welcome and in many cases improve the overall genial spirit of the films. Regardless of how you feel about Gibson (and believe me, I'm not disagreeing with anyone who hates him - I get it), he makes a great villain as Stonebanks, a founding Expendable, and very quickly demonstrates that he's even more dangerous than Jean-Claude Van Damme was in the last film. I'm not sure how much of the film is director Patrick Hughes (Red Hill)'s and how much is the influence of Sylvester Stallone, but the action is a little easier to follow most of the time. If anything, the only thing missing for most of The Expendables 3 is a sense of camaraderie between returning cast members.

 By this point, I really hope that people who claim to be fans of 80s Action Movies are done complaining that The Expendables movies aren't like Commando, which seems to be their frame of reference for the entire subgenre* (that, or the first four Steven Seagal films), but if it helps, a lot of the third movie is more cartoonish at the outset. It begins with a prison train transporting a high value asset back to a fortified hellhole, until Barney Ross (Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) fly up in the Expendecopter. They're here to make a high speed rescue, even if it means dodging fire from a ludicrously sized gun hiding inside one of the compartments. As it was in the opening of The Expendables 2, they make it inside with relatively little effort and rescue Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), another original Expendable who's been doing time. If you're looking for a "tax evasion" joke, you'll get it. But only one, thankfully.

 It turns out Ross needs the Doc to help him with an assassination of a high value target on Church's list (Bruce Willis isn't in the movie, but they refer to him a few times early on). They arrive to find Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) doing recon, and everything looks good until the target appears. It's not just some arms dealer, as Ross had been told - it's Conrad Stonebanks, the man who betrayed the Expendables and who Barney was certain he killed years ago. Stonebanks doesn't take kindly to their presence and (SPOILERS BEGIN HERE) puts two bullets into Caesar before dropping a bomb on the team from his helicopter.

 This, by the way, is the first major deviation that I've read from shooting to release: originally, one of the actual Expendables died (not the "introduce the kid and then kill him" like in the last movie). The scene sure plays out like Caesar is dying - Stonebanks shoots him in the leg and then puts one through his chest, and the exit wound is a big hole. Then they're blown into the water of a shipping port by the explosion, and Henry cuts to the team desperately trying to stop the blood. There are rumors that Caesar did die in the original conception, but the moment I saw him in the plane, I knew he would be back at the end. When Barney leaves his skull ring at the hospital, I realized that "nope, nobody's 'expendable' once again." Don't get me wrong - I love me some Terry Crews, but it really diminishes the threat of Stonebanks if his "kill" isn't really fatal. Also, it renders the entire speech about why Ross keeps the dogtags of fallen expendables on the plane kind of moot. We haven't seen one expendable character yet, and you're not going to in this movie.

 It does cause Barney to dissolve the existing team and go to his buddy Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammer) to recruit younger, hipper, blood to go after Stonebanks. In a probably too long section of the film, Grammer and Stallone travel around the country to find Mars (Victor Ortiz), Luna (Ronda Rousey), Smiley (Kellan Lutz), and Thorn (Glen Powell). They're young and have attitude and skills that reflect the more "modern" approach to action films (hacking, basejumping, drones, smart rifles, MMA training) so while they do help Barney capture Stonebanks, they're also all immediately captured when inevitably the bad guy escapes. Barney gets away and makes it to the rendezvous point where Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is waiting.

 (For the record, I was happy to see that the guy buying weapons from Stonebanks in the art museum was none other than Robert Davi. I had no idea he was in the movie, so it was a pleasant surprise)

 Since Barney is stubborn and won't ask Lee, Toll, or Gunnar for help, he tells Trench to leave and decides he'll take Stonebanks up on his "you want them, come and get them" offer alone. One of Bonaparte's rejects, Galgo (Antonio Banderas) shows up and begs Ross to let him come - "I NEED action!" Despite the fact that his entire unit abandoned him and the fact that he just won't shut up, Ross agrees to bring him along. And then the other Expendables arrive, because why wouldn't they? Time for the big showdown!

 I'm wondering if the complaints about The Expendables 3 being "boring" are coming from the mid-section, which is the bulk of the movie and deals with introducing four new characters, only two of which we every really learn anything about. Stallone and Grammer actually have great chemistry together, so it's fun watching them bullshit between picking up new Expendables, but only MMA fighter Rousey and Kellan Lutz have the slightest amount of character development. Lutz plays the "guy who doesn't like authority but learns to respect the team" and Rousey's Luna is the "woman everyone thinks is hot but can mix it up with the boys." That's about it, although Rousey has a great chance to shine late in the film with the scene stealing Banderas, who it turns out is really, really good a killing people.

 Part of the problem of The Expendables 3 in execution is that we're constantly being introduced to characters as the cast swells. We might like some of them individually, but the aggregate effect is that the film feels bloated well before the big action sequence that closes things out. IMDB lists a character playing Gunnar's daughter, which is nowhere to be seen in the finished film, so apparently there were even more characters in the film. Meanwhile, Jet Li is in the film for arguably even less screen time than he was in The Expendables 2, and most of Arnold's scenes are near the end. Mickey Rourke still isn't back, Charisma Carpenter sat this one out, and forget any rumors about Milla Jovovich, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal or Nicolas Cage cameos: they really aren't in the movie. Hell, most of the regulars aren't in the movie very much - it's Stallone most of the way.

 I would like to mention someone who is in the movie for a lot longer than I expected, and it's actually a very welcome addition. When Bruce Willis priced himself out of The Expendables 3, Stallone brought in Harrison Ford, who I assumed would be some minimal cameo where he'd be gruff and grouchy for a few minutes and then peace out. Instead, Ford's Drummer is the CIA representative who "took care of Church" and is the one who helps Ross find Stonebanks. He's in a lot more of the movie than I thought, is more central to the story than I expected, and is clearly having a very good time with the action stars. He's mostly onscreen with Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Li, but Ford seems to genuinely enjoy the over-the-top action at the end of the film instead of just phoning it in. He also gets the distinction of delivering the PG-13 mandated "one F-Bomb," which at this point is almost as weird as when Harrison Ford said "tits" in Patriot Games.

