Action - Cinema Crespodiso

Review: ‘RoboCop’ (2014)

Well it wasn’t the complete piece of shit that I was actually expecting, but that does not mean that this new “RoboCop” movie is actually good. Just because a movie brings up some ideas doesn’t mean it is actually smart or even tried to do anything, especially if nothing is actually said by the movie. Anyone can stand on a street corner and yell about how “drone warfare is bad!” But that doesn’t mean people would want to stand around and listen to this person yelling for two hours. We get it. Drones can be bad. So what?

Taking the movie as its own thing, ignoring the fact that it is a remake of a beloved classic, “RoboCop” at least has a couple things going for. Set about 15 or so years in the future, the movie starts with some television pundit blowhard named Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) just going on and on and on about the use of drones and droids in other countries for reasons of forced pacification, and bemoaning how Americans are against the use of drones here in America*. And here during the beginning segment of the movie, we get some decent ideas about drone warfare and modern American imperialism, and an interesting and daring sequence in which these drones (including ED-209s) get attacked by suicide bombers, determined to make this attack unfold on a live television, and we even get to see a young kid, inspired by his suicide bombing father, pick up a weapon and go at the drones himself (which was pretty stupid on the kids part). So the movie starts with a literal bang and actually for a second seems like it might go to some interesting places.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’

Here we go again, yet another nearly three-hour journey through the world of Middle Earth, as filtered through the sensibilities of Peter Jackson, filled with swords and monsters and walks over mountains and sorcery and all that other good stuff. This time we got “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” and what can we say about this movie that has not been said already in one way or another in one of the four previous Hobbit-Lord of the Rings related movies?

I can say this: enough already! And I did not say that before about the original trilogy based on The Lord of The Rings, because those movies were interesting and compelling and filled with danger and excitement and newness, and now all of these years later I just don’t give a shit about a bunch of dwarves and their quest to reclaim their homeland because we already saw a huge battle of good versus evil for the entirety of Middle Earth. I didn’t care about these dwarves a year ago, I don’t care about them now and I won’t care about them a year from now when the final (thank GOD!) Hobbit movie is released.

Yet here we are, we sat through another one of these things, despite the fact that the magic is gone. Splitting a 300-page book into three separate three-hour movies seemed like a bad idea when it was first announced, and now that we are two-thirds of the way through these movies…it still does not seem like the best idea ever. Really, if need be, the story of Thorin and his dwarf buddies could have been told over two movies, that would have been acceptable, but goodness gracious this was so not necessary. For example, there’s a ten to fifteen minute sequence in the movie in which the dwarves are captures by elves and we get to see Legolas again and his father whines and complains about something and refuses to help Thorin and just acts like a dick. And it is so boring!Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Thor: The Dark World’

Well here we go, now two movies deep into phase 2 of the Great Marvel Movie Plan, in which entire films are used to set up plot elements for future films, with the rest being nothing but filler. The first “Thor” movie set up the villain for “The Avengers,” and now “Thor: The Dark World” is merely a set up for another movie and what could possibly be phase 3 of the GMMP (more on this later). But what about all the other stuff in there, does any of that matter at all?

And the answer is…kinda, I guess? For all of those people who were dying for more of that great dynamic between Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and human scientist Jane (Natalie Portman), here you go, another two hours or so of these two looking at each other longingly. Meanwhile there’s some bit of business about some dark elves and the dude who leads them and the great magical power that they seek to harness, etc. etc., I mean for crying out loud why do all of these movies have to be the same freaking thing?

Seriously though, here is yet ANOTHER super hero movie in which an evil character, who is evil for no other reason than because the story dictates him or her to be so, who wants to take over the world, or in this case the whole universe, by somehow just destroying everything. And when this movie had a cold open with a voiceover explaining the movies macguffin, in this case a magical substance that can’t be destroyed and which makes it’s host body super powerful, and then cut straight to a huge Lord of the Rings meets Star Trek: Deep Space Nine battle between a bunch of people that literally didn’t matter in the long run, my eyes glazed over faster than the donuts on a conveyor belt at Krispy Kreme at five in the morning, no what I mean?Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Kon-Tiki’

“Kon-Tiki” is a great Norwegian historical drama about explorer and scientist Thor Heyerdahl, who set out on a journey in 1947 with five men on a raft made of balsa wood from Peru all the way across the Pacific Ocean to Polynesia, in an attempt to help prove his theory that Polynesia was populated by migrants coming from the east, as opposed to the prevailing theory at the time that the settlers came from the west. But really it is a story about how this fella Thor had an idea and was determined to see it through, even if that meant absorbing tons of rejection from all sorts of people and eventually heading out on this dangerous mission just to prove his point.

This is a pretty spectacular movie regardless of whether the story is real or what was fabricated to enhance the drama of the movie (apparently there was some beef with one of the characters being portrayed very differently from his real life counterpart, resulting in the filmmakers even coming out and apologizing to the family members of this misrepresented person). It is a pretty simple set up, in that these six guys agreed to set out on this mission, and the 101-day, 5,000 mile journey pretty much changed them all forever (but then again, how could it NOT?). But while the mission and goal are easy to understand, it is obvious that the trip was not going to be a piece of cake.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Ender’s Game’

“Ender’s Game” is a nifty sci-fi movie that is more serious-minded and morally complex than most other big budget movies out there. Based on an award-winning and highly touted sci-novel of the same name, this is a story that tackles some pretty big issues, and while it doesn’t get so deep into these things that the movie comes across as a lecture or preachy, at least it feels comfortable enough to even bring these ideas up, daring the audience to actually think about the parallels between this sci-fi world and our real world. Plus there is some cool space stuff, so that helps.

