Tag Archives: action

Kick-Ass

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MV5BMTc0Mjg4ODc1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTUwNjEwMw@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_Here is an interesting true story for you. In addition to seeing Kick-Ass yesterday evening, I also happened to read Marvels (by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross) the same day. I should probably review it separately, but since I read them as someone’s loaned comics instead of in a book, I have nothing to reliably link to, which is one of my lines for “shouldn’t get reviewed after all”. But also, it makes a very convenient companion piece, and so here we are. So, quick nutshell: Marvels is a four-issue comic that shows stories from the golden and silver age through the eyes of a news photographer, a regular guy who is the stand-in for the audience. Pretty much, a reaction shot to stories that the reader is theoretically already familiar with. A way to show not what being a superhero is like, but what living in a world with superheroes is like.[1]

But, anyway, Kick-Ass. It is almost exactly the same thing, except that the world doesn’t really have superheroes (or does it?), and the stand-in character wants to be one. Named Kick-Ass, as you may have already surmised? And I understand that this doesn’t really sound the same at all, but I don’t want to go much further into the plot, because it works extremely well fresh, or at least I thought so. The similarity is that Kick-Ass is in far over his head, in a world that he doesn’t yet know the rules of and has no real power over, and yet he still struggles to impose his values upon it. To the good of the world? To the good of himself? Neither? I say, just as in Marvels, that this isn’t the point; the struggle is.

The only problem with this review is that I’m making the movie sound far more high-minded than it is. I think it is high-minded, don’t get me wrong, but only in the deep undercurrents that I could for that matter be imagining. On the surface, it’s an insane, ultra-violent[2] romp through several origin stories and culminating in an over-the-top spectacle of a battle royale with the supervillain, the way most comic books movies want to be. And it is threaded through with the essential humanity of every one of its characters, the way more comic books and their movies should aspire to, but frequently do not.

[1] It’s also pretty good / recommendable, if that matters.
[2] I am utterly mystified how it got a PG-13 rating.

Date Night

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Despite the near-universal panning of Date Night, I pretty much had to go see it, because of my very great love for Tina Fey. And the thing is, it’s honestly not all that bad. But it is barely north of mediocre, which fails in every way to match the talent involved. (I include Marky Mark in this assessment, as undoubtedly do you.) I expect its flaws were highlighted by the conditions in which I saw it, those being a completely empty theater yesterday afternoon. Inherent irony of that venue aside, I really think it needed the crutch of other people laughing aloud at things I only found amusing.

So, anyway, there’s this married couple, and they are in exactly the kind of couple-rut that has spawned so many movies in which the woman empowers herself by finding someone who is more attractive, more stylish, smarter and more funny but for whom she inexplicably didn’t look in the first place, in favor of screwing over a perfectly decent but not movie-quality husband-or-boyfriend that never did anything wrong except for failing to create the fairy tale she was expecting, and has now finally found.[1] Thankfully, this is the rarer movie that shows them trying to struggle past that and rediscover each other, actually admitting that there was a reason they were together in the first place. They break out of this rut by, you guessed it, taking over the reservation of a missing party at a swank Manhattan dinner spot, and thereby accidentally getting tangled up in a case of mistaken identity involving secret information on a flash drive, hired guns, a mafia boss, and Mark Wahlberg’s pecs. (Possibly his abs as well.) Which sounds like a perfectly serviceable zany action/comedy, except that for some reason it just wasn’t funny the way you’d expect that to be. Script problems are an inevitable aspect, and the credits make it clear that the funniest scenes were adlibbed multiple ways by Ms. Fey and Steve Carell anyhow. But I also kind of figure that they tried too hard to be both a good romantic comedy and a good action comedy, and neither element came out as well as they might have if it had been a single-genre flick.

Maybe next time! I’m pretty sure chemistry was not the issue, so letting them try again would be worthwhile.

[1] …what’s your point?

The Losers (2010)

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I think that I had been vaguely aware that The Losers was based on a comic book title of some kind. But even if I hadn’t been, the editing wastes no times providing that information, and the plot doesn’t wait much longer to clear up any lingering doubts. Another thing about the plot is that it would have been pretty reminiscent of the A-Team premise even if I hadn’t seen a preview for that summer movie shortly before the credits rolled. On the bright side[1], this is likely to be the better of the two iterations of the same premise for this particular Hollywood season. So, anyway, comic book movie about a group of commandos on the wrong side of law and order but the right side of morality. With me so far?

