I know I'm not as established as the other sites out there (afterall, I just started), but if you enjoy what I do, please stay tuned and I will work on delivering the goods. Please leave feed back with your thoughts about my posts. One of the great things about 'comments' is that we can have discussions. Your thoughts are most welcomed. Thanks again, and enjoy.
I hate M. Night Shyamalan! After the 'Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable", he has been allowed to make movies out of any dream that he has. He wakes up in the mourning, writes down his dream, and some studio funds it. As a result, we have been fooled into seeing ‘The Village’, ‘Signs’, and worst of all ‘Lady in the water’. But that being said, I am stoked for his new movie: ‘The Last Airbender’. Read Full
Finally a 'Rome' replacement. Despite your hopes, 'Sparacus: Blood and Sand' is not a movie title, it is the title of Starz's new series. Much like the deceased HBO series by the name of 'Rome', 'Spartacus will take us through a likely fictional history of the Roman empire. .Read Full
'Pirates of the Caribbean 4'...Booooo!
When I think Hollywood just wants to make everything into a trilogy, I find out that 4 is the new 3. Bringing about the same worries as 'Spiderman 4' , so too does 'Pirates of the Caribbean 4' Read FullFull Review!
Finally the 'Avatar' Trailer!
I have to admit, I'm a little underwhelmed. Not that the movie doesn't look off-the-chain, crazy-cool. Or that the animation isn't awe inspiring. But as you all have heard, this movie is supposed to be a cinema revolution that shakes our very foundations of reality. Sure 2 minutes isn't really enough time to warp reality, but the trailer didn't even hint at being a revolution. I'm still undeniably stoked! But I guess seeing the movie in 3-D at the Imax (which it was optimized for) might be the only way to fully appreciate its cinema changing aspects.
I hate M. Night Shyamalan! After the 'Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable", he has been allowed to make movies out of any dream that he has. He wakes up in the mourning, writes down his dream, and some studio funds it. As a result, we have been fooled into seeing ‘The Village’, ‘Signs’, and worst of all ‘Lady in the water’. But that being said, I am stoked for his new movie: ‘The Last Airbender’. First off, this story isn't his own original, bullsh#t invention, it’s based on an anime that appears in the standard Saturday morning line up. Do I watch Saturday morning cartoons? Regretfully no. But I was in a dentist office recently and this cartoon was playing on the television while I was waiting to have my face wrecked. As I watched the cartoon, I realized something, it was pretty dang cool. I generally hate the new mix of cartoons in the world and am upset that my children will be brought into it; but this ‘Avatar: The last Airbender’ cartoon caught my eye. The episode I was watching was ‘Day of the Black Sun’ (season 3: episodes 10 and 11). I literally said to myself, ‘this could make a cool movie’. Literally! And then boom! Here it is. I went to see G.I. Joe this weekend, and one of the preceding trailers was what you see below. Do I think M. Night will do it justice? NO. But do I hope? Yes. See the teaser trailer below, and let me know what you think.
When I think Hollywood just wants to make everything into a trilogy, I find out that 4 is the new 3. Bringing about the same worries as 'Spiderman 4' , so too does 'Pirates of the Caribbean 4'. Disney refuses to let a lucrative franchise end on a good note, and decides to make a forth. Actually, my mistake; 'Pirates 3' was terrible. In that case, I guess '4' can do no harm aside from annoy us. Scratch that, it is rumored that 'Pirates 4' is actually going to be the start of a new trilogy. Sigh, time to retire to the bomb shelter. Whatever the case, Disney has pinned their director, surprising as it might be, as Rob Marshall. Who's that? Rob Marshall directed such little films as, oh, 'Chicago' and 'Memoirs of a Geisha' (ring any bells?). There's no denying that this director has talent, but I don't think even Peter Jackson could rescue the wreck that Gore Verbinski and company left the franchise in. Granted the final two movies grossed more than me or my family will ever be worth, we can all admit that they sort of sucked. But I guess Leterrier rescued the 'Hulk', which some thought impossible. So I guess we'll just have to see what else happens with this movie before we can make our judgements (ex. casting). All I can say is that there is no 'Priates' without Jack Sparrow aka Johnny Depp in one of his most amazing roles. So until he is signed on, I don't know if I should run around spreading the prophecy of doom just yet.
