FILM REVIEW OF ''THE RETURN OF JOSEY WALES" (1986)

The people who produced "The Return of Josey Wales" should have changed the hero's name. "Return" went straight to video in 1986 without significant theatrical release, while "The Outlaw Josey Wales" was released in 1976. Ten years is a long time to delay a sequel, though "Star Trek" fans weathered decades before their cult NBC-TV show finally reached the big-screen. Reportedly, Clint Eastwood had considered making Forrest Carter's second Josey Wales novel "The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales" as a sequel. Nothing came of the project. Anyway, only the fictional characters from the original show up in "The Return of Josey Wales." None of the original cast members reprised their roles, and Clint Eastwood had nothing to do with the low-budget oater. Forrest Carter, author of both "Josey Wales" western novels received screen credit for both story and screenplay.  The producers changed the ending.  Several characters from the original novel reappeared in the second novel in an early chapter.  Nevertheless, “The Return of Josey Wales” is at best generic from fade-in to fade out compared not only with the previous movie as well as Carter’s novel. 

Producer/Second Unit Director R.O. Taylor received credit as "writer: special scenes."

"The Outlaw Josey Wales" qualified as an indisputable magnum opus. Meanwhile, "The Return of Josey Wales" (* OUT OF ****)npales by comparison, more of a drab, saddle-sore, horse opera with little to distinguish it. According to IMDb.COM, the produced lensed on location at the Alamo Village, in Brackettville, Texas, where John Wayne filmed his own magnum opus "The Alamo" in 1960. A large percentage of the cinematography is master shots. Master shots are typically long shots with actors shown from head to toe in their environment.  Star/director Michael Parks, who graces himself with an adequate number of close-ups, should have known he was setting himself up for a fiasco. The original "Josey Wales" overshadows this threadbare sagebrusher. Had the protagonist's name been altered, "The Return" wouldn't have found itself at such a tremendous disadvantage compared to its lofty predecessor. The Internet Movie Database lists no release date, but I remember a trailer at a drive-in movie theater advertising it. Like another reviewer, I bought a VHS copy through Amazon so I could say that I have seen it.  The picture quality is mediocre, and the film may have been cropped to accommodate the standard 1:33.1 screen ratio.

Despite the somewhat brutal events in the prologue, you're going to feel like you're watching a conventional television western. Tame, lame, with little of the same from the original, "The Return of Josey Wales" ranks as an uninspired sequel. Repeated viewings of the Eastwood original allow you to appreciate its perfection. Eastwood did a marvelous job when he condensed the entire Civil War in the prologue after Union sympathizers slaughtered Josey’s wife and son, and later he joined Bloody Bill Anderson. "Return" doesn't raise the stakes, boasts few surprises, breaks no new ground, and doesn't leave you wanting more. Character actor Michael Parks—an outstanding thespian in his own right—replaced Clint Eastwood. Indeed, some resemblance appears between the two, and Parks looks persuasively authentic in his black sombrero, white shirt, and dark britches. Aside from preserving Josey's tobacco spitting routine, Park's Josey Wales isn't as interesting as Eastwood's character. He has no love interest in this film, and he doesn’t have any memorable showdown scenes. Parks packs one revolver in a standard, low-slung, right-sided holster, like a prime-time, TV cowboy, and wields an occasional Winchester. Eastwood's Josey Wales armed himself to the teeth with as many as four revolvers. Eastwood knew how to make an entrance, whereas Parks ambles into and out of scenes as if by accident without a trace of charisma. He mumbles in his dialogue scenes like Marlon Brando. Occasionally, he says something insightful.

As director, Parks stages the western shenanigans without fanfare.  Watching it once is probably more than enough. I've seen it several times for this review. You'll have to wait patiently about 20 minutes for the first gunfight. The gunfight is minor like something out of a Randolph Scott western. Rafael Campos is the only other recognizable cast member.  Campos gives the best performance as a liquor-loving vaquero.  Everybody else, even in speaking parts, looks and sounds like amateurs. Some of the male extras wear atrocious hats that resemble party favors instead of Stetsons. Basically, like Clint Eastwood's "The Outlaw Josey Wales, "The Return of Josey Wales" has a savage prologue involving a heinous atrocity. The hero's extended family of friends suffers at the hands of the slimy villains. "The Return of Josey Wales" doesn't deliver an eye for an eye western with an icy-cool looking hero. Parks can be heroic.  Happily, he does handle himself acceptably in the first shoot-out both on foot as well as horseback. Appropriately enough, the villains—Mexican Rurales who scalp Indians for the bounty--are unrepentant devils.