This particular plot revolves around said commandos finding themselves in a lot of trouble on behalf of a shadowy government agent known only as Max, after they defy his orders to blow up a druglord’s house on the grounds that it happens to be full of Bolivian children. And then, in typical action movie planning montages and execution vignettes, they proceed to fight back against Max, who is the kind of cartoonishly evil villain that lets you know that absolutely for sure, this was once a comic book. In any event, it’s a perfectly fun action movie that may or may not do a good job of translating its source material but has left me interested in both that material and any sequels derived from the film itself or the source material.

[1] At least, for this month. Later, when the other movie is the current one, the side will be less bright if I’m right, or on the other hand both sides will be pretty damn bright if I’m wrong.

Cop Out

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What I found strangest about Cop Out was the wide disparity between its previews and its actuality. Instead of a zany comedy with cops as the main characters, it was exactly the same buddy action movie you’ve seen dozens of times before. I mean, sure, there were the differences in buddy: Bruce Willis is an inspired choice of straight man because he has long-standing comedic acting chops that possibly a lot of people have forgotten about, while Tracy Morgan is… well, I don’t know how to describe it, but how are you not already watching 30 Rock to know exactly what I mean? But the film itself? There is no newly unearthed buddy-flick arcana here; in fact, there are probably no surprises here at all.[1] But if you aren’t allergic to the genre and like things that are funny, this is a good way to spend an afternoon.

Also, and I say this with no trace of approbation, but there were multiple points throughout the movie where it really did seem like the lead actors had no script at all and were just directed to perform a skit about being cops. “Hey, guys, for this scene, we’re going to do a skit about an interrogation room. Now, for this one, let’s do a skit about a stake-out.” I do not know which of the script-writer or the actors (or possibly the director) I should be complimenting for the way those scenes turned out, but someone is getting a metaphorical basket of flowers right now. And, since it’s only 6 AM on the left coast, they’re probably a little pissed about it.

[1] I lie. The Brooklyn homeowner defending her property? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before, and it was a little bit amazing.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

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I should admit off the bat that, although I have read two out of the three of my volumes of the complete Sherlock Holmes as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I am not an obsessive fan of the type that I know exists. People who argue these books up and down the way people I know (and, okay, also people I am) used to discuss the minutiae of Robert Jordan’s books, only since there’s no new Doyle forthcoming, I think the Holmes fans are a bit more hardcore. My point is, I like the guy, and I want to reread the books I’ve read, plus certainly read the final volume that I haven’t ever done. And I know, from my perspective of entertained reader rather than fan, there’s all kind of reasons that I perhaps should have to hate the new Sherlock Holmes movie which have managed to elude me.

Luckily, those reasons did elude me. Because this was a fun, intelligent romp through Victorian England, full of action sequences that were not nearly as out-of-place as the previews hinted, deductions galore, and, surprisingly, apt sexual tension to boot. The plot is pretty good, but I’ll leave it to be discovered on its own. What I loved were the characters. Holmes is exactly the kind of broken man I’ve come to expect from between the lines, a genius in his element but completely lost outside of it, always waiting with barely (if that) concealed desperation for the next case, the next chance to come back to life. And his relationship with Watson… I can imagine thinking it’s just a little too boisterous and funny for the period, but really, I think this is a matter of between-the-lines too. People are people, and I doubt that Victorian propriety as conveyed in the fiction of the time was really as accurately staid as they wanted to believe of themselves. Whatever the case, this interpretation worked for me.[1]

I just hope that it’s accessible enough for the sequel that they all but promised; there was almost never a moment when the script slowed down enough to hold anyone’s hand. As it should be, I think; but like I said, people watching it enough to give me that sequel would be pretty alright too. Anyway, I already said it was fun and smart, right? So go see it already![2]

[1] I feel less qualified to comment on the portrayal of Irene Adler; although I know who she is, I think I’d have to be one of the hardcore fans to really concur with or dispute her place in this movie. But I did appreciate Rachel McAdams nonetheless.
[2] It’s not that I’m above misleading my audience about the objective quality of a piece, if it will get me something (in this case, that sequel) out of it. Because I’m almost certainly not above that. It’s more that in this particular case, I don’t need to mislead anyone, as I’m right about the quality. So why are you still here?, is my point.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

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I visited my parents over the weekend, since my schedule is about to be in flux and it seemed like a good time before the flux takes hold, plus the holidays and all. So I spent just about the whole of Thanksgiving break with them, except that I worked on Friday. That’s nice! While there, I inadvertently treated them to a full-length, multi-hour cinematic extravaganza in the form of a Playstation 3 game. After the success of my recommending Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune when he bought the system and wanted something to play on it (not that he actually plays much of anything, but, you know)[1], he picked up the sequel a few weeks ago. And what began as a way to pass a few hours Saturday night quickly turned into a full weekend obsession during which I played the last third of the game for four hours past when I had planned originally to leave, because I was just sure that the climax was right around the corner, and I didn’t want to make them wait weeks for the conclusion and have time to forget what was going on.[2]

