Mr. Mom (1983)

Tagline: Caroline’s a rising executive. Jack just lost his job. Jack’s going to have to start from the bottom up.

Curiosity: It was $3.99, that’s why.

Plot: Jack (Michael Keaton) is a car engineer. Or, he was. After getting laid off, Jack and his wife Caroline (Teri Garr) both search for work, with Caroline inexplicably becoming a high power advertising executive within weeks (Oh, John Hughes, I want to live in your world…) while Jack stays home to raise their three children. It’s an awkward transition for Jack as he gets to know all the stay-at-home mothers in the neighborhood. One mother in particular, Joan (Ann Jillian), really wants to get to know Jack.

I mean she wants to have sex with him.

Thoughts: I think of Mr. Mom as the I Love You, Man of its day – both films suffer from conservative, insulting scripts but were partially redeemed by their respective leads. Just as Paul Rudd and Jason Segel made Man entertaining, so too did Michael Keaton and Teri Garr in Mr. Mom. Keaton in particular knocks out riff after riff.

While some of the scenes are good on their own (like when Keaton tries to understand the insane hierarchy of grocery stores, a bit that’s still true to life), the film’s sexism renders the plot, well, plotless. The movie pushes this idea that Jack really, really needs to get a job to be happy, but Caroline finds a high paying job pretty easily. Jack really could be a good stay-at-home dad, but for some reason the movie hammers home that this is socially and morally wrong. It’s disconcertingly conservative.

But then Jack drops a neurotic speech about his beard status or Rocky and I start to come around. Mr. Mom has held up better than other Hughes movies, but not by much.

Reflection: Man, Keaton used to be really funny…

Resident Evil (2002)

Tagline: Survive the horror.

Curiosity: It’s my girlfriend’s guilty pleasure. Based on how many times she said, “This used to be so cool” during the viewing, I’d place a heavy emphasis on the “guilty” part.

Plot: Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up naked in the shower, as we are all wont to do, and can’t remember how she got there. She walks around for a bit in a skimpy dress until commandos come in from everywhere and make a big ol’ ruckus. They beat up Boring Cop (Eric Mabius) and take him ‘n’ Alice to a secret underground train to a secret underground facility. SECRET! Turns out there’s a team of scientists living on this base. Or there were; er’rybody’s dead now and the commandos need to find out why. They’re meddlesome like that.

OH NO THEY’RE ZOMBIES.

Thoughts: For very brief bursts, Resident Evil is a decent horror movie. Zombies walk around with broken limbs – one zombie walking on a broken ankle is particularly gnarly – and it’s a good time. But then these moments are interrupted by stupid shit like dialogue and feelings. Fuck that. It takes too long to get to these parts. Most of the time, the film wastes precious minutes on Alice having flashbacks to her life pre-sleeping naked or Michelle Rodriguez being irrationally angry.

The special effects are ho-hum. The final monster in the movie is a licker from the Resident Evil 2 video game. It was done with CGI, and it looks terrible. It moves a couple frames too few to look real, and the resolution just isn’t there. I just wrote about how Total Recall still looks great 20 years later. Resident Evil came out just eight years ago and it looks like a ScyFy original movie.

Reflection: …and yet we’re probably going to see Resident Evil: Afterlife. In 3D.

Total Recall (1990)

Tagline: Get ready for the ride of your life. [Note: Could this tagline be more generic? Perhaps “This is a movie”?]

Curiosity: Put this one in the Queue of Shame. I’ve seen clips from Total Recall on television over the years, but I’ve never watched it from start to finish.

Plot: Quaid (Arnold Brownschwagger) keeps having these dreams where he lives on Mars. Everybody thinks that’s totally crazy and he should just ignore them, but Quaid can’t shake these memories. Luckily, there’s a company in the future called Rekall that can place false memories in your brain, thereby allowing Quaid to explore his dreams of Mars without actually going there (because fuck that, amiright?). But early into the process, technicians find out that Quaid really has been to Mars! And people are trying to kill him! It’s up to Quaid and a loveable gang of mutated prostitutes to figure out why!

