Category: Action/Adventure

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

By Marc S. Sanders

If it walks like James Bond, if it talks like James Bond, it is…STOP RIGHT THERE! 

Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again is not James Bond…at least not the James Bond that I know.

Why was this movie even made?

I know.  You don’t have to tell me. 

For the most part it was a legal blessing for a gentleman named Kevin McClory, a contributing writer to the film Thunderball.  McClory sued the Ian Fleming estate for the rights to such named properties as the villainous “Ernst Stavro Blofeld” and the organization he heralds known as “SPECTRE.”  Eventually, it came to be that none of the films could use these copyrighted terms going forward.  (Hence, why Roger Moore never uttered these names in any of his films.  He just dropped a wheelchair bound bald man down a smokestack.)  Anyway, the courts allowed McClory a second chance at his Thunderball creation by granting him the blessing to remake the film with certain moments and developments that upheld the structure of the story.  So, in 1983 a competing studio to United Artists called Warner Brothers greenlit the release of this new film and banked on Sean Connery’s return to the famed secret agent.

Frankly, the backstory is a much more tantalizing adventure than this misfire.

Never Say Never Again always eluded me.  I never had a desire to see it.  I regarded it like a generic brand.  I turn to the EON productions for my James Bond fix the same way I turn to Heinz ketchup, never, ever Hunts.  What I’d heard of this film and the scant moments I saw of Connery in the picture over the years made me question how necessary this movie ever was.  It’s like that Gus Van Sant shot for shot remake of Psycho.  Why do it?  Because you can?  Is that all you need?

So, Connery opted to return for a large salary and for the only time in history two James Bond films were released in the same year, 1983, when Moore’s Octopussy also made it to the big screen.  Connery’s picture is a direct remake of Thunderball. One of SPECTRE’s top agents Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) catches possession of two United States nuclear missiles and hides them in the Bahamas.   Bond is older now, reflective of Connery’s age at the time, and practically retired as he loses a bit of his step in a training simulation.  Soon, however, he is on the case and contends with a female henchman by the name of Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera) while also womanizing Largo’s main squeeze Domino (Kim Basinger, in a very early role).  His primary gadget is an exploding fountain pen.

Other than Carera who was Golden Globe nominated for her role, I can’t say anyone is doing anything terribly wrong here.  It is simply that this reiteration seems altogether flat.  This film is certainly missing the exhilarating pace of director Irvin Kershner’s The Empire Strikes Back.  Here, James Bond the hero just seems to walk and sit and stand in and out of frame.  A lifeless tango occurs midway between Connery and Basinger as an opportunity to share some confidential information.  I don’t care if 007 is adorned in his tuxedo next to a 1980s hair sprayed Kim Basinger, the tango is boring to watch.  It is a dance that goes nowhere or builds to anything. 

Games are updated as well.  We are not in the casino watching baccarat or poker anymore.  James Bond plays video games against Largo and the only threat is a shock on the joystick when a parlay is struck.  I can’t feel the zap that is supposed to happen, and Sean Connery is hardly displaying any anguish as Klaus Maria Brandauer smirks in triumph.  So, where’s the suspense here?  Sound effects from an Atari 2600 while the hero and villain sit at a table with joysticks doesn’t send this scene into astonishment. In 1983, in the movie theatre next door, Roger Moore is undoing a cheating Louis Jordan in backgammon while the muscle headed henchman crushes the dice into dust.  That’s much more frightening. 

A midway motorcycle moment with smoke and missile gadget tricks is fun but still not as escapist as most other Bond pursuits. Maybe it’s because 007 wears a dark helmet and thus hiding his charm.  It’s a lot more fun to see Connery or Moore give a wink and nod as the chase continues.  Here there is no reaction and no response to the environment of the Bahamas.  Couldn’t a banana tree topple over or something?  Maybe some coconuts?  Could a yacht or boat capsize?

I always remember the infamous shark scene in Thunderball as Bond gets trapped in a swimming pool with a couple of great whites.  That scene is now changed to an ocean floor shipwreck setting.  For the most part this works as Bond circumvents through the wreckage trapping one shark after another.  This is one of the film’s few improvements.

The big regret is that Klaus Maria Brandauer as the main villain Largo was not served a better product. He is gleefully good.  He’s at least trying as hard as he can. He has the evil grin and short fused temper, but he’s also sophisticated among his wealth. 

He’s certainly working much harder than Sean Connery who seems to just be going through the motions and hardly exerting himself.  The actor is much too relaxed in his role here.  It looks like he memorizes his few lines minutes before the camera starts shooting.  Then he says what needs to be said.  You can subconsciously visualize Connery walking back to his trailer take after take.  There are some decent one liners, but none of his delivery soars anymore.  I think Connery was out of the role far too long since his last turn in 1971 and he just didn’t pick up where he left off.  He’s never applying himself.  His wardrobe, from the tux to a camouflage uniform, or even his swimsuits do not seem to rest well on him.  The tailoring looks off.  He’s not wearing anything as well as he used to.  Not even his hair piece, which is far too thin and uncooperatively resting on his scalp, sits well.

Kim Basinger is the blond.  Nothing more needs to be said.  Rowan Atkinson debuted on the screen with some silly escapist humor but either he’s not on long enough or he’s there too much.  The part should have just been cut altogether.

You don’t forget Barbara Carrera but that’s not necessarily a compliment.  She’s working like a dastardly cartoon from the Adam West Batman TV show and Connery is hardly responding to her screaming or antics.  Funnily enough, the screenwriter is Lorenzo Semple Jr, writer of the Batman show and Flash Gordon, from 1980.  So, while the tongue is trying to touch the cheek it’s only reaching the roof of the mouth this time.  Carrera is a headache. She acts like a misbehaved child.  Somebody loved her though for that Golden Globe nomination.  How? Why?

Another bit of buyer’s remorse is the casting of Max Von Sydow as Blofeld.  Inspired casting.  Yet, why is he given nothing to do?  This is Max Von Sydow!!!!!  He’s been hired to watch a Sony monitor with his white cat tucked into his lap, but that’s it.  Between Brandauer and Sydow, these are some heavy hitters.  Plus, Connery, and a built-in storyline.  It should have all worked but it doesn’t.