What do you think, can an Oscar nominated director rebuild the franchise? Full Review!
Finally a 'Rome' replacement. Despite your hopes, 'Sparacus: Blood and Sand' is not a movie title, it is the title of Starz's new series. Much like the deceased HBO series by the name of 'Rome', 'Spartacus will take us through a likely fictional history of the Roman empire. I don't know much else about it, but watching the trailer should help you fill in most of the details by yourself. See trailer here It seems that the show will essentially steal the premise of 'Gladiator', throw the '300' visual style on it, and run it for as many seasons as fans support it. I personally am all for this series. I was a big fan of 'Rome' and was disappointed when it was cancelled. But unlike Rome, this series will likely give us more of the good stuff, action. Hopefully the characters are as lovable as my boy Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson). Full Review!
Action sequences that blew me away and left me searching for my pants
After watching 'Transformers 2' and anticipating 'GI Joe', I got to thinking about all of the great action sequences I’ve seen in past movies. To be honest, for as many action movies as there have been, there haven’t been that many action sequences that really made me say, “wow, that’s some crazy sh**.” I realized this fact when I watched 'Transformers 2'; though the movie was pretty much non-stop action, there was only one scene in which I was on the edge of my seat frothing at the mouth. And so I got to thinking, what makes an action scene more awesome than another. In trying to figure out the answer I scanned through some of my favorite sequences from the movies I could recall. Though I haven’t quite come up with an answer, I have come up with a list of my top 10 favorite action sequences. Please read on and let me know what you think. Feel free to make me aware of deserving candidates that were not on this list (remember top 10, not top 25). The list isn’t in any order, because ranking these would have been pulling hairs for me. Forest fight in ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’
Though the movie has gotten a lot of flack since it has been released, there is no one that can deny that the forest fight with Optimus prime against 3 decepticons was off the chain (not even the blind, as the sound effects were pretty crazy too). This was the single greatest sequence in the ‘Transformers 2’ movie. If the theater played this scene on loop, I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself. I’d be unable to leave my seat and would probably have a stroke. This scene works for sooo many reasons. One, good guy outnumbered by his opponents; the underdog. Two, swords! Everyone knows that a fight is ten times cooler if there is a sword involved. Think about how much better ‘Push’ would have been if somebody had a sword (‘Harry Potter’ too for that matter). Three, a bawler line followed by bloodshed, a.k.a. “I’ll take you all on" soon followed by gratuitous, animated, robot, violence. This scene had it all.
Train fight in 'Spider man 2'
Again, there are a lot of Spiderman haters out there, but let me just make you aware that ‘Spiderman 2’ is the best marvel superhero movie behind 'Iron Man'. So haters, get yourselves into perspective. As being one of the best superhero movies, ‘Spiderman 2’ also has one of the greatest fight sequences I have ever seen. The fight was fast and clever and didn’t relish itself with slow motion capture. The fight went down as I would imagine it to have in real life with both characters pulling out all the stops to topple the other. One sequence in particular that was sweet was when spidy webbed ock’s tentacles and ock says “Fu** this” and uses the move against spidy to throw him through an over head bridge. But wait, the great counter is that spidy has an agile move of his own and slips right through the grates of the bridge, pops out the other side and takes the villain over the edge of the train. Awesome! This action sequence is also accentuated by the high speed of the train upon which they fight. This allowed for the cool ducking under bridges and webbing the train to reboard when kicked off.
‘The Matix’ lobby shoot out
If I need to enumerate on the reasons why this scene is awesome, you reader are simply a lost cause. This scene was in fact the coolest action scene in any movie anywhere prior to 1998. The innovative use of slow motion, the physics defying protagonists, and the endless army of poorly aimed automatic weapons. Neo is the only character that Keanu Reeves’ monotonic, expressionless, cardboard character has done incredible justice for since ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’.
