Jason X (2002)

April 24, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Horror, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Kane Hodder, Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell
screenplay by Todd Farmer
directed by James Isaac

by Walter Chaw Having apparently renounced the name given him by The Man, Jason X features inexorable slasher killer Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) cryogenically frozen at the “Crystal Lake Research Facility” in 2010 and picked up by a salvage spaceship (or something) called “Grendel” in 2455. When the bimbo Rowan (Lexa Doig), defrosted along with our invulnerable flesh golem (the Demolition Man possibilities remain untapped), perkily offers that this means she’s been cold and stiff for “455 years,” no one bothers to correct her. I’m not really sure why I bothered, come to think of it.

Metropolis (2001) – DVD

April 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Japan, Sci-Fi, Thriller

***½/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A
screenplay by Katsuhiro Ôtomo, based on the comic book by Osamu Tezuka
directed by Rintaro

by Walter Chaw There is a sense of wonder inherent in the exploration of new mediums. A young Maxim Gorky’s 1896 review of one of the first Lumiére Cinématographe shows in Russia begins, “Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows.” As I began exploring the anime medium (not a “genre,” I am assured, and I have come to concur) a scant couple of years ago, I felt similarly the interloper in a dreamscape conjured by a culture steeped in tradition, mythology, and the sort of artistic sensibility that could only evolve from the only people victimized by the most terrible weapon of mass destruction humans have devised. Anime is–perhaps predictably, then–often-post-apocalyptic (its themes exploring the existential by way of William Gibson’s cyberpunk and Philip K. Dick’s identity crisis) finding elements of the rapture in such rapturous fantasies as the lyrical Princess Mononoke, the viscerally charged Ninja Scroll, and the ferocious yet delicate Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind.

Three Fugitives (1989) – DVD

April 22, 2002Posted in1980s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD

½*/**** Image B Sound B-
starring Nick Nolte, Martin Short, Sarah Rowland Doroff, James Earl Jones
written and directed by Francis Veber

by Walter Chaw Written and directed by Francis Veber, remaking his own Les Fugitifs from two years previous, Three Fugitives is one of the middle-period films under Disney’s Touchstone imprint, although the growing pains are still obvious. What works in a French farce is wearying and disturbing in a purportedly “light-hearted” American comedy (see also: Three Men and a Baby, The Birdcage, and Cousins); not helping, of course, is a screenplay in English by a non-English speaker and a performance by Nick Nolte that is by turns unnecessarily terrifying and unintentionally grotesque. It is not as terrifying and grotesque, however, as the implications of a man released from prison after five years cuddling a little girl in an abandoned warehouse, nor of that same man demanding that little Martin Short dress up in drag.

The Scorpion King (2002)

April 18, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Belgium, Comedy, Fantasy, Germany, Theatrical

*/****
starring The Rock, Steven Brand, Kelly Hu, Michael Clarke Duncan
screenplay by David Hayter and Wil Osborne and Stephen Sommers
directed by Chuck Russell

by Walter Chaw I stopped marking the rip-offs perpetrated in The Scorpion King once Kelly Hu’s jiggle priestess recreated a scene entire from Mike Hodges’s legendary craptavaganza Flash Gordon. Sadly, The Scorpion King doesn’t have the benefit of a Queen soundtrack to push the “just bad” into campy. It steals the rolling gong gag from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the cave murders and human bow-hunting of Rambo III, the feral kid of The Road Warrior, and its overriding ethos, apparently unintentionally, from Sergio Aragonés’s comic book barbarian “Groo.” If you manage to stifle a chuckle when Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. The Rock) suffers all manner of horrendous falls and physical mortifications with a confused expression that all but screams, “Did I err?”…well, you’re a better man than I.

Highlander (1986) [The Immortal Edition] – DVD

April 7, 2002Posted in1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Fantasy, UK

*½/**** Image A Sound B Extras B
starring Christopher Lambert, Roxanne Hart, Clancy Brown, Sean Connery
screenplay by Gregory Widen and Peter Bellwood & Larry Ferguson
directed by Russell Mulcahy

by Walter Chaw It is perhaps the very definition of a cult classic: a film so bad it breaks through that fetid envelope into the heady climes of “camp.” So much is forgiven when a picture’s earnest ineptness translates into that subterranean rhythm heard by those “in the know,” and the twelve-year-old in me remembers the derision I ladled upon those who just didn’t “get” the coolness of Russell Mulcahy’s Highlander. The passage of seventeen years brings the realization that not only have I gotten very old very fast, but that I may have arrived at the age where it is no longer wise to revisit films that I liked as a child.

