With “The Expendables 4,” or “Expend4bles” as the studio cleverly calls it, about to be released, I wanted to reflect on its predecessor which came out nearly a decade ago. As disappointed as I was with “The Expendables 3” to where my opinion would be no different if it were rated R instead of PG-13, I still adore its teaser trailer which I still find myself watching quite often. It is short and sweet as we are introduced to the cast of the sequel to the tune of Malcolm Arnold’s theme to “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” There is something thrilling about seeing all these actors and movie stars coming together on the silver screen to this famous piece of film music, the same one the actors of “The Breakfast Club” whistled at one point while losing an entire Saturday for whatever it was they did wrong.
Like the teaser trailer for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” this is a great one for a movie I really cannot stand. While I am happy to revisit “The Expendables” and “The Expendables 2,” “The Expendables 3” is one I would prefer to believe never existed in the first place. But yes, we always have this delightful teaser trailer to it.
I was really looking forward to the third “Expendables” movie ever since I saw the teaser trailer which was scored to the theme for “Bridge on the River Kwai.” None of the films in this franchise will ever be mistaken for high art, but they bring about a much-needed nostalgia workout which many of us have for the action movies from the 1980’s. Watching “The Expendables 3,” however, reminded me of how the third movie in a franchise is where everything falls apart due to a reliance on formula and clichés which don’t work the way they used to. While I have a hard time saying how the actors look tired here (and that’s because they don’t), the story gets boring quickly, the dialogue is cruddy and not even the action sequences could lift me out of my utter frustration with something that is not nostalgic enough nor exhilarating or adrenaline-pumping in the slightest.
“The Expendables 3” starts off with the team rescuing one of its long-lost members, Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), from being sent to a military prison. The scene where he’s being rescued is cool, but the thrill we get from watching it feels a bit muted, and this becomes a sign that everything else following the movie’s opening will be equally exhilarating, which is to say not at all. Either that, or “The Raid 2” truly spoiled me to where no other action film being released these days can come even remotely close to that sequel’s brilliance.
After rescuing Doctor Death, the team heads off to Somalia to intercept a shipment of bombs being sent to a warlord, of course. In the process, they come face to face with former member and Expendables co-founder Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) who had betrayed the team by profiting off of illegal weapons dealings. When he shoots Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) to where he is left in a precarious medical state, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) gets all shaken up and decides to disband the veteran members of the Expendables as he feels they have all run their course, and they should all get out while they still have a pulse.
When Barney does this, I knew this sequel was going to be in serious trouble. Barney ends up recruiting a whole bunch of younger Expendables with the help of retired mercenary Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammer), but I knew from there that those “old guys” will eventually return to help save the day. Stallone, who has always been the major creative force behind the “Expendables” movies, always writes screenplays where the main character suffers a personal tragedy and seeks redemption in order to right what he did wrong, and he’s basically been writing the same damn screenplay since the original “Rocky.” Frankly, I think it’s time Stallone opens his eyes to see how this storyline is now as old as the Declaration of Independence.
Look, I don’t care how old Jason Statham, Wesley Snipes, Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren are because they can all still kick ass after all these years, but putting them all on the back burner for this entry proves to be very foolish. You know that Barney will eventually realize he needs their help, and the movie takes way too long for him to reach this conclusion. Instead, it wastes a lot of time introducing us to a new generation of Expendables, and most of them are inescapably tame to where it’s easy to understand why this sequel got a PG-13 rating instead of an R.
Kellan Lutz ends up showing the same range as an actor that he showed earlier in the horrifically bad “The Legend of Hercules,” and that is not a compliment. As for Glen Powell and Victor Ortiz, they don’t leave much of an impression here. Things fare much better though for Ronda Rousey who plays the highly athletic nightclub bouncer, Luna. Don’t even ask if she holds her own with the male action stars because you can quickly tell she can even before she starts kicking ass. While her co-stars won’t linger in the mind long after you’ve endured “The Expendables 3,” Rousey makes you eager to see a female version of this franchise sooner rather than later.
Antonio Banderas shows up as Galgo, the soldier who won’t shut up. It’s like he’s doing a version of his “Puss in Boots” character on acid, and it’s a kick to see how much energy the Spanish actor still has at his age. Harrison Ford is also on board as Max Drummer, the CIA dude who manages the Expendables. It’s fun seeing Ford join the party, but it doesn’t take long to see that he is playing the same character Bruce Willis played in the last two films. All the writers have done here is change the name to protect the greedy “Die Hard” movie star.
