Movie Review Tekken

Tekken (2010) 

Directed by Dwight Little 

Written by Alan B. McElroy 

Starring John Foo, Kelly Overton, Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa, Cung Le, Luke Goss 

Release Date March 20th, 2010

Films based on video games rarely succeed. In fact, most of them are laughably bad. The most recent one is Tekken, a film based on Namco’s fighting game of the same name. While it doesn’t offer much in the area of story or character development, it does deliver some fast paced and extremely well choreographed fight scenes. It’s also nowhere near as bad as any of the Street Fighter films.

The film follows Jin (Jon Foo), a man who makes his living running from gangs and providing contraband to rebels fighting against the Tekken corporation; the corporate owner of what used to be America. The United States, along with every other country, was lost in war years ago and corporations rose up and took over.

To maintain order and placate the masses, the Tekken corporation instituted martial law and offered people the Iron Fist Tournament, a yearly ultimate fighting battle in which fighters from around the world battle to become the world champion. This, along with a thuggish, mindless army called Jack Hammers, keeps most of the population from rising up against their corporate overlords.

Jin was content to stay out of any possible rebellion until his mother was killed by Tekken soldiers. Newly motivated, Jin enters the Iron Fist Tournament intent on killing the rulers of the Tekken corporation, Heihachi (Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa) and his son Kazuya (Ian Anthony Dale). Along the way, Jin befriends an ex-fighter named Steve Fox (Luke Goss) and falls for fellow competitor Christie Monteiro (Kelly Overton).

One problem with the film is that the rules of the Iron Fist tournament are unclear at best and a complete mystery at worst. In the end, the tournament reaches its semifinal with eight competitors remaining and then suddenly moves on to the finals. Whether women compete against men in the tournament is unclear; but the ladies definitely fought guys in the game and the lack of girl vs guy fights in Tekken the movie is a politically correct choice that is likely to irk long time fans.

Speaking of fans ,those who enjoy the Tekken video game series, especially those in fealty to its legendary characters and storylines, should be prepared to be offended. Much of the lore and many of your favorite characters have been excised in favor of a slightly more straight forward storyline.

The fight choreography in Tekken was crafted by Cyril Raffaelli, the groundbreaking Parkour master who became famous for his incredible work on District B13 and its sequel. Raffaelli is aided by a well trained cast of mixed martial arts specialists, including a pair of Strikeforce champions, and star Jon Foo, who trained under Jackie Chan and is skilled in multiple fighting styles. While the plot of Tekken is extraneous and unimportant and the acting is so-so, the satisfyingly bloody and video game-esque fight scenes alone are worth the price of a rental.

As for the Blu-Ray presentation of Tekken, Anchor Bay is releasing the Blu-Ray and the transfer is more than adequate for a film of such limited visual dynamism. The filmmakers saved the best stuff for the fight scenes which really pop on Blu-Ray, with color and fast pace. The sounds of fist pounding flesh, bones breaking and the pulsing heavy metal score comes through with ear aching clarity in Dolby  True HD 5.1 and dialogue is always centered and clear.

As for special features, Tekken isn’t exactly the kind of movie that requires a film school dissection. There is one feature though that is quite good. It’s a look at the film’s excellent fight scenes and it’s dedicated to the extraordinary efforts of stunt coordinator Cyril Raffaelli. Considering that Raffaelli’s work is the best thing in the movie, it makes sense that it gets the only feature. Also included is a trailer, if that interests you.

If you’re going to pick up Tekken, know what you’re getting into. It’s by no means a great film, but it’s passable. The fighting is fantastic and it does manage to entertain. Those who are fans of the videogame may not take kindly to some of the creative choices at play here but overall, this isn’t nearly as bad as some of the other videogame based films that we’ve seen.

Movie Review Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Hellboy 2 The Golden Army (2008) 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Written by Guillermo Del Toro

Starring Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, Anna Walton, Doug Jones, Luke Goss

Release Date July 11th, 2008

Published July 10th, 2008

The most disappointing film of the summer, thus far, is Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. As a fan of the 2004 Hellboy movie from the exceptionally talented writer-director Guillermo Del Toro, I was stoked to see his follow up. Now, I wish he had just moved on to his next project, The Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army returns Ron Perlman to the role of Hellboy, a red demon fighter for humanity. For the uninitiated, Hellboy was discovered by the Nazis but raised by an American scientist. Working for the Bureau of Paranormal Affairs, a secret arm of the government, Hellboy fights battles that no one is supposed to know about.

Four years since Hellboy lost his father, played by John Hurt, and won the heart of Liz (Selma Blair), Hellboy remains a cantankerous, rebellious soul who can't resist getting his picture in the paper, over the objections of his boss (Jeffrey Tambor) who's forced to come up with ever more elaborate spin to convince people Hellboy doesn't exist.

Keeping Hellboy under wraps however becomes far less important once a former member of the Elf royal family, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), decides to end a centuries long truce with humanity. His goal? Destroy humanity and bring the creatures darkness into the light.

To do so Prince Nuada will call on the Golden Army, indestructible soldiers made of solid gold. Standing against him is his sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) who wants to keep the truce in place. She turns to Hellboy for protection and to Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) Hellboy's fishy best friend who falls head over gills in love with her.

