Released: February 2018

Director: Dmitri Logothetis

Rated R

Run Time: 110 Minutes

Distributor: Well Go USA

Genre: Action

Cast:
Alain Moussi: Kurt Sloan
Christopher Lambert: Thomas Moore
Jean-Claude Van Damme: Master Durand
Mike Tyson: Briggs
Sara Malakul Lane: Liu
Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson: Mongkut
Sam Medina: Crawford

During the late 80’s and early 90’s, Jean-Claude Van Damme was at the height of his stardom.  When he showed up in Bloodsport, he took the world by storm.  While the film was not great, it ended up being one of the best American-made martial arts movies of all time.  I still watch it from time to time.  It’s that good.  Van Damme had a lot of memorable movies including Cyborg, Kickboxer, Universal Soldier, Hard Target, Nowhere To Run, and Double Impact.  Not only was Mr. Van Damme a fantastic fighter and martial artist, he had an incredible amount of screen presence and charisma that sold him as a legitimate action star.  However, I would not consider Kickboxer to be one of his greatest.  I think it was just too damn goofy to be taken seriously.  Don’t get me wrong, the fight with Tong Po at the end was spectacular, but the rest of the film was……not up to the usual standard that Van Damme was producing at the time.  The less said about the sequels to Kickboxer, the better.  A couple of years ago, we got ourselves a reboot of Kickboxer called Kickboxer: Vengeance.  This film starred up-and-coming action star Alain Moussi in the role of Kurt Sloan with Dave Bautista as Tong Po.  Jean-Claude Van Damme returned to play Durand, the man who trained Kurt and his brother.  That was a movie that had problems in terms of pacing and fight choreography.  It wasn’t awful, at least in my opinion, but a lot of people didn’t like it.  Now, we have a sequel, Kickboxer: Retaliation.  Does this film fix the mistakes made by the first movie?

The story for Retaliation picks up a year and a half after Kurt killed Tong Po.  After winning an MMA fight, Kurt is kidnapped by illegal fight promotor Thomas Moore to force him to fight the monstrous Mongkut.  Refusing to do so, Kurt is imprisoned and his wife is kidnapped in order to force Kurt to face Mongkut in a battle to the death.  It’s a pretty simple setup for a fight movie, so it can be somewhat forgiven for being so….plain.  Unfortunately, there a number of things that really don’t make sense.  Kurt gets kidnapped by fake FBI agents and flown to Bangkok.  How does that work?  You would expect somebody to raise a red flag for something like, especially with today’s airport security.  Whatever.  Kurt’s wife, Liu used to be a cop, but is now basically a damsel in distress.  Really?  You couldn’t give her more than that.  The story is plain, but it’s bogged down by some really questionable writing.  Not only that, Van Damme’s character is now blind.  Why didn’t we see what happened to him?  He just showed up out of the blue at exactly the same prison that Kurt is in?

For a film like Kickboxer: Retaliation, you really can’t expect Oscar-worthy performances, because you will not get them.  They’re okay enough to push the story along, but nobody here will be winning an award any time soon.  With all due respect to Alain Moussi, who is clearly a talented martial artist and athlete, he’s really not an actor, although he seems to be more comfortable in his role as Kurt Sloan this time around.  I’m not necessarily blaming Alain for that, but he’s been surrounded by larger personalities than he is.  For one, Jean-Claude Van Damme is back and actually gives a pretty good performance.  Christopher Lambert chews the scenery like it’s nobody’s business as the illegal fight promoter and he’s always fun to watch.  While it doesn’t really make sense for Mike Tyson to be in here, he’s also fun to watch, because despite his age, he can still move like the professional boxer he used to be.  He’s clearly having fun here.  The guy that plays Mongkut, is clearly an intimidating presence, as he is over 6’9″ and weighs well over 350 pounds.  That’s all muscle.  He’s not much of an actor, but he doesn’t need to be when he wants to be intimidating.

