The Beekeeper

 

I love it when a movie does exactly what it's supposed to do for you. Some films have a very simple objective, to entertain you in the genre that they're made in with the talent that is brought to bear. I can't say that every Jason Statham film I've seen has been satisfactory, but the majority of them fall into that category, and with “The Beekeeper", the average is going to go way up, because this film is exactly what it sets out to be.

As usual Jason Statham is wreaking revenge on individuals who strongly deserve to be punished. There is virtually no attempt to add humor to the story, or to make it dramatically deep, at least not past the requisite set up. Statham plays a man who has retired to take up beekeeping in its literal form, after serving in a Secret Agency where he was referred to as a Beekeeper, primarily to protect the hive when things go wrong. It's an agency so Secret that even the director of the CIA has little information about it, and that turns out to be a big part of the story.

Maybe someday Jason Statham will be recognized as an actor with Incredible thespian skills, but until that day he should definitely be recognized for his action star persona and credentials. Statham is a one-man Wrecking Crew, much like Bruce Lee in those early kung fu movies where he would take on an army of opponents and single-handedly crush them all, Statham does the same thing.  He usually uses his martial arts skills, he certainly does not limit himself to hand to hand combat. He is perfectly willing and able to engage in Small Arms combat, sabotage, booby traps, and assorted other violence to get his way. In this film Statham plays Adam Clay, which may or may not be his real name but it doesn't matter, what does matter is that he was a beekeeper. The beekeepers are warriors that make the SEAL Teams,  the Army Rangers, and assorted CIA Black Ops look like sissies by comparison. They strike fear into the hearts of even the most hardened assassins, and the antagonists in this film have crossed paths with maybe the most dangerous of the beekeepers. You know this is not going to end well for them.

It might be good to think of Adam Clay as The Terminator, because he is an Unstoppable Force that can't be bargained with,  that will never stop and absolutely will reach its goal. Fortunately for us, in this film, the Terminator is the good guy, and we can applaud the way he knocks down the pins that the bad guys represent to this bowling ball of a human being. Basically he hits a strike every time and the pins fall with mechanical precision in interesting ways each and every scene. John Wick would do most of this work with his gun, Adam clay does most of his with his fists, feet , elbows, and head. And when those don't work he'll find a gun or a flamethrower or some other handy tool that he can use to kick some more ass.

If the film needs any weight, it gets it from Phillicia Rashad in the opening section as an older woman who has offered Clay some assistance in his transition to actually taking care of beehives instead of international intrigue. When she is the victim of cybercrime, the perpetrators have crossed the wrong path and Statham is on them relentlessly. It doesn't hurt that three of the villains are so smarmy that you want to kick their ass yourself. And when they finally get their individual comeuppance, let's just say, it's the kind of satisfaction that people like me, who treat “Taken” as high art, are going to be applauding.

Jeremy Irons also lends some credibility to the film as the former CIA director who is tangentially connected to the Enterprise that ripped off Adam Clay's friend. He also knows what's coming, and half the fun of the movie is watching people who think they understand what they're getting into discovering that they are in way over their head. When Statham shows up at a call center with two gas cans and he tells everybody that he's going to burn the place down, you can bet that it's going to seem incredulous at first as if it can be laughed off. But when he proceeds to do it we're going to smile and think, hell yeah that's the way to handle a Consumer complaint.

This movie is not going to receive any awards for its dramatic integrity, but if the Academy finally caves and creates an award for stunts, then there's a good chance a film like this would get some appreciation. When these sorts of films are providing the backbone for keeping movie theaters in operation and for acting as tent poles for the rest of the theatrical releases by the major Studios, then it seems it would be an appropriate time to maybe have a category at the Academy Awards for face punching, ass kicking, straight shooting, and generally amazing creative fight sequences.

Plane

 

Gerard Butler has become as reliable an action star as Liam Neeson in my book. He may not have the range that some other actors have, but I have never thought he was not up to the task. His film series about Secret Service Agent Mike Banning may be over the top, but they are exceptionally entertaining. The first one is so solid it trumps the doppelganger version done with Channing Tatum and Jamie Fox by a mile. The high concept, low budget "CopShop" was a surprising little piece that I enjoyed the heck out of two years ago. "Plane" is going to go in the same box. This is exactly what it sets out to be, a high tension thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat for a couple of hours and make you glad you spent the time and the money. Maybe it's not great drama, but it is great entertainment.

You might be lead to believe that the film is all about the hostage drama that involves the passengers of a downed plane and criminal separatists on a Philippine island.  That plotline does play out and it is the focus of the second half of the movie, but a lot happens before the passengers become captives. You will hope never to encounter turbulence again when you see how the weather in the sky influences the plane and causes the initial trouble.  When that seatbelt sign is on, after seeing this movie, you will want to double strap yourself in. The flight dangers are shot well and the tension mounts like it should in a thriller thanks to the efficient direction of  Jean-François Richet, who did the remake of "Precinct 13" back in 2005. He has made some French thrillers that I would now be interested in seeing because this movie worked so well.

