Okay, maybe Netflix doesn’t have a “distilled llama shit” category, but once their transhuman cyborganic algorithmics figure out what I watch, they will. Oh, they will.

The movie starts off on a bang, and by “a bang”, I mean, “hold onto your hats, this is going to suck donkey balls.” The opening credit sequences do not tantalize us as much warn us.

Yayz.

Ah, Albert Pyun! For those who don’t know, Pyun is the director that has helmed such greats as Cyborg, Dollman, and Captain America. No, not the Captain America you’re thinking of. No, no, not even that other Captain America you’re thinking of.

Yes, that Captain America you’re thinking of.

We begin at a brand-new prison in downtown Los Angeles that will open in 12 hours…or 24. It’s somewhat vague. But we know that this prison is being taken very seriously!

You can't spell "quality" without "Pyun". Oh. Oh, wait, you totally can.

The plot, such as it is, can be described as such: the world’s most diverse crime syndicate gathers together what are supposedly 100 people who have in some way wronged them (although the actual number of actors hired is probably around 30, which will result in hilarity later on). They are given six hours to kill each other off. The last 3 remaining will win 10 million dollars to split amongst themselves (or as Ice T somewhat incorrectly states, “That’s 3.3 million between you”. I really want to see the sequel, in which the winners try to calculate cash into infinite decimals.)

It’s a bit The Most Dangerous Game, a bit Battle Royale, and 100% crap.

I have no idea what this is. I chose it to show that most of this movie seems to be located in the Antarctic. During a rave.

The 100*cough* traitors know what their crimes are, based on Monopoly cards they have been given by Ice T’s fanged guards (seriously).

You DOUBTED me?

It’s a good thing they know why they’re there, because due to the horrendous blocking, we never do. Not to say we never see their cards– but only when most of the card has been cut off the edge of the screen, or more often when the traitor has their thumb smack-dab in the middle of the card.

Of course an innocent is thrown into the mix in the form of Cam, an accountant for the Syndicate who is wanted dead because she…uh…well, there are some photos she has, but– um, they don’t actually seem to blackmail anybody and nobody notices they go missing for most of the movie and get run over multiple times in a parking lot.

Yes, that happens.

This movie’s a little vague.

Now I rarely comment on the appearances of various actors and actresses, but I’m just going to throw out that the lighting, camera, makeup, hair, wardrobe and sheer proximity to any part of the creative process of this movie resulted in making us root for one of the butt-ugliest heroines I have ever seen.

Left: A lovely woman. Right: DEAR GOD WHY.

As you can see, the actress that portrays Cam, Deborah Van Valkenburg, is a striking older woman, but watching her in this you’d swear the only thing she was struck with was the Ugly Stick. Repeatedly. Then, when the wardrobe departments’ arms got tired from relentless beating they hopped into their Ugly Zamboni and spun some doughnuts on her face before finally calling in the Ugly Predator Drone to drop a couple of Ugly AGM-144 Hellfire missiles to finish the job.

Okeh, back to…um, plot? This movie has one? Oh…okah. Um, let’s see…

A central plot point appears to be a rivalry between…uh, “guys that work for the Syndicate” (this movie is just a touch vague) the bewilderingly French Lou (Lambert) and the inexplicably British Marcus (Michael Halsey). For reasons that are left to the viewer’s imagination, these two hate each other and look for any excuse to finish each other off. (For clarity, my explanation dates to a blood fued between their families that began in 1397 during the Second Peace of the 100 Years War, when a failed uprising by Marcus’ Welsh kinsmen was met with a swift and brutal repression by the House of Valois, led by a distant relative of Lou’s.)

Marcus, aka, the Poor Man's Gabriel Byrne.

Lou, the poor man's...shit, IS there a poor man's Christopher Lambert?

I assure you, my explanation is much clearer than anything presented.

There is a colossally diverse (aka, ridiculous) cast of miscreants, from dreadlocked Rastas to Chicano gangbangers, to a Japanese hipster and a bunch of guys dressed in identical suits and fedoras. I halfway expected to see the Baseball Furies step out from behind a guard tower.

GREGG ALLMAN.

LUIGI.

DOLEMITE.

Uh...my uncle, actually.

