John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019)

John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019)

Director: Chad Stahelski 

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Angelica Houston, Ian McShane

To be honest, I never understood what was the big deal with these John Wick movies, so this review comes from a viewer who was never a huge fan of the previous two films. I get why people love these movies, Keanu plus dogs = box office gold. Both are lovable, cause Keanu is Keanu and dogs, well, who doesn’t love dogs right? What I didn’t like about the first two movies was that they were R rated action movies, that behaved like they were rated PG-13. By this I mean that the amount of graphic violence and bloodshed felt limited, restrained. This is a problem for me because these are action films and to me action equals, nitty gritty, bloody and graphic. Intensity is of the essence in action films. I come from the 80’s, which means I was raised with action movies like Lethal Weapon (1987), which means I like my action to be graphic. So I never really understood why these films were holding back. It’s not that I didn’t like these movies, because they are super stylish and fun, but they needed a little more oomph to them in my opinion.  So here comes part 3, which had an awesome trailer that got me all convinced this was going to be the one to finally win me over. Did it? 

Parabellum picks up right where the second film left off, with every single hit man in the world looking for John Wick, who has a price of 14 million on his head. That’s about all you have to know about this movie to see it. Basically, these John Wick movies all have one simple excuse for all the mayhem to kick off. On the first one they killed his dog. On the second one they thrashed his car. On this one Mr. Wick doesn’t want to die because he wants to go on living so he can remember the love of his life. So basically, that’s the McGuffin on this movie. It’s the excuse to kick things off. 

And boy do things kick off quickly! In this sense John Wick delivers every step of the way, it is literally non-stop action. It never stops. And the action scenes are intricate, extensive and we can actually see what is happening. For a while there, action films were all about blurry camera movements that only suggested what was happening. This was a technique that got very popular after Ridley Scott used it in Gladiator (2000). For a while there in action films, lots of action was happening, but in reality, we understood very little of what was going on. Not on John Wick Chapter 3, here we can see everything that happens! There’s no unnecessary jerky cam to hide behind; on this film all the action is crystal clear. 

The action is truly awesome here. I’ve always described these films as excuses to show a million entertaining ways to kill people, and trust me, that’s exactly what you are going to get! We got Keanu shooting guns while horse back riding, we got Keanu shooting guns and sword fighting while riding a motorcycle, we got Keanu making the best use of a massive gun arsenal! I mean, if this isn’t the best definition for the quintessential ‘gun ballad’, I don’t know what is! Gun ballads are these usually super stylized action films that are paper thin in plot and everything is resolved with a gun. Examples of these types of films include films like Wanted (2008), Shoot ‘em Up (2007) and El Mariachi (1992). The John Wick films definitely fit this profile. You so much as look at John Wick wrong you’re going to get a bullet in ‘ya. The violence can become numbing after a while, to the point where I was expecting the film to come up with some bat shit insane death to surprise me, and it always did. Just when you think you’re getting bored, John Wick stabs somebody in the eye. Slowly. 

Basically, this is the same exact formula as the previous films, only that much cooler. That much more violent. So yes, this was the one that completely won me over. To me, this third John Wick film truly earned its ‘R’ rating, it is the best of the three. It is a guaranteed fun time at the movies. The deaths are way more graphic, the action is never ending and interesting and the stunts are amazing. A lot of that has to do with the fact that Chad Stahelski, the films director is a stunt man himself. He has doubled for many actors in action films, including Keanu in The Matrix films. What works in favor of these John Wick movies is that Stahelski knows his way around action sequences.  He even trained Brandon Lee in Jeet Kun Do, before Lee’s death in The Crow, hell, Stahelski doubled for Lee in The Crow when they decided to finish the film.  Stahelski also knows how to make a film look good. I mean, everything in John Wick looks like its glowing with neon colors! New York looks amazing on this film! By the way, this film is very New York. 42nd Street, Grand Central Station, The Continental, New York and John Wick are one here. I hear this director has signed up to direct the upcoming Highlander remake. There’s even an inside joke in Parabellum where John Wick walks into an establishment called ‘MacLeod’s’, definitely a hint of things to come, to which I say hell yeah. If the sword play in John Wick 3 is any indication, we’re in for a show.  