The theme song is a painful earworm.  It is performed by Lani Hall, doing a Holiday Inn barfly lounge act that will never leave your consciousness.  You can practically see that wet, shiny lipstick slobber all over the microphone while she’s wearing a blingy sparkle dress and a red, leafy boa around her neck.

Never Say Never Again is a lifeless, uninteresting, tedious and sleep-inducing picture that no one but a Mr. Kevin McClory wanted. 

Like Jeff Goldblum would say ten years later, just because you could doesn’t mean you should.

FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA

By Marc S. Sanders

Her father gets killed.  She grows up to become a skilled assassin.  She seeks revenge.

There’s your story.

Ana de Armas headlines this extended branch off the John Wick franchise called Ballerina.  She plays Eve.  I like her.  The same way I liked her all too brief appearance in No Time To Die.  

Keanu Reeves’ Mr. Wick makes some scant appearances to escort Eve into the ring where she can use guns, lots and lots and lots of guns, plus a bunch of knives too. Kitchen utensils including stacks of dish ware along with pots and pans.  Grenades to tape inside an goon’s mouth.  There’s also a flame thrower and to counteract against another flame thrower, there’s a fire hose.  

Ballerina takes a break acknowledgment when a flat screen appears behind Eve to quickly show the channels change from the slapstick beatings by The Three Stooges and then over to a Looney Tunes short.  Get the idea?

If there’s a story, it’s not even a full one note.  Gabriel Byrne is the distinguished Chancellor who Eve has a target for.  Despite his armada of endless assassins that come from every corner of the screen, and maybe they leap off from Lilo & Stitch playing in the theater next door, The Chancellor demands that Eve’s controller known as The Director (Anjelica Huston) call off her underling’s agenda.  Clearly though, Eve is under no one’s control.

Ballerina is high stakes action, and you get what you pay for.  However, I’d also pay for the 64 oz porter house and my middle age body will plead with me to slow down my pace before my gastrointestinal system implodes.  Every morsel of this movie is great and terrifically assembled but man is it an overindulging two hours and four minutes of slashing, shooting, exploding, breaking, crunching, pounding, punching, elbowing, kneeing, kicking, choking and strangling.  You drown in the beefy mayhem.

This actioner plays like a combat video game.  Drawn out fight sequences happen in one setting.  Then, Eve traverses to another location and the violence resumes.  It amuses me how Eve will do a number on one bad guy and once he’s permanently put away, only then does the next guy enter.  Wash, rinse, repeat. Whoa!!!! Here’s the next guy and then the next and next thereafter.  No one thug walks in to interrupt a one-on-one fight until Eve’s current opponent is put down with a bullet to the head or a grenade in the mouth or a flame thrower scorching.

It’s fun.  Yes.  However, there is a character that Eve encounters played by Norman Reedus, and I told Miguel later that I could not recall what his final fate was when we last left him in the picture.  I truly forgot that he’s a proud dad to a nine-year-old girl.  I mean, I truly forgot there was a little girl who was seen earlier in the movie.  I don’t even recall Reedus’ pertinence to the film. My mind was so paralyzed of thought process with the action overdose, that the few minute details there are, have escaped my short-term memory. I must have been suffocating in the fast-moving edits of the fight choreography and ballistic weaponry at play.  

After the film ended and considering what I know was left off with last year’s John Wick 4, I inquired of Miguel to piece together when this movie took place.  He looked it up.  I pondered for a millisecond at best, before I finally concluded it makes no difference.  Finally, after the production expended every penny on the last stunt man extra, the movie stops and the credits roll. Time to escape to the peaceful tranquility of my home.

The settings for Ballerina are marvelous and truly worthy of an Art Design Oscar.  I loved running up and down staircases and through underground corridors with Eve leading the way.  A snowy, mountaintop village occupies all of the action in the second part of the film, beginning in the saloon/dining hall, then going upstairs, then out a window, or three, and all over.  Director Len Wiseman cuts in great close ups of Ana de Armas in intense black leather with her hair in a neat ponytail.  Keanu Reeves is granted his own well-placed shots too.  

Wiseman also gets overhead shots to see the twisted stone walkways and stairwells of this area and where they navigate towards.  There are cuts to what comes around the corner and what’s thrust through doorways and windows, or down from the ceilings and rooftops.  It’s maddening and precisely cut.  The editing is superb despite how overstimulating all of the action becomes.  Eventually, you want to say “Oy!  Enough already!”

The script for Ballerina can’t be more than five pages.  It’s short on dialogue and what stands out to me is after Eve has set the whole town on fire and dispatched about three-thousands of The Chancellor’s militia, does his top henchman approach him and request to “Give the order!”  Buddy, after all this, if you have to ask, then this must be your first rodeo.  The Chancellor clearly overpaid for your services.

Ballerina is the female equivalent of the John Wick franchise.  Ana de Armas stands where Keanu Reeves stood for four pictures thus far.  If you’ve seen his four entries in this series, then you’ve seen Ballerina.  

Is it entertaining? Yes.  Is it mind numbing? After fifteen minutes? Definitely!  Do the filmmakers serve the product that was promised? Absolutely!  However, how does that ginormous porter house steak feel when it’s still lodged in your gut two hours later, and on until sunrise?

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE THE FINAL RECKONING

By Marc S. Sanders

The blessing behind Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning is that it opts not to follow the uninspired routine that was settled for with the previous entry, Dead Reckoning Part I.  With myself included, that film was poorly received overall (look for my review on this page). It performed way below box office expectations as well.  After its release, writer/director Chrisopher McQuarrie and producer/star Tom Cruise were in a quandary.  The hanging thread of a magical key/MacGuffin and the answer to destroying the omnipotent Entity were left unresolved.  A new film had to be made, despite an empty storyline.  Money had to be spent.  So, the guys needed to invest it wisely.  For the most part, the finances were used quite well as the pair learned what worked. More importantly they steered away from what didn’t.

