In the frenetic underbelly of Los Angeles, Agent Maxwell closes in on an international cocaine smuggling operation run by criminal mastermind Vincent Camastra. When Agent Beverly Royce goes undercover with the drug dealers and finds herself deeper then she can handle - the case becomes personal for Maxwell who has to combat ruthless killers and dirty cops in an all-out action filled finale to bring the criminals to justice. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Giorgio Serafini
Starring: Dolph Lundgren, Vinnie Jones, Randy Couture and others
And in the category of utterly pointless movies....here is yet another glorious example!
I have no idea what this movie was trying to say- or achieve with its concept. Guess that the main idea behind is to show that getting old and living at a retirement home isn't all THAT bad. It however does it by featuring a whole bunch of incredibly immature pensioners, doing a bunch of unrelated and stupid stuff. Nothing cute or funny about it really and most definitely not ever realistic, so the point that the movie is trying to make- and the message it's trying to send out falls incredibly flat.
It's really a messy movie to watch, without a real main plot line in it. It feels all over the place! At the start it seems like it's going to center around the J.K. Simmons character, who is planning to spend some time at a retirement home, talking to a bunch of old geezers, in preparations for a movie role, while he lets a camera follow him around. So the movie at the start has a sort of mockumentary approach and style to it but this actually quickly gets abandoned, as the movie begins to focus more on its residents. As a matter of fact, J.K. Simmons is hardly in this movie at all. I would say that he's only in 30% of the movie, which is a bit odd, seeing how the movie is supposedly supposed to be all about his character and the research he's conducting.
Funny thing though about J.K. Simmons and his character in this movie is that his character feels more or less obligated to say yes to the role of old geezer because the script for the movie is written by his brother in law, while in real life the only reason why he probably said yes to this movie in the first place was because his wife directed it and his real life brother in law wrote it. It probably is the only real funny thing about this movie, once you learn about it.
The movie its comedy mostly relies on its dialog, which at the same time is one of the movie its biggest problems. It just isn't very funny or any witty type of dialog. Besides, you can see most of the jokes coming from miles away already and it's just a tad bit too simplistic all. And also besides, as I said before, the movie is filled with only some incredibly unrelated and random moments in it, so it never feels like you are watching a movie that is progressing and in which its characters continue to grow and develop.
Guess one of the pros of being married to an Hollywood celebrity is that you are able to get all sorts of well known faces and names to show up for your movie. This movie is also filled with many cameos, by some well known actors, such as Tim Allen, Kevin Pollak and Breckin Meyer. But does it add anything? Well, it mostly adds to the absolute randomness of this movie, so I can't really say that it adds much good.
A mess of a movie and therefore also an absolutely terrible one to watch!
It definitely seemed a good move by Stallone to pass the torch on to
Simon West and let him sit on the director's chair this time. Seemed
that with the first "The Expendables" movie Stallone had a hard time
balancing things out. The result was a pretty disappointing movie, in
which not even the action come across as anything all that great or
exciting. This definitely improved with this movie and while it's being
far from a great one, it's being a pretty decent and entertaining genre
flick!
Please don't ask me what this movie was all about, since I simply
absolutely had no idea. But in all fairness, this often had been the
case with big overblown action movies and it really doesn't make them
any less spectacular or entertaining to watch. It's simply being a
movie to have a good and fun time with and not to take too seriously.
And luckily the film-makers and actors took things not that serious
either. It's the main reason why this movie works out much better and
is simply being more fun than its predecessor. The movie and its jokes
are more self aware this time around and they didn't just attempted to
create a big action flick but also one that delivers on a more
entertaining level.
So there is more fun, the action is better but those are not the only
things this sequel improved on. Thing I also really liked about this
movie was that it focused more on the team aspect. Everybody gets their
moment to shine in this and basically every cast member gets to show
off their action skills. Yes, even Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce
Willis get to do some serious action related stuff this time around.
And it really is awesome seeing them fight literally alongside, along
with Sylvester Stallone as well. It helps to make the final 30 minutes
basically a fan boys dream and it also are the movie its final 30
minutes that are being the movie its best minutes, which sort of makes
you wonder why the rest of the movie, as well as its predecessor,
weren't being more like this as well.
And the movie brings in even more big action movie stars from the past
this time. Jean-Claude Van Damme is being a pretty good villain, though
he shows up in the movie pretty late and also gets to do far too
little. Oh well, at least he was being good and enjoyable when he did
appear on screen and is still in pretty good form as well, even though
he is well in his 50's already. And I admit, it was also awesome to see
Chuck Norris in this. Yes, his character is quite pointless and just an
excuse to have Norris pop up in this movie but he perhaps was being the
most fun character out of the entire movie and I actually do hope they
bring him back and make him a part of the team for the next sequel.
It's sort of funny how I know basically everything about this guy and
his movies but this probably was being the first movie, in which he
stars, that I had ever seen. Perhaps it should be time to pick up some
of his earlier movies and have a blast with them as well.
Of course there are plenty of flaws in this movie, mostly story related
but I'm simply happy about it that this movie at least learned from
some of the mistakes it made with the previous movie and this one is
simply being a good and enjoyable genre movie to watch. Still not as
great and awesome as it by all rights should be but they are more on
the right track with this one and lets all hope "The Expendables 3" is
going to be the ultimate Expendables movie, that everybody is hoping
and longing for, ever since the first movie got announced.
