Tag Archives: action

The Other Guys

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You know how buddy cop movies, even the comedic ones, have these heroic types who rush in, guns blazing and authority fully-bucked, to destroy a lot of property, set off several explosions, and generally save the day in the most visible way possible? This movie isn’t about them. You know the wisecracking jackass rival cops who inevitably do the wrong thing but are never quite actively evil, just in the way a lot? Not them either. Not even the cop who’s three days from retirement and will probably die nobly very soon. Nope, as the movie itself will tell you moments in, this one is about the other guys, the ones who are relegated firmly to background shots, the ones who fill out paperwork and ride desks.

In addition to a reasonable amount of comedy, there’s also some amount of social relevance: the big case isn’t about drugs or prostitution or terrorism; no, it’s about financial shenanigans, in the tens of billions of dollars range. You know, exactly the kind of thing that’s been in the public consciousness since 2008 or so. I wish I could say that big of a lead time has been enough to get it back out of our minds, but the way things have gone, nope, it’s every bit as relevant as when the writer first started the script. (Thankfully, the main focus on comedy keeps it from being too trite, the way the same movie written as drama would’ve been.)

All in all, it’s not life-changingly funny or life-changingly insightful, but it was a decent way to spend half an afternoon.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

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I am thinking that today may be a good day to watch movies. Not sure yet if that’s how the rest of my day will proceed, but I can state definitively that it has begun that way, with the Prince of Persia movie that came out back in May. Which I think was the only movie I’ve actually missed all summer? Yay for being caught up! Possibly because it was based on a video game or possibly because I never heard anyone really talking about it, I am surprised to report that it was pretty good.

In the pro-column: a good soundtrack and really a lot of excellent action sequences that captured the spirit of both the specific game it was based on as well as the whole series, while cleverly jettisoning the majority of that game’s plot, which was good enough for a platformer game, but, well. Instead, our titular prince must unravel a plot to overthrow the throne of Persia when he is framed for the murder of his father the king, with only a princess who hates him and a sporadically magic dagger for allies. Y’know, pretty much the same plot as any action-adventure movie, when you get right down to it, but on the bright side, those are usually good.

In the con-column: way, way too many “sly” references to current events, including a search for weapons of mass destruction and railing against high taxes. This is why Star Wars is the better movie, y’know. Nobody was complaining about taxes in Star Wars. That and the desert may be the only substantive differences, though.

Salt (2010)

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I saw Salt on Wednesday, but between my punishing workload and the unexpected discovery of lots of new spam here, I have been too busy to actually talk about it. Which is sad, as it was a pretty entertaining film that seems to have flown under everyone’s radar. See, there’s this CIA agent, Veruca Salt, and she is interrogating a Russian walk-in when he names her as the lynchpin of an unlikely plot to assassinate a visiting foreign dignitary. This sets off an action-filled sequence of events designed primarily to keep the audience guessing about what’s actually going on and who is on what side. I’m not ashamed to admit that my early guesses about who was for sure a bad guy, based mostly on the company he kept, were not accurate. Because the plot was convoluted enough to keep secrets from start to finish, without ever being entirely ridiculous.[1]

There was, I should note, one particularly bad scene. I wasn’t looking for a Bechdel moment, because, action movie, right? So when Ms. Salt climbs through a window into an apartment occupied by a school-aged girl (during some escape or other, you understand) and they have a brief conversation, I was duly impressed, above and beyond Angelina Jolie[2]’s asskickery in general. Up until the substance of that conversation turned out to be about the girl’s homework and Salt’s response of “I hate math.” At which point I cringed way, way more than if the test had not been passed in the first place. Or, for that matter, if she had not otherwise been such a strong, self-reliant character.

But gender politics aside, awesome movie!

[1] I mean, there was one coincidence that stretched the bounds of likelihood, but the flick moved fast enough to keep me from thinking about it at the time.
[2] She plays Salt, you see.

Killers (2010)

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Dollar theaters, as I have surely said before, are awesome because they give you a chance to fill in gaps in your summer movie experience that would otherwise be relegated to Netflix or cable channels, both of which I am largely terrible at. Also, I suppose, if you are poor (or temporarily jobless for four months), they would then be awesome for different reasons. Of course, another factor is that these gaps occurred because you try to see the best stuff first, and the ones that slip through the cracks, you probably feel better only having paid a buck or two to see. Which is not to imply that Killers is a bad movie! It had several pretty funny moments, and the action was decent without resorting to any kind of fireballs-per-minute equation that some producers do when they ran out of budget for a script doctor[1]. It’s just the kind of movie that benefits from lowered expectations and, yeah, a smaller hit on the wallet.

