Alfred Parker’s seafaring, swashbuckler “The Black Pirate” (***1/2 out of ****)makes watching silent movies a genuine pleasure. Although Hollywood had produced a handful of pirate epics before this 1926 release, “The Black Pirate” benefits from scenarist Elton Thomas’ ingenious screenplay and Douglas Fairbanks' nimble physical presence. Actually Elton Thomas and Douglas Fairbanks are one in the same person; Elton Thomas was Fairbanks’ nom de plume. Indeed, this grim adventure with a happy ending on the high seas boasts some of Fairbanks’ best stunts, particularly when he slices into a sail with his knife and then lets gravity draw him down the length of the canvas as the knife slashes through the material. Fairbanks performs this stunt three times. The Kino DVD provides an insightful documentary about how Parker and Fairbanks staged this extraordinary stunt. The exuberance with which Fairbanks leaps and lunges, the spectacular briny settings, and the wind-driven sailing ships make this above-average adventure opus a thoroughly entertaining spectacle despite its conspicuous lack of sound. Anybody who enjoys pirate movies, especially the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, won’t get sea-sick watching this epic. Mind you, this isn’t a fantasy with quasi-human creatures lurking about like in the Johnny Depp movie. Meanwhile, Jack Cunningham penned the screenplay from a story by Fairbanks writing under the pseudonym of Elton Thomas. The only drawback to the plot is that some of the coincidences are just too good to be true. Principally, the same island where the pirates stash their treasure is the same island that our hero has been washed up on himself.
After the opening credits, the film presents three expository title cards. The first one states: "A page from THE HISTORY and Lives of the most Bloodthirsty Pirates who ever infested THE SOUTHERN SEAS." Indeed, these pirates live up to their notoriety. The second placard spells out the themes: "Being an account of BUCCANEERS & THE SPANISH MAIN, the Jolly Roger, GOLDEN GALLEONS, bleached skulls, BURIED TREASURE, the Plank, dirks & cutlasses, SCUTTLED SHIPS, Marooning, DESPERATE DEEDS, DESPERATE MEN, and--even on this dark soil--ROMANCE." Finally, the third placard states: "It was the custom of THESE PIRATES to SUBDUE their prey, LOOT the ship, BIND their captives and BLOW THEM UP." Reportedly, Fairbanks and original director Donald Crisp quarreled and Fairbanks replaced him with Parker. Earlier, Crisp directed the Fairbanks’ 1925 “Zorro” sequel “Don Q Son of Zorro.” Nevertheless, Crisp remained aboard as a salty old dog of pirate named MacTavish who helps out our hero on several occasions.
The agile Douglas Fairbanks toplines this lightweight but lavish escapade as the Duke of Arnoldo. As "The Black Pirate" unfolds, the sea wolves are looting a ship. They have tied up virtually everybody left alive and then spill a powder train from the deck to the powder magazine located in bowels of the ship. Indeed, these guys are rather ruthless. The pirates loot the ship, bind the captives, and then run a powder train to blow up both the captives and the ship. These pirates don't play around Parker shows us the looted ship in a long shot as it explodes and then sinks. Arnoldo (Douglas Fairbanks of "The Thief of Bagdad") and his aristocratic father are the only survivors. Not only are the details about their survival omitted, but also the pirates don’t recognize the Duke when he inquires about throwing in with them. Moreover, neither Arnoldo nor his father appeared in the earlier scenes. In fact, Fairbanks' character doesn't show up until 9 minutes into the action. Arnoldo’s father hands him an elaborate ring that Michel later uses to prove his identity. Arnoldo vows to avenge the death of his dad at the hands of dastardly pirates. The Duke masquerades as a cutthroat himself and confronts them after they have stashed their treasure in an underwater cave on the island. Before these pirates can stash their treasure, they have to dig up a chest with the key to the locked gate of their secret underwater hiding place. Arnoldo fights his way into their ranks to end their criminal ways. Before he challenges the pirate captain (Anders Randolf) to a duel, Arnoldo fashions a makeshift grave stone from a piece of flotsam and scratches his solemn vow on it to exact revenge on the brigands. The treacherous pirates keep our hero guessing as much as he keeps teaching them one new trick after another until he defeats them. Along the way, he saves damsel-in-distress Princess Isobel (Billie Dove of “Yellow Lily”), falls hopelessly in love with her and wins her hand in marriage. Some of our hero’s clever tricks involve capturing an entire merchant vessel all by himself. Initially, they are dubious about his chances for pulling off such a stunt, but he captures a ship. Eventually, our hero vanquishes the villains after facing certain death by having to walk the plank. The pirate lieutenant follows Arnoldo onto the plank and other pirates have their muskets loaded and ready should he stick his head above water. Arnoldo escapes death principally because MacTavish and the Princess have stolen a knife and our hero has been able to whittle through his bonds. Our hero escapes from the villains and makes his way to the governor’s mansion where he obtains a long boat equipped with a cannon and a platoon of mariners. Initially, Arnoldo had planned to ransom both the ship and the passenger, the Princess, instead of blowing it up to sink.
Clocking in at a lean 94-minutes, “The Black Pirate” contains more than enough action for its hour and a half plus length, and the characters are interesting not only for who they are but also what they accomplish. Any pirate movie that opens with the chief pirate looting the dead is a keeper. Not long after this scene, the pirate chieftain spots a hostage swallowing a ring. The pirate chieftain summons a mate and pantomimes to the mate how he needs to remove the ring from the captive. The mate leaves and the captain watches. When the mate returns, he hands the chieftain the ring that he eviscerated from the student's gullet. Naturally, the pirate chieftain gets his comeuppance when the Fairbanks' hero challenges him to a duel and defeats him. Fairbanks doesn't so much kill him as the pirate kills himself when he falls on a sword that Fairbanks had stuck in the ground. The two-tone Technicolor makes the blood soaked forearms of the pirate stand out. No pirate movie, not even the Errol Flynn sound classics, ever topped this until the advent of R-rated movies. Indeed, "The Black Pirate" boasts everything a great pirate movie needs. Interestingly, this was Fairbank's last major money maker.
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE EXPENDABLES" (2010)
Although it doesn't qualify as the high-minded, movie massacre that "Rambo IV" was, writer and director Sylvester Stallone's ballistic, high-octane, adrenalin-laced actioneer “The Expendables” (***1/2 out of ****), about mercenaries with hearts of gold, delivers its thrills and chills like grenades in your face. A gnarly-looking Stallone assembles an ultra-elite group of combat veterans who are experts in the use of firearms, all kinds of exotic cutlery, explosives and their own bodies as deadly weapons of force. This rugged quintet of mercenaries renovates a South American dictator’s palace and wipes out his entire army. This enormously entertaining but thoroughly preposterous tough-guy tale boasts a constellation of legendary B-picture action stars. Clearly, Stallone still wields enough clout in Hollywood to attract Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Dolph Lungren, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, and Randy Couture, not to mention Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in cameos, to appear in his movie. Lensed on location in Brazil, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, this brawny but unbelievable, R-rated shoot’em up plays like “The Big Chill” of action movies. Life in "The Expendables" is cheap. Bodies topple like raindrops in a storm of gunfire. Bullets splatter heads and atomize other body parts. This cynical, hard-boiled thriller bristles with larger-than-life firefights, fistfights, and knife fights than what Hollywood usually reserves for action-minded audiences. Predictably, sentimentality ennobles our heroes. They behave like the whore with a heart of gold who gives it up for nothing. Far from being cold, heartless automatons, our bulletproof protagonists win both our sympathy and admiration. They live an unwritten code and banish those who abuse it. Looking as fit as he ever, Stallone sports a Van Dyke and lots of tattoos. Not only does Stallone act as the ringleader for these motley mercenaries, but he also wrote the screenplay as well as orchestrated the action sequences.
“The Expendables” opens at night in the Gulf of Aiden near Somalia as Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone of “Rocky Balboa”) leads his elite team of mercenaries to ransom hostages from a ship hijacked by ruthless pirates. The pirate leader (Amin Joseph of “The Mist”) isn’t satisfied with the $3-million ransom payment that our heroes deposit at his feet. Instead, he complains that the company that employs the hostages has taken far too much time to pay him off. Now, as our eponymous gunmen sight him in with their infrared laser scopes, he demands $5-million. Our heroes quibble about who shoots whom and then the loose cannon of the group, Gunnar (Dolph Lungren of “Rocky 4”), jump-starts the action and obliterates the leader with his grenade launcher. Meanwhile, our heroes wipe out the pirates to the last man without harming the hostages. This in itself should tell you that this is a movie for guys. Afterward, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham of the “Transporter” franchise), Yin Yang (Jet Li of “Unleashed”), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews of “Gamer”), and Toll Road (mixed martial artist Randy Couture of “Redbelt”) watch in horror as Gunnar tries to hang a surviving pirate. Gunnar's argument is that the pirates would have hanged them without a second thought. Yang deploys his steel-tipped boots to distract Gunnar, and Barney plunges his automatic pistol into the nape of Gunnar’s neck. It seems that Gunnar had acquired a meth habit and that puts him at odds with our heroes. Since Gunnar has broken their code, “The Expendables” kick him off the squad. According to Stallone, he wanted to cast Jean-Claude Van Damme in this role, but Van Damme didn't want to be depicted as a loser.
