Category: Movies

“A fun, enjoyable summer movie…”

I had reservations about a Simpsons movie, mainly because I feared it couldn’t match up to the cartoon TV series, also I had worries that the script wouldn’t be as crisp as the early cartoons.

But I can certainly say I did enjoy this movie. It was funny, enjoyable and was a good summer watch. Although the movie was very short and didn’t have as many gags as I’d like it to have, it was still good to see the Simpsons had a lot of ideas and was still as funny as on the small screen.

I remember seeing a late night TV arts programme with a panel of upper class people sitting around talking and reviewing movies, books, arts, etc; but when it came to the Simpsons, they spend something like 10 minutes trying to psycho-analyse The Simpsons… I mean, com’on – it’s a cartoon, not Shakespeare!

All in all, its a fun movie – but go in, switch your brain off, and have a good time.

Overall: 7/10.

“An enjoyable summer blockbuster action movie”

When I was first heard about Die Hard 4, I was initially sceptical about it. I was worried that its star, Bruce Willis, was only doing it for the money; and that the Die Hard series was going to fall victim to the ‘cookie-cutter’ action vehicle that the original Die Hard movie helped create.

I was also concerned that the toning of violence from an UK certificate 18 to a UK certificate 15 was really going to harm the movie.

Fortunately, I was quite pleasantly surprised by this movie, as it is a thoroughly enjoyable summer blockbuster action movie.

The movie has Bruce Willis reprising his role of Detective John McClane who must escort and protect a computer hacker whilst the “entire connected society” is systematically targeted by a group of computer hackers, leaving the country electronically crippled.

In the meanwhile Willis must dodge countless bullets, bombs, explosions, flying cars and so forth. The action is fast, furious and sometimes quite intelligent.

Whilst this movie is a great popcorn action movie, I felt that the CGI action was too over the top to be believable, almost turning McClane into Spiderman or something.

I liked the numerous references and homage’s to the old Die Hard movies, such as the techno-wizard kid, the musical interludes, the “wrong man in the wrong place” line, and so on – but I felt that even with all these references, the movie – well, was just a template that could have easily been filled by another actor and we, the audience, probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Bruce Willis had gone on record saying that this Die Hard is just as smart as the first one, and just as enjoyable; whilst I agree that the movie is very enjoyable, and much better than Die Hard 3 and Die Hard 2 – I just don’t agree with the “smartness”, rather I feel this Die Hard has fallen into the “bear trap” of being yet another CGI action movie – almost to the point where you could probably take out Bruce Willis, replace it with another actor and you probably won’t see any real difference.

I felt the plot was good, as it brought up the issue of the inter-connected, always online society – although the methods were questionable and, at times, implausible; however, the main villain also seemed equally light, the lightest villain in the entire Die Hard action saga.

1989’s Die Hard is regarded by some to be the daddy of modern action movies. The movie spawned many clones, even Die Hard sequels fell to Die Hard’s template of action; but the question is – does Die Hard 4 set a new template for action? My answer to that is no.

The reason is; the movie is just a cookie-cutter action movie that has an equally replaceable actor.

Would this movie have been better if it were an 18? If it had more cursing? If it had real stunts instead of CGI trickery? Maybe, if the villain had a bit more gravitas? I don’t know, somehow, I feel that post-Die Hard, any movie that held the title “Die Hard” would be shelved in the “clones of Die Hard” and left to gather dust.

I think overall, this is a great summer action movie blockbuster, filled with explosions, over the top stunts and a good rounded plot, but apart from the title – this is Die Hard in name only.

Overall: 7/10

Will Smith stars as Chris Gardner in this moving and powerful look at the American Tycoon’s life in the early 1980s.

The movie is about Gardner’s tough upbringing, trying to sell expensive medical equipment whilst trying to survive with his long-suffering wife Linda (played by Thandie Newton) and in the meantime bringing up their five-year-old son Christopher, played marvellously by Will Smith’s son Jaden Smith.

Gardner’s struggle to pay bills, pay taxes and sell what medical doctors don’t need turns Linda against Garrner – who is fed up with her husband’s promises of a bright future and lack of a regular income.

With no money, and no regular job Chris takes his son and are soon to forced to live, sleep and eat on the streets, in shelters – and once, sleeping in a public toilet, trying to survive from one day to the next.

Chris, determined to make something worthwhile of his life see’s a glimmer of hope when he enrols into an unpaid internship at a major stock brokerage firm, with the promise of a well paid job at the end of the internship to the most promising candidate.

(more…)

To some Tony Jaa is the next big action star, to others just a glorified stuntman. To me, he represents the new face of action.