Once we are back on the ground, there are some great action set pieces. Butler has a brutal one on one fight in an abandoned building where he is trying to communicate with the airline and his family. This is not a ballet of kicks and splits with pirouette mid-air gun transfers. This is two men, bluntly wrestling, punching, kicking, gouging and simply tiring to outlast the other guy. Captain Brodie Torrance is an airline pilot, who had military flying experience, 20 years earlier but does not have a "certain set of skills". He is a bright guy  who makes choices as he goes along, and simply does the best he can with those choices. There is one "movie moment" interjection of savior activity that rescues him, but otherwise the action seems pretty straightforward. 

Not a great poster, but you get the idea

I have not seen the Luke Cage series but based on Mike Colter in this film, I'd be willing to bet it is pretty good. Colter plays a reluctant ally of the Captain, as a convict who survives the landing and has some of the Neeson style skills that Torrance lacks. It does not quite become a buddy picture, but there are some elements of the odd couple style tropes that show up in a lot of these action films. Colter starts the scenes with mass combat and follows through for the remainder of the picture, but there is more to come. This is an island full of criminal bullies who control the population through force and intimidation, to create an army of reprobates that is just waiting to be taken down. Like most revenge pictures, you are happy watching the bad guys get eviscerated. When the sniper with the .50 caliber starts shooting, the on screen mess is significant.

There is nothing in this that is earthshaking, it simply builds a credible story, ratchets up the tension, and makes you Saturday Matinee Happy that you are watching it. It is shot well, cut tightly and full of the kind of stuff that you want in a movie where the popcorn is hot. This used to be why people went to the movies instead of sitting at home streaming. Get to a theater and live, while watching some bad guys die. Don't sit at home, go out and have some fun, like watching this. 

Honest Thief

 

Whatever you do, don't watch the trailer that is posted above. This is one of those too numerous examples where the trailer is basically a condensed version of the film and it gives away plot points, action beats and storyline without regard to what you want to know going in. I was lucky, I'd never heard anything about the movie, I never saw a trailer, I only knew that Liam Neeson was in it and it fits the action genre that he has owned for the last decade. The truth is, you will know most of where the movie is going as the story unfolds, there really are no big surprises in the film, but why would you want every highlight to be foreshadowed by an image from the trailer? 

So, not having seen the preview, I am watching this and I know immediately who the "bad guys" are going to be. All you needed to do was see Jai Courtney and Anthony Ramos sitting in their cubicle and you just know, these are going to turn out to be crooked cops (or FBI agents as it is). You also keep suspecting that Jeffery Donovan might be a bigger crook except they give him a dog that he actually takes care of. That would not be a scene in the movie if there was a turn for his character. I watched every season of "Burn Notice" and I was happy to see him in a movie, but he does have a somewhat dark persona. Two decades ago, instead of Jai Courtney as the obvious heavy, Robert Patrick would have fit the bill, but as time as marched on, he more naturally fits the senior agent with a case of cynicism and a short story arc. 

The whole point of these kinds of movies is to allow us to do some hero worshipping of Neeson, and watch him use his special skills to bring down the baddies. I think he still looks to be in good shape but it probably is a better idea to have him taking those guys out more with his wits than with his physical skills. The use of IEDs is more believable than a 70 something guy beating up a 30 something guy. Of course nothing in this movie is particularly believable. The premise is that this guy commits these crimes for no reason, never spends the money, and has principles that come back to haunt him only after he falls in love. That is a bit of a stretch. 

What is not a stretch is the chemistry between Liam Neeson and Kate Walsh. I don't really know her as an actor although she seemed really familiar to me for some reason.  Although she has extensive credits, the thing that I recognized her from was a Cadillac commercial from twelve years ago. She has a great line in the ad, and the same personality was on display in this movie. She is mature enough to feel like a romantic partner for Neeson, and still be someone that can be changed by the experiences the character is going through. The cute meet was maybe the best written scene in the film, and I think they could pull off a romantic movie about adults if anyone is willing to see such a movie anymore. 

So this is a suspense thriller with a revenge plotline about a heist that doesn't go according to plan. Does that sound like they mixed together enough genres to get your attention? For me it did not matter that it was derivative, soft edged in regard to the violence, and preposterous in concept. I went to this because it was a movie in theaters, not also streaming, just in theaters. It stars Liam Neeson who I love, and it was Sunday afternoon. There was popcorn and the world almost felt normal again. I want the theater experience to return, so I will be going as much as I can, and spending money at the concession stand so the Cinemas can remain open. If the movie is passable and stars someone I enjoy watching, so much the better.

