Category: Action/Adventure

THE TERMINATOR

By Marc S. Sanders

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most famous role is The Terminator. The role made the muscle man a star simply based on his menacing appearance alone. Let’s face it. The guy looks pretty cool in the black leather jacket with sunglasses while riding a motorcycle. The shotgun and Uzi complete the appearance as well. All that he needs to do now is say “I’ll be back!” and you’ve got one of the most memorable film characters in history.

Director James Cameron with future wife and producer Gale Anne Hurd conceived this time traveling sci fi flick with next to no money and churned out what first feels like a Friday the 13th slasher film for USA Up All Night, but then became a little more thought provoking. You might work too hard questioning the time travel nonsense. However, the idea is so simple and yet so smart.

Schwarzenegger is a cyborg designed to look human with flesh and blood who travels from the year 2029 to 1984 to assasinate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a woman who becomes the mother of the would be leader of resistance fighters against a dominant machine army that has eradicated most of the human population. To fend off the Terminator and protect Sarah, a human fighter, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), has also travelled back in time.

James Cameron is a director of craftsmanship. He assembles riveting action sequences and his visual effects with makeup designs from Stan Winston are marvelous, especially considering the limited funds he had to work with. The dark, bleak future showing the war of the machines is well staged with vast lands of waste and crushed skulls. Laser beams dart across the screen with blaring Atari like sound effects. It’s not the most sophisticated, but it works.

The acting is very over the top however. Schwarzenegger is fine as he just needs to be robotic like the role demands. He hardly has any lines actually. Biehn and Hamilton needed a few more acting lessons though. Hamilton’s fear is terribly unconvincing and Biehn is overly dramatic. Their chemistry is also a little sour. They look great together if you saw them on a page of Tiger Beat or Starlog magazine, but their acting scenes fall flat. The script’s dialogue doesn’t help them either, but James Cameron was never big on dialogue anyway. There’s a reason that his masterpiece “Titanic” got all of those Oscar nominations except for screenplay.

Still, because the film is mostly steeped in wall to wall action that’s very well edited and the idea for this new kind of sci fi thriller is so inventive, The Terminator is one for the ages. It’s a film that can definitely be watched on repeat.

It’s best to take the story seriously while feeling exhilarated by the car chases and shootouts (especially in a police precinct with 30 cops), but it’s okay to roll your eyes at the ham on rye with cheese & mayo acting too.

CAPTAIN MARVEL

By Marc S. Sanders

Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck directed the Captain Marvel installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film has some successes, but some failures as well. Fortunately, where it lacks happens early on and then the film continues to get better.

Boden & Fleck must have directed a film that was never released because this Captain Marvel begins in the middle of a story with exposition that’s terribly hard to follow. I’ve seen it three times now, and it’s still hard to piece the first 40 minutes together. The title character is known as “Vers” (pronounced “veers”) played by Brie Larson. She dons a green uniform space suit and is part of a civilization called Kree. Her mentor is Yon-Rogg played by Jude Law. They head a team on a mission to rescue a spy of their own held captive by the shape shifting Skrulls. The mission goes awry and Vers is captured. Small snippets of a life lived on Earth flash in her subconsciousness as the Skrulls study her mind. When Vers manages to escape, she ends up on Earth in 1995. Gradually, with the assistance of a young Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson with hair, a clean CGI complexion and no eye patch), Vers learns of her true history that she seems to have forgotten. Reader, I just summed up the first third of this film better than the movie ever did.

Boden & Fleck have some nice touches to this film but only in the second and third acts. Captain Marvel salutes the grunge music of the 90s while also taking inspired narratives from films like The Terminator. There’s some nice twists in the film too.

However, the whole first act should be thrown away and redone. It’s terribly confusing with dark cinematography on what is to be an alien planet at night and a dimly lit unfamiliar space ship. Hardly any characters are fleshed out yet but they talk in conversations that lose me. The Skrulls are shape shifters that can adapt the image of another person or creature but because it’s all so dark, it’s difficult to decipher who is who. Not much payoff comes when you are finally able to piece some material from this whole sequence later on, based on what Vers uncovers about herself, the Kree and the Skrulls.