The final Darth Maul fight in ‘Star wars episode I’
Though I have my love for Vader and I’ve come to appreciate Palpatine and Dukoo as well, I still vote Darth Maul the coolest sith in the series. He has all of 15 minutes of on screen time in the entire franchise, and the impression he made was so strong that many people have put him as a favorite character (as judged by his presence in many of the video games, T-shirts, top action figure sales, etc). Why was he so popular? Was it the neat black and red tattoos, the horns of the Zabrak, the double sided lightsaber? Yeah it was all of those things too, but most importantly it was because he was played by Ray Park. Is Park a famous actor? No, but he is a great martial arts practitioner. As a result, we got to see the best saber wielding the franchise has to offer. With the flipping and the fast blade attacks, Maul’s double-team fight is a thing of legend. Even more intense than the 2 vs 1 fight, is the segment of the fight that I call “Obi’s Rage” in which Obi Wan Kenobi goes ape sh** on Maul after he kills Qui Gon. The sword wielding is blazing fast and super athletic. It was a joy to watch then and still brings me amusement on Youtube now. As an end note, Maul also has one of the best sith entrances to a fight: the doors slowly slide open, he pulls back his cloak hood, and lights one, then two sides of his saber. Bawler!
The dino fight of “King Kong”
Though 'King Kong' was not as well received by the general public as it was by me, I disagree with most in saying that Peter Jackson dropped the ball after the LOTR trilogy. ‘King Kong’ has all of the same Jackson motifs that we have come accustom to in his previous movies; the dark tribes, the overly long moments of facial emotion, the great story telling, the fantastic CGI, and most importantly his love of long, intense action. This is exemplified in his ten minute action sequence in which King Kong fights not one, not two, but three tyrannosaurus rexes. This scene, simply put, owns your face. My level of excitement was already pretty high with my enjoyment of Jackson’s direction and Naomi Watts’ shrill scream as a beckon; so when Kong dropped in and knocked one rex out of the way with his foot and tackled the second, I slid closer to the edge of my seat. When he dropped Watts from his hand and caught her with his foot, I slid a little closer. When a third T-rex joined the fight, I was almost to the edge. When they fell off the cliff and fought for 2 minutes in the vines and Watts was perilously close to death, I nearly fell out of my seat. It was only after Kong had his encore fight with the final t-rex and wreaked its face for life, that I fell out of my seat, stood up, went to the ticket booth to pay an additional 10 dollars (as I thought the movie was worth $20). Uh, good times.
Bourne vs. Desh
I’m sorry to the fans of the Bourne trilogy, but 'Bourne Ultimatum' was actually the only Bourne movie that I enjoyed. Why didn't I like its predecessors? I have my reasons, and would gladly elaborate on them for those who care. But fans and non-fans alike, there is definitely one thing that we can agree on, the close quarters fight scene with Desh and Bourne was the epitome of ruthless. The gritty, true feel of the fight was what shocked me. For the first time in a long time, I felt as if this was actually the way a fight would play out between two highly trained agents. There were no wires, no overly fancy combat techniques; it was as if the two men were just doing whatever they could to survive. Grab a candle stick, grab a book, punch book into face, throw into wall, use whatever you can to kill your opponent before he kills you. And in the end, there is no grand shoot out or elaborate kick out the window; Desh is undone by a towel that Bourne uses to strangle him to death in a bath tub. Superbly gritty.
The hose fight of ‘Transporter 2’
Sure this was done in ‘Romeo must die’ well before 'Transporter 1' was even a thought, but sometimes it takes one movie to introduce a concept and another movie to improve upon it. This is the case with the hose fight in 'Transporter 2'. Looking back on it now the fight is a little out dated, but it was sweet when I first saw it. The quick whipping of the hose, the brutal punches to the throat, and the climax of turning the hose on and demolishing whatever will was left in the opponents. Brilliant! But lets be honest with ourselves, when has Statham ever let us down...