Granted, there are some nice in-jokes throughout “The Expendables 3” which show the cast having a good sense of humor about themselves. I have to give Snipes credit as even he pokes fun at his felonious past, and there’s a nice line of dialogue regarding Willis’ disappearance from the franchise. But while the cast is clearly having fun, that fun never translates over to the audience. On top of being saddled with a weak story and crappy dialogue, this sequel makes you feel like you are a guest at a party where you’re not really party to the party.
Looking back, this movie could have used a lot more of Schwarzenegger in it as he proves to be the one who gives us all the 1980’s action nostalgia we could ever possibly want. Seeing him spout off classic one-liners from “Predator” provided me with the most enjoyable moments this misbegotten sequel had to offer. Indeed, he’s always had a good sense of humor about himself and is always determined to give audiences what they want. To see him reduced to a series of cameos here does “The Expendables 3” a major disservice.
Actually, the best and most enjoyable performance here is, in my humble opinion, Mel Gibson’s who plays the ruthless arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks. Playing a crazed villain has become the kind of role Gibson typically plays these days, and this is one of the most gleefully psychotic bad guys he has played thus far. That crazy energy he displayed in the “Mad Max” and “Lethal Weapon” movies is put to great use here, and he makes Conrad the kind of bad guy we seriously love to hate.
“The Expendables” movies have been about reviving the old days of 1980’s action flicks, but this third entry misses the whole point about what made them so much fun; even with the thinnest of plots, they were about something. “The Expendables 3” feels like it barely exists, and I came out of the theater feeling empty and depressed. Those 1980’s action classics always got my adrenaline pumping, but this one almost put me to sleep despite an especially loud climax. After two fun action movies which made me nostalgic for what I grew up on cinematically, here we have with a sequel which reminded us of why so many in this genre suck nowadays.
“The Expendables 3” was directed by Patrick Hughes, an Australian filmmaker who is said to be helming the American remake of “The Raid: Redemption.” Now it is bad enough anyone is remaking that infinitely awesome flick, but I hope he has better luck with that one than he did with this lousy sequel.
Leading up to the release of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” I was often reminded of a piece of dialogue from “Live Free or Die Hard” in which Thomas Gabriel described John McClane as being “a Timex watch in a digital age.” This was certainly the case when Harrison Ford put back on that fedora and bullwhip in 2008 with “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and it remains the case with this fifth and final installment in this thrilling franchise. While practical effects were the thing for Steven Spielberg and company back in the 1980’s and 1990’s, CGI has taken over to give some de-aging power to Ford and to create, or even re-create, those creepy crawlers Indiana hates with a passion. Indeed, times did change for Dr. Jones and us but, like him, I wonder if we can adjust to the changes from what we grew up on and loved.
Following an exciting prologue in which Indy and fellow archaeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) discover half of Archimedes’ Dial during the last days of World War II, the action then shifts to 1969 where we find an aging Indiana Jones being woken up by the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” and teaching classes at New York’s Hunter College. And while the students at the university he previously taught it had crushes on him, the ones he teaches here could not care less about artifacts from the past, especially when man has only recently landed on the Moon with the Apollo 11 mission. At this point in his life, Indiana has become a curmudgeon of sorts, and anyone has to be considered such if they don’t like any songs by the Beatles.
Into the picture comes the Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter and Indy’s goddaughter, who herself has a degree in archaeology and is eager to find the other half of Archimedes’ Dial. This is the prize of this Indiana Jones installment as this device is said to locate fissures in time. That’s right, Indy and company are dealing with an artifact which allows for time travel, so you know the spacetime continuum rules from “Back to the Future” will come into play at some point.
With its middling reception at the Cannes Film Festival, and with many fans still complaining about how bad they thought “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was with its aliens and nuking the fridge, I think one should go into “Dial of Destiny” not expecting the greatest action movie of all time, but instead an Indiana Jones film directed by James Mangold. Having given us such excellent films like “Logan,” “Copland” and “Ford Vs. Ferrari,” he takes over director’s chair from Spielberg and gives us something he cannot completely make his own, but that’s okay because this is not a franchise in need of too much change.
