Movie Review: The Mechanic (2011)

The Mechanic (2011) directed by Simon West

Jason Statham plays Arthur Bishop, a "mechanic," i.e. an efficient assassin for a shadowy agency that hires out hit men. Often the hits need to look like accidents or to be blamed on someone else. Bishop is great at his job. His mentor is Harry (Donald Sutherland), who is now restricted to a wheel-chair and can't do assignments. Harry can't connect with his ne'er-do-well son, either. A hit takes out Harry. In the aftermath Bishop and the son work together, partly to avenge Harry and partly...well...to keep the story going. The plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This is a Jason Statham vehicle, designed to show of his grit and action skills more than to develop nuanced storytelling.

The action is surprisingly sporadic. Some bits are very unbelievable but aren't redeemed by having a fun, over-the-top feel to them. The movie is straight-faced about its drama. Statham is his usual charming self. He's great at the action scenes but they don't showcase his talent like other films (the Transporter series comes to mind). The plot is just enough to string together various action set pieces.

So this is a movie that really could be better with a sequel or reboot. Here's the end of the summer offering Mechanic: Resurrection...



This movie does look like an upgrade for the story. It embraces over-the-top action and has more of a sense of fun. Tommy Lee Jones won't die off in the first third of the film, which I guess is a spoiler but also is reassuring that Statham won't have to carry everything. There was a girlfriend in the first film, but she seemed to be there just for sex and to tie up loose plot threads; she was never a person in her own right. Jessica Alba has the cliche role of the damsel in distress. Happily, she might be fending for herself more than the cliche would allow. Maybe I'll catch Mechanic: Resurrection in the theater; I will definitely rent the DVD!

Movie Review: Pete's Dragon (1977)

Pete's Dragon (1977) directed by Don Chaffey

Pete is your standard Disney orphan from the 1970s. He's been bought from an orphanage by a horrible family, the Gogans, who want Pete to do all the chores. He escapes them thanks to help from his invisible pet, a dragon. Pete and the dragon flee to Passamaquoddy, a New England seaside fishing village. The invisible dragon blunders around a bit when they walk through town. The destruction is naturally blamed on Pete. Pete is befriended by Nora (Helen Ready), the lighthouse keeper's daughter (though she seems to do most of the work). Lampie (Mickey Rooney) is the keeper, though he also is the town drunk and his claims to have seen Pete's dragon are benignly ignored. The next day, Doctor Terminus (Jim Dale) arrives. He's a quack doctor selling miracle cures. He finds out about the dragon, is eventually convinced it's real, and decides to seize the dragon to use various body parts for real quack medicine. Plenty of opportunities for conflicts, comedy, and cinematic magic ensue. Along with a bunch of musical numbers!

The special effects blending the live action with the animated dragon are impressive considering it's a 40-year old movie (it came out the same year as the original Star Wars movie!). The actors put their heart into it but the script isn't quite strong enough to allow for great performances. The songs and dance numbers felt more like Hello, Dolly! than like a seaside musical, so it doesn't quite match up tonally. For an adult, some of the plot points and details are lazily glossed over, but I don't think kids would notice.

This is a typical Disney blend of live action and animation. It's no Mary Poppins, it is more like Bedknobs and Broomsticks--a perfectly fine way to spend two hours.

This year's remake looks a lot more impressive in the special effects department, and the makers have dropped the musical numbers:



I'm not sure about Pete as Tarzan of the Northwest, especially after the real Tarzan movie performed so mediocrely. The story is so different that I am curious about the source material and what's in  the original story. According to Wikipedia, the story by Seton I. Miller was an unpublished short story. Bummer! If the kids want to see this, I will gladly take them.

Book Review: Suicide Squad Vol. 1 by A. Glass et al.

Suicide Squad Volume 1: Kicked in the Teeth written by Adam Glass with art by Federico Dallocchio, Clayton Henry, and others

Belle Reve is a maximum security prison for supervillains. Government official Amanda Waller is head of Task Force X, a program that lets the villains go on secret missions to reduce their sentences. To keep them from going awol, the selected villains have nanite bombs in their necks, hence the team's nickname, the Suicide Squad. They do the dirty work that superheroes and legitimate government agencies would never do or even condone.