After they get back home, Barney hears about an offer from an anonymous man, Mr. Church (Bruce Willis of “Cop Out”), who wants him with meet him at a church. Barney suspects that the man is a C.I.A. agent. Mr. Church invites one of Barney’s oldest competitors, Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger of “Predator”), to listen to the offer, too. Church wants to topple a ruthless dictator on the South American island of Vilena. Naturally, Vilena is a fictional South American country. Anyway, Church wants the man behind the dictator, James Munroe (Eric Roberts of “The Specialist”), rubbed out with extreme prejudice. Munroe and General Garza (David Zayas of “Bring out the Dead”) have been harvesting illegal narcotics since they overthrew the previous head of state. Ironically, the person who opposes Garza with a passion, Sandra (Hispanic actress Giselle Itié), is his own daughter. She serves as an escort for Barney and Lee when they arrive to reconnoiter the island. Barney and Lee fly into Vilena in a battered looking amphibious plane. They pose as wildlife experts out to save injured animals, but they aren’t around long before Garza’s soldiers take an interest in Barney’s curiosity. Barney wanted Sandra to get him as close to the presidential palace as she could. Our heroes have to shoot their way off the island. Barney wants Sandra to come with them, but she refuses to leave. The cliffhanger escape is pretty exciting. Lee takes off with Barney scrambling down the dock. Barney barely makes it in time to seize a fingertip hold on the open door of the aircraft. Barney is so perturbed at the soldiers that he takes over flying the plane and Lee slips into the nose section where they have concealed multiple guns. By this time, about 50 troops along with Munroe have assembled on the dock. They tried to shoot down the plane, but predictably were unable to bring it down. Barney circles back around and strafes the dock, killing about 41 soldiers, really aggravating Munroe.
Later, Barney explains to his team that the operation is a C.I.A. set-up that will probably result in their deaths because the agency cannot be trusted to punish its own. Barney recommends that they turn down the offer. Nevertheless, Barney changes his mind after he thinks about Sandra and her decision to remain in the most miserable place in the world. One of Barney’s former mercenary pals, Tool (Mickey Rourke of “Iron Man 2”), reminisces about an episode in Bosnia when he failed to save an innocent woman’s life. Tool believes that if he could have saved her life, he might have saved part of his own soul. Barney is so moved by Tool’s memory as well as the memory of the defiant Sandra that he decides on impulse to go back into an impossible situation and save her. Although Gunnar is no longer with them, the Expendables volunteer to the last man to follow Barney. Instead of doing the impossible for a $5-million pay check, Barney and his men wind up doing it for nothing. Meanwhile, Munroe has Sandra arrested and his chief henchman, Paine (Steve Austin of “The Condemned”) tortures her so that he can learn the identities of the men who flew into Vilena. Our heroes show up again and all hell breaks loose this time, with blood and body parts flying like confetti.
While the violence isn’t as hardcore as “Rambo IV,” “The Expendables” boasts its share of mayhem. Nevertheless, Stallone raises the bar for mercenary movies with his no-nonsense, slam-bang direction. The violence may take you by surprise both with its severity and celerity. Not everybody has their limbs, legs, torsos, and other body parts shredded by gunfire. Some equally hideous deaths are left to your avid imagination. A character must possess some modicum of virtue to survive in this corrosive universe of “The Expendables.” The Statham character literally makes his knives sing and dance for him. The riveting scenes of close-quarters combat tops anything that you’ve seen since “Bourne” franchise. Stallone manages to imbue the action with a ferocity that will make you pay attention to it. Legendary stuntman Terry J. Leonard of “Blue Thunder” and “Cobra” handled the second unit work and the end credits list about 60 stunt people.
Movies like "The Expendables" usually fail because they fail to showcase their massive star power. Happily, Stallone shares the limelight with agile Jason "The Transporter" Statham, martial arts sensation Jet Li of “The Mummy 3,” hard-headed Dolph Lundgren of “Rocky IV”, and shotgun-wielding Terry Crews of “Gamer.” These guys chew the scenery when they aren't obliterating it. Incredibly, despite his shortage of scenes, Lundgren steals the show as a junkie mercenary who abandons his loyalty for his friends for his narcotic cravings. Meanwhile, Stallone hasn't forgotten how to shoot two guns at once, steer a truck like a runaway train in a drive-by, and generally kick butt when his own butt isn't being kicked. Wrestling champ Steve Austin and Julia's brother Eric Roberts deploy themselves as the most despicable dastards you’ll ever encounter. You can hate these desperados without a qualm. They shoot first and neglect to ask questions. No, "The Expendables" isn't cute, clever, or particularly literate. The dialogue shoves the plot forward without sounding like bumper sticker philosophy. The one line that really sticks out is uttered by Stallone’s character when Trench turns down the mission and heads for the front door. “What’s his problem,” Church asks. “He wants to be president,” Barney scoffs. They don’t have the usual planning scenes with maps and miniatures of the location. Nevertheless, this supercharged macho melodrama will rattle your cage like a blast from the past!
“The Expendables” opens at night in the Gulf of Aiden near Somalia as Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone of “Rocky Balboa”) leads his elite team of mercenaries to ransom hostages from a ship hijacked by ruthless pirates. The pirate leader (Amin Joseph of “The Mist”) isn’t satisfied with the $3-million ransom payment that our heroes deposit at his feet. Instead, he complains that the company that employs the hostages has taken far too much time to pay him off. Now, as our eponymous gunmen sight him in with their infrared laser scopes, he demands $5-million. Our heroes quibble about who shoots whom and then the loose cannon of the group, Gunnar (Dolph Lungren of “Rocky 4”), jump-starts the action and obliterates the leader with his grenade launcher. Meanwhile, our heroes wipe out the pirates to the last man without harming the hostages. This in itself should tell you that this is a movie for guys. Afterward, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham of the “Transporter” franchise), Yin Yang (Jet Li of “Unleashed”), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews of “Gamer”), and Toll Road (mixed martial artist Randy Couture of “Redbelt”) watch in horror as Gunnar tries to hang a surviving pirate. Gunnar's argument is that the pirates would have hanged them without a second thought. Yang deploys his steel-tipped boots to distract Gunnar, and Barney plunges his automatic pistol into the nape of Gunnar’s neck. It seems that Gunnar had acquired a meth habit and that puts him at odds with our heroes. Since Gunnar has broken their code, “The Expendables” kick him off the squad. According to Stallone, he wanted to cast Jean-Claude Van Damme in this role, but Van Damme didn't want to be depicted as a loser.
After they get back home, Barney hears about an offer from an anonymous man, Mr. Church (Bruce Willis of “Cop Out”), who wants him with meet him at a church. Barney suspects that the man is a C.I.A. agent. Mr. Church invites one of Barney’s oldest competitors, Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger of “Predator”), to listen to the offer, too. Church wants to topple a ruthless dictator on the South American island of Vilena. Naturally, Vilena is a fictional South American country. Anyway, Church wants the man behind the dictator, James Munroe (Eric Roberts of “The Specialist”), rubbed out with extreme prejudice. Munroe and General Garza (David Zayas of “Bring out the Dead”) have been harvesting illegal narcotics since they overthrew the previous head of state. Ironically, the person who opposes Garza with a passion, Sandra (Hispanic actress Giselle Itié), is his own daughter. She serves as an escort for Barney and Lee when they arrive to reconnoiter the island. Barney and Lee fly into Vilena in a battered looking amphibious plane. They pose as wildlife experts out to save injured animals, but they aren’t around long before Garza’s soldiers take an interest in Barney’s curiosity. Barney wanted Sandra to get him as close to the presidential palace as she could. Our heroes have to shoot their way off the island. Barney wants Sandra to come with them, but she refuses to leave. The cliffhanger escape is pretty exciting. Lee takes off with Barney scrambling down the dock. Barney barely makes it in time to seize a fingertip hold on the open door of the aircraft. Barney is so perturbed at the soldiers that he takes over flying the plane and Lee slips into the nose section where they have concealed multiple guns. By this time, about 50 troops along with Munroe have assembled on the dock. They tried to shoot down the plane, but predictably were unable to bring it down. Barney circles back around and strafes the dock, killing about 41 soldiers, really aggravating Munroe.
Later, Barney explains to his team that the operation is a C.I.A. set-up that will probably result in their deaths because the agency cannot be trusted to punish its own. Barney recommends that they turn down the offer. Nevertheless, Barney changes his mind after he thinks about Sandra and her decision to remain in the most miserable place in the world. One of Barney’s former mercenary pals, Tool (Mickey Rourke of “Iron Man 2”), reminisces about an episode in Bosnia when he failed to save an innocent woman’s life. Tool believes that if he could have saved her life, he might have saved part of his own soul. Barney is so moved by Tool’s memory as well as the memory of the defiant Sandra that he decides on impulse to go back into an impossible situation and save her. Although Gunnar is no longer with them, the Expendables volunteer to the last man to follow Barney. Instead of doing the impossible for a $5-million pay check, Barney and his men wind up doing it for nothing. Meanwhile, Munroe has Sandra arrested and his chief henchman, Paine (Steve Austin of “The Condemned”) tortures her so that he can learn the identities of the men who flew into Vilena. Our heroes show up again and all hell breaks loose this time, with blood and body parts flying like confetti.
While the violence isn’t as hardcore as “Rambo IV,” “The Expendables” boasts its share of mayhem. Nevertheless, Stallone raises the bar for mercenary movies with his no-nonsense, slam-bang direction. The violence may take you by surprise both with its severity and celerity. Not everybody has their limbs, legs, torsos, and other body parts shredded by gunfire. Some equally hideous deaths are left to your avid imagination. A character must possess some modicum of virtue to survive in this corrosive universe of “The Expendables.” The Statham character literally makes his knives sing and dance for him. The riveting scenes of close-quarters combat tops anything that you’ve seen since “Bourne” franchise. Stallone manages to imbue the action with a ferocity that will make you pay attention to it. Legendary stuntman Terry J. Leonard of “Blue Thunder” and “Cobra” handled the second unit work and the end credits list about 60 stunt people.
Movies like "The Expendables" usually fail because they fail to showcase their massive star power. Happily, Stallone shares the limelight with agile Jason "The Transporter" Statham, martial arts sensation Jet Li of “The Mummy 3,” hard-headed Dolph Lundgren of “Rocky IV”, and shotgun-wielding Terry Crews of “Gamer.” These guys chew the scenery when they aren't obliterating it. Incredibly, despite his shortage of scenes, Lundgren steals the show as a junkie mercenary who abandons his loyalty for his friends for his narcotic cravings. Meanwhile, Stallone hasn't forgotten how to shoot two guns at once, steer a truck like a runaway train in a drive-by, and generally kick butt when his own butt isn't being kicked. Wrestling champ Steve Austin and Julia's brother Eric Roberts deploy themselves as the most despicable dastards you’ll ever encounter. You can hate these desperados without a qualm. They shoot first and neglect to ask questions. No, "The Expendables" isn't cute, clever, or particularly literate. The dialogue shoves the plot forward without sounding like bumper sticker philosophy. The one line that really sticks out is uttered by Stallone’s character when Trench turns down the mission and heads for the front door. “What’s his problem,” Church asks. “He wants to be president,” Barney scoffs. They don’t have the usual planning scenes with maps and miniatures of the location. Nevertheless, this supercharged macho melodrama will rattle your cage like a blast from the past!
