Just Because Stuff Blows Up, Doesn't Mean It's Good
New entries have a -- before them.

Air Force One
Plot: Die Hard On A Plane.
Starring: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman and a cellphone.
Could we ever possibly elect a president that wasn't some sort of anti-millitary freakazoid? I would elect Harrison Ford here in a nano-second.
The plane's interior was used in the 'Perfect Dark64' video game. Unfortunately, the President there was not as cool and ass-kicking as Ford was. He couldn't pick up a gun, he couldn't fight. All he could do was whine that things were not going his way and run for the hills.
Funny, he doesn't look like Dubya.

Avengers
Plot: Save the world!
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery and a greenhouse.
I have not seen one second of the television series. The movie might be a complete 180 from the show. Knowing Hollywood, it is.
It's still a good movie, though.
I do have a few nitpics.
The main villian once again slays some lackeys that dissapoint him. Why is this tolerated? If my colleague was killed for not turning in the quarterly report on time I would be flipping through the phone book faster then you can say, uh..."phonebook".
Ralph (pronounced 'Ray', no, I don't understand why either) encounters a villianous version of Uma. (Rrrow!) Yet, when encountering her later after a near-death experience he makes little attempt to ascertain she is the good one. He also forgets to set up a code between them so if they are seperated in the future, they will know who is who.

Big Trouble In Little China
Starring: Kurt Russell, some asian guys and a couple of upturned bamboo chairs.
Plot: Kurt's girl is going to be sacrficed so Creepy Old Man can become Creepy Superold Man, a.k.a. Jerry Lewis.
It's an action/comedy with supernatural effects, yet it is not dumb. The 'rules' are clearly established and followed. The character's reactions are believable, even when they are all Matrix'ed up and punching through walls.

Bloodsport
Starring: Jean Claude Van-Damme, Donald Gibb, Leah Ayres and some other people you have never heard of.
Plot: Like 94.8 percent of all other karate movies, Van Damme journeys to take part in an illegal fighting competition.
This is all supposedly based on a true story. Plausible, I agree. As in, illegal fighting competitions could happen. I really don't think they would be full of so many cliches.
There was the lovable and expendable sidekick.
The underdog hero that triumphs against incredible odds.
The simpering love interest.
The cheating rival that oooh, our Hero has to fight in the end.
Still, it's worth it if you're up at three in the morning and nothing else is on.

Boondock Saints
Starring: William Defoe, Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus and the most annoying sidekick in the history of the universe, even worse then Pesci.
Plot:Two brothers turn vigilante and shoot up crappy, low-budget scenery.

Braveheart
Starring: Mel Gibson, Patrick McGoohan and the exact same plot as 'Patriot'.
They say that in the last fight you can see two guys just dancing around, slapping their weapons at each other, totally not pretending to fight.

Broken Arrow
Starring: John Travolta, Christian Slater and the Amazing Invulnerable Hair Woman.
Plot: Who needs it? We got John Woo!
This has the most amazingly stupid scene in the history of the entire film industry.
Okay, part of the movie happens on a train. Fine. The train is moving on tracks deep in the countryside.
A millitary official and his aide are interested in what is happening on the train. They have a helicopter take them to the train.
Presumably the pilot of the copter (I forgot who it was) also had millitary training. Maybe he was a civillian. Either way, the pilot was intelligent enough to lift off, steer and such.
Now the helicopter is following the train. With me so far? The train is moving. The train enters a tunnel.
The helicopter pilot, does not see the tunnel and pilots the craft STRAIGHT INTO THE SIDE OF THE HILL, CAUSING A MASSIVE EXPLOSION!
OH. MY. GOD.

Charlie's Angels
Starring: Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Bill Murray, the luckiest man in the entire freakin' universe.
Plot: Suprisingly original, even though it would take more space then Nasa computers have to describe it.

Clear and Present Danger
The only thing clear was that it sucked and the only danger was falling asleep.

Commando
Arnold shoots up a lot of people in a quest to rescue his daughter, Alyssa Milano. Yay! Blow the crap out of everything, Arnold! I love mindless shoot-em-ups.

Desperado
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek and more dirt and grit then most seaweed drenched beaches.
Tarintino's worst effort. The near Dues Ex Machina of the three other band members showing up ruined the movie for me.
Admittedly, I did see an edited version. (I know because Salma was supposed to get totally starkers). They probably cut out tons of the cooler action. They do things like that. Hollywood is evil.
In terms of pure action, Woo is great but Tarintino is some sort of blood-crazed god of filming.

Disturbing Behavior
It's simply 'The Faculty' with science-fictional explanations of the 'zombies'. Sadly, it has none of the fun and excitement of 'The Faculty', instead dedicating itself to marginal thrills, boring plots, yawn-inducing chase scenes and forcible placement of nearly every horror cliche. How many times can we see the two parked teenagers used to demonstrate the coming horror?

