Iron Eagle.

Review #2537: Iron Eagle.

Cast: 

Louis Gossett Jr (Colonel Charles "Chappy" Sinclair), Jason Gedrick (Doug Masters), David Suchet (Ministry of Defense Colonel Akir Nakesh), Shawnee Smith (Joanie), Melora Hardin (Katie), Larry B. Scott (Reggie), Lance LeGault (General Edwards), Tim Thomerson (Colonel Ted Masters), Caroline Lagerfelt (Elizabeth Masters), Robert Jayne (Matt Masters), Jerry Levine (Tony), Robbie Rist (Milo Bazen), and Michael Bowen (Knotcher) Directed by Sidney J. Furie (#787 - Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, #2256 - The Ipcress File)

Review: 

“We knew we wanted to make a movie in which the audience could feel involved. And this seemed the right kind of story. I admit I consciously set out to make a mass-entertainment kind of picture; I did think, ‘Will millions go for this?’ But there’s no alternative these days. Nothing else works. And there’s nothing sadder than an empty theater.”

Apparently, the inspiration for the script for the film came around the time of the 1984 Summer Olympics. No, really, Sidney J. Furie and Kevin Alyn Elders started their work during the games that they found "very inspiring" and had arrived back from filming Purple Hearts (1984), where Elders had been production supervisor. They wanted to do "the kind of movie we used to sneak in to see on Saturday afternoons." After bouncing around different studios, it found its way to a guy who liked it because it resembled the Westerns with John Wayne. Filming was done in California and Israel (probably obvious, but the US Air Force does not co-operate with movie about stealing jets - this also involves renting out jets and putting on covers). Distributed by Tri-Star Pictures with a budget of $10 million to a release of January 1986 to avoid competition with Top Gun, (which was about naval aviators, as opposed to the Air Force guys here), the movie was a mild success with audiences (making double its budget) and it inspired two theatrical sequels with Iron Eagle II (1988) and Aces: Iron Eagle III (1992) along with a direct-to-video film (all but the latter were written by Elders*, while Furie co-directed the second and fourth film), all of which had Gossett Jr serve as the star.

Imagine making a movie that actually makes you appreciate the subtle qualities of Top Gun despite coming out first. There was a sliver of curiosity that this might be an interesting gem as opposed to just believing that it is the equivalent of Missing in Action being compared to Rambo: First Blood Part II. But it just doesn't cut the mustard for a well-rounded movie. Honestly, this probably would've been better as a comedy, because it almost sounds like a test run for Hot Shots! [1991] (just to throw a grenade into the discussion, I always thought Hot Shots! was less corny than Top Gun). And I'm sure folks had fun making the movie or fiddling with what songs needed to be played (an obscure Queen song! a Dio song that isn't "Holy Diver"! That one Twisted Singer song you know! And, in an indicator of my biases, George Clinton?*). And I'm sure it worked well for those who were still pumped up from Red Dawn [1984]. But good god the movie is a slog, one with dialogue that really does live up to the word "drivel" that just goes on and on for 117 minutes with not nearly enough charm to get away with all of the stuff it tries to pull. Sure, let's have a fake-out character death. Sure, let's have a character who loves playing tapes to do better in the air and also plays a tape of a thought-to-be-dead character. Sure, let's wave the "we have the balls unlike the government" flag. Sure, let's have a race between a plane and a bike (oh but it's not a normal race, it's a special race with special modifications!). Sure, let's have hijinks that are about as believable as the lies you tell your friends in middle school (Hardin and Smith went on to better things and good for them, because they get nothing to do here, and no, the hijinks don't count). And sure, let's have an incident that not only will result in no pushback from a foreign country but also will just be forgotten by America. All of this for a movie where I don't care for any of the characters, particularly with Gedrick, who just comes off as a prissy dweeb that doesn't really make me feel for the plight of this totally tense and not predictable film. To say nothing of Gossett Jr and a performance that sounds like a riff of his Academy Award turn in An Officer and a Gentleman from a few years prior (with little to really motivate anyone) or Suchet (future star of Agatha Christie's Poirot) and a laughable characterization as a villain that exudes little threat. Sometimes the movie looks neat in the air (even with its selections of imagery of what happens when say, firing weapons), but you know damn well where it is going at a certain point in wish fulfillment (blowing up oilfields of what totally isn't meant to be Libya, shooting stuff with dad, or referring to the current president and being confident that they'll help out - which doesn't happen anyway!*). As a whole, Iron Eagle was made to try and give audiences a crowd-pleasing adventure. For those who got to see it before a certain other film involving aerial action, I'm sure it was quite a time. Maybe it's the kind of dumbass movie you watch with a group of friends late at night*. For me, I just didn't care for this movie, as it doesn't manage to come off as anything other than day-old cheese, whether that involves being in the air or being on the ground with these people. 