The first mission teams up Deadshot, Harley Quinn, El Diablo, Voltaic, Black Spider, and King Shark. They are sent to a stadium full of technologically-zombified people. They need to find the one person suspected of having a cure and to kill the other 59,999. Not exactly a job for Superman, eh?And the job needs to be done in under six hours or else the nanite bombs will blow.

Along the way the group has casualties, so the roster changes slightly every couple of stories. Some of the supervillains I'd never heard of and definitely look as if they should be wearing red shirts when they show up. Harley Quinn and Deadshot are the stars and get the most character development. Harley's back story (i.e., how the Joker turned Arkham Asylum-psychiatrist Harleen Quinzel into a love-sick maniac) is given in some detail, which is the most interesting part of this book.

The storytelling tries to ride an ambiguous moral edge. Some of the villains make an effort not to hurt innocent people but the prevailing attitude is "do whatever is expedient to get the job done." That includes killing innocent people and betraying allies, all in the name of getting shorter sentences or not getting heads blow off (which does happen). The violence is grimly graphic, including a whole story of the team being tortured. The book also falls into the comic book trope of overly sexualizing all the female characters (except Amanda Waller).

So the book isn't kid friendly, which isn't necessarily a problem. But the art with its graphic violence and chesty women seems aimed at teenage boys rather than adults. And the main villain (who zombified the stadium among other crimes) is basically a rip-off of Marvel Comics' Hydra. Other than Harley Quinn's back story, I didn't find much in the story that was interesting or original.

The movie just released as this review is posted looks less sexualized (except for poor Harley), less gruesome, and more fun if the trailer is accurate:



 Killer Croc is a smart substitute for King Shark. We are a long way from a walking shark looking plausible in a live action film. And Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn may actually upstage the Joker, which would be an amazing accomplishment. It is weird that the heavy-handed and sober DC movie universe is getting a lighter, more fun treatment by focusing on villains. I'm interested in seeing this, which is more than I could say about Batman v Superman.

Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy (2012)

The Bourne Legacy (2012) co-written and directed by Tony Gilroy

This summer has lots of sequels and remakes coming out, so I'm reviewing the earlier works and seeing if they will inspire me to see the new films! 

While the last events of The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) are playing out, this side story is happening. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is on a training exercise in the Alaskan wilderness while the heads of spy-dom in Washington, D.C., are scrambling to contain the potential fallout from Jason Bourne's story going public. That means they need to shut down Treadstone, the program associated with Bourne, and any other related programs that can be traced from Treadstone. Cross's program can be linked to Treadstone, so they have to eliminate all those field agents. They fail to knock off Cross; they almost succeed in wiping out the lab that processed the agents. One doctor, Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), survives. She has enough information that the spy-dom folks try again to eliminate her, but by this time Cross has made it back to the D.C. area and saves her. They go on the run. She just wants to survive. He needs the drugs they've been using to enhance his abilities. The pills are manufactured in Manilla, so a world-wide chase is on.

The movie starts off slowly. Cross is wandering through Alaska for no apparent reason other than to showcase some impressive stunts and introduce the blue and green pills that make him better. Intercut with this is Col. Byer (Edward Norton) convincing everyone to shut down Treadstone and its progeny, another slow moving process. The action picks up when they try to kill Cross with a drone strike. All of the spy plotting and behind-the-scenes machinations are less believable and less interesting than the action sequences. The final chase in Manilla is the star of the movie. Renner and Norton give good performances but their characters are not as compelling as previous heroes and villains in the Bourne films.

Good as an action film (though there isn't quite enough action to make it a great action film) and underwhelming as a spy/conspiracy thriller.

The new Bourne movie, Jason Bourne, promises lots of action...



I'm not sure there's any spy/conspiracy thriller left, but I supposed I'd watch One-Punch Man in a lot of fun action scenes (though the first part of the trailer is greatest hits (some literally) of the earlier films). He looks more like Jason Statham than Jason Bourne in this trailer.

Movie Review: Star Trek III (1984)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock directed by Leonard Nimoy.

This summer has lots of sequels and remakes coming out, so I'm reviewing the earlier works and seeing if they will inspire me to see the new films! 

The story of this movie follows directly from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, so if you haven't seen that (which you really should) be warned that spoilers are ahead. I'll blather on about why I chose this to provide a little buffer between this spoiler warning and the actual spoiler.