Clockstoppers (2002)

March 29, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Jesse Bradford, French Stewart, Paula Garcés, Michael Biehn
screenplay by Rob Hedden and J. David Stem & David N. Weiss
directed by Jonathan Frakes

Clockstoppersby Walter Chaw Taking for granted that it won’t make any kind of scientific sense, Clockstoppers doesn’t even have internal coherence. It is a mess by committee listing no fewer than four writing credits and possessing at least that many logy regurgitated premises in its mercifully brief (but still bloated) running time. Clockstoppers is the offspring of a fifth season “Twilight Zone” episode called “A Kind of Stopwatch”, in addition to the mid-Eighties teen whiz kid romantic comedy adventures WarGames, The Philadelphia Experiment, Back to the Future, and Zapped!: it robs from each entire scenes while trying unsuccessfully to blend in a long sequence showcasing DJ’s and raves, the inexplicable teen movements du jour. The only thing that Clockstoppers doesn’t seem to have borrowed from its predecessors is a sense of humour and a kernel of intelligence.

Spy Game (2001) [Collector’s Edition (Widescreen)] – DVD

March 28, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Directors: Tony Scott, DVD, Espionage, France, Germany, Japan, Thriller, UK

**/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras B+
starring Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane
screenplay by Michael Frost Beckner and David Arata
directed by Tony Scott

Spygamecap

by Walter Chaw The defining moment of Spy Game, Tony Scott’s latest exercise in stylistic excess, occurs at about the midway point. Playing CIA spymaster Nathan Muir, Robert Redford debriefs his best agent Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) atop a building in Cold War Berlin. After a tense exchange, an enraged Bishop throws his chair off the barren, windswept rooftop. The problem with the scene is neither the preposterous screenplay by Michael Frost Beckner and David Arata to which it belongs, nor Scott’s infatuation with the panoramic aerial shot, nor the way that Harry Gregson-Williams’s ubiquitous score threatens here and at every other moment to rupture your eardrums. It’s not even in the ridiculously out-of-place imagistic Xerox of Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’s melancholy ode to love and Berlin.

Ultimate Fights from the Movies (2002) – DVD

March 27, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, DVD, Martial Arts

*/**** Image A – D Sound A – D Extras A

by Walter Chaw For the purist, an idea like Ultimate Fights from the Movies (from the creators of the horror compilation Boogeymen) is simply abominable: a collection of short fight clips (none running longer than five minutes, regardless of the length of the scene quoted) culled from action films and introduced by cheesy bout cards that do nothing to establish the motives behind the conflict. This is particularly confusing for those who haven't seen the films in question, as–often–these climactic fight sequences involve key plot points that play into their resolutions. Essentially, the DVD is a thinly disguised promotional ploy that targets the demographic that doesn't care to wade through such niceties as plot and character. It targets, in other words, the lowest common denominator–a condemnation supported by its decision to present all of the fights in a cropped, full-screen aspect ratio, handily robbing some of the more beautiful and intricate sequences (cribbed from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Fist of Legend, The Legend of Drunken Master) of a good deal of their visual information.

Behind Enemy Lines (2001) – DVD

March 26, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Thriller, War

*½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B
starring Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman, Joaquim de Almeida, David Keith
screenplay by David Veloz and Zak Penn
directed by John Moore

by Walter Chaw John Moore makes his directorial debut with the high-volume, flag-waving Behind Enemy Lines, but the film so recalls the visual excesses of Top Gun and Enemy of the State (down to a satellite surveillance sequence) that I began to wonder halfway through if “John Moore” was a nom de plume for Tony Scott. Everything else about Behind Enemy Lines, after all, is basically a retread: the third Gene Hackman “not leaving a man behind” film after Bat 21 and Uncommon Valor, and the umpteenth time the veteran actor has been asked to play a snarling iconoclast, spitting in the face of an unfeeling establishment.

Resident Evil (2002)

March 15, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Germany, Horror, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, UK, Zombie

*/****
starring Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy
written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

Residentevilby Walter Chaw A group of highly-skilled soldiers infiltrates an abandoned facility where all the civilian workers of a multi-national corporation have mysteriously died. Suffering a holocaust themselves immediately thereafter, the surviving members of the squad break down into a cowardly tech-specialist (Eric Mabius); a covert agent of the corporation in question (James Purefoy); a tough-talking Latina with a big gun and a chip on her shoulder (Michelle Rodriguez); and a woman suffering from bad dreams who seems particularly adept at fighting the bad guys (Milla Jovovich). Discovering that the folks in the “hive” died during military research gone awry (thus unleashing hordes of nearly-indestructible villains), the foursome attempts to get out before a desperate time limit expires while also containing the evil to the site of infection.

