Terminator: Genisys (2015)

In the simplest terms, it's not as bad or serious as the fourth, and not as cheesy as the third. The first 30 minutes or so of Genisys feel like a highlight reel of all the best and memorable moments of the Terminator franchise, but from a slightly different perspective. It's actually pretty fun.

Then, it transitions into a convoluted story regarding time travel and alternate timelines that only makes you cringe and scratch your head. I'm not sure we can expect much less at this point. They have to do something unusual to keep justifying this story continuing on. How many times has the resistance defeated Skynet at this point? Has any Terminator succeeded in killing the Connors in any timeline?

We're now on our, like, third version of Skynet's origin. At least this one has a lot of callbacks to T1 (or is it just T?) and T2, so it feels like more of a true sequel than the others. In fact, it pretty much totally ignores 3 and 4 entirely. I think most fans won't mind that. I'll admit that I had fun with 3 though. The fourth I can still do without.

The effects were good, especially when dealing with the older Terminator models. We've never seen a T-800 move around like this. However, there's a point where you see these things beating on each other, and I know they're tough, but you're like, "Shouldn't these things be pretty banged up by now?" We're dealing with movie physics though, so shut up, nerd!

The cast seemed like they were having fun, at least. Arnold is, of course, Arnold, and he plays this with the same dry sense of humor that he always has. It's just fun to see him where he belongs. Jason Clarke played a great line between heroic and creepy. I've been hard on Jai Courtney, but he was good as Kyle Reese, even a bit more charming than Michael Biehn (that's probably blasphemy of some kind). I'm sure most are going to watch this for Emilia Clarke (no relation to Jason), and she also does a great job. She was tough, but it would have been nice to see her buffed up a little bit. I'm surprised they didn't force her on Crossfit regime before filming. Anyway, the hierarchy of Sarah Connors goes like this:

1. Linda Hamilton
2. Emilia Clarke
3. Lena Headey

It's kind of interesting that the last two actresses that played Sarah Connor have been English. I guess there are a shortage of sandy blond actresses available to play a 20-something, Los Angeles native, to the point where they had to get a British brunette girl to play her. Go figure.

Watch out for a cameo from a Doctor...

Anyway, I don't want to spoil much, so I'd recommend it as a matinee to fans of the series. It's pretty mindless and harmless entertainment. It actually succeeds at being pretty funny at times. I enjoyed myself for the most part.

...oh, and don't leave when the credits start...

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Escape Plan (2013)

In Escape Plan one man enters, but two men leave.  How is this possible?  His name is Schwarzenegger.

Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is a security consultant that specializes in testing the security of maximum security prisons by escaping from them.  Shortly after completing a job, he's contacted by the CIA to test out a new, experimental prison.  The conditions of the job aren't under his normal guidelines, but the money's good, so he agrees to the job.  As part of his cover he's to be captured and brought into the facility, but things quickly go wrong when he's drugged and his tracking device is removed.

Once Breslin awakens in "The Tomb", he meets Warden Hobbs (Jim Caviezel), who's not the warden the CIA said would be his contact.  Clear that there's been a double-cross, Breslin knows he's on his own and is going to have to escape for real.  Another inmate, Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), takes an interest in Breslin and the two agree to work together in order to escape.

It's a relatively simple "escape from prison" premise, but what hurts Escape Plan is that it gets a little too cute for it's own good.  There are several Oceans Eleven-type moments where they have to go back and explain how things happened after the fact.  It also did a poor job of introducing certain aspects.  Warden Hobbs is interrogating Rottmayer over the location of someone called "Mannheim", but I don't remember any explanation why Hobbs wants Mannheim so bad.  The reason for Breslin's double-cross was difficult to understand, not because it was confusing, but the motivation didn't make sense in the context of the story.

