Vice

Vice - Dir. Bryan A. Miller (2015)

Bruce Willis has a pretty good track record when it comes to science fiction. 12 Monkeys, The Fifth Element, and Looper have all been great films, but 2009's Surrogates was instantly forgettable. Vice won't exactly be a bright spot on Willis's resume or anyone else's. This is direct-to-video dreck that remorselessly rips off Westworld and Blade Runner. There's a little bit of Total Recall in here too and the filmmakers surely would have cribbed more from Philip K. Dick had they added an extra zero to the budget.

The former Moonlighting star plays Julian Michaels, the impresario behind Vice, an exclusive resort where the high-paying clientele whatever debauchery they desire. Thanks to the latest advances in robotics and genetic engineering, Vice is staffed by "residents," life-like androids implanted with false memories, but real emotions. They can bleed and feel pain in order to make the experience more realistic should someone choose to live out their most violent fantasies. That's where maverick police detective Roy Todesky (Thomas Jane) comes in. Todesky believes that Vice only fans the flames of depravity. The lines between reality and fiction are blurred and visitors of Vice start getting freaky in the real world.

Kelly (Ambyr Childers) is a resident programmed to be a bartender when she's gunned down by a visitor. While undergoing a routine memory reset, Kelly becomes self-aware as she relives every one of her deaths. After Kelly escapes from the facility, Michaels orders his forces to capture her before everything he's built begins to unravel.

Vice posits the age-old hypothesis over how violent media (specifically video games) affect someone's ability to distinguish between reality and fiction. The Vice resort is essentially a live-action version of Grand Theft Auto, an open world game that encourages players to commit all manner of crimes. If you were expecting any sort of intelligent discussion on the subject in Vice, then prepare for disappointment. This film is way more concerned with gunfights and explosions. Besides, the issue was already raised in Neveldine/Taylor's Gamer. When the guys who made the Crank films do a more subtle job with social commentary, you know you're in trouble.

The script by Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore (San Andreas) is bogged down by leaden exposition while consistently taking the least interesting path forward. Despite her male co-stars receiving top billing, Ambyr Childers is actually the protagonist of the picture, except she spends much of the movie as a damsel in distress or the recipient of overlong explanations. When Kelly receives a Matrix-style upgrade and you anticipate she'll finally jump in on the action, she throws a couple punches and that's it. Also, if you're hoping for an ultimate showdown between John McClane and The Punisher, prepare for another disappointment. Willis can barely muster an iota of energy for his role to the point he's practically narcoleptic. Jane, at least, seems to realize the B-grade material he's taken part in and hams it up accordingly.

Vice is the type of film where someone can deliver a line like, "You're 'this' close to losing your badge," without a hint of irony. It's a derivative chore and one would be better served watching the movies Vice rips off rather than the movie itself.

Rating: * (*****)

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For - Dirs. Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller (2014)

"Sin City is where you go in with your eyes open or you don't come out at all."

You have to hand it to Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller for their dogged determination in sequelizing Sin City. Nine years later, the much-anticipated Sin City: A Dame to Kill For finally arrived in theaters to a tepid response. The movie came just shy of pulling in $40 million worldwide, a fraction of the $158 million earned by its predecessor. Perhaps, too much time has passed.

The original Sin City stood head and shoulders above other Hollywood releases with its hyper-stylized representation of film noir, stark black and white accentuated by splashes of color. Rodriguez also changed the way we thought of adapting comic books by slavishly remaining faithful to Miller's artwork. Pages from the comics were kept on set to utilize as storyboards. Now the look of Sin City isn't as fresh with perfume commercials appropriating the visuals. Miller certainly didn't help matters with his abysmal attempt at a feature film version of Will Eisner's Spirit. As for Rodriguez, Grindhouse was a fun experiment that deserved a larger audience, but Shorts, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, and Machete Kills didn't set the world on fire.

A Dame to Kill For begins with "Just Another Saturday Night," in which the nigh-invulnerable bruiser Marv (Mickey Rourke) tries to piece together a hazy evening that involved frat boys lighting hobos on fire.

The best and most substantial story is "A Dame to Kill For" starring Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin), a man trying to put his violent past behind him. Everything falls apart when he is reunited with former lover Ava Lord (Eva Green). Against his better judgment, Dwight agrees to save Ava from an abusive marriage with the wealthy Damian Lord (Marton Csokas). Of course, Dwight should have known better than to believe anything coming from those luscious lips.

The second Sin City also features two original stories. In "The Long Bad Night," a cocky gambler named Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) enters into a high stakes poker game against the powerful Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) and might lose more than just his money. Finally, there's "Nancy's Last Dance," which continues the story from "The Yellow Bastard." Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) is still haunted by the death of her protector John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), who sacrificed his life to protect her from the grasp of Sen. Roark. Now, Nancy is a little unhinged and prepares nearly every waking moment to seek revenge against the untouchable politico.

If you enjoyed the style over substance approach of the first movie, then you'll probably dig A Dame to Kill For since you get more of the same. Rodriguez and Miller seamlessly blend live-action with computer animation in a dynamic fashion to craft the world of Sin City. There's some great imagery here, such as deadly little Miho firing a bow & arrow against a full moon or Roark surrounded by stacks of poker chips that resemble skyscrapers. After a while, it gets tiring, especially when the stories are so repetitive. We get decapitations galore and an endless stream of hard boiled narration. And the women of Sin City wind up being strippers, prostitutes or chopped into pieces by sadistic killers.

The filmmakers try harder this time around to integrate the various stories in the sequel and use the strip club, Kadie's Saloon, as a hub. It doesn't really work nor does it enhance the experience. It can be confusing as well since time means nothing. "Long Bad Night" and "Nancy's Last Dance" take place after the events of the previous picture, but "Dame to Kill For" is a prequel. Keep in mind; these new stories aren't by the Frank Miller who gave us acclaimed runs on Batman and Daredevil. This is the new Frank Miller behind the laughable All-Star Batman & Robin and the atrocious Holy Terror. This is a Frank Miller who thought it would be a fantastic idea for Nancy to disfigure her own face for the sole purpose of getting Marv to help her on a mission of vengeance. Heaven forbid a female character do something on her own.

Marv is a constant in each segment and the big bruiser brought a lot of dark humor in "The Hard Goodbye." However, he's now become a glorified attack dog that they sic on any henchmen in sight. So it makes absolutely no sense why Nancy doesn't just ask him to kill a bunch of dudes for her.