 Wesley Snipes also goes a long way towards reminding us why he deserves a place in the action star pantheon. Doc gets sidelined for a lot of the movie, but when he's onscreen it's a welcome addition to the cast. He gets paired with Statham frequently, which makes for an amusing subplot involving their mutual love of knives (and competition to outdo the other). Statham is good but barely registers, Lundgren finds a better balance between comedy and action than in the last movie, and Couture and Crews are once again not given much to do. At least Couture is with the team during the climax of the film, but other than stealing a tank with Gunnar, I can't remember a single thing he does.

 Tank, you say? Yes, Stonebanks leads them to a mostly abandoned city that looks a lot like the one from The Expendables 2 to rescue the "kids," and then uses his connections with the local dictator to throw an army at the team. Also the building is wired with C4, and Smilee can only block the signal for so long, so there's a ticking clock to escape in Drummer's helicopter. There's a long and loud and intermittently fun action scene that involves dirt bikes, tanks, grenades, lots of shooting, and then Rousey and Banderas steal the entire show in what may be my favorite sequence of any of the scenes in the movie. Statham's "big fight" with the heavy felt a little undercooked because you don't really get a sense of who Stonebanks's "muscle" is, and also because Hughes keeps cutting away to Snipes taking out people nearby.

 Meanwhile, Drummer, Trench, and Yin Yang (I had to look, because I forgot) are flying around in the copter, avoiding fire and shooting at anything that moves until they can safely evacuate more people than could possibly fit. And finally, there's the showdown between Ross and Stonebanks, which is, to be blunt, a total disappointment. The entire movie is built around Barney Ross wanting to take out Conrad Stonebanks, up to and including a great monologue by Gibson after he's been captured about the essence of being "expendable," and Hughes and Stallone can't stick the landing. Mel Gibson gives Van Damme a run for his money for the villain you most want to see Stallone brutally murder, but their respective final "fight"s are so lopsided, there's no competition.

 Not only is the fight shot in such a way that you can't really see both of the faces in the frame 90% of the time, the unnecessarily padded nature of having so many characters trying to do so much in so little time means that Stallone and Gibson's "showdown" maybe lasts for five minutes of screen time. It's over so quickly and in such and underwhelming fashion that I can't imagine anyone being satisfied that The Expendables 3 builds to "that". It's a total let down, a waste of casting Gibson, and a failure to live up to the menace instilled in the bad guy. Not since Stone Cold Steve Austin caught fire and Eric Roberts caught a knife to the heart has a bad guy been given such a limp death scene. So if you decide to see this movie just to see Mel Gibson being murdered, don't get your hopes too high - it happens, but very quickly. Remember, explosions!

 For the record, if you were annoyed by the constant referencing of "greatest hits" by the cast in The Expendables 2, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that it's toned down considerably in the first part of the film. Other than the "tax evasion" joke and a Demolition Man reference, I didn't catch anything that really made me groan. However, late in the movie there's a litany of one-liner reference jokes that will drive you nuts, including "Get to the Choppah," "I Lied," and a variation on "I Am the Law." I didn't catch a specific Harrison Ford joke, but I'm pretty sure there's either an Air Force One or Indiana Jones reference during the helicopter scene. There's also another Predator joke involving Caesar, Gunnar, and a mini-gun early in the film. I've forgotten some of the others, but they tend to pile up on each other towards the end of the movie, and not in a good way.

 Once again, I'm looking at an Expendables movie that I mostly liked, but which loses its luster the more I think about it. There's probably enough good to counter the bad, but not enough to outweigh it, and the only reason it's over two hours long is because the addition of nearly a dozen new characters, many of which have extensive introductions, only to not do much later. Ford, Snipes, Banderas, and Rousey rise above the clutter, and Grammer makes a nice impression as a side character, but these films are getting too crowded. There simply isn't enough for everybody to do, and when the element that gets sacrificed is the hero and the villain's showdown, you're doing something wrong.

 What's funny is that immediately after I finished the movie, I was in a good mood and I liked it. But the more I think about it, the more apparent its problems are and I have a hard time remember what it was I enjoyed about The Expendables 3. I'm almost positive that's not the intended reaction to the movie, but it's kind of the same way I felt about the first one. Less so The Expendables 2, but to date not one of these movies really "holds up" like it ought to, and I'm talking the bare minimum requirements of "holds up."

 In fits and spurts, I expect you'll find The Expendables 3 to be entertaining, and you'll probably have fun, but in retrospect, the seams start showing and threaten to fall apart. I'm not sure this series can sustain itself much longer, but there's always the hope that "next time they'll get it right." I'm not asking for Commando, because there aren't actually many movies from the 1980s like Commando (maybe Rambo: First Blood Part II), but Stallone hasn't quite put together an Expendables film that does justice to the films that made him a household name. Yet. There's always hope that like Rocky Balboa or Rambo, he's got one killer Expendables movie in him, and, uh, we'll end on that hopeful, if naive note. In closing, see Escape Plan, available now on home video.



 * Commando is the perfect storm of "no, that could never happen" with respect to continuity, machismo, one-liners, extreme violence, impossible coincidences, economy of story, and ridiculous fight scenes. Arnold takes out the entire army of Val Verde in the back yard of a mansion BY HIMSELF using a machine gun and garden implements. His nemesis is the henchman from The Road Warrior, he throws a pipe through his chest! I'm sorry, but if you expect every action movie to be like Commando, then only Road House is going to meet your expectations Or maybe Exit Wounds - Seagal blows up a helicopter with a handgun.