First encounter of the Spartans with the Persians in '300'
No action category can be brought up without the mention of ‘300’. Yes yes, the acting was bad and the story was simple, screw you. The story isn’t why anyone thought it was so great, this movie was 100% about the action. With stylistic direction and over the top testosterone, the first fight in ‘300’ goes down as one of my all time favorite experiences in a movie theater. I was literally giggling like a little school girl as Leonidas was captured in slow motion castrating a massive army of his enemy. Of course the slow motion shield-butt was the climax of the fight, but I enjoyed the scene from moment one. The Spartans form a wall of resistance to the Persians, a messenger rides to the front of the enemy hoard and says, “lay down your weapons” (I’m giggling already), a spear flies through the air and drills the Persian square in the chest, and Leonidas responds, “come get them”. Oh man, that is what I’m talking about. The army then rushes on in what should be an easy victory, but a few minutes later we get the great cinematic scene of the 300 unharmed, walking over a mountain of dead enemies as they push the ranks back. What I wouldn’t give to be a Spartan.
‘Terminator 2’ the fight in the steel mill
I know I’m bringing in this old timer from out of left field, but you can’t deny that some recognition is deserved here. Aside from being a breakthrough in computer animation, the liquid terminator was a pretty cool villain. Though the most referenced scene in the movie is the T-1000 chasing the police car and attacking it with his arm-hooks, my favorite scene in the movie was the fight in the steel mill after the T-1000 is frozen, shattered, melted, and reformed. This is the best robot fight, pre ‘I Robot’ that I had ever seen. They slam each other into walls, stab each other and in the case of the T-1000 completely overwhelm thier opponent. The cool reforming of body parts to be other body parts and the particularly awesome complete inverse of front to back was great. The sad part is that everyone including Arnold knew that he didn't have a shot at winning the fight. It’s sort of sad really. But awesome none-the-less.
The opening club fight of “Blade”
Though the Blade franchises has few redeeming qualities, the ones that exist are actually quite cool. One of these being the opening club fight in the first ‘Blade’. Not only a great way to introduce the character, the villains, and the special effects, but a great way to remind us that Wesley is alive despite being MIA since 'Demolition man' (please, let's ignore 'Too Wong Foo'). Though some of the action dynamics are outdated (bad guys waiting to be beaten up one by one), the fighting is not. These cool martial arts moves still hold the test of time and manage to bring a smile to my face even now. The shaky camera work is another cool feature that I always thought made action sequences slightly more exciting (though Bay and Neveldine take it to a seizure inducing level). And need I remind everyone about the sword! One of the best parts of this scene is when Blade unsheathes his sword, draws a line on the ground and demolishes the first person to cross it. Surprisingly, none of the other fight scenes amongst the three Blade movies manages to reach the level of this first fight. Too bad…
Well, that’s my top ten list. Obviously there are some pretty key members of the genera that are missing here, but why don’t you let me know your top ten below. Full Review!
Finally, news about "The Game of Thrones" HBO adaptation!
Hollywood Reporter has given us something I have been wanting for quite sometime: News about "The Game of Thrones". The HBO series based on the George R.R. Martin books The Song of Ice and Fire is set to start filming in Ireland in October of this year. Sean Bean (Borimir of "Lord of the rings") is to play the beloved Eddard Stark of Winterfell. Personally I think aside from the blonde hair (which strikes me as being more lannister), Bean is perfect. He has the chizzled features and the facial hair I imagined. I think some black hair dye will give him the dark hue of the Starks. Mark Addy is set to play King Robert Baratheon. The only two places I know this guy from are Roland from a "Knight’s tale" and Fred in the atrocious second Flinstones movie ("Viva rock vegas"). I think this guy is actually a really good fit, as long as he can play the serious part better than he does comedy. Kit Harrington has been cast as Jon Snow. I don’t know anything about this Harrington fellow, but Jon is my character, so I pray that this no-name can represent. I have faith. Harry Lloyd will play the power hungry, powerless, Viserys. Jack Gleeson will play Joffery Baratheon, the son of King Robert and hier to the Throne of Swords. The best news yet, Peter Dinklage is set to play the one and only Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion is my favorite character in the series, and Dinklage is my favorite dwarf. This must be destiny.
One aspect I am slightly pensive about is director Tomas McCarthy. Clearly Tom has talent, watch just a few minutes of "The Station Agent", or "The Visitor", and you can see it. However, neither of these movies is either epic or of the medieval tone. Don’t worry, I am keeping the faith because after all, who thought Jackson was going to do what he did.
I guess the worst news is that neither screenplay writer has anything of consequence under their belt; David Benioff ("Troy", "Stay", "X-men Origins”) D.B. Weiss ("The Game"). But keep the faith!