What this movie improves upon is a hearkening back to some of the favorite elements of almost all of the prior films in the series, now on its eighth chapter.  Naturally, some citations cover what occurred in the last film to drive the continuous thin story of Final Reckoning. There are references made to the mysterious Rabbit’s Foot from the third picture, a favorite of mine.  Most notably, is the return of a long-lost character that no one would ever expect to turn up again. The best thing is that he truly serves the mission.  He’s not just a cameo blink and miss it.  Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire repeated that terrible grievance over and over.  The return of this particular guy actually makes you smile, laugh and cheer.  Yes, believe me when I tell you that marketing for Final Reckoning thankfully do not share every detail.  There’s more here than Tom Cruise running and running some more. 

Miguel and I took advantage of an IMAX presentation, and for two guys who normally favor Dolby, this action/adventure should only be seen on IMAX.  Probably the best film I’ve ever seen in this medium and I saw Dead Reckoning Part I this way, but that did not measure up to what’s offered this time.

Tom Cruise is absolutely nuts.  He’s over sixty and he’s doing some of the most daring stunts he’s ever accomplished.  The insurance bill to cover his safety must be at least half the budget to make the movie.  The famed biplane scenes that you likely caught in trailers, even on the marquee poster, is so much more impressive on IMAX.  You are seeing every limb of the actor’s body stretch to their breaking points to hang on to first a red plane and later a yellow plane.  Cruise’s facial muscles stretch against the G-force that is giving him resistance at ten thousand feet in the air.  McQuarrie makes sure to cover every inch of these flying machines from the cockpit to the wings and the tail rutters and the landing wheels underneath.  Cruise’s superspy, Ethan Hunt, has to climb all over these things as they go up and down and upside down and right side up on top of bursting into flames.  This scene is not even over in ten minutes.  It feels like a good twenty-five minutes and it looks like it’s no easy feat for Mr. Hunt.

Midway through the film finds Ethan Hunt deep sea diving to a shipwrecked submarine.  This sequence might rely more on set design, but I was convinced the entire time that Cruise was actually that deep below the surface of the water.  Memories of James Cameron’s The Abyss come to mind, but McQuarrie’s craft of this middle sequence within his three-hour film is so well edited and designed.  On IMAX you feel yourself submerged with the weight of the ocean above you.  The film will cut to the outside of the sub to show it drifting as Ethan Hunt shifts from one side of the interior to the other.  Whatever action the guy takes, the sub works against him leaving you wondering if the vessel is going to topple over an ocean floor cliff to even greater and unescapable depths. 

I will never like this movie as much as when I saw it in the IMAX screening.  It’s impossible to feel the same way on a large in-home flat screen.  This is a giant movie.

Grand set pieces with the sub or the planes had me thinking that Christopher McQuarrie should get a Best Director nomination.  I know it won’t happen but not everyone can accomplish what’s offered in Final Reckoning.  Could Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola?  I question that, because this is an altogether different kind of beast.

McQuarrie must have done a polish on the violations he committed with the last film.  The story remains to be nothing but a chase with countdown digital clocks and the urgency for all of these tasks to be accomplished by Ethan and his team at the exact same second (a repeat M:I staple), but the dialogue does not drive in literal circles of similar vocabulary this time.  Terms like “the key” and “the entity” are not so exhaustingly uttered over and over in this film.  Esai Morales, as the conniving Gabriel, is much more interesting.  In the last movie he was terribly boring.  No charm.  No anger.  No brattiness.  Here, he at least gleefully laughs at Ethan’s demise.  He’s still far from a great villain and totally forgettable, but at least he’s given something more to do than just stand menacingly behind Tom Cruise. Morales is not just donning a dark tan and a salt and pepper goatee. 

Most of Ethan Hunt’s team is given something to do, particularly Ving Rhames as Luther and Simon Pegg as Benji, always reliable.  Hayley Atwell was the best feature of the last movie and she’s great here too as the pickpocket, and now supposedly a quick learning kick ass superspy.  Kind of—No-VERY ridiculous but I stopped asking questions.  Atwell deserves a franchise series of her own.  She’s charming and lights up the screen.  Great actor too.

Pom Klementieff as the dangerous assassin Paris is now a good guy and other than speaking eloquent French she’s regrettably become a ho hum element.  There are other unnecessary characters including Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and those two guys who were chasing Ethan in the last movie.  One carries a stupid secret that’s more like an unwelcome surprise.  The other joins Ethan’s team to shoot a gun and look panicked. 

It will only frustrate you to follow when Ethan or Gabriel has the upper hand.  Christopher McQuarrie fleshes out his overly long three-hour picture playing games like that, and I stopped trying to pass his impossible SAT exam.  The attractions are a few of the characters who work with Ethan and the great feats of strength that the hero attempts to overcome. 

It is not the best in the series.  It is a huge improvement over the last picture, though.  What’s most significant is that Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning is a gorgeous, mind blowing and breathless visual opus.

SEE IT ON THE IMAX before it self-destructs on your flat screen in five seconds.

THUNDERBOLTS*

By Marc S. Sanders

Thunderbolts* is the next Marvel movie out of the assembly line, the second of 2025 (after Captain America: Brave New World).  A new team is haphazardly assembled and the witty lines come through that poke fun at their idiosyncrasies and their origins.  Yelena (Florence Pugh) is the Russian assassin with a daredevil streak.  John Walker (Wyatt Russell) is the wannabe Captain America known formally as U.S. Agent.  There’s Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) who can teleport in and out of places, and Red Guardian (David Harbour), the Soviet equivalent of Captain America with a shaggy beard, a beer belly and an adorably estranged father/daughter relationship with Yelena.  Bucky, The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) is back too.  We’ve talked enough about him though.

Marvel and Disney are advertising this cast as the anti-heroes, or anti-Avengers and the film lives up to that mantra.  However, it still has the witty banter of those other superhero team up pictures.  What sets this one apart though is that eventually the characters and the story use their brain and a little welcome psychosis for a thrilling final act that leaves you alarmed while welcoming you to empathize. 

