'The Expendables' is a great action flick

The Expendables (2010)
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, David Zayas, Giselle Itie, Terry Crews, Randy Coutre, Mickey Rourke, and Charisma Carpenter
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

An elite team of mercenaries (Li, Statham, Stallone) turn down a contract to overthrow the military dictator of a small South American nation (Zayas). They change their minds when when the drug-runners who are the power-behind-the-power (Austin and Roberts) abduct the dictator's kindhearted daughter (Itie), and they set out to overthrow a government and kill every bad guy they come across--free of charge.


Forget the race-baiting self-consciously referential "Machete" that's coming out later this year. This is the film that captures the real mood and spirit of everything that was great about the explosion-laden action movies of yesteryear, without any posturing, preaching, or pandering.

Like "Predators" from earlier this summer, "The Expendables" is a throw-back movie that succeeds at what it sets out to do--to evoke the feeling of a 1980s action flick and to the movie days when men were men and every day brought another suicide mission. It does this with all the fight scenes, gunplay, car chases, and macho banter than even the most discriminating fan would want. It also does so by reviving a common 1980s villain (the corrupt CIA operative whose gone into the drug trade), by providing us lead characters who can be chivalrous when damsels are in distress, completely coldhearted and unforgiving to those who put them there, and forgiving to their friends even when they betray them.

In "The Expendables," Sylvester Stallone gathered such an array of stars--several of whom have cameos, such as Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger--that I was afraid the film would collapse under the weight of egoes vying for screentime and recognition. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Stallone, who is also the co-writer and director of the flick, retains complete control of the straight-forward action narrative in the film, with every character and actor portraying it, playing their part in the story with no allowance for star-status, past or present. It goes without saying that three of the biggest stars appearing in the film--Stallone, Statham, and Li--also get the most screen time, but the rest of the almost equally famous cast play their parts without any particular acknowledgement beyond what any other actor might get. The only exception to this is the scene featuring Willis and Schwarzenegger. While it is needed for the plot, its execution feels a little forced, with the dialogue between Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger being just a little too cute and too aware that it's an exchange among movie super-stars and one-time box office rivals.


Aside from that one minor misstep, Stallone keeps the film centered around Barney Ross (played by Stallone himself) and his friend and main partner Lee Christmas (played by Statham), men of violence who nonetheless hold to a strong code of honor and chivalry that they expect everyone who works with them to obey as well. This is established in the film's first scene, and it is carried throughout, as Ross and Lee's honorable natures are ultimately the motivating factor behind every event of the film. They are a pair of cool unapologetic tough guys with the sort of strong moral center that one wishes all such tough guys had both in fiction and reality.

Technically, this is is also an excellent film. It's well-written (aside from the aforementioned scene between between Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger), expertly paced and edited, with every action scene being lean, mean, and exactly what is called for in order to get maximum impact. The only drawback is that this film makes the mistake that so many other action films have done of late--they use computer graphics to add blood spatter and gore to scenes. Unfortunately, it's no less obvious and fake-looking here than it was in the low-budget films that originated the practice, nor any better looking than in the other big-budget film I've recently seen that made use of the unfortunate practice ("MacGruber"). It's a shame really, because those obviously fake bits of CGI were very distracting during the otherwise exciting and fun climactic orgy of explosions, death, and mayhem.

'Get Smart' is a great update of classic show

Get Smart (2008)
Starring: Steve Carrel, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Dwayne Johnson, Terence Stamp, Ken Davitian, and Dalip Singh
Director: Steven Segal
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When the international crime syndicate and freelance spy-ring KAOS gains a complete roster of field agents working for the most secret branch of the United States intelligence services, CONTROL, the Chief (Arkin) promotes eager-beaver analyst Maxwell Smart (Carrel) to field agent. Together with the only other agent not compromised by KAOS, Agent 99 (Hathaway), he sets out to discover what notoriouls KOAS agent Seigfried (Stamp) intends to do with stolen radioactive materials.