Rosario Dawson as the machine gun toting dominatrix Gail is back along with Jaime King as twin sexpots Goldie and Wendy, and Bruce Willis as the world's most laconic ghost. Dennis Haysbert takes over the role of Manute from the late-Michael Clarke Duncan while Jamie Chung replaces Devon Aoki as the silent assassin Miho. Among the newcomers are Juno Temple, Christopher Lloyd, Ray Liotta, Lady Gaga, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, and Stacy Keach underneath grotesque make-up that makes him look like a rejected Dick Tracy villain.

None of them hold a candle to Eva Green, who relishes in the role of the femme fatale to end all femme fatales. This is the very definition of sultry and seductive. Green deserves a special award for Best Performances in Unnecessary Frank Miller sequels. She was also the highlight of 300: Rise of an Empire as warrior woman Artemisia. Josh Brolin equates himself well with the gruff and lurid prose as Dwight when he had his old face. It does hurt the tale that Clive Owen was unable to return as Dwight after the reconstructive surgery.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For feels like a quick cash grab that was slapped together, except it came nine years later when the irons have long been cold. It's gratuitously crude and violent without any creative spark.

Rating: ** (*****)

Red 2

Red 2 - Dir. Dean Parisot (2013)

Still retired, still extremely dangerous.

DC Comics may be owned by Warner Brothers, but a few properties sometime slip through their fingers. Red was a 3-issue mini-series by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner and published by DC imprint Wildstorm. The source material was about a retired CIA agent seeking revenge after his former employers order his death. Summit Entertainment bought the rights, perhaps to diversify their portfolio from the sparkly vampires and YA novel adaptations. Screenwriters Erich and Jon Hoeber turned the original comics into a zippy team-up of A-list actors and they do so again with the sequel, Red 2.

Bruce Willis returns as Frank Moses, a retired operative looking forward to living some semblance of a normal life with his girlfriend, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). He's content to shop for frozen shrimp and power washers at Costco, but Sarah yearns for the globe-trotting action she witnessed when they first met. She gets her wish when a document posted on Wikileaks purports the involvement of Frank and Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) in a Cold War operation code-named Nightshade, wherein an experiment nuclear weapon was smuggled into Moscow. Once again, a seedy faction within the CIA wants Frank dead and they've sent their best man, Jack Horton (Neal McDonough), along with Korean assassin Han Cho Bai (Byung-hun Lee) to do the deed. Not to mention the British and the Russians want to get their hands on the device by any means necessary.

Part of the appeal of the Red films is the chance to see A-list actors known for serious fare participating in a lighthearted action movie. Red 2 knows which side its bread is buttered and relies solely on its ensemble. There aren’t many joys in life to match the sight of Helen Mirren wielding a sniper rifle or pouring acid into a bathtub to dispose of a corpse while in ritzy eveningwear. John Malkovich also has fun as the unhinged Marvin Boggs. The ranks are bolstered by veterans Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Edward Bailey, the device’s inventor, who has spent decades locked away in an insane asylum and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a sultry femme fatale. Byung-hun Lee, one of the newer faces to American audiences, gets some great action sequences, including one where he beats up several cops while handcuffed to a glass door. He’s a welcome addition since his co-stars aren’t nearly as nimble.

The script by the Hoebers can hardly muster any sort of surprising twists or substance whatsoever. On the other hand, the picture moves at such a rapid clip that you hardly have the time to lament such things. Title cards utilizing comic book art in Hamner’s style help to remind us that we are watching a cartoon come to life.

Red 2 is absurd and thinly plotted, but it helps that the cast is comprised of actors who can lend weight to such weightless material.

Rating: ** (*****)

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

G.I. Joe: Retaliation - Dir. Jon M. Chu (2013)

Any self-respecting child of the 80's who had the misfortune to catch G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, couldn't help but leave the theater with a foul taste in their mouth. Paramount's clumsy attempt at turning Hasbro's famed toy line into a live-action franchise played fast and loose with the mythology as it careened through a nonsensical plot riddled with idiotic dialogue. Rise of Cobra earned a little over $300 million worldwide, just barely turning a profit on its exorbitant $175 million budget. It was still enough to greenlight a sequel with the studio taking much of the criticism to heart. G.I. Joe: Retaliation serves as not only a sequel, but something of a reboot and catch-all apologia.

This time around, the Joe team consists of Duke (Channing Tatum), Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (D.J. Cotrona), and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki). After retrieving a nuclear warhead stolen from Pakistan, the Joes are the victim of an airstrike that kills the majority of the team, including Duke. The attack was ordered by the President (Jonathan Pryce), who is actually Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) in disguise. Zartan proceeds to turn the country against the Joes and orchestrates the escape of Cobra Commander from a high-tech underground prison with the help of Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Cobra saboteur Firefly (Ray Stevenson). With the enemy now in the White House, Roadblock, Flint, and Lady Jaye seek the aid of the original Joe, General Joe Colton (Bruce Willis) to expose Cobra's Machiavellian plot. Meanwhile, Snake-Eyes (Ray Park) and his protégé Jinx (Elodie Yung) are dispatched to the Himalayas to hunt down Storm Shadow for the murder of their master.

Stephen Sommers and his brand of bland blockbuster filmmaking are gone. In his stead, Paramount has gone for an improbable choice in Jon M. Chu whose previous credits include Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never as well as the Microsoft Surface commercials. His experience with directing elaborately choreographed sequences serve Chu well when it comes to Retaliation's numerous action scenes. By far, the best set piece where Snake-Eyes and Jinx clash swords with a cadre of red ninjas while swinging around snow-capped mountainsides. It feels like an entirely separate film within the film. Most of the other scenes involving shootouts or fistfights suffer from hyperactive camerawork. The Himalayan sequence is also the only section that benefits of the 3D post-conversion that shelved the picture from its original release date in August 2012. Despite rampant rumor mongering, Retaliation did not go through any extensive reshoots.

Another aspect Chu brings is a genuine love of the property to the point he used action figures to storyboard the action. The screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland and unproduced scripts for Deadpool and Venom) inject the sequel with more humor and faithfulness than its predecessor. The story skews much closer to the Marvel comics by Larry Hama, including an homage to the iconic "Silent Interlude" in issue #21. The Joes are more grounded as a Special Forces branch of the military rather than the cartoonish global peacekeeping force from Rise of Cobra. The vehicles in the film resemble the toys you might have collected, such as the HISS Tank, the AWE Striker, and the Water Moccasin. Cobra Commander has ditched the god-awful plastic mask for his classic chrome faceplate. Roadblock being a former chef and a hint of romance between Flint and Lady Jaye are thrown in for the die-hard fans.

