Movie Review The Expendables

The Expendables (2010) 

Directed by Sylvester Stallone

Written by David Callaham, Sylvester Stallone 

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Stone Cold Steve Austin

Release Date August 13th, 2010 

Published August 12th, 2010

Take your hands and press them against the sides of your head. Now, hold them there and press as hard as you can. Stay that way for the next 103 minutes and you will have an equivalent experience to having seen “The Expendables,” Sylvester Stallone's latest desperate attempt to remain relevant.

”The Expendables” stars Stallone alongside a rogue’s gallery of has-beens, wannabes, never-wears and Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke lending his rediscovered cool to the proceedings. The has beens include Jason Statham and Jet Li as Christmas and Yang, two of Stallone's, aka Barney, fellow mercenaries for hire, former military specialists now available to the highest bidder.

Also on the team UFC champion Randy Couture, former NFL player Terry Crews and sad, pathetic former B-movie star Dolph Lundgren. Together this ragtag band is off to some unknown isle to battle today's bad guy du jour, the rogue CIA agent. This time he's played by Eric Roberts in fine high camp form.

Stallone wrote, directed and stars in “The Expendables'' and much like his previous auteurist efforts like “Rocky ..2”.. through infinity and the recent “Rambo'' reboot, “The Expendables'' has flashes of inspiration but is mostly amateurish, off key and gut punching loud and violent. Clearly, this won't be an issue for the core of Stallone's audience, those already punch-drunk from months of UFC pay per views and neck vein popping work outs. For those seeking coherence or a story The Expendables is torturous. Call it water-boarding for the soul. 

There are times when “The Expendables” feels as if it is pummeling the audience's visual and auditory fists. Stallone and his editing team cut “The Expendables” in a fashion that will spin the heads of even the most cut friendly music video directors. Fight scenes are placed in a blender with images so randomly thrust forward it's impossible to tell whose head is being busted. 

This likely helped the aging cast look a little sprayer; Mr. Statham is the only member of the male cast under the age of 40. I say male cast rather unnecessarily as Charisma Carpenter and Giselle Itie are the only female cast members but neither is nothing more than a minor damsel in distress subplot. 

When “The Expendables” slows down for moments of dialogue the editing remains front and center thanks to Sly's bizarre angles; he really thinks angling off of mirrors is clever direction. If you manage to not be distracted by the editing be prepared for nonsense dialogue meant to make the characters seem quirky, instead it just makes the whole movie flaky and cheese ridden. 

I would love to say that you could enjoy “The Expendables” on a camp level, especially the scene featuring Stallone hanging off the side of a sea plane on take off in fine physics defying fashion, but sadly the whole of “The Expendables” is too harsh for any enjoyment to escape.

Even “The Expendables” centerpiece bit of camp, Stallone uniting his old Planet Hollywood pals Bruce Willis and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, falls flat because  of Stallone's bizarre direction. Through odd camera angles and strange cuts it's impossible to tell if Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone were ever actually on screen at the same time. Willis and Stallone are in frame together briefly and Stallone and Schwarzenegger are as well but never all three unless Stallone's editing team was truly so horrible that they cut the three shots, that's possible.

What's more likely is that this meeting of the action hero minds never happened and was faked in the editing. To be fair, it was a cheap ploy anyway, hard to criticize it for that. Still, it's disappointing, especially when seeing Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis together on screen, even for 2 or 3 minutes of mindless exposition, was the one minor pleasure that might have escaped the dreariness that is “The Expendables.”

Movie Review: The Forbidden Kingdom

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) 

Directed by Rob Minkoff 

Written by John Fusco 

Starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano

Release Date April 18th, 2008 

Published April 19th, 2008

The first teaming of Jackie Chan and Jet Li delivers one solid fight scene. In a monastery the two masters face each other down and neither can capture a full advantage. It's an alright scene, a good fight but with both Chan and Li playing good guys in The Forbidden Kingdom it is a brief fight and the better man is never close to decided.

In The Forbidden Kingdom Michael Angarano stars as  Jason, a Boston teenager with a love of kung fu movies. One day, when visiting his favorite Chinatown pawn shop, run by his friend, the kindly old Hop (Jackie Chan), he comes across a beautiful golden staff. Hop tells Jason that the staff must be returned to it's rightful owner and keeps Jason away from it.