Brie Larson is fine in the role while primarily playing it straight. Nothing special, but nothing terrible either.

Samuel L Jackson plays this Nick Fury with more naivety than seen before. He’s a younger version of himself after all. So that’s somewhat humorous, especially his chemistry with an odd cat called Goose.

Ben Mendelsohn continues to break into these mainstream film franchises as an antagonist of some sort but sadly no one remembers him, I would think. He needs to be regarded in the same league with guys like Gary Oldman and Christopher Walken. What’s next for him? How about a James Bond villain?

Annette Bening is a welcome presence as the “supreme intelligence” for Vers. Accompany her sashaying to Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,” and I’m entertained.

There was a better film here. Due to a weak beginning, I can only mildly recommend Captain Marvel. Pop culture references and a redeeming two thirds of the film rescue it from utter confusion. Still, if I have to pause the film on occasion to explain to my wife and daughter what is going on, I think that is more an issue with the film than with the viewer.

SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

By Marc S. Sanders

Spider-Man: Far From Home is a good movie for all the wrong reasons.

People, it’s not much of a super hero movie. Rather, it teeters more on a teen angst comedy. The teen angst material works very well. I laughed a lot and I found all of this material very touching. Peter Parker struggles with a “like,like relationship” with MJ. His pal Ned is getting in good with another classmate, and his European vacation is getting upended because Nick Fury keeps getting in the way. Again, this is all funny and really cute material. I laughed often. Really enjoyable.

That being said, where’s Spider-Man? He’s hardly in the costume and he’s truly fighting a rather subpar villain. Then again, when I read the comics Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhall, doing the best he can here) was never a favorite of mine. Mysterio’s nefarious ways are a bit implausible. I don’t want to spoil what he’s exactly up to but I wasnt exactly feeling the suspense or admiring his schemes. It’s a little too over the top ridiculous.

The other hero, Nick Fury does not really live up to his character as well. He makes dumb decisions and believes the preposterous storyline a little too easily. Fury had never been written this way before. He’s not this stupid. It irritated me.

I like Tom Holland in the Peter Parker role, and the rest of the cast is good, especially Peter’s pals, Ned, Betty Brant, Flash and MJ. Jon Favreau is likable, and Marisa Tomei makes for a good younger Aunt May.

If only the producers went with a different villain in Spidey’s rogue gallery. Where the heck is Kraven The Hunter already????

I like the whole cast, but there was much to be desired here in the script. The 2nd act is a mess which left me wondering how could this be…if that just happened, and again….where is Spider-Man???

So yeah, Spider-Man: Far From Home is not what it could’ve been but rather something else altogether. That’s maybe good…and bad.

GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONTSTERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

Imagine our reaction upon learning that the cast of this epic features the following:

Academy Award Nominee: David Strathairn

Academy Award Nominee: Ken Wantanabe

Academy Award Nominee: Vera Farmiga

Academy Award Nominee: Sally Hawkins

The FBI Guy from The Wolf Of Wall Street: Kyle Chandler

Emmy Nominee: Millie Bobbie Brown

Emmy Nominee: Charles Dance

…and the guy from Speed and Terminator 2: Judgement Day and most importantly the 2nd episode of What’s Happenning!!!: Joe Morton

Here is a film where scientist Vera Farmiga justifies waking up 10 million ton monsters on earth because it will “SAVE THE EARTH FROM POLLUTION DUE TO OVER POPULATION.” (Ahem, couldn’t she have just called Thanos?”)

Here is a film where scientists reason that the only way to communicate with Gorjira (a bad ass looking three headed Hydra) is by humpback whale frequency. (Ahem…one more thing…couldn’t Spock simply travel back to the mid 1980s and pick up George & Gracie?)

Here is a film where Boston is brought down to rubble save one street conveniently available for a Hummer to race down so that Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga can race back to their house to find daughter Millie Bobbie Brown safely taking refuge.