#getyourassintoatheateryouwanks

Underwater

If you were to make a list of signs that a movie is in potential trouble, one of the first things that will jump out at you is the timeline from filming to release. "Underwater" was filmed in 2017, this is 2020, that means it has been percolating for three years. A second indicator that you are in trouble is that you have a horror film opening in January. The first month of the year is the graveyard of the dregs for new releases. It is for counter programming to the big holiday releases that are still playing and collecting on their critical acclaim. Studios notoriously put films they have no faith in out at this time of year. Horror films often are the pawns in a game of movie release chess and they are sacrificed at this time all the time. Finally, Kristen Stewart, action star, is just not a description that anyone will pull out of their memory. So "Underwater" has a few strikes against it before the lights go down.

On the other hand, there were some rumors from early punters that it is better than you would expect.  I don't think I've ever mentioned "Rotten Tomatoes" as a resource for any review I have ever done on this site, but "Underwater" was rated "Fresh" on the web site for the ticket purchase, so as I always do, I hoped for the best. Francis Bacon said "Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper." My dinner this evening was not very good. I can't say the film is terrible, but I can tell you it is not good, and there are several reasons.

To start with the first failing, the story attempts something that just doesn't work very well. Most films like this set up the characters by letting us meet them in the normal course of their lives. We usually get a map of the environment so we can get a fix on the eventual horizon. There will be some foreshadowing which increases the tension before the main story begins. "Underwater" eschews this approach, plunging us into the story without any set up except some cryptic headlines briefly flashed on the screen during the credit sequence. We know nothing about the job, the technology or the people before disaster strikes. So the film is going to depend on spectacle to draw us in, and this is a story set almost seven miles underwater, where there is no light and no horizon. We can't really tell what has happened to the station that the characters are on, except from the inside, and it looks like any other building collapse interior you have seen in a movie.

When we finally do get a set of six characters set up in an escape plan, you can pretty much say who is going to die and the order in which they are going to go. This is a horror film that is so conventional that it reinforces one of the oldest tropes a a black character in horror. This is a concept that has been parodied in horror comedies for years.  I'll let you figure out everything else, but if you have seen an action disaster film or horror film in the last fifty years, you will know. At least with "Alien" we got to care about those characters before their demise.

The dialogue in the film is almost imperceptible at times. Vincent Cassel's accent is laid on a little thick at times and everyone else practically whispers. Meanwhile, the dialogue and exposition are drown out by the cacophony of alarms, explosions and screaming. The exposition is so vague that we have no idea what the goal is that we should be rooting for. I guess we are just supposed to hope that they don't all die, but it is not clear before what. T.J. Miller, whose presence is another indicator of how long ago this movie was made, could easily be mistaken for playing the same part as he did in "Cloverfield". When we finally get the reveal of what is out there in the murky water, it looks like a prequel to that creature feature.

One other way that the film sinks to mediocrity, is by splicing on an environmentalist theme and then adding a dollop of corporate conspiracy to finish off the recipe. The end credits suggest more elements to the story that never appeared to be critical to what was happening. You can't just retro fit the movie which has played out with some theme that makes no sense.   Anyway, I am a sucker for crappy January films. So far this is my best film of the year and my worst. Let's see how it all pans out when "Dolittle" arrives in a week.

Stuber

This weekend was all back to basics at the movies. "Crawl" is a straightforward horror/thriller and "Stuber" is a honest to goodness action/comedy. Once in a while there were bits and pieces of social justice issues raised, but they are ultimately mocked or conventionally accepted and the film is about the jokes and the laughs rather than anything serious.  Kumail Nanjani did not write this screenplay, but it fits him as easily as the part he wrote for himself in the Oscar Nominated screenplay for "The Big Sick". He plays Stu, a meek guy trying to make ends meet and get the girl of his dreams at the same time. His part time Uber gig brings him into contact with a hard as nails cop, played by Dave Bautista.

Buddy cop movies have been around for a long time and the variations are numerous. We've had old cop/young cop stories, goodcop/bad cop morality tales, and cops paired with dogs, Russians, Zombies, and even a T-Rex. Some of those movies were action films with a little comedy thrown in, "Stuber" is the opposite, it is a comedy with a little action added to it. The reason that the cop has to take uber is that he is recovering from lasik eye surgery and has basically become Mr. Magoo with a gun. This movie is filled with slap stick moments, some as simple as tripping or banging your head accidentally because your vision is impaired, but other moments of slap stick involve shooting people in the head or running them over with a car. The tone of the film sometimes tries to play it seriously, but we never do because there is way too much screaming.

The two main actors are solid in what are likely to become their signature character types. Nanjani is the striving outsider with difficulty expressing himself. Bautista is the bull in a china shop, ready at any moment to break something within arms reach. It may be a little unfair to pigeon hole them at this point, but let's face it, stereotyping is  what casting is all about, and we know immediately what these characters are by who is playing them. The plot of the story is fairly standard cop movie stuff [dead partner/rogue cop/drug gang/duplicitous superiors etc.] What is creative here is the use of contemporary culture touchstones like cell phones, spin classes, and uber itself, to tell the story. Stu has movie culture to refer to in trying to cope with the circumstances he has found himself in. There are a half dozen cues picked up from other films that tell him how to behave or what to expect. Of course none of that comes out the way it is supposed to. As a straight man, Dave Bautista is solid but he has something else going for him, His charisma would allow him to play the part straight, but he has good comic timing and a voice that can make a joke work, even when it is not very good.