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Man of Steel (2013)

Title: Man of Steel (2013)

Director: Zack Snyder

Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Antje Traue, Laurence Fishburne

Review:

Without a doubt Man of Steel is the hottest ticket in town; the quintessential ‘movie of the summer’, it’s the “gotta see” of the summer season; so of course I was excited as hell to see it. I had my ticket a whole week before it was released, nothing was gonna stop me from seeing this one! The anticipation was a turn on as they say. The last cinematic incarnation of Superman was Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns (2006). Those of you who saw it know it was disappointing in the sense that we rarely saw Superman doing anything very super; unless you count being a super stalker, a super power. He spent too much of his time brooding over Louis Lane rather than kicking some ass. So naturally, the big question on everyone’s mind is will this new Superman finally kick some ass? The answer to that question is a resounding yes! There’s so much ass kicking on this movie that you won’t know if Superman is saving or destroying Metropolis!

Since this is the first film in a new chapter of Superman films, Man of Steel has to go through the rite of passage of telling, once again, Superman’s origin story which we’d already seen in Superman (1978) and Superman Returns. But don’t worry, the good thing is that Man of Steel does it through a series of flashbacks, we don’t really dwell too much in Superman’s teenage years. Like the story of Jesus in the bible, Clark goes from being a child to being 33 years old in the blink of an eye, which by the way is also Jesus’s age in the bible. Same as Jesus; Kal-El is sent by his father to earth to “save them all”, so the parallels with Jesus Christ are pretty blunt on this one, actually there's more of them: Clark ends up being a fisherman, just like Jesus was a fisherman. Hell, Superman’s father tells him “you’ll be a God to them”, so yeah, there’s tons of biblical references on Man of Steel. Superman is even portrayed as having Catholic beliefs, which for me is one of the weak points in the film because this was never a part of who Superman is, its one of the reason why I lowered the score a bit. But unfortunately, according to this film, Clark is brought up in a Christian family. Clarks earth mother Martha Kent (played by Diane Lane) even wears a crucifix on her neck throughout the movie, so yeah, Superman’s a catholic on this one. Why did the filmmakers choose to go this route with the character?  

The thing about Superman is that he is supposed to represent the best in humanity, our best qualities, our highest morals, so I’m guessing this is why they gave him a Christian background, because Christianity portrays itself as a belief system with high moral values, never mind the pedophilia and the mass murders they’ve committed throughout history, Catholicism is supposed to be wholesome, keywords here being “supposed to be”. So then we have Clark sort of trying to hide the fact that he’s Superman because his earthly father, Jonathan Kent tells him the people of earth simply wouldn’t be able to deal with it, one lady who witnesses Superman’s strength starts saying that he is a God send. So Clark is always walking that dubious line between maintaining his secret, or coming out to the world as a super powered alien being. I enjoyed how they explored that angle of Superman changing people’s perceptions of why we are here. They go a bit into how Superman’s existence finally answers the question “are we alone in the universe?” I wish they’d gone a bit deeper into that, I personally think a whole new religion would pop up that would worship Superman, but they don’t go that far into it. So as you can see, this Superman movie gets quite existential. 

"We going to church today mom?"

Superman has always been portrayed as an American icon. His very suit is made up of two of the colors of the American flag. In the old television shows he was portrayed as a character who stood up for “truth, justice and the American way”. So I guess that’s why there’s so much product placement on this film! I counted Sears, 7-Eleven and IHOP amongst the companies that paid moola for their name to appear on this movie. I personally hate that whole “American Way” aspect of Superman, because really, a guy that powerful would be a citizen of the world, not of the United States. If Superman is that noble, that wholesome, he would see past borders and nationalities, he wouldn’t be “as American as they come”. But that’s the way they want to portray Superman on this film and with this movie they’ve really gone all the way with that whole idea. I mean, right before the movie started, they gave a commercial for the U.S. Army in which they compare the American military to Superman as if saying that American soldiers are real life heroes, never mind that most of them die in the line of battle for their countries egotistical reasons, sometimes for reasons that the soldiers themselves don’t even understand. Never mind that the American military is used to invade and conquer other countries simply because they have lots of oil, never mind all the atrocities they’ve committed, like bombing schools and hospitals, never mind that they are the nation that has killed the most people in one single swoop; they are heroes! So, this is a movie that takes Superman, the most powerful being on earth and puts a ‘Made in America’ stamp on it. The most powerful being on the planet is an American, and he’s working side by side with the U.S. Army! Barf. Personally, I hated that about this movie, but no worries, this didn’t hinder my enjoyment of this massive summer movie blockbuster.

