Assassins (1995).

Review #2546: Assassins (1995).

Cast:

Sylvester Stallone (Robert Rath / Joseph Rath), Antonio Banderas (Miguel Bain), Julianne Moore (Electra / Anna), Anatoly Davydov (Nicolai Tashlinkov), Muse Watson (Ketcham), Steve Kahan (Alan Branch), Kai Wulff (Remy), Mark Coates (Jereme Kyle), Kelly Rowan (Jennifer), and Reed Diamond (Bob) Directed by Richard Donner (#075 - Scrooged, #355 - Lethal Weapon, #356 - Lethal Weapon 2, #547 - Superman, #619 - Maverick, #731 - Lethal Weapon 3, #734 - Lethal Weapon 4, #1452 - The Omen, and #1542 - 16 Blocks, #1700 - The Goonies)

Review: 

"Assassins, I thought Stallone did one of the best jobs he’s ever done. He totally underplayed, he was quiet, he found the character and he went with it. I thought Antonio Banderas was wonderful. The picture came out, and it did not do very well at all. Sure, it hurts and you know why you wish it would do better? The studio gave you a lot of money and you want them to make their money back so that other people can make movies...And I thought we did a good job and they thought we did a good job, but the audiences and critics didn’t like it. Did I feel bad? Sure. Did it get me down? Nope, nope, nope — too lucky to be in this business to be down in the dumps."

Admittedly, I picked this movie because I felt it was time to look at another Richard Donner movie. So why not go with this one, a movie released near the tail-end (16th of 20*) of a fairly interesting career? You might think the film credit for the writing is interesting because it lists the Wachowskis for the story and a co-credit with Brian Helgeland (who at the point had worked on the scripts for the fourth A Nightmare on Elm Street film, 976-EVIL, and Highway to Hell) for the screenplay. When Donner got the script from Joel Silver (who had bought the spec script along with The Matrix), he had re-writes done to it (which namely involved toning down the violence along with emphasizing the Rath-Electra storyline while not having a certain character included for the climax), which the Wachowskis did not like to the point where they tried to get their name removed from it, but the Writers Guild of America refused. Interestingly, both screenplays are available for viewing (the Wachowskis one is seen here, while the modified shooting script is seen here). Made on a reported budget for $50 million, the movie was not a huge success with audiences or critics at the time. Probably the only thing the movie ended up being noted for was a reaction shot by Banderas that became a "meme" on the Internet.

 

In some ways, it feels like a movie that is desperate to be liked. With such a limited cast of basically three (with one further person being shoehorned in for the start and end), you might be forgiven for wondering if there was a tiny bit of a Western yearning to come out (an old gunfighter wanting to retire, only to encounter one more gunfight could be seen in say, The Shootist [1976]). And there are moments that are fascinating in Stallone trying to play an understated hero to go along with a colorful Banderas. Of course, the sinking feeling of watching the film unravel around the backstretch of setting up the final  act combines with a middling Moore and an unwieldy runtime of 133 minutes for a sad disappointment that I cannot really defend beyond saying "I like the people* in it but not the vehicle they are driving." Banderas basically steals the show in the theatrics that come in "trying to be No. 1" for basic one-upmanship that desperately needs a funnier or tighter movie to really let him do his thing besides a listless one that seems to accidentally stumble into anything. He's fun, if only because it is Banderas, not so much the script or direction. Stallone could do things other than action movies, the righteous ones know that from Oscar (1991), but I do get why "subdued" isn't exactly an easy sell. Some of the time feels like doddering to try and make him sound more interesting than he needs to be, because really it could've just been a hard-lined silent type and that would work better than trying to play type with Moore, who just seems adrift in "hacker" cliches and little humor to really make for a connection beyond one you might see when stuck at the self-checkout lane at the supermarket. You would think a movie where a guy is chasing someone around in the craven pursuit of being "number one", complete with various "conversations" spent on the computer (as one does as a hired guy, talking with a supervisor) would be more interesting, but no, it's just generic stuff. For a movie with an alleged polish, it just seems all too sluggish to actually get anywhere in staging the action, particularly with a climax that relies on the adversary having to sweat out waiting to shoot a dude leaving a bank (see, because that guy did the same years ago, so it is...tasteful imitation) only to get frustrated to go the bank to confront said guy (which in turn leads to sneaking around the creaky hideout), because, yeah, okay. The twist for the end is just lazy and leads to an even lamer resolution because, screw it, we forgot to have a body count worth updating regardless of how silly it looks. As a whole, Assassins is just a bit too lazy to excel as anything other than a mediocre effort from people who can't override the feeling of watching an undercooked movie that never rises all the way above the bare minimum. It just doesn't have the milage to do better than picking any other action film of its ilk, which is a shame. It's an autopilot movie that you may or may not see some interest in if you really, really, really need to see a certain director or star all the way through. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*21 if you want to include Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006)

*What can I say, Sylvester Stallone is a fascinating person to see in movies? Sure, I doubt I would agree  with him on say, a certain political topic, but really, how can I turn away from seeing whatever ridiculous stuff he starred/directed? And Moore, well, I love women.