2013 Recap: Further Up the Ladder (Part Two)

 Moving right along, we continue navigating the better (but not best) choices 2013 had to offer, warts and all. This actually brought up an interesting question the other day: is it fair to expect a movie to be perfect? One of the easiest caveats used to overlook a film's flaws is to say "well, it isn't perfect, but it's still _____" which begs the question: did you expect it to be perfect? It seems to me that there are two opposing positions to this one, based largely on what kinds of movies audiences / critics / scholars go to see. The answer most people are going to give is "no," usually accompanied by some variation on the phrase "well, it's not Shakespeare, but..." as though a film can't aspire to be great (and yes, I've heard the Shakespeare line repeatedly in reference to Michael Bay movies). But it's true, disappointment reigns supreme so often that many people brace themselves for something lesser and are happy when it meets or exceeds lowered expectations.

 The flipside of this argument, the one I heard from college professors for four years, is that "of course you should expect it to be perfect, because why would you watch anything less?" This is a more exclusionary position, one that posits that if it isn't already a classic, it's not worth bothering with. And while it is true that there are more classic films out there than I or many of you will ever have time to watch, making this argument excludes the possibility that there will ever be any more films considered "classic" made after whatever arbitrary cut-off date is selected. There is something to be said about the lack of timelessness of some modern films (off the top of your head, can you remember my favorite movies from last year, and have you seen any of them since?). It is hard to tell what will last and what will fade in thirty, fifty, even a hundred years, but I don't know that I buy the argument "if it's not already declared perfect, don't bother." I'd rather take a chance, go in not sure of what I'm going to get, and let the movie do its work.

 It's not always perfect (as we'll see a few times below), but it can be pretty damn good, and film history has plenty of "pretty damn good" movies, too. If you can be bothered to lower yourself to find them, that is.

 From Elysi-mrm to Riddick-ulous, Plus More Diesel, Ah-nuld and Sly.

 Unfortunately, Elysium is not "pretty damn good," which is a shame because it should be. All the right pieces are in place: Neill Blomkamp, the writer / director of District 9, follows up his first film with another high-minded dystopian science fiction story, drenched in social commentary. Returning with him is Sharlto Copley, and new to the party are Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner, and Faran Tahir as people on either side of the divide between a pollution ravaged Earth and the orbiting utopian community of Elysium. As he did with District 9, Blomkamp demonstrates an ability to blend visual effects with actual environments in such a way that they often appear seamless, with a lived in quality I haven't seen since the first Star Wars.

 But somehow, despite the wealth of riches in nearly every aspect of the film, Elysium falls flat. The early sections, where Damon's Max is just a down on his luck ex-con trying hard to to go straight, are the best. The system, with its robot police and automated parole officers make it impossible for him to get by (his bad attitude doesn't help), and when his boss forces him to put his health at risk, the ensuing radiation exposure is, well, toxic. That's where the meat of Elysium really is, where the cover art you've seen comes from. Max builds the same officers that give him so much grief, and when he's poisoned and the owner (Fichtner) tells his boss to fire him, there's no chance of surviving. On Earth, anyway. Of course he can try to strongarm his way up to Elysium, where the ultra-rich fled to live peaceful lives (except when they shoot down any ship trying to illegally land, that is).

 In order to do that, Max is going to need help, so Julio (Luna), leader of an underground movement trying to take down Elysium, agrees to turn him into a quasi-cyborg as long as he'll take a program up to the station that would allow anyone to use the medical pods that can heal anything. There's also a power struggle of sorts in Elysium, as Delacourt (Foster) is orchestrating a coup of sorts to take down President Patel (Tahir) with the help of John Carlyle (Fichtner). Throw in Max' childhood friend (Braga) and her dying daughter (Emma Tremblay) and Delacourt's Earthbound muscule Kruger (Copley) and things are in motion.

 For all of the thrilling action and visual spectacle, Elysium is a strangely flat movie. I'm not sure that Blomkamp really knew what he wanted to say other than "the 1% is bad," and that's not enough to sustain the narrative thrust of the film. It's a strangely unengaging film as it goes along, one with any number of questionable decisions made by characters who shouldn't know things they do but the script doesn't have any other way forward. I found myself less interested in Max taking down Elysium and more engaged in his back and forth with Kruger, a truly ruthless bastard. When it was over, it was clear that I was supposed to be happy that Elysium (and health care) was available for everyone, but the not even vaguely subtle political commentary arrives with all the depth of a stoned college dorm room conversation. Elysium is inert, despite all of the whiz-bang kinetic action, and that's a shame.

 I already mentioned Riddick in December, and watching the "Unrated Director's Cut" effectively reinforces my opinion that it's much better than The Chronicles of Riddick, but maybe not as good as Pitch Black (in fact, maybe a bit too much like Pitch Black). It's a welcome return to form for the series and I'm absolutely looking forward to the next film. Well, there's a slight reservation, and if you read the earlier review, you know that the one carryover from The Chronicles of Riddick I wasn't gaga about is the necessary inclusion of the (sigh...) Necromongers, including Karl Urban's Vaako. I write a lot of silly things on this blog, but Necromonger is such a ridiculous term that even I'm embarrassed to have to expose you to it. The most notable addition to the unrated cut of Riddick are extended prologue and epilogue scenes with more Monger-ing, including the set-up for a sequel where Vaako didn't betray Riddick (it was the other guy) and has, in fact, crossed over to the "Underverse." Look, David Twohy, I'm still mostly on board with the continuing adventures of Richard Riddick, but can we please not go into more of this stupid shit like in the second movie? Please?

 On the subject of Vin Diesel and stupid shit, I have to say how continually impressed I am at the Fast and the Furious franchise's ability to defy the law of diminishing returns. Six films in should be in Freddy's Dead territory by now, where the studio doesn't care and the creative team is getting weird and throwing in 3D, but director Justin Lin (who came in with the I assumed was DTV Tokyo Drift) is hellbent on keeping things onward and upward. I didn't watch the first three movies because I don't care about street racing culture or (as Clint Eastwood put it in Gran Torino) "faggy spoilers" and neon green paint jobs, but when Dwayne Johnson joined the cast for Fast Five, I tuned in. Reviews were surprisingly positive, and painted the film as something more like an Ocean's Eleven for meatheads than a movie about car drifting.