Already movies like Luc Besson’s “District 13”, and Donnie Yen’s “SPL” have shown that people are noticing Tony Jaa’s unique brand of brutal action sequences. Indeed, the new James Bond movie “Casino Royale” is set to have a touch of pakour or free-running in it, and it’s going back to basics in terms of its stunts.

Make no doubts, action is changing. (more…)

Directed by Ng See Yeun and starring Taekwondo martial art master Hwang Jang Lee, “Invincible Armour” is set in rural ancient China during the Ming Dynasty where a corrupt high-ranking Ming general (Lee) frames Chow Lu Fong (John Liu) for the murder of a noted dignitary.

(more…)

In the media there was a lot of speculation that Jet Li may have quit ‘kung fu’ action movies, indeed ‘Fearless’ was marketed as being Jet Li’s final Martial Art epic. But was that really the case?

On IMDB, Jet Li is set to star along side Transporter star Jason Statham in Phillip G. Atwell’s “Rogue”, the movie is to be an action-adventure film and will have some martial arts in it.

So did Jet Li lie, or did he just change his mind?

Jet Li did indeed say that he was quitting kung fu movies, but he specifically meant the “wuxia” genre. Li himself said that Fearless was to be his last “wuxia” movie, having felt that he had done everything in the genre and wanted to broaden his appeal internationally.

However the media misunderstood this to mean all martial art movies, and made fans worried that the so called Jet and Jackie project (J&J) would never happen. It’s still on the cards, and rumors are that it will be about a legend of the “monkey king” and his quest to achieve immortality. This obviously sounds crap, but I hope that isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Anyway, regardless of what happens. I look forward to seeing much more Jet Li on the screen, but what I really want is Jackie and Jet together, just once… Throw in Donnie Yen too for good measure, and it’ll be great!

Links;

• Rogue (2007) – IMDB

wastedlife showcases 100 of the best martial art movie fight sequences. I’m not sure if they are meant to be in order, but the breadth of history and knowledge displayed is welcomed as you journey down memory lane remembering some of the more well known fight sequences in movie history.

Link:
wasted life’s 100 Fight Scenes

Following on from the bitter disappointment of yet another failed attempt at breaking Hollywood with the movie “The Protector”; Jackie Chan’s Police Story (or Ging chaat goo si) is widely considered to be the best action movie that Chan ever made.

Although heavily dated, the movie is a tour de force and I personally believe it to be the defining part in both Hong Kong and Hollywood action for many reasons.

Jackie plays Kevin Chan, a Hong Kong police man. In almost bungled police drug sting operation, Chan captures a notorious drug lord almost single-handely with the hand of a double-decker bus and an eye-popping stunt that surely must have killed at least two of the stuntmen.

Afterwords, Chan is assigned to protect the secretary to an evil drugs lord who is to act as a witness to the prosecution. But is she being co-operative, or still in league with the gang?

The drug lord’s personal bodyguard frame’s the murder of another bent police cop using Chan’s gun and Chan must fight off attempts on his life while hanging on to his girlfriend and second-guessing bent fellow officers.

During a key scene in the Magistrates court, the drug lord gets off on Chan’s lack of evidence.

Down on his luck, and running from the police, Chan attempts an audicious plot to re-capture the drug lord and acquire evidence of the drug lord’s organised crime links as well as his records of payments to police officers…. this leads to an action packed ending inside a shopping mall.

Unlike his later movies, this one combines drama, excellent action and good story in one. A testament to this movies originality and style is the fact that it was lifted wholesale by many films, including Sylvester Stallone in Tango and Cash, Bad Boys 2 and a Brandon Lee movie (which I can’t remember).

I would definitely recommend this movie, just make sure you get the widescreen version with subtitles, otherwise you’ll miss the magic of what I believe is the best action movie that Chan ever made.

Overall: 9/10

Link:
Police Story (IMDB)

As a young orphan, Shao Lung was raised in a Shaolin Temple after his grandmother abandons him there, fearing that an evil General will kill him after killing Lung’s father.

Lung spends countless years perfecting his kung fu in order to gain revenge against the cruel General. As he reaches adulthood, Shao Lung decides he must leave the temple to discover the truth about his past and get revenge.

But in order to do this he must he must pass the Shaolin monks most sternest test; the 18 Bronzemen.

The 18 bronze men is a collection of fighters, some of them wearing super thick armour which make them look like robots, others painted in Bronze/Gold paint and fight in different styles within a multi-chambered labyrinth filled with a mixture of deadly traps and deadly fighters.

Once Shao Lung passes the tests (with Carter Wong in exceptional form), the film becomes less entertaining and incredibly boring.