You will not remember the plot of the film for long after you see it. There are so many cliches involving the cop story that it will run together with dozens of other films. Heck, even the strained relationship between Bautista's character and his daughter, is a trope that was mined in "Crawl"  . Parents and their adult children sometimes have issues, big surprise. The thing that will hold over in your head however is the comic relationship between the two leads. It's a silly premise and there is no reality to the cop procedural stuff, but who cares about that when you are laughing.

I'm willing to endorse a film if it gives me four or five good laughs, and maybe one hysterical moment. Although I think they overdo the screaming moments of the film a bit, there were at least a dozen times that I laughed out loud. As someone who is suspicious of the range of an electric car, there is a joke waiting to happen, and it does. There were also some outright slap sticky moments with gun play in the film. And just for good measure as Henslowe advised in "Shakespeare in Love", it's always good to add a bit with a dog. 

The Hitman's Bodyguard (NSFW Trailer listed)

Normally on this site we try to keep it at a PG-13 for the readers. If it is something I am writing, than I want it to be in my voice and I use vulgar language in a fairly narrow spectrum of circumstances. The trailer above however is an accurate reflection of the vulgarity and coarseness of the interactions in the film we are talking about here, so if you can't guess how the maestro of the "MF" word does in this film, the clip will give you plenty to chew on. Reynold's character actually suggests that Jackson is single-highhandedly ruining the word.

This kind of movie is mostly bulletproof. It is not critic friendly, it will be obvious as to what is going to happen, and it will offend a few people both intentionally and unintentionally. It will also entertain you for a couple of hours while you enjoy a refreshing beverage and some popcorn in a cool theater on a hot day. I prefer my popcorn with a good amount of butter flavoring and then I dump in a box of Hot Tamales to sweeten things up. The popcorn taste, mixed with the sweet but spicy candy is solid, but as the candy gets coated with the butterflavoring it adds an extra texture to the treat. If you are dieting, you should not go to see this film, because it demands that you consume things that are not good for you but taste delicious.

Mosaic electronic poster at Hollywood Achlight

Ryan Reynolds has become a very successful film star, although his most successful film is also one of his most recent. "Deadpool" has a few things in common with this movie, an irreverent sense of humor and a willingness to go for big action, but otherwise they are very different films. Samuel L. Jackson could make this movie in his sleep. He simply brings his usual bravado and colorful vocabulary and supplements it with the kind of gleeful violence we used to get from "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. The premise is simple, a professional bodyguard ends up trying to protect a contract killer that has crossed his path before. This is a bickering buddy film, each character has quirks that make them appealing and repulsive, and we spend a lot of time with the two of them togeteher matching insults.

If there is a pretender to the crown of "Most Colorful Cursing in the Movies", it might be the character played by Selma Hayek in this film, plus she does it bi-bilingually. If you ever feel a bit overwhelmed by the language, let me suggest some Junior Mints to go along with the popcorn. A refreshing mint might take the edge off of the palate enough that you can tolerate a few more curse words, in at least two languages.

Now leaving the snack bar menu for a bit and talking about the movie, I will say there are a couple of things that were nice about the film. The locations for the last act are in Amsterdam and take advantage of the city's quaint architecture and street layouts. There may have been an Alister MacLean film that used the canals of Amsterdam for a chase, I have a vague childhood memory, but it was certainly not as elaborate a chase scene as we get here. The integration of  boats, cars and motorcycles made for a terrific sequence. The main problem is that there are at least two more car chase scenes after this and neither is as exciting. Gary Oldman is in this thing collecting a paycheck and playing another evil villain. His part is so underwritten that when he gets to the big moral equivocation his character launches into, we are already laughing before Samuel Jackson does.

Mostly, I'm just filling space here. There are some moral qualms you can have about using genocide as a plot point in a comedy, and the use of vehicles as terror weapons may be offensive as well. This movie is too silly to take seriously. Go get a refill on your Dr. Pepper or other beverage of choice. Don't worry about missing anything while you are gone, they will still be cracking wise and shooting crap up when you get back. As a matter of fact, you might want to go to the bathroom as well.

Mad Max:Fury Road

Post Apocalyptic stories have been a go to film genre for me since the glory days of the 1970s. I guess since "Planet of the Apes" ultimately counts in this category, technically I have been hooked since 1968. I really loved stories about a group of survivors, struggling against the environment and other treacherous obstacles in a world that has changed dramatically. "Damnation Alley" , a not very good film, featured a cool vehicle with a rotating set of triangular wheel axles. "A Boy and His Dog", mined sex and loneliness and survivors in ragged clothes and armed to the teeth for it's entertainment value. None of those movies prepared me for the experience of first seeing "The Road Warrior" in the summer of 1982. In the rest of the world it was "Mad Max 2", but here in the States, it was a stand alone film that introduced a new film maker to a much bigger audience. Action movies have not been the same since.

