Pure Action Movies

Ok peeps here we go here is my two cents of Mr Tarantino’s latest offering to the celluloid gods.

First of I’d like to say this an improvement on his last opus DeathProof its more entertaining and the humour is more apparent this is not a movie to be taken seriously.

Plot wise its pretty straightforward Mister Angeline Jolie heads up a Nazi hunting Jewish death squad packed with psychos with plenty of blood lust. On their travels they are ordered to wipe out all of the third Reich elite who have been ordered to attend a premiere of a Nazi propaganda movie about a German sniper(lame subplot I wont bothering explaining).

Like I said before this an improvement on his last movie but jesus some scenes just dragged on ! Seriously there were times when I felt like screaming at the screen get a f**ing move on. Seems like Quentin doesn’t want to waste anything, its like he got all the scraps the editor cut and reinserted them back into the movie

Its a war movie where’s the action, apart from some very short and bloody shootouts that’s it apart from the end climax which is tame for this type of movies. Alot of critics had said that he has been over indulgent and I would tend to agree with this, it can even by seen in the opening credits which change as they progress a bit like his grind-house failure.

This short excerpt is from Yuen Woo Ping it is taken from the magnificent www.kungfucinema.com site

Back in June, Yuen reacted to Carradine’s death by posting a eulogy on the official site.

I was just finishing a new piece of diary when the sad news of David Carradine struck me. David, my good friend, passed away in Thailand on June 3.

David and I knew each other from the movie KILL BILL. Before that, I have of course seen a lot of his work. He is among the first Hollywood actors to perform Chinese martial arts on the big screen. In real life he is also a genuine kung-fu fan, and knows Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Chinese medicine. He wrote several books on Tai Chi and Qi Gong, spreading Chinese wisdom to the English-speaking world.

David has acted in more than 200 movies and TV drama. In early years he was a brilliant stage actor too, acting in various Shakespeare’s plays. Same as I, people shall always remember his role Caine, “the grasshopper,” in TV drama KUNG FU in the ’70s, which was a really unforgettable performance.

It was Quentin Tarantino who had the great eye to cast David as Bill in KILL BILL, for which I trained Uma Thurman and other actors to do the action sequences. With David, the training was like practice sessions between friends. It was great fun working with him, and he often had a lot of fresh ideas for the actions.

I feel both great honor and regret that TRUE LEGEND is one of David Carradine’s last works. I certainly feel proud that he is a part of our movie, and hope he would feel the same.

If the first movie was described as cartoonish, well then this one is MANGA on ACID !!! If your looking for a late night back from your local watering hole this is the movie for you

Story is our hero (?) is now roadkill but no wait whats this, a group of nasty triads have stolen his body and revived him and have now taken his heart and replaced it with an artificial one. He wakes up pissed and goes on a rampage to get it back and thats it.

The only down side to this movie is that it gets a bit predictable the director relies on the humping in public scenario  makes a return here but on a much grander scale that was shocking in the first movie but now seems lame.

Apart from that we get Bai ling shouting in broken english and lots of bullets and explosions, perfect movie to watch if your drunk or bored.

Movie kicks off with an evil power hungry Prime Minister Cao Cao manipulating the weak willed Emperor Han into going to war against the two remaining realms of Xu and Wu. Both Xu and Wu team up to defeat Cao Cao using incredible strategies and military cunning, culminating in one almighty battle were thousand of ships are burn at sea and the legend of Red Cliff starts

Hats of to John Woo he’s created one of the best action movie(chinese action movie that is) that ticks all the right buttons for action junkies, the battle scenes are incredible and very well edited. Some CGI is used but it does not deflect from the flow of the story unlike some hollywood action movies. There is also some wire work involved but again like the CGI its not overly used. Onto the acting which varies a bit to be honest, the two principal characters Zhou Yu played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Hard Boiled) and Sun Quan played by Chen Chang both put in fine performance.

For it being a realistic version of what was supposed to have happened I’d leave it to people who have read in detail about the Three Kingdom era to make that judgement, I’m just looking at it from an action movie point of view.

I have been a life long fan of John Woo from his early comedies to his martial arts movies Last Hurrah for Chivalry and Hand of Death, it was great to see John Woo rise again after the mess that was Mission Impossible 2 and Windtalkers not too mention the God awful Paycheck.

This is equally in the top 10 action movies for 2008 / 2009.

Yes I know its a kiddie movie and its not really an action movie, but I dont care I loved the last two movies and this one is just as good as the first one.

The animation is crisp and clear, the main characters Sid, Diego and Manny and their freinds find themsevles in another adventure this time in an undeground dinosaur kingdom with an uber weasel named Buck (voiced by Simon Pegg) as their guide along for the ride is Manny’s mate Ellie and her brothers and the nut loving Scrat.

Plenty of laughs and injokes abound a great movie for all the family, I saw it in 3-D but to be honest it didnt really add to it.

Saw Michael Manns latest Public Enemies, and to be honest I left the cinema feeling a bit conflicted as to what I had just seen.

Was it a very expensive art film or an art film pretending to be an action one ?

Yes it has great actors Depp and Bale do an excellent job with the roles they are given, hats off as well to the cinematography the look and feel of the movie are impressive.