Miles Chapman and Jason Keller's screenplay could have used some tidying up, as well as some punch up on the dialog.  I was actually disappointed in the lack of good one liners or banter between Stallone and Schwarzenegger.  Escape Plan is also needlessly long at almost two hours and it's actually kind of boring in a few parts.  Director Mikael Hafstrom needed to quicken the pace, and there were several parts that could have been edited out.

There's not as much action as you'd expect or would like to see from a duo of action veterans.  There's a fun climax, but you have to sit through nearly 100 minutes until it happens.  For the length of the film, the lack of action is really noticeable.  The visual effects were a little rough in a few parts, too.  With a budget of around $70 million, it doesn't seem like much went towards that aspect.

Arnold is the highlight of the film.  It's not that Stallone is bad, but whenever the film focuses on him the tone is way too serious.  Anytime he's joined by Arnold, the pace quickens and overall feels livelier.  Arnie seemed to be having a great time and had all the best lines.  There's a great scene where he's acting crazy while in solitary and he's totally eating it up.  Not only is it the first time I can recall him speaking in his native German for any length of time, it's the best I've ever seen him act, period.  His physicality may have diminished, but I can get into scenery-chewing performances if this is what we have to look forward to.

The supporting cast is pretty good.  It also stars Vincent D'Onofrio, Sam Neill, Vinnie Jones, Faran Tahir, Amy Ryan, and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.  None are given much to do, but I can't imagine turning down an opportunity to be in a Stallone/Schwarzenegger film even if they are past their prime.

While far from a good movie, Escape Plan has just enough for fans of Stallone and Schwarzenegger to get their fix.  If you've been looking forward to this, then I think you'll get enough entertainment out of a single viewing, but it's not something you'll go back to watch over and over.  It's right on that border of a matinee or save it for rental.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Last Stand (2013) - Movie Review

He's back, and he's really, really old!

Former Governor of California tries his stab at acting...wait a second, let me try this again.  Former action star, turned Governor, returns to the genre that made him famous in The Last Stand.  I have to admit that I was more than a little geeked up to see The Last Stand.  Come on, it's Arnold!  This guy was my idol for a large portion of my youth, and I still go back through his older films on a fairly regular basis.  I don't think I'm alone in saying it's exciting to see him back on the big screen.

Schwarzenegger plays Ray Owens, the sheriff of the small border town of Sommerton Junction, AZ.  He's a former LA cop, which was the movie's way of telling you that he must have been a badass before coming to AZ for a quieter life.  Some quick research showed that there is no actual Summerton Junction in Arizona, but there is a Somerton that's close to the border, so I'm not sure why they didn't just go with that.  Anyway, Sheriff Owens is enjoying a simple day with the goofy locals, like Johnny Knoxville. We learn a little about his deputies, and they appear inept for the most part.  Then again, if Luis Guzmán is one of your deputies, then you're not exactly working with the best of the best.  One wants to transfer because he wants more excitement (so you know he'll be the first to die), and his female deputy had a relationship with the guy that's currently locked up in their lone jail cell.  Whatever, none of it is really important.  Arnold notices a few guys that didn't look right to him (one of which was played by Peter Stormare), and they investigate.

We then meet FBI Agent Bannister (Forest Whitaker) who's overseeing the transfer of a drug kingpin Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega).  It takes almost no time before this transfer is hijacked by various henchmen and Cortez escapes in a fancy, modified sports car.  He's about as generic a bad guy as they come, and you never feel any threat from the guy at all.  He doesn't even carry a gun.  He just drives and offers people large sums of money as bribes.  Yet we're reminded that he's worse than Pablo Escobar, so we're supposed to be scared, I guess.