And when I say massive, I mean massive! When Supes and General Zod go at each other it is a dangerous affair which puts the citizens of Metropolis in true peril. On this one you won’t get people eating Ice Cream and talking on the phone as Gods are fighting each other destroying the city like in Superman II (1980). Nope, on this one the citizens of Metropolis have to run for their lives or get killed in Zod’s wake! Buildings are toppled, cars fly up in the air and massive amounts of concrete is destroyed when these guys go at each other. The battles are epic and certainly surpass the fight between General Zod and Superman in Superman II; a film which I still enjoy very much. Before this whole superhero revival thing that started with X-Men (2000), Superman II was the best of the superhero movies for me. But of course, it was quickly surpassed by many of the superhero films that are so common today, like say for example The Avengers (2012), which set a new standard for superhero films. And there’s no denying that this new Superman movie is influenced immensely by The Avengers, we get dimensional portals, an alien invasion in a major city and superheroes dueling in the skies; sound familiar? It’s because that’s exactly what The Avengers was all about too. But don’t fret, this isn’t a Xerox copy of The Avengers, yet there’s no denying the influence that film has over this one. I would go on to say that it’s the first official film to be influenced by The Avengers in that it’s trying to reach the same levels of destruction and epic scope.

Yet, the film goes its own way offering us many original elements. For example ‘Krypton ‘, Superman’s home world is a wonder to behold; I loved how they portrayed the different levels of political hierarchy. The technology of the planet mixes the organic with the technological in a really interesting way. The whole deal with Superman’s father, and who he was on his planet, loved that whole bit. We get to see why the suit, why the ‘S’, why the super powers, basically, all the ‘why’s’ about superman are answered. This film simply explains things better. But what we really wanted to see with this new film is Superman kicking ass right? So don’t worry my friends, there’s tons of that! This movie delivers on the spectacle arena, you won’t be disappointed. As a summer blockbuster, this movie functions to perfection, without a hitch. Casting wise the film is perfect, Henry Cavill as Kal-El was perfect casting, he looks the part. There was a moment where I thought I saw Christopher Reeves face, but it could have been my nostalgia goggles messing with me. Amy Adams as Louis was great, she isn’t bitchy or cartoony, she’s just a smart reporter, though I do feel that Louis and Clark’s love on this movie comes out of left field because there’s nothing to really validate it or spark it, it simply happens, it feels like they fall for each other simply because that’s what happens between Louis and Clark, not because they genuinely fell in love. Michael Shannon is great as Zod, but I was expecting a more intense portrayal of the character coming from Shannon, who is used to playing intensely nutty characters. Still, he doesn’t mess things up, it’s just that I thought he’d do something just a little more over the top.

  

Bottom line is this movie didn’t disappoint with its spectacle and massive amounts of destruction, the only reason why the film looses a couple of points for me is for using Superman to spread patriotism (which to me is simply another form of fanatism) and for making him a catholic, which just sucks, Catholicism was never a part of the equation; but the rest of the movie? Freaking awesome! A great summer blockbuster that won’t disappoint in terms of constantly showing you cool stuff. I mean, how cool was it that Superman finally used his heat vision and his super speed? Trust me on this one you’ll see Superman doing stuff you’ve never seen him do on any other movie, like for example, seeking the council of a Catholic priest. After the film finished, the audience stayed behind expecting one of those cliffhanger endings that the Marvel and Fast and the Furious films have popularized so much, but don’t waste your time, you’re not going to get it here. The filmmakers opted not to give us a cliffhanger as if saying: "this is a DC movie not a Marvel movie and don’t you forget it!" I'm positive that this movie will make obscene amounts of money, and I'm sure a sequel is certain, actually, both David Goyer the films writer, and Zack Snyder, the films director are signed to return. The success of Man of Steal will determine if we will ever see a Justice League movie, so if you want to see that movie happen, go on and see Man of Steel. If Man of Steel is any indication, we should be in for something  special, DC style. 

   

Rating: 4 out of 5  

Red Heat (1988)

Title: Red Heat (1988)

Director: Walter Hill

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi, Peter Boyle, Ed O’Ross, Laurence Fishburne, Gina Gershon

Review:

Watching an action film from director Walter Hill is a special treat for any lover of action films. Hill’s specialty has always been tough dudes who shoot guns, spew one liners and blow things up good. His films are the epitome of testosterone fueled action films. In no decade was this displayed better then in the 80’s where Hill made films like 48 Hrs. (1982), Extreme Prejudice (1987), Johnny Handsome (1989) and the film I’ll be talking about today, Red Heat (1988). His affinity for guns probably comes from his love of Cowboy movies of which he has made a few, in fact, he has said that everyone of his films is a western in one way or another, which explains why there’s so many shootouts in his films. His love for guns and violence is still going strong to this day, his latest action film was called Bullet to the Head (2012)! Unfortunately, that films dismal box office performance (even while starring Stallone himself!) might prove that the time of the violence/gun filled action film is over, a time gone, but not forgotten. Yeah, there was a time when action films filled with violence and blood where king in cinemas!  And that time was the 80’s!