When "Get Smart" was released in 2008, it got bad reviews. As with several other comedies from around that time--"Balls of Fury" and "Nacho Libre" spring to mind immediately--the bad reviews were more a reflection of critical cluelessness than any probems with the movie itself. Too many movie critics had their heads too far up their asses to see that this film provided a fun update of the 1960s spy spoof that modernizes the characters and conflicts without feeling the need to denigrate and mock the original show (as was done in movies like "Starsky and Hutch"), or all but ignore the original show, except for a little lip service (as was done with the "Mission: Impossible" movies). This film takes all that was good about the TV series, even to the point where some of the spirit can stil be felt, and delivers it in a package that both those who love the old show and those who have never even heard of it can enjoy.

While I will grant the criticsm that the movie never gets quite as crazy as the TV show could be at its finest, and that only a few of the dialogue exchanges approach Mel Brooks and Buck Henry level writing (like the "if you were CONTROL you'd be dead" scene between Maxwell Smart and Seigfried, as featured in one of the previews), but the movie would have been a miserable failure if it had aped the old show. There is only one Mel Brooks and whenever writers try to copy him, they always fail spectacularly.

The actors portraying the various familiar characters are not attempting mimic those who have come before. Like Roger Moore didn't do a Sean Connery impersonation when he took over as James Bond, nor does Steve Carell do Don Adams when he plays Maxwell Smart. The character is obviously the same character, but the Carell gives his own spin on him. The same is true of Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 and Alan Arkin as The Chief. The characters are recreated, but still recognizable.

Another very smart move done by the film's creators (particularly score composer Trevor Rabin) was to retain the old "Get Smart" theme and weave it throughout the soundtrack music. They were smart to enough to recognize that the "Get Smart" theme by Irving Szathmary is one of the best pieces of television music ever written and that a "Get Smart" update wouldn't be complete without it. Just like the actors took the characters and reinvented them, so did Trevor Rabin take the spy music second only in fame to the "James Bond Theme" and make it his with a number of playful and thrilling variations as the movie unfolds. (The soundtrack music is available from Amazon.com, and the disc contains several more of Rabin's variations on the theme that don't appear in the film but which are very creative and worthwhile. Even if you don't see the movie, the soundtrack is worth owning, because this fun music stands just fine on its own.

From the first teaser ad for the "Get Smart" film, I was looking forward to seeing it. As longer previews appeared, I started getting concerned that it was going to be another adaptation/update that was going to be intended more as an excersize in mocking the original show, or too mean-spirited to really capture the "Get Smart" feel. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded, and the film turned out to be a fun, breezy upate of the classic TV show... a laugh- and action-filled spy spoof that's well worth seeing. (It may not be perfect--there are a couple of instances I found myself thinking, "Waitaminnit... why isn't Smart reacting to that comment?" and "Why did the leap to THAT conclusion?"-- but the flaws are few and minor.)

A sidekick gets promoted to lead hero....

Inspector Lewis (2006)
Starring: Kevin Whately, Laurence Fox, Clare Holman, Charlie Cox, Jemma Redgrave, Lizzy McInnerny, Jack Ellis and Rebecca Front
Director: Bill Anderson
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Robbie Lewis (Whately), one-time sidekick to the famed Inspector Morse, has been promoted to Inspector himself and returns to Oxford after a long absense. Still in emotional pain from the sudden death of his beloved wife, Lewis finds himself involved in a murder case that brings back even more painful memories as it is related to a case that Morse once worked on.


"Inspector Lewis" was the pilot episode for a sequel series to the popular British television series "Inspector Morse". It is a sold start for a respectable follow-on to a classic, even if Kevin Whatley really is better suited to play a second-banana character than being the one who carries the show.

Fans of "Inspector Morse"--and good detective stories in general--will enjoy this movie and the television episdoes that follow it. Despite that, some might, like me, be a little peturbed with the killing-off of Lewis' wife. I think it would have been a nice change of pace to have a lead detective on one of these shows who actually has a solid homelife and who is completely devoted to and deeply in love with his or her spouse.

