CREED II (US - 2018) Directed by Steven Caple Jr. Written by Juel Taylor and Sylvester Stallone. Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Dolph Lundgren, Phylicia Rashad, Wood Harris, Russell Hornsby, Florian "Big Nasty" Munteanu, Andre Ward, Brigitte Nielsen, Milo Ventimiglia, Ivo Nandi, Jacob "Stitch" Duran. (PG-13, 130 mins) 2015's CREED surprised everyone. The idea of a ROCKY spinoff featuring Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, being trained by his father's rival-turned-best friend Rocky Balboa seemed like a desperate attempt by Sylvester Stallone to keep the ROCKY saga going. But it was a project conceived by others, most notably director/co-writer Ryan Coogler, who brought an electrifying energy to the story and a deep-rooted empathy and understanding of its characters, particularly Rocky, portrayed in a gut-wrenching performance by Stallone that earned him a well-deserved Oscar nomination (he lost to Mark Rylance in BRIDGE OF SPIES). It also put FRUITVALE STATION director Coogler and its star Jordan on the map, leading to their reteaming for 2018's phenomenally successful BLACK PANTHER, where Jordan played the villainous N'Jadaka/Erik Killmonger. Coogler remains onboard as a producer on CREED II, but directing duties have been handed off to Steven Caple Jr., who helmed the acclaimed 2016 indie THE LAND. More importantly, the script is co-written by Stallone, given a more active behind-the-scenes role this time out. That proves to be both a blessing and a curse: yes, he's lived and breathed Rocky Balboa for over 40 years, but as evidenced by the increased absurdity of every franchise in which Stallone has been involved in a creative capacity, he doesn't know when enough is enough (the long-in-development fifth RAMBO film was rumored to have him battling a PREDATOR-type alien creature until cooler heads prevailed). There seems to be little need for a CREED II, which serves as not just a sequel to CREED but also 1985's ROCKY IV.
Depending on your tolerance for the jingoistic, flag-waving Cold War histrionics of the Reagan era, continuing the storyline of ROCKY IV may or may not seem like the right direction for CREED II to go. As the film opens, Adonis has just won the heavyweight title from aging Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler (Andre Ward). He's proposed to hearing-impaired musician girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson), and he's on top of the world. That all comes crashing down with the reappearance of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the man who killed Apollo Creed in the ring in ROCKY IV and was defeated by Rocky in a revenge match in the Soviet Union, where even the most hardline communists--including a Mikhail Gorbachev lookalike president--stood up and cheered for Rocky as he was draped in the American flag. Drago's life in the ensuing 30 years has found him alienated and shamed in his homeland. He now lives in a gloomy Kiev, Ukraine apartment block with his hulking son Viktor (Florian "Big Nasty" Munteanu), both of them abandoned by Drago's wife Ludmilla (Stallone's ex-wife Brigitte Nielsen also returns). An embittered, seething Drago wants vengeance--on Rocky, on Russia, on his ex-wife, on the Creed legacy, and on everyone--and he's spent Viktor's entire life training him to reclaim the glory of the Drago name, an opportunity that arises when unscrupulous fight promoter Buddy Marcelle (Russell Hornsby) teams up with them to issue a challenge to the new world champ Adonis. Rocky wants nothing to do with it, leading to a falling out that results in Adonis recruiting Little Duke (Wood Harris), the son of his father's trainer. Bianca also has her reservations, considering she just found out she's expecting and fears that history will repeat itself and Adonis won't be around for her and the baby.
The fight is a disaster: Viktor beats the shit out of Adonis, the fight virtually over in the second round but resulting in a disqualification for an out-of-control Viktor when he lands a huge blow to Adonis' head while he was already down. You know what comes next: Adonis on a long road to recovery, doubting his ability, turning his back on Rocky, feeling sorry for himself, patching things up with Rocky, and answering the challenge for rematch in--where else?--Moscow, this time with Rocky in his corner. CREED II gets by almost entirely on emotional manipulation and audience familiarity with Rocky. There's some deep and thoughtful themes running through this film, with parallels to both other characters and previous ROCKY films. And time and again, whenever it seems poised to go further down that road, it hesitates and reverts to the familiar. Stallone is again great as an aged and weary but always positive Rocky, and he makes magic with little moments and asides, like the way he visits Adrian's grave and talks about how cold it is and after a pause, mumbles a barely audible "Miss you." It's a real and heartfelt moment, as is Adonis, hurt and furious over being told he's battling Viktor on his own, lashing out at Rocky about his estranged relationship with his own son (Rocky's feeling of not belonging is constantly conveyed in shots that show him standing alone outside a perimeter like John Wayne at the end of THE SEARCHERS, away from a group of people, whether it's the ring, the delivery room, or his son's house). Those words sting only because of the degree to which these two characters have come to love one another, and it's in those moments that CREED II manages to achieve the honesty and gut-punch emotion of its predecessor.
But as the film goes on, Stallone's influence becomes the driving force, and right around the time they're going back to Moscow, it essentially switches to autopilot, becoming pretty much a remake of ROCKY IV, minus the patriot porn and Paulie's robot, but with the addition of a singing and dancing Bianca as his hype man. The biggest missed opportunity of CREED II is the way it only scratches the surface of the Ivan Drago story. He's granted moments of genuine drama that almost generate sympathy for him and his son, but it takes the easy way out and turns them into stock Russian bad guys by the final act (perhaps Coogler would've explored the psychological complexity of Drago by having him show some remorse for killing Apollo, but Stallone definitely does not). There's a story to be told about Drago's humiliating downfall and the way he's obsessively molded his son into a single-minded vessel for revenge to restore honor to the family name. There's even some signs in his mannerisms--perhaps brought to the table by Lundgren, whose aged, craggy face speaks volumes that his minimal amount of dialogue cannot--that Drago regrets not letting his son be his own man. And there's some hints in Munteanu's performance that boxing isn't even what Viktor wants, but it's all he's been taught to do. It's always nice seeing Rocky back onscreen, and Stallone, Jordan, and all the returning CREED cast members (there's also Phylicia Rashad as Apollo's widow) are excellent across the board, but CREED II never gets by the fact that the Adonis Creed story didn't need to be continued, and what we've got is really just another generic ROCKY sequel that Coogler's CREED managed to successfully transcend. It's a testament to CREED II's adherence to a tried-and-true formula and cookie-cutter storytelling that the most interesting character arc belongs to Ivan Drago, and that Dolph Lundgren's performance had me wishing they'd made a hypothetical DRAGO spinoff instead.
