Mutiny

Aye Yer Bounty, 
Man, Yer Bounty

Mutiny
Directed by Jean-François Richet
UK/USA 2026
UK Film Council
UK Cinema Release Print

Okay... this will probably be a very short review for Mutiny because, frankly, I don’t have that much to say about it. Other than to say, it mostly does what it says on the tin (with an obvious exception... see the end of the review) and it surpassed my expectations. 

Now, hold on, that comes with a slight caveat because... well I’ve been rattling on about how nobody seems to know how to cut a good movie trailer and market the product over the last year or two and, yeah, this is no exception. I’m a shoe-in for pretty much any Jason Statham action movie but, once again, the trailer for this movie was so bad that, well, if I hadn’t been on holiday and actually had more time than usual to check this one out, I probably wouldn’t have. The trailer was that terrible that I almost gave it a steer.

But, yeah, this is exactly the kind of thing Jason Statham usually delivers the goods on and it's much better than I was expecting. This is an above average action vehicle for the gentleman in question and I really had a good time with this one. 

So after setting up Statham’s ex-bobby character... who has become bodyguard to a man who is selling his family ship building company and elevated by his client, who has become his friend, as one of ‘the family’... the film does exactly what you think it will do and kills off the man he’s been protecting. Statham’s character manages to save himself but is framed for ‘the hit’. So he stows away on one of the company’s ships to find out what’s really going on.

What’s going on is the company is human trafficking and it’s up to him and an accidental replacement ‘ship’s mate’ played by Annabelle Wallis, to kill off as much of the crew that they can in order to defeat the evil captain played by Roland Møller. And that’s pretty much it, asides from an obvious epilogue you will definitely see coming but, hey, it’s a nice, tight little action thriller with likeable heroes and very well played bad guys (they should give Møller a hero action role at some point, I think he’d be well suited to it) with some cool stunts and plenty of the requisite violence these things use as their visual currency. 

I have two slight problems with it asides from the person who cut the trailer. One is Annabelle Wallis. She does really well in this and pulls off some great action sequences... I just thought she was underused and that her role could have been levelled up with ‘The Stath’ a little more.

Secondly, for a film with this title, there’s no actual mutiny in it. I mean., at one point some Navy people try to deceive their commander very slightly (who already figured out the truth anyway) but absolutely no actual mutiny to be found... at least that I could see. 

And that’s it. Other than those minor notes, I really enjoyed Mutiny and if you are a sucker for a decent Jason Statham action pic, this one delivers in spades. Not at all like the trailer makes out... just a well made action piece. Go see it. 

Shelter

S’Hell Ter Pay

Shelter
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
USA/UK 2026
Black Bear
UK Cinema Release Print

Just a quick shout out on the latest Jason Statham action film... not quick because it’s not good but because it’s a nice, solid, well acted vehicle which hits most of the right spots and doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Shelter sees The Stath, as an ex-assassin called Mason, living covertly in a lighthouse on an island with a young girl, Jessie, played by Bodhi Rae Breathnach, being boated over by her uncle once a week to leave supplies for him. She never sees Statham’s character and wonders what his relationship is to her family (she doesn’t even know who her own father was and has been living with her uncle since she can remember). 

Then, one day, she nearly dies on a fierce storm trying to return to her uncle’s boat (which sinks and takes him to his death) and is rescued and resuscitated by Mason. Here starts the almost but not quite True Grit style relationship between the two characters. Then, to get urgent medical supplies, Mason goes to the mainland and gets recognised by the government’s illegally operating facial recognition software (which targets him as someone else, deliberately), run by Billy Nighy’s villainous ‘off the grid’ ex head of British Intelligence and the rest of the movie is a manhunt as Mason and Jessie are on the run while an elite killer and lots of other human problems are hurled at them, as Mason tries to find some way to get Jessie to safety. 

And it’s all very nicely done. The characters are all likeable and, while you’ve seen the whole ‘child bonding with a trained killer who has a heart of gold’ storyline before... because Jason Statham and Bodhi Rae Breathnach have good chemistry together, it’s easy to ignore the cliché and let yourself be entertained by two good actors. 

Added to this, the action scenes are a touch more naturalistic than in something like, say, The Transporter and they hit harder, especially when contrasted with the two central characters. For instance, a car chase sequence between just two cars is well shot and the chaotic and almost clunky brutality of the sequence works really well when juxtaposed with the sensibilities of the two characters reacting to the situation. Like I said, a solid action piece. And it helps to have people like Bill Nighy and Daniel Mays on hand to lend the piece a little gravitas too (both are equally excellent in their supporting roles).

The one big surprise for me is where the story goes or, rather, where the story fails to go. It seemed obvious from the start that Jessie is, surely, actually Mason’s daughter and he’s been keeping her safe by leaving her with her uncle and, although it seems the obvious story choice, it’s never actually revealed here. Maybe because it seems too obvious or, perhaps, maybe they’re leaving that moment for a possible sequel (the film is definitely geared towards a sequel being a possibility in the last scene). In a way, I’m kinda glad they held back that revelation because, it’s way too telegraphed throughout the rest of the film so, yeah, maybe a casual reveal in a follow up movie would be the best way to go into that (if, indeed, we get one). 

And that’s really me done already on Shelter. I tend to like Jason Statham action movies and this one is another of his good ones. If you’re up for The Stath punching and shooting people for an hour or so (after a slow but sure section of character building) then you should have a good time with this one. I’ll certainly be looking out for a Blu Ray at some point.

A Working Man

Mortar Him
Than You Think

A Working Man
Directed by David Ayer
UK/USA 2025
Black Bear Films
UK Cinema release print

A Working Man is an adaptation of one of 12 novels featuring the character Levon Cade, as written by Chuck Dixon, who I know best as a comic book writer on the likes of titles like Batman, The Punisher and The Savage Sword Of Conan etc. Now I’ve not read the book this movie is based on so I don’t know how well it holds up as an adaptation but it makes for a great action vehicle for Jason Statham, who plays Levon here. The movie is also co-written by the director and Sylvester Stallone and, you could see how Stallone might have played this character at some stage of his career.

The thing is, if you’ve seen the trailer or, for that matter, any other major Jason Statham action films, you know exactly what you are getting and, yeah, this one does exactly what it says on the tin, so to speak. But that’s not a bad thing and an hour or two of The Stath in killing and rescue mode is usually quite entertaining.

So yeah. After he retired from the marines due to his wife killing herself and their daughter being taken into care by her grandfather (who’s not a great person it has to be said), Levon spends his time juggling a two hour a week visitation with his loving daughter, sleeping in his car and working on a building site as a well respected leader of a construction team owned by a family who believed in him and gave him a chance to work after his troubles. However, a higher up thug and his client in the Russian mafia, who secures/traffics young ladies to give to his clients, grabs the very clever daughter of this family, Levon’s work friend Jenny (played brilliantly by Arianna Rivas). And so his boss and wife plead for Levon to track down and bring back their missing daughter. It would probably surprise nobody if I then said the main protagonist goes on a killing spree to find the daughter and, yeah, that’s exactly what he does here. Hindered by people like Jason Fleming as a Russian oligarch and helped by his ‘blinded in combat’ weapons expert, fellow ex-marine friend Gunny (played by the always fun to watch David Harbour).

And what else can I say... it’s Statham doing what he does best, making it all look easy (although I bet he went home some days with bruises and abrasions at the very least) and doing a heck of a good job as a ferocious, kick ass killer with some great ways of flushing out the bad guys and getting the information he wants. And, although this should go without saying, the main lead is able to do all this stuff because he’s actually a damned good actor who knows how to make this kind of activity look believable and even credible.

The film is quite crunchy and brutal in its depiction of violence (although not especially gory... it’s a finer balance of elements, I think, to get the trade off right in an action movie, say, as opposed to a horror film) and, of course, you certainly know who the good guys and the bad guys are here. There’s perhaps one loose end I would have liked to have seen tied up and that comes from the first action sequence near the beginning of the piece. Here, Levon has to save one of his fellow workers from some heavy handed criminals in order to signal to the audience that the central character can, as they say in professional circles, kick ass. Now, I personally think that Jason Statham brings enough baggage with him that you don’t even need that kind of set up for him but, you know, this will always be someone’s first film with him in and, they do a fine job setting it up here. However, my loose end is that I would have liked to know why the guy on the construction site was in trouble and, you know, what could be done about it to ensure it doesn’t happen to him again. But the scene serves purely as an introduction to Levon’s ‘special set of skills’, as the saying now goes and, yeah, it's certainly fit for purpose on that count, at any rate.