Showtime (2002)

March 15, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Eddie Murphy, Robert De Niro, Theatrical, Will Smith

*/****
starring Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, Rene Russo, Ken Hudson Campbell
screenplay by Keith Sharon and Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
directed by Tom Dey

by Walter Chaw Shaping up as a spoof but neither smart enough to earn that label nor exciting enough to sustain interest otherwise, Tom Dey’s slick Showtime is an incoherent mess of a film that relies on explosions and volume to distract from its tin ear and flat pacing. It wants desperately to be a self-aware genre exercise in the Scream vein, but after its characters mention that there are “rules” to the buddy-cop flick, it chooses to demonstrate them rather than subvert them. Screenwriters-by-committee Keith Sharon, Alfred Gough, and Miles Millar, patching together an abominable iteration of the same old Lethal Weapon tropes, have conspired to get De Niro to immediately make 15 Minutes again (but as an alleged intentional comedy) and to continue Eddie Murphy’s typecasting as an animated jackass. Piling on the offenses, Showtime suffers from a few distracting plotholes, an obviously tacked-on prologue meant to elicit a Kindergarten Cop-esque brand of “isn’t it funny to scare children with a terrifying actor,” and a score by Alan Silvestri that actually approximates the feel of hammers to the brainpan.

All About the Benjamins (2002)

March 8, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Comedy, Crime, Germany, Theatrical, Thriller

**/****
starring Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Tommy Flanagan, Carmen Chaplin
screenplay by Ronald Lang and Ice Cube
directed by Kevin Bray

Allaboutthebenjaminsby Walter Chaw Blaxploitation without the sex, All About the Benjamins is a gratuitously violent film laudably free of the pretense of political correctness, but it’s so calamitously loud and arbitrary (and has a character who fits the same description) that it fritters away almost as much goodwill as it earns. The only things separating All About the Benjamins from other whip-edited, hard-action movies are Ice Cube’s joyfully offensive screenplay (co-written with Ronald Lang) and an opening set in a Confederate’s dream of a trailer park that does more for exploding the race issue in these United States than the past five Denzel Washington pulpits.

The Replacement Killers (1998) [Special Edition] – DVD

March 5, 2002Posted in1990s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, DVD, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B+
starring Chow Yun-Fat, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rooker, Jurgen Prochnow
screenplay by Ken Sanzel
directed by Antoine Fuqua

by Bill Chambers Chow Yun-Fat, the Asian Cary Grant (even their jawlines are similar), is so suave that he wore a white tuxedo to last year’s Hong Kong Awards, a black-jacket affair akin to the Oscars. And did the ladies swoon! (I got a little flush myself.) Since catching said awards show on a multicultural TV station, it has been my desire to revisit The Replacement Killers, because an initial viewing challenged the Will Rogers philosophy I have about Chow Yun-Fat movies: I never met one in which he disappointed. This man at the podium was too cool to have ever earned my apathy, wasn’t he?

Dragon and the Hawk (2001) – DVD

February 25, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, DVD, Martial Arts, Mystery

*½/**** Image D Sound D
starring Julian Jung Lee, Barbara Gehring, Trygve Lode
screenplay by Robert Gosnell
directed by Mark Steven Grove

by Walter Chaw I came to the startling and somewhat crushing realization midway through it that not only have I seen worse movies than Mark Steven Grove’s Dragon and the Hawk, I’ve seen worse movies today. Shot in and around Denver and Littleton, Colorado at locations where I’ve been tooling about for most of my life, Dragon and the Hawk is formula chop-socky involving martial arts master “Dragon” (Korean Tae Kwan Do expert Julian Lee) as a fish out of water looking for his missing sister (Gayle Galvez). The villain Therion (Trygve Lode) has abducted li’l sis and is injecting her with some kind of serum that turns innocent schoolgirls into goth hench-chicks. It’s up to Dragon and maverick cop “Hawk” (Barbara Gehring) to save the Denver metropolitan area from…goth hench-chicks, I guess.

Venomous (2001) – DVD

February 24, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

½*/**** Image A- Sound C Extras B
starring Treat Williams, Mary Page Keller, Hannes Jaenicke, Geoff Pierson
screenplay by Dan Golden
directed by Ed Raymond

by Walter Chaw I have a theory about Treat Williams: I believe that he, after being passed over for an Oscar for his magnificent performance in the 1981 Sidney Lumet film Prince of the City, has been on a vicious retributive rampage against the American viewing public. There can be no other explanation for an obviously gifted actor to have starred in three Substitute sequels and in films alongside Joe Piscopo and Michelle Pfeiffer. After watching the direct-to-video shocker Venomous, directed and commented upon by one of the keepers of Ed Wood’s flame, Ed Raymond (a.k.a. Fred Olen Ray, Nicholas Medina), I officially concede victory to Williams. You win this round, Mr. Williams–no más…no más.