Since this is a Kickboxer film, you would expect some pretty solid fight scenes, right?  Not exactly.  While there are a lot of sequences that are pretty cool, the fight scenes are hamstrung by an overuse of slow-motion.  The amount of slow-motion used in this film, to me, is a lot like the use of shaky-cam in fight movies:  It’s used to hide some really bad choreography.  Alain Moussi had a hand in some of the fight choreography, which is why not all of it sucks.  He’s clearly got an idea of how fight scenes should play out.  Again, the problem is the use of slow-motion.  I don’t mind when slo-mo is used to highlight certain moves or stunts.  That doesn’t bother me at all.  What bothers me is when fight sequences that should take maybe a couple of minutes are padded to be longer because of slow-motion.  The film runs at 110 minutes when it should only run at 85.  Some of the fights are pretty cool.  The fight between Kurt and Mongkut is clearly the centerpiece of the film and honestly, it doesn’t disappoint.  It’s hard-hitting and pretty freakin’ epic.  It’s just too bad not enough effort was spent on making the other fights look as good.  Speaking of which, the cinematography is actually really nice.  We get some pretty good night shots of Las Vegas and some really beautiful shots of Thailand.  Not shabby, if I do say so myself.

Overall, I didn’t hate the film, it has some really good moments, good cinematography and Connor McLeod, I mean, Christopher Lambert.  However, it’s not exactly a movie I can flat-out recommend to just anyone.  There a number of glaring issues here that I feel that really bring the film down.  It’s a sequel that really came out of nowhere and with a third film on the way, I have to wonder how these films get bankrolled.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to see Alain Moussi succeed as an action star.  I really do.  I think he’s got a certain something that could separate him from the rest if he gets the right material.  It’s always fun to see Jean-Claude Van Damme in action movie and he can still kick ass with the rest of ’em.  However, the excessive use of slow-motion and questionable writing end up making this film a middle-of-the-road action flick.  I don’t regret seeing it and I’ll probably watch it again, but Kickboxer: Retaliation only screams “Rent me!”, not “Buy me!”  You know what they say, the third time’s the charm.  Here’s hoping the next movie is better.

My Final Recommendation: Meh….6/10

Released: March 2018

Director: Roar Uthuag

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 118 Minutes

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Genre: Action/Adventure

Cast:
Alicia Vikander: Lara Croft
Dominic West: Richard Croft
Walton Goggins: Mathias Vogel
Daniel Wu: Lu Ren
Kristin Scott Thomas: Ana Miller
Derek Jacobi: Mr. Yaffe

Whenever I review a movie based on a video game, I always bring up the fact that historically speaking, movies based on video games generally aren’t very good.  Aside from maybe a small handful of films, most video game movies are crap.  There are a number of reasons for this.  First of all, you’re trying to adapt a game that may have up to several dozen hours of play time, and try to condense all that into a two-hour run-time.  Obviously you can’t have a 17 hour movie as nobody in their right mind would sit through that.  Unfortunately, you lose a lot in the translation and may end up skipping over some very important story bits  Secondly, you have film-makers who don’t understand the source material.  All you have to do is look at what Uwe Boll has produced over the past 20 years.  Most of his video game-based films have a distinctly cheap and flat-looking appearance to them with horrendous effects and performances.  Thirdly, the film-makers are blindly trying to market these movies towards fans of a particular game, and that doesn’t work because the fans would rather play the game.  Why would you want to turn an interactive experience into a non-interactive one?  You would need to try and appeal to audience members who aren’t necessarily gamers.  There have been a small handful of titles that aren’t awful.  They’re not great films by any stretch of the imagination, but they are passable and enjoyable.  Mortal Kombat, Prince of Persia, and one or two of the Resident Evil films.  Now, we have another movie based on a video game: Tomb Raider.