Another upside to it, though, it that the premise was very, very simple. It’s exactly the same kind of family drama you saw all over the place back in the early ’80s, when Hollywood was beginning to admit that sometimes marriages end and people get angry with each other and have to deal with a big mess and see if they can put their lives back together[2]. Which is not to say that Ashton Kutcher is going to fail to have the manly wherewithal to convince Katherine Heigl that their relationship is worth saving, or for that matter to say the opposite; my point is, the topic of the movie is the impending dissolution of a marriage. But then they cleverly did the thing where they increase their audience share by putting that movie in a blender with a completely different movie; in this case, it’s about spies. To hilarious result? Y’know, maybe; like I said, it was pretty funny. But there’s something funnier to me about the pitch meeting where some guy was telling Ashton Kutcher’s manager, “No, no, it’ll be great, it’s a relationship drama, but with guns!”

[1] I know this makes no sense; I can only speculate that something about the oxygen/pollution ratios in Los Angeles make explosions cost far less to accomplish there than anywhere else, or else that nobody told them most writers don’t make anything approaching a living wage from their craft. Or both?
[2] But before the late ’90s when this genre lamentably metamorphosed into the celebration of relationships ending so that the girl could clear the way for the fairytale guy that was obviously right around the corner. (I suspect I’ve made this complaint this before, though.)

Predators

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One of the things I liked the most about Predators (and make no mistake, there were very few things I didn’t like) is that it did not concern itself with reasons. Why are there skillfully violent people being dropped out of the clear blue sky? Who armed them to the teeth with things they know how to use? How did they even get here? That doesn’t matter, all that matters is, here they are. And they’ve got to find a way to survive against the deadliest hunters in the universe, all while learning to trust each other, work as a team, and somehow keep Eric from That 70s Show alive (as he is also here for some reason). Or they’ve got to die messily, one by one, with no hope of rescue or escape.

Which is another thing I like about the movie, it did not waste any more time on the premise than it did on reasons. Within five minutes, the movie is going all out and it doesn’t ever really stop. It’s possible that the original Schwarzenegger-driven Predator is the better movie, but only possible; I have seen no better movie that had a Predator in it, without a doubt. This is probably not the best sequel ever, but it is hard to imagine crafting a sequel to a movie that would fit the spirit of its originator any better than this one did.

Knight and Day

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I learned recently, and probably on the Daily Show, that Tom Cruise is a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, and thusly does as much of his own stuntwork as he can get away with. This is unfortunate, in that it ruins an otherwise accurate (albeit not punitive) claim that Cameron Diaz acted opposite his smile in the latest disposable summer action-comedy, Knight and Day. And man, do I ever wish I had more to say. I mean, it was good, right? Closer to cotton candy even than popcorn on the scale of movies-as-meals metaphors, but good. The actiony stuff was suitably actiony, the comedy was funnier than just that which appeared in the previews, the plot was reasonably well grounded[1], and Ms. Diaz’ lead character grows into the role of agent of her own destiny; I can’t even complain that she didn’t start that way, since she started the movie as a normal person chosen by a James Bond type as a dupe for his latest batch of spy games. So, y’know, nothing to complain about at all! But still, my overall sense of the thing is as delicate as spun sugar, and I’m sad to report that it will not someday be looked back upon as a classic of the genre.

Unless maybe that thing where a girl in an action movie developing her own agency is less common than I suppose, in which case that part should stand out over time.

[1] You can’t say it was grounded, full-stop, because, action movie. Right?

Jonah Hex

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Here is what happened in Jonah Hex, an improbably short movie that I saw yesterday. And I mean that sincerely, it was no more than 80 minutes if you do not count the credits. (Maybe only 70.) Anyway, there’s this guy in the Civil War, right? And he loses his whole family when another guy betrays a platoon to enemy soldiers. So the guy (played by Hollywood newcomer John Malkovich) plans elaborate revenge against his nemesis, a deformed necromancer who keeps the company of drunks and prostitutes and makes a point of blowing up basically every location he visits. Also, in a side plot that doesn’t make a lick of sense under even the mildest of scrutiny, there is terrorism afoot at the United States centennial celebration!

That said, at least Megan Fox looks pretty much the way you’d expect her to in her ubiquitous corset.

The A-Team

Do you know, it’s been since Monday that I saw The A-Team, and yet, still nothing here? It turns out that my job keeps me pretty busy all the time even when I’m not answering customer calls, much less on days like today. But I’m free of that now, and all my other obligatory writing for the week is complete, so I suppose I ought to get a move on, right? Anyway, here is where my shock kicks in. Because, and especially after I saw The Losers, I could not bring myself to believe this would be a good movie, right? I mean… let me adjust expectations here. If you’ve ever seen the TV show upon which it is based, you understand that the critical acclaim aspect of “good” does not apply. It’s a popcorn movie, with far more loud explosions than moments of soul-searching, and if the plot is action-movie convoluted, it is no more than that. So, y’know. But my point was, The Losers covered the same basic subject matter as this, and how can you believe there will be two good movies of the same type in a row?