So, a big action flick which doesn’t skimp on the action, has a central character who has his heart in the right place and a bunch of bad guys you won’t worry about coming to a bone crunching end. A Working Man certainly does the job when it comes to an action packed night at the movies and I hope the writers and lead actor consider adapting another one of the books in the series at some point.

The Beekeeper

Going Apiary

The Beekeeper
Directed by David Ayer
USA/UK
2024 Miramax
UK Cinema Print

Not to be confused with the many, many movies which have had the same title over the years (why do Hollywood keep doing this?), The Beekeeper is the latest Jason Statham action movie and, it’s one of his better ones, I’d have to say.

The plot is simple, Statham, who has retired and is an apiarist, rents a barn for his bees from a benevolent lady who is the only person who has ever shown him kindness. Then she gets scammed out of all her money by an online fraudster, part of a huge team of them working in group premises dotted around America, including the 2 million dollars she was managing for a charity. So she shoots herself. 

Enter her daughter, played by Emmy Raver-Lampman, an FBI agent who is trying to crack the gang and follow back the chain but, she’s having no luck. However, Statham is no ordinary retiree... he used to be a ‘beekeeper’... a shady organisation working above the law (most of the FBI and CIA don’t even know these people exist) who are there to ‘protect the hive’ and redress the balance when injustice is done. So, he goes on a rampage, killing and destroying his way to the top of the chain, pursued by the criminals themselves (for a while, they are mostly just trying to stay alive), the various law enforcement agencies, one of the active beekeepers and even his friend’s daughter, as he follows the chain right to the top.

And it’s great. Firstly, this is a solid Statham action thriller but it’s a heck of a lot grimmer and relentless (and wildly entertaining) compared to a fair amount of his other films. And the tone extends right back into Statham’s character, Adam Clay, who is not a typical anti-hero for this actor and couldn’t, for a moment, be mistaken for a bunch of his other, almost interchangeable action roles. This is one of those movies that shows that Statham really is as good an actor as he is a likeable personality (and star), his social skills being dialled back down almost to zero (even with people he likes) as he plays a somewhat unstoppable killing machine.

And that’s the other thing about this character... he doesn’t come out of any scrap in this badly, apart from taking some damage in a big fight with a truly tough guy played by Taylor James near the end of the film. He’s one of those invincible people who can walk into a room filled to the brim with trained FBI killers and wipe them all out within a matter of minutes, using only his bare hands and whatever he can pick up off the floor (and with whatever weapon he can steal from an opponent). Honestly, taking this back to schoolboy mentality for a second, I have no idea who would win in a fight between Adam Clay and John Wick, to be honest.

So, yeah, remember those brilliant Lone Wolf and Cub films of the 1970s... or the Zatoichi films of the 1960s/70s etc? Where the lone figure would take on hundreds of trained warriors and kill them all with barely a scratch? Same thing here. The writers have gone back to the roots of heroic adventure stories and given us one of those invincible characters who can cut through anything, in this case in quite a cynical and grim manner. Now, the trap with this kind of writing is that you can write yourself into a corner when you have nothing to really threaten a protagonist with, which was always the real Kryptonite for those early Superman comics. Here, though, just like Lester Dent did in his original Doc Savage pulps, the writers manage to get away with it and it just works marvellously well.

And, of course, the acting is credible and equally entertaining. And I just loved that it took me a while to realise the president of the United States was played by Jemma Redgrave (who I and, probably many readers, would best recognise as playing Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stuart’s daughter Kate, who took over UNIT in the modern version of Doctor Who). And Jeremy Irons adds a good presence to the movie too, playing a somewhat three dimensional character with an interesting history. And all of this is packaged together with an incredibly good score co-composed by Jared Michael Fry and David Sardy, which includes an outstanding opening title piece where the various facts about bees on the visuals are matched with various strings to musically represent their buzzing. I wish they’d release this thing into the wild, preferably on a nice physical CD so I can have a listen.

And that’s me done with The Beekeeper, I think. I enjoyed this one a lot and, if this is the first of a franchise (which doesn’t have to feature Statham as the lead each time but, it would sure be better if it did), then I am all for it and would love to see some more of this kind of action writing in modern cinema.

Expend4bles

Expend Thy Foibles
While Ye May

Expend4bles
aka The Expendables 4
Directed by Scott Waugh
USA Millennium Films 2023
UK cinema release print.

Warning: I’ve tried to write this with no spoilers but the way I try to dance around a certain scene might give things away when you see the movie... although you’ll probably figure that one out long before it’s revealed anyway.

Well now... I was really looking forward to seeing the fourth in The Expendables franchise, known at present by the silly title Expend4bles although, I notice on the IMDB they’ve already changed the listing to The Expendables 4 so, maybe the not-so-hidden numeral in the title is just for us audiences in the UK. However, the film has had a lot of bad word of mouth on Twitter and one of my favourite critics, Mark Kermode (the only person I know who, like me, loved Meg 2 - The Trench, reviewed here) really shredded it, citing a bad script and some terrible and confusing action editing... I’ll address all that in a minute but, well, let me say just this up front...

I loved Expend4bles right from the start and kept waiting and waiting for it to go sour on me... and kept waiting... and kept waiting. Heck... I waited until the very end for the movie to start becoming unwatchable and it never did. I had a blast with this movie.

Now, I quite liked the previous films in The Expendables franchise, it has to be said. I thought the first one was great and I liked the second one even more. The third movie would have topped them all except, the violence was deliberately watered down and, well, it was brilliant apart from having the edge taken off of it. Well the producers of this one took note of the audience reaction to the toned down viscera of the third and have brought it back for this fourth installment. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not talking Rambo IV levels of violence here but it’s not backing away from it either... to the point where the marketing for the film, at least in one of the US trailers, has used it as a selling point about how the filmmakers have listened to the audience and have loaded this one with the expected levels of violence. It’s maybe less than I was expecting but it’s appropriate to the kinds of violence depicted so, I’m certainly not complaining.

Okay, we have some of the old gang here who are now in all four films to date... Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture, all doing their thing and acting the heck out of this. It’s broad acting but, it’s just right for the kind of film it is and I didn’t see anything in here which differed from the level of the performances in the previous movies. They’re doing what they do best and, guess what? They’re doing it well.

They’re joined by a bunch of newcomers, of varying ages and generations, most notably Megan Fox (who maybe seems a little too glamorous even in her fighty/stabby scenes but, again, I’m not complaining), Levy Tran (I could have done with more of her character in this), the brilliant Iko Uwais (from The Raid movies), the amazing Tony Jaa (who was maybe a little wasted, there should have been more action scenes with him in this, I think), 50 Cent, Andy Garcia and, in a strange role in terms of... let’s call it meta-continuity... Jacob Scipio. Now I’m pretty sure Antonio Banderas was probably asked to come back from his stint on the third movie and that this script probably had his character written in on an earlier draft. Instead, we have Scipio playing, unless I misheard, the son of Banderas’ character in the third movie... playing this character in exactly the same way as that original character would and serving exactly the same function in the group so... yeah, sometimes I believe you can see the history of the origin of a film hidden within its final release print and, I suspect this is one such occasion.

Okay, so the film starts off with a double bang... with an attack on an army of bad guys from a different army of bad guys headed up by Iko Uwais... followed by another scene featuring Stallone and Statham doing their ‘banter and action’ thing back in their home town (following Megan Fox dumping Statham’s character but, don’t worry, she’ll be back). We then, post titles, we get the group sent on a mission colliding with the first part of the pre-credits and, somewhat in Expendables fashion, the mission ends in failure and... well, something happens which affects the course of the rest of the movie. Kinda. I’ll try and address that without spoiling it soon. The rest of the film is about finding out the identity of an old enemy of Stallone’s Barney character, who seems to be tied up in the ongoing plot about stealing detonators to nuke part of Russia and make it look like the US has done it. It’s also a revenge mission... kinda.