In Red Heat Walter Hill collaborated with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at the time was making a pretty good name for himself as action film star. When he made Red Heat, Arnold had already made films like The Terminator (1984), Commando (1985), Predator (1987) and The Running Man (1987), back then audiences just couldn’t get enough of ‘The Governator’. In Red Heat Arnold plays Captain Ivan Danko a Russian police man who comes to the United States looking for Viktor, a Russian drug dealer who’s escaped his country and is trying to establish himself as a drug dealer in the U.S. Danko is asigned to come to America to aprehend Viktor, and when he does so he is assigned to Detective Sargeant Art Ridzik played by James Belushi. Ridzik is a messy dude who breaks the rules as often as possible, but it is now his job to take care of Danko while he is in America. In accordance to buddy cop rule #654, at first Ridzik and Danko don’t get along in the least, but they soon learn they’ll have to work together if they want to stop their mutual enemy and who knows, maybe they'll learn to appreciate each other.

The ‘buddy cop movie’ was alive and kicking back in the 80’s, thanks in no small part to the success of the Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop movies which were huge money makers back in those days. Back in the 80’s these movies strived! Usually in these films, one cop is a ‘by the rules’ type of guy while the other one is the wild card of the two. One is clean the other messy, sometimes they are of different ethnicities or even planets, or a combination of all of these. Sometimes one of the cops is alive and the other one is undead as was the case in Dead Heat (1988). Notable examples of these type of films are Alien Nation (1989), Tango and Cash (1989) and Black Rain (1989), to mention but a few of these films. In Red Heat the funny comes from the combination of having a tight ass Russian cop (Schwarzenegger) team up with a smart ass/loud mouth American cop played by Belushi. Gotta admit the combination worked like magic! There’s this one scene where the chief of police asks Danko how do Russian police men deal with all the stress and Danko replies dryly:  “Vodka”. So it’s the differences between these two guys that fuels the comedy. The formula used in Red Heat is nothing new for Hill. In fact, it’s not all that different from Walter Hill’s own 48 Hrs., on that one we have the same basic formula, two extremely different individuals having to work together to achieve a goal.

But aside from the comedy, a good body cop movie should always have good action or else the film risks losing its largely male audience, so does Red Heat deliver in this respect? Hell yeah, it’s Walter Hill at the helm what did you expect? The film starts out with this fight sequence in a Russian bath house, and Arnold kicks the living shit out of some dude while rolling around in the snow half naked. Then we move on to a shootout in the streets of Russia, a couple of more shoot outs when the film shifts to U.S., and finally, the film ends with this spectacular chase sequence through the streets of Chicago involving two Greyhound Buses! Now that scene must have taken a while to shoot because it’s pretty complex and extensive.  But speaking about this film partially being shot in Russia, it’s important to note that this was the first American production that shot some scenes in the famed Red Square. The story behind that is that the Russian cultural department didn't give them the permission to shoot there (actually they never even replied the request) so they just took a very small crew, dressed Arnold up as a Russian cop and shot the thing as if it was some sort of amateur film being made. The results are pretty cool and add authenticity to the scenes.

Red Heat is a film that comments on the slowly evolving sentiments between both countries. Here we have a film with a Russian coming to America; so we have one of the “Reds” among the Americans, and here’s what’s interesting about everything, he’s the good guy in the film! If you remember correctly, the Russians used to be the “bad guys”! Red Heat shows us that the way Americans were seeing Russians was starting to shift, the Russians were no longer the bad guys because during the last half of the 80’s, treaties were being signed between both countries that would put an end to the cold war, so in a way the film is a reflection of this new ideology that was on the horizon; in a couple of years, the Russians wouldnt be the enemies anymore. Soon the hatred would shift towards Saddam Hussein, and later towards Osama Bin Laden. Same as in Orwell’s 1984, the government keeps shifting their countries hatred towards something different; the importance being to always keep the profitable (for them anyways) state of war. Yes my friends, Red Heat is another film that reflects the realities of our lives. But I don’t want to make it sound like this film is all political; this is actually a very fun buddy cop film filled with action, comedy and lots of shoot outs, Walter Hill style! It won’t change your life, but it will entertain you for a while.