Now, when you have a cast of (supposedly) 100 people and a budget of roughly the same amount of dollars…mistakes…are bound to be made. And while Pyun generally does a good job of covering the inadequecies (mostly by covering everything in a blue filter so you can’t see shit), one glaring mistake comes in the form of Checkered Shirt Guy, a background player who manages to get shot at least 4 times. And I don’t mean in sequence– I mean he’s killed four separate times.

Just DIE! You AND your hat!

Ice T portrays Ice T, except he’s called “Vincent Moon” here. He is in control of the Game O’Death, but also wanted dead, and has opened this prison with his own money and power…despite the fact he’s wanted dead…and…um…

Did I mention this movie is a kinda vague?

As I said,  Ice T portrays himself, which is ridiculously hilarious. All Albert Pyun had to say was, “Okay, T, show up on set looking exactly how you normally look.” And he did for the most part aside from a lovely wardrobe faux-pas. The Obligitory  Annoying “Cute” Child (in this case Lou’s daughter Lucy– yeah, not a lot of imagination in that family) comments that Vincent has “a lot of silver” in his mouth. He proudly proclaims it’s…

"Yeah, so the aluminium is a little tingly at first, but you totally get used to it."

Um, anything but “a plastic grill I got from the 50cent vending machine outside Wal-Mart.”

Seriously. You’re casting fucking Ice T and you can’t get him a convincing gangsta grill? Ask him! Flava Flav coulda probably lent him at least some clock-drippings.

In the true spirit of a schlock movie reviewer, I will not reveal the ending (although you can probably guess it after the first 15 minutes). Now, would I recoomend this thing?

Surprisingly, yes. Totally.

Let me make it clear, this is not a good movie. In fact, it’s pretty terrible. But if what you’re looking for is an excuse to shut your brain off, give in to lunacy, and watch a shit-ton of people being shot to death…um, repeatedly, in some cases….you could do worse. Despite the fact the plot is special-ed simple, you can’t help but be entertained by a movie that can be summed up with “a bunch of people shoot each other, sometimes they crack wise.”

My friends, that is all I ask for.

Stay tuned for the second installment of the LamberThon, in which our confused Francophone hero battles monsters, heros, and low-budget interpretations of Steampunk in…Beowulf!

For every movie fan there is one actor that you find yourself drawn to again and again, whose movies– whatever dubious qualities they hold– are the ones you simply cannot turn away from. You will be channel-flipping and land three-quarters of the way through one of their films; Hoarders will wait on TiVo. You pass by DVD case after DVD case at Best Buy, totally uninterested in the wares offered, until you see a hitherto unknown film, shot in Serbia with cameras salvaged from a St. Vincent’s charity shop in Finland; that gift card is about to be put to good use.

You cannot explain the appeal of this actor, nor do you think you should even have to. All you know is that whatever diminishing returns and appeal he holds, you will be there in the front row (or more likely on the sofa), enraptured by his every word.

For me, that actor is Christopher Lambert.

Now before we get any further I would like to clarify that by no means am I saying that Christopher Lambert is my favorite actor (and dear God, what kind of sad, sheltered existence would someone have to have led to say such a thing?) I can rattle off a list of favorite esteemed thespians that have graced the boards of soundstages and opera houses alike, but I’m writing for a blog that often falls into reviews of man-titty fer Chrissakes. I’m not even saying he’s a great actor (or Hell, even calling him a “good” one would probably be an act of charity in most cases) but Goddamn it, for whatever reason I will sit and watch everything that man is in both willingly and gladly.

Even this.

I really can’t explain the appeal, but I will attempt to:

1) Lambert falls under the Schwarzenegger Clause, i.e. his natural accent (which, perversely, appears to have gotten worse the longer he’s been in movies) will be completely ignored by all and sundry. Watching his movies is a bit like watching Star Trek, in that absolutely nobody seems to wonder why an FBI agent/SWAT team member/USA military general/Asian demi-god speaks with such a preposterously thick French accent.

Hell, he didn’t even speak English when he filmed Highlander. He learned his lines phonetically in a Scottish accent!

2) He is not a traditional action hero…or romantic hero…or…honestly he’s damn bland. Like another of my favorite pop culture icons (Joe Strummer), he was the son of a diplomat who went to boarding schools, grew up in multiple countries and was pressured into going into a legit field of work before saying “fuck it, I like doing this or that”. I dig that kind of rebellion.