After reviewing Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan and Ghostbusters, both from 1984, I had to decide which Star Trek movie to watch. Seeing Stark Trek III was made in 1984, making it sync up both with two other 1984 movies and with this week's number three Star Trek reboot movie, I could not resist revisiting this film I haven't seen probably since the 1980s.

Admiral James T. Kirk and crew are headed back to Earth after their harrowing encounter with Khan. All are still grieving the loss of Spock, who sacrificed himself to fix the warp drive, letting the Enterprise escape the blast radius of the Genesis Device. The Device was designed to be used on a lifeless planet to make it habitable. The explosion has indeed created an Earth-like planet. Spock's coffin, a torpedo tube fired from the Enterprise, was caught in the planet's gravity and landed on the planet. A science vessel with Kirk's son David and the Vulcan Saavik investigate the planet. They discover life form reading right by Spock's coffin! David and Saavik beam down to investigate.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise are informed the Genesis Device is is a political hot-potato--they shouldn't discuss it with anybody and travel there is restricted. The only problem is McCoy. He has been acting very Spock-like. After talking with Spock's father, Kirk realizes that Spock has transferred is katra or soul to McCoy and that should be brought to Vulcan along with Spock's body. If not, Spock will truly be gone. Realizing how desperate the situation is, Kirk and his main crew members steal the Enterprise and head off to the Genesis planet, where more complication ensue, because the Klingons have shown up and want their own doomsday device.

So the plot is rather busy and does look contrived at points (stealing the Enterprise by jury-rigging an automation system to run the whole ship from the bridge has so many problems with it). The Klingons are one dimensional but still fun (the Klingon commander is played by Christopher Lloyd, who played Doc Brown in Back to the Future!). The story serves to get Spock back from the dead and sets up the light-hearted Star Trek IV. So it's a good transition film but not a great film by any means. Watching it once or twice is plenty.

As for Star Trek Beyond, it looks action-packed and exciting...



This movie looks like it shares the Enterprise in peril and dealing with death elements from The Search for Spock. On the other hand, this movie looks to have tons of action (which I guess is natural considering the director is from the Fast and Furious franchise), which should be fun in a summer blockbuster way. I'm a little worried that it will lack depth (which I guess is natural considering the director is from the Fast and Furious franchise). Star Trek Beyond probably will be a more entertaining film, maybe even a better film that Star Trek III. If I set my expectations to low, maybe I'll have a stunning experience.

Movie Review: Ghostbusters (1984)

Ghostbusters (1984) directed by Ivan Reitman

This summer has lots of sequels and remakes coming out, so I'm reviewing the earlier works and seeing if they will inspire me to see the new films! 

Three parapsychologists have cushy research positions at a Manhattan university but their investigations into ghosts and other spectral activity get them kicked out. But not just their questionable investigations--Dr. Pete Venkeman (Bill Murray) has a style more like P. T. Barnum than Albert Einstein.  The other two, Dr. Ray Stantz (Dan Ackroyd) and Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), are the brains in the team. After an encounter with a ghost in the New York Public Library, they realize they could capture these spectral apparitions. They decide to go into business for themselves as the Ghostbusters, a high-tech team who can undo any haunting for the right price. The business takes off, which is good because one client (Sigourney Weaver) is a pawn in a sinister plot by an ancient Babylonian deity (or is it Sumerian?) who wants to return from an alternate dimension and destroy the world.

The movie is a fun blend of comedy, action, and horror, though most of the emphasis is on comedy. I watched this movie dozens of times as a kid. Coming back, it is still hilarious. The actors all give great performances. The movie has some jump scares but overall I wouldn't call it a scary horror movie, the emphasis is more gross-out horror, though even that is played for laughs. Their ghostbusting technology is fun and the special effects hold up quite well after thirty years. I was surprised by the large number of product placements. Plenty of famous and not so famous cameos fill the movie (Larry King, Casey Kasem, Roger Grimsby, etc.) making some extra fun for people old enough and New York enough to recognize them. The movie was a big budget risk at the time but the risk paid off handsomely. In a way, the success of the movie mirrored the success of the characters in the movie. They had a good idea, worked hard on that idea, and became great successes and even heroes. It's the American dream, with plenty of gags thrown in (the way it should be!).