Based on the 2013 video game reboot of Tomb Raider, the film follows Lara Craft as she tries to make a living by being a courier.  After running afoul of the police, she’s given the opportunity to sign the document declaring her father dead, so she can inherit her family’s fortune.  After solving a mysterious puzzle box handed to her by the man who is signing her inheritance over to her.  The notes inside indicate that her father may have been leading a double-life and disappeared 7 years prior.  Searching her family’s estate, she discovers that her father was on a search for the mysterious island of Yamatai, some distance off the shores of Japan.  He had been searching for a mysterious Japanese queen who may or may not have had supernatural abilities.  Wanting to find out what happened, she charters a boat to take her to this island, where she runs afoul of a man, Mathias Vogel, as he is also searching for this particular tomb.  The 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider video game series is among my favorite games of all time.  It was gritty,  brutal and spectacular.  This new film draws its inspiration directly from the 2013 game, so it skips the previous films starring Angelina Jolie.  Aside from certain necessary changes, the story here is fairly faithful to the source material.  It wasn’t a bad story to begin with, but seeing it come to life in this new film was surprisingly interesting and oddly enough, it works…..mostly.

I have to say, they really nailed down the look of the film.  A lot of details from the game actually translated pretty well to the big screen.  Lara looks like they plucked her straight from the game.  Her outfit is exactly the same as it is in the digital world.  I was unsure if Alicia Vikander would be good as Lara.  As it turns out, she is.  She does a number of her own stunts and action sequences and she’s actually really, really good.  The environments and sets are mostly practical and look very good.  The cinematography is absolutely stunning.  It’s also beautifully gritty, much like the game.  Lara gets thrown around and beat up and it looks like it hurts.  Just like the game, the movie counter-part takes a beating, but she always gets back on her feet.  There are a lot of elements that they lifted right out of the game.  When Lara escapes Vogel, she gets trapped in an old plane, where she falls out of the cockpit with a parachute.  That’s literally right out of the game, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.  That’s one of several moments that come straight out of the game, but it’s done in a way that makes it feel real.  There is a real sense of danger here, and it’s all because of the director, Roar Uthuag, who really wanted to bring Lara Croft to the screen properly.

The acting in this film is actually really, really good.  That’s not something I would expect from a movie like this.  This is Alicia Vikander’s film, first and foremost and she nails in a way that Angelina never could.  Like the 2013 game, this film’s Lara Croft is not over-sexualized, but feels more like a real person thrust into a very extraordinary situation.  Walton Goggins plays the film’s villain, Mathias Vogel.  I have to say, I really like Mr. Goggins as an actor.  He’s got a range that I rarely see from an actor these days.  He’s really good at playing both good guys and bad guys, and it’s no exception here.  While his character is certainly ruthless, he does have a personal reason for wanting to get off the island, but he’s willing to kill people to do so.  Dominic West plays Lara’s father, Richard.  This is one of those changes from the video games that I really like.  In the games, Richard dies when Lara is a young girl, but in this new film, not only is he still alive, but he plays a crucial part in Lara’s development as a character.  The relationship between the two characters is surprisingly touching and well-written.  Even Daniel Wu’s Lu Ren gets his moment to shine.

The film not only tries to replicate the 2013 game, but it also borrows elements from the game’s follow-up Rise of the Tomb Raider.  For example, the movie has Lara and Richard racing against time against an ancient violent cult known as Trinity which is searching for supernatural objects to try and control the future of humanity.  The character of Ana Miller is taken directly from Rise of the Tomb Raider as well.  Normally, that would give me cause for concern, but in the overall film, it doesn’t detract from the overall experience.  All that being said, the film is not without its flaws.  For one, we don’t really see much of Lara’s past and how she comes to be where she is and why she’s there.  While the character definitely has a personal reason for traveling to Yamatai, it’s strictly for finding out what happened to her father and not really for archaeological purposes.  There’s also some very questionable physics involved here, but this is a movie based on a video game, so I tend to be a little more forgiving in that regard.