Despair not though my friends.

Boston survived!!!

There was one sole remaining functioning traffic light still standing following the mass destruction. That’s all I need for self assurance.

Let me tell you something though. You get your money’s worth out of this mashed potatoes of a film. One of the best comedies of the year!!!

It was a lot of fun.

THE CALL OF THE WILD

By Marc S. Sanders

I never thought I’d say it but a fully drawn CGI dog grabbed at my heartstrings with the 2020 film adaptation of Jack London’s literary classic The Call Of The Wild.

A gravelly voiced Harrison Ford narrates the ongoing journey of the St. Bernard named Buck who is kidnapped from his master’s home and eventually ends up in Alaska where a gold rush is in full swing. People from all places have come to the winter landscape during the turn of the century to purchase sled dogs as they venture off into the snow capped regions to uncover precious gold and get rich.

Buck is first recruited to drive two mail carriers (Omar Sy, Cara Gee; likable performances) through the Yukon. Though, he’s domesticated at first and not experienced with the command of “mush” and running in frigid temperatures to keep in step with seven other dogs, including the cruel canine leader known as Spitz. Soon, Buck vies for his place as leader with strength and determination and especially the respect he’s earned from the other dogs.

A second story puts him at the hands of a very cruel master named Hal (Dan Stevens). Buck and the other dogs suffer at his cruelty to continue the journey in search of gold only to get rescued by the frontiersman John Thornton (Harrison Ford). John and Buck’s relationship is the best and most touching piece of the film as it comes at a time when both characters need one another. John mourns the loss of his son as he decided to leave his wife. Buck is hurting physically while still perplexed at his Yukon surroundings.

I liked The Call Of The Wild. Though my suspension of disbelief was shattered as quick as it started. While it’s hard for me to accept that Buck will get Thornton to dry out on alcohol, as well as insist that he lead the pack by putting his foot-I mean paw- down, I could not help but be taken up in the midst of it all. Look, if Disney’s many animal characters can grab the emotions of countless moviegoers, then why can’t CGI “Buck” do the same as well. “Moving Picture Company” are the architects behind the CGI and they have achieved a nice blend of performance, emotion and effects with Buck and the other animals.

Harrison Ford responds well to the unreal animal that’s by his side. I bought it all whether they are on the canoe fighting the rapids or sharing a tent together or when Thornton sadly realizes that Buck is mapping out a new life in the wild, with a beautiful white Timberwolf. The director, Chris Sanders, periodically offers Buck a spirit to guide his destiny in the shape of beautiful yellow eyed, midnight black wolf as well.

I can’t say if this film follows London’s book precisely or goes completely off course. All I know is the film really took hold of me as I worried for Buck’s outcome. I left the film thinking of the silly, misbehaving Buck in the comfort of a master’s home all the way through the harsh elements of nature, and his encounters with the cruelty of man but also the respect of man. I really enjoyed The Call Of The Wild.

EXTRACTION

By Marc S. Sanders

Why do some filmmakers find it to be of such “impactful dramatic narration” to show a snippet of the end of the story or film within the first two minutes of its beginning? That’s what disappointed me in the latest Netflix release Extraction featuring Chris Hemsworth as a skilled Australian mercenary hired to rescue an Indian drug lord’s son that has been kidnapped by a competing drug lord.

Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake, action hero name!!! He’s an alcoholic that manages to maintain his buff physique. I’d like to know the secret to these big action brutes, and how they stay so fit while downing bottles upon bottles of liquor and pills. Tyler has two days to get Ovi Mahajan Jr (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) out of an area of Bangladesh that is completely controlled by Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli) the most powerful drug lord in Dharma, Bangladesh. Ovi Sr is another drug lord trapped in prison. Cops, civilians, street kids, practically everyone in the area operates under the command of Amir.