For those who aren't in the loop, The Song of Ice and Fire is a story that revolves around many great battles between seven great families (with that number growing) for control of the Iron Throne. Not only does the Iron Throne bestow power over the seven kingdoms, but it ensures survival through the looming 40-year winter to come.
For those who are in the loop, what do you think of the casting choices? Full Review!
Production has begun on "The Hobbit"
Finally, "The Hobbit" has begun production as hobbit holes are being built in Matamata, New Zealand. The film is scheduled to start shooting asap. There will be two films scheduled to be shot simultaneously: "The Hobbit" and it’s sequel(?). Since there is no sequel to The Hobbit (excluding LOTR), I think they are just breaking "The Hobbit" up into two movies for both better story telling and better profit. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh of the "The Lord of the Rings" will be set as executive producers, but it is (da da da daaa) Guilermo del Toro that will be directing ("Pan's Labrinth" and "Hell Boy II"). They could not have picked a better director to take up the reigns! Only a director with a sense of epic action and a touch of horror could make The Hobbit films in the same tone as the LOTR movies; Toro can do just that. The movies are set to release in the upcoming two Decembers (2010 and 2011). For more information, read the official blog site The Hobbit BlogFull Review!
First Look at Johansson as Black Widow in Iron Man 2
Here is our first look at Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in May 2010’s Iron Man 2. To be honest, I hate Scarlett (almost as much as I hate Colin Farrell…almost), but I have to admit the black leather may allow me to put aside my gripes for 2 hours. Below is a picture of Mickey Rourke in his role as Iron Man villain Whiplash. Seeing as the suit looks a little too dated to be competitive with Stark’s ‘titanium alloy’ suit, I assume what we see Rourke wearing is more like a prototype/early design. My guess is that we’ll see a suit worthy of taking on two adversaries by the end (Iron man and War machine). Though the plot of the movie is under wraps by director Jon Favreau, this is what we do know.
Tony Stark has fallen into a battle with alcoholism, which affects not only Stark industries but his career as a ‘super hero’. Taking advantage of this is Russian villain Ivan Vanko, who dons a suit equipped with two steel whips and an array of gadgets as his alter ego Whiplash. War machine will aid Iron Man in the fight, but it is the aid of Russian spy Natalia Romanova/Black Widow that is necessary for the victory (Why? Who knows.) Eventually good guys win, bad guys lose.
That’s all that is known officially about the script. However, I have some pretty probable speculations.
Justin Hammer is another villain who makes an appearance in the second movie. Justin is owner of Hammer industries, a competitor of Stark Industries. As Whiplash is associated with Hammer industries in the comics, my guess is that in response to Tony Stark’s revelation that he was Iron Man, Justin will launch Whiplash as a marketing strategy. If whiplash can defeat Iron Man, then it would show that his company had superior engineering strategies and would bring in clientele (probably putting Stark out of business). However, the competition will be steep as War machine is a guarantee for this second film. This leads me to believe that more likely than not, we are in for a multi-villain treat. I don’t think compelling action sequences can be made around one man taking on both Stark Suits. Since there is a hoard of villains associated with Hammer Industries in the comics, it is likely that we will see another 'bad guy'.
How does black widow fit into this? My guess is that Hammer industries will be based in Russia and that the company is doing some bad stuff under the table. Black widow will be sent by the Russian government to help Tony break the case wide open and bring the company down.
Now my real concern, where does SHIELD fit into this? The plot already sounds pretty dense, the last thing I want is the mistake of bloating the sequel with quantity over quality. My hope is that the film opens with some really cool SHIELD action sequence with some random villain cameo and then SHIELD leaves the movie. That would be enough to remind us that Iron Man is involved with SHIELD (for the "Avengers" movie), but not too much that SHIELD takes over the second movie, which should be about Iron Man. Perhaps SHIELD even suspends stark for his alcohol problem early on and then re-admits him at the end when he has defeated Whiplash. I guess we’ll see. What do you guys think? Full Review!
A Look at “Avatar”!