Okay, let me get some of my issues with “Dial of Destiny” out of the way here. At 154 minutes, this film could have used some tightening. There are moments where the story and action drag when they should not, and my mind did wander at times And yes, sometimes the CGI effects took me out of the film such as when our characters encounter those eels which could only hope of being as scary as the one in “Jaws: The Revenge” or those thousands of snakes in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Still, I was very much entertained by “Dial of Destiny” as it does have the heart, soul and the action we come to expect from these action extravaganzas. When it comes to Ford, I am glad he gave us one last go around as the man with the hat. With each “Indiana Jones” film, he gives us a different side of this iconic character. In this one, Indy is a broken man on the verge of retirement and living in a time which does not seem to have much use for him. Marion Ravenwood is in the process of divorcing him, and the retirement gift of a clock from his staff is one he is understandably quick to give away to a stranger. Despite all the great adventures he has been on in his lifetime, no one outside his inner circle knows or cares about what he has been through. As for the villains of this piece, he is only a means to an end for them as he simply holds the key to an artifact which is far more interesting to them than anything else.
While the Nazis were a thing of the past in the previous installment, they are back in force this time around as Jurgen Volter (Mads Mikkelsen), a former Nazi whom Indy encountered back in World War II, looks to correct the mistakes Adolf Hitler made years ago and to where the world a better place to live in. Mikkelsen plays Jurgen in the same way he played his James Bond villain in “Casino Royale,” as a man with a cool façade who eventually unravels when things do not go his way. While I hoped Mikkelsen would have had more fun playing this Nazi sympathizer in the same way Alan Rickman did when he played a most memorable villain in “Die Hard,” he does give Indy the formidable foe this picture needs.
And there is no escaping Phoebe Waller-Bridge when it comes to reviewing “Dial of Destiny.” Does this film have too much of her character, Helena Shaw? Perhaps, but can you blame Mangold and company for featuring so much of the “Fleabag” star? She is such an infectious presence in life, let alone in this film, and she gives the proceedings the excitement and enthusiasm it desires. Also, like many classic characters in this franchise, she has quite the poker face which eventually comes apart as Helena gains a perspective on life which affects her original stance of being in this just for the money.
Other than that, we have John Rhys-Davies returning as Sallah, Indy’s longtime friend who was sorely missing in the last film. Antonio Banderas is a fun presence as another friend of Indy’s, Renaldo, who captains a boat Indy and Helena set sail on. Shaunette Renée Wilson gives us an interesting presence as Mason, a US government agent who represents the kind the FBI and CIA recruited back in the 1960’s to infiltrate certain groups like the Black Panthers. And I enjoy seeing Boyd Holbrook (“Logan” and “The Predator”) here as Klaber, a right-hand man to Jurgen Volter and an especially nefarious individual who is quick to kill someone without a second thought.
As for Mutt Williams, Shia LaBeouf’s character from “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” he does not appear here, but he is mentioned. I think this was a smart move on the part of the filmmakers because to pretend this character never existed would have been thoughtless to where he would have come across as total mistake in retrospect.
When it comes to “Dial of Destiny’s” final act, many have described it as being “bonkers,” but these people are the same ones who decried “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” for being “unrealistic.” While these films take place in historical periods which have long since passed us by, the filmmakers do a great job of capturing those time periods with a good deal of authenticity to where it vividly comes to life. This helps ground the action in a reality we know and understand while the fantasy elements reign supreme on the silver screen.
I cannot spoil the last half of this film for anyone, but I loved how it proved a few things for me and, I sincerely hope, many others. When it comes to mathematics, it is more useful tool in life than we realized while in high school as it truly provides us with a universal language. Also, when certain characters do not take continental drift into their plans, I hope this reminds everyone around the world about how science can only be refuted by more science, and it made me love this film’s final act all the more.
When it comes to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” I think we are coming into this one with a lot of trepidation as expectations are so hard to deliver on or surmount. A lot of people had their daggers out for this one before it was released as they wanted it to be a certain kind of motion picture, and while many of them will not get past their individual prejudices, I hope there will be enough to accept for this film for what it is as opposed to what they want it to be. It has its flaws as most films do, but this one still had me engaged for the most part, and I walked out of the theater with a smile on my face as seeing Indiana grab that fedora of his was a most pleasing sight. I expected a fun time at the movies, and that is what I got.