The rescue happens early with Tyler taking out over a half dozen guys that are holding Ovi in a run down apartment. He kills them every which imaginable. Fist, gun, knife, rake (in a top floor apartment?), you name it. From there, the bulk of the film focuses on how Tyler and Ovi are going to get safely out of the area.

Extraction is directed by Sam Hargrave and produced by Hemsworth’s Marvel super hero producer pal, Joe Russo. It is based on a graphic novel and it’s easy to recognize that. The violence is fast and gory and unforgiving. A major player gets a head shot assassination while standing at a urinal. Hargrave freezes the scene for a moment like a comic book panel. Dialogue throughout the film is somewhat limited to what could only fit in one of those speaking bubbles you find in comics.

Hargrave had me going with a number of long steady cam moments. One in particular has Tyler driving a Mercedes down a busy street while getting shot at, crashed into and rocket launched. The camera goes in and out of the car from the back seat to the front seat to the hood and the trunk and around the bad guys surrounding them. It reminded me of that celebrated sequence from Children Of Men directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Only thing is, Hargrave is not as seamless as Cuaron. I give an ‘A’ for effort, though you easily catch the breaks in the flow.

Tyler gets some assistance from David Harbour, who plays another sleazy kind of cut up, just like in Quantum Of Solace. Can this guy do anything else? (I know…Stranger Things. How about something even more that that though?). He just didn’t do anything for me here.

Tyler also gets some welcome assistance from a female mercenary named Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani). She’s completely bad ass, and her character really comes alive in the last 30 minutes.

Extraction is decent entertainment. Honestly, I was getting a little bored as the killings went on and on. How many different ways can a guy be shot in the head? I guess that’s why Tyler swings a dead body like a baseball bat to take out another guy or mashes a guy’s head into a car door window. You know, to mix it up a little bit.

Hargrave’s film does go beyond the normal conventions of action films at times. There are a few twists that got my attention but it’s mostly a film narrated in body count and bullets.

However, because of these mild surprises, again I ask why show me obvious material from the story’s ending as a quick pre title sequence? It would have been a much more satisfying surprise for me as a viewer had I not known what was to eventually come into play.

BIRDS OF PREY

By Marc S. Sanders

Margot Robbie is a champion actress. Just look at Bombshell (I thought she was more memorable than Oscar winner Laura Dern.). Look at I, Tonya. (I thought she should have won the Oscar that year.) Harley Quinn? She’s perfect in the role as a ditzed out, mallet carrying party gal villain turned anti hero from the Batman universe. Only problem is that as good as she is in the role, I can’t stand Harley Quinn. This is a child who just won’t sit still.

Robbie takes on her second turn in the role following the abysmal Suicide Squad. This time she produces Birds Of Prey (and The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). It’s an improvement from Squad but it still seems to be all over the place. It happily acknowledges that it time jumps and corrects itself. It is happy to drop F bombs because the producers wanted a R rated female driven equivalent to Deadpool. (It never had to be Deadpool.) It even goes in rewind mode (you know, with the cassette tape sound) because the viewer or the fans of Harley need to experience the lunacy of Harley. She talks looney so we need to feel looney while she voiceovers the story that’s going on here.

The Gotham gangster Black Mask (Ewan McGregor – the next candidate in line trying to replicate Jack Nicholson’s Joker, just like Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones and Arnold Schwarzenegger and on and on), wants to find a diamond that was swallowed by a kid named Cassandra Cain. Harley recruits herself to protect Cassandra, while waiting for her to shit it out. Hilarious material here. Side stuff tells us that Harley has split from the Joker.

The problem with Birds of Prey is that it does the work for the audience. I was constantly reminded that Harley is cuckoo, that I didn’t get the chance to discover it for myself. Robbie’s delivery is perfectly on point. The issue is the writing by screenwriter Christina Hodson is hackneyed. The character’s antics are too in your face. Look at Heath Ledger. The Nolans only revealed so much about the Joker. When their film ended, I wanted to learn more. Where did that guy actually stem from? He was a Joker like no other before him. The character wasn’t shoved in my face like Harley is. I had to think about him during and after the film.