I don’t know how many of you are looking forward to James Cameron’s Avatar this December, but I’m going to assume it’s everyone. Never before have I heard a movie called a 'master piece' well before it was even in post production. Though hype is often mis-leading, I’m the fool who falls for it every time. The guys with ‘The Insider’ have recently been privileged enough to get a screening of actual footage from the first hour of the movie, and my hype is hitting critical mass. “I've just returned from a preview screening of James Cameron's hugely anticipated movie "Avatar" at the Cinema Expo in Amsterdam and I'm still feeling the after effects of this jaw-dropping experience… In the first scene we see Sam Worthington's crippled ex-marine Jake Sully, who just arrived on the planet 'Pandora.'…Sigourney Weaver's Dr. Grace Augustine explains to Jake how the process of transporting your mind into an Avatar works. Although the scene is mostly exposition, we've got a good look at the lab and more importantly we get a first glimpse of the Avatars, the Na'Vi lookalikes. These tall blue creatures lie in water tanks, waiting for their human to 'jump' in their bodies… It's the third scene where my heart begins to pound like crazy. Jake and Norm will inhabit their Avatar for the first time. They enter some sort of capsule and - flash – their mind enters the blue creatures, now lying on hospital tables. And not before long Avatar Jake wakes up. And it took my breath away. I thought--just like you guys--that I've seen it all with Gollum, or The Hulk, but Cameron has done it again. These creatures seem so real, that within minutes you forget you're watching an enormous and very blue CGI character. Even the eyes are totally convincing. The characters have real personalities and a soul. In the next couple of scenes…my mind begins to work overtime. How the hell is it possible that I never once felt like I've been watching a movie where almost everything comes out of a computer? …The last scene wasn't completed. What we saw, was sort of a video-game version of the mother of all battles. Countless numbers of Na'Vi riding their Banshees [dragon-like creatures] attack [an invading human] fleet. I can't wait to see the battle fully rendered. Overall I was really impressed by what I saw. The effects are in a league of their own. After some disappointing or even pointless 3-D movies, "Avatar" may be the first movie where 3-D is properly utilized.”
Yep, that just happened. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about a science fiction/fantasy movie since “LOTR: The Two Towers” (I admit, “Revenge of the Sith” did not excite me until I actually saw it). Below are some pictures (concept art) to help put visuals to your excitement.
What do you guys think, will Cameron return to cinema—after a 12 year absence—as a legend?
After watching 'Transformers 2' and anticipating 'GI Joe', I got to thinking about all of the great action sequences I’ve seen in past movies. To be honest, for as many action movies as there have been, there haven’t been that many action sequences that really made me say, “wow, that’s some crazy sh**.” I realized this fact when I watched 'Transformers 2'; though the movie was pretty much non-stop action, there was only one scene in which I was on the edge of my seat frothing at the mouth. And so I got to thinking, what makes an action scene more awesome than another. In trying to figure out the answer I scanned through some of my favorite sequences from the movies I could recall. Though I haven’t quite come up with an answer, I have come up with a list of my top 10 favorite action sequences. Please read on and let me know what you think. Feel free to make me aware of deserving candidates that were not on this list (remember top 10, not top 25). The list isn’t in any order, because ranking these would have been pulling hairs for me.
Though the movie has gotten a lot of flack since it has been released, there is no one that can deny that the forest fight with Optimus prime against 3 decepticons was off the chain (not even the blind, as the sound effects were pretty crazy too). This was the single greatest sequence in the ‘Transformers 2’ movie. If the theater played this scene on loop, I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself. I’d be unable to leave my seat and would probably have a stroke. This scene works for sooo many reasons. One, good guy outnumbered by his opponents; the underdog. Two, swords! Everyone knows that a fight is ten times cooler if there is a sword involved. Think about how much better ‘Push’ would have been if somebody had a sword (‘Harry Potter’ too for that matter). Three, a bawler line followed by bloodshed, a.k.a. “I’ll take you all on" soon followed by gratuitous, animated, robot, violence. This scene had it all. 
