Archive for November, 2011

Dylan Dog and the Dead of Night —Atrocious Cinema–that kind of works?

  • Written by Jason
  • Posted November 30, 2011 at 9:21 am

I’m really not sure what to make of last night’s movie night. I spent the evening with BoxOfficeBoredom.com and From Midnight, With Love writer, The Mike, as we explored the wonderful world of Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. In some ways Dylan Dog: Dead of Night was a terrible waste of a film. In other ways Dylan Dog: Dead of Night was a fun twist on the detective tales I grew up reading and enjoying as a kid. Somewhere trapped in the middle between awful and amazing lies a film few have heard of and even fewer have seen: Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.

Dylan Dog is played by Brandon Routh, the actor who at one time was supposed to revitalize the Superman franchise with Superman Returns. It turned out that people really didn’t gravitate to Superman Returns. I seem to remember it being a flat, boring, excuse of a picture despite a strong performance by the unknown Routh. Routh makes his attempt at headlining again in Dylan Dog, but this time to no fanfare and no critical acclaim,.  Dylan Dog snuck in (and out) of the box offices early this summer, placed right smack in the middle of the theatrical release date of Fast Five or something of the sort. The point is, this film didn’t have a prayer of success. Now on Netflix, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is available for all to see; yet I somehow think it will still be trapped in obscurity.

The film follows Dylan who is a paranormal detective. He specializes in the strange cases that involve zombies, werewolves and vampires. That’s right- all of these creatures exist in Dylan’s world and walk the streets with you and me. In fact- as he tries to claim- you might never know if your girlfriend or your mother is a werewolf or vampire. When a human importer is killed at random, his daughter contacts Dylan to try and solve the case. Having been out of the paranormal detective game for a few years, Dylan starts to pound the pavement and dig up old contacts to find out who –or what—is killing people and causing unrest in the delicate balance of human/werewolf/vampire/zombie relations.

This film sounds ridiculous- and it is. However in some ways there was a tiny part of me that had a bit of fun. Played out like your classic detective story, Routh narrates the film in classic detective film noire style. As a viewer we get sucked in despite the bad narration and bad acting and start to wonder just who exactly is behind this “whodunit” and why. Routh again leaves me on the fence where I can’t quite decide if he is a legit actor who is still just struggling for his big break, or if he is a waste of time and space that blew his chances with Superman Returns and now gets work based off of the now tattered and quickly fading fame of the failed Superman franchise he attempted to resurrect.

I think what made me gravitate toward enjoying Dylan Dog was that it is a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Dylan Dog knows its place in the film hierarchy and doesn’t attempt to achieve anything more. It attempts to be witty at times and fails, it attempts to be action packed at times and plays out horribly with bad CGI and rubber masks. Yet somehow despite this- you continue watching. I kept feeling like I was watching a bad version of Blade and Constantine mixed; yet I still was having a tiny bit of fun.

Dylan Dog goes wrong in relying on the acting prowess of Olympic Gold Medalist, professional wrestler and now wannabe actor, Kurt Angle. Luckilly for us Angle has a small role as a werewolf but every scene he is in is atrocious. Oddly enough- his performance was looked upon with favor in my eyes most likely because I have seen End Game. After seeing End Game, Angle’s performance in Dylan Dog looks comparable to Brando. Taye Diggs also stars as a vampire drug dealer with a gold fang, That’s right- a gold fang. Diggs perpetuates any black stereotypes and is a pretty worthless villain in the film. In fact, he is probably the weakest part of this entire strange yet intriguing mess of a film.

Routh does his best to carry this film and actually does it with some finesse. His partner, a freshly bitten zombie played by Sam Huntington, acts as the comic relief of the film and brings some good laughs and some fun scenes, but the makers of Dylan Dog seemed to rely on him a bit too much. Many of these scenes were funny but felt forced. In some ways he helped make Dylan Dog and enjoyable film and kept the film light hearted and enjoying itself. In other ways he hindered the film by having too much of the same thing over and over again.