 So I watched Fast and Furious because Five begins where four ends, and it seemed to be an all right, high octane movie. I really liked Fast Five, which is exactly like an Ocean's Eleven for meatheads, and Johnson's Hobbs was a great counterpoint to Diesel's Dominic Toretto. The fights were tough, the racing was minimal, but the chase scenes were impressive and on a scale not seen since Bad Boys 2 (uh oh, Michael Bay comparison... not good...). So for the first time in the series, I was looking forward to a Fast and Furious movie. And let me tell you, Furious Six did not disappoint.

 I'm glad I went to see it with friends because the smell of testosterone and meathead cologne was thick in the theatre, but Furious Six had something for everybody. You had your action, your comedy, your stunts, two silly (but brief) street races, and everybody from Fast Five plus a few additions. Notable for me was the inclusion of Gina Carano (Haywire) as Hobbs' partner Riley, who has a knock-down, drag out fight with returning Michelle Rodriguez's Letty, juxtaposed with Han (Sun Kang) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) getting their asses handed to them by one guy.

 Look, the Cap'n isn't going to pretend that Furious Six is for everybody, or even most people. It's the kind of goofball action movie where someone can crash into a guard rail, fly across a bridge, and catch someone who's been thrown from a tank and land safely on another car's windshield. That happens. It's borderline Commando-level dumb, and to be honest it was more engaging than any of the heavy-handed, muddled "thinking man's action" of Elysium. Sometimes the lizard brain deep down in the male psyche (not actually a penis joke, althouth it occurs to me some of you might read it that way - it's actually a weird reference to a religious studies class I took) needs to see big dumb fun, and Furious Six handles that with aplomb.

 The death of Paul Walker is going to seriously test the F&F franchise's ability to keep going up, but the addition of a mid-credits villain linked to Luke Evans' antagonist, the inclusion of Kurt Russell and incoming director James Wan (Death Sentence) has me hopeful for next year. We'll see, because I'm not watching Bad Boys 3 if and when that comes out (take that, Bay!).

 I'll close out this section with a few additional thoughts on The Last Stand and Escape Plan (already reviewed in the available links): while I really didn't like Bullet to the Head, I thought The Last Stand was a pretty good, straightforward action movie about Arnold Schwarzenegger learning to deal with being older. Sly has pretty much just continued to push forward and not really acknowledge age since Rocky Balboa (in fact, Rambo pretty much refuted the "older Stallone era" of Balboa), but Arnold does look older. He sounds older, and his body isn't chiseled out of marble the way it once was (or is it granite? I'm not sure on that one).

 The Last Stand was a good look at how Arnold ages onscreen (something he never really acknowledged prior to becoming the Governator), but I feel like Escape Plan uses the "aged wine" version of Schwarzenegger in a much better way. He's just a grizzled veteran who can still be a tough guy, but one old enough to know better than to pick every fight. Repeatedly in the film you see that he's happy to be the "muscule" for Sly's Ray Breslin, but it's almost always off-screen. There's a great (pun intended) punchline to Ray's request for one inmate's glasses to Arnold's Rottmayer when the camera cuts to the next day and the guy has a black eye and no glasses. I'm a little iffy to bringing Ah-nuld back as the Terminator, but it's what the people expect. Oh well, it's nice to know he can play the tough old bastard when he needs to.


The Wrath of Smaug and Other Sundry Tales of Elves Into Darkness.

 If you watch Star Trek: Into Darkness and never think about it, even for a second, you'll have a blast. It's an unfettered rollercoaster of thrills and chills, of action punctuated by chuckles, with great chemistry between cast members, and maybe even a thing or two to say about the way society responds to terrorism. However, if you start to think about the movie AT ALL, things start to fall apart, and compound into bigger problems that threaten to cripple your very ability to enjoy the movie in the first place. That is your warning, and while the original review will cover many of the reasons, I'm going to very quickly explain why I feel this is the case.

 I'm done giving Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, and Robert Orci grief over the screenplay. It's a dead horse and I'm tired of beating it. The same goes for JJ Abrams and lens flares and trying to turn Star Trek into Star Wars and any of the other arguments about why the rebooted Star Trek isn't really Star Trek. I get it. This is the internet and everything sucks now, etc. Okay. We got that out of our systems, and those tired old arguments aren't going to change what IS. And what Star Trek: Into Darkness IS is the little brother who grew up in the shadow of his more famous, more beloved older brother. The one who casts a shadow so long over fans and casual viewers that you can't even reboot the series and start fresh with a Star Trek 2 without at least considering the fact that it's going to be compared to The Wrath of Khan.

 It can't be helped, because even people who don't really know Star Trek that well know what it is. Other than The Voyage Home, it might be the only one they know. Star Trek fans know it because it kept them awake, unlike The Motion Picture (cue TMP defenders in five, four, three, two...), and the movie tied directly into the show. It was also very well written, acted, and directed, which at the time (and even in the wake of Star Trek V) is kind of surprising for a Star Trek movie. Most of the target audience for Star Trek: Into Darkness grew up with The Wrath of Khan, so you can't help but want to compare yourself to the older brother everybody loves. You can try to fight to be your own movie, to outdo your brother in ways, or to alter expectations, but it's still just going to be about "see? I can do that too!"

 And that's the problem in a nutshell. It didn't have to be, because the Admiral Marcus storyline in and of itself could have sustained the movie. I'm sticking with that one. Khan didn't have to be in Into Darkness at all and the story would still work. Hell, Benedict Cumberbatch could still be some kind of genetically engineered super soldier who wasn't named Khan - you could seriously just change him name and pull out the other scenes patently designed to remind people that "The Wrath of Khan is a Star Trek movie and you have already seen it"  and only need to make minor changes to the ending. There's a pretty solid nu-Trek movie already in Into Darkness, and I wish that the Khan nonsense hadn't been there, but it is, so be it. C'est la vie. We move forward.