Thoughts: As if Robocop wasn’t confirmation enough, Total Recall displays director Paul Verhoeven’s love of gunshots. Everybody gets shot in this movie, and usually 20 times apiece. The film may also mark either the pinnacle or the nadir of Brownschwagger’s love of making puns after he kills bad guys. I feel that shouting “Screw you!” is too generic of a one liner after taking a villain out with a giant drill. You just know that guy died without totally getting that one, which is a shame.

But that’s why I love this movie so dang much. I love it because it plays out like if Inception was a dumb action movie. Because Brownschwagger personally bankrolled it because he’s a Phillip K. Dick fan (Nerd alert!). Because the special effects hold up better than films half as old. I swear, there are so many latex Ah-nolds in this movie, and they all look great. Like Independence Day, Total Recall is one of those rare sci-fi movies that made a ton of bank but never got watered down by incessant sequels.

Reflection: I have spent at least two years thinking Michael Ironside was dead.

Salt (2010)

Tagline: Who is Salt?

Curiosity: My baby girl is obsessed with Angelina Jolie. So you best believe we saw this opening day.

Plot: Evelyn Salt (Jolie) is spy for America! She has a pleasant German husband ((Mike Krause) who is a spider expert! Her life is filled with explosions and marital bliss! She’s BFF with Liev Schrieber (played with great skill by the actual Live Schrieber!)! But when a Russian defector named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) claims Salt is going to kill the Russian president (Olek Krupa), she freaks out and runs away! Everyone is annoyed! Is Salt a KGB sleeper spy?! I THOUGHT THE COLD WAR WAS OVER!

Thoughts: I dig Jolie’s career path – she alternates well-made Oscar bait like A Mighty Heart and Changeling with action-packed popcorn fare like Wanted and Salt. Yeah, she can do drama, but she’s also got a knack for B-movies. While Wanted is a more satisfying movie overall, Salt is jammed with a series of ridiculous yet iconic set pieces. I don’t want to get too spoiler heavy, so I’ll just toss out keywords: Fire extinguisher, Taser, elevator shaft, funeral, SPIDERS.

Scriptwriter Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Law Abiding Citizen, and Ultraviolet, a film so terrible that I actually gave up on watching it for this blog) can be counted on for insane/inane ideas, and Salt is crammed with ’em. The sequences are funny/great; it’s only when you stop to consider the film’s lack of realism that it falls apart. Also worth noting: This movie could have been made at any time during the last 40 years. I thought Rambo III was silly for insisting the Cold War was totally still legit, but Salt goes even further. Shit, can Wimmer write a movie about the Nazis coming back? Howsabout the Confederate States of America?

Salt represents the exact reason why I set up this blog. Yeah, I loved Inception and A Single Man this year, but sometimes I need something that combines great cinematography, action, and terrible, terrible ideas. Salt is that kind of movie. It’s total cheese, but it’s not too hammy or self-aware, and that’s awesome.

Reflection: SPIDERS! OoOoOoOo!

The Wolfman (2010)

Tagline: When the moon is full the legend comes to life.

Curiosity: File this one under “Wanted to see, but the reviews were so bad I couldn’t justify paying full admission price.”

Plot: When actor Lawrence Albot (Benicio Del Toro) learns that his brother is missing, he returns to his English home to help investigate. That means hanging out with his missing bro’s super hot fiancé Gwen (Emily Blunt), which is sexually awkward, and his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins), which is somehow even more sexually awkward. Turns out it’s a dog eat dog world, and Lawrence gets bitten by a mysterious beast whilst kickin’ it with some gypsies. Blah blah blah, now he’s a werewolf, blah blah blah, nobody believes him, and somewhere along the line the camera focus on Hopkins eating an apple simply because he’s Anthony fucking Hopkins.

