Suicide Squad (2016)

Suicide Squad (2016)

Director: David Ayer

Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie,Viola Davis, Common, Jai Courtney, Ezra Miller, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Joel Kinnaman, Karen Fukuhara, Ben Affleck

The thing about Suicide Squad is that it’s neither a good nor a bad film. Sadly, this is what Hollywood is doing a lot of these days, films that are neither here, nor there, they simply exist somewhere in the realm between good and bland. That being said, I had a decent time with Suicide Squad; it entertained even through its flaws. I was surprised to discover that it had moments of brilliance, few as they were yet was extremely dissapointed that a writer/director of David Ayer’s caliber delivered such an average film. But before we get into anything, I want to let you guys know that this review is coming from a true blue comic book fan, so I’m not one of those people who went into Suicide Squad already hating it. Actually I was truly looking forward to it. I even saw it opening day. The main draw for me were all the cool possibilities the concept of villains as heroes had to offer, plus we had director David Ayer behind the cameras which gave me a lot of hope. The result wasn’t as disastrous as some reviews make it sound, there’s some fun to be had with Suicide Squad. But I’m sure you’re wondering exactly what these pesky flaws everyone keeps talking about were, so let’s get down to it shall we? 

Suicide Squad is all about this top secret government project called “Task Force X” that unites a group of villains who are under the custody of the federal government (read: in jail) in order to have them do the governments dirty work. So as it turns out, these villains end up being the heroes, because an even more villainous witch called ‘The Enchantress’  is hell-bent on taking over the world. In order to achieve this, she brings to life her once dead, but equally powerful brother. The Suicide Squad’s supposed to stop this all powerful entity. Will they achieve their mission? Or will their collective insanity tear the group apart?

If you have seen Ayer’s body of work, then you will know why I was a bit disappointed here. I mean, Harsh Times (2005)? An amazing picture! End of Watch (2012) and Sabotage (2014) were both highly watchable in my book.  Let’s not forget that Mr. Ayer was a great writer before successfully transferring his talents to the directing department. Before becoming a successful film director, he wrote amazing scripts like Training Day (2001). So yes, I’m perplexed as to why Suicide Squad didn’t blow me away story wise. With Ayer at the helm, I was expecting more of an edge to this film. When the film starts, you are first lambasted with a ton of background stories for each character, which I thought was a mistake because what ends up happening is we get a bunch of fast forwarded versions of each characters origin story. Hollywood’s forgotten that mystery is one of the major elements of cinema, we don’t need to know every single little thing about every single character; especially not in an ensemble piece like this one. I mean, if we’re watching a solo Harley Quinn movie then fine, give me that full blown origin story. Otherwise it’s too much, too fast. As it is, you get these little snippets of everybody’s story squeezed into an already cluttered film. That’s problem number one.

 It’s The Joker and Harley Quinn that you want to see the most of. Sadly, the Joker isn’t on the film as much as you’d think he is. Don’t know what the general consensus on Jared Letos Joker is, but I do know that the decision to make him The Joker divided fans. Me? I was happy with the choice; I’ve always thought he was an underused actor. In my book he is one of the greats of his generation. His Joker is the first to feel like a real gangster, like a crime boss, a guy who’d dabble in selling drugs in a night club while screwing his hot psychiatrist, I mean, he wasn't so cartoony, he felt evil. Each representation of the Joker has been special for different reasons, but I like where Leto is going with it. He wasn’t so much a comic book character, he felt closer to the kind of gangster you’d find on the streets, only with make up on his face; loved whenever Joker and Harley were on screen. That scene of Joker rescuing Harley Quinn while shooting a machine gun from a helicopter while laughing maniacally? Yes please! More of that!

Where the DC cinematic universe is failing is in not giving equal importance to each character. Some are the stars of the show because they are played by the big stars, while characters like Killer Croc, Katana and Slipknot are treated like throwaways. That’s something that Marvel movies never do. Even the smallest, weirdest characters are given their moment to shine in a Marvel movie. While in DC, the weird characters are simply that, weird. Sometimes the way they are portrayed makes you wonder why they are even there. That boomerang throwing villain, why was he there? He does very little. Oh, he’s supposed to be the comic relief? He doesn’t do a good job of it either. Then there’s Slipknot a character introduced at the last minute, like that nameless character that comes along for the mission on an episode of Star Trek, the one you just know is going to bite the bullet. And so on. By comparison, in Marvel movies even Ant-Man gets epic!