A more apt title for this nautical non-actioner might be ESCAPE PLAN: RUN STAGNANT, RUN DULL, as cult action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren reunite once again, though this is really a JCVD vehicle with a glorified cameo from Dolph. Van Damme is Scott Wheeler, an off-the-grid CIA agent who wakes up on a sub that doubles as a secret black-ops detention facility, located in deep waters off the southern coast of the US. He has no memory of how he got there, but he stands accused of traitorous actions against the US, specifically trying to sell classified intel on a drive that's gone missing. He repeatedly professes his innocence, even under the threat of gruesome eyeball injection torture by rogue agent Ferris (JCVD's old DEATH WARRANT nemesis Patrick Kilpatrick). Of course, Wheeler's being set up by former boss Rhodes (Al Sapienza), whose goons (the inevitable Kris Van Damme among them) take over the sub in search of Wheeler after he escapes from his holding cell and finds an unlikely ally in rookie agent Taylor (Jasmine Waltz), who doesn't buy what her bosses are selling her. Lundgren appears briefly in the beginning, as a German detainee named Marco, offering sage advice to Wheeler from an adjacent cell, but he then vanishes for most of the next hour and change before Wheeler springs him and then he finds a way to completely sit out the climax, ample evidence that Lundgren didn't spend more than a day working on this. If you're expecting an enjoyably old-school, throwback Van Damme/Lundgren actioner from the glory days of 1992, then you're better off rewatching UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. Murky and slow-moving, BLACK WATER is an inauspicious directing debut for cinematographer Pasha Patriki (GRIDLOCKED), not helped in the slightest by the fact that passing this tedious submarine thriller off as a JCVD/Dolph teaming is some straight-up Das Bullshit. (R, 105 mins)
BLEEDING STEEL (China - 2017; US release 2018)
When his Liam Neeson-esque revenge thriller THE FOREIGNER hit US theaters last year, many moviegoers probably assumed it was a comeback of sorts for Jackie Chan, who, other than voice work in the KUNG-FU PANDA movies, hadn't been seen onscreen in American multiplexes since the 2010 remake of THE KARATE KID. Quite the contrary, as the 64-year-old action icon remains as busy as ever, averaging three to four movies a year for the Asian market, most of which get no publicity whatsoever on their way to domestic VOD and Redbox kiosks. Chan's most recent Chinese film to stealthily drop in the US is BLEEDING STEEL, and it's one of his worst, an incoherent hodgepodge of ideas and styles that tries to be everything and succeeds at nothing. It's mostly dour and serious but has slapstick moments that come out of nowhere, and it might make a good kids or at least YA movie, but it's R-rated and far too bloody and violent for younger audiences. Even worse, it's no fun at all, and Chan is uncharacteristically boring as Lin Dong, a Hong Kong special agent whose young daughter XiXi (Elena Cai) is dying of leukemia in a hospital. He's unable to make it to her deathbed when he's called upon by his government superiors to deal with securing Dr. James (veteran Australian character actor Kim Gyngell), a recently defected geneticist whose witness protection has been compromised. Lin and his fellow officers protecting Jones are attacked by a "bioroid" creation of James' called Andrew (Callan Mulvey) and his group of pale, leather-trenchcoated bald dudes who look like they wandered in from a DARK CITY cosplay convention.
Jump ahead 13 years, and Lin ends up in Sydney, Australia when sci-fi author Rick Rogers (Damien Garvey) is killed by the Woman in Black (Tess Haubrich), a ruthless, bloodthirsty underling of a now-ailing Andrew. Rogers' latest book Bleeding Steel shares an alarming number of details that go into specifics on James' experimental work on Andrew, and it turns out the writer was buying the session notes of a witch (Gillian Jones) who's been serving as a quack therapist to confused orphaned teenager Nancy (Nanan Ou-Yang), who feels like her memories aren't her own and she isn't who she thinks she is. That's because she's really XiXi, who didn't die, and was instead treated with a regenerative drug by Dr. Jones. Lin figures this out and teams with younger sidekick Leeson (Show Lo) to protect his daughter from a sickly Andrew, who wants to transfuse her blood to give himself unlimited biomechanical powers. Or something. Chan (one of 50 credited producers) and director/co-writer Leo Zhang take this nonsense a lot more seriously than they should, so much so that it doesn't really gel when the star takes a few lengthy sabbaticals so the film can focus on Show's puerile antics, which include some asinine kung-fu moves while his pants fall down, accompanied by what sounds like someone trying to do the SEINFELD bass line. There's also a wacky food court brawl where an undercover Lin is working at a fast-food joint and wearing a nametag that reads "Jackie Chan." Only Haubrich seems to find the right tone in playing her role, and BLEEDING STEEL comes alive whenever she's onscreen, especially in the one standout sequence, a fight with Chan atop one of the shells of the Sydney Opera House. The film does earn some points for pulling arguably the most shameless deus ex machina in recent memory out of its ass in the climactic battle on Andrew's spacecraft (!) hovering over Sydney (!!), but this is far and away the dumbest movie Jackie Chan has ever made, and not in a good way. (R, 109 mins) DAMASCUS COVER (Singapore/UK - 2018)
Based on a 1977 novel by Howard Kaplan but with its setting updated to 1989 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, DAMASCUS COVER is a spy thriller that wants to be both a BOURNE actioner and a methodical TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY-style espionage saga from the John Le Carre school, and definitely landing more in the latter camp with its low-key presentation and slow pacing that's frequently too plodding for its own good. The notion of showing the evolution of the spy game from the Cold War to the eventual War on Terror shows that director/co-writer Daniel Zelik Berk (a veteran producer whose most high-profile directing credit is the 1998 TV-movie SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK...FOR MORE) has put some thought into the project, but DAMASCUS COVER never really catches fire. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Ari Ben-Sion, an undercover Mossad agent based in Berlin and posing as a German businessman named "Hans Hoffman." After he botches an extraction of an asset who blew his cover, he tries to redeem himself with his cantankerous boss Miki (the late John Hurt in his final role before his death in January 2017) by volunteering for a dangerous assignment that involves smuggling a chemical weapons scientist and his family out of Syria. He also crosses paths with an intrepid USA Today photojournalist (Olivia Thirlby) while trying to keep her at a distance, and ingratiates himself into the Damascus business world by glad-handing with a wealthy ex-Nazi (Jurgen Prochnow) in a time-consuming subplot that doesn't really go anywhere.
Sir John Hurt (1940-2017)
As expected, the story does some globetrotting, jumping between Berlin, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Damascus, with some attractive areas of Morocco portraying Israel and Syria, and there's the usual double-crosses and people not being who they claim to be, but DAMASCUS COVER just sort of putters along with no real sense of urgency and very little suspense. Igal Naor has a few good moments as a Syrian general, but Rhys Meyers is a bland hero and Prochnow has nothing to do (and I'm pretty sure that's a publicity shot of Prochnow from 1983's THE KEEP serving as the file photo in his character's Mossad dossier). It's competently made and looks nice, but DAMASCUS COVER is a footnote to the careers of everyone involved and it's notable only as Hurt's last film (he was cast as Neville Chamberlain in DARKEST HOUR but his battle with cancer forced him to back out just before shooting began, and he was replaced by Ronald Pickup). He's the old pro he always was in his sporadic appearances as Miki (who isn't too far removed from his Control in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY) and by the end, one gets the feeling that a more intriguing film could've been made about his and Naor's characters. Hurt's final shot near the end, hanging up a pay phone after somberly sighing "Goodbye, my friend," serves as a perfect farewell to a wonderful actor. (R, 94 mins)
Even though he showed himself to be a credible actor as the Winklevoss twins in 2010's THE SOCIAL NETWORK and other serious films like J. EDGAR and THE BIRTH OF A NATION, it's easy to see what drew Armie Hammer to a project like MINE. It's the kind of Acting-with-a-capital-A exercise toward which an actor generally known for undemanding commercial fare like THE LONE RANGER and THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. gravitates when they want to demonstrate some real chops. But after establishing its nail-biting premise that echoes a variety of other films (127 HOURS, BURIED, PHONE BOOTH, OPEN WATER, THE SHALLOWS, LIBERTY STANDS STILL), MINE blows up in Hammer's face thanks to the hackneyed choices made by the Italian filmmaking team "Fabio & Fabio"--writers/directors Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro. In North Africa, Marine sniper Mike Stevens (Hammer) and his buddy Tommy (Tom Cullen) are perched atop a cliff overlooking a desert wedding, with orders to take out a man (Agustin Rodriguez) believed to be the leader of a major Middle East terror cell. Mike botches the operation when he gets a clear shot and hesitates. A skirmish results and Mike and Tommy are left to walk through a long stretch of desert to get to the nearest safe haven--a stretch that a discarded sign in the sand warns of being filled with mines. Sure enough, a cocky Tommy steps on one and it blows off his legs. Taking a step to help him, Mike feels a click under his left foot and realizes he's stepped on one as well. With Tommy soon out of the picture and sandstorms plus, it would seem, retaliatory petulance over the bungled mission preventing an attempted extraction for 52 hours, Mike must keep his left foot planted on the mine, standing as still as possible until help arrives.
