Category: Action/Adventure

DAREDEVIL

By Marc S. Sanders

Mark Steven Johnson is probably a director you never heard of. He made two very bad movies based on Marvel’s character Ghost Rider featuring Nicholas Cage. Still Johnson has one redeeming quality and that is the very underappreciated Daredevil featuring Ben Affleck in the title role.

It’s not so much that Affleck is good in the role as blind lawyer/vigilante Matt Murdock aka the title character. More so, is that Johnson writes and directs a solid film very faithful to the source material. So, reader, what if you tell me you never read the comic books? My reply, so what! There’s still a lot of fun and colorful characters to get caught up in and you should have no trouble getting the hang of it.

Michael Clarke Duncan’s hulking physique was always his best attribute and serves him well as the crime warlord Kingpin aka Wilson Fisk, the puppet master of Hell’s Kitchen and the man responsible for the death of Murdock’s washed up boxer father. Colin Farrell chews the scenery (maybe little too much on my repeat viewing many years later) as Bullseye, a mercenary villain who can use any object as a precise throwing weapon, whether it be a card, a pencil, or shards of glass. It’s a ridiculous and unlikely talent but Farrell makes the most of it and the character serves as a perfect foil to the blind vigilante hero who uses his remaining four senses to skillfully fight and dodge and acrobat his way through rooftops over the city at night.

Jon Faverau (before directing Iron Man) is welcome relief as Murdock’s legal partner with some good humor material. Jennifer Garner is filler in the role of Elektra, a skilled fighter with trident weapons in each hand and the film’s standard love interest looking for revenge. Garner is nothing special. I’ll say it. She’s here based on her looks and her body and at the time she was the action go to gal (thanks to her TV show Alias) when Angelina Jolie was not available.

Affleck is fine in the part. He’s got the looks and physique. You can easily believe he’s a lawyer. If anything, I could have done without his voiceover narration. I think the film narrates itself fine without additional instructions. I’d argue that Affleck and Johnson could have taken this franchise further. At the time, it actually got good reviews. What did not help were the published exploitations of Affleck with his girlfriend at the time (now new bride), Jennifer Lopez (and later Garner), as well as his other poor choices of roles like Gigli and the insultingly embarrassing Pearl Harbor. (Main character Raif McCauley I have not yet forgotten!!!!)

Years later, some of the fight scenes look clunky. Some of the mid 2000’s alt rock is a little much (but Evanescence is always welcome, especially during a nicely dramatic rainy funeral scene). However, Johnson still has some tricks up his sleeve that work really well. He uses a great filming technique where Daredevil can see by means of sonic waves of sound thus making him more attuned to the trajectory of a bullet or where to find his adversaries. So, to pit a blind guy against the greatest marksman…yeah that’s a dual worth seeing. This gimmick was invented in the comics by Stan Lee and John Romita, yet very well captured in the medium of film. Another great bit is to translate how Daredevil can tell if a person is lying, a great skill for any lawyer to have. He can hear their heartbeat. Duh! Especially well done is how Murdock can see the facial features of Elekra during a brief escapade in the rain. Johnson CGIs it in midnight blue to leave an impression. Yes, Garner’s best moment comes when she’s animated in CGI blue.

The film offers a great theme of superimposing the devil image of the vigilante against the backdrop of the catholic church and other opportunities for a cross to intrude a scene. It hints that Matt Murdock is a religious catholic, but not enough. It seemingly questions the actions of its hero. Affleck even asks himself at one point “Am I the bad guy?” It’s a good additional dimension to the character; one I wish Johnson capitalized on a little more. When is a vigilante truly crossing over into the realm of sin?

Daredevil is worth watching and not worth comparing to the Netflix series. The product is served in two different mediums, one of which has the luxury of telling its story over a span of 10 hours each year. The original film, though, is condensed quite well in origin and character. Live with that and feel forsaken.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT

By Marc S. Sanders

There are good Clint Eastwood films and there are bad Clint Eastwood films. You’d probably guess where I rank 1974’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (T & L).

I’m amazed. Director Michael Cimino, at the time, was really only known for polishing Eastwood’s Dirty Harry flick Magnum Force into a great crime drama of cop vigilantism. Then he does this picture, and how did anyone at Warner Bros trust him with The Deer Hunter a few years later? Sure, that film won Best Picture, but should anyone really have been surprised when the box office nuclear bomb, known as Heaven’s Gate came along, and bankrupted Orion Pictures? You think the producers of that turd said, “Fellas, we never considered Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Hindsight 20/20. We shoulda known better.”