Speaking of the getaway car, they go out of their way to tell you it can go upwards of 200 mph and that it can outrun a helicopter, which is why they are driving rather than just fly over the border.  But in the very next scene, a helicopter is on the tail of the car and not having any trouble keeping up.  So how does he lose the helicopter?  Does he floor the one-of-a-kind sports car, leaving the helicopter in it's wake?  No, he slams on his breaks and turns his lights off, so the copter can't find them again on the dark, unlit road.  It's a good thing they spent all that time telling us how fast that car was, especially when they don't use that speed in the one situation where it would be useful.  This might be the kind of movie that will bug car enthusiasts, as there are lots of things done that don't make a lot of sense.  You see driving on the wrong side of the road against traffic for no real reason, and there's a 180 that transitions into the car speeding in reverse.  I've always wondered why such an abrupt transition in speed and direction never seems to hurt the car.  Also, don't movie guys know that cars can only go so fast in reverse?  There's no advantage to speeding in reverse, and we see it all too often in movies simply because it's cool looking.  There are some entertaining car chases though, so it's not all bad.  It's just the type of stuff I'm noticing more and more.

This actually has a pretty decent supporting cast, but there's nothing to any of the characters, which seemed like kind of a waste.  Johnny Knoxville isn't in the movie as much as the trailer would have you believe (which is probably a good thing), and Luis Guzmán didn't get many opportunities to provide the kind of comic relief we're used to seeing from him.  Sif from Thor (Jaimie Alexander) plays the only capable deputy at Arnold's disposal, but while there are flashes where you think she might get to be more of a badass, it doesn't play out that way.  Maybe we'll get to see more of her in Thor: The Dark World.  The movie also wastes Genesis Rodriguez as a FBI agent that's kidnapped by Cortez.  I'm anxiously awaiting the film that uses her...um, assets...to their fullest.

The one stand out was Peter Stormare.  If you've been following his career, then you know he either plays a bad guy, a weird guy, or a weird, bad guy.  Here he plays a weird bad guy, and even adopts a bad southern accent (he's Swedish).  He seemed to be having fun with the role though, and managed to keep his accent, which is more than I can say for the Rodrigo Santoro, who played Frank.  We first hear him speaking with a forced sounding American accent (he's from Brazil), as we learn that he's an ex-Marine (they even put a Semper Fi tattoo on his forearm, so we wouldn't be confused about that).  He's some kind of screwup though, as he's in jail for some reason we never learn.  He yells at Sif early on, and his real accent bleeds through. From that point, it's like he said screw it and didn't bother hiding it anymore.

Then again, I'm complaining about realistic accents in a movie that stars a large Austrian man, who's never had the best command of the English language, playing the sheriff of a small town in Arizona.

There's not a lot of attention to detail, which is usually hard for me to overlook.  I'd fault director Jee-woon Kim for this, but he seemed to understand he wasn't making a smart movie here, and did a good job of making the kind of action film we've come to expect form Arnold.  The movie is paced well and when the action gets going, it's actually pretty fun.  The violence is sprinkled with humor, so you never take it too seriously and just go with it.

Arnold can still carry a movie, but I'd like to see him change pace a little.  There's the inevitable showdown at the end of the film, and I couldn't help but thinking that he looked like a top-heavy action figure that you just managed to finally balance, but could tip over for any reason.  I was curious to see how they'd edit the fight to cover for the fact that he's a 65-year-old man that's lost several steps, and doesn't have that same physicality that made him famous.  They actually did a good job with that final fight scene, and it kind of reminded me more of and old warrior or boxer that may not have his speed, but that power is still there when he needs it.

Despite everything I just said, I still had fun with The Last Stand.  At it's heart it's really no different from any other Schwarzenegger film, and it has all the things we love about them:  cheesy one-liners, silly humor, lots of guns and violence, and a simple story.  If that's your cup of tea (Arnold would say you need to drink beer), then I think you'll enjoy The Last Stand.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Expendables 2 (2012) - Movie Review

Do you like big guns?  Do you like 'splosions?  What about really big guns?  Wait, I said that already.  How about bad guys that can't shoot for shit?  Do you like testosterone fueled madness?  If you answered 'yes', then The Expendables 2 is the movie for you.  The Expendables 2 delivers on the promise that The Expendables didn't.  It's a blast from the past, combing all the actors and elements you used to love about 80's action films.  Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and the gang are back, and they're here to blow you up!