Thoughts: The buzz for Wolfman was mostly toxic from what I read, and I can the film was just a hair better than its critical evaluation indicated. Make-up legend Rick Baker designed the wolfman costume, and I was impressed with how faithful he was to the classic Universal look while still updating the creature to be more feral yet agile. Likewise, the horror effects, though used sparingly, are always brutally effective in their quickness.

But man does the script suck. The film often tries so hard for high drama that neglects to include more instances of out-and-out horror. It’s also hampered by a phoned in performance from Del Toro, who doesn’t even try to fake an English accent for his character. Hopkins, meanwhile, is so cartoonishly evil that I’m still not sure if I should condone or condemn his appearance. He’s just so got-damn ridiculous, which would hold back the movie if the other performers weren’t so sleepy. Instead, he provides this nice little oasis of entertainment.

I don’t necessarily regret sitting through Wolfman, but I sure wish I knew when to hit the skip button.

Reflection: I feel bad leaving Hugo Weaving out of this review, but honestly, homeboy’s talents were underutilized.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning

Tagline: Real fight is back. [No, seriously.]

Curiosity: I love the shit out of the original.

Plot: Set in the 1400s in Thailand, Tien (played by Natdanai Kongthong as a child, Jaa as an adult) is rescued from certain death by bandits and raised as one of their own. Consider he’d just witnessed the death of his parents and had to wrastle a crocodile, that’s the first break he’s gotten in a while. The leader of the bandits, Chernang (Sorapong Chatree), loves Tien like a son and trains him to one day take over the tribe. But Tien can’t forget what happened to his parents and vows revenge against their killer, Lord Rajasena (Sarunyoo Wongkrachang). Ridiculously awesome fight scenes ensue.

Thoughts: For a movie that has fuck-all to do with its predecessor, Ong Bak 2 is pretty great. Yeah, the story gets a bit jumbled at time, and it’s unnecessary for this film to piggyback off of the original since they’re set in totally different time periods, but overall this second installment in the series is satisfyingly packed with action.

In order to appreciate it fully, though, you need to be a Jaa enthusiast. At the very least, viewers should be familiar with his style, so that they can marvel at how much he subverts it. Just about everything about Tien is a departure for Jaa, from the wider emotional range to the diversity in fighting moves. There are moments where Tien tries to use classic Jaa moves (flying knees ‘n’ elbow drops) and they don’t work; it’s as if Jaa is explicitly stating that this movie is a whole new experience. This ain’t your daddy’s Tony Jaa movie!

Aside from a scene that blatantly rips off Jackie Chan’s drunken master style (which the behind-the-scenes featurettes confirm), Jaa seamlessly incorporates Thai, Chinese, and Japanese fighting styles into one unified form. And he gets to use a lot of weapons too! Tien is also a lot more brutal that Jaa’s other characters; dude fights to kill, and he kills a lot. This is easily the bloodiest Jaa film (Although Ong Bak 3 hasn’t hit the U.S. yet…).

Reflection: Not to get all spoiler-y, but the ending is such a gut punch of a bummer. I did not expect to have such a strong emotional reaction.

Predators (2010)

Tagline: Fear is reborn.

Curiosity: I have a soft spot for the Predator films, even though the original is the only one worth watching.

Plot: Mercenary Royce (Adrien Brody, Splice, which has a similarly silly tagline) wakes up to find he is falling through the sky. Since this does not typically happen to him, he freaks out for a bit before he gets his parachute to deploy. Eventually, he meets up with a group of soldiers and convicts, plus a doctor named Edwin (Topher Grace). None of them remember how they got to this jungle, but eventually they realize that they’re not on Earth anymore. Something in the forest is hunting them. It has laser cannons and cloaking devices. And it strongly resembles a creature Isabelle (Alice Braga) heard about in Guatemala back in 1987…

Thoughts: Overall, Predators is the strongest entry in the series since the original. It doesn’t undo all of the bullshit of Predator 2 and the AvP series, and it has plenty of its own problems, but for a while it’s a solid sci-fi/action/horror flick that eventually runs out of originality and settles for ripping of its source material. That’s a shame, since a decent chunk of the movie is funny and awesome in its own right without having to reference the original too much. But screenwriters Alex Litvak and Michael Finch eventually hit these points where they need things to happen fast, which is why Isabelle improbably provides a plot summary from Predator so the characters can progress from trying to understand the aliens to trying to fight them. The ending has a similar issue, but I’ll keep that complaint vague.