Masters of the Universe (1987).

Review #2545: Masters of the Universe.

Cast: 

Dolph Lundgren (He-Man), Frank Langella (Skeletor), Meg Foster (Evil-Lyn), Billy Barty (Gwildor), Courteney Cox (Julie Winston), Robert Duncan McNeill (Kevin Corrigan), Jon Cypher (Man-At-Arms), Chelsea Field (Teela), James Tolkan (Hugh Lubic), Christina Pickles (Sorceress), Tony Carroll (the Beastman), Pons Maar (Saurod), Anthony De Longis (Blade), and Robert Towers (Karg) Directed by Gary Goddard.

Review: 

Hey, remember Masters of the Universe? The impetus for trying to make the toy line came from Mattel's drive to come up with something good enough to possibly forget their rejection to produce action figures for a little film called Star Wars [1977] (Kenner famously did it first instead). Various concepts came around from people such as Roger Sweet and Mark Taylor. Coincidentally, this happened around the same time that the rights holder for Conan the Barbarian tried to do a toy deal with Mattel that fell through (they later sued Mattel claiming infringement, but Mattel won out in their toy line being original). The figures first came out with mini comics in 1981 before further waves of toys and, well, your parents probably watched the Filmation animated shows, with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe running from 1983 to 1985 and a spinoff with She-Ra: Princess of Power running from 1985 to 1987 (with that show, The Secret of the Sword [1985] was the premiere, a compilation of the first five episodes that was in theaters). According to one source, the original script by David Odell (writer of films such as Supergirl) had significant time spent on Eternia and Snake Mountain but this later changed to what you see here with a fairly Earthbound adventure (apparently, the link between the two places was that He-Man's mother was born on Earth). Mattel decided to be as cloying as possible for production, reportedly not paying their half of the production budget on time and they didn't want to their title character doing anything morally wrong. The film was directed by Gary Goddard (with his one other film credit being the co-writer of Tarzan, the Ape-Man [1981]) in the only theatrical film he has done. He has done theater shows along with dark rides and 3D movies.* Released around the same time as Stakeout and The Living Daylights in August 1987, Masters of the Universe was a flop, with its failure (along others such as Superman IV) hindering Cannon Films. They had planned to do a sequel film with Albert Pyun as director and even made some costumes and sets only to renege on a deal with Mattel that led them to re-tool it for what became Cyborg [1989].

Honestly, I never really got into He-Man, because, I was born in 1996, Legos were just more interesting (and as for the animated show...no, sorry). You might say that could help when talking about a movie that probably has a special cheesy place for those who watched it back then. No, not really, this movie is a lazy, middling film, a Conan/Star Wars wannabee mired in a "fish out of water" plotline and a monosyllabic lead.  Goddard claimed that the film's storyline was inspired by various Jack Kirby comic books (namely The New Gods), and he wanted Kirby to be a conceptual artist for the movie. I feel like play-acting a comic book would be a more entertaining experience, especially since it would probably have violence against actual humanoid-looking people in it (after the first couple of totally not Stormtroopers get shot by lasers, how far can you go?). Lundgren (in his first starring role after Rocky IV [1985]) and his dialogue was re-recorded and dubbed over the original footage, which at least sounds better than Goddard wanting to re-dub the whole film with someone else's voice...in theory. For a character that goes around dallying without using a sword too much, Lundgren is left adrift to really say anything of meaningful substance (this is me trying to be nice in not just calling him wooden*). It probably is a bit of a casting coup to have a willing Langella (of films such as Dracula [1979], which I'm sure somebody liked*) go all-out, apparently because his son was big on the animated show. He hams it up a bit and basically steals the movie, which is a bit of an accomplishment when wrapped in so much makeup (as one does for a skeleton). It doesn't save the movie, but still. Cox and McNeill (future featured players in television*) just look lost in this corny movie with little to really make you care about them in a film that just meanders around with the bare minimum to offer (to say nothing of an ending that basically is wish fulfillment without really earning it). Barty, cast as a freshly created character because they could not make Orko, a floating magician for the screen...is okay, but it probably makes one appreciate stuff like Legend (1985) and Willow (1988) by comparison in the "comedy relief" aspect that only goes so far to distract from a movie that has folks going around confronting the new realities of a bucket of ribs. In a sea of attempts of support from Foster and Cypher (and those totally comfortable suits), at least you can say Tolkan was trying to be funny. For someone who really does have a varying bar of giving films a chance, this is a movie that is just too shallow to really garner that much care for what goes on in it (a sorceress being trapped has never felt so small). As a whole, the movie didn't reach its target audience in its day (people who either loved their toys and sure love PG-rated flicks), and there are oodles of people who will try to call it a cult movie, but I'm just not a fan to where I can't even call it a "just missed the mark" type of movie. So it goes.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*He may also be a pervert, as detailed by articles such as this: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-entertainment-news-updates-anthony-edwards-pens-powerful-essay-1510344160-htmlstory.html