Just as in 1985, when my most anticipated Summer Film was a sequel to the "The Road Warrior", 2015 brings on a sense of deja' vu. "Fury Road" has taken a long route to get here, but it has arrived with the kind of force that you would expect. This is a take no prisoners action flick that grabs you with a strong stunt sequence in the first two minutes, followed by a foot chase and combat fighting within five minutes, and in about ten minutes the rest of the chase begins. This is a chase film that goes on for two hours and has maybe three segments when the chase pauses, not for long, just enough to get some exposition in and then back on the road. There are some new gruesome twists on the survivor story. Factory farming will be seen in a whole new light next time you open a bottle of milk. The future is a depressing place if you are not in control of the power, and Max our titular hero is close to powerless at the start of this story.

The vultures that preyed on the weak in "The Road Warrior" and created a twisted economic system in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", have evolved into a extended family cult of malignant children of the deformed patriarch of Immortan Joe. For reasons that become obvious early on, a set of women flee his power and Max becomes part of the exodus by accident. The father figure god is unwilling to give up his possessions and so begins an elaborate pursuit by super charged dune buggies, modified big rigs, and and hundreds of Warrior Boys, convinced that their death will result into admission to Valhalla at the feet of their demi-god father. The two previous films in this series, thirty and thirty-three years old, spent most of their time building up to the climactic chase. This movie is all chase and it sustains the chase through a series of set pieces, plot twists and brilliant design that will keep you hanging on from the moment it begins. Plot is thin but the action is thick and the visualization is visionary. Renegade clans in the outer desert are encased in vehicles that resemble porcupines. The washed out white skin of the Warrior boys make them appear to be an army of spooks, descending on the pursued from all angles.  The grimacing regulator that Immortan Joe wears becomes a death mask that follows the heroes from their nightmares to the waking world. There are spectacular crashes and innovative weapons and a disturbing cult of death that brings them all together. Imperator Furiosa, Charlize Theron, seems appropriately named. She is without humor, and determined to save her group of women. Her strategy is to run and keep running and anything that tries to slow her down needs to be mowed down. The war carriage she drives is a moving fortress that is vulnerable to attack only by having overwhelming forces swarm the wagon. Even then, it turns out that she has a secret weapon she herself did not know about, Max.

I have nothing negative to say about Tom Hardy. I think he was well cast and fits the character like a glove. The two criticisms I have of the film do center around Max however, so Hardy may end up a little worse for wear based on my assessment. As great as I think Hardy might be, he does not have the visual charisma that Mel Gibson radiated off the screen in 1982. If you have not seen those earlier Mad Max films with Gibson, I suggest you wait to do so until after you see this and then the comparison that inevitably ensues will not be nagging you through out the film. The character Max is supposed to be cryptic, but as written here, he feels impenetrable and we can't quite commit to him as we might want to. Maybe having to play a second leading role with his face covered by a mask for larger parts of the film is the thing that holds back my full endorsement. Nicholas Hoult on the other hand is surprisingly compelling as a Warrior Boy in  the right spot at the right time. His character had more dimension in the nearly characterless plot than anyone else. Hardy is stoic, Theron is fierce but young Mr. Hoult gets to play despair, joy, confusion and be disgustingly winsome at times. 

The action and explosions and fights are choreographed wit a frenetic pace that stays involving for long periods at a time. Director George Miller invented this kind of Apocalyptic mayhem with the original Mad Max, now he has a budget and enough time to see this vision play out in the grandest scale possible. I am now willing to cancel his debit to me for the irritation that "Happy Feet" brought to me. There is enough credit on his ledger from this film to balance out any more dancing penguins that happen along. 

Taken 3

This should not take too long. This is a perfunctory sequel to a sequel to a terrific movie. It has little to offer on it's own, except for standard action sequences and interminable car chases and crashes. The story is convoluted nonsense that  fits into many of today's thrillers where criminals lurk around every corner and there is a convenient betrayal behind every door. All the actors do their jobs but it is mostly going through the motions rather than creating something memorable or essential. None of this is a surprise after the lackluster second entry, also directed by Olivier Megaton. When I looked back, I was more enthusiastic than I remember, and I know I must have been somewhat blinded because I have never revisited the sequel.

There are three things that make this movie worth a visit. Forrest Whitaker does a nice job playing a sharp LAPD Detective. At some point in his career, someone decides that he would make a good cop. I think he has been an FBI agent or a cop in the last two or three things I saw him in. The part is not especially well written but he adds some thoughtfulness to it through his performance and especially his voice. The second element that makes this somewhat worthy is the use of Bryan Mills team of buddies. That actually get to do something in this movie and they show they are pretty clever also. They still could have been utilized more but at least they don't just show up and drop something off for him.