Anyway, let me address the main criticisms of the film first. No, it isn’t terribly written. Some of the dialogue is, indeed, not to my taste but it’s all fairly appropriate to the characters saying some of these lines and, generally, I had no real problems with it.

Now, about that action editing. Yes, it’s fast and furious in its cutting but, surprisingly, it in no way gets confusing and I found I could follow the flow of it perfectly. And I say that as someone who can get easily confused by modern action editing. Frankly, there’s a lot worse out there. I could think of several slices of Michael Bayhem and various other action movies where these kinds of sequences... which are, after all, the bread and butter of such films... are just completely incomprehensible. Not so on this movie, for sure... again, I followed it fine.

My only slight problem was that there are no surprises in the movie. That ‘thing’ they do at the start of the film which I’m trying very hard not to spoil here was questionable in the first place... especially when you see the state that the ‘thing’ is left in. After a while, because the movie plays that sequence very close to its chest... I was almost convinced that they had done... ‘the thing’ after all but, no, I was right to trust my instincts. The thing is redacted by the end of the movie in no uncertain terms and is timed as a reveal in exactly the kind of deus ex machina way you would expect. Secondly, the other so called twist of the movie, the identity of a certain person... well, let’s just say that this person was very easy to unmask as soon as a certain character was introduced. So no surprises there either.

So, yeah, the one weakness of the film is that the audience can see the so called twists coming from a long way off but, luckily, in this kind of film that makes no difference as it’s what the audience is kinda wanting to see, to be honest. So I’ll say it again... I had a great time with Expend4bles and will certainly be grabbing the Blu Ray when it comes out. While also looking for news of when Expend5bles goes into production... one can hope.

Meg 2 - The Trench

The Trench Back
Of Votre Doom

Meg 2 - The Trench
Directed by Ben Wheatley
USA/China  2023 Apelles Entertainment
UK cinema release print

Warning: Slight spoilers highlighting some fun stuff.... if you read it, you’ll want to go see this to make sure I’m not making this stuff up.

Wow... what can I say? I wasn’t expecting this. I kinda half enjoyed The Meg (reviewed here) but I wasn’t particularly looking for a sequel. However, one was announced and, when I heard that famous British director Ben Wheatley was coming on to direct, well... I had to see how he would be able to handle this kind of big budget, schlocky movie and, boy, he did not disappoint. Meg 2 - The Trench is based on another of Steve Alten’s Meg novels, this one called The Trench. Since I still haven’t read any of these (yet, I’ll get to them), I don’t know how close the movie version is to the source novel (not that close, I would guess) but, it has to be said that this movie is everything I was hoping for from the first movie, which it kinda failed to deliver in regards to my expectations back in 2018.

Yup, Jason Statham is back as ‘eco protector’ Jonas Taylor and a fair few of the original cast are also back including Cliff Curtis as Mac (who is an actor I’m not seeing enough of). This one is an all out rollercoaster... err... no... make that waterslide... of absolute silliness and brutal action but, unlike the first movie, it doesn’t insult the intelligence of the audience and actually plays more like everyone’s ‘in on the joke’ in regards to the over the top nature of the narrative. And it’s also a few action/suspense/nature attacks movies rolled into one with clear demarcations between the various segments which, sounds like it could get boring but no, it’s actually quite a solid piece of movie making and it manages to segue into each different style of genre quite effortlessly.

So, following an ‘there’s always a bigger fish’ pre-creds sequence set in pre-historic times (which was used in the trailers), the opening post-title card set piece shows Jason Statham infiltrating a ship at sea with a hostile crew who are dumping toxic waste in the ocean. It’s basically ‘the Stath’ versus dozens of armed crewmen as he manages to escape from the vessel with the photographic evidence of their shady deeds... which involves a pretty well choreographed chase/fight sequence which would not look out of place in one of The Transporter movies. And yeah... you can quote me on saying this movie plays just like The Transporter VS shark, for sure.

Okay, so after this we get the usual meet the crew and main characters set up before two mini submarines of people, Statham included, are stranded past a trench in the sea... followed by some big Megaladon’s who are hunting them... and then they find a shady bunch of villains destroying their shady mining operation down there, which they discover they have helped fund and equip due to a person... or actually persons plural... who have betrayed them and who are working towards evil ends.

Their subs are wrecked but the two surviving teams of the good guy squad manage to walk to the now abandoned enemy station across the ocean floor... just like the ‘team good guy’ squad did in the excellent Underwater (reviewed here) a few years ago. But then they are trapped there for a while with no hope of escape (until one presents itself)... but by now the good guys are hemorrhaging team mates (not to mention finding some of them are on team bad guy now). So this is all the ‘hold your breath’ underwater survival part of the movie.

Then a handful of survivors escape back to ‘camp good guy’ base, which has been overtaken by bad guys and so they need to rescue their friends in an ‘infiltrate and escape’ section of the movie. Meanwhile, a load of Megs plus some other new species they encountered in ‘the trench’, such as dino-lizard fish things which are also quite fast on land... and a giant octopus... have followed them and when the remaining protagonists escape to a holiday resort called Fun Island, the final section of the movie starts up... as it’s good guys vs bad guys vs civilians vs various creatures who all want to eat everyone indiscriminately.

And it’s awesome... you will see such sights as ‘The Stath’ luring sharks out on his wet bike so he can use his jury-rigged exploding harpoons against them, an exploding helicopter crash, a humongous and amazingly well executed giant octopus vs shark scrap and Jason Statham wielding a giant, exploded helicopter rotor blade as a lethal weapon in a hand to hand combat moment with a big Meg. My only real criticism is what looks like a remnant of a former script turning up in the movie. There’s a scene early on where these new pressure exo-suits which can multiply a persons strength into superheroic proportions are introduced, however... although the suits are definitely worn in one sequence, their specialist properties are not actually used in any scene so, yeah, I’m guessing it’s a hangover from an earlier drat where the suits were put to more practical use but, who knows for sure... and who would be willing to tell?

But, honestly people, what’s not to like about all of this? It’s big and dumb but it’s been put together by a very smart director this time around so... it certainly knows it’s big and dumb and everybody’s  having fun with it. And as far as I’m concerned, that includes the audience... I was absolutely grinning at the ‘suspend your disbelief’ audacity of the movie at times and, yeah, I had way more fun with it than I did with, say, this year's entries into the Indiana Jones (reviewed here) and Mission Impossible (reviewed here) franchises, for sure. If you like silly movies with lots of action, ridiculous dialogue and lots of mayhem, then you really should take a look at Meg 2 - The Trench. It’s got a lot going for it as far as I can see and I’ll be snapping up the Blu Ray of this one pretty quickly.

The Meg

Accentuate The Posi-Stath, Eliminate The MegaTeeth

The Meg
2018 China/USA Directed by Jon Turteltaub
UK cinema release print.

Based, very loosely from what I can gather, on the first of a series of novels by Steve Alten called Meg - A Novel Of Deep Terror, this film has been stuck in Hollywood development hell for just over 20 years. However, it’s finally surfaced into the wild waters of your local dodgyplex cinemas so you can enjoy The Meg in the cinematic environment it was best designed for.

The film tells a cautionary tale of what happens if you let the giant sized, likeable personality of modern action cinema named Jason Statham go toe to toe with a giant, pre-historic shark called Megaladon. I loved the trailer to this and it was a no brainer that if you put The Stath against a giant sized shark in your movie then I was going to be first in line to see this thing when it finally hit cinemas. Despite some problems in terms of the audience this has been pitched towards, because of just what the producers have allowed to be ‘gotten away with’ in terms of a piece of art depicting the eating habits of a vicious predator, I can confirm that the film is, indeed, a bit of a fun ride and definitely worth a watch if you are into shark movies.