But even before I saw that, this one is another retread of an ’80s property, and those have only gone so well[1], really.  But the thing is? It had the perfect philosophy about itself, plus a really good cast and a good budget on, y’know, explosions. But mainly the philosophy part, as that’s where it would have gone terribly wrong, if it had done. Plot summary: well, it’s an origin story to fill in the gaps around the TV show’s introductory blurb, week after week. Which is to say, there’s this military commando unit that is known for completing missions in brilliant and insane ways. But then they are sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit, and must break out to prove this and clear their names. That plus explosions and quips? It equals your movie. Which, not to belabor a point, might have been generic nostalgia and nothing more except for that pesky philosophy, which was placed into the mouth of the main character, Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith[2]: “Overkill is under-rated.”

Try and tell me you need to know anything else about the film to decide whether to go see it. I dare you.

[1] Where “so well” is a bar that more closely resembles the word’s noun than adjective form, if you see my point.
[2] Here I crib notes from the Fresh Air review and must agree that it’s cool that Liam Neeson has re-invented himself as an action hero lately. Good for him!

Robin Hood (2010)

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Last night, I learned something obvious about the new digital projector systems that are gradually being rolled out to every screen in America, signalling the death of spools of film stacked man-high in old Hollywood basements and an inability for my children to understand what’s going on during the climactic scene of Inglourious Basterds; if my life had taken a small enough turn somewhere in the past 15 years or so, I would mourn this far more than already I do, but luckily I only collect books, not spools of film. So, the obvious thing I learned about digital projectors, though? It’s that they can crash. Also that, less obviously, their crash screen is colored digital snow. And then you suddenly get free passes to the theater! So in many ways, the downside was not so much of a much, but I can imagine it happening in a fuller theater, for a newer movie, and actually during the movie instead of at the end of the last trailer, and man, that would be a pretty miserable day for the theater. It’s not like film projectors don’t run into their own problems or anything, I can just tell I’m living in the modern era when my movie had to be rebooted.

I will not make a clever “speaking of reboots” segue here, because the thing about Robin Hood is that it’s always a reboot. It might be on TV sometimes, and they make movies every so often, but each iteration is distinct. It’s just, this one was more distinct than usual. That said, it was a pretty interesting take. Basically, the story is written for maximum veritas, the kind of story you might have heard peasants telling their children before memory became the legend we know today. This accounts well for some of the oddities of the story, such as why a land-owning noble would have been an archer instead of a knight. Within these historical-minded confines is a pretty decent story of political betrayal, war, and romance. Just be aware that at some point there’s going to be a pre-enactment of D-Day performed with longbows. As long as you can swallow that, the rest of the movie should be just fine.

Also, if you are unfamiliar with the basic Robin Hood story such that you needed a more plot-minded review: really? I mean, really?

Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2: I liked it. That has kind of an epitaphy feeling, which is not precisely what I’m going for, as I decidedly do not presume that it marks the gravestone of a franchise. I think I may be mildly disappointed with it relative to my expectations, though, mostly based on how Spider-Man 2 turned out. ‘Cause there was a pretty great sequel. Still, though, on the whole it was a thoroughly entertaining sequel to an even better first movie, with nothing to particularly dislike about the new execution. Spectacle plus franchise equals success, right?

Also in the win column, Robert Downey Jr. maintains his essentially perfect portrayal of a billionaire superhero who is always secretly dying, having trouble forming real attachments to women, and drinking a lot. (It occurs to me that this may not be an acting job, ‘dying superhero’ aside.) This time he is facing trouble from the U.S. government, a rival military industrialist, and a brand new supervillain that shares characteristics with a couple of people from the comic book, most notably Whiplash. And while a bad guy who can split metal with his special whip may not seem all that interesting in a comic book[1], it works a lot better when he is using Stark’s own ARC reactor technology to create really cool-looking energy whips; also, when he is played by Mickey Rourke. The plot was probably a little bit muddled, but the pace was fast enough for me not to care, when combined with my knowledge that comic plots are often at least a little bit muddled in the first place. But then again, any time you sit me down in front of a movie screen where Downey either gets to be constantly awesome or gets to relearn how to be awesome after some kind of setback, that will be enough to satisfy me regardless of anything else that happens.

Also, if the spoiler-laden transition of Stark Industries’ CEO position never happened in the comics run? It should have. (I mean, the details are spoilers, the fact really isn’t. So please don’t misunderstand this as me having given away the farm, over here.)

[1] For my money, that seeming is fully accurate, though he’s only appeared in one story I’ve read so far and may get better later.