Monday, August 9, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE OTHER GUYS'' (2010)
“Saturday Night Live” comedian Will Ferrell has made a mint out of playing morons. He delivers another hilarious performance as a moronic New York Police Department detective in "Talladega Nights” director Adam McKay’s “The Other Guys,” (** out of ****) an ambitious but half-baked parody of slam-bang police thrillers. Oscar nominated actor Mark Wahlberg of “The Departed” co-stars as Ferrell’s pugnacious NYPD partner. Unfortunately, Wahlberg displays none of Ferrell’s comic genius. Indeed, nothing Wahlberg does registers as remotely amusing. He is either screaming at Ferrell or skewering his partner’s masculinity. Wahlberg appears to be channeling Joe Pesci from the Martin Scorsese classics “Goodfellas” and “Casino.” Alas, Wahlberg is no Pesci. The funniest thing next to Ferrell is the non-stop ridicule reserved for our hero’s red Prius. Incredibly, the car is far funnier than Wahlberg. McKay and “Land of the Lost” scenarist Chris Henchy struggle with little success to combine a formulaic buddy picture comedy with a complex white-collar crime conspiracy about a shady investment banker. Nevertheless, anything Ferrell does will keep you in stitches, but all Wahlberg’s scenes should have hit the editing room floor. Think of “The Other Guys” as a mediocre “Police Academy” knock-off with half of the laughs. Primarily, the humor grows out of the irony that two pencil-pushing desk jockeys wind up replacing two loose-cannon celebrity crime busters as the top cops in the Big Apple. The stunt work is terrific. The opening gag where a heroic pair of testosterone-driven cops smash their sports car through a double-decker bus to arrest two shooters for a misdemeanor amount of narcotics is impressive. Again, McKay and Henchy make some poor narrative choices. First, they kill off the two most charismatic characters, Highsmith and Danson, in the first quarter hour. Second, they replace them with two colorless morons. Our heroes qualify as genuine underdogs. Third, McKay and Henchy never provide a solid, colorful villain. The villainous chores are split between a the harmless investment banker and an antagonist Australian troubleshooter. You cannot spoof a genre, like crime movies, unless you follow the dictates of the genre. Since there is no central villain, our heroes have it pretty easy. The closest character to a villain turns out to be their own police captain. Mind you, "The Other Guys" isn't even an adequate parody. Some of the jokes on the side shine, like Dirty Mike and his homeless crew that have an orgy in our hero's car.
NYPD Detectives P.K. Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson of “Pulp Fiction”) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson of “The Tooth Fairy”) are a macho pair of “Lethal Weapon” cops who refuse to let details complicate their roguish antics. Although they make spectacular arrests, they also create equally spectacular property damage. Nevertheless, everybody loves them so they can flout the rules without fear of repercussion. As “The Other Guys” opens, Highsmith and Danson are chasing a gang armed with assault weapons. Danson has gotten atop their Escalade, but he isn’t there long after they shoot up the roof. Danson dives back onto Highsmith’s car, rolls off the hood onto the roof, and swings into the front seat. The villains blast Highsmith’s car so the hood folds back against the windshield and blinds them. Highsmith shoots off the hood hinge. Too late! He plows into a double-decker bus as the villains appear to get away. Danson commandeers the double-decker bus with Highsmith’s car still stuck in it. Danson careens after the hoods, whips the double-decker around, launching Highsmith’s car with Highsmith blasting away with two pistols at the hoods. Highsmith takes them down, shoots the gas tank of their Escalade, and soars over the explosion, crashing into the building. After Highsmith and Danson receive their medals, Precinct Captain Gene Mauch (Michael Keaton of “Batman”) calls on somebody to complete their paper work. These two cops have never wasted their time with paperwork. Detective Allen Gamble snaps at the opportunity to complete the Highsmith and Danson paperwork. Not long afterward, Highsmith and Danson leap to their deaths when they try to thwart a team of acrobats who wield a wrecking ball to smash their way into a jewelry store and heist $79-thousand in stones.
A milquetoast forensic accountant who prefers to file paperwork, Gamble (Will Ferrell of “Old School”) likes to hum the S.W.A.T. theme and stay in the precinct office rather than nab the bad guys on the streets. His idea of busting loose is to floor the gas pedal of his Prius and play the Little River Band. Allen’s partner, Detective Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg of “Date Night”), is just the opposite. Terry dreams of making the big bust. He suspects drug deals behind every crime. Sadly, Terry has been confined to a desk and stuck with Allen. The skeleton in Terry’s closet is he accidentally shot New York Yankees baseball slugger Derek Jeter in the leg during the seventh game of the World Series. Yes, the Yankees lost! Everybody in the precinct now calls Terry ‘the Yankee Clipper.’ Naturally, Terry hates Allen, but he lives by the venerable “partner’s code,” a police maxim that requires a partner to back up his partner no matter what the circumstance. Ironically, Allen’s obsession with paper work prompts them to arrest British investment banker Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan of “Tropic Thunder”) who is up to his neck in a grand scheme to steal $32-billion from the NYPD Pension Fund to cover the loses of another Wall Street titan.
The best scene between Ferrell and Wahlberg is the lion-versus-the-tuna tale. Terry tells Allen that he would rip him to shreds as easily as a lion could a tuna. Terry destroys the lack of logic in Terry’s example with own flawed logic. He claims that the tuna would construct an oxygen apparatus to allow them to live out of water so they could stalk and attack lions on dry land. The running joke throughout “The Other Guys” is that nerdy Allen is a babe magnet. Sexy chicks come on to him but ignore Terry. At one point, Allen and Terry have to interview one of Allen’s old girlfriends to get message that was ghost-messaged from Allen’s cell phone to her cell phone. Again, Terry is flabbergasted by Allen’s sexy ex-girlfriend. Terry is floored when he finally meets Allen’s hot chick wife, Dr. Shelia Gamble (Eva Mendez of “Training Day”), who is crazy about her husband. Allen and Shelia met while he was in college acting as a pimp for some of his girlfriends. Allen assured Terry that his pimping days were dark days indeed because he became a different person nicknamed ‘Gator.’ “The Other Guys” swerves erratically between scenes of Allen and Terry bonding to the chaos that they create when they arrest Ershon. The “Grand Theft Auto” chases, the blazing gunfights, and the audacious wrecking ball jewelry heist accent look cool but these scenes seem out of place in a screwy buddy comedy. Ultimately, the PG-13 rated "Other Guys” runs out of momentum and laughs long before it runs out of plot.
NYPD Detectives P.K. Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson of “Pulp Fiction”) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson of “The Tooth Fairy”) are a macho pair of “Lethal Weapon” cops who refuse to let details complicate their roguish antics. Although they make spectacular arrests, they also create equally spectacular property damage. Nevertheless, everybody loves them so they can flout the rules without fear of repercussion. As “The Other Guys” opens, Highsmith and Danson are chasing a gang armed with assault weapons. Danson has gotten atop their Escalade, but he isn’t there long after they shoot up the roof. Danson dives back onto Highsmith’s car, rolls off the hood onto the roof, and swings into the front seat. The villains blast Highsmith’s car so the hood folds back against the windshield and blinds them. Highsmith shoots off the hood hinge. Too late! He plows into a double-decker bus as the villains appear to get away. Danson commandeers the double-decker bus with Highsmith’s car still stuck in it. Danson careens after the hoods, whips the double-decker around, launching Highsmith’s car with Highsmith blasting away with two pistols at the hoods. Highsmith takes them down, shoots the gas tank of their Escalade, and soars over the explosion, crashing into the building. After Highsmith and Danson receive their medals, Precinct Captain Gene Mauch (Michael Keaton of “Batman”) calls on somebody to complete their paper work. These two cops have never wasted their time with paperwork. Detective Allen Gamble snaps at the opportunity to complete the Highsmith and Danson paperwork. Not long afterward, Highsmith and Danson leap to their deaths when they try to thwart a team of acrobats who wield a wrecking ball to smash their way into a jewelry store and heist $79-thousand in stones.
A milquetoast forensic accountant who prefers to file paperwork, Gamble (Will Ferrell of “Old School”) likes to hum the S.W.A.T. theme and stay in the precinct office rather than nab the bad guys on the streets. His idea of busting loose is to floor the gas pedal of his Prius and play the Little River Band. Allen’s partner, Detective Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg of “Date Night”), is just the opposite. Terry dreams of making the big bust. He suspects drug deals behind every crime. Sadly, Terry has been confined to a desk and stuck with Allen. The skeleton in Terry’s closet is he accidentally shot New York Yankees baseball slugger Derek Jeter in the leg during the seventh game of the World Series. Yes, the Yankees lost! Everybody in the precinct now calls Terry ‘the Yankee Clipper.’ Naturally, Terry hates Allen, but he lives by the venerable “partner’s code,” a police maxim that requires a partner to back up his partner no matter what the circumstance. Ironically, Allen’s obsession with paper work prompts them to arrest British investment banker Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan of “Tropic Thunder”) who is up to his neck in a grand scheme to steal $32-billion from the NYPD Pension Fund to cover the loses of another Wall Street titan.