Back to the subject at hand. T & L is mindless of any coherence. Two criminals just happen to find each other randomly on some out of nowhere highway while running from the law (for Lightfoot) and a couple of bumbling henchmen (for Thunderbolt). Their respective crimes are unconnected. Eastwood’s quiet, familiar, tough guy demeanor (Thunderbolt) meets up with wild boy Jeff Bridges (Lightfoot) and then they eventually get to a plot of devising some kind of money heist with early adversaries George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis, former crime pals of Thunderbolt. However, they need to arrange to acquire a cannon, get on a job digging water lines for housing properties, work as ice cream delivery guys, hitch a ride in a redneck’s Dodge Challenger, and have Lightfoot dress in drag. There’s also a schoolhouse, no longer located where it once was, with a secret stash hidden behind a blackboard.

Doesn’t this seem like much too much effort for an ordinary bank heist in 1974? Security personnel and systems were probably not as sophisticated back then, no? Eastwood made an easier time of escaping from Alcatraz then all the work put in here.

The movie is sweaty, dirty, stupid, and it just doesn’t make sense really. Bridges actually got an Oscar nomination in the supporting actor category, up against nearly the entire cast of The Godfather Part II, for this film, and I’m…well…perplexed. How was that possible? Best guess, Cimino, who also wrote this dreck, decides to have Lightfoot die at the end. (There!!!!! I ruined it for you!!!!) Problem is I don’t know why or how. He’s not shot or wounded. There’s never an indication that he is ill. The script is too dumb to consider any kind of foreshadowing of his demise. The guys are just driving along with the money in backseat, and Lightfoot appears weak all of the sudden. Thunderbolt pulls over to the side and his partner just quietly dies in the passenger seat. Cimino cues up the Paul Williams music and the end credits appear. Bridges had a death scene. So, Bridges has to get a shot at Oscar glory. The math ain’t pretty but it’s the best logic that I can come up with.

CODE OF SILENCE

By Marc S. Sanders

I must admit I have not watched many Chuck Norris movies. Just a handful here or there like The Delta Force, but on my radar to catch was always the cop thriller from 1985, Code Of Silence. I always intended to watch it someday as the film is highly endorsed by Siskel & Ebert. As well, it’s directed by Andrew Davis, the skilled filmmaker who would go on to direct The Fugitive and Under Siege.

Code Of Silence works in two ways; two stories that live up to the title. Norris is a Chicago cop named Eddie Cusack who heads a squad of under covers within the city. The film opens with what is supposed to be a well-planned drug bust that goes wrong when the one mob faction is overrun by another mob. Cusack’s informant as well as others turn up dead just before his band were to move in with arrests. Nearby, two of Cusack’s men come upon a young, unarmed man. The rookie officer witnesses the elder officer accidentally shoot the kid, and afterwards he plants a pistol in his hand to make it look like self-defense.

Now Cusack has to contend with a mob war in the streets where a boss’ daughter (Molly Kagan) is the only survivor of an attack and he must protect her. While at the same time he has to deal with his squad turning on him because he knows what the elder cop really did. The code of silence motif is expected to be honored in both camps. Personal vendettas and violations of police policy need to remain quieted.

The film belongs to Norris exclusively. Andrew Davis allows some of the action star’s kickboxing skills to work their way into the movie, and it all becomes a sidestep dance routine really. It always amuses me in these action pictures where the star will take on twenty guys at once yet he fights one or only two of them at a time. The other eighteen or nineteen thugs wait their turn. Why not just have all of them tackle Norris all together? No. Then we wouldn’t get his outstretched 360-degree roundhouse kicks in the air.

There’s also an unnecessary cop robot contraption that Norris pilots for the climactic action packed ending. This thing looks a rejected auditioner for the role of Johnny 5 in Short Circuit. The robot must have been too tall for the part and rather clunky. It has no relevance to either storyline and was obviously inserted for fun, campy violence of fireballs and explosions in the necessary old, abandoned warehouse where all of these actioners have to take place.

Fortunately, Code Of Silence has good story material to work with, and some thrilling stunt work including Chuck Norris pursuing a bad guy on top of a moving elevated train that makes its way with an eventual leap into the river. From what I could tell, that was really Mr. Norris himself in that whole scene. Good footage here.

Andrew Davis relies on what would become regular side characters that appear in many of his other films including Ron Dean and Joseph Kosala. They always make for good cop antagonists within the Chicago settings of his films. Norris is also good in a quiet Clint Eastwood kind of manner as he holds his own beliefs against the rest of his department who support the elder cop.

I like the conflicts that happen on both sides of the law in Code Of Silence. Sure, it’s got some silliness to it with the kickboxing and the gigantic, cop robot that shamelessly waddles along, but the two stories hold up by keeping me engaged of their outcomes.