The supporting cast is nothing of interest either. Rosie Perez, a great actress, plays third or fourth fiddle here as a Gotham cop who doesn’t get the credit she deserves from a department of mostly men. Mary Elizabeth Winstead just carries a crossbow that people mistake for a bow and arrow, and she gets frustrated with that. Yeah that’s ironic, I’m sure.

Still, despite the title, Harley is the main protagonist. Warner/DC got the right actor for the part. So why couldn’t they write her with more depth than this? The film starts out fun with a silly Looney Tunes animated update but then it gets all scattered with Harley breaking a thug’s legs and blowing up a chemical factory. She also shoves cheese whiz in her mouth. You go, girl!!!

Think about it. Harley used to be a renowned psychiatrist who is dropped in a vat of acid and abused terribly by Joker, only to break free of him and find her own way. This film really only TELLS us this. A better film would have SHOWN that to me. A better film would have made this the story from beginning to end. I’d love to have seen Harley before she went nuts.

You know what? I might’ve then become Harley Quinn’s biggest fan.

INCREDIBLES 2

By Marc S. Sanders

Disney/Pixar and (yeah, let’s single him out) Director Brad Bird continue to impress with marvelous feats of imagination. Yet I’m not necessarily referring to the art of their animation, outstanding action scenes or the colorful superhero names. Rather, it’s the story that usually stands above all else in each entry that’s released year after year.

Allow me to sidetrack for a moment. Consider a film like Lethal Weapon 2. It’s a fun movie that I’ve always liked, but it was not just an action movie. I mean, think about it. There’s a reason the first film was on Roger Ebert’s Top 10 list of 1987. It focused on the trauma and suicidal tendencies of a burned out cop along with some great action and humor. It’s sequel however, just did the same thing. Just more of the same stuff, despite a very capable partner that was featured in the film. The partner remained the sidekick again. Not much effort in thought the second time around (or 3rd or 4th).

Incredibles 2 avoids the same trap. While the first one focused on Bob Paar and his alias, Mr. Incredible, this new film relies on Holly Hunter’s Elastigirl, known by day as housewife Helen Paar. Yeah, as I’m writing this, I’m realizing she’s kind of recruited for a mission the same way her husband is, but the perspective seems fresh; consistent in step with other female hero protagonists like Wonder Woman and Katniss Everdeen.

Adding to the effectiveness of this film is that these larger than life characters are humanized. Dad is out of work, following a government mandate. So he stays home with the kids and mixes the pinks with the whites while trying to get the atomic demon baby Jack Jack to sleep. Side note: Jack Jack is an awesome scene stealer. There’s a reason this kid was on every toy shelf and t-shirt in countless variations from the end of summer through Christmas. He’s now up there as one of my favorite Pixar characters.

A surprise reveal is no surprise at all. So don’t set yourself up for disappointment. Just relish in a very cool new villain known as The Screenslaver. He’s no Syndrome but he’s pretty intimidating nonetheless.

As a major comic book geek, another thing I appreciated was that Bird’s script and direction follow a pattern of the golden and silver ages of comics without all the heavy drama that comic film adaptations depend on today. There’s a bad guy wreaking havoc and the superheroes come in to save the day. There’s no heavy pseudo tragedy to get in the way. Often I don’t mind that, but here it’s absence is refreshing. Just make it about a bank robbery and a bad guy with the “mwah ha ha” maniacal laugh and it’ll satisfy. It kept the movie light, playful and especially funny.

So glad that I was able to take time out to see Incredibles 2. Go find your super suit and soar to seat in front of the screen.

NOTE: there is a scene midway through the film that might be disruptive for people prone to having seizures. It contains the equivalent of an actual strobe light effect and it lasts a good 2-3 minutes. Please take that into consideration. If you want to know when it takes place, message me and I’ll clue you in when you might want to excuse yourself from the viewing.

DEADPOOL

By Marc S. Sanders

Okay….so here’s where I risk getting the “What!?!? You’ve got to be kidding me!!!!” response from fellow nerds.