Tomb Raider is one of the first games to feature a female protagonist, and to finally see her properly brought to the big screen is truly phenomenal.  Some might consider her the female Indiana Jones, but I don’t see that as a bad thing, as the games have clearly drawn their inspiration from Steven Spielberg’s films as well as other adventure films.  I really do like the fact that we have a strong female character that can be very empowering to women and young girls as well as just being a total bad-ass.  I don’t know where they’re going to go from here, but I can’t wait to find out.  As far as movies based on video games go, Tomb Raider is easily the best one out there.  Granted, the bar ain’t very high, but this film managed to be very entertaining and engaging from beginning to end.  I would honestly say you should check this one out.  It might surprise you.

My Final Recommendation:  This one puts an arrow through any other video game-to-film adaptation. 8.5/10

Released: March 2018

Director: Eli Roth

Rated R

Run Time: 107 Minutes

Distributor: MGM Studios

Genre: Action/Thriller

Cast:
Bruce Willis: Paul Kersey
Vincent D’Onofrio: Frank Kersey
Elizabeth Shue: Lucy Kersey
Camila Morrone: Jordan Kersey
Dean Norris: Detective Kevin Raines
Beau Knapp: Knox
Kimberly Elise: Detective Leonore Jackson

Remakes are a pretty tricky business, especially if you’re remaking a film that was released over 40 years ago.  The hurdle that most remakes have to face is whether or not they are going to be relevant to the issues at the time the remake is going to be released.  Another issue is whether or not they will be bringing something new to the table.  I can list off a number of remakes that are actually really good: John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Blob(1988), The Fly, Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula(1992), Beauty and the Beast, and Fist of Legend just to name a few.  But for every Thing, there is a Psycho remake.  So….where does Eli Roth’s Death Wish end up?  Let’s find out.

The film starts in Chicago as a cop that was shot by gang-bangers ends up dying at a nearby hospital.  This hospital employs Paul Kersey, who couldn’t save the cop’s life.  Later, Kersey and his family are trying to celebrate a birthday when he’s called back to the hospital.  Unfortunately, his wife and daughter are caught in a violent home robbery with Paul’s wife dead and his daughter in a coma.  Frustrated that the cops have no leads or are unable to crack the case, Kersey decides to take things into his own hands and metes out brutal vengeance.  The story is pretty straight-forward and doesn’t deviate, but the problem here, is that we’ve seen this story done a million times before, going all the way back to the original Death Wish starring Charles Bronson.  There’s nothing really new that’s been added and it just feels like a “by-the-numbers” thriller, which it is.  Also, one of the controversies about the film is that it was released not too far long after a recent school shooting here in the States.  Is it bad timing?  Sure, but is the film a victim of bad timing?  No.  The film is a victim of being a remake of a vastly superior film.  The original film was relevant for the time because there was something to say about the state of violence in the country at the time.  Eli Roth’s film tries to be relevant for TODAY’S audiences, but it comes across as a cheap gimmick.

I’m a huge fan of Eli Roth’s work as a director.  He’s got a very unique eye for certain details as well as absurd amounts of ultra-violence, and he brings that same sensibility to Death Wish.  Does that make it a better film?  Not really, because he’s not particularly great at the slower and more character-oriented moments.  In fact, most of the characters in this film are fairly disposable.  The villains are your cookie-cutter home invaders with no real personality.  No, they exist to get the snot beat out of them or violently disposed of.  I have to say this:  The film does look really, really good.  It’s well-framed and you can see everything that’s going on.  There’s no shaky-cam or extreme close-ups to get in the way of the carnage.  Props to the film-makers for that.  The set designs and costumes are what you would expect from a film like this.  Thankfully, the movie does not rely on CGI gore.  Oh, no.  Most of what you see is practical.  Is it over-the-top?  Yeah, but it does make you cringe at some of the violence.  There were audience members, like myself that went, “oh, shit!” when something gruesome happened.  From a technical standpoint, this is a decent film.