The best scene between Ferrell and Wahlberg is the lion-versus-the-tuna tale. Terry tells Allen that he would rip him to shreds as easily as a lion could a tuna. Terry destroys the lack of logic in Terry’s example with own flawed logic. He claims that the tuna would construct an oxygen apparatus to allow them to live out of water so they could stalk and attack lions on dry land. The running joke throughout “The Other Guys” is that nerdy Allen is a babe magnet. Sexy chicks come on to him but ignore Terry. At one point, Allen and Terry have to interview one of Allen’s old girlfriends to get message that was ghost-messaged from Allen’s cell phone to her cell phone. Again, Terry is flabbergasted by Allen’s sexy ex-girlfriend. Terry is floored when he finally meets Allen’s hot chick wife, Dr. Shelia Gamble (Eva Mendez of “Training Day”), who is crazy about her husband. Allen and Shelia met while he was in college acting as a pimp for some of his girlfriends. Allen assured Terry that his pimping days were dark days indeed because he became a different person nicknamed ‘Gator.’ “The Other Guys” swerves erratically between scenes of Allen and Terry bonding to the chaos that they create when they arrest Ershon. The “Grand Theft Auto” chases, the blazing gunfights, and the audacious wrecking ball jewelry heist accent look cool but these scenes seem out of place in a screwy buddy comedy. Ultimately, the PG-13 rated "Other Guys” runs out of momentum and laughs long before it runs out of plot.
FILM REVIEW OF "INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS" (1956)
No single movie more effectively captured the paranoia and depicted the conformity that afflicted America in the 1950s than director Don Siegel's low-budget, black & white, science fiction chiller "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (**** out of ****) with Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. Siegel remembered it as his favorite film and its potency lies in Siegel's subtle handling of the outlandish subject matter. Every Siegel film has examined the theme of the individual versus society. Never has any Siegel protagonist ever blended in with the swarm. Iconoclastic to the hilt, Siegel's protagonists clash with the status quo. Siegel's respect for these outcasts prompted him to make "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." "I think that the world is populated by pods," he observed, "and I wanted to show them." Despite its melodramatic title and ghoulish adversaries, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" shares little similarity with sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s. Surprisingly, this minor Allied Artists release quickly acquired a reputation. Film critics and scholars alike have read considerably more into its standard narrative about aliens taking over the earth than Siegel intended. Kevin McCarthy said years later he saw "no political significance" in the plot. One of Don Siegel's contemporaries and a renowned film producer in his own right, Walter Mirish, wrote about the film's significance in his autobiography. "People began to read meanings into pictures that were never intended. "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is an example of that. I remember reading a magazine article arguing that the picture was intended as an allegory about the communist infiltration of America. From personal knowledge, neither Walter Wanger nor Don Siegel, who directed it, nor Dan Mainwaring, who wrote the script nor the original author Jack Finney, nor myself saw it as anything other than a thriller, pure and simple." Nevertheless, the best works of art are always prone to interpretations beyond those of its creators, and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" became a lightning rod for commentary.
Three schools of thought emerged about "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The first construed it as a polemic against the hysteria-inducing tactics of discredited Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy who alleged Communists had infiltrated American government. McCarthy never substantiated his charges, but he forged an atmosphere of hatred and mistrust that ostracized iconoclasts. The second saw it as a metaphor for the perennial threat Communism posed to Americans. During the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee launched a witch hunt and blacklisted many Hollywood filmmakers because of their involvement with the Communist Party between the 1930s and 1950s. As a casualty of the blacklist, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" scenarist Daniel Mainwaring spent his remaining years writing under a pseudonym. A third school saw it as an indictment of the Levittown suburban mentality where everybody acted and dressed in identical fashion.
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" opens with a prologue as the police transport Dr. Hill (Whit Bissell of "He Walks By Night") from the State Mental Hospital to observe a delusional inmate who claims that he isn't insane. Dr. Hill sits down with our disheveled hero and listens to his story. Until the epilogue, when Siegel returns to the asylum, everything from here until then occurs in flashback as the story is told. Things begin innocently enough as a local physician, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy of "Annapolis Story"), has encountered patients in the small town of Santa Mira, California, who complain about their loved ones behaving like impostors. Town psychiatrist Dr. Dan Kaufman (Larry Gates of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”) dismisses everything as "hysteria." Soon, Bennell and his old friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan of “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”) and his wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones of "The Addams Family") along with Bennell's former sweetheart Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), discover a replica of Jack in his house lying on his pool table. "It's like the first impression stamped on a coin," Jack observes to Bennell. Bennell takes the body's fingerprints, but it has no fingerprints at this point. The thing awakens no long afterward, and Jack and Teddy flee in terror to Bennell's house with news that the body looks exactly like Jack. Indeed, Teddy points out that it resembles Jack right down to his slashed hand palm where he cut himself dropping a bottle of bourbon. Later, they learn seed pods are appearing everywhere. When people fall asleep, the pods hatch facsimiles. After Jack and Teddy show up at Bennell’s house, the doctor’s imagination runs wild and he leaps into his car in his pajamas and house robe and careens over the Becky’s house. Bennell breaks into Becky's house. He enters the house by smashing a window in the basement. Bennell finds a pod in her cellar, but rescues Becky before she can turn into a pod person. Our hero theorizes that so many things have been discovered in the world since the advent of the atomic bomb that radiation may have affected plant or animal life or some weird alien organism. Dr. Kaufman comes over to Bennell’s house and they explain to him the outlandish events that have happened. Predictably, Dr. Kaufman refuses to believe anything that they say. Bennell and Jack accompany Dr. Kaufman over to Jack’s house to show him the facsimile on the billiards table. When they reach the billiards table, they find the body has vanished. Dr. Kaufman points out a blood stain on the table, but the body is nowhere to be found. They drive over to Becky’s house and check the basement for Becky’s facsimile, but they find nothing. Dr. Kaufman launches into a lecture to the incredulous Miles Bennell. “Why did you come here tonight? You’d seen a dead man at Jack’s, an average sized man. The face in death was smooth and unlined, bland in expression, which often happens, You had become aware of a curious, unexplainable epidemic mass hysteria. Men, women, and children suddenly convinced themselves that their relatives weren’t their relatives at all so your mind starting playing tricks.”
No sooner has Dr. Kaufman finished than Becky’s father, Stanley Driscoll (Kenneth Patterson of “Baby Face Nelson”), appears with a shotgun in his fists. He wants to know what they are doing in his basement. Not long afterward, Santa Mira Police Chief Nick Grivett (Ralph Dumke of “Violent Saturday”) pokes his head in the broken window that Bennell and company have entered the basement. When they try to explain about the body over at Jack’s house, the chief interrupts and gives them a complete description of the man. The chief saw the body on the slab. He informs Bennell, Jack, and Dr. Kaufman that the body was found in a burning haystack on Mike Gessner’s south pasture. Afterward, several people who had complained about their relatives no longer show anxiety. The little boy that Bennell nearly ran over earlier, Jimmy Grimaldi (Bobby Clark of “Kentucky Jubilee”), is neither afraid of his mother nor of attending school. Similarly, Wilma Lentz (Virginia Christine of “Billy the Kid versus Dracula ) is no longer worried about her Uncle Ira being an impostor.
Approximately, forty minutes into the action, Siegel shows the first pod as it is replicating a human; the kind of shot that Siegel uses is designated a ‘Dutch’ tilt shot. The camera is set-up as if it were on its side so that image looks definitely out of place. Siegel is deliberately calling attention to the seed pods. Bennell notices the seed pods when one gurgles, and Jack, Teddy, and Becky join him. Becky confesses that her father hasn’t been the same since Bennell and she came home yesterday and found him leaving the basement. “They have to be destroyed,” cries Teddy, “all of them.” Bennell assures her that they will. The doctor and the others haven’t caught on yet about the brutal truth. “We’re going to have to search every building, every house in town. Men, women, and children have to be examined. We’ve got some phoning to do.” Bennell tries to call the FBI in Los Angeles. The switchboard operator informs him that all Los Angeles circuits are dead. When he asks for the governor in Sacramento, Bennell learns that all Sacramento circuits are busy. Bennell sends Jack and Teddy out of town to alert the authorities. He tried to make Becky go with them, but she refuses and stays behind with him. Bennell takes the pitchfork and checks the seed poles. One of them has disgorged a replica of Becky, but Bennell cannot spear it. Instead, he finds his own replica and plunges the spear into it repeatedly. Eventually, the impostors take over and corner Bennell and Becky. They explain that the seed pods entered the Earth, landed at a farm and took root. Life has driven too many people over the edge and the pods will free mankind of its worries. Nobody will ever be troubled by anything again. "There is no need for love or emotion. Love, desire, ambition, faith—without them—life is so simple." Originally, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" concluded with the frantic Bennell screaming his warning about these space aliens who robbed humans of their emotions and turned them into thoughtless automatons. Allied Artists sought to soften the hysteria. Siegel agreed against his wishes to add a prologue and an epilogue on the advice of Wanger for fear that the studio would re-edit the film.
The legacy of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is considerable. Hollywood has remade this original three times along with the unacknowledged remakes, such as the 2007 "Invasion of the Pod People" Philip Kaufman helmed an urban version of the Siegel film in 1978 with Donald Sutherland, but situated it in the urban sprawl of San Francisco. McCarthy reprised his role, and Siegel had a cameo. Later, independent director Abel Ferrara took it back to its rural roots in 1994 with "Body Snatchers" and located the action on a military base in Alabama. In 2007, another remake simply called "Invasion" appeared with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Originally, Jack Finney wrote the novel that "Collier's Magazine" serialized in 1954.
Three schools of thought emerged about "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The first construed it as a polemic against the hysteria-inducing tactics of discredited Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy who alleged Communists had infiltrated American government. McCarthy never substantiated his charges, but he forged an atmosphere of hatred and mistrust that ostracized iconoclasts. The second saw it as a metaphor for the perennial threat Communism posed to Americans. During the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee launched a witch hunt and blacklisted many Hollywood filmmakers because of their involvement with the Communist Party between the 1930s and 1950s. As a casualty of the blacklist, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" scenarist Daniel Mainwaring spent his remaining years writing under a pseudonym. A third school saw it as an indictment of the Levittown suburban mentality where everybody acted and dressed in identical fashion.