Now, the premise is that, after a pre-credits sequence where a top Navy undersea rescue guy called Jonas, played by the always watchable Statham, has to sacrifice the lives of two of his crew to save many more because he saw something big which nobody else believes exists... we have a crew from a big, billionaire funded ocean research base penetrating the shelf of the ocean as they’ve figured out it’s actually just a bit of cold cloud keeping the mysteries of the ‘even deeper undersea world we’ve never seen before’ away from the rest of the ocean. Of course, the sub and crew they send down there runs into trouble so Jonas is pulled out of self-imposed retirement to help out and, when the rescue is accomplished (not without cost) he bonds with the team as they fight to track down and destroy a giant megaladon shark which escapes from ‘the other undersea kingdom’ and keep it from chowing down on pretty much everyone in the vicinity.

So, yeah, as you would expect, this film is full of shark/action movie clichés but it’s also, to a certain extent, self aware of the silly concept and you have an excellent cast headed by Statham, ably supported by the likes of Bingbing Li, Winston Chao, Ruby Rose and Cliff Curtis... all pitching in to give a credible set of performances to help the audience suspend their disbelief and to make sure they’re rooting for the right people. We even have Rainn Wilson playing the walking cliché of a  half likeable, half dangerous and clueless billionaire to give the audience a ‘corporate greed’ style character to be wary of. And it’s great fun.

Now, the film does do a lot of stuff which is a little frustrating in terms of trumpeting the fact that it probably doesn’t think much of the intelligence of the audience a great deal in several places. For instance, there’s a sequence where the camera suddenly and for no apparent reason switches to a POV of the character in the water and, every time that character suddenly looks under the water to try and see the title creature, the camera goes down and then comes back again. Of course, you just know that on the last time the camera goes under the shark is going to be right up close and personal and, although you feel the almost obligatory tension in the way this small sequence has been constructed, you kind of are already fed up with it before it’s even played out. So it’s a shame that this is a trick the director uses at least two variations of throughout the running time of the movie.

Another thing the director seems to like to do here is a lot of double takes of things happening. So, for instance, you’ll have the shark come towards the camera and then get a reveal to show that the behemoth of the depths has missed its human target before, oh no, it’s just come straight back for another chomp, kind of modus operandi. Again, I don’t mind it once but it does get predictable, especially in the demise of one of the main characters about two thirds of the way through the movie and, although it certainly doesn’t kill the fun of the piece, it does get played out after a very short time.

The main problem here, though, is the lack of blood and gore on display in the picture, considering it’s a shark movie. There’s way less than even the original Jaws and it really says a lot about the mentality of the studios behind these things that this has a 12A, kid-friendly rating on a movie which is supposed to be about big teeth and rending flesh. Even a small sequence which 'makes a thing' about a discarded limb fished out of the ocean doesn’t really have any blood to be seen in it and is executed in the most kid-friendly manner you could think of... and if you have read some of my previous reviews you’ll know I am not happy about movies that deliberately hide the consequences of violence to get a lower rating. If kids can’t see the consequences of these kinds of things then they are more likely to rush blindly into danger themselves, is my take on that whole bloodless violence phenomena which seems to have overtaken the American studio picture.

All that being said, though, I still had a pretty great time with this movie and especially with the ‘French ending’ which I shall say no more about... except to gracefully acknowledge that I like the odd pun. I’d quite like to hear the score on this one away from the images but, alas, it’s only available as a download and not on a proper CD so it looks like I’ll have to give that purchase a miss. Still, a likeable movie with a few genuine surprises... in the way they’ve been executed at least, if not in terms of expectation of something happening in any given scene... and this should be a definite crowd pleaser of a piece.  That is, if your crowd happens to be composed of people who like watching shark bait splashing around in the water and causing general mayhem and havoc as the stupid humans in the way of the title character try to escape the big chomp. The Meg is definitely better than some of the more recent shark movies I’ve seen in cinemas over the last two years and worth taking the swim to your local for.

Mechanic - Resurrection

Kill Life

Mechanic - Resurrection
2016 France/USA Directed by Dennis Gansel
UK cinema release print.

Mechanic Resurrection has less of a useful title than if it had been a sequel to the original Charlie Bronson film The Mechanic, rather than Simon West’s sequel starring Jason Statham. That being said, the title does at least hold some relevance in that an assassin who wishes to retire from the game wants people to think he is dead, I would guess. So there's that.

The footage from the last movie of Statham rolling from his car just as it’s about to explode at the gas station is used as leverage in the early stages of this movie... but not to as good effect as the second bait to lure him in to do a ‘three hit job’ for an 'old acquaintance'. And that’s basically the plot, pretty much all of it, with Jessica Alba as the lure and Michelle Yeoh as the person who falls for that lure, more so, than Statham’s Arthur Bishop character does... thus yanking her friend Bishop into the trap set for him.

This film is a completely different kettle of fish to the first movie, The Mechanic (reviewed here) and the fact that it’s not bound to being a remake from a specific source material, like that first one, is both this movie's strength and weakness. Weakness because the various characters seem a little less detailed and less intricately drawn in this one and, although the script does pay lip service to the Arthur Bishop character by having the lead still be a vinyl junkie, in a brief scene at the start (although the classical music is gone for this second outing), everything seems less ‘set up’ and less credible in terms of back story and that does kind of hurt it a little, I felt.

However, it is also this movie’s strength because, free from the constraints of any source, the film becomes much more explosive and fun in terms of the action and, although many people will possibly see this as a bad thing, it was kind of what I was expecting and what I was hoping for, to be honest. I like Jason Statham as an actor and, also, I believe he’s one of the few modern era performers who can safely be called a genuine movie star in the same way that greats like John Wayne, James Stewart or Cary Grant might be seen as that. True, the actors in question will bring their own fictional baggage with them to the films and Jason Statham is certainly no different in that respect... but it didn't hurt their careers much and neither, I suspect, does it do Statham any harm. So, for me, he joins modern, larger than life movie stars like Stallone, Schwarzenneger and Harrison Ford and, like them, he’s also a pretty darned good actor. So what I’m trying to say here is... without being a remake of something else, the film is free to be a typical Jason Statham action movie and, frankly, that’s just what I wanted to see.

The film starts off strong with a shorthand series of scenes showing us Arthur Bishop’s life direction after the end of the last movie before going into a wonderful and quite intense action sequence with nice little pieces of Mickey Spillane style brutalism, such as  pinning one antagonists hand with a dagger onto the back of another antagonist during a fight. Because of Statham’s experience in these kinds of roles, you believe he can do it and even his ludicrous, unplanned escape route takes on a layer of credibility as the writers and director pull off a stunt sequence that wouldn’t look out of place in a James Bond movie. It’s all good stuff.

Now, the plot is extremely simplistic, just like the first one, perhaps even more so. Statham is honey trapped into doing three impossible kills and to make them look like accidents, for someone in his past with a grudge against him. The second of these kills is extremely obvious but, like all in this movie, incredibly fun to watch and so I really don’t mind that the film is, in almost every way possible, predictable as hell. There are no surprises from the fate of Tommy Lee Jones character, the third on Bishop’s hit list, for example. In fact, the only surprising things about this movie is that a) Jessica Alba’s character didn’t turn out to be a little more complicated than she at first appears and b) the wonderful Michelle Yeoh doesn’t get in on the action stuff herself... which is a shame because I really like her when she does the action stuff. However, Yeoh brings the plausibility of someone a character like Bishop would trust with her to the proceedings because, heck, who’s not going to believe in someone like Michelle Yeoh. She’s a great actress and although she’s criminally underused here, she does bring a lot to the table in terms of getting certain messages across quickly, so a lot of character building stuff can be waived credibly. Jessica Alba is also great but, again, quite underused since she’s a pretty good actress too.

Now, the movie is directed by Dennis Gansel who, as far as I’m concerned, directed one of the few truly great vampire movies of the last ten years, We Are The Night, which I reviewed here. The film doesn’t look nearly as slick or decorative as that earlier film and he seems to have made a conscious decision to frame the shots and have them edited in a more ‘raw and edgy’ way. In fact, the film completely eschews those nice colour palettes and contrasts from scene to scene that were a deft touch on Simon West’s The Mechanic. So it would be true to say, therefore, that Mechanic Resurrection feels a little more Hollywood in its approach to the product but, honestly, for this kind of movie, that doesn’t hurt it either.