This film was touted to be Bruce Willis’s big comeback.  Is it really, though?  Kinda, if you’re looking for an ass-kicking Bruce Willis.  I think he does alright with the material, but I just don’t buy Bruce Willis as this superstar surgeon.  He just doesn’t have the look for it.  Vincent D’Onofrio plays Paul’s brother Frank, and I have to say, Vincent is pretty good.  He’s always fun to watch, whether he’s playing a bad guy or a good guy.  He’s a chameleon.  Dean Norris plays the detective investigating the crime that hit Kersey’s family.  Dean Norris has turned out to be a pretty stellar, if underrated actor.  He’s been in so many movies and tv shows over the past 30 years, it’s surprising that he’s not really been given the kind of attention that he deserves.  Elizabeth Shue plays Lucy, Paul’s wife and she’s….there.  Outside of those few actors, there’s really nobody else worth mentioning.  Look, I’m a huge fan of Bruce Willis, and even at his worst, he’s still fun to watch.  He will always be Korben Dallas to me.

The original Death Wish with Charles Bronson was a statement on the nature of violence and justice(or lack thereof)as well as the consequences of vigilantism.  The new film doesn’t really project that very well, especially in today’s world with the internet, social media, smart phones, and all other sorts of technology.  One of the other issues that I had with this film, is that Eli Roth’s interpretation of the Kersey doesn’t have him being anti-gun.  Charles Bronson’s version was clearly against the use of violence but he had legitimate reasons for that, except when he was pushed to far.  While the new film is heavy on the carnage, it doesn’t really have a lot to say about violence or when and why to use it.  Do all these issues make Eli Roth’s film a bad movie?  No, far from it.  I had a good time with this one, it just doesn’t do enough to stand out in a genre crowded by movies inspired by the film’s namesake.  I think it’s worth a look, at least.  Bruce Willis dispatching bad guys never gets old, at least not for me.

My Final Recommendation: Pissing off Bruce Willis is a very, very bad idea.  7.5/10.

Released: February 2018

Director: Ryan Coogler

Run Time: 134 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Genre: Action/Adventure

Distributor: Disney/Marvel

Cast:
Chadwick Boseman: T’Challa/Black Panther
Michael B. Jordan: Erik Killmonger
Lupita N’Yongo: Nakia
Danai Gurira: Okoye
Martin Freeman: Everett Ross
Daniel Kaluuya: W’Kabi
Letitia Wright: Shuri
Angela Bassett: Ramonda
Forest Whitaker: Zuri
Andy Serkis: Ulysses Klaue

Being excited for a new comic-book movie these days is not an easy thing.  A lot of the comic-book movies that you see in theaters these days have a tendency to blend in with all the other comic-book movies to the point you can’t even tell them apart anymore.  I’m not going to lie:  I’ve been keeping up with Marvel’s MCU(Marvel Cinematic Universe) since Iron Man.  After The Avengers hit the big screen back in 2012, a good chunk of the MCU movies that had been released since then have felt……generic.  I think part of the problem is that there was an overarching story-line that connected all the movies.  Sure, the first few were kind of cool, but afterwards it became more of a chore.  That kind of changed when Guardians of the Galaxy came out along with Doctor Strange.  The movies that tapped into the mystical and cosmic side of the MCU were far more interesting than the stuff that was based in the “real world.”  While I enjoyed the Captain America films, the third one caught my attention, mostly because it featured a character that hadn’t been seen in the MCU before: Black Panther.  He was probably the best part of that movie, so we kind of knew that a stand-alone Black Panther was coming and it showed up with some serious power.

Black Panther follows the newly crowned king of the African country of Wakanda, T’Challa as he hunts down a notorious weapons dealer.  During his investigation, he discovers that his father may not have been telling the truth about certain events in the past that have lead to Wakanda’s current crisis.  This crisis involves one Erik Killmonger, who has returned to Wakanda to claim his birth-right as king.  The story here works because there are no real twists and turns that pull the rug out from under you.  It also works, because it’s a standalone film that barely has a connection to the other MCU movies.  This is a good thing.  It allows us as the audience to not worry about what’s happening in the world outside of Wakanda.  The fact that Black Panther is mostly self-contained allows the audience to connect with the characters on the screen, because it’s not just about the action or the special effects.  The film focuses a bit more on the people and it’s all the better for it.  The action and spectacle come later.

