Meh Movies: The A-Team

Welcome back to what can be described as Meh Movies. These are the films that didn't wow me, impress me, have a huge impact or I am so shell shocked from crappy flicks my nerve endings don't work right anymore. Today's film has an amazing cast but it just didn't gel as well as Top Cow Productions would like you to think. Top Cow?? As in the comic book productions via Image Comics. No wonder the story left me unfulfilled. Writer/penciller/executive producer Marc Silvestri of (Witchblade, The Darkness, X-Men 1989-1992) places writer/producer Glen A. Larson's (A-Team, Riptide, Knight Rider, Battlestar Galatica, The Fall Guy, Automan, Manimal and NightMan) dishonorably discharged Special Forces Unit Vietnam vets into Special Forces Unit Iraq vets convicted of a crime they never committed. Giant leap there. This is The A-Team.

Someone's excited for The Defenders.

Operational Detachment Alpha is under the careful eye of Colonel Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson of Miami Vice, High Spirits, Darkman, Rob Roy, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Haunting, Batman Begins and Taken) bailing his subordinate out of trouble in Mexico, a smart but reckless Lt. Face (Bradley Cooperof Nip/Tuck, All about Steve, The Hangover, Limitless, The Words, Hit and Run, American Sniper and Guardians of the Galaxy) attempting to nab a corrupt general with limited success. Hannibal stops a young man name of Bosco B.A. Barracus (UFC Quinton "Rampage" Jackson of Death Warrior, Hell's Chain, Fire with Fire, Vigilante Diaries, See Dan Run and Boone: The Bounty Hunter) and convinced him to aid his friend. After nabbing a burnt, loopy but not completely fried pilot Murdock (Sharlto Copley of District 9, Elysium, Maleficent, Chappie, Powers and Free Fire) to get them under way. 8 years later they are 80 missions in and its 80-0.

You know I trained Batman, right?

One last gig to take printing plates of the Yankee dollar in Iraqi hands so the boy are planning a strike to capture the plates, printing press, the whole damn thing.  A merc team and a CIA prick left them in the wind and the boys are looking at federal time in the big house via Gitmo. OoOoOor....they can pick themselves up, find the fore-mentioned pricks and the plates.  6 months in max security the boys are still being ready waiting and planning. Hannibal has a few plans, strategies, a tactical rough outlines and manages a few clever ideas.

Mexico or Arizona? Meh, it's a lot of desert.

Now the action is decent, the locations well done, and the dark humor is balanced with the characters. The problem with all the plane stunts, fistfights, gunfights and mass explosions. The story isn't bad but some of the dialogue is lacking. Admittedly Cooper screaming" Get some bitch!" I really wanted to hear Rocket Raccoon screaming that while blasting an unfeasibly large gun in his disturbingly human like paws.

Action-packed scenes worthy of a Jason Bourne flicks, well rehearsed fight choreography, some full on Gun Fu but I found the overall cliffhanger based on fantasy, action and actual military terminology. It is over the top, loud and obnoxious male. You know, an action movie but PG-13?? Ugh. Now I understand the notion of using nostalgia against the thirty to forty something crowd, hell we have been down this road since the first Mission: Impossible flick.  I still think this was well-executed and diverting entertainment. I wasn't bowled over by it but it almost didn't bore me to tears.

A good actress relegated to being Face's eyecandy. Classy.

Patrick Wilson forced to be such a douche. Did love Pike and C.I.A. Kyle with the frickin' issues with putting a damn supressor on a pistol. I about cried laughing. Not a brilliant film but not bad either. Worthy of a sequel but apparently the numbers weren't high enough. Cooper and Copley were even talking pay cuts for a sequel but the concept got tanked. Clocking in at 2 hours and 13 minutes is the extended version and YES go watch it.   PG-13 version/theatrical?? Meh.

FYI, Jessica Biel was totally wasted in this movie as a hard ass bureaucrat/Face's love interest.  She deserved better.  She has some range and acting chops.

House of the Dead

Back again my loyal readers...by the by, I thank you for that. This time around I want to do another video game adaptation to film. Yes I know that most of these are quite painful to sit through. When we have had such examples as Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon and Van Dumb's Street Fighter, it is understandable that this subgenre of film can be considered a turd in a punch bowl at a prestigious party. That being said, Paul W.S. Anderson's Mortal Combat, Jan de Bont's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Corey Yuen's DOA: Dead or Alive and even Michael J. Bassett's Silent Hill: Revelation are all extremely close to the original source material. With some of these games there was not a lot of character and story development and the story that was there may have been too far fetched for causal gamers to appreciate. With that in mind, I wish to discuss the diaper stain that is Uwe Boll's work. This is House of the Dead.