That's the first 20 minutes of MINE, and it's around the 21st minute that it falls apart. There's significant suspense to be generated by Mike's predicament, but Fabio & Fabio instead have him reflect--on his fiancee (Annabelle Wallis), his cancer-victim mother (Juliet Aubrey), his drunkard father (Geoff Bell), whose physical and psychological abuse sent Mike running off to escape to the military in the first place, and all the things he should've done differently, like Dewey Cox having to think about his entire life before he goes on stage. MINE works just fine when it deals directly with Mike battling thirst, the elements, exhaustion, and unseen threats in the darkness at night, but that momentum is constantly interrupted either by hallucinations or the periodic appearances of a good-natured berber (Clint Dyer), who gives him the equivalent of pep talks with a bunch of inspiring platitudes straight of a self-help book. The shifts are jarring, to say the least, and the attempts to expand the story with cutaways and people real and imagined only lead to tedium, with Fabio & Fabio seemingly unaware that MINE is working just fine when the camera's planted on the star. Hammer gives this everything he's got, but his above-and-beyond efforts are sabotaged by his indecisive and unfocused filmmakers. (Unrated, 106 mins)
BITTER HARVEST (Canada - 2017)
After a long career spent in exploitation movies and television, one gets the feeling that journeyman Canadian director George Mendeluk saw BITTER HARVEST as a magnum opus of sorts, a serious, sweeping historical epic that showed the world that a hired gun pushing 70 was perhaps a secret auteur who just never got his chance. To that end, BITTER HARVEST is about the best you can expect a serious, sweeping historical epic from the director of 1987's MEATBALLS III to be. It deals with a subject that's only been tackled by a couple of Russian films to this point: the Holodomor, the forced, man-made famine inflicted on the Ukrainian people from 1932-33 by Joseph Stalin (played here by GAME OF THRONES' Gary Oliver, looking suspiciously like a heftier Soup Nazi), after he declared that the farmers of the region must supply grain for all of the Soviet people while leaving themselves hungry and dying. Historians have debated the cause of the genocide and a majority agree that it was Stalin's way of quashing a Ukrainian independence movement, ultimately claiming the lives of anywhere between seven and ten million Ukrainians. Those people deserve something better than BITTER HARVEST, a heavy-handed and insipid melodrama that uses the Holodomor as a backdrop for the old standby of one man trying to get home to the woman he loves. Yuri (Max Irons, Jeremy's son) is a sensitive artist who's uninterested in fighting the Stalin regime like his father Yaroslav (Barry Pepper, not the first actor who comes to mind when you're looking for a Ukrainian guy named Yaroslav) and tough-as-nails grandfather Ivan (a slumming Terence Stamp), who has no use for his soft grandson's fancy book learning. After his father is killed in a skirmish (Pepper exits the film at the 18-minute mark), Yuri marries his childhood sweetheart Natalka (Samantha Barks) and is forced to leave her behind as he goes off to a factory job in Kiev in order to feed his family. Jailed in a gulag and narrowly avoiding a firing squad, Yuri joins the resistance and fights to return home to fight for his wife, family, and community, who are all suffering at the hands of sadistic Stalin strongarm Sergei (Tamer Hassan).
Striving to be DOCTOR ZHIVAGO but saddled with a basic cable budget and left on the shelf since 2013, BITTER HARVEST is cliched and simplistic throughout, as evidenced in a scene where a random stranger sees Yuri sketching and emphatically declares "You are an artist! You have a duty to tell the world the truth!" The film feels like one of those mid '80s Cannon productions where Golan and Globus would indulge in some blatant historical awards-bait but it would still end up looking unmistakably Cannon (THE BERLIN AFFAIR, THE ASSISI UNDERGROUND, HANNA'S WAR). For all its high-minded aspirations of being the definitive chronicle of the Holodomor, BITTER HARVEST is still the kind of movie that has a stock, brutish, '80s-style commie bad guy in Sergei, ends with the hero mowing down scores of Soviet officers with his back to a huge explosion, and credits occasional Steven Seagal director Lauro Chartrand (BORN TO RAISE HELL) with second-unit duties (it's also produced by Oscar-nominated editor Stuart Baird, for some reason). There's nothing wrong with being a career journeyman, and while Mendeluk may have gone into BITTER HARVEST with noble intentions, his best films are still the 1980 Canadian tax-shelter two-fer of STONE COLD DEAD and THE KIDNAPPING OF THE PRESIDENT. (R, 103 mins)
ALTITUDE (US - 2017)
We last heard from Alex Merkin back in 2013 when he directed two movies--the horror film HOUSE OF BODIES and the Master P-style rapsploitation throwback PERCENTAGE--that quietly debuted on Netflix streaming within two weeks of one another with a level of stealth secrecy usually reserved for likes of the Baltimore Colts packing up and moving to Indianapolis in the middle of the night. Both films appeared to be micro-budgeted home movies with production values that ranked somewhere between "sex tape" and "snuff film." Neither looked to be in a releasable or even finished condition, both featured real actors (Peter Fonda and Terrence Howard in HOUSE OF BODIES, Ving Rhames and Macy Gray in PERCENTAGE), and both were inexplicably produced by Queen Latifah, who also Skyped in a cameo in HOUSE OF BODIES. The only conclusion I could draw at the time--and for a long time, mine was the only external HOUSE OF BODIES review on IMDb, making me seriously wonder if I imagined the whole thing--was that Merkin did such a consistently terrific job cleaning Queen Latifah's pool that she agreed to repay the favor by financing his two movies. PERCENTAGE is merely amateurishly awful, but HOUSE OF BODIES is so bad that it deserves to mentioned in the same breath as THE CREEPING TERROR and MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE. and regardless of Queen Latifah's career accomplishments, the only question I have for her in the event I ever meet her is "HOUSE OF BODIES and PERCENTAGE. Seriously, what the fuck?"