I really feel kind of dirty inside suggesting Dylan Dog: Dead of Night to anyone. In fact, as I am typing this I keep asking myself if I am actually going to post something that says I liked Dylan Dog? I think the biggest factor was I went in with such low expectations that I came out surprised.  Dylan Dog: Dead of Night will be (and should be) forgotten if it was ever remembered in the first place. It’s another film that lives amongst billions of films that are made that few remember or care about. It’s not really a hidden gem, and shouldn’t be on the top of anyone’s Christmas list this year. Despite it all, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night wasn’t a colossal waste of my time. The Mike and I went looking for something for “Bad Movie Night” and found something that didn’t star Kevin Sorbo (our usual go-to guy).  Dylan Dog: Dead of Night filled the void. If you’re looking for something for your next bad movie night, maybe Dylan Dog: Dead of Night might fill that void for you too.

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Live Free or Die Hard

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted at 12:00 am

Live Free or Die Hard marks the fourth installment in the Die Hard franchise. Each one has starred Bruce Willis as John McClane, and each previous film has had a central villain that John has to go after. This is no different, except this time the bad guy isn’t going after John directly. Instead, the target is Matt Farrell (Justin Long), a computer hacker.

At the beginning of the film, John is told to transport Matt to Washington, DC, and that’s it. At Matt’s house, they both get shot at, and a couple of people wind up dead. This is John McClane we’re talking about — a man who has no problem killing. They escape, go to DC, but are shot at again. And then the televisions start going haywire, traffic lights turn off, and all communications systems go down. Something is up, and Matt seems to be a key to solving it, or at least figuring out how to solve it. So we are lead to believe.

For reasons I’m not going to get into, America is about to be faced with a crisis, something that Matt dubs a “fire sale.” Essentially what could happen is that all of America could go back to the stone age in terms of its finances and communications, although the people behind it aren’t asking for demands. Their motivation isn’t made clear until quite late in the film, although if you’ve seen one or two Die Hard movies before, you’ll be unsurprised at their reasoning.

Oh, and there’s a scene really early on — actually, it’s the very first one in the film — where John is trying to get in touch with his estranged daughter, Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). She tells him that she’ll contact him one her terms. That’s the only time we’ll see her before things start going wrong, and it was clear at this point that she’s there just to get captured and give John even more reason to stop the antagonist from winning.

However, her inclusion makes little sense to me. Before she gets captured, John is already dead-set on stopping the man we later learn is named Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). There’s even an entire speech that he gives to Matt about how nobody else will do his job, and he does it for this reason. But adding his daughter into the equation is redundant at this point. I’m not complaining about having Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a movie, but her character definitely needed more purpose.

I also don’t think we needed some computer hacker to tag along with John McClane. He does play an important role, but I wished that he’d just go away for most of the time he’s on-screen. There are some humorous moments that come out of John being technologically obsolete, (a trait he has exhibited before), but that’s about it. At one point, John tells Matt to stay away, because he’s going to complete this mission solo. I was cheering, hoping that Matt would run into the house and let John McClane do what he does best. But no, Matt had to tag along for this one too. How disappointing.

Honestly, at this point, this is a series about John going around, beating people up, and saving a select group of people from something unpleasant. We don’t need a tag-along partner, especially one that can’t do much in the way of helping. I liked Samuel L. Jackson as Willis’ partner in Die Hard With A Vengeance, but that was because he was a help, an equal, instead of an inconvenience.

After the third film, I guessed that in order to go bigger, they’d have to have it take place over the entire country. It turns out, I wasn’t far off. They go all over the East Coast — I’m guessing they’re saving the rest of America for a potential fifth film. The locations are all varied, and it was nice to see a bunch of different environments, even if too much of our time is spent looking at various computer screens.

The action scenes are still fun, and they go even bigger than the previous films. Most of them end up at a smaller level though, with our heroes taking most of the brunt, instead of, say, an entire subway system. But there are a couple of explosions that are big enough to take out a large area, as well as one that involves a car and a helicopter that, while improbable (impossible?), is the highlight of the film, just because of how amazing it looks. There’s also a couple of fist fights, one involving an enemy that is a parkour enthusiast, so you’ll get that fix too.

Unfortunately, Timothy Olyphant’s mild-mannered villain is probably the weakest in the entire series. Well, Die Hard 2’s big bad was pretty pathetic too, but this one just doesn’t seem all that fierce. How he could cause fear in anyone is beyond me, likely because of how gentle and sweet Olyphant plays him. Right when we meet him, you don’t think that he’ll be able to take out Bruce Willis, because nice people can never take out Bruce Willis. Granted, you know he’ll put up a good fight, but can you really expect him to win? I couldn’t, and although I won’t give away how this film ends, (hey, they could be prepping John’s daughter to take over, couldn’t they?), I’ll say that he puts up a very good fight, and lives are most certainly put in peril.

