Stars Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, Michael Jai White, Celina Jade with Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Peter Weller Directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham Here’s an interesting bit of trivia- Dolph Lundgren wrote the script back in 2006-2007 with an intention to direct the movie himself. Since then, he’s re-written it (with some help) for Tony Jaa and passed on directing to “Beautiful Boxer” director, Ekachai Uekrongtham, to focus on production duties and getting the film made. Also, I can’t think of any director who’s managed to frame Lundgren’s massive build properly except Craig Baxley in “Dark Angel” as Lundgren still moves in a hunched position and lumbers about in normal scenes. When it comes to the action set-pieces, however, the man still delivers. The awesome fight scene, however, belongs to the showdown between Tony Jaa and Michael Jai White. White holds numerous black belts in different martial-arts styles. Knowing his off-screen prowess, it’s a face-off I was wholly expecting to take place on screen. That alone is worth the price of admission. Lundgren’s no slouch in the martial arts field but he steps aside for his co-stars in this case, and it pays off very well. He plays a New Jersey cop, Nick Cassidy, who takes down Ron Perlman’s Russian mobster, Viktor Dragovich’s skin trade business. When Dragovich strikes back against Cassidy and flees the country to Thailand, Cassidy sets out for revenge and ultimately has to work with Jaa’s local cop who was working the Asian angle of Dragovich’s operation. The direction is well executed with a particular focus on the action set-pieces being beautifully shot and frames, especially for the hand-to-hand fights and the chase scenes. The story’s framework works well with an awareness paid to the titular trade and the victims involved, even if they’re not entirely the focus. Therein lies some complaint, but when you have three martial-artists in the cast, I doubt the story is what’s on the mind of the viewer. That ultimately falls on Lundgren who is able to wrangle the story, if semi-successfully, while knowing what to deliver to his fan-base. In a way, this serves Tony Jaa better for an English movie appearance than Furious Seven, particularly where his on-display skills are concerned. Don’t go in expecting an A-grade gem, as this is squarely residing in testosterone-laden macho B-movie action territory. Chances are, while we have this as a cinematic release, it’s more likely a DTV release in the major Western markets, and you take it as it is- kick-ass entertainment. Rating: **1/2 / 5
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stars: a lot of people you should already know - and some you might not expect, so let’s keep it a surprise. Directed by Joss Whedon Taken as it is, the movie delivers as it should and is seemingly nothing more than what it tries to be: an entertaining cinematic treat. It wastes little time to reestablish everything with a bravura opening sequence that even tries to replicate the ‘single-shot’ sequence from the previous movie as the camera flits through the action set-piece, moving from character to character, throwing in a ‘hero-shot’ of the team leaping into action (seen in trailers) before a running gag is set up, Whedon style. Yes, not overblown at all while showing off how grand this movie is going to be. The thing is, Whedon knows his material and he gets the lines and the characters, giving them their awesome moments. He manages to ramp up the threat level and presents us a villain that will give our heroes a real threat to face. However, given that Disney/Marvel have revealed their future plans for the upcoming movies in some areas, it can’t be helped feeling that there’s a lot being set up for later. The politics between the characters and their foibles are brought to harsh light by way of Ultron, and more primarily, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen, rocking the eastern European accent). So, the dynamics of the characters are more on the forefront than Ultron being the villain of the piece. For instance, the ‘animosity’ between Tony “Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr) and Steve “Captain America” Rogers (Chris Evans) boils down tot heir opinions on how they should be doing the job of ‘avenging’ and if it should be a long term deal - all with the thought in mind on the upcoming Captain America: Civil War and even the next two Avengers movie. Even Thor’s little side adventure seems to suggest something towards the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok. For the movie or comic fans, it’s all Easter Eggs, designed to fan the flames of geekdom. It is nitpicking and it doesn’t really take away anything in terms of sheer entertainment where the movie as a whole is concerned. The stars are extremely comfortable with their characters, with Clint “Hawkeye” Barton (Jeremy Renner) given more to do and actually be a character, even showing himself to be the heart of the team. Only Scarlett Johansson seems a touch uncomfortable - almost constipated (but then, she was reportedly pregnant during filming) - throughout the film. James Spader handles Ultron beautifully, except his wonderfully dulcet tones occasionally have a ring of Reddington (from his TV series, The Blacklist) in his delivery. That’s in addition to his motion captured performance as Ultron, with thanks to Andy Serkis and his Imaginarium, probably also includes the effects work for the Hulk and Vision (Paul Bettany, although it’s occasionally debatable if Bethany was motion captured; such was the level of the effects and make-up work). Take note that there are at least thirteen major effects companies listed in the credits, headed by ILM. The movie, to its credit, doesn’t follow the same thread as the first movie as Whedon clearly delivers a more ‘internal’ movie, giving due focus to the characters and particularly their motivations. While the slower, dramatic scenes carry weight in terms of personal stakes for the characters themselves, some viewers may find it detracts a little from the action set-pieces even as it lends to raising the stakes. Whedon’s gift for fleshing out and handling such complex relationships among his characters is on full force. He will be missed in the upcoming films. As pure entertainment (is this movie critic-proof?), the movie delivers and that is more what counts for cinematic features. The dramatic parts may be an issue to some viewers, but just about every character has his or her moment to shine as one would expect. The juggling to the numerous characters is well handled, and despite all the good points, the length of the movie may be an overall