Code Of Silence is a pretty effective thriller.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III

By Marc S. Sanders

Remember that CW TV show called Felicity?  I’ve never seen an episode, but I remember the advertisements.  Beautiful, former child actor, Keri Russell with the golden, curly locks of love, was on her way to college.  Every commercial had that crisp, home like comfort feel voiceover.  It left me with an impression that this was a corny, yet sweeping exploration of coming of age while at college, and gaining independence.  The show came from JJ Abrams.  Abrams is a good director and writer.  He’s now one of the biggest producers in Hollywood.  Back in the early 2000s however, he wanted to nurture his characters.  Protect them.  Make them feel warm and content.  After Felicity, he went on to develop a spy thriller series called Alias with Jennifer Garner.  She was a college student with a lovable roommate by day and was super spy by night, or whenever the moment called for it.  Abrams went on to blending his coziness with that of stunts and explosions that modernized a series like, say…Mission: Impossible.  Naturally, when Tom Cruise recruited him for the third film of the high-octane franchise, we got the “Felicity Finish” applied.  Ethan Hunt is sweet and kind, and he’s ready for married life.  How precious!

Don’t get me wrong.  Mission: Impossible III is likely what kept the still running blockbuster movie series going.  Following a style over substance lackluster entry before, from action director John Woo, this third entry went in a completely different direction.  Ethan Hunt hugs a soon to be sister-in-law. Ethan Hunt cries.  Ethan Hunt has feelings.  Ethan Hunt has to rescue who he regards as his “kid sister,” Felicity…I mean adorable Keri Russell from being held hostage.  Ethan Hunt belongs on the cover of a Hallmark card with actress Michelle Monaghan.

I imagine JJ Abrams is not fond of the early James Bond movies.  I’d make a case that he watches them and wishes that someone, anyone would just give 007 a warm and sincere hug after he saves the world, and hold him close.  Superspies have emotions too, ya know?

The story of this third M:I chapter focuses on the pursuit of a MacGuffin known as the rabbit’s foot.  A powerful weapons dealer named Owen Davian (a brutally frightening Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is working to get a hold of it.  Following a first act rescue mission that Ethan and his IMF team (Ving Rhames, Maggie Q, Jonathan Rhys Meyers) engage in, the main hero finds reason to capture Davian and intercept the mysterious rabbit’s foot.  Complications get in the way because Ethan has fallen in love with an adorably beautiful doctor named Julia (Monaghan), who is unaware of her fiancé’s exploits.   

The action is superb in Abrams cinematic directorial debut.  Once it gets started after a sweet engagement party scene, it does not let up.  Everything is well edited and choreographed. An essential part of a Mission: Impossible movie.  An unexpected attack on a bridge crossing is spectacular.  The covert tactics are fun to watch as well.  When Ethan and team secretly invade The Vatican, the step-by-step maneuvers are carried out with gleeful ease.

There are twists and double crosses at play as well that you are not even thinking about looking for.  Frankly, they work more effectively here than they did in the original M:I film directed by Brian DePalma.  When the traitor is revealed to deliver a line like “It’s complicated,” it is not unreasonable to gasp.

Hoffman still remains the best of the villains in Cruise’s action franchise.  Maybe that’s by Abrams’ design because this is probably the most personal of all the films to date.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the guy who will be apprehended and braced to a railing on an airplane by the IMF team, and yet will still hold the upper hand.  A question like “Do you have a wife or a girlfriend?” has a much more sinister context when uttered by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

I do recall when I first saw the film that the ending is not original.  It’s an opportunity for Tom Cruise to do another running scene, but it was first used in an episode of Alias where an operative is remotely giving directions to the hero while talking on a cell phone.  Clever the first time.  The second time seeing it, I was just calling it out.  So, Abrams needs to stretch his imagination a little.  No matter.  The pulse of the adventure races at high speed.

Mission: Impossible III might be unabashedly hokey and corny.  Everyone looks like they belong in a JC Penney commercial at Christmas time, or on a CW TV show like Felicity. However, it won’t deny you of what you are looking for which are big stunts in the sky and on the ground, along with the cool gadgets and those signature pull away masks that made the original series so memorable. 

I still realize that by the time film series reached this chapter, the franchise still belonged exclusively to Tom Cruise occupying every frame.  Once again, his team of IMF agents really don’t matter or carry any substance except to wear clothes.  At least this time, Tom Cruise cries over someone else.  So, he’s not as self-involved as the last couple of times, or even the last couple of dozen movies.  That’s a nice change of pace. 