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Elders wrote two other films: Simon Sez (1999), which he also directed...and Echelon Conspiracy (2009) Unrelatedly, you might recognize that Family Guy did a whole bit about Brian writing a book that cribbed from the Iron Eagle movies.

*What? By the way, check out Electric Light Orchestra.

*Gotta love the line about referring to Jimmy Carter as a peanut. Gee, real sick burn there. 

*Those days of friends ended years ago, and my patience probably grew exponentially back then - I had to once sit through an unrated version of Sex Drive, for god's sake. Now, with a support network of basically zero, I can stomach anything.

Why Did I Get Married Too?

Review #2512: Why Did I Get Married Too?

Cast: 

Tyler Perry (Terry Brock), Janet Jackson (Patricia Agnew), Jill Scott (Sheila Jackson), Sharon Leal (Dianne Brock), Tasha Smith (Angela Williams), Richard T. Jones (Mike), Malik Yoba (Gavin Agnew), Lamman Rucker (Troy Jackson), Michael Jai White (Marcus Williams), with Louis Gossett Jr (Porter Jones), and Cicely Tyson (Ola Jones) Directed by Tyler Perry (#872 - A Madea Christmas, #1979 - Why Did I Get Married?)

Review: 

Admittedly, Why Did I Get Married? (2007) was perhaps destined to make money. I called it a movie that "attempts at doing pop psychology with melodrama on the level of a soap opera or an off-kilter religious movie" (ironically, Perry took out a chunk of the church scenes from adapting his play into a film). You may or may not remember how the last film: four couples went on a week-long retreat in the mountains that saw the inevitable reveal of secrets that come with, well, people, I guess. It was chock full of surprises that came as such: secret VD, blame games over who couldn't protect their son from dying, bank account draining, would-be choking out moments and believe it or not, a divorce. Now the difference is they go on a week-long trip to the Bahamas for another retreat that reunites all the folks you saw the first time around. As is usually the case, Perry wrote and produced the film, which was basically as big a hit as the original movie was with audiences. Apparently, there are rumblings of a third of these movies (Why Did I Get Married Again, but, lol, Netflix) possibly coming in the near future. 

Technically, this is a worthwhile movie, if you like stuff that really is a bunch of hokum. It retains that strange achievement of being overblown in its melodrama for 121 minutes that manages to be ridiculous and yet too hollow to actually say anything about marriage that couldn't be boiled down to a Hallmark card. It strains to be funny when its melodrama is already ridiculous enough and it never really achieves any sort of meaningful drama, particularly since it is once again a movie where Perry and Jackson are basically overshadowed by White and Smith again. Consider this for a moment - what sounds more interesting: a couple that finds about "emotional cheating" (next you'll be telling me they were...writing messages in a bottle!), a messy divorce where a psychologist isn't so perfect, seething jealousy from the new guy in the married group, or the crazed paranoia of someone who believe their husband is cheating to where they track their resting heart rate. There is just something so insane about Smith and White interact with each other that could be thought of as irresistible in a way that seems far more in sync with what audiences think about marriages than whatever twaddle Perry & Leal are trying to pull. Some might say that Jackson pulls in the most interesting performance, but the bar is, what, still Poetic Justice (1993)? The only character that maybe goes through the idea of what might be an interesting story is with Jones in the realm of understanding what it means to be divorced...of course the actual story with his character is, no I'm not joking, his sudden diagnosis of cancer (yea, the character in the middle of the film is just...going to chemotherapy). Scott and Rucker just seem lost in the shuffle and in general the movie doesn't seem to know what to do with itself.  You might remember that there was progress to all of these characters in the first film, but it basically seems like we are watching caricatures (or perhaps a template for the subsequent TV spinoff) that do not have much to say this time around. As a whole, it may be more absurd in its melodrama, but it feels less accomplished than the previous film.* In general, it just seems like a wasted venture unless one is into the Perry pulpit, which I suppose isn't up my alley this time around. But so it goes.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night - Song of the day

*Nobody can go 0-for-4 in "good" movies, right? The Married films were on a DVD four-pack with I Can Do Bad All by Myself and Madea's Witness Protection, so we will see how that goes someday.

An Officer and a Gentleman.

Review #1867: An Officer and a Gentleman.