End of the Road for 'Black Cobra'

Black Cobra 3: The Manila Connection (1987)
Starring: Fred Williamson, Forry Smith, Debra Ward, and David Light
Director: Don Edwards
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Chicago police detective Robert Malone (Williamson) travels to the Philippines to work on a joint CIA/Interpol mission to recover or destroy a cache of stolen weapons and prevent a hi-tech blackmailer from exposing CIA operations around the world.


"Black Cobra 3" is an improvement over "Black Cobra 2", but it's not quite as good as the original in the series. Once again, the one thing that made Malone more than just another third-rate action hero has been left out... his pet cat. In fact, he's even less of a character here than he was in the previous installments of the series--here, he's simply a generic action hero who beats up or guns down scads of bad guys because duty to country and the son of an old army buddy calls. (Those are fine motivations, but a little bit of character flavor for Malone would have been nice.)

Speaking of the script, overall it's a little better than the two previous outings, but ultimately it ends up disappointing because it is so predictable. There's a mole in the CIA that's leaking every move Malone and his colleagues make to the bag guys, and there's only one possible suspect for who it might be. (Yeah, the writer makes a halfhearted attempt to spread the suspicion around, but it seems clear that no great degree of thought went into this script other than "how to get the characters from one fight to the next, and from the shoot-out to the exploding secret hideout?"

The fight scenes are as well photographed in this film as they were in the two previous films, and there seems to have been enough of a budget this time out to do some rehearsals and real choreography. The bigger budget is also evident in the many shoot-outs and explosions, not to mention the escape-by-helicopter during the film's climactic battle in the secret mountain hide-out of the villains. (The fact that Fred Williamson's acting seems better in this film than the previous outings may also be a result of a bigger budget; he's being paid enough to actually work instead of just showing up and running lines.)

One that that isn't better in this installment is the dubbing. Often, lip movements are noticeable different from what is heard on the soundtrack--even for the English-speaking actors who did their own dubbing like Williamson--and early in the film the attempt to match the dialogue to the lips is so badly done that it sounds like the voice actors either didn't understand the lines they were speaking, or they were being directed by a drunk Christopher Walken impersonator of limited talent. The random pauses in the middle of sentences, and the weird inflections make very simple exchanges tricky to follow.

"Black Cobra 3" is the end of a trilogy of action movies that teeter on the brink between mediocre and bad. The most remarkable thing about the series is that the main character, Malone, seemed to devolve into more of a generic action hero as the films progressed instead of grow. That's noteworthy, as most series characters tend to become more defined, not less.

Dirty cops must silence witness in '16 Blocks'

16 Blocks (2006)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Mos Def, and David Morse
Director: Richard Donner
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Broken-down, burned-out NYPD detective Jack Mosely (Willis) is given a simple assignment: Escort a prisoner, Eddie Bunker (Def), sixteen blocks from the police station holding-tank to the courthouse so he testify before a Grand Jury. The prisoner has to be there by 10am, because if he isn't, the Grand Jury is dismissed and the prosecutor's case will fall apart. But even in New York traffic, two hours to cover sixteen blocks should be easy, right? Well, not if the witness's testimony is going to expose police corruption reaching from the streets to highest pinnacle of power within the NYPD.


"16 Blocks" is, basically, a lesser version of the story told in the classic movie "The Gauntlet". Here, like in that film, a cop who is just marking time until retirement manages to summon up whatever spark first inspired him to join the police and do the right thing against ever-increasing odds; a major difference between the Eastwood character in "The Gauntlet" and Mosely is that he is aware that other cops are trying to kill his charge from the outset, and that this is what sparks his desire to overcome in the first place. Another difference is that while the witness in "The Gauntlet" was annoying, Sandra Locke's character at least had some likable qualities to her. There is nothing particularly likable about the character played by Mos Def in "16 Blocks"--not even his oft-stated dream to leave crime behind and become a baker, because it never once rings true--and his nonstop babbling and truly obnoxious voice becomes nerve-grating more than once. Finally, there is a difference in intensity... in "The Gauntlet", here's a sense of ever-increasing danger and pressure. That never occurs here... the film reaches a level a few minutes in and stays there, despite the many shoot-outs and close calls between Mosely and his pursuers.