Hellboy vs The Golden Army sounds like it should be a pretty awesome battle and as a special effect it's impressive

Unfortunately, it also will by the end be fought with little context and consequence to the story. Writer-director Guillermo Del Toro simply loses interest in the story and turns his attention to crafting creatures and giant special effects.

Some will find Del Toro's choice of visual splendor over storytelling to be dynamic and imaginative. For me however, I was quickly bored with the creatures and the giant effects and longed for the characters to deepen and the story to take on some meaning. I wanted the dueling love stories of Hellboy and Liz and Abe and the Princess to gain meaning.

And finally, I wanted the vibe of cool that Hellboy carried in the first film to return. In the first movie, Star Ron Perlman cultivated a Bogart-like air of detached cool mixed with vulnerability. In Hellboy 2 that vibe is replaced with a bizarre sense of humor that ranges from Men In Black lifts to references to Barry Manilow.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army has a number of unformed ideas that could have been more interesting. At one point in the movie Prince Nuada gets in his head about how humanity doesn't appreciate Hellboy, asking him why he still helps them. For a moment Hellboy is conflicted. The conflict lasts for about a minute and is then discarded. Worse yet, the same idea was played out with more depth and understanding in the X-Men movies. Essentially, the most interesting idea Hellboy 2 has has been done already and done far better.

With its bizarre sense of humor and focus on creature creation over story development, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army becomes an odd mélange of disappointments and undermined ideas. Yes, it's a good looking movie. But who cares.

Movie Review: The Man

The Man (2005) 

Directed by Les Mayfield 

Written by Jim Piddick, Stephen Carpenter

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Eugene Levy. Miguel Ferrer, Luke Goss, Anthony Mackie 

Release Date September 9th, 2005 

Published September 8th, 2005 

Both Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy have appeared in some very bad movies. Jackson has missed a number of opportunities to establish himself as an above the title star by choosing to star in subpar films like No Good Deed and Formula 51 and worse choices accepting supporting roles in bad movies like Twisted, Deep Blue Sea and Basic. 

Eugene Levy has always been a dependable supporting player but roles in bad movies like Bringing Down The House, New York Minute, and Like Mike have some wishing he would only accept work with his good friend Christopher Guest where Levy really excels. Given the actors' track records teaming them in a buddy comedy did not exactly scream hit movie. The Man is not as bad as some of their previous poor outings but certainly not among either actor's highlights.

In The Man Samuel L. Jackson essays the kind of take-no-crap badass cop, ATF agent Derrick Vann, that has become his own personal cliché. When a cache of guns is stolen and a cop is found dead it's up to Agent Vann to find who did it. In his take-no-prisoners way, Vann quickly gets a bead on the bad guys but he is about to be derailed in a most unexpected way.

Andy Fidlar (Eugene Levy) is a good husband and father who loves his job selling dental supplies. The pinnacle of Andy's career is a speech he is going to give in Detroit in front of hundreds of colleagues. Unfortunately for Andy things do not go as planned as he ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Accidentally intercepting Agent Vann's meeting with the bad guys, Andy now must join Vann to bring down the bad guys but only if Vann can resist the urge to kill the annoying and bumbling Andy.

The plot of The Man is established quickly and efficiently with characters suitably introduced and motivations well understood. Credit director Les Mayfield whose strength is in his quick pacing as he showed in the comedies Blue Streak and Encino Man. At 87 minutes The Man is another example of Mayfield's talent for efficient film-making.

Of course efficiency alone does not a great film make. Mayfield's quick pace has a lot to do with the film's very thin story. The plot is about puddle deep and relies heavily on well-worn clichés and the likability of Jackson and Levy. The script does neither actor many favors. It's a very flimsy premise and writers Jim Piddock, Margeret Oberman and Stephen Carpenter also resort to bathroom humor and light gay bashing. Call it the trifecta of bad screenwriting.

Even in this clichéd story both stars remain appealing. Jackson's taciturn bad-ass is overly familiar but not without its entertaining moments. Levy's chatterbox obliviousness has most of the film's funniest moments, though, like Jackson's cop character, we have seen Levy do this before. The mismatched buddy humor works occasionally in The Man simply because both actors are so talented.

In scenes where Jackson and Levy bond unintentionally thetwo actors show a talent for elevating material that is often well below their respective talents. If The Man has any moments of solid humor it is because both actors work hard to bring life to the material, something they can almost always be depended on for. In the merely functional role of the bad guy little known British actor Luke Goss acquits himself about as well as he can given the dull witted way the character was written. Goss has little to do but exist as a rerun of bad guys past. His role is distinguished only by moments where Goss and Levy trade confused tough guy dialogue. It's only two or three scenes but Goss at least shows up well enough not to be embarrassed.

The same cannot be said of supporting roles for Saturday Night Live's Horatio Sanz, comedian Suzy Essman, and Miguel Ferrer all of whom are stuck with commonplace roles indistinguishable from lame TV tropes of similar characters. The Man is not as bad as many of the horrible films released in 2005 and that is owed entirely to Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy. Even in a bad movie both actors remain entertaining. If both were to fire their agents and focus on finding better material maybe they could work together again in a film worthy of such strong and appealing talents.