Again, there are a lot of Spiderman haters out there, but let me just make you aware that ‘Spiderman 2’ is the best marvel superhero movie behind 'Iron Man'. So haters, get yourselves into perspective. As being one of the best superhero movies, ‘Spiderman 2’ also has one of the greatest fight sequences I have ever seen. The fight was fast and clever and didn’t relish itself with slow motion capture. The fight went down as I would imagine it to have in real life with both characters pulling out all the stops to topple the other. One sequence in particular that was sweet was when spidy webbed ock’s tentacles and ock says “Fu** this” and uses the move against spidy to throw him through an over head bridge. But wait, the great counter is that spidy has an agile move of his own and slips right through the grates of the bridge, pops out the other side and takes the villain over the edge of the train. Awesome! This action sequence is also accentuated by the high speed of the train upon which they fight. This allowed for the cool ducking under bridges and webbing the train to reboard when kicked off.
If I need to enumerate on the reasons why this scene is awesome, you reader are simply a lost cause. This scene was in fact the coolest action scene in any movie anywhere prior to 1998. The innovative use of slow motion, the physics defying protagonists, and the endless army of poorly aimed automatic weapons. Neo is the only character that Keanu Reeves’ monotonic, expressionless, cardboard character has done incredible justice for since ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’.
Though I have my love for Vader and I’ve come to appreciate Palpatine and Dukoo as well, I still vote Darth Maul the coolest sith in the series. He has all of 15 minutes of on screen time in the entire franchise, and the impression he made was so strong that many people have put him as a favorite character (as judged by his presence in many of the video games, T-shirts, top action figure sales, etc). Why was he so popular? Was it the neat black and red tattoos, the horns of the Zabrak, the double sided lightsaber? Yeah it was all of those things too, but most importantly it was because he was played by Ray Park. Is Park a famous actor? No, but he is a great martial arts practitioner. As a result, we got to see the best saber wielding the franchise has to offer. With the flipping and the fast blade attacks, Maul’s double-team fight is a thing of legend. Even more intense than the 2 vs 1 fight, is the segment of the fight that I call “Obi’s Rage” in which Obi Wan Kenobi goes ape sh** on Maul after he kills Qui Gon. The sword wielding is blazing fast and super athletic. It was a joy to watch then and still brings me amusement on Youtube now. As an end note, Maul also has one of the best sith entrances to a fight: the doors slowly slide open, he pulls back his cloak hood, and lights one, then two sides of his saber. Bawler!
Though 'King Kong' was not as well received by the general public as it was by me, I disagree with most in saying that Peter Jackson dropped the ball after the LOTR trilogy. ‘King Kong’ has all of the same Jackson motifs that we have come accustom to in his previous movies; the dark tribes, the overly long moments of facial emotion, the great story telling, the fantastic CGI, and most importantly his love of long, intense action. This is exemplified in his ten minute action sequence in which King Kong fights not one, not two, but three tyrannosaurus rexes. This scene, simply put, owns your face. My level of excitement was already pretty high with my enjoyment of Jackson’s direction and Naomi Watts’ shrill scream as a beckon; so when Kong dropped in and knocked one rex out of the way with his foot and tackled the second, I slid closer to the edge of my seat. When he dropped Watts from his hand and caught her with his foot, I slid a little closer. When a third T-rex joined the fight, I was almost to the edge. When they fell off the cliff and fought for 2 minutes in the vines and Watts was perilously close to death, I nearly fell out of my seat. It was only after Kong had his encore fight with the final t-rex and wreaked its face for life, that I fell out of my seat, stood up, went to the ticket booth to pay an additional 10 dollars (as I thought the movie was worth $20). Uh, good times.
I’m sorry to the fans of the Bourne trilogy, but 'Bourne Ultimatum' was actually the only Bourne movie that I enjoyed. Why didn't I like its predecessors? I have my reasons, and would gladly elaborate on them for those who care. But fans and non-fans alike, there is definitely one thing that we can agree on, the close quarters fight scene with Desh and Bourne was the epitome of ruthless. The gritty, true feel of the fight was what shocked me. For the first time in a long time, I felt as if this was actually the way a fight would play out between two highly trained agents. There were no wires, no overly fancy combat techniques; it was as if the two men were just doing whatever they could to survive. Grab a candle stick, grab a book, punch book into face, throw into wall, use whatever you can to kill your opponent before he kills you. And in the end, there is no grand shoot out or elaborate kick out the window; Desh is undone by a towel that Bourne uses to strangle him to death in a bath tub. Superbly gritty.