Mark Isham returns to score this sequel , which is less jazzy but equally cool with its emphasis on action music to match the on screen shenanigans of the lead character. I only hope the score gets a proper CD release from Lakeshore Records and doesn’t languish in electronic download hell for people who have the necessary virtual space and matching tin ears to be able to enjoy it compressed into such a package. After all, we got two different CD scores for the first movie so... I just hope this comes out in a proper physical medium sometime and, if it does, hopefully not just the kind of vinyl recording that the film's main protagonist would obsess over. As it is in the movie, though... great bit of scoring. I’ve always had a soft spot for Isham and he certainly provides a nice, action oriented soundtrack which is a succinct and appropriate match to the visual style of the film. Some nice work here.

So there you have it. A nice sequel to what was an okay remake. It’s certainly a film I’d watch more than the first and Statham and his costars certainly don’t let him down... including a slightly different kind of characterisation from Tommy Lee Jones than you may have seen him do before. I can see exactly why he took this part. Without giving too much away, I’m hoping that there will be a third ‘Mechanic’ movie before too long and, if they do go ahead with that, that it’ll have room for some of the characters invented for this second installment to return. If you like Jason Statham action movies then there’s no question you should go check this one out. Also, although it’s a sequel, there’s not too much reference made to the previous movie, so you can probably watch this as a stand alone without needing any info from the first one. Any blanks are quite easy to fill in and are all set up for this movie anyway... meaning that the back stories of every other character in this movie and their relationship to Arthur are not referencing the first one. So seriously give Mechanic: Resurrection a try if you like your stunts and action with a veneer of Stathamesque credibility. This one’s a good ‘un.

The Mechanic

Gunning Up That Kill

The Mechanic (2011)
USA 2011 Directed by Simon West
Momentum Blu Ray Zone B

I have to throw my hands up in the air with this one and say that I haven’t seen the original 1972 Charles Bronson movie on which this one is based. I will try to take care of that at some point, though. Now, the reason why I find myself watching this version of The Mechanic at this particular time, especially since it’s a movie that I deliberately ignored at the cinema due to its being a remake, is because I saw a bus side advert the other day for a sequel, Mechanic Resurrection, and... well, I like a good Jason Statham action move as much as the next person.

This one actually isn’t bad. Director Simon West is not a director I have had any problems with in the past, unlike some high profile critics who seem to be allergic to him. I’ve only seen a few of his movies but I’ve quite enjoyed them. This one is no different and although I’ve seen at least one movie where Jason Statham wasn’t able to save the picture (that would be War), it’s hard to actually waste an actor of this talent and neither Statham or the director drop the ball here.

The movie tells the story of a professional, elite assassin called Arthur Bishop, played by Statham. He is depicted as a sophisticated killer who tends to take out especially nasty people when called for by his ‘supplier’, Harry, played by Donald Sutherland. We know he’s a cultured man because he listens to vinyl records of classical music and works on his vintage Jaguar in his spare time.

As Statham’s voice-over narrative tells us, among other things, there are various ways to kill people and different kinds of hits required, depending on the kind of message you want to send. This is demonstrated in a somewhat clichéd opening sequence which follows Statham killing a man who the writers have already implied, via visual short hand, is not a nice person. The man drowns in a cleverly baited kill by Arthur and there’s a nice sequence where he swims under the corpse of the man he just killed, using the arms to swim so that it looks to the target’s body guards that he is still alive.

We then have the similarly clichéd moments where Sutherland’s character pays Arthur and we see that the two have cultivated a genuine friendship over the years. All this is just another set up by the writers, of course, because Sutherland becomes the subject of the next hit, which Sutherland’s partner asks Arthur to carry out, showing him how Sutherland sold out his colleagues and had them killed. Arthur doesn’t want to do it but he takes the job before somebody else does and gets Sutherland to ‘escape’ from his own building's security system, thus luring him into the open as a target for Arthur. Sutherland doesn’t try to stop what’s going to happen and says he’d rather it was Arthur than someone else.

Yes, I know it’s all very obvious and you know exactly what’s going to happen next, pretty much all the way through the movie, but Statham is such a charming actor and the movie is packed with enough set pieces, both action led and character led, that you kind of forgive it its faults and let it run through without really questioning it, I think. At least that's the spirit that I watched it in.

However, Sutherland’s death leaves a loose end... his thuggish son Steve, played by Ben Foster. Arthur Bishop grudgingly takes him under his wing and teaches him how to be a professional hitman, although Steve tends to mess things up a lot and almost paints a target on their backs in terms of the way they are being perceived by the rest of the profession. Arthur has a good piece of advice which I’ll share here because, although it seems to not mean much at first, it does push an interesting point in terms of why someone should actually listen to what their mentor tells them... “Good judgement comes from experience... and a lot of that comes from bad judgement.”

The story goes on to then expose the sell out by Donald Sutherland as a faked plot to gain power by the partner who sent Arthur in to kill his boss. So Arthur and Steve have to find a way to take out the man who set Sutherland up but... will Steve find out that it was Arthur who killed his dad? And, if he does, how do you think he’s going to react.

Well... somewhat predictably, it has to be said, although as I mentioned before, this doesn’t matter much when you have an action filled script with the likes of Jason Statham, Donald Sutherland and Ben Foster making it all come to life as skillfully as they can. The director utilises some nice colour schemes in different sections of the movie and he uses the juxtaposition of them to good effect throughout the running time. For instance, a bar that Statham hangs around in is bathed with a yellow light while a parking bay in a multi-story tower block is painted and lit in neutral blues and whites. There’s some really nice lighting in this movie and the director keeps these different colour schemes coming which, in turn, keeps everything relatively fresh and watchable.

At the end of the day, the film is about betrayal and the way it leads to similar betrayals, of a kind. It’s about friendship and the complicated stuff that gets in the way and, although it seems like it should be quite weighty... it really isn’t. It’s a light piece of fluff but, even so, it’s the right kind of light fluff, to be fair and it also has a nicely put together score (released on CD in two different, complimentary versions, apparently) by Mark Isham that is quite listenable away from the film, too, I suspect. It has almost an old, silver age sound to it, which is quite refreshing, while still retaining a modern edge that keeps it relevant and, more importantly, appropriate to the on screen shenanigans of these two, scallywag assassins.

Ultimately, The Mechanic is not as wild or addictive as other Statham action movies like The Transporter and Crank films but it’s not too far off in tone and if you like those, then you will probably have an okay time with this one. As for me, 'mission accomplished' and I’m all geared up to see the sequel, which opens this Friday in the UK. I’ll let you know how that one goes.

The Expendables 3

The Uncanny X-pend

The Expendables 3
2014 USA/France
Directed by Patrick Hughes
Cinema release print.

Well... this one kinda works well.

If you’ve read my reviews for The Expendables (here) and The Expendables 2 (here) then you’ll already know that I have a soft spot for these movies and the sentiment behind them. I have to confess to being a little worried about the fact that this one’s gone for a much lower age rating than the previous installments and I’ll stand by that and raise some points about that lower on down in this review but... all in all, The Expendables 3 kicks ass if it’s a nice big dose of action you crave.

The cast is as solid as usual and has the usual, additional names added to the roster... this time in the shape of Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas, Kelsey Grammar, Robert Davi and Mel Gibson (as the villain of the piece). However, there’s also a new, younger team of recruits and future Expendables in this and they were all pretty likeable in here too, with special mention going to the lady in the pack, Ronda Rousey, who has great screen presence in this and does the action scenes just as well as her colleagues. Imagine my surprise when I just looked her up and found out that this is her first feature film.

The story is about what you’d expect from an Expendables film. It’s simple, clichéd, not very challenging to your mental capacity and, basically, does what you’d expect it to do from the message on the tin, so to speak. And there’s nothing wrong with this. I think trying to graft a more intricate plot onto a movie which is basically trying to recapture some of the atmosphere of those late 1970s and early 1980s action movies would have been a delicate tightrope walk to pull off. This movie ditches any attempts to remake its original intentions in this manner and, frankly, the franchise doesn’t need to do that anyway. The film works well at its level and supplies pretty much most of the right ingredients needed to pull it off in style.