Fatal Error (1999) – DVD

February 11, 2002Posted in1990s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

ZERO STARS/**** Image C+ Sound C
starring Antonio Sabato Jr., Janine Turner, Robert Wagner, Jason Schombing
teleplay by Rockne S. O’Bannon, based on the novel Reaper by Ben Mezrich
directed by Armand Mastroianni

by Walter Chaw A fatal virus transmitted by an evil computer program enters via the eyes and turns people into chalk (neatly combining two plots of “The X Files”). It’s up to hunky Antonio Sabato Jr., as ex-Army virologist-cum-contract paramedic Nick, and the vacuous Janine Turner, as current Army virologist Dr. Samantha, to unravel the puzzle before millions die. That Robert Wagner plays the corporate villain without a hint of irony is just one of those sad lessons about wise investments that parents should tell their children.

Collateral Damage (2002)

February 8, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Mexico, Schwarzenegger, Theatrical, Thriller, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas, Francesca Neri, Cliff Curtis
screenplay by David Griffiths & Peter Griffiths
directed by Andrew Davis

by Walter Chaw There is an inexplicable instinct in Hollywood to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger as an everyman when the Austrian Oak has only ever played a pre-Christian barbarian and post-apocalyptic robot convincingly. Perhaps sensing something awry in Arnold playing a mild-mannered Irish fireman named Gordon Brewer, the creators of Collateral Damage have made an effort to portray Schwarzenegger’s character as a comic book superhero–maybe one named “Fire Man.” Brewer irrationally favours the tools of his life-saving trade (a pair of axes and a serendipitously placed sliding pole) over the far more plentiful (and practical) guns, while a cleverly donned white Panama Hat (making Arnie look a little like Leon Redbone crossed with a bratwurst) somehow successfully disguises the 6’2″ goliath from seeking eyes. A pulp caped-crusader comic would at least have the decency to be lurid and exciting, though–all Collateral Damage manages to be is shatteringly dull.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) [2-Disc Collector’s Edition] – DVD

February 6, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

**/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras A
screenplay by Tab Murphy
directed by Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise

by Walter Chaw Clearly trying to gain some anime credibility by aping the mystical mumbo jumbo of Akira in an unfathomable third act, jettisoning the musical romantic comedy format, and inserting a few subtitles, Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire (henceforth Atlantis) has moments of true grandeur, though it has a good many more of pure Disney. It gets hip genre credibility from the story contributions of “Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola and “Buffy” scribe Joss Whedon, but the best of intentions often lead to the worst of eventualities, and Atlantis is ultimately less “wow” than “oh, boy” and, eventually, “huh?”

U.S. Seals 2 (2001) – DVD

January 25, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD

U.S. Seals II: The Ultimate Force
*/**** Image B- Sound C
starring Michael Worth, Damian Chapa, Karen Kim, Marshall R. Teague
screenplay by Michael D. Weiss
directed by Isaac Florentine

by Walter Chaw The only things you really want to know about U.S. Seals 2 are whether or not it has nudity (yes) and martial arts (also yes). The more sophisticated filmgoer will be curious if the film is unintentionally funny (yes), if a paintball gun that shoots acid balls figures into the proceedings (yes), and if there’s a final showdown that incorporates the nudity, martial arts, and paintballs (alas, no). Unless you’re in the lower 10% of human intelligence, you don’t need me to tell you that U.S. Seals 2 is a cheap-o direct-to-video action knock-off that happens to be a sequel to a film that no one in their right mind saw in the first place.

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

January 25, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Ireland, Romance, Switzerland, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

**/****
starring Guy Pearce, Jim Caviezel, JB Blanc, Henry Cavill
screenplay by Jay Wolpert, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas
directed by Kevin Reynolds

Countofmontecristoby Walter Chaw Preserving the main events of the bombastic blunderbuss novel on which it is based, Kevin Reynolds’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas père’s The Count of Monte Cristo also jettisons what meagre subtlety there was in the source material. The film, an attractive swashbuckling spectacle, is pleasantly campy for its first hour and a plodding endurance test for its final eighty minutes, an initially agreeable, if ridiculous, escapist (literally) flick that bloats to the dimensions of standard Hollywood offal.