Later, when Jason is attacked by local bullies they take him back to Hop's shop where they plan on his help robbing the old shop keep. In the ensuing chaos, Jason is given the staff by Hop and told to take it to it's rightful owner. Soon, Jason is unconscious and when he awakens his somewhere in China and somewhere in the past.

Taken in by martial arts master Lu Yang (Jackie Chan, again), Jason explains his extraordinary journey and Lu Yang tells Jason the story of the staff. It belonged to the Monkey King who was an immortal master, beloved by the gods but envied by the Jade Emporer (Colin Chou). Seeing the Monkey King as a threat to his power he tricks him and encases him in Jade, not before the Monkey King delivered his staff into the future.

Jason and Lu Yang must return the staff to the five elements mountain where the statue of the Monkey King resides and release him if Jason is to be returned home. Along the way they are joined by Golden Sparrow who is seeking revenge on the Jade Emporer and the Silent Monk (Jet Li) whose connection to the Monkey King is will be recognizable to the most observant viewers.

The Forbidden Kingdom succeeds when keeping things light and high off the ground. When Jackie Chan, Jet Li and the rest are flying around as if gravity were merely a choice, Forbidden Kingdom is alot of fun. However, when grounded and spouting about Monkey King's, the gods, the elements and what not, it grows tired quickly.

Director Rob Minkoff (Haunted Mansion) has a good eye for the kung fu and high wire acts but a tin ear for character and dialogue. The thudding plot doesn't too often get in the way of Chan and Li flying with the greatest of ease, but it does get in the way enough for the plot to trip along the way. Things are not helped by young Michael Angarano who looks like Ralph Macchio minus the appealing personality.

The Forbidden Kingdom doesn't exactly hit a home run for the first teaming of Jackie Chan and Jet Li. However, with these two kung fu masters getting up there in age we really cannot expect much more. We get one good face off and a number of good fights where they are on the same side. Would I liked to have seen them head to head a little more? Sure, who wouldn't but that is a different movie.

The Forbidden Kingdom is a family movie with some kung fu not a kung fu movie. Judging the intent, it's not a bad family movie. A little clunky and disposable. But not bad.

Movie Review: War

War (2007) 

Directed by Cory Yuen 

Written by Lee Anthony Smith, Gregory J. Bradley

Starring Jason Statham, Jet Li, Devon Aoki, Luis Guzman, Saul Rubinek

Release Date August 24th, 2007

Published August 24th, 2007

What a cool idea! Put Jet Li and Jason Statham together in a movie and have them beat the holy hell out of each other. It's the urban action movie equivalent of Freddy Vs Jason, if it's done right. You can't just put them in the same movie and then not deliver on the badass, hand to hand beatdown. Sadly, War does not deliver on this promise. This mindless shoot'em up places Li and Statham on opposite ends of a gang war and then, when it finally comes down to the two of them, as you know it should, War becomes a minor police action.

Jason Statham stars in War as Crawford a San Francisco FBI agent specializing in Asian crime gangs, the Yakuza and the Triads. When his partner and his family is murdered by the top Triad assassin, known only as Rogue (Jet Li), Crawford abandons his own loving wife and small child and goes on a three year, non-stop mission to find and kill Rogue.

After years of Rogue reshaping his face and globetrotting all over the world, he finally returns to San Francisco in unusual fashion. Having been the top assassin for the Triads, he returns to San Francisco and begins killing top Triad lieutenants. Soon he is helping the Yakuza obtain priceless art from the Triads only to then get the Triad guys killed. Essentially, Rogue has gone Rogue and is starting a war to kill off both gangs.

Crawford recognizes what Rogue is up too but cannot get past the death of his partner. Whether Rogue is doing him and the world a favor by eliminating two of the world's top crime organizations, Crawford still intends to kill Rogue. Thus the set up for what should be an epic showdown. Bullets fly, hundreds of extras are gunned down, all leading to the climactic head to head. And then.... And then...

Nothing. Well, not quite nothing. Jet Li and Jason Statham do get to go head to head but the fight, as choreographed and directed by Cory Yuen, it's beyond anti-climactic. Held at the mercy of a rather ludicrous plot twist, the fight is almost reserved, even genteel by Li and Statham standards. It ends at the mercy of the plot twist and the letdown drags down the whole film.