High recommended!

The current remake looks like a high-tech, digital re-skin of the original movie:



I'm sure this remake is a funny and exciting in its own right but I worry about it. The remake of The Italian Job is a serviceable heist movie but looks anemic and colorless compared to the Michael Caine original, which had a lot more style and edge to it. The original Manchurian Candidate is another iconic film with a fairly pedestrian remake. And let's not get into how poorly Star Trek Into Darkness compares to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. These new Ghostbusters have some pretty big shoes to fill. Maybe they can knock it out of the park like the live-action remake of Cinderella. I'm keeping my expectations low just in case.

Movie Review: Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984)

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) directed by Hugh Hudson

This summer has lots of sequels and remakes coming out, so I'm reviewing the earlier works and seeing if they will inspire me to see the new films! 

This serious retelling of Tarzan's story begins with a longish sequence where his grandfather, the Earl of Greystoke, advises his son John Clayton not to take his wife on a trip to the tropics. Reassuring his father that "it will only be for a year," their ill-fated voyage shipwrecks on the African coast. John and his wife survive, making a home in the jungle. In ten months, their first son is born but the mother never quite recovers. One of the local ape families attacks the Clayton's make-shift home. The parents die and infant John Clayton is adopted by a female ape who has lost her baby. He grows up among the apes and learns to deal with the wild and unpredictable jungles of Africa. Around twenty years later, an expedition from the British Museum comes to the same area and is wiped out by the native humans. One man, Capitaine D'Arnot, barely survives. The ape-man John finds D'Arnot and nurses him back to health. D'Arnot teaches John to speak English, discovers John's true parents, and convinces him to return to England to find his family. But will the ape man be ready for the wild and unpredictable machinations of British society?

The movie is amazingly straight-faced throughout its running time. It is a serious, realistic take on Edgar Rice Burroughs' story of an infant orphaned in the African jungle who is raised by apes and becomes a force to be reckoned with. The attempt at realism robs the story of its charm and adventure. The movie occasionally nods to the vine swinging and John (who is never referred to as Tarzan in the movie) has a few brief fights with other animals, but this is hardly an action/adventure extravaganza. Christopher Lambert does a great job being ape-like both in the jungle and in English society. The ape costumes and performances are impressive (Rick Baker did the make-up and did his usual excellent job). The lovingly crafted ape society is the highlight of the film. The movie just doesn't have the fun that almost every other Tarzan film provides, making it a disappointing experiment in realistic film making.

This summer's Tarzan movie, simply called The Legend of Tarzan, looks like it has the same serious vibe to it, but with fun, over-the-top action too.



They had me at the cattle smashing through the human outpost! I am definitely interested in seeing this film.

Movie Review: Independence Day (1996)

Independence Day (1996) co-written and directed by Roland Emmerich

This summer has lots of sequels and remakes coming out, so I'm reviewing the earlier works and seeing if they will inspire me to see the new films!

Only July 2, a mysterious object shows up near the moon. It broadcasts a signal that's picked up on Earth. No one can understand it--not scientists at S.E.T.I. (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) or the Pentagon. Soon enough, the object releases over a dozen 15-mile wide saucers that fly over various capitals (London, Paris, Moscow, Washington D.C., etc) and important cities (like Hollywood, I mean, Los Angeles). One down-on-his-ambition scientist (Jeff Goldblum) figures out the signal is really a countdown, so he rushes to the White House where his ex-wife is serving as Press Secretary. He just barely convinces the president (Bill Pullman) to flee before the attack happens. All the alien ships attack at once, wiping out cities across the world in spectacular displays of fire and destruction. Fighter pilot Steve Hiller (Will Smith) leads his squadron against the Los Angeles ship where they utterly fail. He is able to knock down one alien fighter ship and takes the alien pilot captive. The Americans regroup at Area 51 (the US Government has been hiding an alien space ship there for decades) where they plot to defeat the alien menace.

The movie is a pastiche of other science fiction films, borrowing from War of the Worlds, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, and the television mini-series V. I had the problem (which I had twenty years ago when I saw it in the theater) of being reminded of all these other better films. The eventual solution is almost completely implausible and an awkward blending of War of the Worlds and Star Wars. Even so, the movie is enjoyable as an action romp if you set your brain in neutral and enjoy the ride.

The sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, looks like more of the same from the trailer:



Unless I hear some stellar reviews or friends invite me to see it, I'll probably wait for the DVD release.

Movie Review: Finding Nemo (2003)

Finding Nemo (2003) co-written and directed by Andrew Stanton

This summer has lots of sequels and remakes coming out, so I'm reviewing the earlier works and seeing if they will inspire me to see the new films! 

Nemo is a clownfish who lives with his father Marlin. Marlin's wife and the other children were all killed by a barracuda when Nemo was still an egg. Naturally Marlin is overprotective of Nemo, but that needs to change now that Nemo is old enough to go to school. The first day's lesson is at the Drop Off, an area where humans have been known to show up. Marlin races after the class and tries to take Nemo back home, especially since a trio of kids is playing "how close will I swim to the boat" with Nemo. Nemo is mad about the overprotection and swims all the way to the boat. A human diver shows up and captures Nemo. Marlin can't keep up with the boat and enlists the help of Dory, a Blue Tang who has a short-term memory problem. She saw where the boat went but they go astray and have all sorts of odd and exciting adventures following one clue (a lost diver's mask that has an address on it) to find Nemo. Nemo meanwhile makes friends with the other fish in the diver's office fish tank and helps with their ongoing escape plans.

The computer-animated recreation of the underwater world is amazing and beautiful. Marlin and Dory wander through many environments (a deep-sea trench, a field of jellyfish, a tidal current, a whale's mouth, etc.) that are distinct and detailed. Their journey is a Homerian odyssey, meeting many strange and enchanting characters.

The movie is thematically moving. A parent's search for a lost child is a classic story made more dramatic by Marlin's trauma-enduced attitude toward Nemo. Marlin is a classic case of a father who loves not wisely but too well. As he goes through his journey, he learns to trust others and to take risks, giving him a more balanced outlook on life, a happier attitude, and a closer bond with his son.

Highly recommended, though having watched it a dozen times with the kids, Finding Nemo has lost some rewatchability (which is not true for The Incredibles--I'd watch that again in a heartbeat by myself). 

The sequel Finding Dory (out in US theaters as this posts) looks suspiciously similar to the original, judging by the trailer:



If the kids want to see it, I'll go with them. I'd have to hear some good reviews to watch it on my own.

Movie Review: The Conjuring (2013)

The Conjuring (2013) directed by James Wan

This summer has lots of sequels and remakes coming out, so I'm reviewing the earlier works and seeing if they will inspire me to see the new films!

Ed and Lorraine Warren are paranormal investigators working in the northeastern United States during the 1960s and 1970s. They uncover fake and real hauntings, lecture at universities about the real ones, and occasionally work with the Catholic Church when they need an exorcism done. Their home has a room full of objects from various cases, all of which are, if not haunted, at least tainted by demonic forces. Their latest case is helping out the Perron family. The Perrons bought a fixer-upper farm house in Rhode Island. Things have started going bump in the night and their five daughters (from middle-school age to a pre-schooler) are being harassed by whatever infernal forces infest the home.

The movie slowly builds up the tension, following the Warrens' work with others and the Perron's plight separately for a good third to half of the film. Once everyone is together, the Warrens bring out their technical equipment (microphones and cameras hooked to thermometers so they'll turn on when the temperature suddenly drops) and their expertise (Lorraine has some psychic abilities). They also do historical research, discovering a lot of disturbing things about the farm house and neighborhood. The story, the scares, and the information come at a good pace.

The movie goes into a bit of overdrive at the end which ruined it for me. Things start happening at different locations for no apparent reason other than to add tense scenes. The movie started looking like a "greatest hits" compilation of scary things that happened during the Warrens' career. Maybe what happened is based on true events, but it looks like a lot of unrelated true events that don't fit together effectively.

It's easy to see how the movie has a sequel (in American theaters as this is posted) since the Warrens have hundreds of cases, but I honestly have no interest in seeing the sequel. Just look at the trailer:



If they were going for the fun house scares of something like Drag Me to Hell, I'd probably enjoy the movie. But they try too hard to be very serious and very scary, which is hard to do.