The Rurales rape a defiant saloon girl, Rose (Suzie Humphreys of "Deep in the Heart") and beat a poor bartender to a pulp, while a one-armed Mexican peon, Pablo (Paco Vela of “The Job”), witnesses these horrific acts. Later, Paco relays his information to Josey Wales. Predictably, Wales saddles up and hits the trail, but with considerably less gusto compared to its predecessor. Furthermore, one of Josey's friends, a tin-horn gambler named Ten-Spot (Robert Magruder of “Five Days from Home”) has been taken. Mexican Rurales commander, Jesus Escabedo (Everett Sifuentes of "Selena"), plans to hang Ten-Spot, and Josey tracks them down with his Mexican vaquero, Chato (Rafael Campos of "The Appaloosa"), but Chato gets himself shot-up.  Sadly, Ten-Spot catches a bullet in the finale. Josey leaves Escabedo buried up to his neck in the ground as he rides off with his friends.  In Carter’s novel, Wales repeatedly shot and killed Escabedo during a face-to-face confrontation in a canyon.  Furthermore, in Carter’s novel, real-life Apache chieftain Geronimo played a peripheral role.

Josey Wales desired better than this grubby little western delivered.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE GREAT WALL"

Creature features like Chinese director Zhang Yimou's sprawling $150 million fantasy epic "The Great Wall" (* OUT OF ****) must bristle with monsters that not only send a chill down your spine but also paralyze you with fear. Sadly, neither Yimou, who helmed "House of Flying Daggers," nor his lackluster special effects team have conjured up monsters that would frighten a cat. The toothy but mange-ridden reptilian quadruples that swarm over, around, and under the eponymous wall resemble a horde of demented Tasmanian devils. Mind you, these predators hunt like ravenous wolves, but they look far more hilarious than intimidating. When a multi-million-dollar movie sinks a fortune on such an egregious example of monsters, you'd think the producers would have shown greater imagination. Why actors as respected as Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe would grace this expensive, but lame-brained, hybrid Hollywood/Chinese co-production with their presence remains baffling, too. "The Great Wall" evoked memories of the abysmal Keanu Reeves escapade "47 Ronin" (2013) because both movies depicted how a European outsider intervened to save Asians from virtual annihilation. Mind you, "Sorcerer's Apprentice" scribes Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro along with "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" scribe Tony Gilroy have concocted a premise about Medieval European mercenaries--Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Willem Dafoe— drifting around China on a quest for the fabled gunpowder. Naturally, the Chinese refuse to share the secret of gunpowder with these barbarians since it constituted the equivalent of a nuclear bomb in the bow & arrow era. Eventually, our outcast heroes find refuge within the ranks of an army of intrepid Chinese warriors after Damon's mercenary protagonist miraculously manages to slay one of these absurd beasts. Worse than its Rat Fink-style monsters, "The Great Wall" generates minimal suspense and few surprises with its preposterously formulaic plot. Once you lay your eyes on these bogus Tao Tei monsters you may clamor for a refund on your ticket.

William (Matt Damon of "The Bourne Identity") and Tovar (Pedro Pascal of "Hermanas") have spent their entire lives on the battlefield and dispatched adversaries with as little regard for them as we might stomp cockroaches. Having embarked on an ambitious journey to the Far East, our heroes set out to acquire the legendary black powder that will escalate combat to a more devastating intensity. Unfortunately, attrition in form of marauding enemies as well as enigmatic creatures has whittled their numbers down until only William and Tovar remain. At one point, three of their comrades vanish under suspicious circumstances, and William slashes a big, green claw off something that he cannot see. Our heroic duo doesn't last long in the sprawling Gobi Desert before Chinese soldiers of the Nameless Order surround and usher them off to their leaders. General Shao (Hanyu Zhang of "White Vengeance") and his second-in-command Lin Mae (Ting Jing of "Police Story: Lockdown") have assembled a massive army atop a gargantuan wall where they maintain surveillance on the surrounding countryside. They interrogate William and Tovar and are prepared to execute them as intruders until they discover the severed claw of a Tao Tei monster among William's belongings. They change their attitude about these two and let them live. As it turns out, another European, Ballard (Willem Dafoe of "John Wick"), who has been a Chinese prisoner for about 25 years, blundered unbidden into their land in search of black powder, too. They didn't kill him, and during that time, Ballard has taught Lin Mae how to speak English.

No sooner have the Chinese captured our heroes than William and Tovar collaborate secretly with Ballard about an escape plan. Initially, something stands in their way. A scourge of hideous reptiles endowed with surprising intelligence has been plaguing China. These fiendish creatures show up every 60 years with regularity, and a queen supervises their activities by means of sound vibrations. As Strategist Wang (Andy Lau of "Infernal Affairs") explains it, these carnivores have been terrorizing China for 22 centuries because one emperor wallowed in greed so wanton that a meteor crashed into a mountain and unleashed this pestilence. Consequently, the Chinese constructed the 'Great Wall' to contend with this blight, but they have achieved only minimal success, despite having an arsenal gun powder that they deploy in explosives of various dimensions. Furthermore, these beasts, with eyes located in their shoulders and heads bristling with a porcupine of deadly teeth, have learned over the years how to adapt to the strategies that the Chinese have devised to kill them. William finds himself at a turning point during this predicament. He discovers that fighting for wealth no longer motivates him as an individual. Instead, he learns from the noble Numberless Order that trust supersedes money. Meantime, all Tovar wants is to escape with Ballard; Ballard has been plotting his escape, and he has a route and parcels of the explosive black powder to take back to Europe. During a confrontation on the wall with these monsters, General Shao is mortally wounded by a Tao Tei, and he passes command of the army to Lin Mae. Lin Mae finds herself in an even worse situation than General Shao because the Tao Tei have figured out that it is the cities rather than the great wall where they should concentrate their energy. The Tao Tei stop attacking the wall and swarm off to the capital like an inexorable horde to eat the emperor. The evil Tao Tei queen with her tiara and her inner circle of lizard bodyguards that sprout shields to protect her is truly hilarious. Lin Mae and a few select soldiers pilot ancient balloons to fly to the capital to save the Emperor. William decides to risk his life on this perilous expedition while Tovar and Ballard escape with quantities of gun powder. Despite being the most expensive Chinese movie ever produced with a distinguished cast of Asian actors, "The Great Wall" resembles something that the goofy SyFy Channel would have cooked up to top its sophomoric "Sharknado" sagas.

FILM REVIEW OF ''CAT PEOPLE" (1982)

“American Gigolo” writer & director Paul Schrader and “Deranged: Confessions of a Necrophile” scenarist Allen Ormsby remade director Jacques Tourneur’s eerie, shape-shifting saga “Cat People” that DeWitt Bodeen wrote for RKO Pictures producer Val Lewton in 1942.  By and large, these two films differ more often than they resemble each other.  Tourneur’s atmospheric, black and white, 73-minute original left much to the imagination since it was released while the Production Code Administration ruled Hollywood with an iron fist, and Schrader’s 118-minute adaptation left little to the imagination.  Comparably, the 1942 creature feature surpasses its remake.  Nevertheless, Schrader and Ormsby have forged a horror film that is still stimulating to watch despite its many shortcomings.  The two films show how much Hollywood changed between 1942 and 1982.  Many things that the respective filmmakers dealt with changed in terms of the frankness of their depiction.  Mind you, Simone Simon never disrobed in the original, whereas Nastassja Kinski had no qualms about cavorting about in the nude.  Reportedly, the actress requested that her nude scenes be cut from the finished film, but the studio preserved them in tact in spite of her wishes.  The two films deal with a virgin who leaves her native land and comes to America where she encounters situations that bring about changes in her demeanor.  In the original, Irena is a refugee from a Middle-European country, and in the remake Irena hails from Africa.  The chief difference between the two movies is the ending.  Anybody who hasn’t seen either film should stop reading this brief analysis at this point because the revelations may spoil your appreciation of the films.  In the 1942 version, Irena is doomed to die because she is an evil creature, but the 1982 version displays greater optimism because Irena survives and lives out her life as a black leopard albeit confined to a zoo.  Schrader’s film changed the occupation of Oliver and Alice.  Whereas they worked in a ship-building firm in the first film, Oliver and Alice work at the New Orleans Zoo in the second. Oliver and Irena were never allowed to consummate their marriage in the first film.  Although Oliver and Irena never got married in Schrader’s epic, they engaged in sex twice.  Tom Conway’s womanizing psychiatrist has no counterpart in Schrader’s film.  The two films do share similar scenes.  For example, Schrader’s film duplicates the scene with a woman who recognizes Irena and comments about their common origins.  The scene in the swimming pool when Irena stalks Alice is staged with less atmosphere than the original.  Oliver alone confronts Paul instead of Irena while wielding a drafting ruler in a manner similar to how Kent Smith did in the original.  

Schrader’s remake (*** OUT OF ****) relocates the story to New Orleans, and Irena arrives to be reunited with her long, lost brother Paul Gallier (Malcolm McDowell of “A Clockwork Orange”) who has spent his life searching for her.  Paul fails to consummate the incestuous relationship that he yearns for with the virginal Irena.  We learn from expository dialogue sequences that their parents engaged in incest and ran their own circus.  Nevertheless, Schrader and Ormsby leave out a lot regarding the origins of these characters.  In the opening, we see tribesman tie a young woman to a tree as a sacrificial lamb for a black leopard to do with as the beast sees fit.  Remarkably, the leopard doesn’t shred the girl, but it seems to embrace her.  Later, she is taken to the cave where the beast lives and enters it, but we see nothing that occurs thereafter between the two.  Paul Gallier has led a secretive life and he has a mysterious African-American, Female (Ruby Dee of “Do The Right Thing”) who serves as his housekeeper.  When she meets Irena, Female explains her own orphaned origins and the nature of her name.  All Paul wants is to have sex with Irena, but our heroine doesn’t share either his inclination or his alacrity. She rebels and strikes out into the Crescent City.  Meantime, Paul behaves like a serial killer of sorts who arranges clandestine rendezvous with women and kills them.  He fails when he tries to eat a hooker and winds up trapped in a hotel room after the hooker, Ruthie (Lynn Lowry of “The Crazies”), manages to escape from the premises.  She tumbles down the stairs in the hotel and has a wardrobe malfunction.  Paul transforms into a cat and leaves behind a placenta of sorts.  Nobody can figure out how a black leopard came to be in the hotel room with the hooker.  The authorities summon Oliver Yates from the New Orleans Zoo to capture the animal and remove it.  Eventually, Irena discovers Paul’s presence in the zoo and she has an encounter one evening after closing hours when Oliver confronts her.  She was sketching a picture of the black leopard behind bars that she believes is her brother.  Oliver and Irena met under similar circumstances in the original.  They fall in love, but things become complicated. 

Although Schrader’s film isn’t a classic like its Lewton produced predecessor, the “Cat People” remake is still a fascinating film.

FILM REVIEW OF ''JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO" (2017)

Hollywood makes out two types of sequels.  First, those sequels that aren’t as good as their forerunners.  Second, those sequels that surpass their predecessors. Basically, sequels are either better or worse than what spawned them.  “John Wick: Chapter 2” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) belongs to the second category.   Stunt double Chad Stahelski and scenarist Derek Kolstad respectively return as director and writer for the bullet-riddled bloodbath “John Wick 2,” and Keanu Reeves reprises his role as the invincible, sharp-shooting assassin who doesn’t aim to please.  No, Wick’s new pet pooch doesn’t die in this installment.  Moreover, no other animals are harmed.  Anybody who saw the original “John Wick” knows the villains spoke in awe about John Wick’s lethal use of pencils.  Appropriately enough, Stahelski stages a pencil scene for the sequel, and you will have an entirely new respect for yellow number two pencils.  We’ll have to see if something like this doesn’t ultimately winds up as merchandise to advertise the franchise.  This unbreakable pencil preserves its point throughout a slam-bang combat encounter that would shatter a regular pencil.  Audaciously preposterous, hopelessly predictable, but thoroughly captivating nonsense, “John Wick 2” pushes everything to the limit except the number of lines uttered by Keanu Reeves.  Tired of gun shy, shoot’em ups that confine their mortality rates to single digits? “John Wick 2” boasts a triple-digit body count with an alarming number of head shots.  Typically, our bruised and battered hero pumps two slugs into an adversary’s torso and then polishes them off with one in the noggin.  When he exhausts his ammo, he resorts to battlefield salvage and appropriates another man’s weapon so he can keep on killing. Meaning, if you require discretion in the depiction of violence, you may have complaints about this exciting, atmospheric, and elegantly lensed action thriller with lots of colorfully illuminated settings.  Incidentally, “John Wick 2” reunites Reeves and “Matrix” co-star Laurence Fishburne for a couple of scenes. Were it little more than the original, “John Wick 2” wouldn’t be as memorable, but it is something more with some imaginative tweaks that its predecessor lacked.

“John Wick: Chapter 2” picks up where the previous epic ended.  Since Wick has acquired a new dog, he searches now for the car that his enemies stole, and the film opens with an over-the-top, car-smashing, body-crashing encounter in a rival mobster’s garage with our hero relying on wits, fists, and martial arts.  Like a respectable sequel, “John Wick 2” reminds us what was at stake in the first film as well as the character of our hero.  A relative of the mobsters who shot Wick’s puppy dog and then beat him senseless, Abram (Peter Stormare of “22 Jump Street”) is preparing to clear out since he fears Wick is coming after him next.  While Wick dispatches Abram’s army of thugs and mechanics, Abram’s eyes bulge with abject terror, and Stormare gives a great performance by his reactions to the arrival of his adversary.  When they finally meet after our hero has cleared a gauntlet of killers, Wick pours Abram a drink and proposes peace with a toast.  The two gulp their liquor and forge an armistice.  Abram bids Wick a happy retirement.  Naturally, however, nothing of the sort is going to happen either for Wick or the audience.  In a bit of backstory, we learn that John Wick indebted himself to a treacherous, high-ranking mobster, Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio of “Loose Cannons”), with a blood oath marker so he could retire and live peacefully with his wife Helen.  Now, after wrapping up his revenge, Wick discovers to his chagrin that Santino is calling in that marker!  Although Wick is in no position to refuse an assignment from Santino, he refuses to accommodate Santino because he is weary of all the shooting and killing.  A disappointed Santino leaves Wick’s house and then shoulders an awesome incendiary weapon and fire-bombs our hero’s house, blasting Wick off the premises but not killing his dog.  Resigned to his fate, Wick sits down with Santino and agrees to carry out one final mission.  The evil Santino wants the seat on an international crime council that his late father willed to his older sister, Gianna D'Antonio (Claudia Gerini of “Deceit”), and he stipulates that our hero must ice her.  Off to Rome flies Wick where he acquires an arsenal that James Bond would envy, a dark tailor-made, bullet-proof suit, and the blueprints to infiltrate Gianna’s inner sanctum and surprise her.  What Wick doesn’t plan for adequately is Gianna’s steadfast bodyguard Cassian (Common of “American Gangster”), and these two titans tangle in a blood and guts tango that ends abruptly after they crash into the sacred Continental Hotel in Rome, run by Julius (Franco Nero of “Django”), where mobsters must cease and desist because it represents the equivalent of a gangland church that grants amnesty.  At this point, Wick realizes that the scheming Santino has double-crossed him.  Santino points out he wouldn’t be much of a brother if he didn’t avenge the murder of his sister.  When his own gunmen cannot liquidate Wick, Santino offers a $7-million-dollar bounty, and hitmen from every corner of the globe swarm after our resilient hero.

Aside from Keanu Reeves’ typically stoic performance, “John Wick: Chapter Two” features a sturdy cast, with Ian McShane reprising his role as Winston, the manager of the New York City Continental Hotel--where mobsters are prohibited from fighting with their adversaries, and Lance Reddick as the accommodating desk clerk Charon.  John Leguizamo appears briefly as the body shop repairman who helped Wick locate his Mustang, and Bridget Moynahan appears in a flashback as Wick’s late wife Helen.  Director Chad Stahelski, who once earned his living as Keanu Reeve’s stunt double, need never look back.  Slated to helm the new “Highlander” reboot, Stahelski keeps things thumping throughout this two-hour plus neo-noir thriller.  The hall of mirrors scene where Wick stalks Santino rivals the original scene in Orson Welles’ iconic thriller “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947).