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" opens with a prologue as the police transport Dr. Hill (Whit Bissell of "He Walks By Night") from the State Mental Hospital to observe a delusional inmate who claims that he isn't insane. Dr. Hill sits down with our disheveled hero and listens to his story. Until the epilogue, when Siegel returns to the asylum, everything from here until then occurs in flashback as the story is told. Things begin innocently enough as a local physician, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy of "Annapolis Story"), has encountered patients in the small town of Santa Mira, California, who complain about their loved ones behaving like impostors. Town psychiatrist Dr. Dan Kaufman (Larry Gates of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”) dismisses everything as "hysteria." Soon, Bennell and his old friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan of “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”) and his wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones of "The Addams Family") along with Bennell's former sweetheart Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), discover a replica of Jack in his house lying on his pool table. "It's like the first impression stamped on a coin," Jack observes to Bennell. Bennell takes the body's fingerprints, but it has no fingerprints at this point. The thing awakens no long afterward, and Jack and Teddy flee in terror to Bennell's house with news that the body looks exactly like Jack. Indeed, Teddy points out that it resembles Jack right down to his slashed hand palm where he cut himself dropping a bottle of bourbon. Later, they learn seed pods are appearing everywhere. When people fall asleep, the pods hatch facsimiles. After Jack and Teddy show up at Bennell’s house, the doctor’s imagination runs wild and he leaps into his car in his pajamas and house robe and careens over the Becky’s house. Bennell breaks into Becky's house. He enters the house by smashing a window in the basement. Bennell finds a pod in her cellar, but rescues Becky before she can turn into a pod person. Our hero theorizes that so many things have been discovered in the world since the advent of the atomic bomb that radiation may have affected plant or animal life or some weird alien organism. Dr. Kaufman comes over to Bennell’s house and they explain to him the outlandish events that have happened. Predictably, Dr. Kaufman refuses to believe anything that they say. Bennell and Jack accompany Dr. Kaufman over to Jack’s house to show him the facsimile on the billiards table. When they reach the billiards table, they find the body has vanished. Dr. Kaufman points out a blood stain on the table, but the body is nowhere to be found. They drive over to Becky’s house and check the basement for Becky’s facsimile, but they find nothing. Dr. Kaufman launches into a lecture to the incredulous Miles Bennell. “Why did you come here tonight? You’d seen a dead man at Jack’s, an average sized man. The face in death was smooth and unlined, bland in expression, which often happens, You had become aware of a curious, unexplainable epidemic mass hysteria. Men, women, and children suddenly convinced themselves that their relatives weren’t their relatives at all so your mind starting playing tricks.”
No sooner has Dr. Kaufman finished than Becky’s father, Stanley Driscoll (Kenneth Patterson of “Baby Face Nelson”), appears with a shotgun in his fists. He wants to know what they are doing in his basement. Not long afterward, Santa Mira Police Chief Nick Grivett (Ralph Dumke of “Violent Saturday”) pokes his head in the broken window that Bennell and company have entered the basement. When they try to explain about the body over at Jack’s house, the chief interrupts and gives them a complete description of the man. The chief saw the body on the slab. He informs Bennell, Jack, and Dr. Kaufman that the body was found in a burning haystack on Mike Gessner’s south pasture. Afterward, several people who had complained about their relatives no longer show anxiety. The little boy that Bennell nearly ran over earlier, Jimmy Grimaldi (Bobby Clark of “Kentucky Jubilee”), is neither afraid of his mother nor of attending school. Similarly, Wilma Lentz (Virginia Christine of “Billy the Kid versus Dracula ) is no longer worried about her Uncle Ira being an impostor.
Approximately, forty minutes into the action, Siegel shows the first pod as it is replicating a human; the kind of shot that Siegel uses is designated a ‘Dutch’ tilt shot. The camera is set-up as if it were on its side so that image looks definitely out of place. Siegel is deliberately calling attention to the seed pods. Bennell notices the seed pods when one gurgles, and Jack, Teddy, and Becky join him. Becky confesses that her father hasn’t been the same since Bennell and she came home yesterday and found him leaving the basement. “They have to be destroyed,” cries Teddy, “all of them.” Bennell assures her that they will. The doctor and the others haven’t caught on yet about the brutal truth. “We’re going to have to search every building, every house in town. Men, women, and children have to be examined. We’ve got some phoning to do.” Bennell tries to call the FBI in Los Angeles. The switchboard operator informs him that all Los Angeles circuits are dead. When he asks for the governor in Sacramento, Bennell learns that all Sacramento circuits are busy. Bennell sends Jack and Teddy out of town to alert the authorities. He tried to make Becky go with them, but she refuses and stays behind with him. Bennell takes the pitchfork and checks the seed poles. One of them has disgorged a replica of Becky, but Bennell cannot spear it. Instead, he finds his own replica and plunges the spear into it repeatedly. Eventually, the impostors take over and corner Bennell and Becky. They explain that the seed pods entered the Earth, landed at a farm and took root. Life has driven too many people over the edge and the pods will free mankind of its worries. Nobody will ever be troubled by anything again. "There is no need for love or emotion. Love, desire, ambition, faith—without them—life is so simple." Originally, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" concluded with the frantic Bennell screaming his warning about these space aliens who robbed humans of their emotions and turned them into thoughtless automatons. Allied Artists sought to soften the hysteria. Siegel agreed against his wishes to add a prologue and an epilogue on the advice of Wanger for fear that the studio would re-edit the film.
The legacy of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is considerable. Hollywood has remade this original three times along with the unacknowledged remakes, such as the 2007 "Invasion of the Pod People" Philip Kaufman helmed an urban version of the Siegel film in 1978 with Donald Sutherland, but situated it in the urban sprawl of San Francisco. McCarthy reprised his role, and Siegel had a cameo. Later, independent director Abel Ferrara took it back to its rural roots in 1994 with "Body Snatchers" and located the action on a military base in Alabama. In 2007, another remake simply called "Invasion" appeared with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Originally, Jack Finney wrote the novel that "Collier's Magazine" serialized in 1954.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF ''RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD, PART 2" (1985)
This explosive, high-octane sequel to "First Blood" (1982) qualifies as a brawny, action-adventure epic that finds our troubled, misunderstood hero pressed back into service to return to Vietnam and search for missing American P.O.W.s still reputed to be in captivity. Originally, director Ted Kotcheff's "First Blood" depicted the trials and tribulations that a former Green Beret encounters when he came home from Vietnam and clashes with an obnoxious, hard-headed sheriff. “First Blood” was derived from author David Morrell’s cult novel. Eventually, after a high body count, John J. Rambo surrenders to the authorities. Whereas "First Blood" emerged as largely tragic, "Rambo: First Blood, Part 2" is primarily heroic. The film generated some controversy during its release with its contentious subject matter about surviving American P.O.W.s left behind in Vietnam. Surprisingly, “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2” did not create the ‘free the American P.O.W.s. Ironically, the film that did create this niche genre was Kotcheff’s “Uncommon Value” that came out two years before “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2.” Nevertheless, this “Rambo” sequel attracted more attention. Moreover, this sequel is a lot more charismatic because the James Cameron & Sylvester Stallone screenplay based on a story by “Tombstone” scribe Kevin Jarre deals mostly in black and white with fewer gray areas of subtlety. Remember, this is a formulaic actioneer with titanic archetypical characters competing against each other. This time Rambo is the white-all-over good guy protagonist battling overwhelming odds amid fantastic looking scenery. He wields his trusty knife as well as throwing blades, RPGs, explosive-tipped arrows, and a helicopter. One scene sums up Rambo's ideas about weaponry. He states: "I thought the mind was the best weapon." The villains are appropriately treacherous and savage, especially British actor Steven Berkoff as the sadistic Soviet colonel who tortures our hero and George Cheung as the North Vietnamese officer who kills the heroine.
As "Rambo: First Blood, Part 2" opens, Rambo is shown in prison. At least, he assures his visitor and mentor Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna of "Catlow") that he knows where he stands behind bars. Colonel Trautman makes him a proposition that will get him out of stir and back into the real world. After Rambo returns to Southeast Asia for the mission, he doesn't like the head honcho, Marshall Murdock (square-jawed Charles Napier of “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”), because he doesn't trust him. Murdock claims that he served in Vietnam, but Rambo remembers Murdock's outfit being stationed somewhere else than where Murdock said. Before Rambo boards the jet that will take him to his destination, he informs Trautman that he is the only one whom he trusts. Afterwards, things go downhill rapidly. Rambo lugs an arsenal of sophisticated weapons aboard the jet. When he bails out, his parachute cord snags on the fuselage and jeopardizes his life. Consequently, our hero must resort to his razor-sharp knife to slash his way free of the plane. Of course, Rambo sacrifices that valuable, state-of-the-art arsenal, so he can survive and carry out the mission. Remember, he was instructed only to take photographs of the P.O.W.s. Incidentally, a similar plot complication occurred earlier in director Ted Kotcheff’s rescue-the-P.O.W.s-from Vietnam movie “Uncommon Valor” (1983) with Gene Hackman. The heroes lost their arsenal and had to improvise. At this point, Murdock wants to abort the mission, but Trautman won't let him. Meanwhile, Rambo makes his rendezvous after a little jaunt through the jungle and a brief encounter with a snake hanging from a tree. Rambo meets up with Co Bao (Julia Nickson of “Glitch!”) and she takes him to a river where pirates working for pay ferry them upriver. Since Rambo has lost his equipment, he cannot carry out his mission of photographing the P.O.W.s. Obstinately, Rambo slips into the camp and cuts loose one P.O.W. hanging from a rack. Our muscular protagonist hauls the P.O.W. off to the extraction point. Initially, Murdock is against flying in to retrieve Rambo, but Trautman puts up enough flak to convince him to go ahead with the flight. What happens next surprises not only Trautman but also Rambo. Murdock aborts the pick-up as Rambo and the P.O.W. stand on a hillside surrounded with Vietnamese soldiers. Predictably, Trautman is furious and calls both Ericson (Martin Kove of "The Karate Kid") and Banks (Andy Woods of "The Annihilators") "goddamned mercenaries."