3) The Lambert Gaze must also be addressed. Michael W. Crawford of www.mwctoys.com referred to it as “staring through his eyebrows”, an apt description of Christopher Lambert’s peculiar way of looking at things (this is not a metaphor, he just looks at stuff oddly, with an almost permanent expression of befuddled bewilderment). The truth is, Lambert has terrible myopia and is unable to war contacts. Since he usually can’t use glasses in character, it means that he can’t see shit when he’s acting.

Not much difference, really.

He’s also an action-movie star. Who does his own stunts. Which means that for several movies he’s swung broadswords around his head and blocked blows from trained stuntmen, while basically looking at the world through a thick layer of Vaseline.

That’s….that’s pretty badass, actually.

And so my project is thus: today I mark the beginning of the Christopher LamberThon, a celebration of all things Lambert. I shall review three movies in his dubious oeuvre, and no, I’m not doing Highlander because it’s too easy (despite its firm status as my favorite cheesy film, if only for the fact that the only music that exists in that movie’s universe comes from Queen. It’s like living in a totalitarian, if fabulous, state.)

May you be blessed with the myopic gaze of the Über-Lord Lambert.

Without further ado…we begin.

Ahem.

Now, everyone who knows me knows I love a good strong female action hero. (Except for The Bride. Not only do I dislike Tarentino with a passion, but Uma Thurman looks like an ostrich with bad hair– an image I could not get out of mind during both movies.) Kick-ass girls tend to show up more in foreign productions (Run Lola Run, La Femme Nikita, the work of Luc Besson) than American and the film I am reviewing today is no exception: Ichi, directed by Fumihiko Sori.

Ichi (not to be confused with the über-violent cult classic Ichi the Killer) is a non-official spinoff to the famed Zatoichi series of films and television. Ichi is implied to be Zatoichi’s daughter and certainly her M.O. (the blind wandering swordswoman) fits the bill. Instead of being a wandering blind masseur (a profession that probably sounded less creepy in feudal Japan than now), Ichi is a wandering goza singer who has been kicked out of her house for having “an affair with a man” (although the truth is much more depressing). Ichi has wandered the Japanese countryside looking for her father (or at least, the man she believes is her father), following any rumor of the appearance of a blind swordsman. While Ichi was trained as a songstress, her true talent lies in her swordmanship and she has no hesitation in whipping out her katana-cane whenever she feels threatened. But will a young sensei break through the walls of her heart and make her fall in love and wish to be alive again?

We can’t tell.

Here’s the thing– Ichi is perhaps the most Emo samurai you’d ever meet. There is something of a tradition in Asian cinema for the hero/ine to be the silent type, but Ichi takes that from “silent” to “catatonic”. Now, I’m not actually saying that the actress, Haruka Ayase, is bad. Quite the opposite, in fact. She creates a character you feel empathy towards despite being hit with a double-whammy, acting-wise: her character is both emotionally dead and blind. Playing a blind character– especially one blind from birth, as Ichi is– is insanely difficult. You never realize how much emotion and reaction is read in the eyes. Ichi never makes eye contact, never engages her audience with her eyes, never does anything with them except stare blankly forward. When you think about it, why would she? Those with sight are conditioned to make eye contact or at least look at the person speaking to us, but the blind have no reason to do so.

Ichi, however, takes this disconnection to the extreme. I’m not sure if she utters 100 words in the movie. I’d say she’s the type of character who does not act but react– except she doesn’t really do that either. There are a few moments (mostly in flashack) where she shows emotion, but for the most part she’s just kinda there. I understand the emotionally-damaged aspect of her personality, but half the time I wanted to take her pulse.

Haruka Ayase is damn pretty, though.

Damnit, I think I might be gay now.