On the positive side of things the film does have its moments which for me dealt with Harley Quinn and The Joker, and let’s face it. These two characters are the main draw of the film; it’s why the kiddies are going to see it. You think they care about a Boomerang throwing dude? Nope, their butts are in those seats to see Joker and Harley fall madly in love. The visuals that come out of that origin story are some of the best the film has to offer. I would have preferred seeing a Joker/Harley Quinn solo film instead of this film, but whatever; maybe Warner Bros. will wise up and release it for next Valentine’s Day or something. The squad goes up against powerful villains, almost too powerful for the Suicide Squad, but that’s what this film is all about, it’s less about super powers and more about the tricks these characters have up their sleeves. In the end, the film is told in a choppy manner. It’s messy story wise and doesn’t flow. Some scenes feel forced, so much so that you can practically detect where they squeezed in those re-shoots. Still, though troubled in certain areas, there’s fun to be had with Suicide Squad and thanks to Harley and The Joker, it’s a success at the box office, but I’m going to have to side with the general consensus on this one, DC needs to start making better movies instead of making mediocre ones.

Rating: 3 out of 5 
       

Terminator: Genisys (2015)

Terminator: Genisys (2015)

Director: Alan Taylor

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons

Terminator: Genisys is one of those movies that nobody really felt safe about because, if it’s a Terminator film and Terminator creator James Cameron isn’t involved, then what’s the point right? Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1995) are as mind blowing as they are because of Cameron’s involvement and because of the creative team that he amassed to make them. A work of art is the way it is because of the artist behind it. In the world of film making certain directors stand out as having their own unique style. There’s only one Sam Raimi, there’s only one David Lynch, and there’s only one James Cameron. You try and follow in the footsteps of a distinctive filmmaker that everybody loves and you’ve got trouble coming at you on a massive scale. In this sense, Alan Taylor, the director behind Thor: The Dark World (2013) had a gargantuan task in front of him. Why give a huge film like this one to a director whose only made one film prior to this one? It was probably a monetary decision; inexperienced directors are probably cheaper than paying an a-lister. Still, a Terminator film is better than no Terminator film so of course I decided to give Terminator: Genisys a chance. The previews didn’t look to promising, but I’d read some good reviews saying it was at the very least, entertaining. So is this new Terminator movie worth a damn?

The thing about Terminator sequels from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) onward is that they’ve all been made by different production companies, so each sequel has a different tone and voice to it. Most of them have tried to imitate James Cameron’s first two films. Did they try and fail? No. They tried and died. The rights to the Terminator films have been bouncing around from Production Company to Production Company like a hyper active jumping bean. Sadly, this has created unevenness in the whole franchise, actors keep changing, concepts get twisted…by now we’ve had four different actors play John Connor! And that’s without including the television show! The only consistency in these films has come from Arnold Schwarzenegger who keeps coming back to play the T-800 because he is very fond of this particular franchise almost as much as he’s fond of the Conan franchise. No matter how shitty the idea, he’s going to be there because Terminator and Conan made Arnold who he is, those where the films that truly put him on the map. So here he is, back again in another Terminator sequel without James Cameron behind the camera. My question is, if it wasn’t for Arnold, would we even care about these sequels? I’m thinking Arnold is the only thing keeping us old school Terminator fans going back to these films. Thankfully, we do get a good dose of Arnold throughout the whole film; he’s on it for most of the running time which is great. The younger cgi version of Arnold was well achieved in my book, not as fake as I thought it would look.

    

The thing about these sequels (at least from my point of view) is that they are not complete crap. In my book, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) was a decent sequel; it had tons of action and took the story to interesting places. I didn’t like Nich Stahl as John Connor, but whatever, the movie was well made. After Rise of the Machines, the rights went to some other production company and so those characters were never heard of again. And then we got Terminator: Salvation (2009), which introduced us to a whole other set of actors, characters and premises. Salvation had its moments, but it kind of fell apart in its third act, the way these filmmakers envisioned Skynet was such a letdown! And now with Terminator: Genisys we’re presented yet again with a new premise set of actors and so forth, there’s just no consistency with this series of films! Each one is a different take on the Terminator universe and not a true blue sequel with any sort of continuity. The big problem is there’s no creative force uniting these films, like say George Lucas behind the Star Wars films. Fine, so the sequels are all a disparate bunch, what was this fifth installment like? 

Basically the idea behind this sequel is forget everything that happened in the previous films because what happens on this film is an alternate timeline, so everything has changed. If you thought this was going to be a remake, then you will soon discover you were completely wrong, this is a straight reboot of the franchise. For a moment we do visit 1984 and we get to see familiar events transpire, we soon discover this isn’t the same 1984 we saw in Cameron’s The Terminator (1984). This is where I step in and warn you that the whole time travel element can get a bit confusing, so you’re better off just ignoring the whole time travel mumbo jumbo and just enjoy the movie, it’s what I did and it worked out just fine. Time travel movies by nature can get your brain circuits all crossed, especially when Arnold starts talking about quantum fields and nexuses and time points…my advice is let it all glaze over. That being said, I was having a blast with the first half of Genisys. The film functions as a prequel, showing us the events that lead to Kyle Reese being sent to 1984. This part of the film I really loved! These are events that have always been alluded to in previous films but were never shown, so it was great to finally get to see how it all went down.