There are some casualties though.

Once again, Jet LI has what amounts to a cameo role in this, coming near the end instead of the beginning like the previous movie. Robert Davi is also underused as a minor villain, it has to be said, but it was at least nice to see him. I say this having always pretty much disliked the actor but I think that’s probably more because I identify him with some of the villainous roles he’s played in the past and so, if you’re paying attention here... that means he must be a pretty good actor. I’ve probably unfairly mis-judged him over the years and so, like I said, it would have been nice to see him as a more major villain in this one, I think. Gibson works well with the script he has, though, but I still preferred his turn as the villain in Machete Kills (reviewed here), to be honest.

It’s an entertaining movie, no question, but if I was asked to rank it compared to the others I think I’d struggle with its placing. I think it’s definitely better than the first one, for sure, but I think I can’t say it’s any better or worse than the second one. It’s kinda swings and roundabouts and here’s why...

Okay, there’s been much fuss made about it going for a toned down, lower rating to get more money in at the box office and, while I can’t blame the stupid accountants in Hollywoodland who are the enemy of art and all about making money, I think this was a bad idea on their part. The Expendables franchise has had a pretty hard edge to it in terms of the depiction of on-screen violence and, while the inclusion of the goriness and the exclusion of it in this movie neither, in all honesty, attracts or detracts from the overall experience of watching a fun, action move... it does have two big negatives for leaving the “blood and guts” factor out.

One of those negatives is that it’s almost an essential part of what has become The Expendables brand. It does run the risk of not quite seeming like a bona fide Expendables movie... almost like an A Team kind of romp instead. It’s one of the things that sets it apart from what most of the other films in a similar genre are doing and it’s a shame that it loses the roughness which highlighted it and gave it a certain style.

The other big negative about cutting out the gore, for me, is that in doing so the film does what a lot of big action movies do these days in that it pretty much glamourises violence. Frankly, when you show the goriness of, say, a man being literally cut in half by a barrage of machine gun bullets, with bits of his innards flying everywhere... you are showing a very real and horrible consequence of the act of violence. It’s not glossing over it in any way and it makes you think twice about the possibility of doing violence yourself. However, when you lose the bloody consequences of that violence and cow-tow to the censors, and there’s a certain irony here, then you actually end up making that violence look like a very attractive element of life. And while I enjoy action movies as much as the next guy or gal... I think it’s important that youngsters need to get a feel for the fact that violence is something a human being should use as a last resort and not go in all gung ho and guns blazing. Just my two pennies worth there but it’s another reason why I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the DVD and BluRay releases of this movie are released in a much harder cut.

On the other hand, this movie does work better in terms of the way the characters are, mostly, all interacting and, for the most part, getting a pretty equal amount of screen time. The ensemble nature of the first movie, which was one of its big strengths and which I thought got a little lost in the second one (even though I preferred the second overall) is back and it serves the delivery of the story very well. Stallone and Statham should definitely work together more and the team they’ve got here all seem to have pretty good chemistry which, in this script more than the last, comes more to the foreground. So that’s all good.

At the end of the day, I can’t decide if I liked The Expendables 2 or The Expendables 3 more and, frankly, I don’t care... because whichever way you cut it you’ve got a great little action movie which works well and, like the first two, has a marvellous score by Brian Tyler, a composer I’ve been really getting into the swing of lately, since hearing his scores for the fourth Rambo movie and Battle: Los Angeles. Bits of the score definitely sound like they’ve been recycled from the previous movies but that possibly means this one is pulling the leitmotif together in an exceptional way (I’ll be clearer about it when I get my hands on the CD, on that count). So, all in all, if you liked either of the first two movies in this franchise then, despite the ratings drop, The Expendables 3 really delivers the goods on what you are expecting from the trailer (even though my favourite Banderas line of dialogue from the trailer didn’t make it into the final cut, by the looks of it). Definitely one to go see if you like these kinds of movies. I’ll definitely be picking this one up again on the home video release, for sure.

Parker

Pen-demonium

Parker
USA 2013
Directed by Taylor Hackford
Playing at cinemas now.

Okay. So here’s an always good trivia question for you. What do actress Anna Karina and actors Lee Marvin, Jim Brown, Robert Duvall, Peter Coyote, Mel Gibson and Jason Statham all have in common?

The answer, of course, is that they’ve all played the title character of this movie here... Parker. 

How come? Well...

The writer Donald E. Westlake has published numerous novels under both his own name and also many under a string of pseudonyms. Perhaps his most famous pen name is that of writer Richard Stark, the name he used for a long series of novels about an unstoppable, ruthless but principled professional thief named Parker. Stephen King fans take note that the George Stark pseudonym used by the main protagonist of King’s novel The Dark Half, and the unstoppable monster that stalks him, are heavily inspired by Richard Stark and Parker.

And of course, there have been movies too.

Many movies but, and here’s the thing, due to some kind of contractual or other arrangement, in the many previous movies based on his character - Anna Karina in Godard's Made In U.S.A, Lee Marvin in Point Blank, Jim Brown in The Split, Robert Duvall in The Outfit, Peter Coyote in Slayground and Mel Gibson in Payback - none of these characters have been allowed to be called Parker. Which in some ways, I guess, is handy for a studio because, if you’re going to have different people playing him, it doesn’t tie you into any rival companies films (is my guess).

Meanwhile, Donald E. Westlake died back in 2008 and so, here we have the character back on screen once more in an adaptation of the Stark novel Flashfire but, this time, they can get away with calling the character by the handle he goes by in the books, hence, Parker.

Now it’s at this point that I have to confess that I’ve only ever seen one previous Parker movie (so far), Lee Marvin’s outstanding portrayal opposite Angie Dickinson in John Boorman’s mini masterpiece Point Blank. I’ve also only ever read one of the Parker novels too, I'm afraid... The Hunter, on which both Point Blank and Payback were both based, and that was a long time ago, so I guess what I’m telling you is that I’m not one hundred percent able to tell you if the character (and performance of that character by Jason Statham) in this new movie does the source material properly or not.

What I can say though is... it felt right.

When the movie started I wondered if Parker had maybe been softened down a little but, frankly, even though Statham plays the character in a fairly sympathetic light (aka someone you can get behind and cheer), he still carries with him the subtext of being an unstoppable, or at least wildly tenacious, killing machine who will go to the ends of the earth and endure everything for a principal... to get what he, and his, have been promised.

And I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I have to say the direction of this movie in certain areas felt kinda wearing, in as much as I’m blaming the director really for having a say in both how the shots were designed and framed and also, as it happens, how things were edited together. I saw nothing truly joyful in terms of the visual composition all the way through the film, it has to be said. Similarly the editing seemed a bit choppy to me and I was constantly noticing how various actions in a scene were chopped up into various angles when a master shot or tracking shot could have covered things in one hit and... well... if I was noticing all this stuff when I should have just been kicking back and enjoying the movie, then I guess there’s something wrong there. Well, unless the director wanted to deliberately call my attention to that stuff and pretend he’s Godard... but I’m guessing not.


That being said, though, I have to give the director a lot of credit for doing a lot right in this movie. It did suck me in quite a lot and some of the suspense sequences in this movie, and that’s all a big editing thing to pull off too, really were quite effectively suspenseful and it’s not often you get that working in modern thrillers... so that’s a big tick for him right there. I think what we have on our hands is a good work a day director turning in a movie for a studio which is going to do the business because, at the end of the day, it’s a really good little film.

When it comes to Jason Statham, I’m used to him being really excellent, and he proves to be again in this. He’s also ably supported by Jennifer Lopez, who I’ve long known is a really capable and very underrated little actress, it seems to me. All of the performances in this are good with particular nods of the hat to Emma Booth, who plays Parker’s main squeeze Claire and Michael “Ben Grimm The Thing” Chiklis who plays a pretty decent, and therefore fairly nasty, heavy.