Face-Off
Starring: John Travolta, Nicholas Cage and several billion bullets.
Plot: Cage takes Travolta's face in order to go undercover as him. Travolta gets pissed and puts on Cage's face and shoots people.
A brilliant plot that stumbles a little gives Travolta and Cage many opprotunities to try blowing holes in each other's heads.

Fight Club
I can't really review it in any depth without ruining it. Let's just say you must see it. My absolute favorite scene was in the video store...

Gladiator
Sword fights do not a movie make. They tried their best, though. The underlying plot is halfway decent, just stable enough to support the excuse for fights, fights and more fights. Oddly enough, not an exposed nipple in the entire movie.

Hard Boiled
Supposedly this is supposed to be some sort of John Woo masterpiece. While the action scenes were okay the story was non existent.
Also, bad guys can shoot you, expendable partner man.

Jackal, The
Starring: Richard Gere, Bruce Willis and a giant machine gun.
Plot: Hell if I know. There was a cool subway chase. Maybe that was plot. Chase someone through the subway.

Kiss The Girls
Morgan Freeman takes it upon himself to track down a lunatic who is kidnapping and sometimes killing pretty women. Unfortunately the movie includes scenes that Morgan does not appear in. This renders them unwatchable due to the sheer lack of talent displayed (or not displayed as the case may be) by the other actors.
It is a smart and intelligent mystery, it just gets roughed up by the leaden delivery and boring tones.

Last Of The Mohicans
Thank god.

-- Mask Of Zorro
You'd think that an actioner starring Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins can't fail, right?
It might have succeded if there was a little, oh, I don't know, more action?
Leave the stables already! Stop blabbing! Oh god no, not another diplomatic party! MAKE THE HURTING STOP! The conclusion was boring. The plot was near incomprehensible. Stuff blows up for no reason. People swordfight for no reason.
What were the bad guys going to do with all those peasents once the gold was uncovered? Shoot them?

Oh yeah, for some awful reason they made a comic book out of this. The movie shot they put on the comic? Antonio standing on his toes. Whee! Oh my heart is pounding.

Metro
Eddie Murphy in a straight-out cop drama. Intelligent enough to hold your interest until the end credits roll. Nothing to freak out about.

Mission Impossible
"Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to understand the plot of this movie. My ass will self destruct in five minutes."

Mission Impossible 2
A plot you had to pay attention to and action scenes that a joy to watch. Woo more then makes up for 'Choking Arrow' with this.

Operation Condour 2: Armour Of The Gods
Starring: Jackie Chan and the worst dubbing in the history of foreign films. They could have been outlining dietary and exercise plans for diabetic overweight septuranians for all I knew.
Horrible dubbing gives me headaches. Bad plot and pointless acting gives me headaches. After watching this movie I was prostate on the floor, bleeding out of my eyeballs.

Out Of Sight
out of mind is the best place for this movie.

Patriot, The
Starring: Mel Gibson and legions of traumatized youngsters.
Plot: Not there. It was slain early in the movie along with the wounded rebel soilders.

Pulp Fiction
Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis and a big fucking needle.
Plot: What's in the briefcase?
One of the best action movies ever. What else can you say about it?
The only bad thing is the knock-offs it spawned.

Punisher
Frank Castle kills criminals after some scum waste his family.
I really dislike this movie on principle. The comic book Punisher wears a skull design on his costume and wants to avenge his family who was killed by mobsters in Central Park. Why couldn't these two plot points be in the movie? Is having extras fall down on the grass really more difficult to film then a car bomb?
The movie itself is pretty fun anyways.

Red Dawn
I wonder if this movie could make it in today's Ultra-PC society? It might just squeak by as commies and white men are the only enemies left today.
It all comes down to the children's fantasy 'What if the commies invaded'?
It's fun all around. Some scenes just make you want to sit up and cheer and blow some shit out of the some red bastards.

Resovoir Dogs
Quentin Tarantino can write dialogue like Picasso paints and Michalangelo sculpts. It's a joy to hear.

-- Rock, The
Disenchanted Marines take over Alcatraz with a contingent of poison missiles. And hostages. Don't forget the hostages, even though the writers did.
This movie was mostly spoiled by what I call 'Stupid Idiots In Charge Of Previews'. Nearly every single cool bit, including the demise of the main bad guy, was shown in cut scenes in the TV previews.
I still liked it. Nervous chemical expert Cage and ex-convict Cage lead a team of good Marines into the prison to rescue the hostages and beat up the bad guys.
Oops. "Evil must triumph because good is stupid." is something I'm pretty sure Rick Moranis said in 'Spaceballs'. It applies here as the good marines get themselves killed off like cattle in the prison showers. One survives but instead of listening to Cage and Connery and not entering, he decides to go take revenge for his comrades. He doesn't even KILL anyone, just blasts some bullets around and gets riddled.
Now it's up to Cage and Connery to deactivate the poison missles and...um...I forgot. Something.
The action is great. Sort of 'John Woo' without all the ballet movements by the camreaman and no 'WTF' moments.
Interesting note. In one scene, Connery snaps a neck to save Cage from losing what was above his. Blockbuster Video had this scene as part of their 'Actor Spotlight' on Cage. (Don't ask). It was edited, making it look like Connery only knocked the bad guy out.
Silly Blockbuster. They also edit out 'lesbian' and once whited out the see thru Cameron Diaz bra so it wasn't see thru. Then they rent 'Best Chest In The West', carry 'Dudley Do Right' which has a brutal train murder and edit out the boob scene in 'Titanic'.