Rating:  4 out of 5

Cherry 2000 (1987)

Title: Cherry 2000 (1987)

Director: Steve De Jarnatt

Cast: Melanie Griffith, David Andrews, Pamela Gidley, Laurence Fishburne, Brion James, Tim Thomerson, Robert Z’Dar

Review:

Cherry 2000 is one of those movies that once completed; had the head honchos over at Orion Pictures  scratching their heads, trying to figure out how to sell the picture. A Romantic post apocalyptic movie? Do they sell it to the female demographic because its lead is an actress and it has romantic elements attached to it? Or do they sell it to the male audience, because of its post-apocalyptic/action/adventure elements? Is it a comedy or an action film, or what? This ambiguity held the film back, not knowing who to sell the movie to always gives studio heads cold feet. This insecurity from part of the studio is what killed the movie. Even though it was filmed in 1985, it ended up being released in theaters in 1987! And that was only in foreign countries! It made its way to American audiences through home video market in 1988 which is when I first got a glimpse of it and where it acquired its current cult status. It wasn’t even deemed worthy of a theatrical release in the United States; as a result, the film was a huge flop. I guess it was just too off beat for some people.  But was it? Read on my friends!

The perfect couple?

Cherry 2000 is all about a guy named Sam Treadwell, a guy who’s extremely happy because he has this smoking hot blonde bomb shell waiting for him at home. She looks beautiful, she has dinner ready for him (his favorite dish: Cheese Burgers and French Fries!) and she has nothing but good things to say to Sam. She’s also willing to have sex on the kitchen floor at the tip of a hat! No problemo! Oh wait, I failed to mention that this magical lady is also a cyborg! A robotic model called Cherry 2000! So one day, when Sam and Cherry are ‘doing it’ on the kitchen floor, they get so into each other that they don’t realize that the dishwasher is over flowing and the soapy water begins to pour all over the floor; they are so into each other that they don’t care. Problem is that Cherry is a cyborg, and the soapy water messes up her circuits! She ends up shorting out right there on the kitchen floor! What’s Sam to do now that he doesn’t have his ‘perfect woman’? Send a bounty hunter to find the same model that’s what! And there’s no better bounty hunter for the job than E. Johnson. The real problem is that this Cherry 2000 model is so old that one of the few remaining models can only be found in a post apocalyptic wasteland called ‘Zone 7’. Will E. Johnson and Sam find the new Cherry 2000 and make it out of Zone 7 alive? 

So yeah, I think it’s safe to say that this film is ‘off beat’, but not off beat enough to deserve the kick in the groin that it got from the studio, I mean, I’ve seen far stranger films that’s for sure. Still, I have to admit that a romantic/post-apocalyptic/comedy/action/adventure is quite the mash up of genres. Genre mixing is a risky move for any studio, but some times the illusion of novelty that these films offer works; for example Back to the Future III (1990) a film that mixed science fiction elements with a western, or Army of Darkness (1992) which was a mixture of horror and slapstick comedy with a good measure of adventure thrown in.  Since Cherry 2000 is a difficult film to categorize within a particular genre, well, it then becomes a hard sell because the studio doesn’t know on what channel or magazine they are going to spend their advertising money.  The thing about Hollywood is that they like a sure thing, and films like Cherry 2000 do not offer them that. Hollywood will rarely take a chance with films of this nature.

But this doesn’t make Cherry 2000 any less watchable, and films like this always find their audience one way or another. Monster Squad (1987) is an example I always use. Monster Squad was a mixed genre film. It mixed a kids movie, with monsters. Hollywood didn’t know who to sell it too, it was too scary for kids and too kiddie for adults. As a result, the film was a box office flop even though it was actually a good flick. Audiences found it anyway on home video, and so, Monster Squad’s is currently one of those beloved cult classics people can’t seem to get enough of. Melanie Griffith says that Cherry 2000 is her least favorite movie (must be all those shameless one liners she hurls through out the whole film) yet recognizes that it has a cult following. What is it that people find likable about Cherry 2000? It could be various things, but one of them has to be Melanie Griffith looking all sorts of hot, she’s sexy and tough all rolled up into one. She’s a one liner spewing loner with a heart of gold. She’s a kick ass driver, and has a cool looking red mustang with buttons and doo dads that make the car go faster. She fires freaking rocket launchers for god sakes! This is one tough chick, which equals sexy on many a fan boys book. E. Johnson is the quintessential ‘bad girl’. Then there’s of course her car, which I should have included in my 40 Memorable Movie Cars article I wrote a while back. The car is all sorts of awesome and it of course steals the show in some sequences, the most memorable one of course is the one where E. Johnson shoots her guns while hanging from her red mustang, which is being dangled over the Hoover Dam. Which by the way I have to commend, that was a real stunt. Not CGI, not miniatures…that’s a real car and a real stunt person hanging from that car! The sequence is the most spectacular in the whole film.