Sure this was done in ‘Romeo must die’ well before 'Transporter 1' was even a thought, but sometimes it takes one movie to introduce a concept and another movie to improve upon it. This is the case with the hose fight in 'Transporter 2'. Looking back on it now the fight is a little out dated, but it was sweet when I first saw it. The quick whipping of the hose, the brutal punches to the throat, and the climax of turning the hose on and demolishing whatever will was left in the opponents. Brilliant! But lets be honest with ourselves, when has Statham ever let us down...
No action category can be brought up without the mention of ‘300’. Yes yes, the acting was bad and the story was simple, screw you. The story isn’t why anyone thought it was so great, this movie was 100% about the action. With stylistic direction and over the top testosterone, the first fight in ‘300’ goes down as one of my all time favorite experiences in a movie theater. I was literally giggling like a little school girl as Leonidas was captured in slow motion castrating a massive army of his enemy. Of course the slow motion shield-butt was the climax of the fight, but I enjoyed the scene from moment one. The Spartans form a wall of resistance to the Persians, a messenger rides to the front of the enemy hoard and says, “lay down your weapons” (I’m giggling already), a spear flies through the air and drills the Persian square in the chest, and Leonidas responds, “come get them”. Oh man, that is what I’m talking about. The army then rushes on in what should be an easy victory, but a few minutes later we get the great cinematic scene of the 300 unharmed, walking over a mountain of dead enemies as they push the ranks back. What I wouldn’t give to be a Spartan.
I know I’m bringing in this old timer from out of left field, but you can’t deny that some recognition is deserved here. Aside from being a breakthrough in computer animation, the liquid terminator was a pretty cool villain. Though the most referenced scene in the movie is the T-1000 chasing the police car and attacking it with his arm-hooks, my favorite scene in the movie was the fight in the steel mill after the T-1000 is frozen, shattered, melted, and reformed. This is the best robot fight, pre ‘I Robot’ that I had ever seen. They slam each other into walls, stab each other and in the case of the T-1000 completely overwhelm thier opponent. The cool reforming of body parts to be other body parts and the particularly awesome complete inverse of front to back was great. The sad part is that everyone including Arnold knew that he didn't have a shot at winning the fight. It’s sort of sad really. But awesome none-the-less.
Though the Blade franchises has few redeeming qualities, the ones that exist are actually quite cool. One of these being the opening club fight in the first ‘Blade’. Not only a great way to introduce the character, the villains, and the special effects, but a great way to remind us that Wesley is alive despite being MIA since 'Demolition man' (please, let's ignore 'Too Wong Foo'). Though some of the action dynamics are outdated (bad guys waiting to be beaten up one by one), the fighting is not. These cool martial arts moves still hold the test of time and manage to bring a smile to my face even now. The shaky camera work is another cool feature that I always thought made action sequences slightly more exciting (though Bay and Neveldine take it to a seizure inducing level). And need I remind everyone about the sword! One of the best parts of this scene is when Blade unsheathes his sword, draws a line on the ground and demolishes the first person to cross it. Surprisingly, none of the other fight scenes amongst the three Blade movies manages to reach the level of this first fight. Too bad…
Here is our first look at Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in May 2010’s Iron Man 2. To be honest, I hate Scarlett (almost as much as I hate Colin Farrell…almost), but I have to admit the black leather may allow me to put aside my gripes for 2 hours. Below is a picture of Mickey Rourke in his role as Iron Man villain Whiplash. Seeing as the suit looks a little too dated to be competitive with Stark’s ‘titanium alloy’ suit, I assume what we see Rourke wearing is more like a prototype/early design. My guess is that we’ll see a suit worthy of taking on two adversaries by the end (Iron man and War machine).
Though the plot of the movie is under wraps by director Jon Favreau, this is what we do know.
I don’t know how many of you are looking forward to James Cameron’s Avatar this December, but I’m going to assume it’s everyone. Never before have I heard a movie called a 'master piece' well before it was even in post production. Though hype is often mis-leading, I’m the fool who falls for it every time.