The third thing that makes this somewhat worth seeing is the star himself. Liam Neeson can now play these parts without breaking much of a sweat. Whether that is a good or a bad thing depends on your view of Neeson. I have always liked him as an actor, my family jokes a little that I have a mancrush on him. I'm a fan, and I will probably always be available if Liam wants to show up on screen and kill a bunch of people. I do think it is interesting that he became an action star at the point in life when other action stars who have been doing these kinds of movies much longer, are sometimes mocked for being geriatric. He did star as "Darkman" in 1990, but his career did not really become littered with action roles until maybe ten years ago. I suppose he still feels fresh enough to the audience that we can still go with it.

Now the other things that made this movie a problem for me. I already mentioned the frequency of car chase sequences but they are problematic for some other reasons as well. The director shoots the car scenes in such frequent close ups that at times you might forget that the characters are in cars. The action of the cars is also so tight that you can't really get a sense of what is happening to whom, except that there is a lot of mayhem in most of these parts. The ubiquitous shaky cam is present in all of these scenes as well, and once again instead of creating tension or a feeling of being in the action, it creates a sense of vertigo that made at least one member of our part nauseous enough that they had to leave the theater. The action sequences also have that problem, but they suffer from a bigger deficiency, "sanitized brutality". There is a minimum of blood, the broken bones and cracked skulls don't jump out and make you winch they way they did in the first film. There is something too "PG-13" in the way the material is being put together. I did however appreciate Bryan's impromptu waterboarding sequence. It can't hold a candle to the electric shock scene in the original "Taken", but it does show what a nasty customer Bryan can be.


I liked the movie a little more than the second film, but neither will be very memorable. If you are a connoisseur of Liam Neeson action films, than you can't really skip this one. It is a part of a Neeson Franchise and so it is necessary for you. If you are interested in an average action thriller for a date night, this will suffice. If you wanted a good movie, move along, this will not give you what you need. The fact that i enjoyed it probably says more about my faults than it does about the quality of the film.

Expendables 3

Two reactions are typical when talking about an "Expendables" movie; "Damn is that awesome" or "Damn is that Pathetic". I happen to fall into the former category, so if you fit into the later, you can pretty much skip this, it is not going to fit your world view. Aging action stars plus plenty of shootouts plus bad jokes equals two hours of fun in August as far as I've gone with these flicks. There is not any real artistry, the plots are boiler plate and the outcome is inevitable. These are comfort food for people who miss Bob's Big Boy and Hair Metal. Sometimes there is a nice new element to make the movie interesting and to keep us coming back. This movie has three or four of those elements.

I rarely spend more than a sentence or two describing plot in any of my reviews, I don't like spoilers. With a movie like this, it is even simpler because the plot is so direct. The team must take down a rogue former member who has turned evil arms dealer. That's it. Sure more happens and there are some justifications for jumping into a new set of recruits and bringing the old crew back, but it is straight get the bad guy stuff. What does help is that the bad guy this time is Mel Gibson. With all the baggage he has accumulated in the last few years, he has not been a regular screen presence. That's too bad because he is quite good and charismatic on screen, whether playing a hero or the baddie. The three Expendable movies have been slowly creeping up in the quality of the antagonist. Eric Roberts in the first film was fine but did not get much development. Jean- Claude Van Damme was more successful because his showdown with Stallone is the epic climax of the movie. Gibson gives the movie a sense of credibility it would not otherwise deserve and his dialogues with the team contain the right kind of ominous threat to keep our expectations high.

Also joining the cast and classing up the franchise is Harrison Ford.  In the 80s, Stallone and Schwarzenegger were the brawn of action movies. They were the guys who kicked butt. Gibson and Ford were the brains of action movies. Their films had plot twists and sophistication and did not rely on brute strength to get the mission accomplished. Ford shows up as the replacement for Bruce Willis's character in the movie. He treats the script with more seriousness than anyone would think is possible and raises the bar on the believability scale. In the long run it may be a futile effort, but it doesn't end up like it is just stunt casting, even though there is an amusing line about what became of Agent Church.

The unique part of this film is the recruitment of a younger generation of Expendables whose loss  Barney will not feel as much. The selection process involves another old friend, Kelsey Grammer. Channeling a rougher version of Frasier Crane, Grammer gets in some funny lines and a little bit of pop psychology to go with all the nonsense. Stealing the show by playing the dangerous buffoon is Antonio Banderas. Having watched "Desperado" just a day ago, I can say his action bonafides are in order. His comedy chops from "Puss in Boots" appear to be in good working shape as well. Four other young actors are tossed in, it would seem with the intention of carrying on the series when it will look too odd to have grandad diving through a window with a Howitzer under his arm. Wesley Snipes is introduced as another former colleague who has been away from the action scene for a while. The main justification for his presence is the joke about what he was doing prison time for in the third world country the team breaks him out of.

