MOVIE REVIEW: MULAN

To save her ailing father from serving in the Imperial Army, a fearless young woman disguises herself as a man to battle northern invaders in China.

Director: Niki Caro

Cast: Liu Yifei, Donnie Yen, Tzi Ma, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Ron Yuan, Gong Li, Jet Li

Release Date: September 4, 2019

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence

Runtime: 1 h 55 min

Review:

The live action remake of Mulan is visually impressive in spots but ultimately it suffers from the same issue that has plagued the other Disney remakes, it feels perfunctory and soulless.  Niki Caro does fare better with this film than some of the other directors tasked with these cash grabs.  Caro has a clear eye for sweeping visual and she takes full advantage of their filming locations.  I’d assume that’s where the majority of the film’s massive budget was spent.  The strange thing is that sequences vary from realistically epic to overly artificial with an over reliance on CGI, so much so that some scenes are jarringly choppy.  Caro can’t seem to decide if she wants to keep the film grounded or go full on fantasy, so she straddles the line between both leaving the film with an uneven tone.  The script doesn’t help matters since it keeps everything overly self serious with no tangible sense of fun.  The cast is consistently wooden and emotionally detached from their characters with only Gong Liz and Tzi Ma leaving any sort of impact.  Liu Yifei does what she can in the lead role but she’s never engaging enough to make the audience care about the character’s journey.  This might be a bit easier to forgive if you just ignore the fact that there is a superior version of the same story available.  Only a few moments really land the way they were intended, which is a shame because you get the feeling that there was a better version of this film in there somewhere. 

C

Cindy Prascik's Review of The Expendables 3

 

 

Dearest Blog, yesterday it was off to the pictures for something that gets me as excited as landing on The Nice List come Christmas Eve: a new Expendables movie.

Spoiler level here will be mild-ish, mostly nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers.

Barney adds some fresh faces to his team, in hopes of bringing down an old foe.

Reader(s), let's just get this out of the way: I think the Expendables franchise is the most awesomely awesome awesome in the history of awesome. I didn't love the second installment *quite* as well as the first--it felt a lot like throwing more names at the screen just to see what stuck--and trailers led me to fear the new one might be more of the same. While part three definitely does offer an expanded array of ass-kickers, I am happy to declare it the best of the franchise (so far).

Expendables 3 is non-stop action, spelled with brief bits of Feelings and quick frames of Other Things That Make Badasses Cool, such as riding motorcycles and doing shots. The Expendables get that the action is probably why you came, though, and they see to it you get your money's worth.
Daring vehicular stunts, massive weapons, and nicely-choreographed hand-to-hand combat occupy most of the screen time. As always, the cast is a who's who of action stars: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Wesley Snipes, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and Jet Li. Throw in Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer, Antonio Banderas, and Harrison Ford for good measure, and you've got yourself quite the crew.

The pitfall of a cast this size is that there's never quite enough of THAT ONE GUY you want to see more of (in my case, Statham, always), but the silver lining is that Harrison Ford is...well...Harrison Ford, and Banderas, in top comic form, completely steals the show. The young'uns are the most forgettable batch of low-watt never-will-bes this side of a Twilight movie--and I certainly could have done without the addition of a female Expendable--but the big guns thankfully have enough star power to go around. Though there was quite a fuss about keeping this installment tame enough for a PG13 rating (as opposed to the Rs earned by the first two Expendables flicks), the film doesn't suffer for it. Quite honestly, I can't imagine a more fun time at the movies.

The Expendables 3 clocks in at 126 minutes and is rated PG13 for "violence including intense sustained gun battles and fight scenes, and for language."

Of a possible nine Weasleys, The Expendables 3 gets eight. Oh, and Sly, dahhhling, you don't have to be 30 years younger to come knockin' on MY door.

Until next time..

 Shut up and take my money!

MOVIE REVIEW: THE EXPENDABLES 3

Barney (Stallone), Christmas (Statham) and the rest of the team comes face-to-face with Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson), who years ago co-founded The Expendables with Barney. Stonebanks subsequently became a ruthless arms trader and someone who Barney was forced to kill... or so he thought. Stonebanks, who eluded death once before, now is making it his mission to end The Expendables -- but Barney has other plans. Barney decides that he has to fight old blood with new blood, and brings in a new era of Expendables team members, recruiting individuals who are younger, faster and more tech-savvy. The latest mission becomes a clash of classic old-school style versus high-tech expertise in the Expendables' most personal battle yet. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

Director: Patrick Hughes

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Wesley Snipes

Release Date: Aug 15, 2014

Rated: PG-13 for Language, Intense Sustained Gun Battles, Fight Scenes and Violence 

Runtime: 2 hr. 7 min. 