In terms of action and special effects, nothing will ever surpass Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1995). What James Cameron offers us with his movies is jaw dropping action scenes that are meticulously planned; showstoppers that take over the film. This is something that a lot of the directors that have taken over the franchise don’t understand; the action in these films has to be special because it’s what we’ve become accustomed to. Action scenes can’t be five second cgi cheats, they can’t be run of the mill chase sequences, they have to be special somehow, they have to blow us away and they have to be spectacles. I mean, how bad ass was it when they blew up that real building in T2? Sadly, no single Terminator sequel has ever come close to achieving this level of awesomeness, Genisys included. While Genisys does have explosive action sequences, there’s nothing that offers that extra wow factor because we know a lot of it wasn’t done live. Most of the stunts and action scenes in Genisys are computer generated, including this nifty helicopter chase sequence that was cool, yet completely unrealistic, and realism my friends is what sells an action scene. One other action sequence involving a school bus in the San Francisco Bridge was cool, but sadly falls on cliché. How many times have we seen a car or a truck flip over? How many times have we seen said vehicle dangling from the edge of a bridge? Actually, that scene with the bus dangling from the bridge was the only true letdown in the whole film for me, I was rolling my eyes. So the film does have its action, it’s just nothing that we haven’t seen before.  

The film does have a decent cast holding it together and that’s a bonus for this one. The ones that stood out for me were Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor and Jason Clarke as John Connor, they offered good, solid performances. J.K. Simmons does his usual crazy guy thing here, again, but of course it’s J.K. Simmon’s so it’s entertaining. And of course, it was a pleasure seeing Arnold back (just like he always said he would) playing The Terminator. Its funny how they’ve gone and switched things around making the monster from the first film into a father figure throughout the rest of the sequels. This is one of the things that I miss the most from the original film, that feeling like you’re in a horror movie, and The Terminator is the monster. That first film has a feeling of dread that none of the sequels has been able to match. By comparison, this new one feels like a family film. No guts, no nudity, no profanity, no blood. The first film was for adults, a hard ‘R’, this one is aimed at everyone. Everything here is squeaky safe, a la Disney films. There’s no edge like in the first film, when the Terminator rips his hand open to fix it, or when he gauges out his eye. There’s no steamy sex scene...once again, the dreaded terror of the PG-13 rating has struck with a vengeance. It’s the same cleansing process that films like Total Recall, Robocop and Poltergeist went through with their remakes. I’m dying to see films with an edge again. I remember going to the theater at one time was kind of scary because you never knew when a film was going to go “over the line” and shock you. Nowadays it’s all a lot of gee whiz effects, but none of the edge. It’s all perfectly safe entertainment. Terminator: Genisys falls in that ballpark.

Bottom line with Terminator: Genisys is it didn’t surpass my expectations, but it didn’t piss me off either.  James Cameron endorsed this film by saying that “if you like the Terminator films, you’ll love this movie”, and I have to say that I agree somewhat with this statement. Genisys does give us a lot of visual homage’s to the first two films and then twists them around just when you think you know what’s going to happen, I really liked that. It has many inside jokes that Terminator fans will no doubt enjoy. Also as a fan of the first two Terminator films, I was twisting and turning in my seat with some of the events that transpire which is a good thing. At least the film was getting a reaction from me. But essentially, what we have here is a squeaky clean reboot of a franchise that has had trouble trying to return to the grandeur that once was. They’ve gone and rebooted Terminator for a generation that has been born and bred in PG-13 cinema. Once again, a franchise has been neutered. Still, I reiterate that it’s not a total disaster, but then again, I don’t want a Terminator film that’s just ‘okay’ I want one that will freaking blow me away! Let’s see if this film makes enough money to jumpstart a new cycle of Terminator films. They better spit out as many as they can before 2018, when the rights to the Terminator films go back to James Cameron! That will be the day! Maybe then we’ll see a decent Terminator film, cause god knows only Cameron knows how to make a Terminator film right.

Rating: 3 out of 5   

   

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Title: A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Director: John Moore

Cast: Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Review:

John McTiernan’s  Die Hard (1987) was a smash hit during the 80’s because it gave us John McClane, the regular everyday Joe who takes matters into his own hands and “makes up shit as he goes” in order to stop a group of terrorists that have taken a whole  building hostage,  on Christmas Eve no less. During that first film we meet a very vulnerable hero, a guy who suffers, who’s pain we feel, he doesn’t come off as superman. He’s not indestructible. Willis’s performance makes us believe he’s in danger, he’s scared, he’s hurt, but he gives it his all till the end. Too bad this latest installment, A Good Day to Die Hard has de-evolved the series into a childish action fantasy where nothing feels real and everything feels like a joke. This is Die Hard Today!