Needless to say, ALTITUDE ("From Director Alex Merkin," the artwork brags, with zero justification at all) is by default a better film, only because it couldn't possibly be worse. Merkin still has no business being on a movie set unless he's manning the craft services table, but ALTITUDE is, at best, barely watchable. Other than scenes involving visual effects, it at least looks like a real movie, albeit a very familiar one. If you've ever wanted to see DIE HARD ON A PLANE with Denise Richards as a hardass FBI agent, here's your chance. A plays-by-her-own-rules hostage negotiator who plays by her own rules once too often, Gretchen Blair (Richards) is busted down to desk duty and sent back to Washington. Her plane is hijacked by a crack team of jewel thieves after one of their own, Terry (Kirk Barker), who made off with their recent take and is of course, seated right next to Blair. Among the baddies are the psychotic ringleader Sadie (Greer Grammer, Kelsey's daughter), who's disguised as a flight attendant, plus burly Rawbones (Chuck Liddell, doing nothing and getting killed off early as usual), and no-nonsense Sharpe (Dolph Lundgren), who takes over as the pilot when Sadie kills the entire crew, including endlessly chipper flight attendant Rick, played by a grown-up Jonathan Lipnicki--yes, the kid from JERRY MAGUIRE--who gets fourth billing for getting his neck snapped 20 minutes in. Blair spends most of the movie hiding in the cargo hold, eliminating Sadie's bad guys one by one and getting little help from a useless air marshal (daytime soap vet Jordi Vilasuso). Somehow opening with seven (!) production company logos and boasting 40 (!!) credited producers, including Lipnicki (!!!), the impossibly cheap-looking ALTITUDE is dire even by the low standards of Redbox-ready DTV/VOD actioners. Lundgren and Liddell are just cashing checks here, but one good thing to say about the whole project is that Grammer is a surprisingly engaging villain and would've held her own in better circumstances. A more ambitious film would've done something with the possibilities of a DIE HARD/PASSENGER 57/NON-STOP scenario with female adversaries. And while Richards isn't particularly well-cast or believable, she doesn't embarrass herself, at least not until she delivers the death blow to Sadie, tossing her out of the plane while quipping "You need to check your altitude, bitch!" (R, 88 mins)
Here to present its case as the most unnecessary sequel of 2016, KINDERGARTEN COP 2 would more accurately be termed a remake, and not a very funny one at that. No returning cast or characters from the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy are on hand here, with the star replaced by perennial DTV legend Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren is a better actor than he's usually required to be, but comedy isn't really his specialty, and KINDERGARTEN COP 2 does little to establish any genre bona fides for him.The tired plot has Seattle-based FBI agent Reed (Lundgren) going undercover as the new kindergarten teacher at the posh, expensive, and ultra-politically correct Hunt's Bay Academy. He's looking for a flash drive hidden somewhere in the school by his dead predecessor, whose loser brother worked for Albanian gangster Zogu (Aleks Paunovic), who's about to go on trial and the flash drive is needed to lock him away for life. Reed isn't prepared for what he has to deal with, namely oversensitive kids with names like Cowboy, Jett, and Patience who, along with their classmates, need constant reassurance of emotional safe spaces and boundaries, and the structure of a rigid schedule. Reed also finds he has to negotiate with the kids, who need their hands held through everything, eat tofu for lunch and lecture him about the dangers of gluten. Worst of all, Reed can't even have a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich in the classroom because of Cowboy's peanut allergy.
KINDERGARTEN COP 2 really could've taken some shots at helicopter parenting and the delicate-snowflake coddling of today's kids, but the kids barely factor into the story. Instead, Reed and his partner Sanders (Bill Bellamy) bust each others' chops in cliched buddy comedy fashion when they aren't being chewed out by their shouty, Frank McRae-like boss Giardello (Danny Wattley), and Reed dates pretty kindergarten teacher Olivia (Darla Taylor). She seems to be the only other educator in the school (and Reed's class the only students) other than uptight principal Miss Sinclaire (Sarah Strange) and oafish computer teacher Hal (Michael P. Northey), who's never shown teaching a computer class and gets angry when Reed and Olivia become an item in a subplot that goes nowhere. There's not really anything funny in KINDERGARTEN COP 2, with an early reference to Grey Poupon more or less setting the tone. There's a running gag about the Asian kid in the class having his perfectly understandable dialogue accompanied by English subtitles, but it's not funny the first time they do it, let alone the 20th. Screenwriter David H. Steinberg (AMERICAN PIE PRESENTS THE BOOK OF LOVE) shares script credit with Herschel Weingrod, Timothy Simon, and Murray Salem, the trio who wrote the 1990 original, but their inclusion here seems to be for legal, WGA reasons, especially considering Salem died in 1998. KINDERGARTEN COP 2 was directed by Don Michael Paul (HALF PAST DEAD, WHO'S YOUR CADDY?), apparently the go-to guy for forgettable DTV sequels to movies that you had no idea spawned a franchise that was somehow still a thing, with LAKE PLACID: THE FINAL CHAPTER, JARHEAD 2: FIELD OF FIRE, SNIPER: LEGACY, TREMORS 5: BLOODLINE, and the upcoming SNIPER: GHOST SHOOTER to his credit. Sure, there's worse things out there than KINDERGARTEN COP 2, but who wants an uninspired carbon copy of the first movie, and one that seems more focused on constant Twix product placements and doesn't even bother to supply a game Lundgren with his own "It's not a toooo-maaah!" quotable? (PG-13, 100 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
If general weirdness is your thing, then you might get more out of SOUTHBOUND than I did. We're eventually shown the source of the hovering creatures from the first segment who also periodically appear in other segments, but that still doesn't mean their eventually-explained presence makes any sense. Because the filmmakers have the stories flow together in a not very smooth fashion, they tend to end in abrupt and confusing ways. Nothing makes sense in "The Way Out," and by the time you get to the big reveal of "The Way In," you'll still have more questions than answers. "The Accident" and "Jailbreak" have some committed performances by Zickel and Yow respectively, and both go above and beyond the gore quota. The standout story is easily "Siren," which is the only one to make concerted efforts to develop its characters and establish a legitimately unsettling vibe. It almost feels like a tribute to those really unnerving occult movies of the '70s and has a real MESSIAH OF EVIL thing going on. Elsewhere, there's synth cues and John Carpenter homages all over the place, which was affectionate fun for a while but has become so prevalent and obligatory in today's horror movies that it's really time for the genre's current standard-bearers to find a new crutch. Also, I'm sure they're nice people and it's nothing personal, but when Larry Fessenden and Maria Olsen--an unusual-looking actress who's found an indie horror niche as essentially the female Michael Berryman--turn up in the opening credits, I'm already annoyed. I don't know--I'm pretty much a curmudgeon when it comes to most new horror offerings these days, especially these fawned-over indies where the film's most vocal supporters are all Facebook friends of the directors. The accessibility of fans to the artists has undoubtedly clouded the judgment of critics and bloggers when an unwatchable piece of shit like V/H/S: VIRAL gets good reviews. SOUTHBOUND isn't bad for this new breed of horror in the social media age, but there's still very little about it that's noteworthy. (R, 89 mins) DEMENTIA
(US - 2015)
A thriller that would fit right into the late 1990s with its "caregiver-from-Hell" plot, DEMENTIA is a reasonably suspenseful and well-acted film with a twist that's perhaps a little too easy to see coming, but the script by Meredith Berg does some alliance-shifting bait-and-switches that keep you on your toes. After a mild stroke, elderly retiree George Lockhart (Gene Jones from Ti West's THE SACRAMENT and best-known as the gas station clerk on the receiving end of the "Call it, Friendo" coin-flip in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) is tended to by his estranged son Jerry (Peter Cilella) and 18-year-old granddaughter Shelby (Jennifer Lawrence lookalike Hassie Harrison, also seen in SOUTHBOUND), neither of whom he's seen for many years. The recovery goes slow when moody George has difficulty focusing and periodically forgets who Shelby is ("This bitch broke into my house!"), so Jerry and Shelby decide to hire a temporary live-in caregiver to assist him until he's well again. The caregiver is Michelle (Kristina Klebe), who says her specialty is post-stroke therapy and insists Jerry and Shelby check into a hotel in order for her to focus on George's recovery, but it doesn't take long before George gets a bad vibe from her. When he begins showing signs of improvement, she pumps him full of unnecessary medication that makes him worse, then starts playing tricks on him, which escalates to Michelle beheading George's beloved cat and covering him with its blood while he's sedated to convince him he did it. George insists he's a victim of elder abuse, but a preoccupied Jerry doesn't buy it, choosing to go back home to his job while a summer vacationing Shelby decides to stay behind at the hotel and keep visiting with her grandfather, an idea constantly thwarted by an increasingly irrational Michelle.