Genres: Action/Adventure 

Review:

By this point in time you come to expect certain things from the Expendables movies.  The third entry starts off well with a rollicking, if a tad silly, action sequence that brings back Wesley Snipes to the screen.  Honestly, I didn’t know I missed Snipes that much but he perks up the first 20 minutes of the movie with an energetic charisma that’s hard to ignore.  After that sequence, the film turns into a bit of slog as we’re slowly introduced to new recruits, none of which have even the tiniest bit of screen charisma, with the characters we’ve come to know relegated to wait off screen.  The biggest sin isn’t that these characters are faceless and just there to serve the plot, it’s that during this extended sequence nothing happens.  There lots of exposition with Frasier popping up to throw some zingers at the plastic corpse that is Stallone but very little action or fun.  It’s honestly the films biggest drawback because the whole sequence could have been done in about 10 minutes so we could bring back the established fun characters or the other new additions like Antonio Banderas who’s hilarious as a motor mouth killer looking for a new team.  Once the final action sequence starts, you remember why your watching this film, lots over the top action with fun characters and crazy eyed Mel Gibson hamming it up as the villain of the piece.  That’s all I was really looking for in this franchise.

C+

MOVIE REVIEW: THE EXPENDABLES 2

IN THEATERS ON DVD

THE EXPENDABLES 2




The Expendables return with a vengeance in this follow-up to the 2010 surprise hit. The Mechanic's Simon West directed from a script by Sylvester Stallone and David Agosto. Liam Hemsworth heads up the rest of the starring cast, which includes returning members Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, and Terry Crews, along with fellow '80s action icons Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Simon West

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Liam Hemsworth

Release Date: Aug 17, 2012

Rated R for Strong Bloody Violence

Runtime: 1 hr. 43 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure

Review:

You can’t accuse the sequel to Expendables of not delivering on what it promised. Stallone’s brain child brought a litany of action stars together for the first film and with this second one he ups the ante across the board. Simon West takes over the director’s reigns this go around but it has a very similar feel to the first. The action is extreme and outlandish, very tongue in cheeks almost bordering on self parody occasionally. During the fast and loose action sequences the film finds its groove, allowing its cast to shine doing what they do best, kick ass. Pacing problems due kind of plague the film as West transitions from huge action set pieces to slower almost glacial story moments which change the films tone from fun to overly self serious. It’s most bothersome in the first part of the film which has more exposition than is actually needed for such a simple conceit. Around the midway point the, once the lone wolf shows up, film perks up again leading to a fun and enjoyable finale which features Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger doing what they do best, playing off each other extremely well. Jason Statham is the lone primary star from the first film who gets more than passing face time. As a sequel it delivers bigger bang for the buck even if it isn’t perfect.

B-

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE EXPENDABLES

IN THEATERS

THE EXPENDABLES



An all-star cast of action-movie icons headline Sylvester Stallone's explosive action thriller about a group of hard-nosed mercenaries who are double-crossed during a treacherous mission. Approached by the shadowy Church to overthrow tyrannical South American dictator General Gaza (David Zayas) and restore order to the troubled island country of Vilena, stoic soldier of fortune Barney Ross (Stallone) rounds up an unstoppable team that includes former SAS soldier and blade specialist Lee Christmas (Jason Statham); martial arts expert Yin (Jet Li); trigger-happy Hale Caesar (Terry Crews); cerebral demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture); and haunted sniper Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), a combat veteran who never misses his mark. Traveling to Vilena on a reconnaissance mission with his old pal Christmas, Barney meets their local contact, a cagey guerrilla fighter named Sandra (Giselle Itie). It isn't long before Barney and Christmas have discovered that their actual target is not General Gaza but James Monroe (Eric Roberts), a former CIA operative who has recently gone rogue. Monroe won't be easy to get to either, because his hulking bodyguard Paine (Steve Austin) is a force to be reckoned with. When their mission is compromised, Barney and Christmas are forced to flee, leaving Sandra behind to face almost certain death. But Barney isn't the kind of soldier to abandon a mission, or a hostage, and now in order to get the job done he'll need the help of his old crew. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, Jet Li.

Release Date: Aug 13, 2010

Rated: strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language

Runtime: 1 hr. 43 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure

Review:

Sylvester Stallone wants to revive the ghost of mindless 80’s action flicks, the kind he headlined for years. He’s mostly successful even if in bringing this style of film back with warts and all leaves something to be desired from time to time. Stallone’s direction is generic but single minded and when the action gets hot and heavy its done well without losing focus from the point of the film as a whole. The point being, of course, is to provide lots of bloody carnage replete with bodies exploding, decapitations and bullets with minimal reloading throughout. The cast assembled is of course more than capable to fill the bill. Stallone in the lead role comes off a tad distant and distracted, seemingly more interested in taking in everything he’s brought together and feeling somewhat self satisfied. Needless to say, his acting here is fairly wooden. Jason Statham fairs far better feeling more like the real lead of the film, he comes off the most comfortable of the main cast and he’s good fun throughout. Jet Li is mostly short changed, pun intended, for the most part and what little time he’s given he does well with. Terry Crews has some fun parts popping up here and there throughout the movie. Randy Couture gets a few sections and comes off as wooden but he handles the action well. Mickey Rourke and Dolph Lungren both have small parts that I would have enjoyed to see fleshed out a bit more. Eric Roberts is having a good time laying it on thick as a typical 80’s action movie villain. Don’t expect much more screen time out of Willis and Schwarzenegger than what you see in the trailer even if the exchange is lots of fun. The Expendables delivers exactly what you’d expect and it’s a fun time at the movies, occasionally hitting a few inspired moments of awesomeness.

B-