Live Free or Die Hard is a solid action film, even if the villain seems like a big joke. The set-pieces are grand and fun, Bruce Willis still seems to love his role of John McClane, and you’re rarely bored while watching it. It has problems, but it’s still worth a watch for any fans of the series, especially if you want to see an older Bruce Willis have an even more physically demanding role than any of the previous films. (Or at least, it certainly looks that way.)

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Die Hard with a Vengeance

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted November 29, 2011 at 12:00 am

After Die Hard, which took place in a 40 floor building, came Die Hard 2, which was set in an airport. How do you top that? Well, according to this series, you move to an entire city. That seems like a big jump to me. Was a mall not available for filming? Where are you going to go next? A country? The entire world? After you do an entire city, you’re going to have to go pretty big to top it. Thankfully, I’m not in charge and don’t have to worry about these kinds of problems.

There’s one other area where we’ve upgraded in Die Hard with a Vengeance. This time, John McClane (Bruce Willis) gets a sidekick in the form of Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson). No, not the Greek god, but instead, a man who saved John from a potentially deadly situation, and who is now lumped in with him. The plot involves Hans Gruber’s brother, who goes by the name of “Simon” (Jeremy Irons), commanding the pair to go all over the city obeying his orders and solving riddles. In one case, this involves figuring out how to get exactly four liters of water with only a three and five liter buckets. I remember doing that sort of question in school, but it takes our heroes right up until the last minute to solve it.

At the outset, Simon seems like he’s just out for revenge. After all, his brother was killed in the first Die Hard, and wanting revenge seems like a fun plan. Why didn’t he do this earlier though? There was a film before this, called Die Hard 2, although Die Hard with a Vengeance seems to completely ignore that film. That’s probably for the best, because it wasn’t all that good anyway. Instead, this plays out more like a direct sequel to the first film, just taking place a few years later, where John McClane is “one step” away from being an alcoholic.

Not that his potential alcoholism ever comes into play, except for a running gag involving John claiming he has a really bad headache. It seems that we’ve officially passed into the territory where we’re not taking ourselves too seriously, as lines like this appear early and often here. There isn’t much seriousness here, except for when Simon declares that he’s hidden a bomb in one of the Manhattan schools, and if our two heroes don’t follow his directions exactly, he’ll blow it. At one point, police find the school in question, and have to decide what to do. (We’ve been told that evacuating the school will activate the bomb too.) The film is series in any scene involving children, but otherwise, Willis and Jackson seem to laugh through most of their action scenes.

There are plenty of action scenes in this film, and they’re creative enough to hold interest. Having the film take place in a city seems like a good idea, because it allows you to use things that weren’t in the last film: Cars. And they are milked for all they’re worth, with cars being the main source of transportation, as well as the obligatory chase sequence that seems to creep into every action movie.

There’s also a lot of racist talk in this film, although not much is done with it apart from bringing attention to this issue. Zeus, whenever possible, asks John if he’s a racist. But that’s as far as it goes. There’s no point made to doing this, and nothing ever comes from it. I’m unsure why it’s brought up at all, except to add to “realism”, something that rarely appears in action movies in the first place. It certainly doesn’t appear often in this film. Or maybe it was there to give Jackson’s character more depth. Sure, let’s go with that.

Like Alan Rickman before him, Jeremy Irons does a good job with his role as the villain. I still don’t understand why the family was made German, but I suspect that it just makes them sound more “evil.” Regardless, Irons gives his role a similar feel to Rickman’s, all the way down to the true motive of his crimes. We still don’t know a lot about them, but both characters have a fearsome screen presence. Jackson and Willis end up having a good chemistry, and their dialogue is reminiscent of John McClane and the police officer from the first film — sharp, witty, and not all exposition.

While the action scenes may be inventive, the plot is not. The initially set-up of what Simon plans to do is intriguing, but the plot eventually degenerates into having our main characters chasing the bad guys, all while someone else tries to disarm a bomb. It’s predictable and cliché, and even the final twist near the end won’t even make you bat an eye. The twist also serves to extend the running time, leading to what should be a twenty-minute action scene ends up lasting only five.