While the story gains in reverence to the source material, it completely lacks in substance and coherence. The plot unfurls at lightning speed through the 90 minute runtime with no gravitas to any of the film's major moments. The convoluted backstory between Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes is shoehorned into the standard Cobra threatens to blow up the world scheme. The entire city of London is destroyed with little bearing because we are ripped away to the next scene. At one point, Storm Shadow is imprisoned and the guards bafflingly bring along his swords, then leave them right out in the open. Nearly everyone from Rise of Cobra has been ditched with no mention at all to their fates. They aren't missed with the exception of Rachel Nichols as Scarlett. However, her role is supplanted by Adrianne Palicki's Lady Jaye though there is little done to differentiate the two. Developing fully dimensional characters is hardly a priority. It's clear a lot of that stuff was cut out during the hiatus.

Only Roadblock makes an impression thanks to the charisma of Dwayne Johnson, who has become the go-to guy to resurrect flailing franchises. Besides already looking like an action figure brought to life, Johnson has an easygoing charm that meshes well with the surprisingly funny Channing Tatum. The repartee between Roadblock and Duke are some of the most entertaining in the movie, which suffers following Tatum's departure. However, you can't blame Tatum for wanting to move on to bigger and better things now that he's starring in Steven Soderbergh productions. Jonathan Pryce, one of the few actors to return, gets a much meatier role with a dual performance as the disheveled president and the villainous Zartan. Pryce is clearly relishing the deliciously evil one-liners given to him ("They call it waterboarding, but I never get bored."). The same goes for Ray Stevenson and Walt Goggins as a somewhat sadistic warden. Don't expect to see the lively Bruce Willis seen in Moonrise Kingdom or Looper. As Gen. Colton, Willis can hardly muster up an emotion aside from mild bemusement. RZA wins the award for worst performance due to his wooden turn as the Blind Master.

Paramount still doesn't hit the mark the second time around. G.I. Joe: Retaliation won't be mistaken for high art, but the sequel accomplishes its modest goal of being mindless entertainment.

Rating: ** (*****)

Lay the Favorite

Lay the Favorite - Dir. Stephen Frears (2012)

Stephen Frears has had a long and diverse career as a director. He's helmed some winners (High Fidelity) and some losers (Mary Reilly). Frears has also directed two Best Picture nominees in Dangerous Liaisons and The Queen. So you can't help but feel that he and his cast are slumming with Lay the Favorite.

Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a beautiful free-spirit whose life is going nowhere fast. She's a stripper who makes house calls and the occupation doesn't exactly thrill her. On a whim, Beth decides to pack her bags for Las Vegas in order to become a cocktail waitress. Hey, dream big, right?

Much to her chagrin, Beth quickly learns that the waitress industry is unionized and she has no way in. Thanks to a pair of friendly neighborhood strippers, Beth gets a job taking bets for a gambler named Dink (Bruce Willis), whose operation gives odds on every major sport along with beauty pageants and spelling bees. Despite an utter lack of experience, Beth catches on quickly thanks to a winning personality and a knack for numbers. In the process, she finds herself attracted to Dink. However, his temperament runs hot and cold depending on his luck and he has a controlling wife in Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Beth rebounds into the arms of Jeremy (Joshua Jackson), a nice and normal journalist in New York City. Finding herself without any job prospects in the Big Apple, Beth falls into old habits by going to work for Dink's rival, Rosie (Vince Vaughn). She doesn't seem fazed that bookmaking is illegal outside of Nevada.

Lay the Favorite is based on the memoirs of Beth Raymer, who chronicled her journey from stripping to working operations in the Caribbean and Costa Rica where bookmaking is unregulated. In between, she tried her hand at amateur boxing, which is never mentioned in the movie. Raymer certainly led an interesting life, but you would never know it according to the fictionalized account. Lay the Favorite prefers to be a mildly amusing romp with a few romantic comedy tropes and a smidgeon of the con artist picture that Frears toyed with previously in The Grifters and Dirty Pretty Things.

One of the reasons Lay the Favorite fails to engage is a lack of intriguing and sympathetic characters. It's hard to root for Beth when she consistently makes monumentally foolish mistakes, especially when they threaten to drag others down with her. Rebecca Hall is a fantastic actress and looks gorgeous here as she sashays around the Vegas strip in cut-off jean shorts. She pulls off the ditzy routine well and her speech patterns are somewhere in between Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop. However, there's only so much Hall can do when the character is so thin. This is a case where Hall's boundless personality far exceeds the role. Her love story with Jeremy lacks any spark since he's an utterly bland romantic interest. Hall's scenes with Bruce Willis are of slightly more interest because the latter isn't simply sleepwalking through the movie. Willis brings a little of the energy that made him a star on Moonlighting.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is fun as Dink's overbearing wife though he eventually turns far too easily from harridan to kindly maternal figure. Laura Prepon of That 70's Show fame appears briefly as one of Beth's friends, although her look and bad southern accent may trick you into thinking she's Jamie Pressley Then, there's Vince Vaughn who is once again typecast as the fast-talking huckster and Corbin Bernsen in a throwaway cameo as Beth's father. If only the screenplay by D.V. DiVincentis were better. Frears has an A-list cast and gives them C-list material.

Lay the Favorite had the opportunity to be an enthralling exposé of the gambling world. Think Moneyball in Sin City. Instead, the movie puts it all on the line until the dice finally come up snake eyes. Nothing of note here other than Rebecca Hall's hotness and a brief topless scene by Prepon.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

A Good Day to Die Hard

A Good Day to Die Hard - Dir. John Moore (2013)

"You know what I hate about Americans? Everything. Especially cowboys."

A brief history about the Die Hard franchise. The first film was based on the 1979 novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, by Roderick Thorp, which was a sequel to his 1966 book, The Detective. That was adapted into a movie starring Frank Sinatra as NYPD Detective Joe Leland. When Sinatra turned down the chance to make the sequel, Nothing Lasts Forever was altered into the standalone project that became Die Hard. Die Hard 2: Die Harder had a similar journey to the big screen as it was based on 58 Minutes, a completely unrelated novel by Walter Wager. Die Hard with a Vengeance and Live Free or Die Hard both began as spec scripts, Simon Says by Jonathan Hensleigh and WW3.com by David Marconi, before extensive rewrites. This makes A Good Day to Die Hard the first picture in the series to be envisioned from the start as a Die Hard movie. Yet, the fifth installment is merely Die Hard in name. It's as if a studio exec fished out an unproduced screenplay from the 80's, dusted it off, and made liberal use of cut and paste to turn it into the latest misadventure of John McClane (Bruce Willis).