The action sequences in this are pretty good too and one fight in particular came across to me as kind of a cross between the train fist-fight between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love and the apartment fight with Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity. Jason Statham is known for being able to do some pretty spectacularly choreographed fight scenes but I have to credit the film-makers here for paring that spectacle down and instead going for something far more brutal and earthy. When people start hitting each other they get hurt and the way the violent elements in this one are put together... you really start to feel it (the sound design helps a lot in these sequences too). So I guess what I’m also saying there is that... maybe the action editing was a little better in those kind of fast paced, short duration, sequences of shots than it was in certain other parts of the movie. I don’t know... I’d have to see it again (which I may well do, as it happens).

It’s also pretty well written and although the film is maybe just a little long, and I was kinda distracted by the way certain scenes were being put together and presented to me, that overall I really enjoyed this one and can easily recommend it to lovers of thrillers (it’s not a gung ho action movie... and better for that) and also as a jumping on point to the world of Parker, if you’ve never seen or read any of his adventures before. Richard Stark, that is “Parker’s pen name”, would hopefully approve of this one. Give it a go.

The Expendables 2

Expend It Like Beckham

The Expendables 2 2012 USA 

Directed by Simon West

Playing at UK cinemas now

Warning: Yeah, they’ll be slight spoilers

popping up as I write this, I guess.

So here we go again.

I quite liked the first movie in this popular franchise (reviewed here) but if you read that review you’ll also know I had some problems with it too. So, for the second time around with this rag-tag unit of high testosterone empowered mercenaries for hire, I was expecting a little less from the concept but still thought it would be an okay movie. I’m happy to report that this wasn’t the case and that this movie was a lot better than the first, delivering everything the initial set up of that debut film promised and doing it with a considerable amount of tongue in cheek fun. 

Starting with a very strong action set piece showing The Expendables, including a young new recruit known affectionately to his colleagues as “Billy The Kid” and played by Liam Hemsworth (yeah, yeah... that’d be Thor’s younger brother then), the movie is set up very nicely as this opening both reminds us of the general toughness of the team in an all out rescue/firefight while showing just how useful and likeable the new guy is to the them. After our heroes have rescued their target, plus liberated his would be saviour in the form of Arnold Schwarzenneger’s Trench character (back from the first movie), Jet Li makes a swift exit from the shenanigans, I’m sad to say. Which explains why he’s got a quite nice little hand combat sequence early on in the film for the audience to make the most of.

It’s a shame, but the amount of solid leads in these films mean that not everyone can have a chance to shine for very long... a fact I’d got annoyed with in the first movie when Li’s character wasn’t given a heck of a lot to do. In this one, his screen time is cut to what amounts to The Expendables equivalent of “showing his face” and I did miss his presence during the rest of the movie. However, the rest of the cast do make up for the absence of Li and, although the movie is as clichéd and unsurprising in terms of storyline and character interaction as the first one, there’s a lot more flesh added to the bare bones of the characters as they were in the first movie and I found myself even sympathising and rooting with Dolph Lundgren’s character in this one.

Of course, as soon as the new recruit starts bonding and fixing up when he’s going to leave the group... you pretty much know he’s doomed. His doom comes in a “pay me back for last time” mission from Bruce Willis’ Church character, who gives The Expendables a temporary, new female recruit played by somebody called Nan Yu (who’s brilliant in this, by the way) to help them in the trickier, high tech phase of their mission. When it all goes pear shaped, however, our gang of “little rascals” as Willis affectionately calls them in reference to Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat and the gang*, are left humiliated by this movie’s bad ass villain Jean-Claude Van Damme (which works better for me than Eric Roberts, I have to say) and little Billy is left with a karate kicked knife through his heart... leaving Stallone and the gang to bury him and get his last letter home to his patiently waiting girlfriend.

And then The Expendables have a new mission which is put very succinctly by Stallone, as seen in the trailer... 

“Track ‘em. Find ‘em. Kill ‘em.” 

Yes, you guessed it... this time it’s personal!

And then it just keeps delivering... not just on the action front which is pretty strong and, unlike the first movie in a few places, very well edited so you can see exactly what’s going on and where, but also on the ensemble work. As I implied before, the chemistry between all the characters in this one comes off just right... possibly even shifting into The Guns Of Navarone territory in terms of presenting a fighting unit the audience can really care about. Plus it’s got a kick ass action score by a composer I’m beginning to enjoy more and more just lately... Brian Tyler. He tops his score to the first movie and raises the game a whole new level (like he did with films such as Battle: Los Angeles and Stallone’s epic, fourth Rambo movie... amongst others).

There’s some really good work with Schwarzenneger and Willis who have what amount to small cameos at the start, recalling their disappointing screen time in the first movie, but then actually bringing them back for the final balls-to-the-wall, final action sequence. And of course, since these stars, along with Stallone, are such huge, over-the-top personalities... movie stars in every sense of the word by modern standards in much the same way John Wayne was in his time, the humour filled dialogue playing with the baggage they bring with them is pretty welcome too. And of course, the most awesome of these is the inclusion of Chuck Norris to the cast in a few little action cameos. His entrance to the movie already plays on his legendary status in terms of the phenomenal amount of internet jokes citing his toughness, but the script takes this one further and has him delivering one of his own jokes about himself. Everyone in the audience is waiting for this moment and it works really well.

The levels of gory violence are pretty ferocious in this one again, recalling the fourth Rambo movie (reviewed here) and the previous film in this series as to showing just what the effects of various different weapons do to the human body. These films will, hopefully, make viewers very afraid of the devastating power of these weapons... which can only be a good thing in my opinion. It’s fun to watch the characters on screen cause bloody carnage but, like they say on the TV shows, don’t try this at home kids!

When all is said and done, though, it’s great to see all these fantastic action stars of yesteryear (that’d be from my time then) roaring into battle and ripping into their enemies in this one... yep, there’s definitely an emphasis on “rip-roaring” adventure here. And why not. A film doesn’t have to be surprising or clever to keep an audience entertained. True, it helps... but, frankly, the art of a well put together action movie is not to be sniffed at and this is definitely a well put together movie. Personally I would have liked to see a little more of Jason Statham in it, who I feel is a little neglected in places (I love watching “The Stath” in action) but at least his character doesn’t suffer the same fate as Jet Li’s in this... not that it’s much compensation.

All said and done, The Expendables 2 is a solid, more than competent and extremely entertaining, fast paced action thriller and it does exactly what is says on the tin. It’s not big on revelatory surprises, as I said... and don’t expect anything clever from the story. It’s one of those films that works well at it’s own level and the cast, all of the main cast, give absolutely rock solid performances and will doubtless bring a smile to your face in more than one place in the movie.

Formulaic... for sure. Fun... most certainly.

*Our Gang, later syndicated as The Little Rascals.

Safe

Safe No Chaser


Safe USA  2012
Directed by Boaz Yakin
Playing at UK cinemas now

Safe is another in the series of in-yer-face action thrillers which have successfully, and deservedly, turned Jason Statham into a household name. Those of you, however, who are expecting the over-the-top silliness of The Transporter and Crank movies blended in with the high octane car chases and blisteringly unsurvivable body hits kind of action these characters shrug off so lightly may be best advised to alter their expectations.

That is to say...

Yeah, of course it’s over the top. The majority of action movies are. There’s no way anybody would be able to survive stunts and action like this in real life... but it hasn’t got that way-beyond-reality sense of humour that often accompanies a Jason Statham vehicle. Statham himself is, of course, as charming as he always is in these things... but you won’t find him stripping himself topless and covering himself in black oil so people can’t grab onto him in a fight... nor will you see him kick a gun up out of a man’s hand and then kill a gazillion people with his breathless martial arts skills and do three somersaults in the time it takes for the gun to fall back down so he can catch it and shoot somebody else.

To be sure, he does do quite a lot of kicking, punching and jumping in this one... but the stupidity of the action choreography has been pared back quite a bit in this case so the audience don’t have to suspend their collective disbelief quite so much. The action sequences all still pack a fair amount of wallop though and action-fest fans won’t regret taking a look at this one.

Like I said, however, the humour is mostly eradicated in this movie...