 On to something I enjoyed Benedict Cumberbatch more in (at least in one of his roles, anyway), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. For better, for worse, Peter Jackson's middle entry into his second Middle Earth trilogy is an improvement over the uneven An Unexpected Journey. It may turn out to be the first time that an extended cut puts more of the book back into the movie, I suspect. It's clear at this point that Jackson is less concerned with adapting The Hobbit as a novel and more keen on more explicitly connecting the story of the One Ring all the way from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, creating one unified story.

 I had wondered why, in so many reviews, Beorn's name never appeared, until I saw The Desolation of Smaug and realized that the entire sequence at his home had been reduced to what amounted to a cameo. I think we see Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) more as a bear than we do speaking to Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and the dwarves, and there's certainly no sense of taking time to marvel at his home, let alone the way he's tricked into accepting Thorin's company for the night. The entire scene is reduced to an exposition dump, and we're off. Similarly condensed is Mirkwood and the captivity in Thranduil's kindgom, to the point that I was taken aback how quickly Jackson was breezing through long sections of the book. Considering how drawn out the first film was, it seemed strange to spend so little time with the spiders or lost in the woods.

 What does stand out in Mirkwood, however, is the first real indication of how Jackson is turning The Hobbit trilogy into The Lord of the Rings, the Prequel: Bilbo develops a strong attachment to the Ring that doesn't really exist in the novel, but is consistent with the way it's been presented in the earlier trilogy. For obvious reasons (Tolkien hadn't written The Lord of the Rings, for one), it's just a ring in The Hobbit, but in light of what audiences already know about the One Ring, it would be strange that it had no effect on Bilbo whatsoever. Jackson handles it well, and it's limited mostly to Mirkwood (aside from one reference by Smaug to a "precious" piece of gold entering his lair).

 The biggest additions come when the dwarves are captured, and instead of just Thranduil (Lee Pace), they meet Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lily), neither of whom are in The Hobbit. In fact, Tauriel is wholly a creation of Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and whatever degree to which Guillermo del Toro was involved in The Desolation of Smaug. You might think I'd take umbrage with a completely invented character, especially one involved in a sort-of love triangle that turns out to have more than a little in common with Star Wars, but for what Jackson is doing, I'm actually fine with her. Make no bones about it, in The Desolation of Smaug, Tauriel exists to get Legolas out of Mirkwood and to urge him to be more involved in Middle Earth. It's part of a lot of set up for the Battle of the Five Armies in There and Back Again, but her presence is welcome and adds some dramatic heft to this wildly divergent take on the story.

 I was less impressed with Lake Town and for the moment am not certain what point separating the dwarves serves - there's certainly no tension in Kili (Aiden Turner), Oin (John Callen), Fili (Dean O'Gorman), and Bofur (James Nesbitt) being there when Smaug arrives because anybody who's read The Hobbit knows why Bard (Luke Evans) is so important. He's actually even more important now, with a back story that ties him to Dale and the arrival of Smaug and a significance to the black arrow he'll eventually use, but that is also left mostly for the next film. The normally reliable Stephen Fry is a more loathsome Master of Lake Town than I'd expected, with a stunning lack of depth that might be acceptable in a children's book but sticks out like a sore thumb when everybody else is given more depth.

 On the other hand, the sequence with Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Smaug (Cumberbatch) in Erebor is a highlight of the film. Like "Riddles in the Dark" from An Unexpected Journey, Jackson sticks close to the book for their back-and-forth, choosing to slowly reveal the dragon as he taunts the "thief." The second part of the sequence in Erebor, like the "barrel" sequence earlier in the film, is expanded / altered, but not in a way that bothered me. Yes, it's another action sequence in the midst of two others (the heretofore nonexistent goblin assault on Lake Town and Gandalf's fight in Dol Guldur - more on that in a minute), but it gives the dwarves something to do other than stand outside of the Lonely Mountain and wait for Bilbo. Thorin (Richard Armitage), has the opportunity to demonstrate that he can lead his men into battle and puts together a reasonably good plan to incapacitate Smaug (even if it doesn't work). Coupled with his growing obsession over the Arkenstone (which, thanks to a prologue at the Prancing Pony in Bree, is also even more important), Thorin is a more involved character in the story.

 Now, on to Gandalf and Dol Guldur, with the briefest of appearances from Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McKoy). If anything in The Desolation of Smaug screamed "we'll get to this in the next one," it's this sequence. Yes, Jackson decided to directly link Azog and Bolg and the Goblin army to Sauron heading into There and Back Again. He doesn't even waste time pretending that The Necromancer (Cumberbatch) is anyone other than Sauron, and after a visually impressive battle of magic, gives us a visual link between the physical persona from the prologue in Fellowship of the Ring to the Eye we know from the rest of the film. And then Gandalf is imprisoned and "we'll totally cover this later!"  Like the end of the film, which can either be read as "what a cliffhanger!" or "wait, that's how they're ending this?" the entire subplot with Gandalf feels like a superfluous set up so we'll all be back next year. At least in An Unexpected Journey, there seemed to be a point to following Gandalf when he left Thorin's company, but this time it does feel tacked on.

 All things considered, and complaints aside, I really did enjoy The Desolation of Smaug more than An Unexpected Journey. A friend of mine agreed, saying "It was good. It wasn't The Hobbit, but it was good." I thought it was better than good, but it's definitely not The Hobbit yet. Other reviewers have insisted that the film doesn't need to be any longer than it is, but I strongly suspect the inevitable extended edition is going to reinstate a LOT of material condensed in the front end of the movie, and as a fan of the book, I'm looking forward to that.