The strongest actor and most dimensional character portrayal belongs to Florence Pugh.  No doubt that she carries the film as she leads us into an unexpected underground trap where the other members of this cast are all trying to kill each other at the assigned behest of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).  Yelena quickly figures out Valentina’s deceit while overlooking an innocent looking Frankenstein’s monster of a young man named Bob (Lewis Pullman).  The others are there to just exercise their skills for some cool action scene edits, and tag along with Yelena and Bob.  An escape out of the underground structure might overstay its welcome, but fortunately the characters are fun.

Once the escape is complete, the action gets better from there with explosions and fire power and such.  Cars and a limo go boom.  Bullets deflect everywhere.

Naturally, disaster eventually has to arrive in New York City and it is up to these Thunderbolts* to save the city.  Honestly, as the citizens kept on disappearing into blackness, I kept asking myself why Dr. Strange or Spider-Man didn’t show up.  That’s the become the unwelcome problem with the Marvel films and their ongoing connections to each other.  Why would I expect a teleporter and a group of acrobatic fighters who carry shields and handguns to stop a godlike entity that is destroying New York City?  Last I recall, Stephen Strange was not dead.  I had to look past the obvious though because there’s interesting material that harbors itself during this third act. 

Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman steer the reins to triumph, and it is more so done with an underlying, bordering hokey message that these two capable actors balance quite well.  There’s punching and running and screaming and superpower stuff, yes.  However, the win works on an emotional level too, setting itself apart from the various Avengers movies.  There’s good editing to be found here as the characters jump from one room to another as personal demons are confronted.  The room jumps make you feel like you are in that inflatable wonder wheel you would walk on in the swimming pool. It certainly keeps you alert. All the while, Yelena, the skilled martial arts assassin, uses her brains and instinct to rescue her teammates and especially Bob.

The debate rages on the oversaturation of superhero movies and how they might be destroying cinema.  I’ve never been so quick to surrender to that argument.  The box office of these films keep jobs in place for a large multi-billion dollar industry and the profits to be made allow for small more arthouse like films to be produced.  Also, they are still so fun and entertaining if you allow yourself not to be such a film snob. So, stop complaining so much. 

As for the material of these pictures, Thunderbolts* is a good, up to date example of not simply relying on special effects and city destruction with another villain of the week.  It has a Ghostbusters/Men In Black humorous vibe to it while still catering to intrinsic insecurities and personal baggage that all of us carry through life.  Sometimes, when we want to escape to the movies, it helps to uncover someone telling a story that gets me, gets you…gets all of us. 

BATMAN FOREVER

By Marc S. Sanders

Last month, upon hearing the news of Val Kilmer’s unfortunate passing, Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever actively swept the social media rounds.  Fans of Kilmer praised his one and done occupation with the costumed role.  Some declared the film their favorite of all the superhero’s cinematic adventures and expressed their immense appreciation of the Juilliard graduate as Bruce Wayne and his vigilante persona.  He’s good.  Yeah.  I’m not going to say he’s great though because the film doesn’t offer much meat for Kilmer to chew off the bone.  As for the film, well, it’s a Joel Schumacher movie.  Should it be good?

The director took over the reigns from Tim Burton.  Michael Keaton opted not to return following two films and thus Kilmer was contracted.  The villains of the week are a very miscast Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face and Jim Carry doing a misbehaved class clown interpretation of The Riddler.  Unlike Burton’s noir approach, Batman Forever is gleefully campy and colorful with overly apparent winks and nods to Batman’s butt, codpiece and notorious chest nipples.  None of it necessary because it’s all wrapped in vinyl and plastic.  Buy the action figures if you want to cop a feel.

Akiva Goldsman was the head screenwriter.  His script carries no reluctance in delivering cliche dialogue.  “It’s the car right? Chicks dig the car!”  or “I’ll get drive thru.” (McDonalds was a proud sponsor.) Worse though are the two halves of the picture.  Kilmer’s Batman endures his ongoing traumatic psychosis of losing his parents, while Jones and Carrey go for a reiteration of the beloved Adam West slapstick TV series.  These two languages never speak to one another.  The hero and the villains hardly confront or challenge each other and never hold a substantial conversation during the course of the film.

Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones try way too hard to duplicate what Jack Nicholson’s Joker portrayal memorably did the first time.  There is no backstory to Jones’ character except a brief news clip.  Otherwise, the middle-aged actor looks like he’s exhausting himself out of breath while trying to match Nicholson and Carrey.  As a Batman fan, he’s entirely wrong for this role.  The Two Face alter ego is the handsomely vain district attorney Harvey Dent.  According to comics lore, when Dent gets half his face grotesquely disfigured, he develops a deep-seeded anger to losing his looks and it leads to his ongoing villainy.  Tommy Lee Jones is a fantastic actor, but he is not the Adonis that Billy Dee Williams (Burton’s Harvey Dent) carried his charming career on.  The makeup job with Estee Lauder pink and purple is awful craftsmanship.

Jim Carrey is doing his usual schtick that skyrocketed his career with Ace Ventura and Dumb & Dumber, but it’s overly abundant here.  Goldsman, Schumacher and Carrey take equal blame.  This Riddler only offers three or four puzzles.  Otherwise, we get Carrey doing the Nicholson gags that should never have made the final print; a baseball pitcher tossing a curveball bomb in the Batcave and a mad scientist routine that drives the bad guy’s stupid plot line of using television waves to absorb the collective intelligence of the people of Gotham City.  The more this side story carries on the more mind numbingly stupid it becomes.  The Riddler’s device is nothing more than a kitchen blender that glows neon green while it hardly maintains balance on anyone’s head.  Junky production value.

Nicole Kidman is radiant as the next romantic Bat gal in line.  She’s so much better than this insubstantial material, though. She consists of zero significance.  Nothing else I can say.