Icky, there's dust and bodies.  So not cool.

As a first person shooter game from the original arcade created by Sega, the story of two agents of AMS and all boss creatures are named after the Major Arcana of tarot cards created by the mad scientist Dr. Curien dabbling in biotech, the occult and even alchemy. Nifty and easy enough to follow, right? Whelp, screw all that mildly clever story telling. Instead let's have the patented Uwe Boll main character narrative over several chunks of the movie or I have been calling it "The Expositioner". No need for complicated story arc, character building or even agents of AMS or even Dr. Curien. Huh? Then you ask, "Well Jake, if this has no direct connection to the original source material, what is left?" Well let me enlighten you all. Boobs and zombies.

Yup, scantily clad jiggly girls and zombies that I suppose are close to Curien's creatures but no doctor on the scene. This is all supposed to be a rave on a remote island near Seattle. So no agents Thomas Rogan or G. Nope instead a gaggle of twenty somethings drinking, screwing and dancing the night away. 5 twenty somethings need to get to the island ASAP before all the booze and loose people are napping. They approach Clint Howard making yet another regular link-up with Boll via character actor alongside Jurgen Prochnow of Da Boot, Judge Dredd, The Replacement Killers and NCIS: Los Angeles as Captain Kirk. Yup Uwe Boll must be a huge Shatner fan. With an offer of a thousand clams, Kirk takes them to La isla de los muertos ( Island of the Dead, Gringos!) for the “Rave of the Century” but apparently no one does their homework like: mapping the area, safely having the dock set aside for incoming boats or here's something nutty, knowing the name of the island you are raving at.

MANGA LEAP!!!!

Our quintet of cannon fodder makes their way on the island to see the place is thrashed and no one appears to be around when a film freak and few of his red shirts tell them about the roving zombies shucking and devouring party goers like so many oysters on the half shell. Kirk's ship is under attack by the zombies and he is smoking a cigar to techno music for some reason...kinda pictured something of classical or opera like The Flying Dutchman as he one hands them with a 44. Desert Eagle. He makes his way back to the island with enough firepower to occupy France for the next two weeks. Will our collective heads of knuckle make it out? If they survive, will they skip raves again?

Aside from the creatures i.e. Zombies, there is nothing that resembles House of the Dead at all. Boll just made "Rave On the Island of the Dead", pocketed money on the back end and moved on to his next bastardization of a video game adaptation. The practical effects are on the cheap as you see plenty of rubber masks on the zombie extras, this damn 360 pan is done far too many times and they splice scenes from the arcade game as if that is to remind you that there is a link from the game to the film. The actors' performance feels stilted as if they are reading from cue cards and didn't have a script to consult so everything uttered sounds off and unnatural.  The lack of a stabilizer in the camera gives the patented shaky cam view that Boll thinks is awesome...for making viewers to puke from jarring zooms and pans.

Oh FYI, Takashi Oda the creator of The House of the Dead never bothered to give this acronym an actual title. They're just an international organization. Picture INTERPOL with X-Files.

Those guys kicked me out of the cemetery...sniffle.

Sean Bean Week: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief

Greetings and welcome to Day 4 of Sean Bean Week.  It has been kind of hetic around here so this will be the last day of the week.  Perhaps I can do something on Saturday but I offer no guarantees.  Imagine Gods of myth and legend walking about in our time.  Beings of awesome power that hail from legend and folklore. Now imagine a war breaking out that threatens to shatter not only that pantheon but our world if a wrong is not righted in time.  This is Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief.

So, was Rome a good gig?

Chiron:  Percy, take this to spoil yourself.  It's a powerful weapon. Guard it well. Only use it in times of severe distress.

Percy Jackson: This is a pen.  This is a *pen.*



Eons gone by and two of the elder gods Zeus (Sean Bean of Silent Hill, The Hitcher, Outlaw, Black Death, Game of Thrones, Mirror Mirror and Soldiers of Fortune) and Poseidon (Kevin McKidd of Trainspotting, North Square, Dog Soldiers, Nicolas Nickleby, Kingdom of Heaven, The Purifiers and Rome) have met for the first time in centuries as Zeus points to the heavens how the lightning is missing in his storm.  Poseidon takes immediate offense that his brother would accuse him when Zeus concludes it is Poseidon's son Percy (Logan Lerman of The Patriot, What Women Want, The Butterfly Effect, Jack & Bobby, 3:10 to Yuma and Gamer) that has acquired it and he has 14 days to return it or it means war.

I think the girl farted but I am not sure.