*Unpopular and unrelated take: I suppose there's something to say about He-Man being a "gay icon" or something. No, not really. People will claim anything as an "icon" if it sounds "cool" enough. You can say "Fortunate Son" is an anti-war song but people will still put that song on full blast because...it sounds cool. 

*I still can't get over mediocre that Dracula movie was. Goddamnit. 

*folks would see Lundgren on the big screen a few more times in the next ten years (Red Scorpion [1988], The Punisher [1989 - although America got it direct-to-video], I Come in Peace [1990], Showdown in Little Tokyo [1991], Universal Soldier [1992], Johnny Mnemonic [1995]) sprinkled in with direct-to-video fare.

*Friends stinks. I'll watch Star Trek: Voyager all the way through once before I see Friends.

Redux: Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Redux Review #168: Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Cast: 

Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood), Paul Freeman (René Belloq), Ronald Lacey (Major Arnold Toht), John Rhys-Davies (Sallah), Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody), with Alfred Molina (Satipo), Wolf Kahler (Colonel Dietrich), Anthony Higgins (Major Gobler), Vic Tablian (Barranca / Monkey Man), Don Fellows (Colonel Musgrove), William Hootkins (Major Eaton), Bill Reimbold (Bureaucrat), Fred Sorenson (Jock), Patrick Durkin (Australian Climber), Pat Roach (Giant Sherpa / 1st Mechanic), and George Harris (Simon Katanga) Directed by Steven Spielberg (#126 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

Review: 

"Indiana Jones was never a machine. I think one of the things we brought to the genre—and we didn’t coin the genre; it’s been around a lot longer than we’ve been around—but one of the things that George [Lucas] and I and, originally, Larry Kasdan, the writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, brought to the genre, was the willingness to allow our leading man to get hurt and to express his pain and to get his mad out and to take pratfalls and sometimes be the butt of his own jokes. I mean, Indiana Jones is not a perfect hero, and his imperfections, I think, make the audience feel that, with a little more exercise and a little more courage, they could be just like him. So he’s not the Terminator. He’s not so far away from the people who go to see the movies that he’s inaccessible to their own dreams and aspirations."

What is it about Indiana Jones that drives so much fascination after 45 years? As the story goes, George Lucas, fresh off American Graffiti, had ideas in mind about wanting to do a movie like the ones he used to see a kid. He thought of doing an adventure with a college professor who basically was like James Bond on as "a bounty hunter of antiquities" that liked the nightclub. A little collaboration with his friend Philip Kaufman (director of films such as The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid [1972] and The White Dawn [1974]) led to the ditching of the nightclub but also led to the pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant. Lucas paused on the idea when Kaufman was off to direct The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) to focus on, well, Star Wars (1977). Incidentally, one person who wanted to do a Bond type of adventure thriller was Steven Spielberg; the success of Star Wars in May 1977, with Lucas and Spielberg each on vacation in Hawaii, spurred things along for an eventual collaboration (after months of Lucas waiting to see if Kaufman would do it fell through). Spielberg brought in Lawrence Kasdan, who Spielberg suggested because he had just convinced Universal Pictures to purchase Kasdan's script for Continental Divide. They spent several days in 1978 doing a pitching session that argued and paced out what would happen in the story (which you can find here, because it was taped). Kasdan was once quoted as stating that everything in the film "resonates from other movies", specifically adventure films like Seven Samurai to The Great Escape, where they chased that feeling while the film did not take itself too seriously*. Filmed in 1980, Raiders was Spielberg's sixth feature film as a director, falling right between 1941 (1979) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). It was released on June 12, 1981 with mild expectations because of the impending release in America of Superman II that was coming on June 19 (incidentally, audiences could also choose between Raiders or Clash of the Titans, or History of the World, Part I); the result was a massive hit that reportedly saw over 70 million tickets be sold in a time when people could see a movie in theaters for a year. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards that went down from Best Picture to Cinematography, winning for art direction, editing, sound, visual effects, and a special one for sound editing (that year, Chariots of Fire, a movie that I'm sure everyone knows beyond that one song, won Best Picture*). There were four sequels of varying quality (Temple of Doom - really good, actually; Last Crusade - a charmer; Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - better the next time around; Dial of Destiny - fine the one time I saw it) and a television show with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