Chris O’Donnell makes his first of two appearances as Dick Grayson, Batman’s sidekick known as Robin.  O’Donell actually has the most interesting storyline as a daredevil kid who tragically loses his family but can’t sit still when adventure awaits.  He gets into all kinds of mischief on his motorcycle and within the confines of Wayne Manor before he finally dons the famous costume. Yet, even when he’s standing in the same frame as Kilmer, both actors look like they are performing in different films.  One guy is hyperactive.  The other is morose and neither seems to be reading from the same script. Their chemistry is begging. Did these guys ever stop and develop an appreciation for one another?

Joel Schumacher applies a candy-colored polish to his Gotham City with black light graffiti, bright lights and more glow, glow, glow!!! Even the street gangs use neon glowing fighting sticks and Two Face’s henchmen work with neon red machine guns.  Oy!!! Enough.  Willy Wonka’s factory was not this sugary sweet.  Batman Forever is one film that can give you diabetes just by looking at it.

Other than an impressive opening scene with a helicopter and a cylindrical bank vault, none of the action sequences are worthy of postponing your bathroom break.  Batman’s fighting prowess and his ugly car and jet look like they are being run by an eight-year-old with his action figures.

So, as I noted before, I took another look at Batman Forever to explore what Val Kilmer did with the role.  He would have been a good Batman if he was given some things to do.  Ultimately, his dashing good looks complement Bruce Wayne’s suits and ties quite well and his square jaw fits perfectly in the mask.

What else can I say except I can’t imagine any chicks loving the car because this Batmobile has a pointless fin sticking out of the chassis and the wheels glow white, plus there’s an odd rib cage of lights on the sides of the vehicle.  Oh, and it drives up the wall of a building.  Is this where people are supposed to be impressed with Val Kilmer?

FALL

By Marc S. Sanders

Sometimes a movie will simply cover a circumstance.  The crew of Apollo 13 end up lost in space.  James Franco gets trapped behind a rock for 127 Hours.  Chrissy Watkins and Alex Kintner wind up abandoned in shark infested Open Water.  I recall Ryan Reynolds being buried alive in a coffin for ninety minutes.  Haven’t seen that one yet.  Not interested, honestly.  

Any of you curious to see what happens when two expert rock climbers neither of whom wear safety gloves, while one wears Converse All Star high tops, (Pass the grain of salt, please!) opt to climb a rusty 2,049-foot-high television antenna and get stuck at the top?  That’s about all there is to Fall, directed by Scott Mann.  

Granted, there is a thin slice of characterization layered on the crust.  Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) is severely depressed and maybe suicidal following a rock-climbing accident that took her beloved husband Dan (Mason Gooding) away from her.  Fifty-one weeks later, she still defies her father’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) pleas to help her.  Yet, her best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner) urges Becky to accompany her while she records their climb up the infamous B-67 TV Tower, located in the Mojave Desert.  Hunter’s thousands of online followers will be in awe!

Subtle beats of conversation show that Hunter may be hiding a secret from Becky.  Frankly, if you’ve at least read a Dr. Seuss book, you’ll be much more intuitive than Becky, and know what the secret is.  So why should I waste the keystrokes spelling it out for you?

The climb up is pretty unchallenging as the young ladies are tethered together by about fifty feet of climbing rope.  The photography will dazzle you though. They’ve got their cell phones and a drone for some masterful sights of the wide expanse of desert and unlimited blue sky.  One water bottle between the two should be enough. The vultures are nothing to worry about as they are feasting on a near dead coyote down below.  Only thing is that we know something the girls don’t.  As the ascent gets higher into the upwards void, the frailer the rusted ladder becomes, and the more bolts and beams pop off.  You can guess what happens next and follow the film all the way down to its end.

What saves Fall from being a waste of time is Scott Mann’s use of his camera.  IMDb states that he insisted on not doing green screen work.  If he was going to be this daring, the climb up and the need for the ladies to hold out on a grilled, narrow platform high above had to be as authentically real as possible.  Mann’s team built a duplicate antenna on the top of a high mountain location, that reached as close to the structure’s actual height as possible.  So, the height matches that of the real structure.  The recreated antenna was apparently shorter though.  Hey, I was convinced of everything I was looking at from a scorching sun to heavy breezes to sunburns and running mascara and the eventual exhaustion, fear and despair the girls had to endure while trying to survive close falls and drops.  

The edits will make shout and gasp as one of the girls slips or barely holds on to a bar or rope or hand that could give way.  It’s not as impressive as some of the material in Cliffhanger.  Remember that opening?  The enormity of the elevation also does not compare to what Robert Zemeckis did across the open chasm between the World Trade Center Towers either (The Walk).  However, there’s much to look at and take in with a strong sense of vertigo and shortness of breath.

Becky and Hunter’s dilemma left me with trying to figure how they’ll get out this scenario.  You account for what they climbed up with and what might be at the top of the pole for them to use.  You also consider the injuries they suffer when they attempt a risk at gaining an advantage.  Most of what is tried seems apparent.  Though I question their short cut knowledge for charging a cell phone or drone battery.  

I was skeptical of their plight as well.  Expert climbers would wear gloves while climbing a rock or an old rusty two thousand foot high ladder.  Converse sneakers with no tread on the soles? C’mon!  As well, this giant, narrow thing is erect in the middle of the scorching, desert sun.  These girls ever experience going down an aluminum playground slide?  My hands were burning just looking at every rickety piece of this thing.  How did Becky and Hunter avoid painful skin tears and callouses? How did they not have any sort of involuntary reflex against touching what should be burning hot, rusted metal?

Despite the unnecessary, or maybe neglected liberties, the film takes, Fall is watchable. Just take your bathroom breaks during the two “it’s only a nightmare” scenes that look lifted straight out of Jaws: The Revenge. When will filmmakers realize how stupid and unnecessary an “it’s only a nightmare” scene is? The only time it worked was in Aliens. Beyond that, this stale uncreative kind of filler is there simply to muster a jump scare that does not advance a character or teeter a plot. Just stop with the nonsense.