All things considered, this feels like a much better sequel to the first Die Hard than what we got with Die Hard 2. It has the same type of tone and nature, and it doesn’t have a plot that’s basically retreading old ground. It simply feels more like a sequel than what we initially got was, and it seems like the filmmakers knew that, because no references are made to Die Hard 2. Again, I think that’s for the best, because I didn’t enjoy Die Hard 2 all that much.

Die Hard with a Vengeance is a pretty good film, one that ends up being a good sequel to the spectacular Die Hard. It has wit, charm, charismatic characters and fun action scenes. It also has another great villain from Jeremy Irons. The plot is where it starts to get weak, thanks to typical action movie clichés, but it’s still a fun ride that you’ll probably enjoy if you liked the first Die Hard.

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Die Hard 2

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted November 28, 2011 at 12:00 am

Sometimes, when a film does really well, it gets a sequel that’s quite a bit worse. That’s the case here with Die Hard 2, a movie that ends up not being all good, especially compared to its predecessor. Here, it follows the same basic plot, except that instead of a tall building, the bad guys take over an airport. The only real difference is that the important character that our hero is trying to save is stuck on an airplane unable to land, and fuel is running out.

It’s this key difference that gives Die Hard 2 a sense of urgency. We once again find John McClane (Bruce Willis) as our lead, and he needs to save his wife (Bonnie Bedelia) for a second time. However, we get shots of her in the plane interspersed between John trying to save the day, and it ends up with her character seeming pointless. Even if John’s wife wasn’t on the plane, he still would have tried to save it, and having her sitting there, sipping champagne, doesn’t keep us interested or make us sympathize.

The plan this time around involves a man named Colonel Stuart (William Sadler) deciding that taking over an airport would be fun. There’s a plane coming in that is holding Captain Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis Franz), who Stuart wants, although the reasons why aren’t made especially clear. Or maybe I had just stopped caring by the point it was described. He shuts down the tower, severs all communication between the airport and the planes, and then, just for good measure, shuts down the runways. The planes are forced to just circulate the airport until power can be restored.

If you guessed that John McClane will be the one to try to restore power and hunt down the villains, you guessed correctly. He begins the film at the airport, sees a couple of suspicious men, and kills one of them, while the other escapes. He then finds himself in police headquarters trying to find out why nothing is being done about them. The police figure that these two people were simple thieves, while John things that the airport is going to be a target. And then it was, because heroes aren’t wrong in these types of situations.

In the first Die Hard, the plot had John McClane trapped in a building while trying to save the hostages also trapped. This time, he’s free to leave at any moment, and the local police actually try to force him out. One of them is even more unhelpful than the one in the first film, which became increasingly annoying as the film progressed. They’ve heard of what John did in the previous film, so why not let him help? He is a cop after all. But no, they just decide to push him aside even after he’s done something good. It just doesn’t make sense, just like in the last film.

John McClane’s initial actions don’t make all that much sense either. He sees a man with a gun, and instead of alerting the local authorities, he decides to chase the man himself. Why? Is his ego that large after what he did in the first film? A few other characters seem to treat him that way, so maybe that’s a possibility. Or maybe he’s realized that he’s in an action film, and that it’s his job to initiate all of the action scenes.

He’s also become somewhat self-aware, often wondering how he could get into this type of situation a second time. This happens far too often as well, and even though he did this in the first film, the dialogue was clever. The witis vacant this time around, with character interactions being little more than exposition instead of filled with fun interactions.

The villain this time around is also uninteresting. He’s smart, just like the bad guy in the first film, but there’s no charm to his personality. His motivations are also not all that clear, or at least, they weren’t to me. Okay, so he wants to rescue this guy, but why? Maybe it’s explained and I missed it, but to me, it seemed like it was just an excuse to take over the airport and have Bruce Willis kill some guys.

The action scenes also aren’t all that entertaining. The “bigger is better” approach to sequel making is used here, but it doesn’t achieve a positive result here. There are more explosions, a greater variety in environments, and the action starts out earlier, but the fun from the first film is gone. They’re not inventive, and the end up being standard shootouts, or re-hashes from the previous Die Hard.

What I liked most about Die Hard was the way it tied everything together at the end, and how no plot point was forgotten about. This time, things are introduced just for the moment, and then left to leave our memory. For example, there’s a point where John and another man secure a walkie-talkie, but it’s encoded, or something like that. It has millions of potential combinations to unlock, we’re told. But that’s the end of that, and I’m left wondering why that was introduced at all.