And yes, we do get another monumental music score from the great John Williams which adds to the action in a glorious way. Even at 91 years old, this man still knows how to deliver, so don’t tell me someone is too old to do something. I hope, if I ever reach that age, that I can still be every bit as creative.
WRITER’S NOTE: This review was written back in 2012, long before Gina Carano’s acting career went in a certain direction which she did not benefit from.
Watching Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire” brought back a lot of great memories I have of watching action heroes kicking serious ass in movies. I grew up watching Steven Seagal snap arms in half in “Hard to Kill” and “Marked for Death,”, and I always found in intensely satisfying to see him lay waste to those enemies who dared to cross him. There was also Chuck Norris who you could always count on to inflict serious pain on his adversaries and perform a pitch perfect roundhouse kick in “The Delta Force.” Those films came out in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Now we are in the year 2011, and it feels like it has been far too long since we have had an action star who can punch and kick in ways I can only dream of doing myself.
With “Haywire,” Soderbergh introduces us to Gina Carano, a now retired mixed martial arts fighter. As he did with Sasha Grey in “The Girlfriend Experience,” he throws Carano into her first mainstream acting role to see how she swims in the competitive world of Hollywood. But whereas Grey had unknown actors to work with, Carano is placed in a sea of top-notch actors which include Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas. Taking this into account, I cannot help but think Grey had it a lot easier than Carano.
“Haywire” is another one of those innocent people framed for a crime they didn’t commit movies with Carano playing Mallory Kane, a black ops agent who is assigned to covert operations. Kane is quick to discover she has been set up to take a fall, and she plots her revenge against those who foolishly underestimated her vicious talents. You know she will eventually get the upper hand on her betrayers, and seeing her take them on is terrific fun as she performs stunts which I don’t always see Stallone or Schwarzenegger doing as well.
Yes, Carano’s acting range only goes so far, but she does have a strong presence whenever she’s onscreen. Furthermore, she manages to hold her own against actors who could have easily run her over and embarrass her without remorse. Having said that, she really comes alive during the action sequences which are exhilarating as she doesn’t have some stunt person filling in for her. It should be no surprise that, being MMA fighter, she can really take a punch and dish one out which looks far more painful than the one she was forced to endure.
Actually, when you think about it, Carano gives all the actors opposite her a tough acting challenge as they have to appear as tough, if not tougher, than she is. Certain actors (you’ll know them when you see them) look inescapably sheepish around her, and they look even worse when they prepare to throw punches in her general direction. Even when she’s not strangling a guy with her legs, tackling another, or smothering an unluck bastard with a pillow, those eyes of her stare at you like shiny daggers to where you feel like you should have known better than to mess with her.
The one actor who gives Carano a run for her money is Fassbender with whom she shares a dynamo fight scene where they literally beat the crap out of each other. Fassbender never makes it easy for his co-stars as he challenges them to be better than they already are, and this takes on a new meaning when they tangle to where one character’s victory is truly earned and not easily predicted.
“Haywire” may never be ranked among Soderbergh’s greatest works, but it is diverting fun as it plays around with the action movie conventions set up by the Bourne trilogy and various spy movies released over the years. It also allows him to team up again with his “Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen” composer David Holmes for another groovy music score which always proves to be so much to play on my stereo system. It will be interesting to see where Carano’s acting career goes from here. Will she advance to action star status, or will she end up in straight to video realm where many stars past their prime end up? Whatever you may think of her acting skills, she did create a memorable presence here onscreen.
At the very least, Carano is bound to have more luck on the silver screen than Howie Long has had to date. He may have been a cool dude in “Broken Arrow,” but his lead role in “Firestorm” left little to be desired.
Ever since he ended his decades-long hiatus with “The Thin Red Line,” Terrence Malick has been very prolific as he keeps putting out one beautifully poetic film after another. He also remains a filmmaker people either love or hate as his work leaves audiences deeply polarized. His seventh film, “Knight of Cups,” is unlikely to change the perceptions people have of him, but those who admire him will find much to take in. It’s also a film which has what many of Malick’s films lack: a straightforward narrative.