Percy, unaware of his lineage enjoys his almost waking time in water as it is a comfort.  He confides these notions to his friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson of This Christmas, Big Stan, Days of Wrath, Fast & Furious, Tooth Fairy and Operation: Endgame) who reveals to be a satyr and Percy's mother Sally (Catherine Keener of Walking and Talking, Boys, If These Walls Could Talk,  Out of Sight, Death to Smoochy and An American Crime) must take the boy to safety in Camp Half-Blood (a haven for demi-gods) but his mother is claimed by Hades as leverage on the young half god.  The boy finds a realm composed of the children of the gods that train and toil to become warriors, soldiers and even heroes.

The camp's instructor Chiron (Pierce Bronsan of Remington Steele, Noble House, The Heist, Detonator, GoldenEye, Dante's Peak, The World Is Not Enough, The Matador and Mamma Mia!), trainer of Hercules and Perseus who vows to train the boy as he is of the rarest of pantheon, born of one of the three major gods of Olympus.   He must go before Zeus, convince him of his innocence and embark of the quest to retrieve the lightning bolt, save his mother and the world from impending war.  With monsters Medusa, Hydra and even a Minotaur in the way of this quest Grover and Percy are joined by Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario of The Hottest State, The Attic, Damages, Bereavement, White Collar, Hall Pass and Texas Chainsaw 3D), daughter of Athena who aids them in the hopes to save the world and meet her mother.

A few bits of trivia now.  In the book of same title Rick Riodan made the kids all of 12 rather than 17 as they are in the film.  Anthony Head auditioned for Chiron and lost to Pierce Brosnan but later helmed the character in Percy Jackson: Seas of Monsters.

James Bond went Furry!

Ghost of N64 Week: Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker

Welcome N64 fans and all the others that were expecting an movie or TV review.  Today's topic is based on Warner Brothers futuristic Batman story arc.  25 years into the future, Bruce Wayne has become a senior citizen, crime still haunts the mega-city version of Gotham and a new breed of cyberpunks, meta-humans and oddballs still attack the people of Gotham, but along with the wave of criminals comes a new Batman ready to solve crimes, wail on the baddies and bring them to justice.  Based of the animated movie comes a game giving its all to homage the film.  This is Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker N64.

Captivating title screen!!!

Being a typical beat 'em up side-scroller, the play of course is the futuristic Batman who wanders through levels with a fair degree of the depth in background allowing for 3-D movement.  The game allows the player to select and switch out between four bat suits in-game.  Each suit has its own strengths and weaknesses.  Standard Suit is mostly offensive strength and shields allowing for weapons like the Dark Knight Discus (Because Shuriken would have been hard to spell), Magnetic Nunchuku (Yeah, kinda wish I made that one up) and the Dark Knight Staff.  Offensive Suit: Stronger attacks but is easily damaged making it the most fragile of the suits.  Defense Suit: Weaker attacks but does protect from damage greater than the suits in the game, plus allows more items. It also gives the player two defensive shields to deflect almost all enemy attack and lets you bash a head in with the Shield Punch.  Nimble Suit:  Gives the player the double-jump, gliding and jumping kicks.  Allows for some extra items but so far as I know the glide only seems to have that one function.

Also my Big Gulp spilled and may have fried the panels.

And now of course, a few complaints and compliments for the game.

With the cut scenes throughout this game, you get the feeling they were really trying to capture the essence of the movie but without any real attempt to get the voice acting, sound or screen capture it, it feels a bit on the level of 16 bit.  When I got this, I was hoping for a few digitized cut scenes from the actual flick interspersed with the game.  Instead, I get scroll text to read, a looped intro of the Batman Beyond theme music and a Final Fight, Double Dragon feel.  This is a typical and lazy formula not allowing for story to unfold, clues to be found and gives it a very stilted version of Batman we have seen before.

The Batlad is being taught how to fight,survive and be a detective and none of that is coming through the game.  Even fans of the cartoon this is based on could not stay interested in it.  Heck, my best friend's son was playing it for about 25 minutes and he got bored, turned the volume down so the music would stop annoying him and asked for a new game.  With a count of 16 levels I am guessing they mean for each screen to be a level because I thought it was only 4 but most games show or indicate when you defeat one level after another.  Action packed was the original box's claim.  Action packed must mean walk to series of bad guys, punch and kick them, rinse and repeat. No use of the voice work from the movie though.  I mean it was already in the can, so what was the problem there?

The controls are a bit off as R button can be tapped once to switch from swagger walk (because he looks like he is swaying his hips) and running and lastly, the fricking weapons.  No gas pellets, phosphorous flares or even batarangs.  So all the good toys of distraction and non-lethal ordinance we associate with Batman have been scrapped.  That being said, I'd give it to the neighborhood dog to chew on but I don't want the ASPCA at my door for animal cruelty.

WHEW!!!  Avoid that bathroom, people!