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER

By Marc S. Sanders

Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love And Thunder doesn’t just operate as a standard Marvel Super Hero movie.  I think it encapsulates what moviegoers treasure when watching a film, and that consists of a gamut of emotions with the opportunity to absorb the best in sight and sound.  Even if we are watching a guy fly through the skies with a cape that’ll be marketed into a million toys and t-shirts, sight and sound are nothing without brains behind a script.  It’s fortunate that a director like Waititi always works with that in mind.  Marvel overseer Kevin Feige knows how to recruit talent behind the camera and you just can’t go wrong with the architect of a spoof on the surface, yet an all too horrifyingly real film underneath, like the widely acclaimed Jo Jo Rabbit.

I’ve always laid claim to the fact that movies largely recognized as “tear jerkers” like Steel Magnolias and Terms Of Endearment are actually comedies first, and then dramatic sob stories second.  I’m serious about that observation.  Why?  Because if a film is going to go to great lengths to risk the outcome of one of its main characters, then it must get its audience to embrace and deeply love that person first.  The best avenue to that approach is to outrageously laugh and cheer that character on ahead of what’s to come.  Taika Waititi’s second film to center on the God of Thunder does just that.  The best reward I got from Thor: Love And Thunder is that I laughed quite often (as the trailers imply), but I also teetered on tears as well.  Good fantasy storytelling will incorporate an all too real conflict with its protagonists and then introduce the strange and unusual as an escape.  The best example may be The Wizard Of Oz, and the simple set up of Dorothy and the risk of her perishing with her dog Toto in a threating tornado.  More recently, I also think about Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth centering on a young girl in early twentieth century war torn Europe.  Again, Waititi’s coming of age during Nazi occupation opus, Jo Jo Rabbit, follows this formula as well.  Without spoiling too much from Thor’s latest adventure, Waititi presents an all too real and unforgiving circumstance for one of the film’s characters and then segues into his delightfully and never too weird assortment of settings and characters.

It’d be easy to think that by what may be the sixth or seventh time we’ve seen Chris Hemsworth in the garb of this character that anything inventive would have been exhausted by now.  Not so.  A new dimension in storytelling arrives midway through the film that presents a different crisis for the proud God.  Hemsworth really approaches it beautifully.  It was reminiscent of Christopher Reeve in the original Superman, actually.

A supporting cast of return players work well together, particularly Natalie Portman, who is given a much more fleshed out and well considered character arc than her two previous Thor films. (Early on, Marvel Studios was notorious for not writing good female characters in any of their pictures.  They were just presented as glamorous damsels in distress. Thankfully, that’s well behind them by now.)  Portman returns as the on again/off again love interest, Dr. Jane Foster, for Thor.  Even better though, Jane actually becomes Thor!!!!! (No spoiler there.  Just look at the trailer or marketing poster.)  There’s great on-screen interaction with Portman and Hemsworth, even when it’s a montage of past dating episodes like in ridiculous Halloween costumes or having a domestic squabble as any typical married couple might have.  Hollywood should reunite these two for a romantic comedy in the vein of Rob Reiner/Nora Ephron material.  Chris Hemsworth is a much better partner than Ashton Kutcher ever was in a past Natalie Portman film.  Put Chris Hemsworth together with Natalie Portman again and they could become as adoring as Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan did.

By the time the fourth movie comes, does it really matter who the villain is played by?  Well, when you are writing a smart script amid ridiculous visuals like Taika Waititi is known for, the answer is yes.  This film surprisingly opens on a downer prologue that necessitates good dramatic acting amid silly CGI and garishly loud costumes.  It’s fortunate that Christian Bale, who regularly performs on a method level comparable to Daniel Day Lewis, was available to portray the scrawny, pale and scarred Gorr The God Butcher.  Bale puts all his talents into what could’ve been a throwaway role like, say a Ghostbusters bad guy.  (Can anyone tell me who actually played Gozar in the 1984 film????)  This is another notch in Bale’s repertoire of outstanding credits that should not be overlooked.  You can sympathize with Gorr, as well as be frightened of him.  There’s much range in this character on the same level as the Thanos villain from earlier Marvel films.

Russell Crowe has a fun appearance as the God known as Zeus.  He looks over the top ridiculous and he works in antics that seem like they came out of episodes of Who’s Line Is It Anyway?  Put it this way, I haven’t forgotten how Crowe walks down a staircase yet.  If Russell Crowe is anything of an educated performance artist, then when he was getting sized up in wardrobe, I’m sure the wheels were turning and he was considering what tics could work for that of a God drowning proudly in his own vanity.

Tessa Thompson and Taika Waititi are thankfully back, respectively as Valkyrie, King of the fishing/tourist destination New Asgard, and the simply innocent rock guy buddy, Korg.  The Guardians Of The Galaxy are here too.  It’s a fun bit of material they have to play with.