I understand that someone might say they were tired of the same old, same old. If you seek creativity and innovation in your action film, move along, there is nothing for you here. Those of us who do not mind a lot of the familiar and enjoy a big chunk of cheese with our weekend fix of adrenaline, will appreciate the continuing adventures of the old timers. Yeah they look a little long in the tooth, but they also look like they could take most of us out in twenty seconds or less. Until they reach my level of physical prowess, I'm still willing to go along for the ride.

Non-Stop

Click on the Poster for the Video Review on the KAMAD Vlog.

3 Days to Kill

After yesterdays orgy of films in the Best Picture Showcase, it was time for a little palate cleaning with a new release that won't be nominated for anything next year. That does not mean that it is worthless but it does mean that this movie is designed only to be consumed and disposed of like the popcorn you should be overdosing on while it plays out in front of you. Kevin Costner has always been a favorite of mine, and although he has gone out of vogue a bit, he appears to be enjoying a renaissance. This is the second of three movies that he has out in the first four months of the year and the second one where he is playing spy games.

When the movie starts you might be tempted to laugh immediately. Two of the characters that the CIA is going after are codenamed "The Wolf" and "The Albino". I expected Clint Eastwood to show up and he and Costner to scale a mountain in the alps. This just sounded like stereotypically cliched writing from a 1970s spy film. When Amber Heard show up repeatedly in black leather or latex, like some dominatrix that walked in out of a Roger Moore 007 outing, it was even more embarrassing. I began to wonder if people had lost any sense of reality and what century we are in. There is an effective shoot out to begin the movie, but the exterior of the hotel did make it look like an abandoned area of Serbia, which given the technical credits would not be surprising.

As it turns out, the film is a bit of a comedy spy film. They try to play most of the explosions, chases and shootouts straight, but every now and then, Costner's character makes contact with an opposition counterpart and a relationship begins to form. It is a little one sided but it works to make this a different kind of movie. The character of Ethan Renner is motivated by a different type of ticking clock and it is not just the bad guys he has to tangle with. He is trying to reconnect with his daughter Zoey, played by Hailee Steinfeld, from the "True Grit" remake back in 2010. She is a little older now and works well as the antipathetic and somewhat estranged child of a spy. It turns out that the nut does not fall far from the tree when it comes to the truth department.

The most satisfying element of the film takes place when our hardened spy takes on punks that are in over their depth. Four young men on the brink of drug induced date rape get the sort of ass kicking that every father would like to inflict on someone who dares to even look sideways at his princess. He suckers some professionals with a doorstop and simply displays a gun as a way of coping with some bouncer types at an underground rave. The laws of France appear to be a little to liberated from my point of view when it comes to your personal property, but Ethan manages to negotiate a sticky situation with his apartment in a manner that lets us know that even though he is a bad ass, he is not really a bad man.

Three or four times in the story, a convenient kryptonite moment shows up to make a conventional action scene a little more unique. It was actually annoying the last time it was used and it only exists there to give Amber Heard's character one more thing to do during the story. The plot elements building a bond between father and daughter don't go to the extremes of having her put in personal jeopardy by the villain, that was a change that I appreciated. The romantic interludes between attractive but older actors are told without the graphics that would turn younger viewers off, and the settings in Paris, make the film feel a little more familiar but still with an exotic locale. No one will remember this for long but it is enjoyable for as long as you sit in the theater.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

I will admit up front that I have never read a Tom Clancy novel. They were ubiquitous accessories in the times that I lived through. Almost everyone I knew carried a copy of one of the Jack Ryan books and thumbed through them at bus stops, in waiting areas of restaurants, any place where time was to be passed and long before the internet was available for us to kill that time with. Next to Stephen King, Clancy defined the world of popular fiction in the 1980s and 90s. When the first incarnation of Ryan arrived on screen in the form of "The Hunt for Red October" I was sold. This was a different kind of spy game and I thought the films did a good job making the stories work on screen. Jack Ryan was played over a twelve year period by three different actors and all of those movies worked to some degree or other. It has been twelve years now since this character was on screen and the reboot seems like it should work and we can look forward to some more of Dr. Ryan over the next dozen years.

It looks as though this is an original story rather than an adaptation of one of Clancy's works. The update, getting Ryan involved through a 9/11 epiphany seems completely realistic for the times. In the long run it may date the movie, but I still can watch "Red October" even though the Soviet Union is long  gone so maybe it won't matter. The helicopter accident that was mentioned in the 1990s films, becomes a part of an origins story for this movie. I liked the concept but the rapid time forward makes the focus less about Ryan and his character and more about the "evil plan" of the the moment. It is a convoluted attack on America, involving short selling of American bonds and a coordinated terror attack. It is fortuitous that the Russians have themselves rebooted to their cryptic and totalitarian ways. The current intransigence of Moscow makes this script a lot more believable in a time when most terror threats originate from the Islamic world of fundamentalist warriors.