While Michelle is the clear antagonist of the story and obviously isn't what she claims to be, George isn't exactly an innocent victim. A man deeply traumatized by his experiences in Vietnam (Eric Senter plays George in flashbacks), George returned home and became a violent, alcoholic wife-beater and child-abuser, the source of Jerry's alienation from his father. George has made efforts to change: he's been sober for over 20 years and tells Jerry he's proud of how he raised Shelby since he had such a terrible role model. His sorrow is sincere, and while an understanding but apprehensive Jerry warns her not to get to close to him, Shelby can't help but feel sympathy for her ailing grandpa, even if she steals jewelry out of a drawer and helps herself to some of his more powerful meds when nobody's looking. But George is a man with secrets, and he's been specifically targeted by Michelle, whose rage grows so strong the she forces whiskey down his throat and starts torturing him in ways he endured during his days as a POW. Berg and director Mike Testin do a good job of making the audience reconsider its loyalties throughout: is Michelle batshit crazy? Does she have her reasons for putting George through hell? And sure, George is contrite and has sincerely attempted to right his wrongs as a husband and father, but is he a monster beyond redemption? DEMENTIA provides no easy answers, and it's the kind of movie that would be a talked-about, hot-button, big-studio thriller if it was made 20 years ago. Jones, Klebe, and young Harrison turn in convincing performances, and 90% of DEMENTIA is a nicely-done sleeper that's sure to find a cult following on Netflix Instant. But then something inexplicable happens in the climax that has nothing to do with the script or story but still manages to very nearly drive the movie off a cliff. Just as the big reveal comes along of what George did and why Michelle has gone to such extreme lengths to make his life hell, the sound mix gets all bungled and wonky, with the score cranked up really loud and the dialogue drowned-out and almost completely unintelligible. I had to turn the subtitles on to find out what was being said. There's a whole thread about this on the movie's IMDb page, and several reviews from the film's December 2015 VOD release also mention the dialogue being muffled and barely audible when it matters most. Was this an artistic decision on Testin's or the producers' part? If so, it's one of the dumbest I've ever seen. It must be by design, or else it would've been remixed between December and now. I don't get it. It's baffling why the filmmakers drown out the dialogue just in time for the big reveal. I mean, seriously. What the fuck? (Unrated, 90 mins, also streaming on Netflix) ***UPDATE*** (June 16, 2016)
Regarding DEMENTIA's sound issues, star Kristina Klebe recently posted an update in the comments section of the film's IMDb page.
"The sound design was a major oversight and has recently been fixed. It will hopefully be up on all platforms by end of this week. I would encourage everyone to watch the end again at least so you can feel you saw and understood the whole film. You, as an audience, deserve that."
This dull and pointless WWII actioner rips off THE DIRTY DOZEN, THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, and just about every other men-on-a-mission outing and even borrows two stars of THE EXPENDABLES but can't even muster the energy to function as a remotely entertaining dumb movie. Funded in part by Panzerfabrik, a Colorado-based company that manufactures reproductions of WWII German tanks and other war equipment and offers its services for WWII re-enactments, WAR PIGS is basically a bunch of coasting C-listers playing dress-up while wandering around Utah's Uinta National Forest and pretending it's 1944 France while dodging an occasional CGI explosion. Luke Goss, who's devolved from passable second-string Jason Statham into arguably the most boring actor alive, is Capt. Jack Wosick, a disgraced soldier ordered by Maj. A.J. Redding (Mickey Rourke, whose kamikaze squandering of his SIN CITY resurgence and Oscar-nominated WRESTLER triumph is now complete) to team up with Capt. Hans Picault (Dolph Lundgren) of the French Foreign Legion. Their assignment: whip a team of military malcontents, ne'er-do-wells, and all-around fuck-ups into shape to take out a secret weapon being developed by Hitler. Cliches abound, usually with Wosick butting heads with smartass, pretty-boy soldier August (Noah Segan), before they all grow up and emerge heroes. There's no humor and barely any action, Lundgren doesn't even pretend to give a shit, with his French accent coming and going throughout, and third-billed UFC icon Chuck Liddell is killed off five minutes into the movie in a role that's not so much a cameo as it is "POLICE SQUAD! special guest star." Most depressing of all is Rourke, always seen behind a desk and clearly arriving to work in his own clothes, sporting a cowboy hat with his long hair dangling down the side of his head and shirt unbuttoned halfway down in regulation, by-the-book 1944 military style. Looking less like a high-ranking officer and more like he got the part after some Panzerfabrik re-enactors found him dumpster diving on the Uinta campgrounds, Rourke is just a sad sight here, and since Lundgren is in a coma, Liddell has the good sense to get offed 300 seconds into the movie, and there's absolutely no such thing as a fan of Luke Goss movies, there isn't a single reason for anyone to watch this. (R, 87 mins)
RE-KILL
(US - 2015)
After a five-year hiatus, the "8 Films to Die For" After Dark Horrorfest package returns with more indie horror from around the world. Most of the titles released from 2006 to 2010 ranged from completely forgettable to thoroughly awful, but there were a few notable standouts, like Nacho Cerda's THE ABANDONED, Xavier Gens' FRONTIER(S), Sean Ellis' THE BROKEN, and Joel Anderson's disturbing LAKE MUNGO. Lionsgate is no longer involved, and the 2015 relaunch came and went with little fanfare on VOD and has now arrived on DVD courtesy of Fox. One of the new offerings is RE-KILL, a bottom-of-the-barrel zombie shoot 'em up shot so long ago that it was originally announced as part of the 2010 lineup before it was abruptly yanked from the list and shelved for five years. Shot in Bulgaria and Baton Rouge, RE-KILL is a borderline unwatchable 90 minutes of handheld shaky-cam that would've seemed stale even in 2010, set after yet another apocalyptic zombie outbreak, this time generated by some botched government experiment called "The Judas Project." As cities are overrun with the sprinting dead (called "Re-Ans," short for "Re-Animateds"), military officers are followed by a camera crew for a reality TV show called RE-KILL, which documents their pursuit and extermination of Re-Ans. And that's pretty much it, other than frequent breaks for some Paul Verhoeven-esque would-be satirical commercials that lack the bite of similar bits in ROBOCOP and STARSHIP TROOPERS (and furthermore, with 80% of the population dead and hordes of undead in the streets, who's really in the mood or even has time to keep up on reality TV?). The cast is headed by Bruce Payne (PASSENGER 57), doing a Russell Crowe impression as a fanatically religious, thousand-yard-staring hardass soldier, and a badly-utilized Scott Adkins (NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR) as a fist-pumping, chest-thumping war hero ("You got questions about soldierin', you come to me!"). Both actors are better than the material (Payne actually appears to be taking it seriously), but both are killed off well before it's over. You can never tell what's going on or who's who or where--it's just a lot of posturing ("This is what we do!"), stating the obvious ("You gotta destroy the brain stem"), yelling ("Get down!"), gunfire, and CGI splatter. There's little nuance or subtlety in the script by Mike Hurst, but that's about what you should expect from the guy who gave us such renowned gems as HOUSE OF THE DEAD II and PUMPKINHEAD 4: BLOOD FEUD. Hurst co-directed with Valeri Milev, who parlayed this success into getting the coveted WRONG TURN 6: LAST RESORT gig in 2014. Payne's effort is the only thing keeping RE-KILL from stumbling off the ledge into utter uselessness, and when it wraps up at the end, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more fitting metaphor than the RE-KILL TV show closing credits rolling on a TV in an empty house with no one watching. (R, 87 mins)
The globetrotting actioner SKIN TRADE is a bloody, bone-crushingly entertaining throwback to the mismatched buddy/cop movies of the late '80s and early '90s. It occasionally suffers from budget limitations and has more plot and extraneous characters than it really needs, but it delivers the goods where it matters, and has its heart in the right place with an obviously sincere concern for human trafficking on the part of producer/co-writer/star Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren is Nick Cassidy, a plays-by-his-own-rules Newark cop obsessed with nailing Serbian crime lord Viktor Dragovic (Ron Perlman) who, with his four sons, oversees a global operation involving the trafficking of drugs, young women and teenage girls. Meanwhile, Bangkok detective Tony Vitayakul (ONG BAK's Tony Jaa) has lost contact with his girlfriend/informant Min (Celina Jade), who went undercover to be abducted by the Cambodia wing of Dragovic's operation. Back in Newark, Cassidy nabs Dragovic at a shipyard after a shootout results in the death of one of the criminal's sons, but Dragovic jumps bail to Cambodia after his goons blow up Cassidy's house with a rocket launcher, killing his wife and daughter. Clinging to life and without the knowledge of his boss Costello (Peter Weller) and FBI agent Reed (BLACK DYNAMITE's Michael Jai White), Cassidy flees both the hospital and the country, heading to Southeast Asia to exact revenge on Dragovic and bring down his operation. The Feds are in hot pursuit, and through a convoluted set of circumstances, Vitayakul spends a good chunk of time thinking Cassidy killed his partner, but eventually they team up to take out Dragovic...if they don't kill each other first!