“Knight of Cups” takes its name from the tarot card which, when held upright, represents change and new excitements especially of a romantic nature, and it can mean opportunities and offers. When the card is reversed, however, it represents unreliability and recklessness and indicates false promises. But moreover, the Knight of Cups is a person who is a bringer of ideas, opportunities, and offers, and who is constantly bored and in need of stimulation. This person is intelligent and full of high principles, but he is also a dreamer who can be easily persuaded or discouraged.
The knight of Malick’s film is Rick, a Hollywood screenwriter played by Christian Bale. When we first meet Rick, he looks to be living the high life as he attends parties in Los Angeles which look as decadent as they come, but while he looks to be enjoying himself, those famous Malick voiceovers reveal him to be a lost soul who finds he is not living the life he was meant to. From there he goes on a journey to find an escape from the emptiness he feels and discover more about himself.
The film is divided into chapters named after tarot cards as Rick engages in relationships with different women as he searches for love and a sense of self. We also get to see the troubled relationships he has with his father Joseph (Brian Dennehy) who looks to have been driven insane by the hardships of life, and his brother Barry (Wes Bentley) whose life had been derailed by a drug addiction he has since gotten clean from. Throughout we get the usual Malick-isms of voiceovers, characters staring out into space and wanting to speak truthfully to those closest to them, and it’s all captured with a poetic beauty which continues to make Malick one of the more unique filmmakers working today.
Malick has the good fortune of working with the brilliant cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki who just won his third Oscar in a row for “The Revenant,” and Lubezki captures the decadent landscapes of Los Angeles and Las Vegas with an inescapable beauty they don’t always have in reality. But he and Malick also capture the banality of them which quickly infects Rick’s soul, and the scenes where Bale is swimming in the violent ocean and wandering through a barren wilderness illustrates how inescapable his loneliness is.
It is said Malick shoots his films without a screenplay and instead gives the actors a storyline to improvise off of. This puts actors on an emotional tightrope which challenges them in ways they don’t often get challenged on, and the cast of “Knight of Cups” more than rises to the occasion. Bale is one of those actors who never backs down from any acting challenge given to him, and he gives yet another compelling performance in a career full of them. It’s also great to see Brian Dennehy here as this is the kind of film role we don’t always see him in, and it serves to remind us of how powerful an actor he can be when given the right role.
The movie also features a number of remarkable actresses playing the various lovers of Rick, and they all stand out in their own individual ways. Cate Blanchett, Australia’s answer to Meryl Streep, plays Rick’s physician ex-wife who still feels a connection to him even though she can’t quite get through to him. Imogen Poots rivets as the rebellious Della, Teresa Palmer makes Karen a most spirited and playful stripper who can seduce anyone with what seems like little trouble, and Frieda Pinto is the definition of serenity as Helen.
But one performance I was especially impressed with was Natalie Portman’s as Elizabeth, the woman Rick had wronged. After all these years, Portman remains a wonderfully vulnerable actress who is incapable of faking an emotion. She makes you feel the pain Elizabeth goes through, and you can’t take your eyes off of her for one second.
“Knight of Cups” proves to have a more straightforward narrative than Malick’s other films, and that’s saying something. His last film, “To the Wonder,” was good, but it meandered all over the place as he couldn’t decide which story was the more important one to tell. This time, however, he manages to stay with Rick and his romantic adventures for the majority of the film’s running time. It does veer off slightly when we get introduced to Antonio Banderas who plays the ironically named Tonio, a playboy who loves the company of more than just one woman. Considering Banderas’ recent stormy divorce from Melanie Griffith, his part in this film feels a bit voyeuristic as it seems like he is simply playing himself and explaining why his marriage to her fell apart.
“Knight of Cups” doesn’t reach the cinematic heights of “The Tree of Life” or “Days of Heaven,” but it is still a must for Malick’s fans as few other filmmakers can make a movie the way he can. Some will call it self-indulgent and complain it focuses on individuals who have it a lot better than the working class of America, but for those who relate to the journey Rick takes here, it is an immersive experience which leaves you guessing as to the possibilities open to him at the film’s conclusion.
It’s also worth watching to see characters drive their cars on the empty roads of Los Angeles at night. Anyone who lives in Los Angeles knows the roads are never that empty during the day, so it’s nice to know they are not always a traffic nightmare.
The Ultimate Rabbit 