Chris Pine is an up and coming star. He has a great look and he is capable of acting so if given a chance, the character may be sustainable for a period of time. The script here gives him some early opportunities to show us his chops, but once the plot kicks in, mostly it is action based yelling and jumping that will characterize his role. His best moments are trading lines with director and co-star Kenneth Brannagh. Each of their scenes together gives Pine an opportunity to play smart and to use body language and dialogue to tell the story. When we arrive at the climax of the attack, there is basically nothing to distinguish Ryan from all the other hard guy spies that we have seen in other movies. The motorcycle chase near the end makes very little sense except it keeps the star in the center of the action.

The director's greatest asset in my opinion is himself when playing the role of actor. Sometimes in a story like this, we are given a bad guy who has legendary skills but those are only talked about rather than displayed. Except for a perfunctory introduction to us as a bad ass character who kicks the crap out of a sloppy nurse, all of Brannagh's work here shows us his intelligence and dangerousness with skilled acting. Brannagh holds the screen with his face and his voice. He barely smiles even when it might be the right way to play off the covert agents he is up against. The traditional Russian accent is authentic enough without being reduced to a caricature of Boris Badenov. You can see menace and intelligence in his eyes. The script gives him a superfluous disease that is used only for a character point for Kiera Knightley's doctor to notice. His calm delivery of the dialogue involving the simple torture he plans for his captive is more disturbing because we are listening to a serious character and not just a bogey man.

Knightley is fine as Ryan's future wife, and the best joke in the film involves her discovery of his true job. Kevin Costner is solid in the role of recruiter and operator for the spying activities of the young Jack Ryan. He could easily have been cast in the role himself back in 1990. Had that happened it's likely that instead of two relaunches of the character, we would now be seeing some of the more mature Ryan stories that feature him in a position of political power. You can't rewrite history, so we will never know how things might have gone differently. "Shadow Recruit" is an effective action spy thriller, but it is not particularly special. The best thing about it is the performance from Kenneth Brannagh, but there is plenty of potential for long range development of the character, with some stronger plots. Generic but entertaining.

47 Ronin

This movie has apparently been sitting on a shelf for a year or so, and there were not a lot of ads or promotions for it. I guess the studio decided that their investment could not be recovered and they are protecting themselves by releasing it as counter-programing during the holidays and offering only a small amount of release support.  That's a business decision, and the investors have to go with their guts. I think the movie may have been tainted by some of those actions because it was much better than I was expecting it to be.

A little palate cleansing is nice at this time of year. I just saw six new releases of end of the year Oscar bait and Holiday cash in fare. I've been a little overwhelmed and I looked forward to something fairly mindless and action oriented, and here sat "47 Ronin" starring Keanu Reeves on my doorstep. The trailer was not promising, it emphasizes the CGI 3-D hooks of the movie. Fortunately, there is less of that element than might be expected. There are still dragons and ogres and mystical warriors, but the vast majority of the plot seems to be standard samurai action and setting.

Mr. Reeves is often criticized for his acting skills but I have found him acceptable most of the time if he is cast well.  There are not long passages of dialogue for him to spout. The exposition is done in an opening narration and through the voices of other characters. There was only one sequence where Keanu delivers lines that are portentous and even in that spot the sentences are short and to the point. If your objection is to Keanu in a love story set in the Samurai world, don't worry, that is only a small element of what takes place. In truth his character Kai is more of a co-starring role rather than lead. He is an important character, but the story is not about his journey, he is simply one of those acting to avenge their master and restore balance to the world as they see it.

The events are steeped in mysticism but are based on a real event that has been retold and embellished and changed over the years.  The actions of the warriors appear to be in keeping with the code that they lived by and this movie takes pains to emphasize that. There are frequent ceremonial rituals that are engaged in, and clothes that are associated with families and levels of service. The obligations that the ronin feel are explained by their leader and illustrated by their actions. This was one of the aspects of the movie that made it so much more appealing to me. There are several action scenes and the magical/supernatural elements do appeal to a broader audience in modern cinema, but I think this could have been effectively told without all of those components.

A couple of examples of elements that feel overdone; when the lead retainer, Ôishi seeks the banished Kai, he ends up in the set from the third "Pirates of the Caribbean". It feels strange and it is a sequence that is used to partially explain  why Keanu Reeves is not Japanese. In that sequence Kai is battling what appears to be a demonic ogre and it is a CGI creation. A traditional fight would serve the story just as well but the 3-D needs to have some weapons fly off the screen and the leaps and jumps need to be made fitting for a jaded audience. I was still entertained but I would have been just as pleased with a straight drama.

In the long run it was not great but it was good and I was entertained more than I expected to be. I hope that if you are interested you will take the time to see it in a theater. There are other films out there but if you are seeking mainstream entertainment and a entertaining action film, this is your best choice for the holiday period.