A DTV-level film that somehow made it into some theaters, SKIN TRADE suffers from some dubious-looking greenscreen and digital work, though only Lundgren can convincingly pull off looking cool as he walks away from a CGI explosion. A weathered and craggy-looking Lundgren, augmented by some facial scarring makeup, is an engagingly gritty hero and convincingly sells Cassidy's obsessive rage (Lundgren is a better actor than people think). He works well with Jaa, especially in a pair of extensive fight scenes, but it's nearly an hour into the film before they even pair up, as the script works through a lot of backstory and characters. One wishes White had a little more to do--one pivotal plot point hinges on his character, but because he's such an engaging screen presence in action films (and a solid actor as well) that it does seem like he's getting table scraps here with an overall minor supporting role. Perlman chews the scenery with a thick Eastern European accent, and Weller gets a couple of dyspeptic outbursts as Cassidy's pissed-off lieutenant (disappointingly, the filmmakers deprive Weller of the chance to demand Cassidy's gun and shield to stash away in the top drawer of his desk). Director Ekachai Uekrongtham previously helmed the 2004 Muay Thai boxing drama BEAUTIFUL BOXER, but otherwise has little experience is this genre, with most of his work being straight drama aside from the 2008 horror film THE COFFIN. He does a good job with the actors, but one suspects Lundgren and Jaa--both experienced directors themselves--had significant input in the staging of the action. SKIN TRADE doesn't really offer anything new, but it does enthusiastically deliver exactly what it promises. (R, 96 mins)
EJECTA (Canada - 2015)
Fans of the linguistic viral zombie outbreak cult classic PONTYPOOL (2008) will be interested in EJECTA, as both were scripted by Tony Burgess and feature Lisa Houle (PONTYPOOL's radio station manager Sydney Briar) in a key role. Much the way PONTYPOOL offered a rare lead for a familiar and constantly jobbing familiar face (Stephen McHattie), EJECTA does the same for veteran Canadian character actor Julian Richings. Richings is William Cassidy, a loner still haunted by an alien abduction he experienced 39 years earlier. Cassidy also blogs about UFO sightings, alien encounters, and government conspiracies under the name "Spider Nevi," and he reaches out to young documentary filmmaker and Spider Nevi superfan Joe Sullivan (Adam Seybold) about an upcoming Carrington Event or "mass ejection," a solar flare that may throw Earth off its orbit. Instead, they encounter an alien running rampant through the woods, and something--exactly what doesn't become clear until much later--happens that lands Cassidy in a Guantanamo-like bunker where he's interrogated and tortured by the sadistic Dr. Tobin (Houle, in a quite a menacing contrast to her PONTYPOOL character), an operative for a mysterious shadow wing of the government who doesn't hesitate to shoot military personnel in the head if she doesn't like the answers they give or if they fail to respond to her requests with appropriate speed.
Burgess and directors Matt Wiele and Chad Archibald juggle three overlapping stories: Cassidy and Sullivan encountering an alien in the woods; Tobin's soldiers looking for the missing Sullivan; and the psychological and physical torture of Cassidy by Tobin. It's the Cassidy-Tobin dynamic that's the most interesting element of EJECTA, so of course it takes a back seat until late in the game as the directors instead focus more on the other two storylines, which seem to exist simply to pander to the found-footage and hand-held crowd, whether it's Sullivan's documentary about "Spider Nevi" or the military search, which plays out entirely in green night-vision. There's some thought-provoking ideas in the Cassidy-Tobin sections of the film, particularly in the way Cassidy withstands every brutality Tobin has inflicted on him because after what he experienced 39 years ago, nothing can terrify or hurt him, and in fact, her abuse only makes him stronger. In the end, despite some unexpected elements in the home stretch--including some unabashed KEEP-worship in some of the music and visuals--and a pair of terrific performances by Richings and Houle, EJECTA isn't much more than yet another shaky-cam, faux-doc, found footage alien invasion movie with some pretty dodgy visual effects. Fans of PONTYPOOL--one of the best horror films of the last decade--will find it frustrating because, like that film, EJECTA could've brought something new to a played-out subgenre. It's still better than any SKYLINE or AREA 51 or most of its type. Despite its many problems, it's worth one watch for the work of Richings and Houle, and I have to admit that the shout-out to THE KEEP was a pleasant surprise that won some points in its favor. (Unrated, 82 mins)
Directed by Patrick Hughes. Written by Sylvester Stallone, Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt. Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas, Dolph Lundgren, Kelsey Grammer, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Jet Li, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Robert Davi. (PG-13, 127 mins)
The third installment of Sylvester Stallone's throwback-to-'80s-action franchise is decidedly the weakest for a variety of reasons, starting with the PG-13 rating. One of the most enjoyable things about the previous two films was its absurdly over-the-top violence, even if the splatter was unconvincingly digital (though an effort was made to wetten things up in THE EXPENDABLES 2), something Stallone has seemed to embrace since turning 2008's RAMBO into the goriest jungle actioner that Ruggero Deodato never made. Both prior EXPENDABLES films were huge hits domestically and internationally, so it's a mystery why distributor Lionsgate and Cannon cover band Millennium/NuImage insist on watering things down to appeal to younger audiences. If the paltry box office of THE LAST STAND, BULLET TO THE HEAD, ESCAPE PLAN, GRUDGE MATCH, and SABOTAGE prove anything, it's that today's teenagers aren't going to see '80s action dinosaurs in theaters. Liken it to a washed-up '80s hair metal band going on tour: if they go out solo, they're playing shitty dive bars with 20 people in the crowd. Send them out on a four or five-band nostalgia package tour, they can book arenas all summer long. Casual moviegoers no longer care about new solo efforts from Stallone or Arnold Schwarzengger or Dolph Lundgren or Jean-Claude Van Damme, but throw them on the same bill, and you've got a hit.