In another director/screenwriter’s hands, any Thor film would likely get boring with its standard formal Shakespearean like vocabulary and artificial CGI.  Isn’t that an ongoing problem with CGI anyway?  So often it looks to fake.  Because Taika Waititi opts for bright colors and odd shapes and sizes of setting and background characters, nothing could look artificial, because the fantasy is always acknowledged as over the top by the very characters occupying the space.  A glass castle of pinks and purples that resembles gigantic glass Mary Jane bongs or science lab beakers is accepted in a Thor film, just as much as munchkin size, owl like creatures with small beaks are a terrorizing army in flying jet skis with mounted laser guns.  Mix in a blaring rock soundtrack and Waititi hits the notes where it’s okay to laugh at the silliness of it all. In other moments, he’ll invite his audience back in from recess to take in what’s hard and difficult to live with and endure.  Again, Waititi pleasantly surprised me with the balancing act of outrageous comedy against crushing drama when he made Jo Jo Rabbit.  The blend works so well here in not so typical Marvel fashion.

Thor: Love And Thunder left me thinking that it is the best of the superhero’s four films.  It’s measure of laughs and choked up drama kept engaged and I appreciated the experience.  Remember, I recalled Steel Magnolias and Terms Of Endearment in this write up.  If you don’t take that comparison lightly, then hopefully you’ll have the same experience I did with this installment of the Marvel franchise.

PS: Hats off to the trailers for not incorporating everything the film has to offer.  Within the first fifteen minutes of the movie, I was actually taken aback by an element I never considered or expected.  It only enhanced my perspective of the film.

PSS: Anyone that knows me, knows that I love Guns N Roses.  Consider me a born-again fan.  Particularly Sweet Child O’ Mine will always be one of my most favorite songs.  This film reminded me that it was the first song my daughter heard the day after she was born, when I sang it to her in the hospital room. 

THE RIVER WILD

By Marc S. Sanders

Meryl Streep can do anything. Comedy, drama, accents, age defiance, make unbearable choices, even play opposite Roseanne; anything! She can even go white water rafting. She’s a real life James Bond.

In The River Wild, Streep takes a while to outsmart bad guys Kevin Bacon and John C Reilly, but she always maintains the raft through dangerous rapids while protecting her husband and son (David Strathairn and Joseph Mazzello).

See, according to Curtis Hanson’s adventure film, the best way to outrun the law following committing a robbery is to go white water rafting, even if you have no experience with the sport. That becomes a downer for Meryl Streep’s family getaway where tensions are high in her marriage to her workaholic husband. Fortunately, this setback might get them on the right track and Strathairn will find an appreciation for the dog that has come along. Reader, I won’t give it away but like I said, Meryl Streep can do anything. So, the odds on the family pet making it out of this alive are pretty favorable. Too bad Mazzello and the dog won’t listen to dad when it’s necessary.

The plot of The River Wild is very simplistic. Hanson quickly gets to the river following some exposition of familial discourse at home. However, just because he gets to the river so soon, doesn’t mean that the thrills begin right away. There’s a lot of beautiful nature footage here and everyone is happily getting along. Bacon connects with Mazzello much to Strathairn’s chagrin, and he flirts charmingly with Streep. Then lo and behold, oh my stars, Kevin Bacon is a bad guy??? What? The Footloose guy?????? Why he’s six degrees of any one of us!!!!!

Hanson gets some good action moments on the rapids. There close up shots against the rocks, and right into the water and down the impossible falls. The suspense is lacking though. Strathairn makes an escape in the woods. He’s got a good head start, and the best option he can come up is to climb a steep rock wall in plain sight with no coverage whatsoever. Kevin Bacon, what are you doing? Shoot the guy!!!! Mr. Hanson, you just brought your stride to a screeching halt.

That’s the problem with The River Wild. There’s a lack of thrill to it all. This is not a film brave enough to really endanger the dog, nor the kid, nor Streep. The worst that’s really done is a couple of punches to Strathairn and a cut above his eye.

Mazzello made it as the screamer kid star in his adolescent years in film (see Jurassic Park). Bacon seems like he wanted to get a little crazier in the villain role, but he held back. I wanted him to cross the line a little more, a lot more actually. He wasn’t dangerous enough for me. Reilly was just a bumbling, worried accomplice in tow.

Hanson has done way better than this with his supreme effort like L.A. Confidential and even Eminem’s 8 Mile. Thank goodness I can still respect the man’s career beyond this doused misfire.