This time around, McClane finds himself in Moscow to mend fences with his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney). The junior McClane has been arrested for murder and is set to testify in the trial of political prisoner Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch). Komarov has incriminating evidence against a powerful government official who inadvertently caused the Chernobyl meltdown by siphoning off radioactive material to sell on the black market. No sooner does McClane arrive at the courthouse then a group of mercenaries trigger an explosion and go in guns blazing. As it turns out, Jack is an undercover CIA agent tasked with ensuring that Komarov lives long enough to finger the bad guy. Now, John and Jack must survive in a foreign land while hounded by relentless Russian killers.

Out of all the Die Hard films, A Good Day to Die Hard is the worst of the bunch. Though they may have bombed at the box office, Bruce Willis's former Planet Hollywood cohorts had far more enjoyable efforts with The Last Stand and Bullet to the Head. At least, Arnold had a very talented director looking to make a foothold in the U.S. (Kim Ji-woon) while Stallone recruited an old school master of action (Walter Hill). The fifth installment of Die Hard has fallen into the hands of the unremarkable John Moore whose credits include Max Payne and the atrocious remake of The Omen. Moore can't be bothered to hold the camera steady for more than a few seconds. A raucous car chase through the crowded streets is reduced to a jumbled mess as the audience never gets the opportunity to revel in the untold destruction reeked by the heroes and villains alike. At least, the chase goes by quickly enough that you don't have the time to think about all the innocent civilians McClane has killed or injured due to his reckless driving. The multitude of uninspired action sequences that follow are strung together by the loosest of narratives.

The script was penned by Skip Woods who has the dubious distinction of also writing Swordfish, Hitman, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The story possesses none of the emotional gravitas of the first Die Hard. Even the father-daughter relationship from Live Free or Die Hard was more satisfying than the utterly uninteresting interplay between father and son in Good Day. The dialogue is weak with characters barely uttering more than two sentences at a time. The banter is equally dull and McClane's one-liners don't have the punch as they did in the 80's. The closest thing to wit this movie has is a running joke where McClane berates everyone for ruining his vacation, which doesn't make any sense since he's not on vacation.

Meanwhile, a sleepy-eyed Bruce Willis goes through the motions until he can say, "Yippie-ki-yay," and cash his fat paycheck. The three-dimensional everyman that John McClane was in the original film has given way to a shotgun-toting Wile E. Coyote. The Die Hard series has never been without over-the-top stunts dating back to McClane leaping off an exploding roof with a fire hose tied around his waist. The last picture took it to new heights with McClane going one-on-one with a fighter jet. In Good Day, McClane and son leap from tall buildings and are shredded by gunfire, yet escape with only a few cuts and bruises. McClane literally becomes a cartoon character when the climax sees a CGI Bruce Willis falling in slow motion amidst digital fire and debris before landing safely in a conveniently located pool of water.

Although he was good in Spartacus:Blood and Sand and as Werner Herzog's right-hand man in Jack Reacher, Jai Courtney never makes an impression as Jack McClane. That has more to do with the role being severely underwritten than his acting abilities. He certainly doesn't make you salivate at the prospects of a Die Hard Jr. movie. Sebastian Koch, from the excellent Lives of Others, joins the ranks of Chow Yun-Fat and Michael Nyqvist as an international actor who comes to Hollywood just to play a generic foreign guy in an action movie. Good Day desperately needed an Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons due to a lack of noteworthy villains.

There is a slight amusement to be found by an unintentional political undercurrent. A Russian baddie mocks the McClanes by stating 1986 is over and Reagan is dead. Ironic because John McClane represented the blue-collar American values of the era. He was masculinity threatened by Japanese big business, feminism, opportunistic media, and ineffectual bureaucrats. His sidekick, Sgt. Al Powell, can only regain his manhood by drawing his revolver and blowing away the big, blonde terrorist. Here, we meet McClane as a solemn and solitary figure at a gun range where a portrait of Obama hangs in the corner. Next, he becomes the ugly American blundering through a situation he doesn't understand in another country with little regard for the collateral damage he causes.

The law of diminishing returns is in full effect. A Good Day to Die Hard is an absolute low point in the franchise history. A few recalls to the first Die Hard only succeed in exposing what a pale imitation unfolds before you. This is a painfully insipid chore that will have you longing for the days of Renny Harlin and Len Wiseman.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom - Dir. Wes Anderson (2012)

Wes Anderson burst onto the scene with his debut film, Bottle Rocket. He avoided the sophomore slump with Rushmore, which many consider to be his best picture though I've always been partial to The Royal Tenenbaums. After his third picture, Anderson seemed to be spinning his wheels with The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited. They felt less like original works and more like someone trying hard to ape Anderson's idiosyncratic style. If any director's visual approach lent itself to animation, it would be Anderson, which is why The Fantastic Mr. Fox was so…well, fantastic. His foray into stop-motion animation may have rejuvenated Anderson as his return to live-action, Moonrise Kingdom, is a return to form.

Co-written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, the story is set in 1965 on the fictional isle of New Penzance, located off the coast of Rhode Island. 12-year old orphan Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) has a hard time fitting in. He's a member of the Khaki Scouts, but none of the other boys like him. His foster parents don't know what to do with him. It's no wonder Sam forges an instant bond with the sullen Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward). She's constantly getting into trouble at school while her parents, Walt (Bill Murray) and Laura (Frances McDormand), make little effort to understand her. It doesn't help that Laura is having an affair with the island's sole policeman, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis). When Sam and Suzy run away together, everyone engages in a frantic search for the young lovebirds.

Their escape is more than just about finding their place in the world. It's also about escaping from the cynicism and loneliness they observe in the adults around them. Despite the possibilities of doom and gloom, Anderson approaches the story with a playful nature and his trademark dry sense of humor. The romance between Sam and Suzy is imbued with a sweet-natured innocence that is accentuated by sequences that veer into cartoon territory. At one point, Sam is struck by lightning, but survives with nothing more than a face full of soot. A tightly edited sequence of written correspondence effectively sets up the romance and adventure to come.