Thematically speaking, Cherry 2000 speaks about, amongst other things, classism. Sam and E. Johnson encounter a colony of survivors who live on top of a mountain called “Sky Ranch”. They have all the commodities, have all the parties, all the food, but it you are not like them, they’ll probably end up killing you. The film also addresses women’s rights; the idea that women are not robots, or sex slaves or merely there to have your meal ready when you get home. The film speaks about women’s right to an opinion, to express themselves, to have careers, to have feelings that need to be taken into consideration.  Basically, the film speaks rather bluntly about how women aren’t in this world to serve men as slaves. They have their own lives to live and their own choices to make; and E. Johnson is representative of that. She’s the anti-thesis of what some men expect of a woman. Sam is the typical guy who thinks all he wants is this pretty little house wife who looks beautiful all day long and will have his dinner ready when he gets back. E. Johnson is the independent girl who knows how to look out for herself, she’s opinionated, driven and has time for love and sweetness at the same time. In the end, this is a film that speaks about accepting each other the way we are, warts and all. Nobody is perfect, so why should we expect perfection from others? 

Ultimately, this isn’t the best film ever made. It has action and likable characters, but sometimes runs into dull areas. It’s a mish-mash of genres, but if you’re ready for that well, you should have no problem. Also, the film is peppered with cameos from genre favorites like a very young Lawrence Fishburne playing a lawyer in a dance club called ‘The Glu Glu Glub’. We also get to see Brion James and even the big jawed dude Robert D’Zar, better known for his contributions to Maniac Cop (1988). The one who will probably get the most recognition from hardcore genre veterans is Tim Thomerson as Lester, the leader of the crazy colonists. Some of you genre loving fans out there might recognize him from many Full Moon productions like Dollman (1991) and Trancers (1985) where he played the time traveling dude, Jack Death. Many will probably see a bit of  Mad Max in Cherry 2000 because of its post apocalyptic roots, but in all honesty, it reminded me more of Susan Seidelman’s Making Mr. Right (1987) only in reverse. On that one the nature of relationships is also explored by using cyborgs as the main thrust for the film, only on that one it was a male cyborg played by John Malkovich. This of course proves once again that one of the best film genres to explore the realities and complexities of humanity is science fiction.  

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5

Death Wish and Death Wish 2

Title: Death Wish (1974) and Death Wish 2 (1982)

Director: Michael Winner

Cast: Charles Bronson, Hope Lange, Vincent Gardenia, Jeff Goldblum, Laurence Fishburne

Review:

One thing popped into my mind while watching Charles Bronson mercilessly kicking crimes ass in Death Wish: “they just don’t make them like this anymore”. And that is true, stone cold classics like this aren’t made in these extremely PC, PG-13 days. Bad ass mother truckers like Charles Bronson aren’t born anymore either. I mean, Jason Statham might try to be as ice cold deadly as Bronson by remaking Bronson’s The Mechanic (1972) (which I will be reviewing soon) but he is a few bald spots short of portraying that hard ass/mean bastard persona that Bronson displayed so naturally. One icy cold stare from Bronson and you knew you were going to meet your maker. One look at a film like Death Wish and its obvious that action films have been as watered down same way that  horror films have. Sad but true, action/horror films just don’t have the gravitas they used to. At least we still have these grimy revenge flicks on dvd to remind us of a bygone era in Hollywood filmmaking, a time when filmmakers didn’t even take in consideration having their character do the right thing. Or the best thing, he simply did what had to be done.

Paul Kersey the architect, but his real passion is vigilantism. 

 Story for Death Wish concerns an architect called Paul Kersey (Bronson). Paul lives a great life with his wife and daughter. Film starts out with Paul and his wife on vacation in Hawaii, taking in the sunsets, enjoying a dinner by candlelight, basically, having a grand old time with his beautiful wife. But crime never sleeps, and so, one night, while Paul is still working in the office, a band of hoodlums that seem to have come straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) burst into his home and savagely attack his wife and daughter, effectively killing Paul’s wife. By the way, keep an eye open for a very young Jeff Goldblum who plays one of the rapists! This was Goldblum’s debut film. So anyways, the authorities promise to perform an investigation, but that’s as far as it goes. Paul knows the cops aren’t going to get anything really done in a city as big as New York, so he does what any revenge hungry ex-husband would do under the same circumstances; he goes out and starts looking for those responsible. And those of their ilk. Which means, if you’re a criminal, you were going to get your lesson coming from Bronson’s gun. Paul turns vigilante and starts whacking out any bastard who even looks at him funny. Bronson is tired of getting kicked around by thugs and living in fear, he takes matters into his own hands and turns into a stone cold vigilante! Are the streets ready for Paul Kemp’s vengeful anger?