 Speaking of extended editions, I did see the longer cut of An Unexpected Journey, which I guess would count as a 2013 movie. Like much of the film, there were things I liked (the longer White Council meeting, the conversation with Elrond and Gandalf about Thorin), and things I really didn't (the Goblin Town song, the dwarves song in Rivendell, and the fountain scene). I don't know that much of it helped the story in any way, although the White Council scene is more specifically tied to Sauron now, which is in keeping with what Jackson seems to be doing with the six film arc. More impressive than the movie are the appendices, which not only go in depth with the creation of the film, but which give you a much better idea of the characters of the dwarves than the films allow. I would definitely recommend fans of The Hobbit movies check it out.

 Before we abandon the subject of elves for the rest of this recap, I guess it's worth mentioning that Thor: The Dark World is also a movie with those. But of the "Dark" variety, which is more interesting because... well, just because I guess. One of them is Christopher Eccleston (Malekith) and another one (his right hand Elf) is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who plays the "Shredder" and "Super Shredder" variety of bad guy. They're after some Aether, which is dark matter or something of that nature, that is what the universe was made of back before time and before Odin (Anthony Hopkins)'s dad beat them up and hid the Aether. It's how they roll in Asgard.

 I think it's cool that Marvel stopped giving a shit about appealing to everybody after The Avengers, and they figure since releasing any movie is like writing their own meal ticket, why not have a movie about Dark Elves that's not on Earth very much and has a climax about jumping from one dimension to the other in order for Christ Hemsworth to beat up Christopher Eccleston? After Captain America: The Return of Bucky (sorry, SPOILER) next year, their big release before The Avengers 2 is Guardians of the Galaxy, based on a comic none of you have ever read because of a talking raccoon and also a tree played by Vin Diesel. It takes some chutzpah to get that nerdy that fast, but kudos to Kevin Feige and Marvel for saying "to hell with it, bring on the Ant Man movie!"

 (by the way, while I'm dubious about the whole Guardians of the Galaxy thing, I will watch Edgar Wright's Ant Man starring Paul Rudd)

 So it's either a sign of hubris or not caring or Marvel really believes that they can bring the reaaaaaallly nerdy comic book stuff to the mainstream and not get laughed out of the box office. If Thor: The Dark World is any indication, I guess they're doing a pretty good job of it, because despite the fact that it has Dark Elves and the McGuffin is called Aether and it's about the realms aligning, etc., it's not an especially goofy movie. It's definitely not as goofy as the first Thor, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Maybe it's that director Alan Taylor is best known for Game of Thrones, so there's a grittier aesthetic to The Dark World that's like Westeros, where all sorts of otherwise silly things seem perfectly reasonable (mostly that's because there's lots of sex in between the dragons and warlocks and zombies). There isn't really much sex in Thor: The Dark World, unless you count the Aether "entering" Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).

 That's pretty much the impetus for the movie - it's what wakes up Malekith and the other guy and the reason Thor returns to Earth and the only reason Natalie Portman is in the movie in the first place. They have to save Earth and blah blah blah Dark Elves. I'm starting to think they just really wanted to tie in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into a Thor movie (well, vice versa, but you get the idea), because they didn't really need to go to Earth at all. Most of the human characters (Portman, Stellan Skarsgård, Kat Dennings, the dude who plays Kat Dennings intern) are window dressing. They have a few perfunctory things to do and get most of the goofy scenes, but you could not have them at all and it would still be the same movie. Maybe we'd care less because Earth wasn't being destroyed, but we're already in for the Dark Elves at that point.

 The main draw of Thor: The Dark World, continues to be the interplay between Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Thor and Loki. Anthony Hopkins and Renee Russo are in there too, but the sibling rivalry between step (?) brothers was the foundation of the first film, carried through The Avengers, and is probably even better this time around. If Hiddleston is on screen, The Dark World immediately gets better, and I'd recommend it for him alone. On the downside, if you wanted more Idris Elba as Heimdall, I'm sorry to disappoint: he isn't in the movie much, but he does take down a Dark Elf ship by himself, which is pretty cool.

 If your tolerance for the words "Dark" and "Elves" or patience for subtitled dialogue is anything like mine for the word "Necromonger," then Thor: The Dark World might be too "lame" for your tastes. But if you liked Thor and The Avengers and maybe played Dungeons and Dragons or at least can think of it without snickering derisively, then you might like this movie. Or Man of Steel might be your thing. I don't know, because I didn't see Man of Steel, because Superman is lame. The Dark Elves won that battle.

 Well, I think this has eaten up enough internet real estate for one entry. In the next few entries (hey, I'm working on a lot of movies here) the Cap'n  will be covering horror, some documentaries, a few films of smaller scope, more science fiction (and sequels), a return to form for a few of my favorite directors, and a handful of movies that aren't based on any novel, but sometimes feel like they could be.

Cap'n Howdy's (Back)Log: Escape Plan

  Escape Plan is a surprisingly good theatrically released DTV movie. Wait, let me take that back. That's a mean way to start the review, and since Escape Plan is actually a (lot) better than either Bullet to the Head or The Last Stand, I shouldn't be diminishing your expectations already by suggesting that it's a non-direct to video DTV entry. Not that you'd be mistaken for thinking that when I get to the cast, a who's who of once-upon-a-time "they're in this?" but now probably more like "oh, that's what they're up to"-ers. Again, I feel I'm being mean already, and I really liked Escape Plan. Maybe DTV is just better than what you'd expect it to be these days (except the ones starring Bruce Willis). Or maybe the average action movie just isn't (A Good Day to Die Hard, I'm looking at you...)

 So if you're ignoring The Expendables, and for the moment let's do that, Escape Plan is the first film co-headlined by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is definitely still a Stallone movie, but Arnold has a crucial supporting part and drives most of the narrative. More importantly, unlike his one-liner joke machine cameos in The Expendables movies, Schwarzenegger is actually playing a character that doesn't rely on the fact we know he's Ah-nuld. It's pretty cool to see him no be quite as larger than life but just be a grizzled criminal who needs Sly's help. Stallone is basically playing any of his non-Rocky / Rambo-types, but that's a good thing. The "man of few words" works for what amounts to a pretty linear plot.