On this sequel, John McClane must travel to Russia in order to rescue his son (a CIA agent) who happens to be caught in the middle of a Russian political assassination plot. You see, a terrorist is trying to steal some uranium in order to sell it in the black market. It’s sad, but this is exactly the same plot we saw only a few months ago in The Expendables 2 (2012), so, as you can see, the lack of originality in Hollywood has grown to embarrassing levels. And with that I close the synopsis for this new film, it really isn’t more complicated than that.  

The problem with me and this new John McClane is that you can see that smirk in Bruce Willis’s face, he isn’t even trying to live the role, to Willis himself, John McClane is just a joke, he’s just going through the motions. He doesn’t have that intensity he had in Die Hard (1987), but of course, the same intensity can’t be expected, after all, this is John McClane at 57 years of age and of course, wear and tear is bound to show up. Watching Willis play John McClane entering his late 50’s is the equivalent of seeing Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). It just isn’t Indy anymore. Indy seemed tired, static when compared to his golden days in the Temple of Doom.  The same can be said of McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard. It’s a more laid back John McClane, quieter, not as crazy. And so, we’ve entered into an era where aging action stars are trying to milk their franchises for all their worth before completely fading out, which in my opinion is exactly what should happen with these Die Hard movies, let McClane go while he still has some dignity in him; or at the very least give him some more balls to the wall crazy attitude, because in my opinion, on this one Bruce Willis was just winging it.

This doesn’t mean McClane doesn’t deliver his one liners with a vengeance and with as much speed as the bullets that whiz by, he just says them with less emotion.  I’m guessing the reason why they introduce his son –Jack McClane- whom we’ve never even heard of, is because they want to pass the franchise over to him, so he takes over. Kind of the same thing they were aiming for when they introduced Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystall Skull (2008), let Indy’s son take over the franchise. Problem for me with introducing John McClane’s son is that they didn’t make his character remotely memorable, they should have taken the opportunity to introduce to us a character that could maybe carry the franchise into future sequels, but Jack McClane simply fails to have any sort of charisma, which is something that film producers seem to be forgetting when making these movies:  you’re supposed to give us characters with some charisma, it’s the reason why we loved Willis in Die Hard in the first place, here was a likable guy, one of us. Not so with this new Jack McClane guy; sadly, we are introduced to a generic action hero, sans a personality.

Now in terms of action these films have evolved. When compared to the first Die Hard, these new ones have decided to go into unrealistic territory bordering on freaking fantasy. Remember the action in Live Free or Die Hard (2007)? This one goes the same route. At least in Die Hard they aimed to make things believable within reason, yeah we were still watching a movie, but come one, at least the first film aimed to make us believe it! On this one, CGI John McClane takes over whenever Willis can’t handle the stunts, which is all the time . But I will say this; the destruction was ample and epic.  I enjoyed the films chase sequence where McClane chases the bad guys on a jeep across the streets of Russia. Lots of destruction, lot’s of cars flying through the air, lots of explosions. It’s all in good fun but isn’t it funny how McClane wants’ to rescue his son yet in order to do so he drives his car over 50 civilian cars? This is what I find most ridiculous about the film! In order to rescue one guy, McClane destroys a couple million dollars worth of private property. I mean, he literally drives his jeep over a bunch of cars stuck in a traffic jam (with drivers inside of them) all while screaming “sorry!”  And this is supposed to be the good guy! It’s funny because McClane is always talking about “killing some bad guys” throughout the entire flick, yet he doesn’t act that heroic himself.  Even more hilarious is the fact that McClane isn’t even five minutes in Russia and he’s already stealing cars and destroying whole expressways. But what the thell,  in the name of total devastation in an action movie, well, of course I was willing to let it slide, I was having fun.

So yeah, the movie is fast paced and entertaining, if only it had invested more time in giving us the John McClane we’ve known and loved from previous films…I mean, how hard can it really be to give us that old Die Hard magic again? How hard can it be to write a script with memorable characters and a story with some weight to it? Instead we get John McClane making fun of his old age and all that, apparently it’s the thing to do when you turn into an aging action star, just as Arnold and Stallone. Sadly, though entertaining and filled with lot’s of vehicular destruction, this movie left me feeling like they should just let the franchise die with some honor. This new Die Hard is a shadow of it's former glory. This isn’t John McClane, this is just a washed up version of him; I truly hope the series has died hard.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5