 Death Wish took me back to those days when there were no video cameras in every square of inch of the city. This was a time when if you were waiting for the train at 2 a.m. and a group of thugs came into the subway, kicked you in the nuts, stole your wallet and took off running, no one would know it happened but you. The thug who did it would end up happily counting your hard earned cash in some dark corner of the city. I lived in New York City during the early 80’s, and I can attest to that feeling of insecurity you got while walking the streets at night. Deathwish captures that feeling perfectly. I know what it was like to take the train and suddenly become frozen with fear when a good for nothing troublemaker walked into the train cabin, with mischief on his mind; with evil in his eyes. Films like Deathwish were a response to that out of control wave of violence that took over the streets of New York City circa 1970’s. You’d walk with fear of getting mugged, or raped or possibly even killed, all for the contents of your wallet.

Gun behind the newspaper, oldest trick in the book!

 But this is a film that looks at those criminals straight in the eyes and says “Screw you bastards! You’re all going down!” It has that “I’m not taking this shit anymore” vibe going for it. It’s a film with the mentality of someone who has decided to take matters into his own hands. Since there are no video cameras taping your every move, Paul Kersey can whip out his gun, blow away any criminal that attempts a vile act and simply walk away from the scene as if nothing had ever happened. Paul Kersey vengeful acts are fueled by what was done to his wife and daughter, but its crime in general who pays. He doesn’t just focus his vigilantism towards the ones who hurt his family; Paul Kersey goes out into the streets to declare war on all manner of thugs. Kersey goes from one scumbag to the next, blowing them away as best as his gun can, cleaning up the city for good. Doing what the police haven’t got the man power to do. In a way, Kersey ends up being a hero.

 I saw Death Wish and Death Wish 2 (1982) over the weekend; while watching the second one, I couldn’t help feeling like I was watching the first one all over again. Yes my friends, Death Wish 2 is basically the exact same movie, with the exact same plot. It picks up where the first one left off; with Kersey trying to help his daughter lead a normal life again after the events of the first film. He’s got himself a new girlfriend and a new job in Los Angeles. Slowly but surely, happiness seems to be creeping back into his life. But, crime doesn’t rest, and so hoodlums break into his household once again. They rape his housemaid, and kidnap and rape his daughter. And so the cycle of revenge fueled vigilantism continues. The sequel focuses more on Kersey seeking revenge from the actual perpetrators of the crimes, as opposed to crime in general as seen on the first film.  But he still manages to save a citizen or two from a criminal attack; it is in these scenes that he is portrayed as a hero, or a “very good citizen” for doing what he does. While Kersey is out there stopping crime, the film asks the police force: “Where the hell where you guys?”

 In spite of Death Wish 2’s repetitiveness in storyline, it still manages to have its moments and some very memorable lines. One scene has Kersey following a group of criminals into an abandoned hotel. Upon coming face to face with one of the men who raped his daughter, Kersey notices that the perpetrator is wearing a crucifix on his neck. He asks the low life: “Do you believe in Jesus?” and the guy says “Yes” then Kersey tells him: “Well, you’re going to meet him!” and then BLAMO! Blows the guy away! No mercy for the wicked. Death Wish 1 and 2 were films of their time, they represented a frustration with the violence on the streets, and a desire for citizens to take matters into their own hands and protect themselves from the evil out there on the streets. Some studios backed away from producing these films because they considered them too controversial. They didn’t want to spread the idea of vigilantism amongst the populace and because they thought that a film with the word “Death” on its title wouldn’t sell tickets. Boy where they wrong! This franchise lasted all the way up to Death Wish 5: The Face of Death (1994), where Kersey still kicked ass even though Bronson was something like 72 years old when he made that film; evidence that Charles Bronson’s hard ass genes  allow him to kick ass longer than any normal man would.

Rating Death Wish (1974): 4  

Rating Death Wish 2 (1985): 3 1/2

Predators (2010)

Title: Predators (2010)

Director: Nimrod Antal

Cast: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace

Review:

Many moons ago, when Rodriguez was directing Desperado, and his career was in diapers still, he wrote a script called PREDATORS. The studio rejected it because it was deemed too expensive at the time. Fast forward many successful films later, and many millions of dollars at the box office and the studio unearths Rodriguez’s script and decides they want to have him resurrect the Predator franchise. Cool thing is that Rodriguez now has his own production studio (Troublemaker Studios) and makes his own movies in his own way. The studio offers him the option of making the film with Troublemaker Studios, in this way giving him and his production crew the freedom and liberty to make this Predator movie in their own way. That is how Predators the film I will be reviewing today, was born.