Oh, and there are some pretty tasteless rape jokes thrown in too.

But the action is satisfyingly gruesome, especially after the watered down Alien vs. Predator. The performances are generally good – Brody is actually a pretty good action star, although he channels Christian Bale’s Batman voice a lot (I think that’s awesome, but take that comparison as you will). Larry Fishburne turns in a great performance as a bat shit insane soldier who has survived 10 years on this game preserve. Danny Trejo (Pretty much every good movie ever) and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (The 4400) don’t get enough screen time, but Grace does his trademark Topher Grace sardonic thing well. Louis Ozawa Changchien starts out recreating Sonny Landham’s Billy from the original – ethnic, quiet, attracted to low tech weaponry – but he’s the only actor to bring a twist to something from the first movie. True to Simpsons form, if you wait long enough, the silent Yakuza guy will totally do something awesome.

Reflection: I midnight premiered this movie, got about three hours of sleep, and then went into work on nothing but will power and caffeine. I was pretty twitchy, but otherwise I’m comfortable with this decision.

Game of Death II (1981)

Tagline: Carrying on the legend.

Curiosity: It’s the last film included in my Bruce Lee box set. And given that Game of Death used up all unreleased fight footage of Lee, part of me wanted to see how they could possibly justify another film.

Plot: Billy Lo (Lee… sort of) is hanging out with his awesomely coiffed friend Chin Ku (Jang Lee Hwang, rocking both a pedo-stache and long flowing black hair) when the pair get attacked. Billy tries investigating the matter, but he does a shitty job since Chin ends up dead. He also does a crappy job recovering his friend’s casket when it’s stolen by a helicopter and takes a poison dart to the neck. After a funeral montage that recycles footage from Lee’s actual funeral (Really, Game of Death series? Really?), Billy’s porn-addicted brother Bobby (Tai Chung Kim) steps in to find the truth about this GAME OF DEATH… II.

Thoughts: Game of Death II is a better film than its predecessor. It’s just not a Bruce Lee film. It recycles the occasional reaction shot from Enter the Dragon, and even works in footage from Lee’s early career as a child actor, but most of Billy Lo’s scenes consist of the character being shot from the back and in the dark. For 50 minutes. That’s too much of a commitment to a dead actor, but the film picks up once Kim takes over. I mean, that guy was capable of being filmed from the front.

Game of Death II would actually be an OK martial arts film if its creators weren’t trying to cash in on Lee’s legacy. The fight choreography is a little too rehearsed for my tastes – the moves look cool on the surface but don’t look particularly realistic – but the film moves a brisk enough pace. And man does it get weird along the way. Bobby fights a lion in on scene (Well, an actor dressed up in a lion suit) for no particular reason. It just happens, and is never commented on again. He has to climb a ceiling to avoid being roasted by microwaves. He defeats a dude with Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s signature move, the Sharpshooter. That shit is awesome.

Director See-Yuen-Ng managed to make Lee’s absence from the film both more and less obvious than the original Game of Death. He never pulls the “All Asians look alike, right?” bullshit that Robert Clouse did, but you only see the main character from behind for 50 minutes, it starts to get noticeable.

Still, there are some great mustaches in this movie.

Reflection: Bobby is disconcertingly obsessed with pornography. That’s weird.

Game of Death (1978)

Tagline: Bruce Lee challenges the underworld to a Game of Death.

Curiosity: It’s actually the first Lee film I ever saw; one night I caught the fight scene between Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar soundtracked by RJD2’s Deadringer back in college, courtesy of City Paper editor Drew Lazor.