Nearly bloodless action and a PG-13 rating aren't going to bring in the kids, nor is the presence of Kellan Lutz, whose tip-frosted turn in the unwatchable THE LEGEND OF HERCULES should've clued Millennium chief Avi Lerner in to the fact that Kellan Lutz isn't happening. But they attempt it here anyway as the aging Expendables are sidelined for the entire middle of the film after Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) is nearly killed and head honcho Barney Ross (Stallone) breaks up the band to bring in new blood in his vengeance-fueled pursuit of international arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson). With the help of wisecracking government operative Bonaparte ('80s action icon Kelsey Grammer), Ross puts together a younger, fresher, high-tech team that includes Smilee (Lutz), Luna (MMA fighter Ronda Rousey), Mars (boxer Victor Ortiz), and Thorn (Glen Powell). It's personal for Ross--when isn't it?--since Stonebanks, long presumed dead, is an original Expendable who turned against his brothers and went rogue for the money. They apprehend Stonebanks at the behest of CIA chief Drummer (Harrison Ford, looking constipated), who orders Ross to bring him in alive because he's set to be tried for war crimes at The Hague. Of course, Stonebanks' goons manage to rescue him since no one bothered to see if he had a GPS tracker on his person, and Ross is left for dead as The Expendables: The Next Generation are kidnapped by Stonebanks. Of course, this means he reluctantly puts the band back together to rescue the newbies, being held at Stonebanks' secret stronghold in "Izmenistan."
Stallone co-wrote the screenplay with the team of Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, whose lone previous credit is scripting another Millennium production, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (2013). It hardly matters that Australian director Patrick Hughes (RED HILL) is at the helm, since every Millennium/NuImage joint looks the same, regardless of the cost. They all have dubious-looking greenscreen and amateurish CGI courtesy of the Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX. Other than attracting bigger stars with bigger salaries--which is really where the money goes--there's little difference between an EXPENDABLES movie and any random straight-to-video NuImage title from the 1990s. The explosions are all distractingly phony, and shots of Powell parachuting off a cliff and Stallone running along the top of a building as it collapses look like haphazardly-executed cartoon effects. Plainly visible Bulgarian license plates in scenes set in Arizona and Las Vegas exhibit a carelessness more suited to a 20-year-old Frank Zagarino cheapie than a $90 million summer action movie. The heavy lifting has been farmed out to various FX crews and everyone involved is mostly doing the bare minimum.
That's not to say there aren't things to appreciate throughout. It's nice to see Wesley Snipes on the big screen again, as an imprisoned ex-Expendable known as "Doctor Death," broken out of an off-the-grid Russian prison in a prologue that essentially functions as a Welcome Back party for Stallone's formerly-incarcerated DEMOLITION MAN co-star ("What were you in for?" he's asked. The reply--of course--"tax evasion"). Stallone manages some legitimately heartfelt observations about staying relevant with the onset of age that surprisingly don't rely on quips and one-liners. Ford has an amusing running gag about not being able to understand Statham's accent. There's so many players in the game that almost everyone ends up standing around with little to do. Antonio Banderas is initially amusing as motor-mouthed mercenary Galgo, who desperately wants to be an Expendable (or, as Gibson's Stonebanks calls them, "The Deleteables"), but he overdoes it and a little of him goes a long way. An embalmed-looking Schwarzenegger returns as Trench, but was obviously only around for a few days, since he pops in and out of the story and sits out most of the action, usually waiting with the plane while everyone else goes off for action. Did you ever think you'd see the day where Arnold Schwarzenegger was chauffeuring other action stars around their movie? He still has more to do than Jet Li, who turns up very late in the film and doesn't even seem to know his dialogue. Gibson probably comes off the best as Stonebanks, taking the role far more seriously than is necessary. Banderas tries too hard, but where everyone else is awkwardly delivering one-liners that clang to the ground more often than not, Gibson brings some gravitas and a legitimate sense of menace, even though he had a similar megalomaniacal villain role in last year's MACHETE KILLS. Say what you will about Gibson the man--yeah, he's a racist, an anti-Semite, has anger management issues, and is probably an all-around asshole, and several instances of very public and very ugly meltdowns have all but guaranteed these are the only types of roles he's going to get--but there's no denying he's a star and he's still got it.
THE EXPENDABLES 3 has its enjoyable moments, but it's a letdown after the highly entertaining second film, which was really the only one to explore the dinosaur action star notion to its fullest potential. A PG-13 EXPENDABLES with much of the focus on younger additions is tantamount to willful ignorance on the part of Lionsgate, an example of pointlessly fixing what isn't broken. It's defeating the very purpose of the franchise's existence, which was a sort-of winking, self-referential victory lap for aging '80s and '90s action icons. No one's going to see THE EXPENDABLES 3 to watch Stallone pass the torch to Kellan Lutz. If anything, he should be passing it to Scott Adkins--who did appear as a villainous Van Damme's henchman in EXPENDABLES 2--and it should be in a film directed by Isaac Florentine. Not terrible, but way overlong and easily the least of the series, THE EXPENDABLES 3 has taken this fun franchise one film past its sell-by date and made its name a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A change of pace for B action stars Scott Adkins and Dolph Lundgren, LEGENDARY is an adventure/monster movie of the JURASSIC PARK sort that has loftier ambitions than its visual effects team can match. Adkins is Travis Preston, a renowned cryptozoologist drawn into the search for a giant lizard on an uncharted island off the coast of China. Bringing along his research team, he's met by big-game hunter and arch-nemesis Harker (Lundgren), who doesn't share Preston's scientific curiosity and only wants to bag the creature as a trophy. The two clashed once before when Preston hired Harker as security on a search for a prehistoric bear that resulted in the tragic death of one member of their party when the arrogant Harker's itchy trigger finger sent the bear on a ferocious rampage, for which Preston shouldered the blame and saw it derail his career. Naturally, Preston and Harker butt heads once more as they close in on the fabled creature, who is expectedly unhappy about having its home invaded by uninvited guests. Cue the ALIENS-inspired scenes of characters watching and listening to radar and sonar equipment as one nervous guy yells "300 yards...200...it's coming right for us!" and finally...wait for it..."it's right underneath us!"