Though Jason Statham and Jet Li have worked together before in 2001's The One. However, they weren't really on the same star plain at that time. Statham was still a rising star and that interesting sci fi action flick ended not with Li vs Statham but Jet vs Jet Li. War finds Jet Li and Jason Statham as equals, Statham having rode The Transporter flicks to action star status, thus anticipation for their face off was high.

The whole movie lives and dies on Statham against Li and when director Cory Yuen blows that, he blows the whole picture. The fight is listless, uninspired and, as edited, almost incomprehensible. Then, of course, it ends too quickly at the mercy of one of the dumber plot twists we've seen in a while. If War were a better movie, the plot twist would have ruined it, as it is the plot twist only makes a bad situation worse.

War is a disappointment on even the modest scale of anticipation that greeted it. Action fans who wanted a knock down, drag out, hand to hand face off between Jet Li and Jason Statham will find little but disappointment in War. Li, as he has confessed in interviews, has clearly lost a step which may have contributed to the lackluster fight, but that does not excuse the failure of this potentially explosive face off.

If Jet Li couldn't go, he shouldn't have made the movie. Marketers should have especially not sold the film as a War between Jet Li and Jason Statham. What a jip.

Movie Review: Cradle 2 the Grave

Cradle 2 the Grave (2003) 

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak 

Written by John O'Brien 

Starring DMX, Jet Li, Anthony Anderson, Kelly Hu, Tom Arnold, Marc Dacascos, Gabrielle Union 

Release Date February 28th, 2003 

Published February 27th, 2003 

DMX has made it clear with the opening of his production company that the movie business isn't a hobby or a bandwagon-jumping fad. DMX the actor is dead serious about making a go of it in Hollywood. Unfortunately for DMX, Hollywood is not yet taking him seriously, sticking him with bad B-movie action scripts like the one he's saddled with in Cradle 2 the Grave, which, much like his last film Exit Wounds, casts him as the anti-hero with a heart of gold. It is a tiresome formula from which he will have a hard time.

In Cradle 2 the Grave, DMX is a diamond thief named Tony Fait who, along with his crew (including Anthony Anderson and Gabrielle Union) knock over a huge diamond vault in broad daylight. Unfortunately, they are being watched and followed by a shady Taiwanese law enforcement agent named Su (Jet Li). Just when it seems that the crew has pulled a successful heist, Su sends in the cops and Tony and company escape with only a fraction of their loot.

What they did get away with is a very valuable and mysterious bag of black diamonds. Having never seen anything like them before, Fait takes the diamond to a expert fence played by comedian Tom Arnold. Before the fence can find anything out about the diamonds, they are stolen by a rival gang headed up by Boston Public's Chi McBride. It gets worse. The original owners of the black diamonds, headed up by straight-to-video legend Mark Dacascos, want their diamonds back and take Fait's eight-year-old daughter in order to get Fait to give them what they want. (The child in danger plot is the hallmark of hack screenwriting.) Now, with nowhere to turn, Fait must team with Su to get his daughter and the diamonds, which are actually a powerful new terrorist weapon created by the Taiwanese government.

Director Adrzej Bartkowiak, who also helmed Exit Wounds, gives Cradle 2 the Gravea strong music video slickness that work well during the fight scenes, which are choreographed to the film's strong point, its soundtrack. If only the film were as entertaining as it is music. Unfortunately, it's not.

Still struggling with English, Li is given little to do when he isn't fighting bad guys. This puts the dramatic onus on DMX, who has a strong presence but is still a little too raw to be a leading man. The supporting cast is not bad; Union gives an especially strong accounting of herself showing off some kick-ass moves that she's never shown before. Anderson manages to keep his most annoying traits in check, though he is still somewhat grating, especially in the obviously improvised moments.

Poor Mark Dacascos is laughable as the villain. With his vapidity oozing over every sentence, Dacascos is one of least intimidating baddies in a long time. This guy is supposed to be a criminal mastermind; I doubt this guy could mastermind a convenience store robbery let alone negotiate an international arms deal. He, of course, is stuck with the film's most unintentionally chuckle-inducing moments when he addresses the world's foremost arms dealers by saying, "You are the world's most foremost arms dealers." Thanks for the plot update, genius.