 Ray Breslin (Stallone) is a former prosecutor turned profession jailbreak-er. He works for a consulting firm that helps the Department of Prison Services determine how safe their institutions are from escapes, and as he demonstrates in the first ten minutes, Ray is very good at observing routines, memorizing layouts, and discovering weaknesses in prison security. He's so good, in fact, that Ray literally wrote the book on prison design (we see it several times in the movie). CIA representative Jessica Miller (Caitriona Balfe) comes to Breslin's boss Lester Clark (Vincent D'Onofrio) with a proposition: a secret, non-government sanction super prison is being tested for the worst of the worst, and in order to make sure that it's really as state-of-the-art as they hope it is, they want Ray to try to get out. Despite the clandestine details surrounding his arrival to "The Tomb," Breslin reluctantly agrees, but quickly discovers that someone with an axe to grind intends for him to stay there permanently.

 Now this is already a pretty good "wrong man" setup before we're introduced to Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), who's in "The Tomb" for refusing to cooperate with authorities in locating his boss, an international thief / hacker. Rottmayer turns out to be the only friend Breslin has, even when Ray isn't interested in forging alliances. This prison is, well, different: the cells are plexiglass and elevated, the guards are all masked to hide their identities and use random schedules, and warden Hobbes (Jim Caveziel) built the facility using Breslin's book as a blueprint. Hobbes doesn't know Ray's actual identity at first, but he's bound and determined to keep every "asset" under his thumb, and his number one "guard," Drake (Vinnie Jones) is the muscle that backs that up.

 While Escape Plan doesn't necessarily rewrite the "prison escape movie" playbook (come in, turn enemies into friends, work out the prison, etc.), I will give it credit for little touches that you don't see often enough. For example, there's probably a really good reason most of the people in this high tech prison (one that has a barcode scanner for uniforms) were captured in the first place, but you never think twice when Ray includes some of them in his plan that they too should escape. Partly this is because of how cruel Hobbes is, but also the nature of this "black site" prison - which, speaking of nice touches, is in a novel location - we're already iffy that it should exist when the CIA pitches it to Ray. It doesn't get better when Breslin wakes up from being drugged to see Drake stabbing a prisoner and throwing him out of a helicopter. (To be fair, Hobbes does dock him the cost of the "asset" for doing that).

 This also might be the first American action movie since True Lies and definitely since the year 2001 that I can think of where a character is a practicing Muslim (Javed, played by the President of Elysium, Faran Tahir) and not portrayed as a cartoonish villain but as a man of faith who speaks openly about it. In fact, his prayer becomes a central plot point late in the film, as do his doubts about whether this would offend Allah. Hobbes gets to be even more of a jerk when he replies to Javed's "God is great" by saying "Yeah, whatever" and (SPOILER) shooting him.

 I also appreciated that while it plays out pretty much like you'd expect it to, there are initially some questions about allegiances and who Breslin can and can't trust, mostly due to a twist near the end of the film I must admit I'd forgotten about. This isn't tied to the twist, but to get back to the quasi-DTV casting nature of this, the prison doctor Kyrie is performed by In the Mouth of Madness's Sam Neill, and what I was expecting (or, I should say, dreading) was the long speech about how he ended up in these dubious circumstances. You know the speech, we've heard it a million times. It happens right before he decides to help the hero out, but in Escape Plan, it never happens. Instead of being told, we see it in the look on Neill's face when he tells Ray anesthetic is forbidden by Hobbes, or in a simple shot of Dr. Kyrie reading the Hippocratic oath with a bottle of liquor next to him. It explains the shaky hands when he tried to stitch up Ray. In a movie that could just go the expected route, I'm happy when it doesn't.

 So we've got Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caveziel, Sam Neill, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Vinnie Jones so far, but this alone does not a non-DTV DTV roster make. We need at least two more cast members with name recognition, and luckily, I haven't even mentioned Ray's team. For starters, there's Hush, the ex-con who would go back into prison to help Ray get out if he needed help, and is the computer expert. How about 50 Cent? Done! And what about Abigail, the conscience of the team and hard-to-tell if she's hot for Ray or not (seriously, it's not clear). Let's go with Academy Award nominee for Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan. Ladies and gentlemen, let's slap those names on some photoshopped artwork and get this sucker onto Target shelves!

 Or they could not do that and release it in theatres with just Stallone and Schwarzenegger and people don't go see it, just like they didn't see The Last Stand or Bullet to the Head. It's a shame, because Escape Plan is a) really good and b) surprises you with the cast because unless you hit up IMDB first, you probably didn't know anybody else was in this movie. Not literally, of course, but I suspect you wouldn't know there were that many recognizable names / faces in Escape Plan. You probably just thought it was another stupid action movie that nobody wanted to see, thusly making Escape Plan's failure a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that's too bad, because while I enjoyed Furious 6 quite a bit, it doesn't need to be the only high water mark of action movies while we put up with garbage like G.I. Joe: Retaliation. From what I've seen of Olympus Has Fallen, it is arguably more preposterous but not as well constructed as Escape Plan.

 Speaking of which, I was very surprised to find that Mikael Håfström, he who made 1408, directed Escape Plan. Truth be told, this was an improvement in just about every way over that movie, with the exception of no John Cusack, who was probably busy making his own quasi-DTV joint. But anyway, Escape Plan. Rent it when it comes out. Watch it with your buddies. Sly's good. Arnold's good. The rest of the cast is good too. Some nice twists. An interesting setting. Arnold gives an entire monologue in German which is the first time I can think of that happening in a very long time (if at all). Gratuitous sequence in New Orleans because it's cheap to film action movies in Louisiana (seriously, even the Jason Statham / James Franco movie, Homefront*, was filmed there). It's a better movie than a lot of people will give it credit for, and definitely a better action movie than anything other than Furious 6 that I mentioned in this review. If you have to, pretend it's DTV and it'll be even better, but that's not really being fair to the movie is all I'm saying.