Cast: 

Richard Gere (Zack Mayo), Debra Winger (Paula Pokrifki), David Keith (Sid Worley), Robert Loggia (Byron Mayo), Lisa Blount (Lynette Pomeroy), Lisa Eilbacher (Casey Seeger), Louis Gossett Jr (Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley), Tony Plana (Emiliano Santos Della Serra), Harold Sylvester (Lionel Perryman), David Caruso (Topper Daniels), Victor French (Joe Pokrifki), and Grace Zabriskie (Esther Pokrifk) Directed by Taylor Hackford.

Review: 

It is hard to believe the age of some movies from time to time, probably more so when you get older and older. Released forty years ago in the summer of 1982, An Officer and a Gentleman manages to elevate material that seems destined for the old-fashioned bin into quality entertainment that makes for a useful romantic drama with solid casting and direction behind it. The movie came from director Taylor Hackford, doing his third film effort and second feature; his debut was a short called Teenage Father (1978), which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. The Santa Barbara native was a graduate of the University of Southern California for pre-law and even served in the Peace Corps, and his spare time using a Super 8 camera got him into changing his interests. Douglas Day Stewart wrote the script for the film, which he based on experiences as a Naval Officer Candidate that saw both tough training and dating a factory girl when training in Rhode Island. Stewart did not get to fly nor get the girl, but he did do some time as a ship's officer before he became a writer on television, and his first film credit would come with The Blue Lagoon (1980). It is Hackford that elected to keep the ending of the film despite the objections of Gere (who thought it was overly sentimental), with the rehearsals of the scene ending up being the final persuasion for it.

Admittedly, it is the professionalism in its romantic drama settings that carry the film more than anything, showing its working-class pairings with general honesty. In an older time, a movie about Aviation Officer Candidates (AOCs) might have been ripe for the war effort, but this is a movie that actually wants to show growth with its lead performances and romance as something that isn't just point A to point B. Gere (fresh from his star role in American Gigolo (1980), which like this film was originally offered to John Travolta, who turned each down) makes for a quality hustler to watch grow, one wrapped in jaded pride. It is the vulnerability seen in one scene with Gossett Jr about who he would be without the training required that proves the most poignant. Of course, him and Winger make a quality pairing together, since they each have to show just why they aren't just only good for romantic scenes, which namely involves dueling prides from messed-up people with daddy issues. You aren't quite sure what will happen next with them, but they resonate well with each other that it becomes a moot point. It should be noted that Gossett Jr wasn't actually the original choice in mind for the Sergeant role, as R. Lee Ermey (a Marine drill instructor before becoming an actor) was originally cast, but Hackford decided to cast Gossett Jr instead while having Ermey serve as a technical advisor (alongside Buck Welscher, a drill instructor for AOCs). Gossett Jr proves exactly right for the role, hard driving but always on point for what is needed in emphasis. Any scene he is in, he commands it with no sense of hammy overtones (naturally, Gossett ended up with an Academy Award for his performance). Keith and Blount make up the other side of the romance angle in terms of superficiality that works best for the former in doomed charm. The others in the cast are generally interesting to see in bits and pieces, such as the spry Plana or Eilbacher, or with Sylvester and Caruso, while Loggia is only utilized for the opening sequence with Gere to show just how far the difference is between father and son. The second half does end quite well for itself, although it certainly has to strain itself a bit just to make it worth without folding into complete predictability, and I think the first half generally worked better in deliberate pacing, but it still works. For a 124-minute movie, it does utilize its time wisely in building the main and supporting characters necessary to make the final result all the more worth getting there. In the end, it carries itself to a general triumph of stirring romance and military drama that is worth the curious look all these years later.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

The Deep.

Review #1197: The Deep.

Cast: 
Robert Shaw (Romer Treece), Jacqueline Bisset (Gail Berke), Nick Nolte (David Sanders), Louis Gossett Jr. (Henri 'Cloche' Bondurant), Eli Wallach (Adam Coffin), Dick Anthony Williams (Slake), Earl Maynard (Ronald), and Bob Minor (Wiley) Directed by Peter Yates (#506 - Bullitt and #927 - Krull)

Review: 
Perhaps The Deep was destined to lurk in the depths of mediocrity due to riding on the coattails of Jaws, since both films were adaptations of novels by Peter Benchley, who also happened to co-write the screenplay for both features, doing this film with Tracy Keenan Wynn, although it was Tom Mankiewicz who provided a major re-write (while going un-credited for his help), with Shaw (in his third-to-last role before his death in 1978) having a main role for both movies. The best thing that can be said for this film is that while it isn't too particularly thrilling, it is at least a decent yarn that can be fine to look at and follow along with for a while if one has the patience to go through its 124 minute run-time. It isn't a classic by any means,in part because it doesn't really have much depth, but it probably works best as something to digest much in the same way one eats food from the fridge late at night, no matter how fresh or stale it seems.