The set up starts with a point when Statham is just about to come into contact with the little girl he spends the rest of the movie protecting. We then get a series of reverse flashbacks like somebody is cinematically opening a stack of Russian Dolls. Each of the two character’s back stories are revealed and they’re both extremely dark for this kind of seemingly light-hearted Hollywood fare. For example, Statham’s wife and unborn child are brutally murdered and he is forced to live his life with no money and no friends for a year before the little girl inadvertently stops him from taking his own life and gives him a sense of purpose to go and kick some ass. Luckily for them both, the ass-kicking involves “bad guys” from both his and her past, as rivals to the possession of a Safe combination memorised by the girl with her photographic memory and, also, the police (who also have reason to hate Statham’s character)... and, of course, Statham gets to go at it like an avenging angel to kill the evil antagonists from his past as he redeems himself by becoming a guardian to the child who everybody wants to either extract the information from or kill.

The plot is that simple... but appears complex, at first, because of the initial narrative structure... which then packs the Russian dolls of the cinematic flashback  back up into the right order before the action kicks off properly. This must take a good 20 minutes of running time and it’s unusually dense in detail for a modern action movie but certainly does no harm to the basic entertainment value of the piece and helps give a focussed motivation for the characters.

Statham is ably supported by a really excellent cast including some heavyweight character actors such as Blade Runner’s James Hong and the always excellent Robert John Burke (as he’s billed here) who was so great in the Hal Hartley movies The Unbelievable Truth, Simple Men, Flirt and No Such Thing... not to mention Dust Devil (and possibly his action credentials playing the title character in Robocop 3). Everybody is really excellent in this film and, because everyone is so credible in it, it allows the director to deftly pad some of the bone crunching, bullet play sequences with a matter-of-fact layer of pseudo-truth which is of immense help when carrying off some of the more unbelievable set pieces... as I said before, most people wouldn’t be able to just walk away from the kind of physical punishment depicted in these kinds of stories.

Also... the action sequences are, for the most part, not as badly edited as a lot of these kinds of sequences have been in the balletic world of modern action cinema. A distinct lack of confusing juxtapositions means that I can tell just who is shooting or punching who, who is being kicked or chopped and the rough geographic location of these shots (although there was a little sleight of hand practiced in a sequence where Statham has to throw someone out of a car where the shots didn’t quite match up... luckily, they’ve cunningly distracted or softened this with an “outraged” sound edit which implies a visual link where the visual continuity has failed... I’ll let ‘em get away with it because action movies are so hard to shoot and edit).

If you like modern day action movies and don’t mind them infused with a certain amount of dark and, in the case of a lot of the characters in this one, a more ambiguous moral sensibility, then you’ll probably enjoy this movie for what it is. It’s not the best of Statham’s action movies by a long chalk, but it’s certainly not the worst and the pounding, driving rhythm of the movie will probably pull you in and take you on the kind of ride you might like. It won’t be to everyone’s taste but there are a lot worse action entertainments out there and this one has a certain heart to it (something which Statham always delivers) and a certain honesty to it which won’t leave you feeling the movie lacks a solid base. Give it a go. This one’s pretty Safe!

Whack Job Races

Deathrace 2000 1975 US

Directed by Paul Bartel Optimum DVD Region 2

Death Race 2008 US

Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson Universal DVD Region 2

Caution: Spoilers in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear...

It’s been a good decade or more since I last watched a print of producer Corman’s notorious trash classic Deathrace 2000 and, since I’d never seen the remake, Death Race from a couple of years ago, I thought I’d do a double-bill of the two movies to see if I could make any comparative judgements between the two versions. As you’ll soon see (or know if you’ve seen both), it’s very hard to compare the two.

Deathrace 2000 was a film which had a kind of notoriety when I was a kid growing up in the 70s... I remember the caretaker of the school I went to getting into trouble because he’d screened it for a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds as part of their film club not long after it came out (the movie was rated X in the UK at the time). Unfortunately I was not in attendance at that particular screening and it wasn’t until the home video boom that I finally got my chance to see the movie. Looking at the current DVD release of it sure brought back some memories.

From what I can gather, Corman’s original film seems to have a reputation for being a mean-spirited, nasty film with those who have not actually seen it as it centres on the drivers of a trans-American road race where the players score different point values for any innocent bystanders they run over and kill in the course of the race. It sounds like a gruelling watch but I can assure you that Corman and Bartel’s film is pitched with it’s celluloid tongue wedged firmly in its cinematic cheek. A strong dose of humour runs all the way through the picture and, although certainly violent and with some quite inventive and, dare I say, witty and surprising kills in the movie, it demonstrates a very knowing attitude to the ridiculous, over-the-top concepts portrayed in the film and doesn’t miss an opportunity to laugh at itself and push things way beyond the point where you start to giggle at the ridiculous antics on screen. Even the names of some of the drivers will give you some idea... apart from Machine Gun Joe (a fairly early post-porn role for Sly Stallone) you also have character names like Calamity Jane and Frankenstein (so named because his body has had so many horrific car crash injuries over the years that they have to keep rebuilding him).

What people who haven’t seen this movie don’t realise is that, quite apart from the race-around-and-kill-everyone-in-sight aspect of the film, there is also actually a plot (the year 2000 was in the far future don’t forget and sci-fi stories were getting another breath at the cinema) involving a group of rebels against the government who sanction the Deathrace every year and their attempts to sabotage the games and kill the drivers... there’s also another layer to this involving Frankenstein (played wonderfully by David Carradine) and his navigator (the daughter of rebel leader "Thomasina Payne") with a little twist in the Frankenstein character right at the end that you won’t necessarily see coming... involving his political leanings as symbolised by a hand grenade (quite literally a HAND-grenade but you’ll need to watch the movie to find out more).

All in all, still a refreshing and funny, inventive movie which features large dollops of humour and solid 70s sci-fi storytelling, interspersed with even larger dollops of those homespun Corman values which make up the essential components of the age old Hollywood success equation... nudity + violence = good box office.

Which brings me nicely onto the kinda inappropriate “remake” from a couple of years ago. This movie only half satisfies the above equation in that it ditches the nudity and keeps in the violence... unfortunately it also manages to ditch the sense of humour with it. Now I’ll go up front with my verdict on this one and say that Death Race actually is not a bad movie... it’s a modern exploitation film in much the same way as most modern day action movies might be seen as such and it’s got some entertainment value and it’s really not that badly made... but why did they have to tout it as a remake (so much so that it says something along the lines of “based on the Roger Corman movie Deathrace 2000 in the opening credits)?

Seriously, the only things that this movie has in common with Deathrace 2000 is it has some people driving fast cars in it and two of the character names are the same (Frankenstein and Machine Gun Joe). Unfortunately, because of the movies gestation and subsequent marketing, the audience is pretty much invited to make comparisons between the two movies which is a bad idea because, no matter how entertaining the new Death Race is on a visceral, modern action movie level... it’s just not got the same level of charm and wit as the original movie, even with the great Jason Statham (who is always watchable) playing the “new” Frankenstein.

This new version also does away with the idea of killing innocent bystanders for points... which was always one of the most talked about concepts of the original. Also, rather than racing across America... the races are held on an urban track in prison... since all the drivers in this version are convicts and the only people they’re trying to kill are other driver convicts. The plot is also a lot more personal and less about playing with big ideas than the original. Here, Jason Statham (a driving expert) is framed for killing his lovely wife by a prison warden who runs the race (played nastily by Joan Allen) so she can use him to double as the freshly deceased Frankenstein to maintain ratings of the live broadcasts of the Death Race. Prison yard posturing and Carmageddon ensues.

And from that paragraph you can just tell, can’t you, that they’ve watered down the original and gutted the concept of Deathrace 2000 like a fish!

Not to say the new one isn’t entertaining... it’s a fine entry in the modern trash cinema stakes and it does have it’s inventive moments... like the cars which power up various weapons and defences by driving over big pickup buttons in much the same way as a character in a video game will pick up various health and weapon power-ups. And, to be honest, the vicarious thrills engendered by this kind of movie are pretty much on the same level that the original movie was aiming for... so in some ways you can’t help but like the new Death Race just a little...

It just happens that the original movie revs itself up beyond 24 frames a second and forces the newer version off the side of the road in a heap of twisted, burning chrome...

But if you don’t need to pick one over the other then “doing the deathrace double” is a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Just keep a watch out for that smell of burning rubber coming from your DVD player.