The story is typical action fare.  Ross is contacted by Church (Bruce Willis) to do 'one last job' and then they're finally even.  However, things go wrong, there's weapons of mass destruction involved, and now it's up them to fix it.  To add motivation, the youngest and newest member of the team dies in the process (sorry Liam Hemsworth), and of course, this was going to be his last job, too.  So, now they want revenge.  Typical stuff, right?

Stallone wrote and directed The Expendables, but this time around, Simon West was brought in to direct.  I guess you need the director of Con Air to handle the large cast and over-the-top action. The script by Stallone and Richard Wenk isn't what you'd call good, and it's not surprising that where the movie bogs down is basically any scene where there's no action.  There's some really awful, and in some cases unintelligible, dialog. But to be fair, you aren't watching The Expendables 2 for great, witty dialog. You just want to see how many bad one-liners they can throw into the film. Plus, it's really hard to hate a movie that goes out of it's way to make fun of itself.

Besides the dialog, there's a lot of poor editing.  They are constantly cutting between different characters and it sometimes is tough to keep track of what is going on during some of the busier action scenes.  There are seemingly endless waves of bad guys coming from all directions.  You'll see a guy get shot on a balcony only to see another guy pop up seconds later.  Where'd that guy come from?  Didn't they just get killed a second ago?  Is there a bad guy dispenser hidden somewhere?  It's like playing the video game 'Gauntlet' where if you don't kill the monster generator, they keep spawning.

There's not much of a point talking about the 'performances'.  These guys aren't really playing roles as much as they just being life-sized action figures.  You pull the string on their back and they say one of their trademark catch phrases.  They try to develop a few of these guys a little bit, but it was awkward for the most part and not necessary to the plot.  However, I did really enjoy Jean-Claude Van Damme as the villain.  I think he missed his calling not playing more bad guys in his career.  He seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself, and continues the rule that it's more fun to play a bad guy.

While not as bad as the first film, there were still a few guys that were underused.  Randy Couture felt like he was barely in it.  Jet Li checks out after the opening scene.  Dolph Lundgren and Jason Statham appered to have the most to do, but Lundgren seemed like he was sleepwalking at times. Maybe that's just his demeanor these days.  We also get a lot more Terry Crews and finally the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Yes, he's back.  Chuck Norris also appears as a teleporter, who had the ability to be in any place at any time.  This is Chuck Norris we are talking about though. Lastly, you have Nan Yu as the techie/sorta-love interest, but I felt her character was totally flat and unnecessary.  If they needed to have that character, I think it would have been better to cast that role with more of a smart ass, sarcastic type that wasn't capable of taking part of the action.

I know it might sound like I'm being hard on the film, but now we're finally at the good part.  The Expendables 2 brings it in the action department.  The opening scene is such a frenzy of awesomeness that I could barely contain myself.  Everyone was having a good time, cheering, high-fiving each other.  It slows down for a bit, but then picks up and has several scenes, including the climax that should satisfy anyone looking to have fun watching crazy action.  It's über-violent and bloody, but the use of CG-blood at times kind of bugged me.  It's a minor complaint though. The movie has so much testosterone in it that you probably shouldn't take a drug test for a few weeks after.  Remember when you used to watch a martial arts flick as a kid and you'd leave charged up wanting to take karate?  That's how I felt after The Expendables 2.  I wanted to go lift heavy shit, work the heavy bag, and then drink some beer.

The Expendables 2 is dumb, loud, but most importantly, it's a lot of fun.  If you're a fan of old school action films, there's a lot to like about it, and it's great to see all these guys back on the big screen together doing what they do best.  It's a nice way to end your summer with a movie you can just shut your brain off and enjoy.  Normally, that's a quality that I don't like to boast about, but this time I didn't mind.  Get the guys together, catch a matinee, and then go do some Strongman training.

Somewhere, Steven Seagal is sitting by his phone patiently awaiting a call...