detriment. At least the humour keeps it going fairly well. Yeh - there’s a post titles sting but not additional scene after the lengthy credits. Rating: ***1/2 / 5 Ok - Spoiler zone. Extra nitpicking…. I am very curious how the events here will impact the TV series as only very recently, it was mentioned that Baron Strucker was mentioned there as one of two major Hydra leaders still active. While the TV dealt with the lesser known one, what happens here can’t be ignored over there, especially with Samuel L Jackson’s appearance as Fury and Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill - and the spectacular return of a particular vehicle. All that has to have an impact on SHIELD, whichever form is the main one on the TV show. Also, Thor mentions the occurrences of the four cosmic gems so far, although he was only actually around for three of them. The fourth occurrence was in Guardians of the Galaxy and that stone was secured by the Nova Corps. While Sif and Volstagg dealt with The Collector at the end of Thor: The Dark World, I doubt he’s the type to boast of having come close to that fourth gem and then lose it. Or is there some other intergalactic news agency to inform the Asgardians that the Nova Corp has the fourth stone? Or is there another stone in play already? And when did the Infinity Gauntlet leave Asgard? Finally, for real, how many of you helped Cap finish that last line? Stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Jordan Brewster, Jason Statham, Djimon Honsou, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky with Dwayne Johnson and Kurt Russell Directed by James Wan Despite most of the early poster listing it as “Furious 7” or the screen title being “Fast & Furious 7”, I’m sticking with the director preferred “Furious Seven”. They’re all the same movie anyway. Also, I like this fan-made poster over the official posters - and it's far more apt. So let’s tackle this as a movie first as it has some baggage attached, which I’ll address further below - after some warning. With a new director at the helm - James Wan stepping up after Justin Lin side-stepped the initially accelerated production schedule - the movie opens with a different feel, even as the cast credits accompany the movie’s title at the opening. It also hinted that there wasn’t going to be a post titles sequence at the end, nor a post credit sting so if you don’t feel like sitting through the credits, you’re not missing anything. Despite that, the movie wastes no time to set up our lead villain, one Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham on perma-glowering mode), brother of the previous bad-guy, Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). Deckard is out for revenge, as we saw in the post titles sting at the end of the previous entry, which makes this seventh movie in the franchise to be set a little within the structure of number three before flying free of those odd shackles of having Tokyo “sometime in the future”. So, as Deckard goes on the hunt, he first goes mano-a-mano with Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), managing to take out the big guy while collecting his list of targets. This is then where Tokyo comes into the story (and the ending of part Six) just as he then sets his sights on Dom (Vin Diesel) and the rest of the gang. With Hobbs out of the way for now, in comes more covert assistance in the form of “Mr. Nobody” (Kurt Russell, always being awesome) who then puts Dom and crew to work to obtain a specialised surveillance MacGuffin, last seen in briefly similar fashion in The Dark Knight - handphones turned multi-point visual sonar - in order to track Deckard, who manages to turn up to disrupt their plans anyway. Along the way, they pick up some additional bad-guys for Deckard to use as disposable fodder for the real reason we return to these movies - the action scenes. Does all that sound too glib? I doubt plot is really the strong point for these movies but some props to writer Chris Morgan for making us care enough for the main cast of characters while emphasising the theme of family. And it works well enough for the most part to carry the movie and provide motivation for the characters to do what they are doing, even if Roman (Tyrese Gibson) gets to bring up the question of motivation. Wan manages the drama well enough, and has a deft hand with the action beats. There are at least four major brawls, three major vehicular mayhem set-pieces, with a couple more smaller beats, and one race, just to make sure the legacy is there.The action cam get pretty breathless, and laws of physics are occasionally thrown out the window. The visuals are stunning, the effects work well enough to occasionally question if the physical stunts were really done or not, and it’s always great to have Brian Tyler back on the score after sitting out the last one. The is pure guilty pleasure entertainment at its best with a massive helping of heart, and that is in part on how they had to deal with the passing of Paul Walker, and the treatment of his character, Brian O’Conner. So, a little spoiler warning here. . . Knowing the fate of Walker does raise expectations where the story and plot points are concerned, so much so that one very early story point raised may have seemed to be an out-clause for Brian. But then, watching the story unfold, knowing a little about the filming process with the “guest-stars”, particularly Tony Jaa’s mercenary, Kiet, and Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody, it becomes a little clearer how the rewriting process needed to be handled to fill in the gaps left to be filmed. Still, I couldn’t help feeling if Walker’s fate would have informed Brian’s fate, but it definitely raised the stakes for the character throughout. We would know if the franchise continues from this point, it would do so without Walker and his character, so no matter what, we are saying good-bye to both and while I don’t want to take how they handled it away from you… well, I won’t, but it was very well done and the seams barely show (they're there if you know what you're looking at). The franchise is what it is, and if you’re a fan, you’re watching it and nothing much is going to deter you. As a fan, you are well-served, and if this is the end (tho unlikely) it raises the bar once again, defying the diminishing returns that were originally predicted after the second or third outing. In all, the last few films found their particular groove to exist in and, in their own way, they have surpassed each other. In that sense, this could be seen as the best of the series, its heart on its sleeve and its core theme fully reinforced. Rating: **** /5 |
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