Visually, Moonrise Kingdom is everything you expect from Wes Anderson, gorgeously photographed on Super 16 by cinematographer Robert Yeoman. There's an aura of timelessness to the film thanks to its vintage look. Anderson meticulously composes every one of his shots as if he were painting a tableau. The sets open up as if they were a doll house as the camera tracks from left to right. One of the best scenes takes place at the Khaki Scouts' headquarters as the camera follows the characters while boys in the background zipline, shoot arrows, and light firecrackers.

Music has always been an integral component of Anderson's pictures and the soundtrack to Moonrise Kingdom is an eclectic compliment to the love story. In addition to original compositions by Alexandre Desplat, there are tracks by Hank Williams and Francoise Hardy. The film opens with a selection from The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by British composer Benjamin Britten, which works as a child's introduction to classical music. The piece symbolically represents the kids' first steps into maturity.

The leads are wonderfully played by newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward. As Suzy, Hayward looks like she stepped right out of a French New Wave film with her chic pink dress, thick eyes shadow, and pouty demeanor. Bill Murray is back in yet another understated role while another Anderson vet Jason Schwartzman appears briefly as an older scout. Collaborating with Anderson for the first time are Ed Norton, who does a splendid job as an "aww, shucks" scoutmaster, and Bruce Willis. It's refreshing to see Willis in this type of role because you forget he can really act when not trapped in another dumb action flick. His Captain Sharp is a cop that is the polar opposite of John McClane. Willis isn't afraid to look a little pathetic from time to time, especially when he's trudging around with pant legs that are too short. But, if there was any actor ever born to star in a Wes Anderson movie, it is Tilda Swinton. She takes on the antagonistic role of a character referred to only as Social Services, a looming specter of the Dickensian dread that awaits Sam should he be found.

Moonrise Kingdom was one of my favorite films from the first half of the year. It will doubtlessly find its way onto my year-end list as well. This is a tender and humorous love story that exemplifies Wes Anderson at his best.

Rating: *** ½ (*****)

The Cold Light of Day

The Cold Light of Day - Dir. Mabrouk El Mechri (2012)

Times must be tough if a movie starring Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver opens domestically to a dismal $1.8 million. Then again, the majority of movie-goers probably weren't aware that The Cold Light of Day was even released on Sept. 14^th. Summit Entertainment must have seen the writing on the wall and didn't waste any of their Twilight money on marketing a surefire flop.

The still-unknown Henry Cavill headlines the picture as Will Shaw, a business consultant reluctantly joining his family on vacation in Spain. Will has an icy relationship with his father, Martin (Willis), a cultural attaché whose work meant he didn't spend a lot of time with his wife and kids. While swimming ashore for supplies, Will returns to their boat to find his mother (Caroline Goodall), brother (Rafi Gavron), and brother's girlfriend (Emma Hamilton) have been kidnapped. Turns out, Martin is really a CIA agent, who stole a briefcase of valuable contents from the Mossad. The Israelis want the case in exchange for the Shaws. Too bad Martin is murdered by his corrupt handler, Jean Carrack (Weaver). American officials at the embassy don't believe him and local police want to arrest him. Will's only help comes from a feisty woman named Lucia (Verónica Echegui), who turns out be his half-sister.

The Cold Light of Day is second rate dreck, produced from a screenplay co-written by Scott Wiper whose biggest contribution to cinema is the Steve Austin vehicle The Condemned. This is the type of Z-grade junk usually reserved for an aging Steven Seagal. Only the presence of Willis and Weaver save it from the direct-to-video wasteland. Both are bigger stars than this film deserves and probably only took part for a quick paycheck and a free vacation. Willis is only briefly seen and when he is onscreen he can barely muster an iota of energy. With a better script, Weaver might have made an interesting villain, but she has nothing to chew on besides a steady stream of stilted dialogue.

The burden rests solely on the broad shoulders of Henry Cavill, a handsome Brit being positioned as the next big thing. Time will tell if Cavill becomes an A-lister or the next Taylor Kitsch. He hasn't shown the type of charisma or acting chops that he must have shown to be cast as Superman in next year's Man of Steel. Then again, neither The Cold Light of Day nor Immortals are the best material to show off Cavill's range. As Will Shaw, he's reduced to playing the ugly American who complains how no one speaks English.

Director Mabrouk El Mechri gained notice for the meta-textual dramedy, JCVD, with Jean-Claude Van Damme playing a version of himself. El Mechri had potential to deliver something stylish considering the opening action sequence of JCVD done as one continuous shot. Instead, the action in Cold Light is utterly pedestrian with shootouts and car chases jarringly edited.

The Cold Light of Day is what happens when you cross Hitchcock with The Bourne Identity, then did it in the most inept way possible.

Rating: * (*****)

The Expendables 2

The Expendables 2 - Dir. Simon West (2012)

The Expendables was wish fulfillment for any hardcore action fan, even if it was about fifteen years too late. Sylvester Stallone gathered together a veritable dream team of badasses from the past and present to commit wholesale carnage. Of course, there were plenty of movie goers wondering where their favorite stars were. Where's Steven Seagal or Don "The Dragon" Wilson? Also, how about some female Expendables? You'll be happy to know The Expendables 2 does what all good sequels should do, expand on the concept with a bigger cast and even bigger action.

The whole gang is back: Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and Toll Road (Randy Couture), along with a young sniper named Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth). The sequel begins with a blood-soaked prologue as the team raids a compound in Nepal to rescue a Chinese billionaire as well as rival mercenary Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Following a successful mission, Ross barely has a chance to enjoy the down time when he's approached by CIA spook Mr. Church (Bruce Willis). Collecting on a debt, Church tasks Ross with retrieving the contents of a high-tech safe from the wreckage of a plane that went down in Albania. Church assigns his computer expert, Maggie (Yu Nan), to assist in the endeavor. They are later joined by the enigmatic Booker (Chuck Norris), another soldier of fortune on a mission to take down the organization.

The Expendables are ambushed by a criminal cartel led by Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and with a name like Jean Vilain, what else could he be, except evil? Vilain steals the item and kills one of heroes, earning the enmity of Ross. The McGuffin turns out to be a computerized blueprint of a mine containing five tons of weapons-grade plutonium, which he plans to sell to the highest bidders.

Stallone co-wrote the screenplay with Richard Wenk (16 Blocks, The Mechanic) and it's more streamlined than the previous film. Gone are the B-plots that futilely tried to flesh out the already thin characters. There aren't any extraneous side stories this time around, such as with Lee Christmas's girlfriend (Charisma Carpenter, who only appears in one scene). These guys don't have time for romance when they have shit to blow up. They don't have time for existential introspection either so there is no belly gazing or heartfelt monologues from Mickey Rourke (who chose not to return). The script is the type of throwaway junk that was churned out by Cannon Films back in the 80's, right down to the Cold War threat, the Eastern European setting, and a bad guy with a funny accent.