Plot: Billy Lo (Lee… but mostly stand-ins Tai Chung Kim and Biao Yuen) is a hot shot action movie star with a smokin’ American girlfriend (Colleen Camp). But when gangsters try to coerce him into serving them, Billy finds himself leaving the Hollywood game behind for… THE GAME OF DEATH.

Thoughts: I cannot believe Game of Death exists. Lee paused production of the film to accept a role in Enter the Dragon, his breakout hit. He died before filming could resume, but director Robert Clouse stepped in to finish the movie. I get that Lee was popular, but given that his total screen time in Game of Death is maybe 20 minutes (including recycled footage from Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon), it’s a wonder anyone involved thought this project would fly.

Clouse uses every trick he can to pad out 100 minutes of a movie without its star. He covers Lee’s doppelgangers in shadow. He edits in close-ups of Lee from other movies constantly. He uses footage from Lee’s actual funeral. He even gets so desperate as to tape a picture of Lee’s face over the reflection of his stand-in. Clearly he was counting on people to be so racist that they couldn’t tell Asian people apart.

Unfortunately, I can tell Asian people apart, so it’s painfully, awkwardly obvious which scenes feature Lee and which ones don’t. Still, though, whenever Lee shows up for real, it’s pretty awesome. He completed three out of a proposed five scenes meant to be Game of Death’s centerpiece, in which he fights opponents with a variety of skills, ranging from nun chucks to slam dunking skulls (in the case of Abdul-Jabbar). These were meant to showcase Lee’s philosophy of “no way as way,” a belief that fighters must be fluid and not rely exclusively on any one style. This sort of comes across during the Abdul-Jabbar scene, but it mostly gets lost in Game of Death’s parade of stupid Hollywood ideas. Yeah, the last 15 minutes are pretty great, but everything leading up to them reeks of exploitation.

Reflection: No really, they tried taping Lee’s face over someone else’s body and they thought no one would notice. Wow.

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

Tagline: Vengeance has a name.

Curiosity: I love the original so gosh dang much. When my buddy Scott pulled me aside and whispered in his sweet cadence “Let me take you to the War Zone,” I couldn’t help but bite my lower lip and exhale in anticipation, in exhilaration, in a way that only the young and alive and slightly weird can comprehend. [NOTE: Actually, I was drunk and Scott suggested we watch the Punisher behead gangsters.]

Plot: Gangsters are all like “Let’s party! Nothing can go wrong!” But then a thing does go wrong, and this thing is the Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson, Rome), a.k.a. the Punisher. He punishes these gangsters with all sorts of stabbings and shootings for what I’m sure were very good reasons. To celebrate the death of everyone he knows, surviving baddy Billy (Dominic West, The Wire… what’s up with all these critically acclaimed thespians?) runs away to a recycling plant. After accidentally killing an undercover cop, Castle knocks Billy into a big ol’ tub of glass shards. Also the shards are spinning around, which is not conducive to Billy’s face.

After undergoing a (horse) skin transplant for his face, Billy changes his name to Jigsaw and tries to take Castle down. Explosions are made. Bodies get stabbed.

Thoughts: While I prefer Dolph Lundgren (of course!!!), Stevenson is pretty good in War Zone, and the film overall is pretty great considering how little there is to work with. The Punisher is an angry dude who kills bad guys instead of arresting them. While there aren’t many comic book characters that do that, there have been hundreds of action movies with that premise, so the plot isn’t exactly the best, most original stuff.

But the movie hits all the notes I’d want from a B-movie. Castle shoots shit, has a moment of reflection, and deals with outlandish villains. War Zone works in more Punisher characters than the other movies, like Jigsaw and Micro (Wayne Knight). It’s not perfect, but it also opens with a decapitation scene, so…

ALSO ALSO ALSO, can we talk about T.J. Storm for a second? Storm plays an Irish pirate black guy henchman, and Scott and I can't figure out what inspired him to use such a terrible accent. The dude's from Indiana. Also he looks delicious:

Reflection: Needs more Dolph.