The film tells the story of a group of individuals who are hurled into this strange planet that resembles earth, but isn’t. They literally wake up while free falling down to this planet! Good thing who ever hurled them down gave them a parachute! And good thing these guys know how to use it. Once down on the planet, they explore their surroundings and ask themselves how they got there. It’s not just every day that you wake up free falling towards a strange and exotic planet with more then one moon. As they explore their jungle like surroundings, they realize that they are being watched, and quite possibly hunted! Turns out this planet is the Predators own private wild life preserve where they raise the creatures that they hunt. Will the humans find a way off this god forsaken rock?

What we got here ladies and gentlemen is a sequel that completely respects the original. So much so that it practically plays out exactly the same way that the original Arnold Schwarznegger film played out. A bunch of tough guys in the jungle running from an invisible creature that hunts them. Some scenes are almost too similar, like those where the guys find dead skinned bodies, scenes where everyone is terrified that there might be something looking on from behind the fauna. And of course, the scene where everyone goes batshit insane wasting amo, shooting at ghosts. So expect lots of similarities with the first film.

Testosterone Overdose coming right up! The tough as nail cast of the original Predator (1987).

Of course, the filmmakers were going to give us some familiarity with this new film. They want us to connect, via our collective nostalgia, to the first film. Let’s face it, if you were a kid through the 8o’s chances are you went to see this movie to the theaters. Or at least saw it at least a gazillion times on VHS or on cable. Schwarznegger films had reached an apex by the time PREDATOR was released in 1987. Schwarznegger was king of action films back then, and this movie took him up a couple of notches in that department. The original was a film for guys, about guys. If you notice, the cast was made up entirely of tough hombres. Cigar chomping, muscle bound, military killing machines. Besides Arnold, the original films cast was made up of a who’s who of tough guys: Jesse Ventura, Carl Weathers and a couple of other tough looking actors. Heck, it was a film produced by king of macho action films Joel Silver, so this film was bound to be a testosterone overdose from the get go. In fact, the original film was such a guys film that the only female presence in the film was a scared native girl they find while investigating the jungles of Guatemala. She is terrified of the creature, but she’ll be alright, she’s got all these tough dudes to protect her! Keeping in line with all the similarities to the original, on Predators we also get a female thrown in the mix played by Alice Braga. The update is that she’s not a scared and horrified girl waiting for the tough guys to protect her; she’s actually a kick ass war torn chick who knows how to handle herself. And a machine gun!

This one is a bit different in that the guys in this film are not addicted to going to the gym everyday to pump iron. On this one we have mostly guys, yeah, but they are a bit more vulnerable. Let’s face it, Adrien Brody isn’t exactly the embodiment of tough looking dudes, he has a more vulnerable looking physique, though I think that helps the story a bit. He isn’t this indestructible looking tank like Arnold. But to Brody’s credit I will say that he did apparently work out to toughen himself up for this role. Topher Grace is also thrown in the mix, and he isn’t so tough looking either. Actually, he plays a doctor! We get a Chinese guy with katanas, and finally, I think the toughest dude on this movie is Machete himself, Danny Trejo. So we get an assortment of tough yet vulnerable dudes to go up against the beasts.

The big difference in this film is that we get more Predators. Hence, ‘s’ at the end of the title. I really liked something about this movie and it’s that we have two warring Predator factions, the younger vs. the older ones. In one awesome sequence we get the older Predator fighting against the older one, and the older one looks exactly like the Predator on the original 1987 film! A great nod to Stan Winston and his work in designing the original beast. The new predators that show up in the film are interesting as well. Kudos to the guys at KNB FX (headed by now make up effects legends Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero) for outdoing themselves once again with yet another batch of excellent make up effects creations. These guys have never disappointed me with their work, and Predators is no exception.

The KNB FX guys give a nod to Stan Winston's original creature design on this new film

This wasn’t the best Predator film ever made; the story feels like it needed a little something extra to make it fully tick. I mean, I didn’t like the fact that they changed the focus from having the Predators be the main threat to having some of the humans become the threat. The main focus of the original was the human vs. the monster. On this one, the film plays out more like CUBE (1997), where we lock a bunch of humans up in one place and see which one shows his evil side first. The story wasn’t as epic or as important as I would have liked for it to be, but we owe that to the studio. They deliberately wanted a smaller film, to test the waters, see how much the audience wants another Predator film. I guess people do want another one, the film went on to make 126 million worldwide. But whatever, I didn’t hate this Predator film which is a good thing. I mean, at least it wasn’t a complete disappointment like Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem (2004) was. Let’s just hope that future films in this franchise improve. Rodriguez himself said that the story can go any number of directions, let’s hope they decide to take things in a more epic direction. There is hope in Rodriguez’s own words: “the bigger movie would actually be what comes following that. Then you can really go crazy from there”. Let’s hope the next film lives up to those words!

Rating: 3 out of 5