The Vietnamese call in the Russians to interrogate Rambo. Little do they know that Rambo has been awarded a number of honors for his bravery, including two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, four Purple Hearts, Distinguished Service Cross, and a Congressional Medal of Honor. Lieutenant Colonel Podovsky (Steven Berkoff of “Octopussy”) confines our hero to a massive set of bed springs and fries him repeatedly with jolts of electricity. To make this scene and its torture more visually palatable for audiences, Cosmatos uses the venerable prison movie tactic of showing the lights dim with each successive jolt of electricity. Podovsky wants Rambo to confess his crimes, but Rambo has other ideas. Interestingly, Podovsky is the only one of Rambo’s adversaries who speaks in English. Meanwhile, Co Bao infiltrates the prison camp posing as a prostitute. Earlier, before Rambo and Co Bao sneaked into the camp, they saw a prostitute on a motor scooter enter the camp, so she uses this as her cover to get inside the barbed wire and rescue Rambo. Rambo warns Murdock that he is coming after him and escapes with Co Bao. Tragedy strikes not long afterward when Capt Vinh guns down Co Bao. Rambo wipes out the killers and buries Co Bao, but he wears her jade necklace. No sooner has Rambo avenged Co Bao’s death than Sergeant Yushin shows up in a Huey with a fire bomb that he drops at the water fall. The skies turn orange with the explosions that send Rambo diving into the water. The Huey descends to strafe the water and Rambo surprises them. He leaps up out of the water and jumps aboard the chopper. The chopper pilot panics and takes the helicopter back up. Sergeant Yuskin and Rambo slug it out, but Rambo manages to throw the Soviet non-com out of the chopper. The Soviet chopper pilot bails out before Rambo can lay his hands on him. Rambo commandeers the chopper and flies it back to the prison camp. He riddles the camp with gunfire and explosives and then lands to nelp get the six P.O.W.s out. A Soviet soldier laying dead in the high grass is really playing possum. He whips up his assault rifle and wounds one of the P.O.W.s before Rambo finishes him off.
James Cameron has gone on record and said that Stallone rewrote his screenplay and added the political brouhaha about the missing P.O.W.s. Reportedly, in the Cameron version, Rambo was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital rather than a prison, Jerry Goldsmith's splendid orchestral score puts sizzle into the action. Interestingly enough, “Exorcist” sound effects editor Fred J. Brown received an Oscar nomination for Best Sound Effects Editing for “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2.” Director George P. Cosmatos doesn’t waste a second in this trim 94-minute exercise in larger-than-life violence, while “Conan the Destroyer” lenser Jack Cardiff captures all the gritty, muddy, visceral action with his widescreen cameras. Cosmatos states on the “Rambo 2” commentary track that he tried to inject as much movement as he could into the action and his crane shots exemplified this strategy. According to Cosmatos, a hurricane halted exterior production sequences, so he holed up in the motel with his cast and crew and shot many of the close-ups that pervade the film. Indeed, there are numerous close-ups and Cosmatos claims that these close-ups give the film its impact and strength. Editors Mark Goldblatt of “Terminator” and Mark Helfrich of “Predator” were two of the five editors that assembled the film and made copious use of Cosmatos’ inserts and close-up shots. The close-ups and insert shots are seamlessly integrated into the action and provide a sense of visual rhythm that makes the film more engaging than it might have been. “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2” features many iconic scenes for this type of movie. The helicopter attack on the prisoner-of-war camp is an exciting, adrenalin-laced sequence with multiple cameras covering the action as our hero strafes the camp and blows up guards. Later, Rambo’s helicopter squares off with the chief adversary who flies an imposing helicopter. The most incredible scene, however, in “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2” is the scene aboard a river ferry where our battle-scarred hero kisses an Asian girl. Rambo never locked lips with anybody in either “First Blood” or any of the other “Rambo” sequels. According to IMDB.COM, the body count is The total body count of the film is 67, 57 of whom Rambo kills.
As "Rambo: First Blood, Part 2" opens, Rambo is shown in prison. At least, he assures his visitor and mentor Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna of "Catlow") that he knows where he stands behind bars. Colonel Trautman makes him a proposition that will get him out of stir and back into the real world. After Rambo returns to Southeast Asia for the mission, he doesn't like the head honcho, Marshall Murdock (square-jawed Charles Napier of “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”), because he doesn't trust him. Murdock claims that he served in Vietnam, but Rambo remembers Murdock's outfit being stationed somewhere else than where Murdock said. Before Rambo boards the jet that will take him to his destination, he informs Trautman that he is the only one whom he trusts. Afterwards, things go downhill rapidly. Rambo lugs an arsenal of sophisticated weapons aboard the jet. When he bails out, his parachute cord snags on the fuselage and jeopardizes his life. Consequently, our hero must resort to his razor-sharp knife to slash his way free of the plane. Of course, Rambo sacrifices that valuable, state-of-the-art arsenal, so he can survive and carry out the mission. Remember, he was instructed only to take photographs of the P.O.W.s. Incidentally, a similar plot complication occurred earlier in director Ted Kotcheff’s rescue-the-P.O.W.s-from Vietnam movie “Uncommon Valor” (1983) with Gene Hackman. The heroes lost their arsenal and had to improvise. At this point, Murdock wants to abort the mission, but Trautman won't let him. Meanwhile, Rambo makes his rendezvous after a little jaunt through the jungle and a brief encounter with a snake hanging from a tree. Rambo meets up with Co Bao (Julia Nickson of “Glitch!”) and she takes him to a river where pirates working for pay ferry them upriver. Since Rambo has lost his equipment, he cannot carry out his mission of photographing the P.O.W.s. Obstinately, Rambo slips into the camp and cuts loose one P.O.W. hanging from a rack. Our muscular protagonist hauls the P.O.W. off to the extraction point. Initially, Murdock is against flying in to retrieve Rambo, but Trautman puts up enough flak to convince him to go ahead with the flight. What happens next surprises not only Trautman but also Rambo. Murdock aborts the pick-up as Rambo and the P.O.W. stand on a hillside surrounded with Vietnamese soldiers. Predictably, Trautman is furious and calls both Ericson (Martin Kove of "The Karate Kid") and Banks (Andy Woods of "The Annihilators") "goddamned mercenaries."
The Vietnamese call in the Russians to interrogate Rambo. Little do they know that Rambo has been awarded a number of honors for his bravery, including two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, four Purple Hearts, Distinguished Service Cross, and a Congressional Medal of Honor. Lieutenant Colonel Podovsky (Steven Berkoff of “Octopussy”) confines our hero to a massive set of bed springs and fries him repeatedly with jolts of electricity. To make this scene and its torture more visually palatable for audiences, Cosmatos uses the venerable prison movie tactic of showing the lights dim with each successive jolt of electricity. Podovsky wants Rambo to confess his crimes, but Rambo has other ideas. Interestingly, Podovsky is the only one of Rambo’s adversaries who speaks in English. Meanwhile, Co Bao infiltrates the prison camp posing as a prostitute. Earlier, before Rambo and Co Bao sneaked into the camp, they saw a prostitute on a motor scooter enter the camp, so she uses this as her cover to get inside the barbed wire and rescue Rambo. Rambo warns Murdock that he is coming after him and escapes with Co Bao. Tragedy strikes not long afterward when Capt Vinh guns down Co Bao. Rambo wipes out the killers and buries Co Bao, but he wears her jade necklace. No sooner has Rambo avenged Co Bao’s death than Sergeant Yushin shows up in a Huey with a fire bomb that he drops at the water fall. The skies turn orange with the explosions that send Rambo diving into the water. The Huey descends to strafe the water and Rambo surprises them. He leaps up out of the water and jumps aboard the chopper. The chopper pilot panics and takes the helicopter back up. Sergeant Yuskin and Rambo slug it out, but Rambo manages to throw the Soviet non-com out of the chopper. The Soviet chopper pilot bails out before Rambo can lay his hands on him. Rambo commandeers the chopper and flies it back to the prison camp. He riddles the camp with gunfire and explosives and then lands to nelp get the six P.O.W.s out. A Soviet soldier laying dead in the high grass is really playing possum. He whips up his assault rifle and wounds one of the P.O.W.s before Rambo finishes him off.
James Cameron has gone on record and said that Stallone rewrote his screenplay and added the political brouhaha about the missing P.O.W.s. Reportedly, in the Cameron version, Rambo was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital rather than a prison, Jerry Goldsmith's splendid orchestral score puts sizzle into the action. Interestingly enough, “Exorcist” sound effects editor Fred J. Brown received an Oscar nomination for Best Sound Effects Editing for “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2.” Director George P. Cosmatos doesn’t waste a second in this trim 94-minute exercise in larger-than-life violence, while “Conan the Destroyer” lenser Jack Cardiff captures all the gritty, muddy, visceral action with his widescreen cameras. Cosmatos states on the “Rambo 2” commentary track that he tried to inject as much movement as he could into the action and his crane shots exemplified this strategy. According to Cosmatos, a hurricane halted exterior production sequences, so he holed up in the motel with his cast and crew and shot many of the close-ups that pervade the film. Indeed, there are numerous close-ups and Cosmatos claims that these close-ups give the film its impact and strength. Editors Mark Goldblatt of “Terminator” and Mark Helfrich of “Predator” were two of the five editors that assembled the film and made copious use of Cosmatos’ inserts and close-up shots. The close-ups and insert shots are seamlessly integrated into the action and provide a sense of visual rhythm that makes the film more engaging than it might have been. “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2” features many iconic scenes for this type of movie. The helicopter attack on the prisoner-of-war camp is an exciting, adrenalin-laced sequence with multiple cameras covering the action as our hero strafes the camp and blows up guards. Later, Rambo’s helicopter squares off with the chief adversary who flies an imposing helicopter. The most incredible scene, however, in “Rambo: First Blood, Part 2” is the scene aboard a river ferry where our battle-scarred hero kisses an Asian girl. Rambo never locked lips with anybody in either “First Blood” or any of the other “Rambo” sequels. According to IMDB.COM, the body count is The total body count of the film is 67, 57 of whom Rambo kills.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF ''DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS" (2010)
“Austin Powers” director Jay Roach serves up a less than appetizing rehash of French director Francis Veber’s 1998 comic masterpiece “The Dinner Game.” “Dinner for Schmucks” (* out of ****) casts sympathetic Paul Rudd cast as the straight man, while funnyman Steve Carell hams it up as a dim-witted idiot. Rudd and Carell have now co-starred in three comedies. Previously, they appeared together in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” No, “Dinner for Schmucks” isn’t half as hilarious as either “40-Year-Old Virgin” or “Anchorman.” The premise of this half-baked hokum is that our hero’s arrogant boss throws a once-a-month dinner party where his best and brightest employees compete to see who can bring the dumbest dinner guest. Typically, the dinner guests are such incredible imbeciles that they don’t realize that they are being roasted instead of toasted. Essentially, these cold-blooded bigwigs at a private equity firm that cuts up other firms and sells off their assets need something for a good laugh.