Fall offers a situation I never want to end up in.  I’ve actually developed a fear of heights as I’ve gotten older.  Yet, I’d love to observe from the safety of my home theater how others like Becky and Hunter respond.  The ending is acceptable with a mild twist.  I think I would have embraced this fictional circumstance much more had the story been more frank with itself and the characters who were selected to play this foolhardy game.

One thing I’ve learned though. Nursery rhymes will not help you get your mind off the heights. Thing about what happened to Humpty Dumpty, or if we all play Ring Around The Rosie. Yikes!!!!!!!

NOVOCAINE (2025)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTORS: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
CAST: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Jacob Batalon
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 82% Certified Fresh

PLOT: When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, a man incapable of feeling physical pain turns his rare condition into an unexpected advantage in the fight to rescue her.


Just when I thought the John Wick franchise had shown me everything there was to see in terms of modern action films, along comes Novocaine.  If there are philosophical rumblings at the heart of the screenplay, I didn’t see them.  There is a brief scene where a character says probably the deepest line in the film, something along the lines of, “We all have something to hide.  Maybe we’re just looking for someone to show it to.”  Apart from that, though, this movie is a machine designed for one thing: thrill you and make you laugh and cringe all at the same time.  That’s three things, but you get the point.

Because this machine has only one purpose, any criticisms accusing it of not doing something it wasn’t designed for are moot.  You don’t eat a cheeseburger and then complain it didn’t taste like chateaubriand.  I got what the movie’s goals were after 10-15 minutes – or, actually, even after just watching the red-band trailers.  I went in with eyes wide open, and I was not disappointed.  My only real complaint is that those same trailers gave away a little too much of the very best fight scenes in the film, ruining two of the best gags (the deep fryer and the ball-and-chain).  But I forgive the trailer editors because the rest of the movie was so freaking entertaining.

Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid, whose father’s famous smile will haunt his face for the rest of his life) is an assistant bank manager living with a very real genetic disorder called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, or CIP.  He literally cannot feel pain, to the degree that he can’t even chew solid food because he could theoretically chew off bits of his tongue and not realize it.  His obligatory meet-cute with the love interest, Sherry (Amber Midthunder), involves him spilling scalding hot coffee on his hands, but of course he doesn’t feel a thing.  One thing leads to another, and they spend the night together.  Apparently, Nate can’t feel pain, but pleasure is another story.  (I thought that scene might include a homage to Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis’s love scene in Some Like It Hot [1959], but alas.)

Next day, as is revealed in the trailers, three robbers dressed as Santa Claus rob his bank, kill his boss, and take Sherry hostage.  On impulse, he takes off after them in a stolen police car, which of course leads authorities to believe he’s in on the case.  This also leads to the first of several jaw-dropping fight scenes, not because they’re insanely choreographed like a Jackie Chan movie, but because the physical violence shown on screen goes beyond anything I can remember seeing before in a fight scene.  Maybe Oldboy (2003) comes close.

Fair warning: if you are squeamish, this movie is simply not for you.  Just in the first fight scene alone, we see Nate get kicked, punched, seared by a scalding hot frying pan, and burned horrifically, which results in him wearing a bandage (and a disturbingly realistic prosthetic) on his hand for the rest of the movie.  The comedy comes from equal parts watching as Nate gets injured and simply powers through it, and from cringing and cursing and covering your face as those injuries occur.

I won’t give anything else away.  The movie does include an intriguing story development that I did not see coming.  My fellow Cinemaniac, Anthony, also made an interesting observation.  It was unusual to see a clearly comic film featuring so many actual deaths: multiple cops murdered after the bank robbery, a death inside the bank itself, and the body count keeps adding up as Nate gets closer and closer to rescuing Sherry.  Nate himself contributes (minimally) to the body count, but it’s mostly the bad guys killing anyone who gets in their way.  Is it possibly to balance almost slapstick physical comedy with so many, almost gratuitous deaths?

For myself, I didn’t think so.  I look at a movie like Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), with umpteen deaths, but it’s a movie that’s clearly having fun with the kung-fu genre, which requires lots of death.  Novocaine felt to me like a riff on the John Wick movies.  John Wick mows through LEGIONS of bad guys, getting punched and shot and sometimes falling from four-story buildings onto vans and just getting up, brushing himself off, and moving to the next fight scene.  Nathan Caine does the same thing, just not with legions of bad guys, but you’re constantly aware that he could be killed at any minute.  That kept the stakes raised, so I didn’t feel like I was watching a video game come to life.

Novocaine might be the most fun I’ve had at the movies in 2025 so far.  I laughed a lot, I CRINGED a lot (usually while I was laughing), and uttered more curse words at the screen than I have in a long time (usually “JEEEsus!” or “Oh SHIT”).  The story doesn’t quite reinvent the wheel, but the execution is superb.  Just to restate my warning from earlier: if you don’t like graphic onscreen violence, stay away.  Everyone else, enjoy!

CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD

By Marc S. Sanders

Captain America: Brave New World does not invent any new motifs you have not seen before, but it maintains the magic that have made all of these movies fun in the mighty Marvel way.  It’s well cast with well-edited direction and there actually are a few surprises that did not appear in the countless trailers that have been spread on line. 

Anthony Mackie took over the title character at the end of a Disney + streaming series.  I like him.  He is very vanilla.  Not smart alecky like Robert Downey Jr.  or revolutionary like his predecessor, Chris Evans, and definitely not brash like Thor’s Chris Hemsworth.  He’s Sam Wilson – a guy with a smile who wants to be a friend to everyone.  Hokey?  Sure.  Though that’s not a bad thing.  It’s nice to just like your heroes again.  Danny Ramirez is the sidekick ol’ chum as a new Falcon named Joaquin Torres, and together the pair soar the skies with outstretched feathered wings while trying to save the world.  Harrison Ford is a welcome replacement in the space left open by William Hurt following his passing.  General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross is now the President of the United States and I believe this guy could also thrwart a terrorist hijacking of Air Force One if it happened again. 