Takao Ôsawa, who plays the hapless sensei/love interest/comic relief Tomo Fujihira is pretty ‘effing hot himself, despite his mid-’60s bouffant/ponytail combo. His character is a little…well, not “poorly thought out”, but definately contradictory. This might have been due to the dubbing (unlike some individuals I know coughcoughVickicough I don’t mind watching dubbed films. I’m a very visual person and hate having to dart my eyes from subtitle to scene– especially considering how many Bollywood movies I watch. Have you tried to watch a subbed Hindi flick? It’s like watching Subliminal Message: The Movie). He shows up as Comic Relief, then Tortured Soul, then Love Interest, then Comic Relief-Love Interest, then Tortured Soul-Comic Relief…his characterization jumped so many times that all I could think of was that the director, producers and writers were making his character up as they went along. In addition, his tragic backstory (as portrayed in Vaseline-smeared glory, naturally) is so comically set up that I seriously thought that it was supposed to be a parody. I mean, it’s tragic, but taken one step further, it would be an outtake from Airplane!.

...well, maybe not quite yet.

Perhaps the best– and by best I mean absolute worst– aspect of this film is the lead villain, the warlord Banki.

Banki.

Banki.

Banki.

Sorry, his name is just so enjoyable to say. Banki banki banki! It’s like something you’d bounce your baby to! Banki!

I feel..uh...threatened?

Anyway. There are a few problems with Banki (Banki!), the main one being that he has absolutely zero character development and thus no motivation. Y’know those movies (usually filmed in the late ’80s) where the bad guy is bad simply because he’s well, bad? That’s Banki (Banki!) Despite much of the movie being set up as a “warrior avenges her father” flick, Banki (Banki!) has basically nothing to do with Ichi or her family. It isn’t even estabished that he even met Ichi’s father. The entire conflict between Ichi and Banki (Banki!) boils down to her asking if he’d seen her father, and him…uh, being a Generic Bad Guy™.

In addition…oh, man. Listen, while I’m not an expert on Japanese history, I did study costume design for several years and one of my final projects in high school was sewing a traditionally exact kimono and tabi (I still own the geta. They’re about the most comfortable shoes I have.) I know that 15th century warlords dressed flamboyantly, but dear Lord, Banki looks like he’s running late to a Pride parade.

I think your katana is FAAAAABULOOOOUSSS!

Aside from my bitching, I did enjoy Ichi. It’s got a good amount of gore, great cinematography and the overall plot was pretty good. This is, without a doubt, one of the prettiest damn movies I’ve seen in a long time. The colors are lush, the landscapes amazing, and the music (by Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard, one of my favorites) is haunting and totally appropriate. Yeah, some of it makes no sense at all and some of the dubbing was atrocious, even if I didn’t know what they were really saying (“I can’t see what I cut off because I’m blind.” is Ichi’s first words– spoken to herself. THANK YOU, Miss Exposition!). But if you want to turn your brain off for a bit and watch a beautiful woman kick some serious ass, Ichi fits the bill perfectly.

Banki.

(Bonus! Watch it here:  http://www.hulu.com/ichi )

“Oh, yes”, you roll your eyes and drawl “Of course you will, Vicki” in a cutting yet not undeserved commentary on my past failures to act upon my words. But this movie, with no doubt, is the crux of my quarter century upon this planet; a gem gleaming on a pedestal untouched by by the drab mediocrity of adulthood.  Clearly it has come, this reward, to commemorate the great year and month 25 years past, that I, Vicki was born, an action movie, so amazing, so breathtaking, so superwickedbadass, that many flail uncontrollably when they speak of it. Yes, “The Expendables” is that movie.  In fact, every time I am reminded of it, I begin to gibber. Its getting a little embarrassing, I’m told.

For those of you who haven’t heard, “Expendables”, expected August 13, 2010,  is about a team of mercenaries sent to South America to kill a dictator, or something like that…Blah Blah Blah. But it doesn’t really matter, because that’s the LEAST exciting part about this movie! Dear readers, prepare your emergency adult diapers as I tell you why this is the most *insert superlative here* film to be made since I was a wee child forced to endure the 80s.

IS IT NOT AMAZING?

…

Oh, I’m sorry. You need more?

MORE? BESIDES Sylvester Fuckin’ Stallone, Jet-I-Shit-You-Not- Li, and Jason-I-told-you-you’d-need-a-diaper- Statham???!!!!    Okay then.

HERE’S YOUR MORE!