Unfortunately, “Dinner for Schmucks” comes up short on yucks. This politically incorrect plate of pabulum concerns an ambitious, young analyst who is prepared to sell his soul to the Philistines so he can realize his dreams, specifically marrying his girlfriend. Along the way, our hero realizes the error of ridiculing idiots so that he can attain his dreams. Long before he grasps what he has done, the humor in “Dinner for Schmucks” has lost its seasoning. The original French comedy concluded before the eponymous dinner. “Dinner for Schmucks,” however, goes in for a seven course meal and wears out its welcome.
Presumably, director Jay Roach and scenarists David Guion and Michael Handelman of “The Ex” must have forgotten that anybody who tries to remake a Veber film is doomed. Every Americanized version of a Veber movie--“The Toy,” “The Man with One Red Shoe,” “Three Fugitives,” “Pure Luck,” and “Fathers’ Day”—tanked and stank. Mind you, it is always a pleasure to watch Carell cutting up, and he seems to be genuinely having fun as an IRS processor and mouse taxidermist who assembles the dead rodents in detailed dioramas. Incidentally, designer Joel Venti and the cult effects Chiodo brothers, Charles, Edward and Stephen , who fashioned the puppets for "Team America: World Police,” whipped up these inventive dioramas. The point is that Carell steals the show, but the show really isn’t worth stealing. When Carell isn’t carrying on his shtick, “Dinner for Schmucks” sucks.
Financial analyst Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd of “Sidekicks”) has been pestering his cute girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak of “The Devil Wears Prada”) to marry him, but she is a career girl who orchestrates elaborate art sales. Meanwhile, Tim lives in an elegant apartment and drives an expensive sports car that he really cannot afford. After the president of Tim’s firm, Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood of “Star Trek”), pink-slips an executive who took the business down the wrong path, Tim angles for the promotion. Tim concocts a scheme to bring billionaire Swiss entrepreneur, Mueller (David Walliams of “Stardust”), to Fender Financial. Mueller owns a munitions firm with tons of leftover ordnance from World War I, basically bombs, and Tim has figured out a way to convert the bombs into lamps. Of course, Fender Financial will take a bath marketing the bomb lamps, but they will clean up managing Mueller’s portfolio. Fender is desperately searching for ideas to turn his company around when Tim pitches his proposal. Initially, Fender wants to hand the project over to one of his surefire executives, but he finds Tim’s blind ambition so refreshing that he lets him woo Mueller. Fender tells our hero about his super-secret party and invites him to bring the biggest boob. It doesn’t take Julie long to convince Tim that the dinner is a dumb idea. Nevertheless, Tim needs that promotion so desperately so he can sweep Julie off her feet that he sets out to find a loser.
Literally, Tim collides with a loser. Barry Speck (Steve Carell) is picking up a dead mouse for his mice diorama when Tim hits him. Fortunately, Barry is none the worse for landing on Tim’s hood and then being hurled several feet away. Initially, Tim fears the worst when Barry and he try to reach a monetary settlement, until Tim realizes that Barry plans to pay him for the damage to his Porsche. After Tim breathes a sigh of relief, he asks Barry what he was doing in the middle of the street. Barry shows Tim the dead mouse that he was trying to retrieve from the asphalt before our hero could flatten it with his tires. Barry flaunts a book that contains photographs of the dead mice after he has dressed them up to resemble famous paintings, such as Whistler’s mother. Tim knows a good thing when he sees it and cultivates Barry’s friendship. Meantime, after Julie gets wind of what Tim plans to do, she wants to break up and devote herself to her latest insane art client, Kieran Vollard (Jemaine Clement of “Gentlemen Broncos”), whose art works of himself dressed up in a satyr costume are selling like crazy. As nutty as Barry is, Barry stands no chance alongside the warped, egotistical genius of Kieran. Predictably, Tim learns his lesson, and Barry and he show up Fender for the snobbish ape that he really is. However, before Barry can win the trophy as the biggest idiot, he must confront his intimidating IRS co-worker, Therman (Zach Galifianakis of “The Hangover”), another hopeless moron who constantly overshadows Barry.
Incongruity is the source of the best comedy. The buffoons that Steve Carell, Jemaine Clement, and Zach Galifianakis play in “Dinner for Schmucks” are as funny as this labored comedy gets. What makes these performances work so well is that the actors appear to have no idea how ridiculous they look. Carell looks like he is channeling the comic actor Austin Pendleton of “My Cousin Vinny” with his spectacles, buck-teeth, and wacky haircut that makes him look particularly nerdy. Jemaine Clement scores points for “Dinner” as an eccentric artist obsessed with all things goat, and Zach Galifianakis never misses a chance to make himself look hopelessly cretinous. Despite its interesting characters, “Dinner for Schmucks” belongs in a richly deserved doggie bag, but not as a treat.
Unfortunately, “Dinner for Schmucks” comes up short on yucks. This politically incorrect plate of pabulum concerns an ambitious, young analyst who is prepared to sell his soul to the Philistines so he can realize his dreams, specifically marrying his girlfriend. Along the way, our hero realizes the error of ridiculing idiots so that he can attain his dreams. Long before he grasps what he has done, the humor in “Dinner for Schmucks” has lost its seasoning. The original French comedy concluded before the eponymous dinner. “Dinner for Schmucks,” however, goes in for a seven course meal and wears out its welcome.
Presumably, director Jay Roach and scenarists David Guion and Michael Handelman of “The Ex” must have forgotten that anybody who tries to remake a Veber film is doomed. Every Americanized version of a Veber movie--“The Toy,” “The Man with One Red Shoe,” “Three Fugitives,” “Pure Luck,” and “Fathers’ Day”—tanked and stank. Mind you, it is always a pleasure to watch Carell cutting up, and he seems to be genuinely having fun as an IRS processor and mouse taxidermist who assembles the dead rodents in detailed dioramas. Incidentally, designer Joel Venti and the cult effects Chiodo brothers, Charles, Edward and Stephen , who fashioned the puppets for "Team America: World Police,” whipped up these inventive dioramas. The point is that Carell steals the show, but the show really isn’t worth stealing. When Carell isn’t carrying on his shtick, “Dinner for Schmucks” sucks.
Financial analyst Tim Conrad (Paul Rudd of “Sidekicks”) has been pestering his cute girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak of “The Devil Wears Prada”) to marry him, but she is a career girl who orchestrates elaborate art sales. Meanwhile, Tim lives in an elegant apartment and drives an expensive sports car that he really cannot afford. After the president of Tim’s firm, Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood of “Star Trek”), pink-slips an executive who took the business down the wrong path, Tim angles for the promotion. Tim concocts a scheme to bring billionaire Swiss entrepreneur, Mueller (David Walliams of “Stardust”), to Fender Financial. Mueller owns a munitions firm with tons of leftover ordnance from World War I, basically bombs, and Tim has figured out a way to convert the bombs into lamps. Of course, Fender Financial will take a bath marketing the bomb lamps, but they will clean up managing Mueller’s portfolio. Fender is desperately searching for ideas to turn his company around when Tim pitches his proposal. Initially, Fender wants to hand the project over to one of his surefire executives, but he finds Tim’s blind ambition so refreshing that he lets him woo Mueller. Fender tells our hero about his super-secret party and invites him to bring the biggest boob. It doesn’t take Julie long to convince Tim that the dinner is a dumb idea. Nevertheless, Tim needs that promotion so desperately so he can sweep Julie off her feet that he sets out to find a loser.
Literally, Tim collides with a loser. Barry Speck (Steve Carell) is picking up a dead mouse for his mice diorama when Tim hits him. Fortunately, Barry is none the worse for landing on Tim’s hood and then being hurled several feet away. Initially, Tim fears the worst when Barry and he try to reach a monetary settlement, until Tim realizes that Barry plans to pay him for the damage to his Porsche. After Tim breathes a sigh of relief, he asks Barry what he was doing in the middle of the street. Barry shows Tim the dead mouse that he was trying to retrieve from the asphalt before our hero could flatten it with his tires. Barry flaunts a book that contains photographs of the dead mice after he has dressed them up to resemble famous paintings, such as Whistler’s mother. Tim knows a good thing when he sees it and cultivates Barry’s friendship. Meantime, after Julie gets wind of what Tim plans to do, she wants to break up and devote herself to her latest insane art client, Kieran Vollard (Jemaine Clement of “Gentlemen Broncos”), whose art works of himself dressed up in a satyr costume are selling like crazy. As nutty as Barry is, Barry stands no chance alongside the warped, egotistical genius of Kieran. Predictably, Tim learns his lesson, and Barry and he show up Fender for the snobbish ape that he really is. However, before Barry can win the trophy as the biggest idiot, he must confront his intimidating IRS co-worker, Therman (Zach Galifianakis of “The Hangover”), another hopeless moron who constantly overshadows Barry.
Incongruity is the source of the best comedy. The buffoons that Steve Carell, Jemaine Clement, and Zach Galifianakis play in “Dinner for Schmucks” are as funny as this labored comedy gets. What makes these performances work so well is that the actors appear to have no idea how ridiculous they look. Carell looks like he is channeling the comic actor Austin Pendleton of “My Cousin Vinny” with his spectacles, buck-teeth, and wacky haircut that makes him look particularly nerdy. Jemaine Clement scores points for “Dinner” as an eccentric artist obsessed with all things goat, and Zach Galifianakis never misses a chance to make himself look hopelessly cretinous. Despite its interesting characters, “Dinner for Schmucks” belongs in a richly deserved doggie bag, but not as a treat.