BLACK PANTHER

By Marc S. Sanders

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther is a stand out film among what has become an overpopulated Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It is a super hero film for sure, complete with the standard gadgets, super strength and abilities, action and over the top science fiction. Yet, this film did not have to be a superhero narrative to drive home the message of its story. This could have been an Oliver Stone film rooted in political quagmire. It could have been a John Hughes teen rip off film that takes place in a typical Wasp suburban school.

A question embraces this film. Simply, when is it appropriate to share?

Chadwick Boseman plays the title character also known as T’Challa, and following the recent death of his father he becomes the next king of the fictional African based country of Wakanda, a location hidden from the rest of the world so that no one else can take advantage of its most precious resource, Vibranium, which has allowed for the most sophisticated technology, weaponry and even medical advancements ever known. How it’s all lumped together, who knows? Pick up a Marvel Comics Encyclopedia for that answer. T’Challa is tasked with whether it is a moral obligation to share the resource with the rest of the world. However, if it is provided, will the Vibranium be taken advantage of for nefarious purposes?

(SIDE NOTE: Reviewing all of these Marvel films is getting to be trying, as I feel resorted to using the same terminology some times; words and phrases like “hero,” “villain,” “nefarious purposes” and “also known as.”)

His nemesis is Eric Killmonger played by Michael B. Jordan; this guy is going to get an Oscar one day. Killmonger is an educated, skilled soldier and cousin to T’Challa who was abandoned by Wakanda following his own father’s betrayal of the country. He grew up in the projects of Oakland, California. Killmonger returns to Wakanda with the purpose of becoming king and allowing the tech and resources Wakanda possesses to be used by the outside world, particularly by populations of African descent and people of color who have endured a history of suffering. Once again, Marvel Studios scores with a villain you want to root for and endorse. Just like Jeff Bridges’ Obidiah Stane in the first Iron Man film, you have to recognize the stance that Killmonger holds on his side of argument. That’s great writing. It’s not so much that Killmonger is a slaughterer. He really isn’t at all. Once he overthrows the hero, the mission is only just beginning as he wishes to right the wrongs of Wakanda for never providing in the first place. It’s ironic really. This guy sides on the fact that he doesn’t want a wall, while the protagonist is doing all he can to maintain a divider to the outside world. In 2018, was there another film that really reflected the sign of the times so succinctly?

Coogler makes a beautiful sweeping film of country and special effects. The Wakandan ships are very cool. Overhead shots of Africa and the camp bases of various tribes are astonishing. One particular tribe resides on a winter like mountainside and the leaders room is spectaculary decorated in horizontal lumber hangings. T’Challa’s staff of mostly female combat warriors and scientists led by Lupita Nyong’o are really exciting. At times the film takes inspiration from some of the best standards of the James Bond films, as his sister introduces her latest inventions for the Black Panther suit. Naturally, the Black Panther costumes are stand outs in the film, black with glowing power enhancements of purples and yellows.

Is Black Panther worthy of a Best Picture nomination and an abundance of awards attention? I’m still not sure. It’s a very strong piece that is light years ahead of any DC Universe film, but it has great characters and messages like most of the Marvel films and even some of the more recent Bond films featuring Daniel Craig. Maybe it is one of the best films of they year, and maybe it should be a Best Picture nominee, but perhaps only because 2018 did not offer a wealth of extraordinary film achievements to begin with. I found merits in all of the 8 Best Picture nominees in this particular year, but I also found problems with many of them too (don’t get me started on A Star Is Born); shortcomings that in another year with better films would keep many of these nominees from ever being considered for the grand prize.

Yet, as I document these thoughts, I think about Black Panther again. Truly, it does not have anything negative in its feature. Ryan Coogler directed and wrote a very focused and thought provoking film. Yup! It was truly one of the year’s best films.

COMMANDO

By Marc S. Sanders

Colonel John Matrix (HUGE ACTION STAR NAME WITH MUSCLE AND BULK AND SWEAT AND…AND…MUSCLE, because this is Arnold Schwarzenegger) lives a quiet life in the beautiful nature the mountains have to offer him, along with his 11-year-old daughter Jenny Matrix (Alyssa Milano). SIDE BAR: Imagine roll call at elementary school and that name comes up, Matrix, Jennifer Matrix. OKAY! BACK ON POINT: Father and daughter tickle one another, mash ice cream in each other’s faces and feed gentle deer from the palm of their hands. By and large, Commando is a beautiful after school special.

However, this is also a cheerfully bloody and fiery explosive R rated after school special adventure. Jenny is kidnapped and used as ransom to coax John, better known as Matrix, (cuz it’s cooler that way), into assassinating a foreign political leader. Though that’s not how this film is gonna go.