The main appeal of The Expendables 2 is the chance to see Arnold, Bruce Willis, and Stallone blasting machine gunfire at ear shattering decibels. Yes, John Matrix, John McClane, and John Spartan unleash their wrath on an army of anonymous henchmen. Bodies literally explode into fountains of blood as bullets rip through them. Any worries that the violence might be softened should be put away. Sadly, Jet Li doesn't get to participate in the fun as he only appears in the opening. The action itself isn't spectacularly stylish, but it is adequately directed. Stallone handed the reins to Simon West whose workman-like direction is reminiscent of past standbys like Albert Pyun or Peter Hyams.

Any action movie worth its salt is required to have a few cornball one-liners. We get them here with Statham, disguised as a priest, announcing, "I now pronounce you…man and knife." But, most of the humor is self-referential, delivered with a heavy dose of irony and a tongue firmly planted in cheek. Ennio Morricone's theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly plays each time Chuck Norris, who looks pretty spry for a 72-year old, makes his grand entrance. His character is named after John T. Booker, the role he portrayed in Good Guys Wear Black, and he's frequently referred to as a "Lone Wolf." Chuck Norris even gets to tell a Chuck Norris joke. ("I heard you got bit by a king cobra." "Yeah…but after five days of agonizing pain, the cobra finally died."). The script hints at a possible love story between Barney Ross and Maggie with the former being apprehensive to let anyone close. Perhaps, it is because he remembers the death of Julia Nickson in Rambo: First Blood Part II. Of course, Arnold gets all the best lines. He chomps into his scenes as hard as the ever-present stogies in the corner of his mouth. The ex-governor of California exchanges catchphrases with Bruce Willis during the climatic shootout. ("You've been back enough times. This time, I'll be back." "Yippie-ki-yay.")

The best performances in the film belong to the two guys who probably need subtitles more than Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Lundgren is given a beefier role with his Gunner Jensen now clean and sober. He's become a lovable lug with references made to his real-life master's degree in chemical engineering and Fulbright Scholarship to MIT. Van Damme makes the most of his first major theatrical role in years, excluding the meta-textual JCVD. The Muscles from Brussels is immensely entertaining in a rare villainous turn. Plus, it's cool watching him unleash his trademark flying roundhouse kick to Stallone's face. For his brief screen time, Liam Hemsworth adds a new dimension as his youthful exuberance helps to amusingly remind his established co-stars of their increasing age.

They may have less hair and more wrinkles than back in their heyday, but the holy trinity of Planet Hollywood still has the charisma necessary to carry a huge blockbuster and the heavy ammunitions it requires. The Expendables 2 is well-made schlock cinema for those wanting nothing more than big guys with big guns.

Rating: *** (*****)

Catch .44

Catch .44 - Dir. Aaron Harvey (2011)

Catch .44 is proudly advertised as a film done in "the tradition of The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction." These were two of the most critically acclaimed films to come out of the mid-90's. The only thing Catch .44 has in common with them is that it feels like a movie that might have been released over fifteen years ago after Quentin Tarantino hit it big and a whole slew of wannabe filmmakers began aping his approach with stylish crime films about cool gangsters spewing hip dialogue.

Catch .44 begins with a trio of bad girls named Tes (Malin Akerman), Dawn (Deborah Ann Woll from True Blood), and Kara (Nikki Reed from the other vampire saga, Twilight) having a conversation in a diner in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. The gals are waiting for their boss Mel (Bruce Willis), who wants them to stick up a drug shipment being run by a rival gangster. When he doesn't show up at the specified time, they draw guns and initiate a shootout. The story flashes back to how our heroines got to the diner as well as delving into the background of their leader Tes. Meanwhile, an odd hitman named Ronny (Forest Whitaker) has killed a local deputy, swiped his uniform, and is making his way to the diner.

As it turns out, Tes used to be a waitress at a sleazy strip club where she earned extra cash by swiping the wallets of the clientele. She gains the attentions of Mel, the club's owner, who puts her to work in some vague capacity. How she moves from pickpocket to gun-toting enforcer is never really explained. Instead, the narrative sprinkles in these flashbacks while showing more and more of the shootout, which culminates in an extended and poorly staged Mexican standoff.

The cast also included Brad Dourif as the town sheriff, Shea Wigham as the cook, and Smallville's Michael Rosenbaum as an obnoxious club patron.

Catch .44 doesn't get off to a strong start with Malin Akerman pontificating about faking it and women trying to live in "man land." The scene is a pretty blatant ripoff of the diner scenes from Reservoir Dogs and Death Proof. At least, Tarantino was clever enough to write dialogue about Madonna or some obscure 1970's television show. First-time writer/director Aaron Harvey cannot come up with anything more interesting than lines about leaving the toilet seat up. The QT imitation continues as Harvey introduces his main characters via freeze frame and bold yellow titles lifted right out of Kill Bill or Inglourious Basterds. Harvey also drowns his film with familiar pop songs by the Raveonettes and the Kills. And, yes, he uses "U.R.A. Fever," which seems to appear in every other movie these days. Harvey also chooses the not-so-subtle "Queen Bitch" by David Bowie for Tes's intro. In a bizarre bit of kismet, Tes purchases a cassette copy of Bruce Willis's The Return of Bruno from a gas station and jams out to "Respect Yourself." Apparently, the joke was written into the script long before the filmmakers ever dreamed of casting Willis in the picture.

Speaking of John McClane, he looks rather bizarre as Mel the mobster. Sporting a bleached blonde soul patch and bad skin complexion, Mel struts around his mansion in a bathrobe while munching on pecans. That perfectly sums up just how deep the characterizations are in Catch .44. Everything is thinly sketched out with quirks and tics in place of fleshed out personality traits. For example, Ronny speaks with a faux Tony Montana accent while Kara always has her earbuds on.

Imagine if someone took the diner segment from Pulp Fiction and expanded it into a full-length movie, but sapped it of any life or originality. Wait, you don't have to Aaron Harvey did just that with Catch .44, a derivative direct-to-video bore that could have been cut and pasted from the pages Tarantino tossed into his recycle bin.

