Predators.

Review #1722: Predators.

Cast: 

Adrien Brody (Royce), Alice Braga (Isabelle), Topher Grace (Edwin), Walton Goggins (Stans), Oleg Taktarov (Nikolai), Louis Ozawa Changchien (Hanzo), Mahershala Ali (Mombasa), Danny Trejo (Cuchillo), Laurence Fishburne (Ronald Noland), with Derek Mears, Carey Jones & Brian Steele (the Predators) Directed by Nimród Antal.

Review: 

Well, I suppose the Predator series needed to do something again to maintain relevancy. Robert Rodriguez had a script in mind for a film in the franchise since 1994, right around the time he was developing Desperado (1995), which he described as just a writing assignment (i.e. one that was designed to try to entice Arnold Schwarzenegger, albeit with no budgetary limitations); 20th Century Fox didn't have interest for fifteen years, and while the treatment wasn't actually used, Rodriguez did serve as producer (using his company Troublemaker Studios). Alex Litvak and Michael Finch served as writers for the film, while Hungarian-American director Nimrod Antal found his way through to serve as director; he was best known for his feature debut Kontroll (2003), which received international notice. Honestly, the movie sure has a thing for killing off the most interesting seeming people. On one side, you have a wacko Fishburne and his imaginary friend in a glorified 15-minute cameo, then on another side you have a guy with three fingers that can still use a sword that doesn't talk much, and another side you have Danny Trejo playing Danny Trejo. But sure, go ahead with Topher Grace as the totally innocent one among these weirdos. I think you can take three guesses who ends up persisting through to at least the climax, and the only curiosity is to see exactly how predictable it can get. That isn't to say that Brody is the wrong choice for what is needed, because the filmmakers wanted to home in reference points in from the first film without having a burly lead, which I can get behind. Technically speaking, the only memorable film involving the title creature is the first one, so that is a slight point. Of course, by trying to hone so many nods and references to the film from 23 years prior, the actual movie one finds is just incredibly average in comparison. 

To be fair, the movie has interest to generate, mostly with the fact that there are a few predators to look for that don't look like CGI abominations. Besides, I find they are more interesting than the ensemble cast turns out in the overall endgame, mostly because one wonders how much of a movie could be done with just the feuds between the predators as a whole. Ah, but one needs things to seem just a bit familiar to make sure you aren't watching something that dares to not sequel-bait itself. I don't even think Alien vs. Predator managed to bait itself as much as this one did, but then again it is amusing to think of one movie trying to ignore the other that really are more alike than they think (in terms of overall energy, not so much in plot). The actors are okay, but the script gives them the bare minimum to work with when it comes to anything besides cursory moments (and swearing, but that is probably expected and/or easy to see coming). As such, Brody is okay with the strong silent type that comes from a lead role intending to be a stark difference from the usual leads in the series, but really it just means that one is begging for someone with a bit more charisma than just wry disposition (i.e. dry), where grunts and gravel voices go about as far as a heavy weight put into a kiddie pool. Braga plays the peacemaker to these cardboard figures, and that is basically more of a shrug than a compliment from me. Grace is the odd duck for a movie that thinks it is going to really be clever with using him for the climax. This works about as well as you think: not very well. He isn't a bad actor, but it is such an obvious role. Goggins is kind of interesting, in that one could probably make more out of the fact that a guy playing a killer/rapist is the most interesting presence in a film like this. Taktarov and Ozawa are there to say a few words, but the latter at least gets to have an interesting sword fight. This was actually an early role for Ali in a decade that soon saw him turn into a star; naturally, this means he plays someone with the bare minimum personality slated to vanish (ditto for Trejo). Honestly,  Fishburne and his one note weirdo role is more interesting in the span of nearly 10 minutes than anything else in the film- and it isn't even that drawn out! The movie runs at 107 minutes, which is a fair pace despite my middling feelings on the matter. By the time the movie tries to bait a further adventure into the middling lives of gravel voiced elite killers, I was pretty checked out. I didn't hate what I saw, but honestly, there just isn't anything here that really stuck with me. It may be better than previous features with the Predator, but that isn't saying much. To me, this is barely better than if someone had just remade the original movie, but at that point one might just stay home. Green blood may look gooey, but that isn't enough to make a proper gore film. Well, the film was fairly successful upon release (making three times its budget, which was $40 million), and yet the next film in the series (The Predator, I am not joking) followed along different lines in its story, and it probably doesn't help that only two actors have ever been in more than one Predator film. Honestly, the only thing this will inspire is the argument that one could just stick with the original feature and not lose a beat. Having an admiration of the original film is a nice ambition, but it does not ultimately make for a nice effort.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Rollerball (2002).

Review #1270: Rollerball (2002).