Cradle 2 the Grave is yet another chase-scene, explosion, special-effect, action movie on auto-pilot. A film that had a cast and a poster before it had a script, Cradle 2 the Grave is a marketer's dream and an intelligent moviegoer's nightmare.

Movie Review: The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) 

Directed by Rob Cohen 

Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar 

Starring Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Russell Wong, Michelle Yeoh 

Release Date August 1st, 2008 

Published July 30th, 2008 

Brenden Fraser has long been one of my favorite actors. No actor does big, goofy galoot, nearly as well as Fraser who has essayed roles as a caveman, as George of the Jungle, and in the Mummy movies a 40's era action movie leading man. Often, even when the movie really stinks Fraser remains above the fray, a goofy, good time presence. Unfortunately, even Fraser's good natured goofiness can't rescue the latest in the Mummy series, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. By the end of this 2 plus hour slog even Fraser seems tired.

When we rejoin the Mummy-verse, Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, replacing the not returning Rachel Weisz) have retired from the adventure business. After turning back the attack of the mummy Imhotep twice, and even an encounter with the Scorpion King, Rick and Evy are in a welcome respite. At home in their stately manse in England they spend lazy days fishing, writing and being bored out of their minds.

Yes, they actually miss the days when they were risking their lives against supernatural forces and narrowly escaping death through cunning and guile. So, when a British official shows up asking them to return to duty to accompany an ancient artifact to China they leap at the chance. And, as luck would have it, Evy's brother John happens to have moved to Shanghai and opened a nightclub.

Meanwhile, Rick and Evy's son Alex (Luke Ford) happens to be in China discovering the lost tomb of the legendary Dragon Emperor (Jet Li). Unfortunately, after he makes his discovery, Luke gets double crossed and a group of military exiles take possession of the Emperor and set about restoring him to eternal life. Now, Luke and his parents must join forces with an ancient witch (Michelle Yeoh) and her daughter (Isabella Leong) to battle the resurrected dragon emperor and his army of Terra cottar warriors.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was directed by Rob Cohen with a tin ear for melodrama and big action. Listening to characters in this latest Mummy movie chat, you get a painful series of scenes where characters state what just happened ir what happens next in stultifying exposition. It's the most perfunctory, irritating explication you can imagine. When they aren't explaining things to us that we are already painfully aware of, characters are professing their feelings to each other with lunkhead-ed platitudes that would make the folks at Hallmark wretch.

Of course, you can't expect a Mummy movie to have great dialogue, if you've seen the previous two blockbusters, and the offshoot, The Scorpion King, you know what you can expect of the script. You have to just hope going in that there won't be so much of those endless reams of expostion. Hopefully you get big action and effects scenes to drown out whatever waste of breath dialogue there may be. Stephen Sommers, who directed the first two Mummy movies, mastered the ability to put action and effects ahead of all else.

Unfortunately, Sommers is gone and replaced by Rob Cohen whose resume includes XXX and Stealth. Those films stink pretty bad but The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor somehow manages to be even worse. On top of the horrendous dialogue and atrocious melodrama, the action and effects of this Mummy sequel stink. Like digital Ed Wood characters, the digital armies of the dead look worse than most modern video-games and are a hell of a lot less interesting.

Compounding the problems is the grounding of Jet Li. Promoting Jet Li as the Dragon Emperor was a downright lie. Li's role is little more than a cameo. The dragon emperor is more often than not a dull special effect that hardly even looked like Jet Li. When Jet Li does show up he is asked to actually act as opposed to leap about and do things we want Jet Li to do. It's a baffling choice but essentially the filmmakers chose a bad CGI of Jet Li over the real life Jet, arguably one the greatest human special effects of all time.

As a third movie The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor had low expectations when it was completed and somehow manages to come in worse than those expectations. This is a tremendously bad movie that leaves little doubt why Oscar nominee Rachel Weisz rejected the idea of coming back to the role of Evy. With a script this bad and a director this inept it's a wonder this film attracted the onscreen talent it did. I'm still a fan of Brenden Fraser and with the charming Journey To The Center of the earth in theaters, it's not to hard to forget Tomb of the Dragon Emporer. I just cannot forget it fast enough.