What I cant get to grip with is the use of high definition video, the same format that was used in another Mann movie Collateral, it simply does not work not for a period piece it cheapens it considerably. It felt like I was looking at a cheap cable movie.

Overall good movie but could do without cheap gimmicks the movie stands good on its own merits (just say no to high def video)

A sad day for all…….

Karl Malden passed away yesterday at the grand age of 97.

Oscar winner for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Streetcar named Desire

Nominated for an Oscar in a supporting role  for his role as Father Barry in Eliza Kazan On The Waterfront

Not the best looking actor but an amazing talent and an honesty the came through in his many tv and movie roles

I will always remember him in the Streets of San Francisco pairing up with Michael Douglas.

Kudos to Mr Abrams … not only has he managed to re-invent a classic movie and tv dynasty but he’s also pulled off the greatest and hardest trick in movie making, satisfying the die hard Trekki fans who are probably the most insane weird bunch of loons (check out on Trekkies and Trekkies II).

Sorry in advance, but I’m going to use a few trek cliches in the next few lines

To bold go where no man has gone before…. a Justin Timberlake concert (kidding), the movie is set in early day’s of Starfleet where Kirk is the outcast rebel who is drawn into Starfleet by a friend of his father George Kirk.

On entering Starfleet things get a bit mischievous and Kirk clashes with a young intern Spock, the reason for the clash is Kirks reinterpretation and successful completion of the Kobayashi Maru simulation as mentioned in Star Trek The Wrath of Kahn. From here the usual characters materialise Uhura and Bones (played brilliantly by Karl Urban) and Scotty played by Simon Pegg. Oh and I almost forgot Sulu, and Chekov with an unforgettable Russian accent.

The villain of the piece is  mister chopper himself Eric Bana as Nero, my only needle about this is the characters name, seriously Nero ? Thought they could have come up with something a bit better. Anyhow not too give too much away hes pissed off and is taking revenge. Cue lots of action well paced and exciting a bit of humour provide by Simon Pegg and surprisingly Karl Urban as Bones.

Some elements of the story do come with a few surprises I wont ruin it for you, some movie magazines have given away spoilers and ruined it in my opinion. Lastly I just like to say this is by far he most exciting Star Trek ever, the special effects the direction and acting are all first class it is almost flawless (the perfect popcorn movie).

12 Rounds has been out for a quite a while but I finally got a chance to see it at my friends place, thought would be a good idea to throw together a quick review.

Ok I put my hands up ! guilty as charged I’m a bit of a sucker for Renny Harlin movies, there I said it and I’m not ashamed… yes he did make arguably one of the worst pirate movies ever made “Cutthroat Island” followed by “Long Kiss Goodnight”. But lets not forget he also made Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger both good solid action driven movies, oh and I almost forgot Mindhunters great movie very atmospheric, fair go to the producers to put money into the following formula

Christian Slater + Val Kilmer + Renny Harlin = Good Movie

who would have thought it.

Back to the review, 12 rounds has all the hallmarks (hate that bloody word) of a well paced flick, there’s action a plenty and its well paced there some nice stunts and and an ok story if your not familiar with Die Hard III it follows in the same vein.

Cop pisses of nutty bomber, nutty bomber  returns with a vengenance gets cop to jump through hoops to save kidnapped wife but wait theres a twist in the tale (a bit obvious) and thats it, entertaing and dumb but not boring.

One more thing I should mention John Cena CANNNOT ACT !!! he’s Ok jumping around doing his WWE tricks but in the more dramatic scenes he’s pretty hopeless. Just though I mentioned that just to piss off any Cena fans !

Hulkamania rules !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just got back from a viewing on the new terminator movie “Terminator Salvation” or Terminator 4 (which I think is a much better title, less pretentious).

Anyhow, the movie kicks off in modern day when a convict slated for execution is asked by a cancer suffering Helena Bonham Carter to donate his body to something or other (was getting a bit bored at this stage to be honest).

Then I went out for a toilet break and when I came back the scene had changed and there was good old Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) rappelling down into a research facility blowing everything up (YES!!! finally !!! ).

I could go into a more detailed review revealing the plot and all, but that would be a waste a time if your a die-hard Terminator fan like me.  Suffice it to say a lot of cyborgs get shot,  Arnie makes a brief cameo and lots of cyberdyne toys come out and play. The effects I found were Ok, it didnt blow me a away to be honest and one thing that really annoyed me was that most of the action took place during the day and this ruined the technoir finish of the previous Terminator movies.

The acting for the most part was Ok but I thought Christian Bale portrayal of John Connor lacking any real emotion, dont get me wrong he dotted the t’s and crossed the I’s but he had such an opportuniy to bring something different but he pulled up short.

Final verdict :

Good popcorn movie leave brain at door, lots of cgi unfortunately for me nothing original

I saw this masterpiece on the weekend and to cut a long story short it was dreadful even by Mister Bay standards it was an overlong and over blown mess.
If you have 150 mins to waste…DONT !!! do something constructive, please go find a new pastime like bear wrestling or monster truck racing. The only AND I MEAN THE ONLY good thing about this movie is the special FX (and maybe Megan Fox when she’s not trying to act).