 * Written by Sylvester Stallone.

"R" is for Red Heat

 When I was crowd-sourcing suggestions for The ABCs of Movie Masochism, I asked for a "terrible romantic comedy" to round out the genres being covered. In jest, someone suggested Raw Deal, but I always get that movie mixed up with Red Heat, which is kind of a romantic comedy, right?

 Twenty five years before he returned to the big screens with Bullet to the Head, Walter Hill (The Warriors) brought audiences another mismatched buddy cop movie with an edge, Red Heat. Watching them in (reasonably) close proximity, it's hard not to notice many similarities between the two. Yes, most "buddy cop" movies are about clashing styles between the two leads, set in an iconic city, but it's hard not to see Bullet to the Head as a "lesser than" to Red Heat. No offense to Sylvester Stallone or New Orleans, but let's take a look at what Hill brought us back in 88.

 Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Last Stand) plays Soviet Captain Ivan Danko, a no nonsense cop in Moscow who we meet in an undercover sting in a bath house. He burns his hand to prove some bad guys that he's no a cop, and then proceeds to beat the hell out of them outside in the snow. Because this is Arnold and you need to remind people of his indomitable prowess early on, but to Hill's credit, you know right away not to mess with this Russian. His partner is killed while trying to arrest drug dealer Viktor Rostavili (the immediately recognizable Ed O'Ross) who then flees to Chicago to avoid Danko.

 When Danko's superiors send him to the windy city to pursue Vikor (with lethal force, if necessary), he's paired up with Det. Sgt. Art Ridzik (James Belushi). Ridzik just busted a few drug dealers who were working with / for Viktor, so their cases line up, even if they clash repeatedly over cultural difference, police procedures, and detective work. Ridzik is considered something of a "loose cannon" in his own department, but Danko's blatant disregard for Miranda rights or any form of "police procedure" threatens his already tenuous standing.

 I guess it's worth mentioning to people born after Red Heat came out (and I know a few of you) that once upon a time the U.S.'s number one enemy was Communist Russia (the USSR) and that the idea of teaming up a Soviet cop with an American cop was novel storytelling. Within a few years of Walter Hill filming in Moscow (true story), Mr. Gorbachev would indeed "tear down this wall" in Berlin and symbolically bring down the Iron Curtain and this would happen, and I have to wonder what Russian audiences thought when they saw their best and brightest exemplified by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, he was a big star but... really? And remember, this was three years after Swedish Dolph Lundgren played Ivan Drago, the previous example of Soviet superiority in Rocky IV.

 Where was I going with that? Just an observation, I guess. I mean, if you're Walter Hill and Arnold is available, maybe you just said "what the hell." They front load it with statues of Marx and Lenin and play on how little Americans know about the Soviet Union, and then let John Belushi's brother make fun of it for the next 90 minutes.

There are a lot of (mostly unfunny) jokes told by Belushi about Soviets and communism and how that doesn't "work" for us in the United States. Danko is portrayed as almost fascistic in his pursuit of Viktor, makes fun of Belushi's 44 Magnum (including a "Who's Dirty Harry?" joke) and for some reason thinks Miranda is an actual woman... So okay, the same lame "we're different" wisecracks I groaned at during Bullet to the Head are on full display. I guess I was more lenient this time because I knew Jim Belushi wasn't going to be funny or charismatic.

 (There is one kind of funny joke, when Ridzik correctly identifies how Danko likes his tea while in a diner. When Danko inquiries how he knew, he replies that he's "seen Doctor Zhivago." It was out of left field enough that I chuckled.)

 Well, Red Heat is still fun, even if the jokes fall flat (maybe I just don't quite jibe with Walter Hill's sense of humor, which tends to be vaguely misogynistic - I can't keep track of how many times woman are referred to as "bitches" in the movie - and full of lame observations you'd hear in hack-y comedy routines. On the other hand, the action is pretty good and Hill manages to make a medium speed game of chicken between two buses still be tense. The gunfights are pretty good and Schwarzenegger is surprisingly convincing as a Russian.

 Red Heat also has quite an impressive cast of familiar faces that keep things moving along when the tiresome "banter" between Belushi and Schwarzenegger begins to tax the patience.  So in addition to Ed O'Ross (seriously, if you don't recognize his face immediately, have a look at how many movies he's in that you've probably seen), Red Heat also features Peter Boyle (Young Frankenstein) as the exasperated police chief, Larry Fishburne (Apocalypse Now) as a by-the-book cop looking to ruin Ridzik, Gina Gershon (Killer Joe) as Viktor's American wife, Richard Bright (The Ref) as Belushi's partner (also killed by Viktor's men),  Pruitt Taylor Vince (Natural Born Killers) as the desk clerk at Danko's hotel, Mike Hagerty (Wayne's World) as Ridzik's brother-in-law, Brion James (Blade Runner) as a perp who Danko "interrogates," and Sven-Ole Thorsen (Mallrats) as Nikolai. Sorry, I don't quite remember who that was but I'm guessing it's someone Danko fights early in the movie.

 I was hoping that Red Heat might have a bit more 80s cheese than it did, but if I'm comparing this to Bullet to the Head - and I sort of have to considering they're both Walter Hill movies with roughly similar premises - I'll give the edge to Red Heat. Chicago is definitely more interesting as a backdrop than New Orleans was in Bullet to the Head (they even film inside of Joliet), and Belushi at least delivers his non-stop barrage of shitty one-liners with a sense of exasperation. While I enjoy the older Stallone, he can't compete with Arnold (arguably) in his prime, and the way the bus chase ends is almost worth the price of admission. Game, set, and match to Red Heat.

 Up next: Wes Craven tries to start a new horror franchise after A Nightmare on Elm Street but before Scream. Can you guess what it is? (Hint: not The Hills Have Eyes 2).