HOW ABOUT

Bruce Willis

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Dolph Lundgren

Mickey Rourke

and some lesser knowns like Steve Austin, Terry Crews, and Randy Couture

YES! I will have a chance to endure the BEST parts of the 80s, ALL OVER AGAIN! It is a veritable smorgasbord of all the action movie stars from my childhood! Its like every action hero from the golden age of cheesy blockbusters came together to make a special present, JUST FOR ME! Sure, it lacks Nicolas Cage and Jean-Claude Van Damme, but I can’t blame them, for I may have said a few hurtful words about them recently, so I can understand why they might a little sulky and disinclined to participate.

In the respected words of a pentilingual chemical scientist who won a Fulbright scholarship to MIT:

“An old-school, kick-ass action movie where people are fighting with knives and shooting at each other.”
- Dolph Lundgren

I, for one,  can think of no better tagline.

Best results after recieving gift basket of muffins and stacks of unmarked cash

The problem with a lot of sci-fi is that it is often set in space. And space, as everyone knows, is some expensive stuff. Space doesn’t come cheap, especially if you expect it to look good. So what is one to do with all the time not filled with amazing and expensive graphics? Land based adventures. Rubber monster suits. Drama. Politics. Now, I enjoy these things. Yes, I actually find interstellar politics and backstabbing fairly exhilarating. But thanks to the brilliance of JJ Abrams, audiences no longer have to set the bar as low as I, for space opera has never looked so good. Abrams and his amazing cast have combined all the character driven elements of low-budget sci-fi tv shows with the mind blowing action and visuals that can be provided by the buckets of money Paramount Pictures has been throwing at them (rightly).

I find the beauty of “Star Trek” ultimately lies with the crew. And this isn’t just because the cast is chock full of eye candy and icons of our youth, but because the actors that were found for their parts in this movie truly fit their roles. Each of those roles supporting and enhancing the role of his or her fellow crew member. Even Kirk, as smart, and bold, and as great a scrapper as he is, relies on Spock his crew (and especially Spock) to bolster his awesomeness. A Kirk without Spock would be nothing, but the rest of the crew are fantastic enough in their own right. Who would provide him with material to snark at, be a target of his pompous jauntiness, who would deflate his ego with droll looks, who would guard his back during his moments of impending doom, who would support his seemingly illogical decisions? Who else but his illustrious crew!!??

Who are the members of this crew, you ask?

Dude.

Final Score: Four point five out of five bullets. The plot was great, the screenwriting was superb, the dialogue snappy, the action seat gripping, the graphics mind blowing, the music epic, the characterization marvelous, the acting magnificent!

I tried really hard to find something not to like about this movie, I saw it twice, thats how hard I tried to find something not to like. The only thing I came up with: “Why is this common mining vessel so massively enormous?”. I’m grasping at straws here, maybe the Romulans build all their space vessels that big, maybe all mining ships are made fantastically humongous. Whatever. This was a fantastically solid film and I can’t wait for the next two. We were promised at least two more.

See this movie if you like sci-fi, space,  humor, in-jokes,  hilarous expressions, perfect timing, impossible situations, seeing the crap beat out of people, explosions, swooping visual effects, excellent character portrayal, enormous ships, cars or motorcycles, swords, fists, guns, aliens, monsters, a simple plot, a complex story, Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine,  Sean Penn, hot womens, Leonard Nemoy, independently motile eyebrows…This is only the top of the list. Just go see the movie.

In Transporter 3, Jason Statham drives a shiny black car very fast across Europe. He has with him several changes of clothes and the most irritating woman in the Northern Hemisphere. The clothes are there to allow him to strip with impunity. No one knows why the woman is there.

Even she’s not that sure

Frank Martin has a business in which he delivers stuff in his car. He is better at this than FedEX, and asks fewer questions, so he is apparently fairly famous in certain illicit circles.  Ukraine has somehow found a Prime Minister dedicated to the environment, and a mysterious American is determined to sneak ships full of toxic “melt-your-face” waste into Ukraine. Yes, entire plot of this movie revolves around bad guys who insist upon sneaking toxic waste into environmentalist Ukraine, no other former soviet block country will do as a repository for their melt-your-face waste.