Sorry, but I don’t get the hype or the reason why this stupid character called Deadpool continues to have legs in mainstream comics or, now, movies.

I was hoping to see something more fun than just one wisecrack after another.

Granted, the movie consistently breaks convention of everyday blockbuster movies beginning as early as the opening credits, but it also mires in absence of story…..I mean ZERO story. NONE!!!! NADA!!!! ZILCH!!!!

I like spoofs like Airplane! especially. Now I see that I like spoofs as long as there is some narrative. I guess I want the movie to hold my hand a little as it takes me on the journey. Sue me….okay?!?!?!?

This movie has no direction, and jumps in flashbacks and forwards countless times. I can not remember a movie before this one that had, I think 4 beginnings, sorry, maybe 5 beginnings. LET’S GO ALREADY!!!!

Yes, there are some good gags that I smirked at or goodness me, even laughed at but those moments ended quickly. Ryan Reynolds is trying waaaaaaayyy too hard to channel the smart alec ways of Robert Downey Jr and he’s boring trying to do it. He makes the character and the movie Deadpool look like a stand up comedian who wore out his welcome. I was waiting for the cane to yank him off screen. (In a movie like this, that could’ve happened.)

Here’s what I recommend, buy a ticket to The Big Short (a real movie; a genuinely funny movie that demonstrates how to break the 4th wall effectively), only before it starts, sneak into the end of Deadpool to watch the secret scene at the end of the credits. For fans of John Hughes 80s movies, that’s the best part.

BRAVEHEART

By Marc S. Sanders

Mel Gibson’s Braveheart is a barbaric film. It’s barbaric in its nature, its violence and its characters. It’s also a magnificent piece of moviemaking.

It’s incredible how Gibson can depict himself in violent battle sequences swinging his sword and tumbling over enemy extras while directing the film. Braveheart is truly one of the best films to be directed and produced by its lead actor.

In the 13th century, King Edward Longshanks keeps a firm rule of British monarchy over Scotland. He finds the Scottish to be unruly and out of order. Taxes alone will not keep them at bay. So he declares it noble to have any Englishman bed a newly Scottish bride before her husband has the opportunity. Therefore, to avoid this experience, William Wallace (Gibson) marries his true love Murron (Catherine McCormick) in secret from the British Empire.

Following the escape from rape by an English captain, Murron is taken, with her throat slit to draw out Wallace. From that point on, Wallace never puts down his sword as he begins the Scottish uprising for freedom from British rule.

Braveheart is not a complex film and we’ve seen films like this before with swords and shields over wide open battlegrounds. However, the construction of Gibson’s film is outstanding. The extras that make up the British and Scottish armies are dense with breadth. The battle scenes are bloody and fierce with axes, swords, bows & arrows and burning tar.

It’s also a moving piece as Wallace remains steadfast with drive to deliver freedom for his people. It’s not so much a character arc for Wallace. He only changes once Murron is killed from wanting to remain peaceful to war torn and strategic in his attacks.

Instead, a good arc comes from Angus McFayden as Robert The Bruce, a confused Scottish nobleman who allies with William but whose judgement is clouded by his aging father. McFayden gives some brief voiceover narration. His character delivers a few surprises as Wallace continues to do damage to Longshanks’ territorial control.

Patrick McGoohan plays Longshanks and he’s another good villain in a long line of English antagonists. He’s determined to keep his rule and bloodline intact despite his gay, weakling for a son whom he forces into wedlock with the princess of France, Isabella (Sophie Marceau).

There’s a lot of dynamics to Braveheart. Battle scenes of blood and gore with burning flames and garish makeup are the main attraction. However, Gibson’s film offers up conflicts of interest found in Randall Wallace’s script. Romance between William and Marron as well as the rich history that led to Scotland’s independence and the almighty power of England and its conceit that would lead to the country’s defeat against a man’s will to lead his brute army to something greater which they never envisioned.

Braveheart is good entertainment.