Die Hard 2 is simply a mediocre movie, and a lackluster sequel. The action isn’t all that fun, there isn’t any charm to the characters, and the wit in the dialogue is gone. Things are brought up and never mentioned again, while certain aspects just didn’t make that much sense to me. It’s just not a film that I found all that enjoyable, and as a result, I found myself bored more often than not while watching it.

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Die Hard

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted November 27, 2011 at 12:00 am

Die Hard is a film that works because it isn’t solely a brainless action film. Oh, it has scenes where the brain isn’t needed, but it has a smart villain and a smart hero, and the interactions between the two — which happen mostly over walkie-talkies — are brilliant. It also takes its time to tie up any loose ends to the plot threads it begins mid-way, which makes it clock in at just over two hours long. I didn’t mind this runtime though, because I was having a really good time.

Our story begins with John McClane (Bruce Willis) on an airplane. He talks to the person sitting beside him, who tells him that the best way to make yourself feel good after a long flight is to take your shoes off and curl up your feet. Of course, this plays a large role later on. John is heading to a Christmas party at his wife’s workplace. Her name is Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), although she’s now using the surname Gennaro, since she and John, a New York City cop, haven’t been living together. They fight just about right when they see one another, although their fighting doesn’t get to last very long.

You see, this is a special building that has a vault on its 30th floor — the same floor that the party is happening on. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his group of “terrorists” decide to crash the party, hold up his new-found hostages, and attempt to break into this safe. John manages to get away from the group, and is now the sole person able to do anything about this situation. He has to figure out how to get the police to help, all while making sure that none of the hostages die. He also has to worry about himself, because he’ll spend most of the next hour and a half being chased around this building. He has to do it barefoot too, because he decided to listen to his airplane neighbor.

Eventually, the cops do get involved, and they get to communicate with John via the radio. Hans can talk with them as well, which means that anything John says can be used against him. He doesn’t want Hans to know that his wife is down there, and as a result, can’t tell the police anything about him personally. His liaison in the force is one Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson), a shy cop who is always overshadowed by the Police Chief. In fact, the Police Chief decides to be the contrarian seemingly just to boost his ego, or something like that. Why he acts like such a moron isn’t actually explained, and unfortunately, he never got what was coming to him.

Hans is the most interesting character in Die Hard, even if we don’t get to learn much about him. How he got into this situation, how he planned everything — none of it is explained to us. We get what we see on-screen, and that’s it. We’re okay with that though, because this is an intelligent, witty man that we’re dealing with, and we want to watch him for as long as we can. John McClane is less interesting, although he seems just as smart. He always seems to find himself in precarious situations, and instead of shooting in order to escape, he often has to think his way out. They’re like puzzles, although if he doesn’t solve them in time, he’ll be dead. That is motivation for you.

Of the action scenes, we get a few kinds. We get a bunch of shootouts, filled with machine gun and pistol fire. There are also a couple of fist fights, as well as some explosions. Some of them are inventive, and they’re always entertaining. There isn’t a single dull moment in this film, and that’s important in an action film. Even when the only thing that happens is talking, we’re captivated largely because of Alan Rickman’s performance as Hans Gruber. To call him one of the better villains in action movie history would not require massaging the truth.

I also enjoyed the plot and premise. We start out with a good idea, although the possibilities after that are endless. Anything that you can think of that could happen given the situation could be written into the script, and this means you never run out of things to have happen. I also liked how it ties up all of the plot threads it starts, or, at the very least, it mentions them. Director John McTiernan doesn’t often introduce elements without at least touching on them later on, which is a nice touch in my eyes.

The larger set-pieces are also saved until later in the film. Some films open with a bang, but never manage to achieve the same level of greatness afterward. We open strong here, not with explosions, but with the takeover of the building. Then we’re able to experience bigger and bigger action scenes as the film progresses, while still giving us time to breathe in between. The pacing is another thing to praise here; it isn’t just a film that throws action scene after action scene at you. You get time to get to know the characters, and have them communicate.

Die Hard is an excellent example of how to make an action film. Almost everything works. The plot, premise and execution are all great, the action scenes are inventive and exciting, while the actors do a good job in their roles. The script is sharp, the pacing brilliant, and it all adds up to a great action film that will keep you engaged because it features smart characters. The only thing that needed removing was the awful Police Chief, although that’s a flaw that is easily overlooked. If you haven’t, definitely give this film a watch.

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