In “Ender’s Game,” our protagonist is 12-year Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), who has been chosen to be groomed to be the next great commander of Earth’s international space fleet, which was formed after an alien invasion years prior nearly wiped out all of humanity. Since the invasion, everyone on Earth banded together to put together a military force that could repel future attacks, and in an effort to find the best leaders possible, children were regularly drafted into the military and put through different camps and schools in order to find the absolute best of the best. Of course, as indicated with the title of this story, Ender is one of these chosen few, fortunate enough to be considered a candidate to be a great leader, and unfortunate enough to have the weight of mankind’s possible extinction placed squarely on his shoulders.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Escape Plan’

Oh if this movie had only been made back in 1994, back during a time when the teaming of the two biggest action stars of the 80s and 90s actually would have had more punch, back when CG couldn’t be relied upon for effects and modern shaky cam and hyper editing didn’t ruin action scenes by rendering them incomprehensible and boring, back when action movies actually MEANT something. But alas, that time is long gone, we are in a more cynical age, and alas, the best we can get now is “Escape Plan,” a halfway decent movie featuring a couple of guys you may have heard of.

In this movie that should have been made in the 90s and has a story that stinks of 90s leftovers and has the overall feel of a 2000’s direct to video venture, Sly Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a guy who breaks out of prisons for a living. But then he finds himself inside a prison that is the ultimate in unbreakable (long story), so of course he has to figure out how to break his way out. And with the help of fellow inmate Emil (Arnold Schwarzenegger), he goes about trying to put together the ins and outs of a very weird prison that looks like something mixed between the boxes of monsters in “The Cabin in the Woods” and the all-white prison of “THX 1138” so he can devise a…wait for it…escape plan!Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Riddick’

So I saw the latest further adventures of Richard B. Riddick but I realized I didn’t write anything about it so here we go, a little quickie review in which we decide whether or not the movie “Riddick” is actually worth anyone’s time.

And I think this might come down to your enjoyment of the Riddick character himself and whether or not you give any sort of crap about this space outlaw and his mission to find his home planet of Furya, but then again it may also come down to whether or not you like sort of entertaining sci-fi movies that are just a couple of steps above Sy-Fy Channel original movie quality.

While there is a short recap towards the beginning of the film that recaps the very ending of “Chronicles of Riddick” and attempts to explain how Riddick is lost in the cosmos and can’t find his home planet (because it’s all about family…wait a second…wrong Vin Diesel movie…), you really don’t need to see either movie that predates this one in order to follow along with what is happening (but if you haven’t yet, you really should see “Pitch Black,” as it is genuinely quite good).Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Family’

“Hey! Ooooo! We’re Italian-Americans over heryunh, and yer a buncha snobby Frenchies ovah there, and we are violent people who love our peanut butter and pasta dishes, cause we’re fat Americans and we’re of Italian descent, ooohhhh, fuhgeddaboutit!”

That’s “The Family” right there. Just a bunch of stereotypes shmushed together. But is it any good?

Nope.

But to be fair, it’s not really bad either. It’s so right down the middle of the road, it leans closer to forgettable than anything else.

Basically imagine if at the end of “Goodfellas” Henry Hill and his family get witness protection program relocated to Normandy, France, where cultures clash and hilarity ensues. That’s pretty much the movie, but instead of Hill we got some made up guy played by Robert De Niro, and he’s married to Michelle Pfeiffer and her fake Brooklyn accent, and they have a couple of high school aged kids who look nothing like either of them and one of whom is played by an actress in her 20’s. Tommy Lee Jones shows up to mumble his way through some scenes as De Niro’s government caretaker, the violence is kicked up to warrant an R-rating, and we’re off to the races.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The World’s End’

Here is “The World’s End” – from the writers, director and stars of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” comes a movie about a group of friends reuniting to recreate a pub crawl 20 years after their failed first attempt, and during this pub crawl they work out a number of issues among themselves while also coming to the realization that their old hometown seems to have been taken over all “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” style.

“The World’s End” may be about a group of friends, but really its about two of the guys, ringleader Gary King (Simon Pegg) and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), and even then, it’s really just about Gary King, BUT REALLY in the end when it’s all said and done this movie is actually about all of us. So the movie starts with a retelling of a pub crawl attempt by five teenagers in a small UK village, with the goal being to down a pint at 12 different pubs over the course of a night. This first attempt is a failure.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Kick-Ass 2’

If I was some sort of stupid film critic superhero, then ambivalence would be my kryptonite, making it as difficult as possible for me to even put together enough words to actually constitute a “review” of some sort. And “Kick-Ass 2” has filled me with this ambivalence, as it doesn’t really seem to commit to anything, bounces back and forth between satire and comic book hero worship, admittedly strives to be good but really is just okay at best, and really it all comes down to an overall story that doesn’t add up to much of anything in the end and a bunch of empty action scenes with nothing behind them.

There just ain’t nothing to sink my teeth into with this movie. A lot of critics are going into fits over the movie’s violence, which is indeed over the top and in some cases done in bad taste, but really there isn’t anything in here that’s worse than what’s on primetime television. Doesn’t anyone wince at digital blood? Does that crap fool anyone? I didn’t think so. At least in “Kick-Ass 2” when someone gets stabbed or shot, there IS the blood (no matter how fake it looks), as much of this movie is about the consequences and repurcussions of the violence, which is better than a lot of PG-13 action movies that regularly feature the obvious deaths of hundreds if not thousands if not MILLIONS of people, usually in the most sanitized and bloodless manner possible. Now THAT’S offensive.Continue Reading …