Bruce Willis gives a great performance as a man who is way past his prime and in over his head; there are several times where his facial expressions say more than any lines of dialogue could. Unfortunately, his co-star, Def, is so annoying that I found myself wishing someone would shoot his character now. Willis also has the problem that he's in a movie that doesn't seem to go anywhere. There's a great build-up to the moment when assassins take a shot at Bunker, and it feels like the film will get even tenser when Mosely realizes that his old partner (Morse) and other detectives that seem to come to his aid are actually part of the plot to silence the witness... but instead the momentum seems to stall. The film coasts through the roughly one-and-three-quarter hours of real-time as Mosely struggles to deliver Bunker to the courthouse alive, eventually coming to a sputtering halt at its ending, whether the original one, or the "shocking" alternate ending included on the DVD release.

"16 Blocks" had a lot of potential, but it never really lives up to its promise; like its hero, it seems to be coasting, but unlike the hero, it never finds its "spark" or redemption. It is a film that any big time Bruce Willis fan should check out--he is quite good in it. The rest of us are probably better off picking up a copy of "The Gauntlet" if we haven't seen it yet.

'The Big Bounce' falls flat

The Big Bounce (2003)
Starring: Owen Wilson, Morgan Freeman, and Sara Foster
Director: George Armitage
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When small-time thief and grifter Jack Ryan (Wilson) is given a handyman job and an opportunity to go straight by an eccentric Hawaiian judge (Freeman), the path to the straight-and-narrow is obstructed by a willowy sexpot (Foster) who has a full-proof plan to rob the local crime boss. As might be expected, there's no such thing as a perfect plan... at least not when everyone in the picture is a thief and con-artist.


"The Big Bounce" is a run-of-the-mill caper comedy that might have been something special if the twists and turns of the plot hadn't either been so trite that they weren't twists but instead completely predictable, or so badly set up that the viewer is more irritated than surprised when they happen. The film isn't helped by the collection of two-dimensional stock characters that populate it, nor the too slow pace, or the fact that the comedic elements are so worn they're threadbare.

The actors all put on as good performances as can be expected--and watching Foster prance back and forth across the screen in next to nothing is certainly enjoyable--but the awfulness of the script couldn't be overcome.

Magnificent Warriors kick Imperial Jap ass

It's exactly 65 years this month since the United States of America dropped two atom bombs on Japan to bring us victory in World War II's Pacific Theater. This review is one of several posts I'm making to mark that occasion.

Magnificent Warriors (aka "Dynamite Fighters") (1987)
Starring: Michele Yeoh, Tung-Shing Yee, and Richard Ng
Director: David Chung
Steve's Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Michele Yeoh stars as a confident, self-reliant bush pilot who is cashing in on the resistence to the Japanese invaders in 1930s China. The plot really gets going when she is recruited to assist a spy deep within Japanese held land and ends up becoming embroiled in the resistance efforts whole-hog when her Chinese patriotism can't allow her to stand by and let a city of innocent people be gassed to death by the nefarious Japanese Imperial Army.


The film features excellent cinematography, fine performances by all actors, and well-choreographed martial arts sequences. There were some silly sound effects related to those fight scenes, but that's to be expected in an older film like this one.

The only dissapointment I felt was that I would have liked to see some of the plot and characterzation touches explained a bit more. (For example, was the drifter related to our heroine or not?)

This was one of Michele Yeoh's very first films--and she looks VERY young in it!--and the DVD version contains a really interesting interview with her about its making.