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Total Recall (2012) - Movie Review

Well, it's August already, so it's time to start dumping out the films that can't compete with the big boys of Summer.  I know that sounds a little harsh, but we're starting the month with a totally unnecessary remake of a film that many of you already own on DVD.  I guess you could say there are spoilers here, if you haven't seen the original.  Otherwise, nothing that happens in this new Total Recall is going to surprise you.  In fact they seem to reference the original movie constantly to the point where you're like, "Why don't I just watch the original instead?"

If you're totally unfamiliar with the story, Colin Farrell takes over for former Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger as Doug Quaid.  Quaid is a factory worker married to Lori (Kate Beckinsale), and has a very basic life.  However, he continues to have nightmares and can't shake the feeling that he's meant for something else.  He decides to go to Rekall, a place were you can get memories implanted to experience different things.  He chooses to have memories about being a spy, but before anything happens, a SWAT team bursts in and Quaid manages to kill them all.  He returns home to find Lori isn't actually his wife and reveals that he actually is a spy.  Then he goes on a series of chases, eventually joined by a resistance member (Jessica Biel), who tries to help him stop the evil Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) and foil his plan.  Cohaagen's evil plan involves creating an army of the robots from I, Robot to take over.

Both this and the original were based on a Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".  Initially, we were promised a more faithful adaptation to the original story, but what we got here was just a remake of the original film with a few slight changes.  Gone in this version are the references to Mars.  Instead we're introduced to a world ravaged by war, where there are only two habitable areas left on opposite sides of the planet.  To travel between the two, they've built a giant train that travels through the core of the Earth.  You can try and wrap your head around that one, but this is Summer film, so if I can buy in to the premise of a colony and travel to Mars, I guess I have to accept a giant elevator travelling through the planet.  Although, travelling to Mars seems like the more realistic scenario these days.

Unfortunately, I just don't have all that much to say about Total Recall.  I saw the same movie 20 years ago, and I still have a fondness for it.  It didn't need a remake.  Sure, the original was silly and it doesn't hold up great, but it had one crucial thing that was missing here: fun.  This remake is just too serious and dark.  Plus, it's missing all of the mind games I felt the original had, but maybe that's due to the fact that I'm too familiar with the story.

The cast is fine, but it seemed like everyone was just going through the motions, and I just wasn't all that interested in any of the characters.  There's never any suspense or a moment where you think that Quaid is in any real danger.  I think part of the problem is that in an action film like this, you need someone with the presence of Schwarzenegger.  It's not that Colin Farrell did a bad job, he's clearly a better actor, but I just didn't get the same feeling from the character that I needed to truly be invested in the story.  It's a shame they get people like Jessica Biel and Bryan Cranston to be in this and just don't give them that much to do.  I think Kate Beckinsale was probably the highlight for me, as she has most of the best scenes, but this shouldn't really be a surprise as she's married to the director.

Director, and Fremont native, Len Wiseman (nice shout out during the movie to my home town) did a decent job.  From his previous films like Underworld and Live Free or Die Hard, he seems to do well directing action and big action sequences, which are the best parts of the film.  He just didn't do enough with the story, and instead filled it with tons of action sequences, which to be honest, started to get kind of boring and repetitive as the movie wore on.  I felt like the movie lost steam about halfway through.

The effects were pretty good though and it's a nice looking film.  You can see where they spent most of this films budget.  However, there were some times, especially when they did wider shots of the city, where I thought some of the details looked really bad.  Like it needed just a little more polish.

I guess it's kind of ironic that a movie with recall in the title reminded me of so may other films.  You'll watch this and be reminded of stuff like I, Robot, Minority Report, Blade Runner, and even The Core.  They are all just mashed up together.

As a standalone action film, Total Recall isn't terrible, but if you've seen the original, there's nothing here that you haven't already seen before.  Watching it feels like playing a familiar video game, just with different graphics and skins.  It's a rental.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars