Furious 7 (2015)

Make no mistake about it, Furious 7 is a silly-dumb-bad movie. The story is a mess, the dialog is a joke and the acting made me cringe at times. Is it entertaining though? Yes!

I can't fault a movie whose only goal is to entertain with action scenes. It achieves exactly what it sets out to do. This isn't Oscar bait here. You got a little bit of everything: car chases, karate, lots of 'splosions. They even brought in Ronda Rousey and Tony Jaa to add some additional fight cred. The action is over-the-top ridiculous, and I even laughed more than a few times at the implausibility of it. Doesn't mean it wasn't fun to watch though.

Ugh, the dialog though. So many terrible ways to say they are going to kick someone's ass. Here's a fun drinking game, do a shot everytime someone says "family". You'll die from alcohol poisoning about halfway through. Want a real challenge? Drink any time you notice obvious product placement. The conversation highlight to me was Kurt Russell discussing the merits of belgian beer and trying to switch Vin Diesel to switch from Corona. I don't even like belgian beer all that much, but anything to get people to stop drinking Corona. At least there's that.

For those curious, they do handle Paul Walker's death in a nice way. I won't spoil it, but fans of his (which I have to admit, I never really was one) should feel good about it.

My main disappointment is that The Rock isn't in it that much. Looks like he was on set long enough to get a pump on and his supply of UnderArmor shirts. That's gotta be in his contract or something.

Look, if you aren't already a fan, there's nothing here that's going to make you one. If you've enjoyed the series, especially 5 and 6, then this is just more of it. I'd say 5 and 6 were probably better though.

Bring on Furious 8! Or will they shorten it even further to just 8? F&F8 will be in theaters May 2017.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

They're still making Fast & Furious movies?

I complained in my The Hangover Part III review that The Hangover franchise was a good movie where they forced two sequels of descending quality, because they didn't know where to take the characters or the story.  The Fast & Furious franchise seemed to be following a similar path of each sequel being worse than the original, but at some point after the fourth, it's as if they all sat down and said, "You know what?  Let's just make these movies as over-the-top as we can!"  It seems to have worked as many consider Fast Five to be the most entertaining of the series, and now we have Fast & Furious 6, which continues the trend.

This is one of those testosterone-fueled action films that just gets your adrenaline going.  I left the theater well after 1 a.m. and all I wanted to do was go lift weights and drive my car home really fast, and I drive an old Honda.

You want car chases?  They got car cases!  You want gunfights?  They got gunfights!  You say you don't like gunfights, but want brutal fist fights?  Girl fights?  There's lots of that!  Oh, want a tank?  There's even a tank!  You want sophisticated?  Go look for that somewhere else, nerd!

The plot is pretty ridiculous, but this isn't a movie you're watching for it's nuanced and solid plot.  Even the film seems to be saying, "Whatever, just go with it."  An ex-British Special Forces soldier Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) has committed a series of heists and the DSS needs help catching him.  Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) works a deal with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew.  Help him bring Shaw in, and it's full pardons for the team.  To stir the pot even more, Hobbs reveals that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), who's been presumed dead (since Fast 4), is working with Shaw.  Dom's in no matter what now, as he just wants to find out what happened to Letty.

From that point, it is just an orgy of car chases and fighting.  Almost all of it is ridiculous, and the rational side of your brain can't help but watch some of these sequences and wonder how they are always escaping serious bodily harm, or even death, with each crash or bone-crushing hit.  Then again, it just so fun to watch that you really don't care that much of it doesn't obey the laws of physics.  Some of the scenes are so crazy that it becomes cartoonish.  Cars get flattened, yet there's no blood or bodies even though you didn't see anyone get out of the car.  You can actually tell what's going on in these scenes though.  They actually trusted that their action sequences would entertain without having to distract the audience with weird camera movements, quick cuts or shaky cam.  My eyes were so glued to the screen during some of these scenes that they would keep drying out (I'm a contacts wearer) from lack of blinking, and I would always look for an opportunity to put eye drops in.

Another thing that impressed me was that the film managed to avoid looking fake despite the craziness of some of the action scenes.  I don't know how much CG was used, but it sure seemed like a lot of it was practical.  In some ways this felt very old-school.  Even most of the cars used were older, muscle cars.

There are a few lulls here and there, mainly when there's any kind of dialog or exposition in between action scenes.  However, much of this is made bearable by the surprisingly humorous dialog.  There's good chemistry within the group, and you get that feeling that these guys are really friends just ripping on each other.

Overall, I really enjoyed the cast.  This is a group not exactly known for their acting chops, but for the type of film Fast & Furious 6 is, there's nothing wrong with them, and they all looked like they were having fun.  I have to give special notice to Gina Carano, who plays Hobbs partner, and has many of the best fighting scenes in the film.  I think at this point any film that features women fighting must star Gina Carano.  This should be enacted into law.  Also, I could have used a little more Dwayne Johnson.  He only pops up from time to time, but maybe they had to limit his time on film when they'd run out of baby oil or arm butter.  Jeez he's a beast of a man!

Director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan, who've been collaborating on the series since Tokyo Drift, really seemed to have hit their stride with the series, and turned it into something that is simple, audience- pleasing, Summer fun.  They even managed to tie up the continuity with Tokyo Drift really well (note: for those that aren't aware, despite Tokyo Drift being the third film in the series, chronologically it takes place after Fast Six).

Oh, and there's a really great surprise as the credits roll.  You don't need to stay at the very end, but there's a scene during the credits that might be one of the best sequel teases I've ever seen.

If you want some crazy, balls-to-the-wall action and don't want to have to think too much, Fast & Furious 6 is for you.  It's not going to win any Oscars, and sure it's a little dumb, but it's the type of film that fits in just fine during the Summer blockbuster season.  It really does have a little bit of everything for action lovers and I think it's a fun way to spend a few hours.  I thought it was a blast to watch, and definitely worth a matinee.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) - Movie Review

Can someone explain to me why a movie that has "Retribution" in the title has no actual retribution in it?  A more accurate title would have been Resident Evil: Slow Motion Nonsense.

It's interesting the tag line on the poster for Resident Evil: Retribution is  "The Ultimate Battle Begins", as this movie is simply a 95 minute beginning.  I'm not sure how it takes Paul W.S. Anderson five movies to tell the beginning of a story, but he managed to do it.

If you aren't familiar with the series at all, it doesn't matter, as you get a recap of the previous films, not that any of it actually makes sense in the first place.  Before we get to that, you get to see the first of what seemed like a billion slow motion action sequences.  The twist is this one is in reverse!  Then you get the recap, followed by that same reverse slow motion sequence played forward, mercifully in regular speed.

Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up in a house, with a family, but then zombies show up and cause destruction.  Later in the movie, something is revealed that makes that opening sequence pointless to watch, but I won't get into that.  Alice wakes again in an Umbrella Corporation facility and is joined by what I think was a real-life android named Ada Wong (Bingbing Li). Wesker (Shawn Roberts, who looks like a roided out, young Val Kilmer) appears on a screen to explain the plot, if you want to call it that.  He needs Alice for some reason, even though they just finished telling you that she no longer had her powers and that Wesker was the bad guy in the last film.  Anyway, so the entire movie is Alice and Ada trying to break out of this underwater Umbrella facility, while another team breaks in to help get her out.  As they attempt to escape, the Red Queen throws zombies and bosses at them on each 'level', and Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) pops up from time to time to harass them.  That's it, that's the whole movie.

The main problem is that Resident Evil: Retribution could have been cut down easily to 20-25 minutes, and then they could have gotten to an actual story.  That the movie ends showing that there's a bigger battle to be fought, you know 'the ultimate battle', really made it all seem pointless to have an entire movie dedicated to what basically amounted to a jailbreak.  So, Resident Evil fans, there's at least one more movie coming and maybe that will finally get to the point.

As mentioned before, nearly every action or fight scene is padded with excessive use of slow motion.  All it did was to just show how poorly choreographed some of the fights were, except for when they stop to pose in the middle of a fight for dramatic effect, which was also often.  If you're going to have drawn out fight scenes, maybe next time get some actual martial artists to do them. If you want to see an example of this done right, watch The Raid: Redemption.

It's very much a video game movie, and it's actually broken up into levels.  Several times, they show you a map of the facility breaking down all of the areas.  You have a Moscow level, New York, Japan, Suburbia, etc.  Characters seemingly never need to reload or have difficulty finding a weapon.  That kind of stuff I can forgive though.  The problem is that the action isn't even interesting, creative or original.  Much of this is stuff recycled from the other Resident Evil movies, and how many faceless soldiers or generic zombies can you see gunned down?  Even the actors didn't seem like they were invested, as they would just stand around while bullets whizzed by just inches from them.  Nobody was concerned about being hit or taking cover, as the bad guys can't shoot for shit, and the good guys are expert marksman.  It wasn't consistent, even when they'd occasionally do something cool.  During one fight, they show an X-ray shot of an arm breaking (which has been done in other movies), but seconds later the guy throws a punch with the same arm and shows no ill effects from it later.  People in the audience were scoffing at the silliness of it.

I didn't see this in 3D, but I counted eight times where something was thrown or shot directly at the screen and almost all were in slow motion. One made laugh out loud as Alice threw her weapon at a person standing just inches from her, but maybe she was going for more style points there.

It should be no surprise that the dialog was awful, and the actors read it as such.  Nearly everyone had a robotic delivery and many sounded like their dialog was dubbed by someone off screen.  The acting makes you wonder if they just took the first take for every scene, or did Paul W.S. Anderson not provide them with any direction other than 'act like a robot.'  The first guy to die doesn't even get a word in before he gets chainsawed to death, and his partners don't even react to it.  It also manages to waste actors I normally like (Kevin Durand, Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr) in small, mostly meaningless roles.

The one thing I'll say for Paul W.S. Anderson and Resident Evil: Retribution is that it least it looks nice.  With a few exceptions, the effects were good and I didn't feel that it looked cheap.  His problem has always been with his writing of coherent story.  How does one guy write five movies set in the same universe and there's still no progression?  It's like he's making it all up as he goes along and we're going in circles.  This just reaffirms that Paul W.S. Anderson is Uwe Boll with a bigger budget.

I want to give Resident Evil: Retribution a pass because I never expected this to be good, but it's still really awful.  It's bloated, recycled nonsense, and it was pointless waste of time.  Even if you're a fan of this series, I can't recommend anything better than a rental, and for non-fans, it's a shit film that you never have to watch.

1 (out of 5) Death Stars