Following a successful mission that opens the film where a precious cannister has been recovered, a worldwide peace treaty is on the horizon, and this could be a big win for the President.  However, a surprising assassination attempt interferes, and now Sam and Joaquin must go rogue to exonerate a friend who has been framed and uncover the mastermind behind this plot.  The story is simple and after a million and a half Marvel movies, series and cartoons, I’m grateful.  You can follow this picture without having to catch up on details from earlier installments.  Though, if you do you’ll likely appreciate some surprise appearances that turn up going all the way back to the earliest films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

My major critique with Captain America: Brave New World is the marketing campaign.  While I’m not entirely confident that Anthony Mackie can carry an entire franchise yet, the Marvel brand sells itself and much of the advertising for this picture threw out some of the best goodies that the picture offers.  Was it necessary?  This franchise has a built in following and name brand.  You likely know what I’m referring to but I won’t surrender to the masses and reveal the best attraction of the film.  You just might be the one person reading this who returned from a desert island where you lived alone in a dark cave.  I had a lot of fun with this movie.  I would have had my mind blown had I not known as much as I did.  Still, there is a major player who has hardly been discussed or tossed around of late who makes a nice return.

Julius Onah directs this time and has assembled a well cut action movie.  Most of the scenes are in bright daylight so every soar through the sky with Cap’s colorful wings is easy to follow.  Punches and acrobatic flips are well choreographed.  Military jets thunder across the screen.  Missiles race towards and away from Cap and Falcon.  It’s as colorful as the Marvel artwork found in the original source materials.  A final battle is lots of fun, but the wrap up looks a little odd with the characters supposedly standing amid the wreckage of a Washington D.C. park amid cherry blossom trees.  Just that material alone looked a little too artificial but no matter.  A close up shot of Mackie in his patriotic regalia looks terribly fake and needed another coat of paint to look more convincing.  On a massive Dolby screen (the best way to watch a movie like this because your seats rattle against the sound design), you can easily see the brief eyesore of this moment.  Maybe that will be improved upon when the film hits Blu Ray and streaming. 

As well, the soundtrack is a little intrusive.  It’s adventurous for sure, but the instrumental music never turns off.  There are moments where the heroes are investigating dark rooms and corridors, or Sam and Joaquin are pondering and the music carries on and just feels unwelcome.  Good one on one scenes between Mackie and Ford work on their own, but the soundtrack is just too much for some of these moments.  Let these guys talk and don’t add what isn’t necessary.

Overall, this is a movie I’d watch on repeat.  I like all of the characters.  I appreciate a Parallax View conspiracy kind of plot which is what caters to the Captain America character the best and the dots connect sensibly. 

Captain America: Brave New World is not the best of the Marvel films.  Never needed to be.  It only has to be entertaining, and it more than accomplishes that feat. 

CARRY-ON

By Marc S. Sanders

Action movies have been done to death, haven’t they?  Yet, don’t we still get a kick out of them?

Sure, I need my TCM classics like It Happened One Night or my updated biographies like Angelina Jolie’s Maria, but action movies are like the best junk food without any of the calories.  Still, an action picture has to have that special attraction if it is to stand apart from the others.  I got bloated by the time I got to the fourth Lethal Weapon.  The first is a perfect wham bang shoot ‘em up set during Christmas time. Now Netflix grants us a long-lasting candy cane with its airport run around chaser flick known as Carry-On.

What makes this mad bomber fest a smash is that the hero, TSA agent Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton), actually cries out of fear and pain as the bad guy beats up on him and frightens him into direct obedience.  He begs with tears coming down his cheeks for the bad guy to just stop with his mission.  He screams “WHY ME?”  The Rock, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, Ford, Gibson – those guys don’t cry.  Yet, little Ethan Kopek does, and once he gets his wits about him does he truly become a super hero.  I recall the moment happens in the last twenty minutes of the picture.  Ethan throws off his pansy TSA uniform shirt and makes a go at saving the day in his black undershirt.  Now he’s earned John McClane’s respect.

On the busiest travel day of the year, December 24th, Ethan is assigned to scan the carry on luggage ensuring travelers have not packed contraband items.  He and his colleagues have to put up with all the typical TSA complaints that come with the job.  My hat’s off to screenwriter T.J. Fixman for allowing some time to show the challenges of this occupation.  It adds some truth, comedy and depth to a thankless job that’s hardly celebrated or acknowledged like cops, doctors, athletes, and attorneys.  

Ethan is handed an earpiece and a mysterious voice, provided by Jason Bateman, gives him direct instructions to allow one black suitcase with a red ribbon to pass through inspection.  If Ethan deviates in any way at all, the voice promises that Nora (Sophia Carson) will be killed.  She is Ethan’s pregnant girlfriend and also runs airport security at LAX.  

Movies like this function like a game or sport.  The villain sets up boundaries.  How is Ethan going to save the day or get around the unexpected while trying to avoid harm to Nora or the airport as a whole?  As far as he knows, he is always being watched by the guy talking in his ear.  There’s rules and obstacles he must observe.  Granted, Carry-On allows a lot of unlikely and hard to buy conveniences to let our hero obtain the advantage, but he’s also not Superman, and at times when you believe Ethan is coming out ahead, Bateman’s antagonist changes up the game.  

Heck! A bomb is activated not at the end of the movie, but dead center right in the middle of the story.  Normally, the end all be all explosive serves as the final exclamation point with the expected digital clock countdown.  However, in Carry-On if it can get deactivated, there will still be more story to go.  Bateman’s villain really has everything thought out and Egerton’s character has no choice but to man up to the plate once again.

A side story with Danielle Deadwyler as an investigative cop named Elena will eventually intersect with the main narrative.  It’s nothing special until a car ride on the way to the airport plays Wham’s Last Christmas on the radio and the scene explodes into a mind-blowing thrill reminiscent of what I saw in Children Of Men twenty years ago.  The construction of this scene alone is absolute fun.  

Deadwyler’s character is written with a lot of carte blanche to allow Ethan to save the day.  No, none of this is ever likely to be how things go.  Yet, I recall Arnold Schwarzenegger being thrown out of an airplane and surviving a crash landing in a garbage heap thirty thousand feet below (Eraser).