Released in 3-D overseas last year, the $12 million LEGENDARY goes straight-to-DVD in the US and suffers from some really wonky-looking creature effects, both in the prologue with the rampaging bear and later with the giant lizard. It's not quite on the level of SyFy or The Asylum, but it's still not ready for prime time as far as a nationwide theatrical release is concerned. Fans of Adkins and Lundgren looking for some NINJA or UNIVERSAL SOLDIER-style action will be disappointed: Adkins was recovering from a knee injury sustained on a previous project and chose LEGENDARY largely because it was light on demanding stunt work and fight scenes as he and Lundgren only have one very brief throwdown. LEGENDARY isn't all that different from a bottom-half-of-a-double-bill B programmer you might've seen in the 1950s, but its draggy pace doesn't do it many favors. Adkins is OK, but doesn't seem at home in these surroundings, while Lundgren, who pops in and out of the movie in a way that suggests the filmmakers probably only had him for a very limited amount of time, seems to relish playing the bad guy by turning in a performance that's somewhat Jack Palance-esque at times. LEGENDARY was directed by the unlikely Eric Styles, who helmed the acclaimed minor 1999 arthouse hit DREAMING OF JOSEPH LEES before completely falling off the radar--his 2000 follow-up RELATIVE VALUES, starring Julie Andrews and Colin Firth, and based on a Noel Coward play, skipped theaters and debuted on Starz, while his 2003 thriller TEMPO (with Melanie Griffith and Rachael Leigh Cook) went straight to DVD. LEGENDARY is Styles' first film since the barely-released 2008 Heather Graham rom-com MISS CONCEPTION, and while it's not terrible, it's pretty slight and forgettable, and really only required viewing for Adkins completists or those with insatiable Lundgren man-crushes. (PG-13, 93 mins) CUBAN FURY (France/UK - 2014)
Despite the success they've achieved together over the years, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost haven't fared as well when they work apart. Pegg has been part of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and STAR TREK franchises, but a rundown of his headlining films reads like a Do Not Buy list handed to employees of a used movies/music joint when the manager decides they've got far too many copies on hand just taking up shelf space: RUN FATBOY RUN, BIG NOTHING, THE GOOD NIGHT, HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE, BURKE AND HARE, and the miserable A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING range from tolerable to godawful, and none of them will ever be mistaken for Pegg's finest hour. Frost had a supporting role in the very entertaining Edgar Wright-produced alien invasion flick ATTACK THE BLOCK, but CUBAN FURY marks his first solo starring vehicle. Sadly, it can be filed on that same list along with all of Pegg's headlining duds, serving as proof that these two are best taken as a package deal (SPACED, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ, PAUL, THE WORLD'S END). Based on an idea by Frost, the makers of CUBAN FURY apparently figured "Nick Frost" and "salsa dancing" would be enough to induce guffawing and the rest would just work itself out. It's a dull, ploddingly-paced and thoroughly formulaic and lazy film that, save for one scene, forgets one ingredient that's key to any comedy: comedy.
25 years ago, Bruce Garrett was a teenage salsa phenom who gave it up after he was beaten up by some hooligans on his way to a championship contest. Cut to the present day, and schlubby Bruce (Frost) is a lathe-designer working for a London engineering company that's just brought in new American manager Julia (Rashida Jones). Bruce and asshole co-worker Drew (Chris O'Dowd) start vying for their impossibly nice boss' affections, and Bruce gets the edge when he finds out she's taking salsa classes. Finally inspired to pick up where he left off 25 years earlier, Bruce summons the eye of the tiger so he can go the distance, fulfill his long-abandoned dreams and win over Julia in the process. CUBAN FURY is a film that appears to be working from a checklist rather than a script, right down to the cock-blocking tactics of the bullying Drew, ludicrous meet-cutes (Bruce and Julia bump into one another in the hallway and get their name placards tangled in their lanyards!), and Bruce seeking the guidance of his grizzled old salsa trainer Ron Parfitt (Ian McShane). There is one funny scene where Bruce and Drew have a dance showdown in a parking garage that gets an easy laugh out of a quick cameo, but other than that, CUBAN FURY is a total snooze, laboriously going through the motions of romantic comedy and spoofy redemption saga. Frost is pretty bland, which is disappointing after his marvelous work against type in last year's THE WORLD'S END, and not even Jones' innately charming screen presence or McShane basically coasting through as a salsa-dancing Al Swearengen are enough to make things interesting. Sure, I guess it's better than SALSA, but CUBAN FURY just never heats up, neither comedically nor in the choreography of its dance sequences. (R, 98 mins)
THE ANGRIEST MAN IN BROOKLYN (US/France - 2014)
Henry Altmann (Robin Williams) is a Brooklyn lawyer with anger management issues. He hates everyone and everything and he isn't in the mood to wait two hours at the doctor's office only to be told that he has a bleeding brain aneurysm. The news comes from Dr. Gill (co-producer Mila Kunis), who's filling in for Henry's regular doctor, and when a belligerent Henry demands to know how much time he has left to live, she impulsively blurts out "90 minutes." Henry then decides to spend the next hour and a half making amends with his family--his wife Bette (Melissa Leo) and his estranged son Tommy (Hamish Linklater), who enraged his dad when he decided to pursue a career in dance instead of joining the family law practice with Henry and his younger brother Aaron (Peter Dinklage). There was a time, shown in some 1989-set flashbacks, when Henry was happy, but that time has long passed. When his other, favored son was killed in a hunting accident two years earlier, Henry imploded and became the raging asshole he is as he faces death. Even on his quest to set things right, he can't resist going off on everyone, with a xenophobic tirade against an Uzbek cabbie, yelling at homeless people, or mocking a stuttering electronics store owner (James Earl Jones). Dr. Gill has her own issues: bad choices in men, burned out with her job, and secretly nursing a prescription pill addiction, she regrets her frazzled "90 minutes" prognosis and embarks on a late-afternoon journey across the borough to find Henry and get him to a hospital, following the trail of pissed-off New Yorkers he leaves in his wake.
Where to begin? Let there be no mystery as to why Lionsgate buried this remake of Assi Dayan's 1997 Israeli film THE 92 MINUTES OF MR. BAUM: it's staggeringly bad. Williams is the kind of actor who turns in his best work when he has a strong director to rein him in, and the usually reliable Phil Alden Robinson (FIELD OF DREAMS, SNEAKERS), helming his first film since 2002's THE SUM OF ALL FEARS, isn't up to the task. ANGRIEST MAN indulges nearly every move from the Williams playbook, but mostly his shamelessly sentimental side from PATCH ADAMS and his motor-mouthed talk-show guest persona with bonus F-bombs. In short, this film permits a completely untethered Williams to run rampant in every possible way and none of them good. Henry Altmann is the kind of character that you could almost see Larry David or maybe even Woody Allen, in one of his mean-streaked DECONSTRUCTING HARRY moods, playing with successful results. Either of them would be capable of writing a better script than the one penned by Daniel Taplitz. Not only are the character arcs predictable, but the dialogue is so stilted, awkward, and unreal that Henry's rants and bile-soaked screeds never work. Henry's anger sounds so forced and unnecessarily verbose that it never once feels natural. When Dr. Gill tries to stop him from jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, Henry yells "What are you? I ask you, what are you? Are you my thorn? My nemesis? Have you no humanity?" Who talks like that? Even 1970s Charlton Heston would've dismissed that speech as pompously melodramatic bullshit. Williams is forced to stumble over dialogue like that throughout. There's also trite and endless third-person narration by Williams and Kunis that accomplishes nothing, and even appearances by the likes of Louis C.K., Richard Kind, Isiah "Sheeeeeeeeeiiiit!" Whitlock, Jr., Jerry Adler, and the great Bob Dishy manage to yield zero laughs. There isn't a single honest moment--either comedic or dramatic--in THE ANGRIEST MAN IN BROOKLYN, and I challenge you to find a worse final scene in a 2014 release than the one presented in this film. Shrill, screechy, shrieking, bombastic, maudlin, contrived, and most damning of all, unfunny, it's a complete misfire from start to finish, easily Robinson's worst film, and probably Williams' as well, though in all fairness, I haven't seen LICENSE TO WED. (R, 84 mins)