Friday, July 23, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF "THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE"
Nothing about the new Walt Disney juvenile fantasy-comedy “The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (*** out of ****) makes a lick of sense. Nevertheless, “National Treasure” director Jon Turteltaub along with “Race to Witch Mountain” scripter Matt Lopez and “Prince of Persia” scribes Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard have conjured up such a harmless, featherweight, phantasmagorical fantasy that you need not worry about its list of clichés. This centuries old tale about a venerable Arthurian wizard who tutors a 21st century, twenty-something, New York City physics nerd in the art of uttering incantations and casting spells is appealing but predictable summer entertainment laced with dazzling computer generated graphics. The rival wizards in “The Sorcerer's Apprentice" have a blast bringing gigantic, inanimate objects to life with their outlandish magic. Leather-coated hero Nicolas Gage swoops across the glittering Manhattan horizon after dark astride the steel eagle from the Chrysler building, while villainous Alfred Molina breathes life into the Wall Street bull so it can gore his adversary. This hopelessly derivative adventure remains fairly nimble throughout its brisk 108-minutes thanks to Turteltaub’s energetic helming and a charismatic cast. Not even the most impressionable adolescent could possibly seek refuge in their parent’s arms as this whimsy unfolds. Nothing remotely scary occurs during the derring-do that the heroes and villains do.
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” opens with a whirlwind expository prologue set in the year 740 A.D. The illustrious Arthurian wizard Merlin (James A. Stephens of “Sherlock Holmes”) and the evil sorceress Morgana Le Fay (Alice Krige of “Star Trek: First Contact”) clash in a life and death struggle over the future of mankind. Morgana dreams of raising a zombie army in an infamous ceremony called ‘the rising’ to enslave the world. Merlin’s two most trustworthy protégés, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage of “Next”) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci of “Shoot 'Em Up”), arrive too late to save the elderly wizard from death. Nevertheless, the beautiful Veronica summons her own potent magic and absorbs Morgana’s wicked soul into her own body. Once inside Veronica’s lovely body, Morgana tries to kill her from within. Since Balthazar lacks the power to defeat Morgana, he traps Morgana and Veronica handily in the Grimhold. Basically, the Grimhold consists of a set of dolls of smaller sizes inserted one within the other. Veronica and Morgana remain imprisoned until Balthazar can find the person who can destroy Morgana. Merlin gives Balthazar a Dragon Ring that will recognize the Prime Merlinian and wrap itself around his forefinger. The Prime Merlinian is Merlin’s direct descendent, and the only wizard who can whip Morgana. Meantime, as Merlin’s 1,300-year-old understudy embarks on his global quest to find the Prime Merlinian, Balthazar imprisons other villainous sorcerers determined to free Morgana. One of those minions is Balthazar’s former friend Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina of “Spider-man 2”) who despises Balthazar. Horvath is jealous because Veronica fell in love with Balthazar. Dutifully, Balthazar searches for a thousand years with no luck until he takes up residence in the Big Apple in an old curiosity shop of antiques.
Ten-year old Dave (Jake Cherry of “Night at the Museum”) has a knack for doing some pretty cool things. During a subway train ride into the city, Dave sketches the figure of King Kong with biplanes attacking the great ape on the window of his coach. Dave leaves out the details because his sketch lines up perfectly with the Empire State Building, and young blond Becky (Peyton List of “Remember Me”) thinks that Dave is something else. As their class outing winds down, Dave passes Becky a message. Is he cool enough to be Becky’s friend or her romantic interest? She circles one of the responses and folds the note. When Dave tries to collect it, a gust of wind whisks it away with Dave in hot pursuit. It flies from a bike tire to a dog’s paw and eventually into Balthazar’s shop. Dave ventures inside and Balthazar lets him try on the ring. Presto, the Dragon takes up residence on Dave’s forefinger. Balthazar leaves Dave alone momentarily to fetch a book of incantations when Maxim Hovarth arrives and all hell breaks loose. Actually, Dave knocked over the nesting doll, and disgusting bugs—as in Brendan Fraser “The Mummy”—swarm from the outermost doll to form Hovarth. Balthazar and Hovarth tangle. They set the building on fire. Dave flees with the remnants of the Grimhold and throws it into the street. During all this chaos, Dave’s pants are splashed, and his school chums laugh in derision at his predicament, believing that he has urinated on himself. Poor Becky feels bad for Dave. Meantime, Balthazar has taken Hovarth with him and confined him in a vase. They remain trapped there for ten years.
Ten years later, David (whiny Jay Baruchel of “She's Out of My League”) is a 20-year old N.Y.U. physics geek. He runs into Becky (Teresa Palmer of “Bedtime Stories”) at the university and they hook up. Meantime, Hovarth escapes from the vase and Balthazar isn’t far behind his arch foe. Hovarth renews his search for the elusive Russian doll that holds Morgana. Balthazar catches up with David and convinces him that he has a legacy to fulfill as Merlin’s successor. Initially, David lacks confidence and this lack of confidence clouds his relationship with Becky, but she likes him despite his foolish behavior. David uses an old subway station turn-around as a laboratory where he conducts his experiments and impresses Becky. Balthazar warns David that they have no time for romance as Hovarth retrieves the Grimhold and sheds its shells. Horvath plans to free Morgana. Desperately, Balthazar has to whip David into shape, but David seems like a lost cause.
Mind you, “Harry Potter” fans may complain that this hodgepodge hocus-pocus lacks a certain dignity. Meanwhile, Disney purists may scoff at cinematic alchemist, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, for his homage to the 9-minute Mickey Mouse scene in Disney's classic "Fantasia" (1940) with the inspirational dish-washing scene about an hour into this obstreperous comedy of errors.
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” opens with a whirlwind expository prologue set in the year 740 A.D. The illustrious Arthurian wizard Merlin (James A. Stephens of “Sherlock Holmes”) and the evil sorceress Morgana Le Fay (Alice Krige of “Star Trek: First Contact”) clash in a life and death struggle over the future of mankind. Morgana dreams of raising a zombie army in an infamous ceremony called ‘the rising’ to enslave the world. Merlin’s two most trustworthy protégés, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage of “Next”) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci of “Shoot 'Em Up”), arrive too late to save the elderly wizard from death. Nevertheless, the beautiful Veronica summons her own potent magic and absorbs Morgana’s wicked soul into her own body. Once inside Veronica’s lovely body, Morgana tries to kill her from within. Since Balthazar lacks the power to defeat Morgana, he traps Morgana and Veronica handily in the Grimhold. Basically, the Grimhold consists of a set of dolls of smaller sizes inserted one within the other. Veronica and Morgana remain imprisoned until Balthazar can find the person who can destroy Morgana. Merlin gives Balthazar a Dragon Ring that will recognize the Prime Merlinian and wrap itself around his forefinger. The Prime Merlinian is Merlin’s direct descendent, and the only wizard who can whip Morgana. Meantime, as Merlin’s 1,300-year-old understudy embarks on his global quest to find the Prime Merlinian, Balthazar imprisons other villainous sorcerers determined to free Morgana. One of those minions is Balthazar’s former friend Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina of “Spider-man 2”) who despises Balthazar. Horvath is jealous because Veronica fell in love with Balthazar. Dutifully, Balthazar searches for a thousand years with no luck until he takes up residence in the Big Apple in an old curiosity shop of antiques.
Ten-year old Dave (Jake Cherry of “Night at the Museum”) has a knack for doing some pretty cool things. During a subway train ride into the city, Dave sketches the figure of King Kong with biplanes attacking the great ape on the window of his coach. Dave leaves out the details because his sketch lines up perfectly with the Empire State Building, and young blond Becky (Peyton List of “Remember Me”) thinks that Dave is something else. As their class outing winds down, Dave passes Becky a message. Is he cool enough to be Becky’s friend or her romantic interest? She circles one of the responses and folds the note. When Dave tries to collect it, a gust of wind whisks it away with Dave in hot pursuit. It flies from a bike tire to a dog’s paw and eventually into Balthazar’s shop. Dave ventures inside and Balthazar lets him try on the ring. Presto, the Dragon takes up residence on Dave’s forefinger. Balthazar leaves Dave alone momentarily to fetch a book of incantations when Maxim Hovarth arrives and all hell breaks loose. Actually, Dave knocked over the nesting doll, and disgusting bugs—as in Brendan Fraser “The Mummy”—swarm from the outermost doll to form Hovarth. Balthazar and Hovarth tangle. They set the building on fire. Dave flees with the remnants of the Grimhold and throws it into the street. During all this chaos, Dave’s pants are splashed, and his school chums laugh in derision at his predicament, believing that he has urinated on himself. Poor Becky feels bad for Dave. Meantime, Balthazar has taken Hovarth with him and confined him in a vase. They remain trapped there for ten years.
Ten years later, David (whiny Jay Baruchel of “She's Out of My League”) is a 20-year old N.Y.U. physics geek. He runs into Becky (Teresa Palmer of “Bedtime Stories”) at the university and they hook up. Meantime, Hovarth escapes from the vase and Balthazar isn’t far behind his arch foe. Hovarth renews his search for the elusive Russian doll that holds Morgana. Balthazar catches up with David and convinces him that he has a legacy to fulfill as Merlin’s successor. Initially, David lacks confidence and this lack of confidence clouds his relationship with Becky, but she likes him despite his foolish behavior. David uses an old subway station turn-around as a laboratory where he conducts his experiments and impresses Becky. Balthazar warns David that they have no time for romance as Hovarth retrieves the Grimhold and sheds its shells. Horvath plans to free Morgana. Desperately, Balthazar has to whip David into shape, but David seems like a lost cause.
Mind you, “Harry Potter” fans may complain that this hodgepodge hocus-pocus lacks a certain dignity. Meanwhile, Disney purists may scoff at cinematic alchemist, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, for his homage to the 9-minute Mickey Mouse scene in Disney's classic "Fantasia" (1940) with the inspirational dish-washing scene about an hour into this obstreperous comedy of errors.
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