Whilst Tin Peng (Shao Lung) is cast as the leading man, it’s clear that Carter Wong is the main man and out-acts, outperforms and outfights Tin Peng at every turn. Indeed, Wong is enjoyable as the star pupil of the Shaolin monastery, barking insults and pushing students to their limit and beyond.

After Shao Lung and Tai Chung are out in the real world there’s no more bronze action – instead we have the discovery that Shao Lung is in fact the son of a Ming general who was slaughtered by Fei-Lung’s evil Ching General (realised in a blistering swordplay flashback).

There’s also a poorly developed love interest in the pretty form of Polly Shang Kwan. Polly gets to do some kung fu, and seems to be blessed with an amazing leaping ability.

In addition to this, there is a good sub-plot of a mole within the Shaolin monastery; who feeds the Evil Ching general with information – especially the styles of kung fu that the 18 bronze men use as well a super secret kung fu found by Shao Lung in a book.

When the mole is uncovered to be Lung’s childhood best friend, he is aghast and demands to know why his best friend betrayed him — then comes the most convoluted twist of the movie; the best friend explains that he is the child of a high-ranking Ching soldier and gave an oath to his father, and presumably the Ching empire, that he would kill the child who showed the most zeal for destroying the Ching empire (ie: Lung).

Adding to the twist, Carter Wong explains that he was raised by a bodyguard who saved Lung’s father and Wong, like the mole, gave an oath to protect Lung until he got revenge.

This plot twist I found to be confusing, it seemed like Lung’s destiny was to remove the General from power; sorta like Luke Skywalker. But it did seem a bit strange that Lung was predestined to do all this, and all the people surrounding him were predestined to help Lung achieve his goal. Maybe the scriptwriters wanted to portray Lung as a Prodigal Son — it didn’t really work out.

The end has an excellent, climatic four-way showdown with the Evil Ching General (and, for some reason, his many clones); who has learnt the skills of the Shaolin monks and constantly changes his style until Carter sacrifices himself, leaving the General open to be killed.

The 18 Bronzemen has impressive production values and looks pretty expensive in places, and although the outcome is never in much doubt, the climatic four-way showdown is well-staged by Kuo.

My issue with this movie is that that 18 bronze men do not offer any real threat to the heroes in this movie. They should have been the personal bodyguards of the Ching General, or at least try to kill the heroes; too many times you hear a voice boom “PASS!” as the Bronzemen stop fighting and let the heroes move to the next room.

Although a reasonable fun film, this 70’s kung fu movie lacks real danger and wasn’t the classic all-out kung fu movie I was lead to believe.

Overall: 4/10

Samuel L Jackson stars as FBI Agent Nelville Flynn who is transporting a witness for the prosecution, Sean Jones (played by Nathan Phillips), from Hawaii to Los Angeles after Jones witnesses the brutal murder of a special prosecutor by vicious crime kingpin Eddie Kim.

In short, Eddie Kim pays off an airport baggage handler to inform him of the plane used by the FBI to transport Sean Jones to smuggle on a plane load of snakes.

During the flight, the snakes escape their cargo hold and start invading the plane, killing people in gruesome, and sometimes hilarious manners. At some points in the film, it was getting very close to jumping straight into the whole Airplane! spoof territory. At times, I was the only one laughing at the subtle dark humor, as well as the quite obviousily Internet geek-written ideas that saw Snakes biting female and male genitlia in every which way possible.

In a film that has had this much Internet hype, one would be forgiven for thinking this film would be very disappointing. But I found it okay, an enjoyable film that isn’t too sick, but lacks that killer blow (if you pardon the pun) that I was expecting.

Even before this movie hit the screens, the Internet was buzzing, fan-posters, fan movies and much more were being made; all in a frenzy to jump on board the runaway freight train that was Snakes on a Plane.

Perhaps I was expecting more of an snake-ploitation of the movie with Samuel L Jackson saying “Muftha-fucker” every five seconds, I mean the whole blogosphere was going nuts of around the whole idea that Jackson saying “MF” this and “MF” that whilst adding the word “snakes” every five seconds… unfortunately there’s only 1 time when it does delve into this when Jackson yells “That’s it! I’ve had it with these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane!”

There are problems in the film, plot wise it’s big enough for a plane filled with snakes to fly through; other times you’re thinking “That’s just stupid”, but that’s because its a classic B movie… yeah, sure the whole 20/20 green vision may remind you of that infamous Paris Hilton sex video, but I think most of it was done with good humour.

Apart from that, it’s very much like Lake Placid + Airport 197X + Dark humour = Classic B Movie fun in Snakes on a plane.

Overall rating: 6/10

• Other reviews on RottenTomatoes
• More SOAP Fan Posters