So Frank is chilling out some weekend, he goes fishing,  watches some TV, and then someone drives a car into his house.  In the car now parked where his couch used to be, he finds a girl and is shortly clubbed over the head and kidnapped. When he wakes up, he’s on an operation table in only his boxers and a shiny new piece of jewlery. Why they needed to take off all his clothes to put an exploding proximity bracelet is, like many other things, never explained.  Now in the car with his fancy bracelet and an uppity girl giving him the silent treatment, he is told to drive his car across Eastern Europe for no reason. Why don’t they put the girl in a basement like all the other kidnap victims? No one knows. But they’re going to kidnap a specialist to drive their primary kidnapee around Europe anyway.  The first half of this film, this chick Valentina, she sulks. She reveals nothing useful and is as responsive as an angsty teen. The second half, she somehow swaps her script for a book of restaurant reviews and no one on set corrects her. It doesn’t make that much of a difference, really.

In this movie, Frank utilizes his unique fighting style wardrobe-fu. Wardrobe-fu is a martial art Frank Martin utilizes for the express purpose of taking his clothes off while fighting a bunch of other sweaty guys grabbing at him. I suspect that wardrobe-fu was created by women, for Jason Statham. Details get fuzzy but somewhere between the beginning and the end, Valentina drugs herself up, obtains vodka, and forces Frank to strip for the car keys. If I were Frank, I would high kick her in the face for the satisfaction the key, but he opted for the strip show. Maybe Frank just doesn’t like wearing clothes for too long. Somewhere in the middle of restaurant reviews, dialated pupil highs, and peeing in a gas station isle, Frank and Valentina fall in love. Much like the reason why baddies kidnap Frank put him in a car and tell him to drive a girl to Budapest until her dad signs a paper allowing eight ships full of toxic waste into the Ukraine harbor, no one can explain why.

After Valentina falls in love (and comes off her high) she decides to tell Frank everything she knows (exposition time!) and that she instantly knew he was trustworthy. But she needed to keep her feminine mystique in the face of kidnapping baddies, getting shot at, and having her dad blackmailed. Frank, unlike me, is charmed by this explanation. Yadda-yadda, Valentina gets taken away and Frank drives his car off a bridge into a lake. He gets better. He then makes his car better, and proceeds to drive it into a train, thus proving himself even more intense than the guy in the beginning who drove a car through his living room.

Final Score: Two out of five bullets. Statham’s overall rating was brought down by the girl. Statham’s rating is always brought down by the girl, since all the girls that come hang out with Statham ARE WORTHLESS IDIOTS, but this girl wasn’t even hot. This makes me angry. Not hot + poor dialogue + bad acting does not make for enjoyment. Her most animated moment? Recommending a fish stew. I only wish I were making this up.

Moving on, the Transporter series is known for awesome car chases, tricks and fight scenes! I love cars, cool tricks, and fight scenes! Sure it has car chase scenes, and a cool trick or two, and several short battles, but all of them were fairly mediocre and unexciting. Even wardrobe-fu didn’t make it better, and that’s pretty telling. In the brief moments of exposition, still nothing is explained. No one ever knows why!

]]> http://arterialspray.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/review-transporter-3/feed/ 5 Nullgnu trans3 transporter_3_poster2 natalya-rudakova-2 http://arterialspray.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/trailer-reviews-the-ones-before-terminator-salvation/ http://arterialspray.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/trailer-reviews-the-ones-before-terminator-salvation/#comments Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:08:50 +0000 V_L http://arterialspray.wordpress.com/?p=186 ]]> It’s been awhile, but honestly, it’s been awhile since I saw a movie in theatres…

PUBLIC ENEMIES: C’mon! Johnny Depp playing 1930s gangster John Dillenger? How would I NOT want to see this? As much as I love Johnny Depp, I must say this: the older he gets, the more his agent/etc want to cast him as this whitey-white boy protagonist. And truth be told, the older he gets, the more Johnny Depp looks like what he is– a mostly Cherokee Indian! The most obvious bit was in Neverland– you couldn’t pay me to think that that man has one drop of Scottish blood in him.

DISTRICT 9: Hopefully they will keep the documentary-style camera work throughout the film, because that, honestly, would be GREAT. A sci-fi mvie done entirerly straight, just trying to be sociological about the subject matter, would be so refreshing. I will probably see this…depends on what I heat.