The trio of Shaw-Bisset-Nolte is a decent one, carrying the film just fine at times, not being a particularly strong group by any means but being useful enough to serve the film and its shaky bumps. Shaw is fairly entertaining with his gruff mannerisms that serve to give exposition or to loosely interact with the others. Bissett does fine with her role, even if she only occasionally is given something interesting to say for the plot, which moves somewhat sluggishly. Nolte, starring in only his second theatrical role, is alright, but he doesn't really have much to do to give off more than a bare presence for a role that could've been played by near anyone. Wallach is okay in a brief role that doesn't prove to go too far within the plot. The weakest part of the film is the lack of a big presence of a villain. Sure, it is nice to see Gossett Jr on screen for a bit, but he doesn't really get much of a chance to bring menace to a kingpin role that probably could've done with a bit of re-tooling, with a bit of voodoo thrown in that doesn't really go anywhere. At least the little bits of exposition involving history prove intriguing. The characters feel drawn out from other adventure ideas, as if cut out from very thin paper that probably would've been made on the cheap in a previous decade. The stakes never feel too high, and at times the best thing going for it is the music from John Barry, with occasional success in water action, with an okay climax in the deep. This is not really a movie I can recommend, since it never really takes off into something truly spectacular on a consistent level, but it can serve as a bit of a curious sink of time, whether for some watery action or something deeper.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Jaws 3-D.

Review #556: Jaws 3-D.

Cast
Dennis Quaid (Michael Brody), Bess Armstrong (Kathryn Morgan), Simon MacCorkindale (Philip FitzRoyce), Louis Gossett, Jr. (Calvin Bouchard), John Putch (Sean Brody), Lea Thompson (Kelly Ann Bukowski), Harry Grant (Shelby Overman), and P. H. Moriarty (Jack Tate) Directed by Joe Alves.

Review
After making a sequel that was mostly inferior to the original, making a third movie was...a given? The original idea for this movie was devised by the producers of the first two films (David Brown and Richard Zanuck), which would've been a spoof film, called Jaws 3, People 0. The idea of a spoof didn't appeal to the studio, who apparently thought it would've been a mistake, like "fouling in your own nest". So yeah, why is the movie called Jaws 3-D? Due to the revival of films using 3D (Amityville 3D, Friday the 13th Part III), 3D was used, with in-disposable polarized glasses given to the audience to give the impression of elements penetrating the screen, with examples being the opening titles (which look tacky, but make sense), the shark going through the window...and the shark's jaws coming for the screen after explosion. However, when watching on television, the titles are fixed to not be so phoned in, with a title of "Jaws III" and consequently , the resolution is a bit poor to look at. But how is the film itself? Pretty terrible. The actors (save for Louis Gossett, who at least looks like he cares about how he acts in the movie) aren't really anything special, mostly harmless, mostly bland. The effects are pretty awful, it doesn't take long for the movie to "showcase" itself, with the remains of a fish lingering on screen for several seconds, obviously trying to look like it's coming towards the screen, but it just feels like padding. The shark apparently moves like a whack-a-mole, and it's really hard to build up tension when the shark moves s-l-o-w-l-y to break the glass, with the broken grass going towards the camera. The ending is about as silly as it gets, with the guts exploding towards the screen. Oh and the dolphins survive. People die, but oh happy day that the dolphins survive. The movie quite literally jumps the shark with this sequel, but there's still one more sequel to go.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Travels with My Aunt.

Review #479: Travels with My Aunt.

Cast
Maggie Smith (Augusta Bertram), Alec McCowen (Henry Pulling), Louis Gossett Jr. (Zachary Wordsworth), Robert Stephens (Ercole Visconti), Cindy Williams (Tooley), and Robert Flemyng (Crowder) Directed by George Cukor.

Review
Travels with My Aunt may not achieve all that it could have been in terms of entertainment, but it at least tries enough to not fall too hard into mediocrity. Maggie Smith is charming, her presence keeps the film going, and she does provide some laughs. McCowen makes for a fine foil, with effective scenes between the two at times, especially in the second half. The rest of the cast is fine and such, not overacting too much. The film has slow moments that bog it down at times, but even that can't slow the film from treading on, quirks and all. It's a fine comedy, with splices of romance involved, which actually don't slow the film too much, and I do like how Smith plays her younger self, which isn't really seen too much in flashbacks in film these days. Originally Katharine Hepburn was going to star, but she would later back out, and Smith would take her place, and she certainly was a good replacement for Hepburn in this case. While the film could've been a bit less slow, it is a fun film, that has its share of laughs, and Maggie Smith is a joy to watch.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.