I have to say this:  Coming out of the theater, I was blown away by how emotionally engaged I was with the film.  That comes down to a very solid script and screenplay.  The director of the film, Ryan Coogler, is no stranger to character development and there’s a lot of it here.  All the characters in this film are 3-dimensional, meaning that there are legitimate reasons for why they are the way they are and why they do what they do.  There really isn’t a wasted character in here.  While all the characters are fantastic, it’s T’Challa and Killmonger who stand out among the pack.  We have two characters here that want to change the world, but they have vastly different methods and motivations for doing so.  I’m going to be honest:  When it comes to villains, the MCU is not really good at having strong and compelling villains with the main exception being Loki.  Black Panther gives us a very strong villain with Killmonger.  This is a character that grew up in an area of the world that was very harsh and he had to be just as harsh to survive.  He’s not evil, he just a very different perspective on the world than T’Challa, and it’s a very understandable point of view that many of us could understand.  It’s his methods that most people tend to question.  It’s important to have a villain that’s just as human as it’s hero, and Killmonger is one of the most human and relatable villains I’ve seen in years.  The women in the film are exceptionally strong, since a great many of them are warriors and have an actual role in what’s going on.  Too many times have I seen women being relegated to the role of “damsel in distress.”  This is not just a movie for men, but for women as well.  The acting is very strong here with Chadwick Boseman playing T’Challa and Michael B. Jordan playing Killmonger.  Honestly, Chadwick Boseman is to Black Panther/T’Challa as Robert Downey, Jr is to Tony Stark/Iron Man.  It’s perfect casting.  Lupita N’Yongo, Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett and Forest Whitaker are absolutely fantastic in their roles.

I’ll get to the action and special effects in a bit, but first I have to mention how beautiful this film is.  The cinematography is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a Marvel film before.  The African landscapes are just gorgeous with all the wildlife running around.  The canyons and the forests are simply stunning.  This is the kind of movie that makes me want to visit Africa.  While the country of Wakanda is fictional, the film shines a light on a part of the world that we really don’t normally see and it’s a damn shame, because Africa has some of the most serene and stunning vistas in the world.  There is a HUGE amount of detail that went into the making of this film.  The costume designs are beyond extraordinary.  It’s very obvious that the costume designers had done a lot of research into a lot of tribal fashion in Africa to come up with the costumes in the film.  The Black Panther’s costume is no less detailed.  The outfits and armor that the women wear are colorful, yet functional and they don’t over-sexualize the women here.  That’s amazing.

In terms of visual effects, the CGI is mostly good.  We get some really fantastic shots of Wakanda and the advanced technology that inhabits the country.  For the most part, the CGI really does help make Wakanda look and feel like a real place.  There are some points throughout the film where the CGI falters a bit.  Some of the character models and animations really aren’t that great and they do stand out quite a bit.  The final battle with Killmonger is one such sequence that, while entertaining enough, suffers from way too much CGI.  I certainly understand why CGI is used and I can commend the effort that goes into making it as seamless as possible, but there are a few moments where the CGI takes you out of the movie.  A lot of the action that takes place is mostly good, but certain parts during the beginning of the film were a little too dark to see what’s going on.  The stuff where you can see what’s going on is fantastic.  The car chase was particularly awesome and Black Panther doing his thing is awesome.  There are just a few hiccups here and there that kind of stick out to me.

Overall, I would have to say that I’m very impressed with how well Black Panther turned out.  Not only do we have very strong acting with some really outstanding characters, we also have a story that everybody can enjoy.  It doesn’t matter what ethnicity you are, there is something here very everyone.  You have incredible African landscapes along with some amazing costume designs.  It’s just a damned good movie.  I was actually getting a little choked up with some of the stuff that was happening towards the end of the movie and that’s the first time that an MCU film made me feel that way.  Bravo.  So, do I recommend Black Panther?  My answer is a resounding HELL, YES!  Definitely check it out.

My Final Recommendation:  No smart-ass limerick for this one.  9/10.