Rumble In The Bronx
This was the first Jackie Chan movie I saw. I liked it because at the time I didn't realize ninety percent of his other movies were the EXACT SAME THING.

Shanghai Noon
Starring: Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Lucy Lie and Snidely Whiplash.
Martial arts in the old west. Worth a rental even if it's still on the new release wall.

Speed
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves and every ethinticity since the dawn of time.
If the bus goes under fifty miles per hour, it explodes.
In Morrison's comic book, 'The Invisibles', it's theorized this is an Illumanti film, due to all-genders, all-races cast of passengers trapped on the bus.

Speed 2
The worst action movie in a long time. Sure, it looked good and the crew of the ship weren't hopeless expendable ninnies but that's the only good thing about it.

Steel
White-guy-builds-weapons-for-black-superhero-when-in-the comic-books-black-hero-made-the-weapons. (See 'Blade').

Sudden Death
Van Damme fights bad guys who take over a hockey arena. It's so-so entertainment. A few times you go "That's not right.". For example, the lack of security/procedures surrounding the veeps in the luxury box.

-- Tango And Cash
Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell bicker at each other, get punched and slide down a wire with their belts.
How come action stars' pants never fall down when they remove their belts? Why wear a belt anyway.
For that matter, why do bad guys on the outside either wear suits or punked up jackets? Why can't a thug wear a varsity jacket or a santa sweater?

Timecop
How many times can Van-Damme get his face slammed into the brick wall in the garden and not bleed?

True Lies
Arnold plays a family man who is also a secret agent on the side. Intense action with wonderful humor and intense special effects.
There's an urbal legend floating around that Jamie Lee Curtis is a man. After viewing this film, no one would ever think she's a man again.
Buffy fans, look for 'Faith' as the daughter.

Universal Soilder 4: The Return Of Van Damme
Jean-Claude returns to a role some other people filled for two movies. The cental intelligence controlling the super-soilders has decided to take over the place for himself.
Turn off your mind if you watch this. There's a lot to get offended by.
At least one character returns from the dead with no explanation offered.
Rapid bullet fire doesn't ruin clothing.
Normal American soilders cannot retreat from an overwhelming force seem unable to lay down any sort of explosive return fire.
Computer security works whenever the writers remember to have it work.
Whoever hired human security for this top-secret installation should be fired, as none of them knew simple basic survival tactics like 'Hiding behind bullet-proof objects' or even 'Hiding, period'.
There's a lot of fun action that doesn't make you scratch your head.
The Governer Of Minnesota plays one of the evil soilders. It's just so fun to watch him bounce people around like pinballs and get ridden down stairs. He keeps showing up at the oddest time. All Damme can do is run and he, Damme, hates it.

-- U.S. Marshalls
The sequel to 'Fugitive' starring Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes and improbable action sequences. They could have at least come up with a plot slightly different from the first one.
It's a mess. After the first one, Tommy still hasn't learned to take evidence with a grain of salt. I guess the humilation from Ford made him more bitter and hateful instead of more understanding.
Suprisingly, 'bitter' and 'hateful' is what I felt after surrending precious moments of my life to this stinker.

-- Wild, Wild West
Another remake of another series I haven't ever seen.
Taken by itself it's okay. If you think about it in any way shape or form you'll go insane and your brains will explode.
A black man with a gun is found inside the President's abode by the Secret Service. And he's NOT shot to death?
I heard a rumor that the giant mechanical spider was supposed to be in the 'Superman' movie. Once this concept was thankfully killed, the power that be jammed it into this one.
It works. Sort of. With that high level of technology in the wild west we'd have been on the moon by the twenties and had virtual reality by the forties. Like I said, don't think to much and you'll like the movie.

X-Files
Evil goop? Is that what is supposed to be behind the whole thing? EVIL GOOP?! GAAAAAHH!!

-- X-Men
Incredible. Excluding the stupid 'yellow spandex' comment, this could have been 'X-Men: Year One' and not affected the current continuity.
My favorite bit was how 'Xaiver's School For Gifted Youngsters' was exactly that. A school. Mutants, mostly runaways, got training in their powers and a decent education. Too bad this concept still doesn't exist to this day. They could have had fun with it. 'New Mutants' are one class, 'Generation X' is the next and so on...

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