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN: Quite literally the worst CGI I’ve seen in 10 years. Good Lord.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: For the love of everything Good and Holy. Brad Pitt, quite literally, looks like my grandfather did during his own WW2 years. I’ve never once thought Brad Pitt was attractive, but seeing him as Granpaw would remove all lingering doubts. What the FUCK is with that awful Southern accent!? Seriously, I think Quentin Tarantino is one of the most overrated directors on the planet. He’s a good screenwriter. Hell, I’d even say he’s a good actor! Just…please, do NOT give him the full reins to a movie. Ow.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: The first trailer, and the only one I hissed to Mah D00d, “If you like it or not, I am dragging you to see this”. C’MON– Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock, in a kicky Victorian wardrobe, sans clothing several times, engaged in a cage-fight, and directed by Guy Ritchie, post the soud-sucking Succubus that is Madonna?

How could I NOT see this!?!

I was born exactly one year later.

No wonder I love the series.

Above I present the main cast, or I suppose the main attractive parts of the cast. I have reason to believe that besides Hugh Jackman, who is a joy to behold anywhere, the final selection of the cast were put in a camera test in which they were to turn around and “look intense”  straight into the cameraman. I expect their guidelines were to imitate dramatic prairie dog.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, came with baggage. And by baggage I mean angry nerds with an attention and loyalty to detail that is not commonly found in the human race. Were we they to apply their stills to something useful, surely many could discover themselves with lucrative holdings which which they could go forth and purchase that dream underground missile silo house they’ve always wanted. You know who you are.

With this movie, dorks with taped up glasses  and secret decoder rings felt as if Fox had slapped them right across the face. That this movie that bore the name of the long acclaimed “X-Men Origins” comic (original series) yet didn’t stick to the story was an affront to them and all that they stood for (Fanta and Cool Ranch Doritos). For those unfamiliar with the comic, it really didn’t matter. The essence of the original was covered in the first 15 minutes, and in my opinion it was done in a rather nifty series of sequences.

In some places, the CG looked good, in many places it looked terrible. Some of the worst of the lot are the adamantium claws which look like someone forgot to finish modeling, unfortunate as the audience is flashed adamantium fairly often; but the winner of the wince contest is a scene in which Jackman and Gambit duke it out. The results of the fight I will not disclose, but all shall know that there is at least one apartment building in New Orleans that is totally screwed in case of a fire. These will become folk with good reason to hate mutants. All is not lost, however, as most of the fight scenes look great, and the Gambit revelation in particular, does not disappoint.

This movie was created to let Hugh Jackman look good in sideburns and let the writers Benioff and Woodshave, respectively responsible for Hitman and Troy, hold some sort of one-upmanship contest.  They start with a fairly high bar, opening with a battle montage from the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, and Vietnam. Then a battle scene in which a team of mutants assault a heavily fortified diamond factory to pick up a souvenir, followed by minor character building exposition. My supposition is that they had to make it look like they tried. But not to worry! The action resumes shortly with Liev Schreiber (HE’S SUPPOSED TO BECOME SABERTOOTH SHH!) who comes to spice it up with indiscriminate killings! And totally owns Jackman in the best worst most extreme bar fight that town has ever seen!

This escalation in battle level leads to the logical reason and actual explanation of why Jackman has an adamantium skeleton (besides the writers trying to  knock it up a notch.) Taking butt naked refuge in an elderly couple’s barn, Jackman is presented with clothes that make him look good, and a reason to put him on a motorcycle. At this point, I can only guess, this is what I imagine happened.

Benioff:  In the spirit of competition, I shall begin the next sequence with a mere two machine gunning vehicles and a single helicopter containing Agent Zero (he’s that one guy who has the super mutant ability of shooting really really fast right?) in a high speed explosive motorcycle chase through the countryside.

Woods:  You bastard! You know we have a limit on explosives! Fine! Jackman! Engage in a boxing match with that fat suit dude  special effects keep bothering me about.  Maybe then they’ll stop eating my lunches.
Oh and I’m putting in Gambit! All kids love Gambit! I’m going to work the FX guys so hard for this scene…

Benioff:  Very well, I’ll see your Gamibt/Jackman fight, and add a Schreiber, making it a three way beat down. *sniff*

Woods:  Dude! you cant just throw Schreiber in whenever you feel like it! He doesn’t even have a good excuse for being there! I…I… I don’t even have… Fine!  We’re going to move the plot to 3 Mile Island where Stryker is rounding up mutants so.. um… he can steal their powers and place them into a single mutant who responds only to his commands!
And we’re going to call this new puppet mutant Deadpool, and he’s going to have the healing factor of Wolverine and Sabertooth and, like, a retractable adamantium sword coming out of his hand, like both of them! He’s going to be AWESOME!!1one11!!