Matrix makes an escape from his watchful guard who ends up “dead tired,” by jumping out of a commercial airliner. He determines that he has eleven hours to find Jenny and blow everyone up real good. He gets help from an airline stewardess, a hilarious Rae Dawn Chong that pioneered what Sandra Bullock memorably did later in Speed. She conveniently has been taking flying lessons that will get Matrix to the private island where Jenny is being held. Thank goodness for that, or Jenny might never see daddy again. Everything happens for a reason.

Look, the chances this film would ever be Oscar nominated against the 1985 Best Picture winner, Out Of Africa, were slim for sure. However, all these years later and I’m still not exhausted of repeatedly watching Commando. It’s a comfortable crowd pleaser. The film is action packed to the teeth with bad guys getting impaled, razor saw disks being used as frisbees to take off a scalp or two, arms getting chopped off and big bunker houses being blown up into huge balls of fire. Thankfully, lots of blood gets to splurt all over the place.

This is an action film for the eyes and ears. For me, it’s better than any of the unfunny Rambo films with their minimal dialogue. In Commando, you get some fun at a shopping mall with elevators rolling across the floors and swings from balloon streamers. Matrix even pushes 10 security guards off him all at once. There are car chases. In a neighboring hotel room, he takes on another muscle head while a naked couple is going at it in the room next door. Commando is just too damn funny, for sure.

Schwarzenegger is a master of the one liner. He drops a bad guy off a cliff and tells his new stewardess friend “I let him go.” Well, he ain’t lying. Rae Dawn Chong is equally funny in her own way. I’d argue the script called for a nothing woman role and she brought something special to the picture. Her incessant complaints and screams at this ridiculous circumstance she gets caught up in are laugh out loud hilarious. Commando is not just action alone. The characters respond to the hyped-up scenarios.

No, the villains are nothing special. A potbellied cheesy porno lookalike Australian, named Bennett (Vernon Wells), with a chain mail tank top and tight leather pants is a former squad member of Matrix’ team from when they were military mercenaries. Bennett is no James Bond villain by any measure, but he’s pleasurably laughable, even if it is all unintentional.

This is a guy’s movie for the most part. It’s brawny and muscled out. It’s got machine guns, shotguns, handguns, and even more guns along with some grenades, detonators, knives and a rocket launcher that seems to become a character all its own. However, I think there’s an opportunity for chick flick adoring women to have a good time with Commando too, when I once again hearken back to Rae Dawn Chong. She is probably Schwarzenegger’s best female counterpart in any of his films. Yes! Above Linda Hamilton and Jamie Lee Curtis. The chemistry just works so well here.

There’s so much to like about Commando and I believe it remains as one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s satisfyingly best films to date.

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

By Marc S. Sanders

Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity is the story that occurs after the story, with a compellingly determined performance from its lead Matt Damon.

A man floating in the rain swept Mediterranean Sea is recovered by a fishing boat. Two bullets and a capsule containing a Swiss bank safe deposit box number are removed from his back. The man also has amnesia as he can’t recall his name or background or why any of this has happened. Yet, he does remember his fighting skills, weapon handling (even if it’s a BIC ball point pen) and strategic abilities. Eventually he recovers a lot of cash and passports from the box, but he leaves the gun. (No cannoli to take.)

The agency that does know what happened, code name “Treadstone” developed secretly by the CIA, is represented by a frazzled administrator named Conklin, played well by Chris Cooper. Apparently this mystery man did not carry out an assassination as orchestrated and now this assassin must be located and terminated or Conklin will have a lot of explaining to do to Abbott, another, more calm, authority played by favorite character actor, Brian Cox. However, this mystery man is Jason Bourne, and he is not going to be easy to kill or outsmart by the ones who essentially trained him.

Famke Potente portrays a gypsy that Bourne pays to escort him by car through Europe as he tries to remember and uncover the truth. She’s also very good, as the inevitable brief romance brings just the right dimension to the characters. Now there’s something at stake amid the danger.

There’s not much story to this film. In fact, there’s not much story to the sequels that followed. Liman set the standard for the Bourne films that director Paul Greengrass eventually took over. Just keep the pace at high octane. Crash the cars, break the bones, fire the guns. Only make sure Bourne just gets a cut on the head and recovers with a limp. Nothing more. We know that Bourne will never die. The fun is in how he manages to stay alive following one dangerous encounter after another.

Damon is surprising in this first entry in the series. Perhaps that’s because he’s not a repeat action star like Stallone or Schwarzenegger. He was Good Will Hunting!!!!! So, in this film, he’s got the college prep appearance and walks like a short lightweight boxer. I think that’s great. When we see him disable two policemen early on, it is literally jaw dropping. Liman presents the unexpected in Damon’s performance because the plot can’t offer much more development.