Seems that this movie was a case of being one that everybody wanted to
like and love and therefore it's hard to admit for most people that
this just isn't being a very good movie. By all rights it should had
been a big, fun action flick, that could had worked as a throwback to
the '80's, with lots of the big action movie stars from that era in it
as well but it just doesn't works out as such.
So many problems with this movie, I don't know where to being. Guess
it's best to start of with the most obvious thing; the story. No, this
movie does not have a very good story in it. So what, you might say or
think. After all, this is a action-flick, who needs story? Well, you
always need at least something to base your action scenes around and
you at least have to be taken by its characters or its main plot. There
has to be a reason to root for the main characters and cheer when the
main bad guy gets killed and the hero(es) saves the day! There is just
however none of that present in this movie unfortunately.
There besides isn't really being a pleasant flow to the movie and its
story. It seemed as if some action scenes were simply thrown in and
don't serve a purpose at all. It actually in a weird way slows the
movie down and makes it somewhat of a boring one at times. I personally
couldn't wait for this movie to end, even though its only being 103
minutes short.
Perhaps it also was due to it that I just wasn't very impressed with
the movie its action. It was shockingly poorly directed at times! I say
shockingly, since the movie actually got directed by Sylvester
Stallone, who had no problems with doing action scenes before. After
all, this is the guy who also directed "Rambo", just 2 years prior to
this movie, which was an action movie that I absolutely loved and was
being everything that this movie should had been as well but just
wasn't.
So is it at least fun to watch all of the big action movie stars from
the past and present in this? Not really. It's at least not being
somewhat to get terribly excited about, even though it on paper looks
awesome. Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren,
Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke,
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis all in one movie, how could it
not work out as anything awesome? Well, mostly because most of them get
absolutely nothing to do in this movie. It tries to present itself as a
team movie but in fact the movie isn't at all about them working
together. All of the egos in this movie are far too big for that and
besides, the movie is mostly focusing purely on Stallone and Stratham,
who by far have the most screen time in this and are the only ones
doing some true action related stuff and have some character
development.
Reason why I also wasn't being very entertained by this movie was
because it just wasn't being a very fun one to watch. The supposedly
comical dialog for the movie was awful and the movie was also lacking a
good visual style to it. The movie is an incredibly dark one and I
couldn't even always tell what was going on exactly. It might sound
strange but a little bit more bright colors could had added so much to
the movie its fun and entertainment factor. Perhaps they were more
focused on trying to pass this as a legit action flick, while in fact
it seemed to be a more suitable thing for this movie to not take itself
as serious as it did.
A thing that worked also distracting for me was its Brian Tyler musical
score. It was some incredibly formulaic stuff, that sounded like it got
composed before the movie even finished shooting. It just didn't suited
the movie and its action sequences in particular all that well.
It really isn't a good throwback to the '80's and also far too lacking
as a genre movie in general. Lets hope the sequel does everything
right, this one did wrong! If that's the case, then its going to be
something absolutely awesome!
The whole approach to this movie took me back to the '80's, an era when
the genre was at an all time height and the story didn't seemed to
matter all that much. The era of big, dumb, overblown action movies, in
which a lot of classics got made but even more absolutely horrible
movies. I'm sad to say that this is also an absolutely horrible movie,
that does some absolutely stupid things.
First of all, for most of the time I had absolutely no idea what was
going. About halfway in it, I still had no idea who all these people on
the plane were and why they were on it and what the hijackers wanted
exactly. And it's not done in a mysterious thriller type of way but all
done in a clearly incapable and lazy way. The storytelling is just
absolutely horrible at times and the way the entire movie flows and
develops certain story elements are done in an atrocious way!
Every time I thought that the movie would start to become potential
good and interesting it would cut off and go to something completely
different. You could say that the movie is being way too short and
should had taken its time with some of its story- and character
development. Yes, it sounds strange but I wanted this awful movie to be
longer, so some things could had developed into something potentially
good and more interesting maybe.
The editing makes the movie all the more worse at times. I don't know
but it at times feels as if entire sequences were missing and it at
times makes some sudden jumps. It will confuse you and lets some sudden
developments and scenes come across as incredibly stupid.
And I also can't really say that this is an action filled movie. There
are a couple of good old fashioned fist fights and some weapons get
fired but overall its just nothing tense or spectacular to watch. There
is of course only so much you can do with its premise and settings but
simple fact is that there are plenty of other genre movies around that
do a great job with its concept of a plane being hijacked in midair, so
it really shouldn't be an excuse for this movie.
And how are the likes of Randy Couture, Dominic Purcell and Vinnie
Jones in this? Absolutely awful, though I feel you can't blame any of
them really. When given the right material, all of them still could be
some decent action hero stars.
It's just as bad as any other dumb, low budget, action flick but this
movie does some very stupid and incompetent stuff as well, making this
movie worse to watch than just the average genre attempt.
Mr. Church reunites the Expendables for what should be an easy paycheck, but when one of their men is murdered on the job, their quest for revenge puts them deep in enemy territory and up against an unexpected threat. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Simon West
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Liam Hemsworth, Randy Couture and others