It's easy to go on and on about the influences that shaped Indiana Jones (matinee serials, China [1943], Secret of the Incas [1954], others) or just go point by point about the beauty of the film from its cinematography by Douglas Slocombe or the tremendously diverting score by John Williams all the way down to Harrison Ford being the one to lead it over, say, Tom Selleck. It was released in a time where you could show multiple people get shot (along with the whole Ark thing), snakes going around dead bodies, blood splatter right as a dude gets chopped by a plane blade...and get a PG rating. The easiest way to describe the movie is that it is an adventure with tremendous respect for its viewer that has something for everyone in a manner that seems effortless but is actually the result of so many worthy things going so well. It is the kind of movie that benefits from re-watches in what you view from certain scenes the second time around, because there are moments that really are just allowed to breathe without needing dialogue, when you think about it (this may come from the fact that the movie was extensively storyboarded, because he felt he needed every storyboard to stay on schedule). You enjoy the people that enter the sphere around Jones in what they bring to the table in their own pockets of time, whether that involves a trained monkey spy or the worthy menace brought by people such as Lacey. It's a wonderful movie to look at, right down to what is right there on screen and what actually is say, a matte painting. It all rests on Ford being something beyond the matinee hero: an academic and an adventurer (okay that was paraphrasing what he once said about the character, but still). He balances the tightrope of strength and wit that can be just as vulnerable as he can be funny in an adventure that basically is a ride of humility (contrary to Han Solo, the character of Jones doesn't start out as, well a conman).

It's not all about rescuing and getting the girl on the way to glory, it is a movie where you really do have to close your eyes to see beyond what you think you know about the world. Allen is just simply charming in that sort of independence that we gravitate to even in without as much backstory to really sink into (which is where imagination comes to play when thinking about looking at the interactions between her and Ford as compared to the ones between her and Freeman). Freeman is a capable shadow of Ford, a disturbing presence in how sly one can be when collaborating with the worst of humanity because he believes in himself so highly as a fallen angel of archaeology. A fly could buzz around his mouth and all he cares about is where he looms on the chessboard. You get the delightful elegance, charm or otherwise, with Rhys-Davies (cast as a mix between his role in Shōgun and John Falstaff*) and Elliott (the always beloved British actor), did I forget that? Wrapped within its 115-minute runtime is a movie that breezes along in finding the pieces of the puzzle in its adventure ride that respects its audience in allowing it to breathe and experience the action sequences or its effects spectacle (spooky ghosts always gets a vote) that I probably appreciate even more than when I first saw it as a teenager. It's hard to really say just what is the best sequence of the whole film between, say, the opening sequence or the Map Room - you just have to see it (and I mean see it) to really believe it, where a B-movie feel leads to going along with its rhythm quickly. It's the kind of movie that makes you feel young again, and it is the kind of movie that scratches the itch every now and then to crave adventure and maybe get something from the pursuit of history. The second one plays to the lizard brain interests for intensity and comedy, the third and fourth ones pursued a family tale with leaps of faith and the fifth, well, plays to having at least one more good time in old age, so there's that as well. It is sincerity without becoming devout in the best ways imaginable. 45 years later, it is the movie with the best type of qualities: the milage of craftsmen at work all coming together for a true return to the great adventure.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

theme of the day

*Because of his work in the script, Kasdan was approached by Lucas to work on The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

*Nobody really dwells on a Welsh actor playing Sallah and neither do you.

*Of all the times to give an Academy Award to the British, good lord. I do wonder if Reds holds up enough that Warren Beatty deserved a Best Director award. 

*Incidentally, Steven Soderbergh did a cut of the film in 2014 that aimed to show how the film really shined in the staging, which he did by taking out the audio and converted it to black-and-white

*And, well, vintage footage