The Bourne films remain as one of the best action series of all time. If anything, I think the taxpayers are getting ripped off by the clandestine shenanigans happening within the CIA. The CIA was meant to be secret. However, “Treadstone” better be MORE secret. That way our secrets can hide our secrets. Right? Wait, what? Forget what I said.

As each movie is happy to demand from an authority in a suit, “Find me Jason Bourne!”

JURASSIC PARK III

By Marc S. Sanders

Jurassic Park III.  What’s to say?  Well not much.  The third film in the dino franchise plays like an extension of the first two.  Sam Neill is brought back as paleontologist, Dr. Alan Grant.  Sadly, the rest of the cast is terrible.  Yet, the dinosaurs remain marvelous.

Following an opening sequence parasailing adventure gone wrong, an enormously wealthy couple, the Kirbys (William H Macy, Tea Leoni), recruit Dr. Grant and his apprentice Billy (Alessandro Nivola) for a vacation excursion to the restricted island of Ilsa Sorna as a twentieth anniversary celebration for them to see the exotic, resurrected animals.  Grant and Billy are to be their tour guides.  The offer is too good for the doctor to refuse and off they go. Once on the island, the mayhem we’ve all grown accustomed to commences.

The intelligence of the Jurassic films only comes from one source, and that is the special effects makers of these animals.  The attention to detail in skin texture, eye movement, teeth, roars, claws, limbs and facial expressions are sensational.  You truly believe these are actual living creatures.  These wizards reinvent themselves with a new dinosaur known as the Spinosaurus.  Bigger than a T-Rex and at least as fast as the velociraptors.  This is a BEAST!!!!!! 

Director Joe Johnston takes the director chair from Steven Spielberg. While the magic is lacking this time around in some of the thrills and scares, at least the new director has some fun with a couple of gags.  A cell phone (the new novel household item at the time of this film’s release) plays for some laughs, especially when the Spinosaurus appears on the scene.  There’s also a magnificent sequence in the Pteranodon bird cage.  Love the Pteranodons.  Finally, we get to see the winged dinosaurs in action as they lift the various members of the cast into the air with their claws and snap their beaks for a couple of nips.  There’s a great close up of one Pteranodon that is one for the ages.  He turns his sinister head over his shoulder towards the camera with a “Wanna fuck with me?” expression.  It’s like it was modeled off of Robert DeNiro.  Great stuff.

Raptors are back, and while we may have seen all of this before, I don’t get tired of it.  It’s like seeing a thrilling car chase for the fiftieth time.  As long I’m thrilled, I guess I’m satisfied.  Nevertheless, being that this is the third chapter, I was hoping for something more with some insight in the film.

My colleague, Miguel Rodriguez, notes that this installment as well as the prior one serves merely as amusement park fun rides.  All true.  I think I’ve backed that up here.  However, there are so many unexplored elements within the franchise originally conceived by novelist Michael Crichton.  For example, there’s the secret scientific research and development company known as InGen – the party responsible for discovering how to resurrect dinosaurs in the modern age.  Three movies in, and we’ve barely gotten to know InGen.  I think it’s time we do.  There’s gotta be a CEO at the top who is twirling his mustache amid his or her dominance.  That would really play for some good storytelling.  At best, in all three films to this point, we just get the InGen logo printed on the side of some motorized vehicles and laboratory doors. 

Much like the Alien franchise (with Weyland-Yutani), these puppet masters are never fully realized.  One of the three (THREE????) co-writers of Jurassic Park III is director/writer Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt).  With a genius mind like that couldn’t we have been treated to something that had more depth than just jaws, beaks, teeth, claws and roars?  What we are left with is an annoying William H Macy (one of his worst career roles) and an even worse Tea Leoni (feels like I’m watching Chrissy from Three’s Company) as the Kirbys.  They quickly provide a twist to their purpose in the movie.  It’s a dumb twist.  It’s hard to believe a doctorate mind like Alan Grant is supposed to have never seen this unexpected turn of events coming and it takes up space where the writers could have spent time bringing more back story to the Jurassic Park universe.  Crichton lined it all up!  Why didn’t the filmmakers pounce on these golden ideas?

That’s all there is to say.  Jurassic Park III is a popcorn movie.  Nothing else.  It’s only just a somewhat satisfying popcorn movie, though.  You miss the Spielberg touch, and you wish for just a little more dimension.  You don’t get it, but you do get the “don’t fuck with me” attitude of a nasty looking Pteranodon.  That alone is worth ninety minutes of your time.