If you watch Carry-On, I will not be surprised if you protest its merits based on a collection of plot holes.  The most glaring one to me is that LAX does not look nearly as crowded as the script insists, nor what I’d expect on Christmas Eve day.  Also, traffic is really easy to get around on the way to the airport.  (New Orleans fills in for Los Angeles.). However, just because Dreamworks and Netflix cut corners on spending for more extras and scenic inconveniences, it does not mean my enjoyment with the film is suspended. 

To make up for where the film’s budget might have come in the way, there are storyline surprises that enter from nowhere. Logic is applied to what’s inserted at these opportune times.  Ethan and Elena experience a set back and now new forms of game play must take hold.  You accept what’s thrown at you because of the cast and set ups.

Taron Egerton is a deliberately wimpy, but also an attractive, unlikely hero.  Jason Bateman ranks with other impressive Die Hard type movie villains like Alan Rickman, Tommy Lee Jones and Dennis Hopper.

Carry-On’s director, Jaume Collet-Serra, is well aware of the near miss escapes that allow his movie to…well…carry on.  He really doesn’t try to hide or distract from the plot holes or questions that audiences may argue.  Yet, I say who cares? This cast of mostly unknowns step up to embrace the dialogue and circumstances of the script while trying to win the game.  

Look, anything you see in Carry-On can theoretically happen.  

Would it happen?  

Let’s just change the subject please.  You have a plane to catch.

CRIMSON TIDE

By Marc S. Sanders

A little over a year ago, having just seen Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, I shared with friends how it is sadly surprising that a nuclear weapon has not been launched by a super power country since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Those two bombs certainly served their purpose in response to the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941.  I deem it sad that any of us consider this a possibility that can easily be repeated. With all of the threats that continue worldwide with weapons testing, technological advancements and arms trading, it’s frightening to wonder what can ever be expected. Is it easier to execute a command like that again, now that it has been done?  It’s got to be a little surprising that the United States did not respond that way following the 9/11 attacks.  Tony Scott’s Crimson Tide comes close to providing an answer by weighing sound vs unsound reasoning. 

This is not only my favorite of Tony Scott’s films, but the movie also offers maybe my favorite performances from Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.  The two actors of different generations are equal in measure as they debate what should be done, along with how the submarine they command, the U.S.S Alabama, should respond while in the midst of a revolutionary conflict stemming out of Russia.  

Washington is Commander Hunter, recruited at the last minute to serve as the Executive Officer aboard the Alabama.  Hackman is Captain Ramsey who proudly leads the charge of the sub with an intimidating welcome to Hunter.  Before any kind of real conflict comes their way, Ramsey puts Hunter to the test.  An uncomfortable dinner conversation, wisely written by Robert Towne (Chinatown), has the Captain question Hunter’s stance on using nuclear force to deliver a harsh defeat to the enemy.  Hunter’s position though is the real enemy is war itself.  Ramsey and his commanding staff have no reply to the new member’s observation.

Another moment occurs when Ramsey orders a missile launch drill while Hunter is assisting with containing an on-board fire in the galley.  The Captain has his reasons that Hunter cannot truly debate. Besides, Ramsey precisely tells his XO to “bite (his) fucking tongue,” even if he doesn’t agree with him.

The centerpiece of the officers’ conflict arrives when they receive a fractured message from command.  Ramsey’s instinct is to launch missiles at Russia based on the presumption that the Soviet rebels have overtaken the country’s arms.  Though Hunter cannot deny the concern, he will not agree to a missile launch until they receive the entirety of the broken order.  This occupies the second half of the film, and it becomes a back-and-forth mutiny of power.  The Captain is relieved of command but then retains control and the crew is divided between the leaderships of these two characters.

Having recently seen and reviewed the submarine classic Das Boot, it’s fair to say that film feels much more authentic and maybe it should be much more tense than any other movie of its kind.  Crimson Tide is glossier with outstanding interior cinematography on a studio constructed set designed to tilt like a maritime vessel should.  The dashboards and colored lighting are fancier.  The cast is good looking as Tony Scott obtains close up shots of them beaded in glistening perspiration with no facial hair.  Crimson Tide is definitely a Hollywood picture.  However, the screenplay from Michael Schiffer is razor sharp with not one wasted piece of dialogue.  In addition to Robert Towne’s contribution, Quentin Tarantino also script doctored a portion of the piece as well which includes a well-placed Star Trek allegory. 

There’s a jolt of energy to Crimson Tide that Das Boot has at times, but because of the latter’s three hour plus running time it also slumbers like life should while living on a submarine.  It is the theatrics of Crimson Tide that hold my attention on many repeat viewings.  I’d never want to question a guy like Captain Ramsey, but I’d be grateful that someone like Commander Hunter is around to stand in protest.  

I wish Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington had done another film together.  Their conflicted chemistry is second to none.  You like them both equally in the scenes they share together, or individually.  The timing of their tempos is perfect.  They find just the right moments to be alarming in a quiet way and save other opportunities for shocking outbursts.  The best actors practice their scripts this way and avoid any traps of overdramatizing.

Tony Scott made this film before his penchant for chaotic angles and grainy captions took over much of his other films to come hereafter.  Crimson Tide is cut perfectly from one scene to another with outstanding colors of blue, red and green lights that illuminate the cast while they stand at their posts.  Washington, Hackman as well as a sensational supporting cast (Viggo Mortensen, James Gandolfini, George Dzundza, Steve Zahn, Matt Craven, Lillo Brancato) do fine work and respond beautifully to the director’s camera positions. 

It’s impossible not to feel the tension accompanied with the progression of this film.  It serves as a motivation to wonder if we act on what we know or don’t act on what we don’t know.  As taut and dramatic as Crimson Tide is, you find yourself considering if those with access to the real-life red button consider all that could come of their decisions.  

Crimson Tide may tidy itself up after two hours, but the movie still makes me ponder if this planet’s military forces are thinking each and every day about if we are preventing nuclear war or if we are on the cusp of waging a nuclear holocaust.

This is one of my most favorite films.