Cast: 
Chris Klein (Jonathan Cross), Jean Reno (Alexi Petrovich), LL Cool J (Marcus Ridley), Rebecca Romijn (Aurora), Naveen Andrews (Sanjay), Mike Dopud (Michael), Kata Dobó (Katya Dobolakova), Lucia Rijker (Lucia Ryjker), Oleg Taktarov (Oleg Denekin), Paul Heyman (Sports Announcer), and Janet Wright (Coach Olga) Directed by John McTiernan (#014 - Die Hard, #018 - Die Hard with a Vengeance, #080 - The Hunt for Red October, #325 - Predator, and #576 - Last Action Hero)

Review: 
1000 word score!

It should only figure that someone made a remake of Rollerball (1975). After all, one can only take so many things from the 1960s or 1980s to shamelessly make again without doing anything new or different (unless you decide to make a nostalgia cashgrab sequel, of course) before thinking about something as ridiculous yet memorable like that particular film and think you can do better. The original film, written by William Harrison from his short story with direction by Norman Jewison, was a film about one man fighting against a corporation's decision to force him out of the senseless (yet capably watchable) sport in the not too distant future. A sport that looked like a mix of hockey, football and roller derby looked pretty violent, but at least you could get the idea that the film had some sort of interest in actually saying something meaningful besides being a sci-fi sports flick. The remake, directed by McTiernan with a script from Larry Ferguson and John Pogue that was modified to emphasize the action and nothing else. Is this a joke? Did someone with such a distinguished career as McTiernan (at least until he got into legal trouble, which occurred due to hiring someone to wiretap one of the other producers of this film and then lying about it) really make a film with so many mind-boggling bad decisions? When the best presence in the film is professional wrestling advocate Paul Heyman, you really messed things up. Watching a hour of wrestling entertainment (take your pick) would likely be more convincing, since at least you can mostly tell what is going on, as opposed to slovenly films like this. You could just write a long screed of things wrong with this film and probably do it in less time than this 98 minute jumble, complete with one less editor than this film had (two, Robert K. Lambert and John Wright) and with less money and effort ($70 million, for which this made less than half back).

This is the kind of film where its friends are Gymkata and Stealth, where one laughs at it hard until they just can't do it anymore. It's the only way to try and make sense of a film that has jumbled action sequences and characters that don't even merit one sentence descriptions on the Internet. It isn't like the original was really great or anything, but at least one could actually say something nice about the lead played by James Caan and not have to immediately roll onto the ground laughing like with this film. Seriously, how could you not laugh at how ridiculous this film is with its main lead? Supposedly, MGM wanted Keanu Reeves to be the star, which is completely believable and also completely hilarious in hindsight with Klein, who looks completely out of his depth here. He isn't the individual fighting against the system here, he just happens to be the latest action figure (namebrand hockey player) being played with in a massive toybox, where things are being thrown around in an attempt at a story like a kid making the rules up as he goes, playing to a crowd of one that is in danger of losing its own audience. Reno seems completely vacant, which one could also say for Andrews, with neither inspiring any sort of adversarial presence that this desperately needs. LL Cool J (who apparently admitted to this film's suckage) is equally not spared from such lameness, and Romijn (with accent and scar in tow) is just as silly to be around. These characters really have as much energy and personality as play figures, where one can look at them and see some sort of expression try to come out. For the toymaster here, all that we can see is a mess that will have to be cleaned up later.

To point all of the severe flaws of this film may be an exercise in verbal spewage, but it is fairly appropriate for a film as sloppy as this one. How does one make a sport as ridiculous as this one (which we see played in Kazakhstan) struggle to get a cable deal in North America? If other sillier (but fairly competent) sports like soccer, e-sports, and cornhole have at least some sort of deal, how does this one fail? Maybe its in the rules, since it's barely comprehensible as a sport at all. The "Instant Global Rating" (one of the "neat" creations of this film's future of 2005, where nothing is different at all, the perfect hipster future) is just as silly, as if one really needs to tell us that "more violence = more curious viewers". Perhaps this sport thinks its biggest competitor is professional wrestling. The icing on the cake is the night vision sequence. It actually was a re-shot scene that was too dark the first time around. Imagine delaying a movie for months (from summer to February) because you couldn't do a chase sequence in the dark properly, then having it be in the film in night-vision for no apparent reason. Geez, the street sequence in the beginning looked more convincing than this. This is just a horrendous experience, through and through, where the unrewarding climax is just the cherry on top on the punch to the face that this movie gives you. This even was at one point slated to be an R-rated film, but bad test screenings led to the digital removal of blood (for sweat) and a romance sequence. I shudder to wonder how worse it was before cuts were made. You would think a film could be made that had some sort of commentary about an audience and their curiosity for violence that didn't turn into an excessive joke on the viewer. It may not be the worst experience one could have with a film, but it surely ranks up there as an insultingly stupid movie that deservedly languishes at pawn shops on the film stack, for good reason.

Overall, I give it 1 out of 10 stars.