Rating: * (*****)

Red

Red - Dir. Robert Schwentke (2010)

RED: Retired, Extremely Dangerous

For some odd reason, 2010 was the year for movies about crack teams of highly-trained specialists. We had The Losers, The A-Team, and The Expendables. Now, here comes Red, which also fits into the subgenre of 'government operatives hunted down by their employers' along with Salt and Knight and Day.

Red is based on a three issue mini-series by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner that was published by Wildstorm, an imprint of DC Comics. The source material centered on a lone protagonist and was made of darker, more violent stuff. Jon & Eric Hoeber, who also adapted the graphic novel Whiteout, freely interpret the comic into a comedy-driven action romp.

Bruce Willis stars as Frank Moses, a former CIA assassin who has retired into a life of boring routine. He wakes up, eats his breakfast, and wheels out the garbage just like everyone else in his nondescript neighborhood. The sole bright spot of Frank's mundane existence are his flirty chats with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), the service rep who handles his pension. Like Frank, Sarah is trapped in the rut of your average cubicle dweller. She finds excitement more in the idea of Frank than the man himself.

One day, a hit-squad riddles Frank's house with machine gun fire in the middle of the night. Frank dispatches them with cold-blooded efficiency and rescues Sarah from another team of assassins who have monitored his conversations. Now, Frank must track down his former colleagues to find out who wants him dead. First, there's Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), now residing in a nursing home and suffering from terminal liver cancer. Next is Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich), a conspiracy nut hiding out in the Florida swamps. He was fed a steady diet of LSD as part of a secret mind control experiment. Frank even turns to a former nemesis in Ivan Simanov (Brian Cox), a former Russian operative and one-time lover of the final member of the team, Victoria (Helen Mirren). An ex-MI6 agent, Victoria, now runs a bed and breakfast in Maryland.

The filmmakers didn't skimp on the supporting roles either, snagging an ensemble of talented actors to fill out the movie. Karl Urban plays William Cooper, the CIA agent tasked with capturing Frank and his comrades, with Rebecca Pidgeon as his hard-nosed supervisor and Julian McMahon as the vice-president. Richard Dreyfuss essentially reprises his role of Dick Cheney from Oliver Stone's W. as a crooked industrialist. The 93-year old Ernest Borgnine shows everybody how it's done as a records keeper for the CIA's dirtiest secrets.

Most of the actors play their roles broadly with Malkovich and Dreyfuss being the most over-the-top. You almost wish Dreyfuss had grown a handlebar mustache so you could watch him twirl it with villainous glee. In contrast, Willis is more laid back as the laconic Frank Moses. It's easy to imagine Moses as what John McClane would be like in his sunset years. His role in Red can also be seen as a meta comment on Willis's career as an action hero. At 55, Willis isn't quite ready to hand in his badge and gun, not when there's still ass kicking to do. Morgan Freeman (who could captivate an audience by reading the phone book) doesn't get nearly as much screen time, but makes the most of what little he has. Brian Cox affects a rather iffy Russian accent as a Cold War throwback.

Despite being a testosterone driven film, the best performances in Red belong to Mary-Louise Parker and Dame Helen Mirren. As the underwritten love interest, Parker displays deft comedic timing. Her best scenes are towards the beginning of the movie when she's kidnapped by Frank. Even with her hands bound and her mouth gagged, she manages to bring the funny, acting as the counterpoint to the sleepy eyed Willis. And what can you say about the ultra-classy Mirren? Her Victoria is like a cross between Emma Peel and Martha Stewart. She remains prim and proper as she fires a sniper rifle and throat punches people. How can anyone not delight in seeing Mirren decked out in an evening gown and combat boots while manning a .50 caliber machine gun bigger than she is?

The action is wildly cartoonish. A hand grenade is swatted away like a baseball and blows a henchman into pieces. Shortly afterwards, Malkovich deflects a rocket with a single bullet. It explodes in a massive ball of fire while Malkovich emerges without as much as a singed eyebrow. The film does peter out during a pedestrian and anticlimactic resolution, but rebounds with a hilarious epilogue.

Rating: ***

The Expendables

The Expendables - Dir. Sylvester Stallone (2010)


Sylvester Stallone is an action movie icon. He found worldwide success with the Rocky and Rambo franchises before an ill-fated attempt to branch into comedy nearly derailed his career. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like to forget about the existence of Oscar and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. Stallone returned to his action roots with Cliffhanger and Demolition Man, but things just seemed to go so terribly wrong after that. He starred in a series of forgettable flops like Judge Dredd, Assassins, and a poorly advised remake of the classic revenge film Get Carter. It seemed there was no place in the world for the alpha male hero of the 80’s. Stallone seemed to be passé and destined to drift into the direct-to-video world inhabited by Steven Seagal and Jean Claude-Van Damme. Oddly enough both were approached for Stallone's new film, The Expendables, but both turned down the opportunity.

No doubt that predicament was exactly what the Italian Stallion needed to mount an impressive comeback in the 21st century. Stallone returned to his roots once more and resurrected Rocky Balboa and John Rambo for one more go. Examining their place in this modern world, Stallone found there was still life left in a punch drunk has-been boxer and a burnt out Vietnam vet.

Now in his mid-60’s, Stallone is experiencing something of a renaissance period. It wasn’t so long ago that Rambo could easily cut down a hundred bad guys by himself with a machine gun that never needed reloading. In Rambo, he had help from a ragtag group of mercenaries. There’s nothing ragtag about the mercenaries in The Expendables. Stallone has assembled an all-star collection of tough guys to kick some serious ass.

Stallone is Barney Ross, the leader of the Expendables. His best friend and right-hand man is Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), a skilled knife-throwing marksman. Also on the team are Yin Yang (Jet Li), Toll Road (UFC fighter Randy Couture), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and the unstable Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren). They have tattoos, ride motorcycles, and have code-names that sound like bad G.I. Joe characters. Still, the Expendables are way tougher than the A-Team and the Losers.

The Expendables begins with the team rescuing hostages from a crew of bloodthirsty Somali pirates. After the battle, Gunner is dumped from the group due to his apparent drug use. In one of the film’s best scenes, Stallone reunites with his Planet Hollywood buddies Bruce Willis and the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold plays a rival soldier of fortune while Willis plays the mysterious Mr. Church who propositions Stallone for a risky mission.

Ross is hired to topple a tin-plated dictator named General Garza (David Zayas) in the South American island nation of Vilena. Ross and Christmas scout out the island and meet their contact, the beautiful Sandra (Giselle Itie), who turns out to be Garza’s daughter. Our heroes discover Garza is in the pocket of rogue CIA agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) who is using the island as a base for his drug trade. Working as Munroe’s henchmen are British kickboxer Gary Daniels and WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Surmising that they’d be cleaning up the Agency’s own mess, they turn down the job. However, Ross finds himself inspired by Sandra and the Expendables arrive in full force to blow shit up and blow it up good.