Benioff:  Very well, but know that you’re only making it easier for me, Jackman, you’re going to get beat up on the ground and then, you will SCALE THE NUCLEAR REACTOR. And Schreiber, you get up there too.

Woods:  WTF!! What did I just say about Schreiber! Dude! You aren’t allowed to use Schreiber anymore! Why is Schrieber there this time?”

Benioff:  He got bored inside and went outside for a smoke. Also, he likes to fight.

Woods:  Shutup! Tha’ts a stupid idea! Whatever! Deadpool gets powers of teleportation! And, and laser eye beams! And Jackman and Schreiber decapitate him! And his flickering head with the lasers still on is going to go spiraling down a nuclear reactor slicing through containment with still powerful lasers! And the reactor is going to completely fall apart! HA! HAHAHA! *ensue victory jig*

Final Score: Three out of five bullets. The escalation of improbability in this movie deserves an extra bullet.

To reiterate my point, we have both Wolverine and Sabertooth, at the top of a nuclear reactor, fighting a dude who looks like a cross between the Hellraiser guy and Frankenstein, who has the powers of supreme bladesmanship,an adamantium skeleton and blades, the mutant healing factor, teleportaion, and laserbeam eyes. At this point I can only conclude that Benioff and Woods shook hands, satisfied that their work should remain unsurpassed till the worst of the summer action flicks emerge.

That was probably when realized that they had to wrap it up then, and gave Stryker a magic lobotomy bullet that erases Jackman’s adamantium encased memory box. You know, all of that could have been taken care of it you just gave that gun to Agent Zero, the gun dude whose specialty is shooting things.

Meanwhile, in mutant cameo escape, the young blindfold wearing Cyclops demonstrates his amazing powers of convincing panicked escapees that a blind guy holds the great and mysterious power of  navigation!

I’m 110% honest here: I consider the Terminator movies to be the first feminist action series.

Let’s face it, as much as I love action movies, they’re pretty weak when it comes to chicks. Women in action movies are mostly damsels in distress or femme fatales– there are damn few heroines in the genre, which is a fucking shame. Princess Leia probably kicked off the beginning of positive, kick-ass women in action movies, but really, she’s one of a very, very small minority.

This is why Sarah Connor is so important to the action movie genre. She’s presented to us as the stereotypical damsel-in-distress during the first parts of The Terminator, but Goddamn it, she realizes the danger she’s in, she reacts to it, and she does whatever the Hell she can do to stay alive– but at the same time she doesn’t sacrifice her femininity. She falls in love with and becomes impregnated with Kyle Reese, and she mourns his death as a true partner, and as a mother.

Sarah’s role throughout the series is as “the mother”– John Connor is supposed to be “the prophet”, and she mostly does not matter…supposedly. Take as many Mary/Jesus comparisons as you will. This, however, simply is not the case. Sarah is, in many ways, more important than John, and that is not just because biologically without her he would not exist. After the death of Kyle Reese, Sarah is literally the only person in the world who knows what will happen in the next 20-30 years. She must live with that burden and shoulder it as well as she can, while still raising a child who has no idea what the future will bring.

The Terminator series has always been a great example of positive female characters in the action genre. Terminator Salvation upholds this standard: Lt. Blair Williams (Moon Goodblood) does nothing more than share a tearful kiss with her beloved at the tail end of the movie. Otherwise, she is a strong, independant, take-no-shit-from-anyone kind of gal. She appreciates a helping hand, but doesn’t expect anyone to rescue her.

In my opinion, Sarah Connor ought to be considered the patron saint of Action Chicks. Being an action chick does not mean compromising your femininity. It does not mean you must pull a “Mulan” (sorry, Vicki!) and try to be what you are not. You can only be what you are, and if the odds come down to it…

Bitch, kick some ass.

I’ve got your back.

ETA: My wonderful boyfriend gave me his mint-in-box T2 Sarah Connor action figure (http://www.toywiz.com/mcfsarahhat.html) after I expressed how much I admired this character. I knew there was some reason I keep that boy around…