If you’re picking up on an undercurrent of admiration for the game’s writing and seamless graphics in that description of my weekend, well, you’re not imagining it. As to the latter, the only real difference between playing the game and watching its gorgeous cutscenes is that the game-play has fewer close-ups. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves picks up explorer Nathan Drake some brief years after the events of the previous game, convinced by shady friends to join in a search for Marco Polo’s lost expedition, a journey that will take him from the jungles of Borneo to the dizzying heights of Tibet and Nepal, not to mention deep into the legends surrounding Kublai Khan. Along the way he’ll crack wise, make lots of new enemies, and see lots of new ancient ruins! It’s good stuff. But on top of that, the writing is not merely good in and of itself, as it was last time; it actually takes note of the past and uses it. If I had been on the fence about the loss of meaningful breast-motion physics from the Lara Croft games to the Uncharted series, I no longer would be in any measure. I care about these people, and want to know what’s going to happen next. That I also get to play a video game along the way? It justifies the expense, but other than that, it’s purely bonus.

[1] V nz chggvat guvf va ebg13 fb ur pna’g frr vg, ohg V cerqvpg V trg n pbzzrag sebz uvz gung ur qbrf fb lhu-uhu cynl Unyb fbzrgvzrf. (Nyfb, vs V’z evtug nobhg gung pbzzrag bppheevat, vg vf yvxryl gb nfx jung guvf tvoorevfu vf nf jryy.)
[2] To be fair, this applies to me as well.

Ninja Assassin

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Here are the things I learned while watching Ninja Assassin[1]:

1) Human bodies are basically overpressurized bags of blood that will explode at the slightest provocation.
2) Europe has a severe ninja infestation.
3) Ninjas are like cockroaches: for every one you see, there are at least a dozen you don’t.
4) Ninjas are like cockroaches: they really hate it when you shine lights on them.
5) Ninjas will kill anyone, as long as you pay them with one hundred pounds of gold.
6) Ninja stars[3] are every bit as cool as you thought they were when you were eight.

[1] There really was way too much plot getting in the way of my chopsocky, at least for the first third of the movie. But, okay, a ninja with a troubled past[2] and a precocious (let’s say) Interpol analyst team up against ninja hit squads and the police, on a quest for bloody revenge.
[2] I mean, more troubled than that; like, take ninja as the troubled baseline, and then adjust from there.
[3] No, not shuriken. These were definitely ninja stars.

Saints Row 2

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Saints Row 2 is the rare sequel that follows the horror movie rule of good sequels: make exactly the same thing again, only adding an incremented number on the end of the title. Five years after the rise and sudden fall of your character from Saints Row, he (or, this time around, possibly she!) wakes up from a coma ready for revenge. Only, revenge will have to wait: the 3rd Street Saints are no more, crippled in power by the total loss of their leadership[1], crippled geographically by the corporate gentrification of their seat of power, and crippled statistically by the rise of three new gangs who have taken advantage of the power vacuum to once more carve up the sad and inexplicably water-bound city of Stilwater.

The game, being a carbon copy, has flaws in keeping with the original: the glorification of gang lifestyle and graphics that seem almost hokey when held up next to Grand Theft Auto IV are the most obvious. But the newly chatty main character[2] is so over-the-top in her villainy and love of chaos that it felt a little less scuzzy than the voiceless original protagonist upon whom one inevitably would imprint their own motivations. As with the first game, I completed something like 93% of the available game, leaving out only a few races and stunt jumps and such. The series has been very good to me, on a value basis.

There is a remaining inevitable question to be answered. Having played them in such proximity, how does Saints Row 2 compare with Grand Theft Auto IV? Well, the similarity of game is a bit of a plus here; I really appreciated that the map of the city was so familiar, as opposed to Liberty City being so vastly different in GTA. (Then again, the time between sequels was only a couple of years rather than a decade, so I understand Rockstar’s point of view on the Liberty City update.) Storywise, GTA is the clear victor, hands down. Niko Bellic is a meaningful, tragic character while the nameless leader of the Saints is a caricature. And the respective stories very much reflect that comparison. All the same, I think Saints Row is the more fun of the two games; mindless mayhem and frequently-thin story motivations did not leave me wallowing in misery, the way Niko’s life did. And Saints Row’s story does have a handful of dark and dramatic turns, don’t get me wrong. If it wasn’t for the graphical disparity, I think I’d have to say it’s down to a matter of taste. But no, less fun-filled or not, GTA is objectively the better game.