Expendables is meant to be a throwback to the action films of the 80’s which featured ridiculous balls-to-the-wall violence, gratuitous nudity, and witty one-liners. Stallone tries to capture the spirit of movies like Commando and Delta Force. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really succeed until the last half hour of the picture.

Following the opening sequence, the film drifts around aimlessly as it works to introduce the various characters. Stallone and co-writer David Callaham toss in a superfluous subplot involving Christmas’s girlfriend, Lacy (Charisma Carpenter), and an abusive boyfriend. The first two acts sag into a quagmire of labored and uninteresting scenes when all you want to see are explosions. The banter between comrades falls flat. About the only moment that comes to life is the scene involving Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger which includes a hilarious dig at Ol’ Arnold. Stallone aims to be the world weary soldier, but he is utterly outmatched in the world weary department by Mickey Rourke. As a retired Expendable turned tattoo artist, Rourke lends a surprising amount of soulfulness to the proceedings. It makes you wish he had a lot more scenes.

After dragging its heels for about an hour, Expendables finally kicks it into high gear when the good guys storm the bad guys’ stronghold. Stallone utilizes the same visceral carnage of the last Rambo film. Human bodies are ripped to shreds by machine gun fire and necks are broken emphatically. Couture and Austin aren’t the only ones who get to bust out MMA and pro wrestling maneuvers. Oh, and Terry Crews hurls an artillery shell with his bare hands. Even though Stallone tries for an old school feel, he falls into the trap so many action directors stumble into. His shots are in too tight and the editing too quick and jumpy for anyone to actually see what's happening on screen.

Stallone should be commended for returning us to the clean, old fashioned fun that comes from mindlessly violent entertainment. However, you wished he had incorporated even more mindlessly violent entertainment. The Expendables is a good action movie, just not a great one.

Rating: ** ½

Cop Out

Cop Out - Dir. Kevin Smith (2010)


Bruce Willis is Jimmy Monroe and Tracy Morgan is Paul Hodges, a pair of NYPD detectives who have been partners for nine years. After botching a drug bust, Jimmy and Paul are suspended without pay by their angry precinct captain. Yes, he does force them to turn in their badges and guns, but we never hear anything about the mayor shitting bricks.

With his daughter, Ava (Michelle Trachtenberg), about to be wed, Jimmy needs cash to pay for the ceremony and hopes to cash in on a valuable baseball card. Just as he’s about to have it appraised, the shop is robbed and the card snatched up. Jimmy and Paul are able to catch one of the thieves, a motor-mouthed practitioner of parkour named Dave (Seann William Scott). From him, they learn the card is now in the possession of a wannabe kingpin known on the streets as Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz). This leads to a stolen Mercedes, a kidnapped woman (Ana de la Reguera) locked in the trunk, and Po Boy’s plot to take over the drug rackets on the entire east coast. Meanwhile, Paul is constantly worried that his wife, Debbie (Rashida Jones), is cheating on him.

Cop Out marks the first time Kevin Smith has directed a film not based on his own script. Smith is certainly an unlikely director-for-hire. His name certainly coming up due to getting along swimmingly with his fellow New Jerseyite on the set of Live Free or Die Hard. Smith, by his own admission, isn’t the most visual of directors. He and his long-time cinematographer David Klein have produced their slickest looking film to date, but the action is far too bland to excite.

The script (originally known under the far superior title of A Couple of Dicks) by Robb & Mark Cullen is a throwback to the Shane Black-style 80’s buddy cop flicks. Adding to the feel, the synth score for Cop Out is composed by Harold Faltermeyer of Beverly Hills Cop fame. But, the sad attempts at comedy here pale in comparison to films like the aforementioned Beverly Hills Cop as well as 48 Hrs. and Lethal Weapon. The movie strains under childish gags like Seann William Scott annoyingly repeating what other people say.

Bruce Willis essentially plays Bruce Willis here and that’s worked out well for him, but Tracy Morgan proves he’s not ready for a leading role. On 30 Rock, Morgan is hilarious in those short bursts. However, his Tracy Morgan shtick wears thin after an hour and forty minutes.

It’s said that every hero is only as good as his villain. If that’s the case, the heroes are incredibly weak considering their weak villains. Poh Boy and his gang are some of the least menacing and least memorable bad guys in recent memory.

Cop Out opens with Morgan interrogating a prisoner by quoting lines from random films like Jaws, Star Wars (it is a Smith film), Dirty Dancing, and even Die Hard. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, you never want to remind the audience of movies they’d rather be watching.

Rating: * ½

Surrogates

Surrogates - Dir. Jonathan Mostow (2009)


Much like Whiteout, Surrogates is a comic book movie that fails to live up to its intriguing premise. The sci-fi flick takes the idea of internet avatars one step further by introducing the idea of actual avatars.

Mankind no longer bothers to leave their front door with the invention of robotic surrogates that can be controlled telepathically. The surrogates can be designed to look any way you want them to, any age, race, or even sex. Crime is now a thing of the past, until someone commits the first murder in years. The killer has a high-tech device that can fry the user’s brain through their surrogate. FBI Agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is assigned to investigate along with his partner, Jennifer Peters (Radha Mitchell). The case grows in importance when one of the victims turns out to be the son of the inventor of surrogacy, Dr. Lionel Carter (James Cromwell playing almost the exact same role he did in I, Robot). Dr. Carter has grown disillusioned with the rampancy of his inventions and has chosen to be even more isolated than everyone else. There are also a group of humans called Dreads who despise surrogates and everything they represent. The Dreads live on their own surrogate-free reservation under the leadership of the militant Prophet (Ving Rhames).

When Greer’s surrogate is damaged, he must learn to venture into a world he hasn’t interacted with in a long time. Just as he hasn’t interacted with his own wife, Maggie (Rosamund Pike), despite the fact that she lives right across the hall from him. She has grown more and more reliant on her surrogate since the death of their son.

As with most science fiction films in recent memory, Surrogates dumbs down its central concept in favor of slick set pieces. No needs to think when you can watch stuff get blown up. The action sequences aren’t spectacular enough to set themselves apart from any other mediocre action flick being churned out today. The screen presence of Bruce Willis is really the only thing that grounds the picture.

Rating: **