[1] Some to retirement, some to the corporate sector, some to (seriously) the police force, and of course there’s the one that’s been imprisoned and in a coma.
[2] To my surprise, there was no option to import the previous character design from the original game. In compensation, there’s an ongoing joke about the character having “new hair”. Since mine changed gender, yeah, I found the understatement pretty amusing.

Inglourious Basterds

MV5BMTk3NDA0NTI3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTUwODQzMg@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_The problem I think with a Quentin Tarantino movie is that it defies categorization. He’s not exactly his own filmmaking genre, not really, but it’s a close thing. And it’s not even that Inglourious Basterds is a multi-genre hodgepodge like Kill Bill was; it’s on the whole a straightforward World War II action movie. All the same, it’s tricky to explain. But here goes: a band of Nazi-killing Jews led by Appalachian Brad Pitt, a Jew-hunting SS officer, and a young Jewish theater owner cross paths in 1944 occupied Paris over an Allied plot to take out the Nazi high command in one fell swoop. …yeah, that looks right.

There’s plenty of stylized violence, over-the-top yet finely-drawn characters, and episodic storytelling; all straight out of the Tarantino playbook. I guess he maybe does have his own genre. But it’s a good genre! Aside from my appreciation for the tropes and for this particular plot and character combination, the most interesting aspect of the film was, for me, dissecting its trajectory. More bluntly: a plan to kill Goebbels and Hitler and etc. is pretty much doomed to failure in mid-1944. I have pretty explicit historical knowledge backing me up on that point. So there I sat, watching and wondering, is this a comedy of errors? A tragedy? An ironic masterpiece in which any of several plans might have succeeded without the interference of competing plans toward the same end? What movie is Tarantino actually making? Obviously I can’t tell you what he made, because, well, that’s the whole movie. But I can say that lens really worked for me.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

In my halcyon youth, which is to say late elementary school and possibly early junior high, one of my primary goals each day was to get out of school and home to my even then twenty-year-old, cableless, rabbit-eared television and click over to one of the handful of UHF channels[1] and watch back-to-back episodes of Transformers and G.I. Joe. So when the Transformers movie hit, there was a significant nostalgia quotient even though I really didn’t trust it could turn out that well. Because, giant transforming robots just seem more plausible in a cartoon, despite that modern special effects turned out to be up to the job after all.

Surprisingly, it didn’t cross my mind then that a G.I. Joe movie might happen, even though it seems a lot more plausible that one could be successfully made. Still, once I caught wind of the film’s existence, I was pretty excited. And then, over months of previews focused on metallic combat suits that might be better placed in a game of Halo, that excitement gradually drained away to nothing. Which, really, is the way that expectations management ought to work on big budget summer adaptations of childhood memories.

The Rise of Cobra is at least as much about the existence of a secret military organization under UN authority tasked with solving unique problems on the geopolitical stage as it is about the emergence of yet another new terrorist threat. G.I. Joe, says its commanding officer General Hawk, picks from the very best of each member nation’s armed services, by invitation only. They have a secret base. They are, in short, every UN-armed-takeover conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. Luckily, instead of making a movie about that, it’s about fan favorites Duke, Scarlett, and Snake Eyes’ fight to stop an (implausibly) Scottish arms dealer from carrying out a plan to bilk the UN of a lot of research money they paid into his nanomite[2] program by stealing the weapons back upon delivery, demonstrating their power, and then selling the remaining warheads to the highest bidder. All while carrying out a second, more sinister plan that will ensure adequate sequel bait if the box office performs as expected.

But you know what? It worked. I’ll watch it again, and I already look forward to that all-but-certain sequel, and if there were a few pieces of dumb to ignore over the course of the movie, well, that never stopped me from enjoying the cartoon either. I am well-pleased.

[1] Maybe channel 39? I guess it doesn’t matter anyway; all the UHF channels either got bought up by the emerging new networks or else went Spanish when cable ate up too much local marketshare. (Also, I’m not sure who I’m kidding when I say I had to click over; why would I ever have changed it away in the first place?)
[2] Nanomites, as you shouldn’t really care to know, are tiny robots that, in this case, are programmed to eat pretty much everything until told by their software to stop. The ability to strip a city bare in just minutes, although insignificant next to the power of the Force, is a pretty potent threat; albeit perhaps a wee bit too easy to lose control of.