Time to put up a new guilty pleasure that goes way, way back for me. This flick came out a year after the ultra-violent, thus equally awesome Red Dawn. As a very impressionable young boy that film had me and my brother and a select group of friends coming up with ways to form our very own Wolverines. While our plans were really just an excuse to play war games in the playground it was the following year in 1985 when this latest “guilty pleasure” had my brother and I moving up to a new level doomsday prepping.
That film was the Chuck Norris classic bloodbath: Invasion U.S.A.
Instead of the Soviet military invading the U.S. mainland this time around it would be Latin American communist guerrillas led by a Rogue KGB agent who would be doing the invading. Well, invading the suburbs and malls of Florida at least. Just like in true exploitation fashion the film would use the fear Americans had of foreign terrorists (this was the era of the airline hijackings, hostage takings and cafe bombings) finally putting it in their heads to strike at the American heartland.
But who would stop them if none other than the poor man’s Sylvester Stallone. He was no Rambo, but his name has become even more feared in popular culture. He is Chuck Norris and he’s the country’s only savior against hundreds of well-armed terrorist guerrillas and the rogue Soviet leaders. For a pre-teen set this was a flick that opened up the imagination to new levels of violence (thus awesome playground wargaming afterwards) and epic action. It’s not a surprise that it would be the Cannon Films group led by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (proprietors of some of the 80′s best and most violent action films of the era).
This film has become a sort of cult classic amongst action film aficionados. It’s literally a film that puts on the action gas from the start and doesn’t let up. Even has grindhouse stalwarts like Richard Lynch and Billy Drago to give it some exploitation creds.
They sure don’t make action flicks like this anymore. Which really is a damn bloody shame.
On a side note: this is one flick I hope Lisa Marie, Leonard and these Snarkalecs they seem to be hanging about it to view one night if it ever airs on TV.
“The most protected building on Earth has fallen.”
Die Hard has become it’s very own subgenre of action films since it was first released in 1988. It was a simple enough story that combined the “one against many” type of story with the “siege tale”. It was a perfect combination that has since been copied, imitated, but truly never duplicated to the highest level of success the original film had upon release. There’s been a few films that added their own unique take on this action film template. There was “Die Hard on a boat” with the underappreciated Under Siege. Then we have Air Force One which was “Die Hard on a plane”. The latest action film to try and put a new spin on the Willias-McTiernan classic is Antoine Fuqua’s latest film, Olympus Has Fallen.
The film pretty much takes what worked with the three films before it that’s been mentioned above and combines them to make a film. We have a lone, highly skilled operative in the form of Secret Service Agent Mike Banning in the role that made Bruce Willis famous and, for a time, resuscitated Steven Seagal’s career. Then we have the Presidential angle but instead of Air Force One it’s the White House this time around. The plot of the film is simple enough that even a person not well-versed in film could follow it. A group of dedicated and highly-trained North Korean terrorists do a surprise attack on the White House as the President of the United States and his South Korean counterpart try to find a way to defuse a situation that’s been growing in the DMZ between the two Koreas. It’s now up to Agent Banning, on his own, to try and stop whatever plans the terrorists have brewing with the President as hostage while also dealing with an inept group of higher-ups trying to deal with it far from the action.
Olympus Has Fallen doesn’t break new ground with the way it’s story unfolds and it’s characters develop. The film was pretty much beat-for-beat and scene for scene lifted from the three other films mentioned above. The characters may be different and the circumstances they find themselves in somewhat different, but the screenwriters played everything safe except the action sequences part of the film. It’s these action scenes which brings Olympus Has Fallen to a new level of violent artistry that the previously mentioned films never reached.
To say that this film was violent would be an understatement. Where other films of this type a certain cartoonish tone to it’s violence this time around Fuqua goes for a much more serious and, at times, disturbingly difficult to watch level of violence to make the film stand out from the rest of it’s kind. The assault on the White House itself and the surrounding area has less a look of a fun action film and more of a war film. People die in droves and it doesn’t matter whether they’re Secret Service, police, terrorists or innocent civilians. All were fair game in this film.
Even the action once we get to Banning playing the Willis role looked more brutal than what Willis and even Seagal ever got to do. Gerard Butler may not have had the charisma and wit of Willis in the same role, but he convincingly played his role as more Jack Bauer than Officer McClane. Butler as Banning was all business and efficiency while Willis as McClane was more the witty, smartass who just keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Olympus Has Fallen won’t be hailed as one of the best films of 2013. It won’t even be talked about as one of the top action films this year, but despite the story being a derivative of every Die Hard and it’s clones before it the film does succeed in being a very enjoyable piece of popcorn flick. It was full of tension and big action setpieces (though the CG effects looked very cheap at times) that Fuqua has gradually become known for. The characters in the film were just a step above being one-dimensional and the story itself becomes less eye-rolling and more worrisome considering the real tensions coming out of the Korean Peninsula at this very moment.
One thing I’m sure of is that of the two “Die Hard-in-the-White-House” films this year (there’s the bigger-budgeted White House Down later this summer from Roland Emmerich) I have a feeling that Olympus Has Fallen might be the more fun. It’s probably going to be the more violent of the two and that’s an assumption I’m willing to make without even seeing how Emmerich’s film turns out.
During this year’s Super Bowl XLVII one of the films whose trailers were premiered was the latest and upcoming entry to the Fast and the Furious series. Since that day a new and much more extended look and version of that trailer has been released by Universal Pictures for everyone to look over.
When I say extended first look I mean extended. This trailer is over 3 minutes long and pretty much acts like a major sizzle reel that’s usually reserved for special screenings at conventions or trade shows. I was mistaken from the earlier post when I said the film has an M-1 tank in it to ramp up the epicness. It looks more like the newest French main battle tank, the Leclerc. I shall keep my opinion about the French Leclerc to myself….
Now, enjoy the extended first look of Fast and Furious 6.
Fast Five was a big surprise when in came out in 2011. The franchise finally broke away from the street racing template of the previous entries in the series. The huge success of Fast Five meant it had given the franchise a new template by which to keep it going for the foreseeable future.
Fast and Furious 6 continues the action film rebirth of the Fast and Furious franchise by dumping all the street racing aspect of the series and just going all out action. We have Justin Lin back as director with the cast of Fast Five returning en masse. Joining this group is Luke Evans, Gina Carano and Michelle Rodriguez (thought dead after the fourth film). From the Super Bowl tv spot that just got released it looks like Fast and Furious 6 will be even bigger than the previous film.
M1 main battle tank and C-5 Galaxy transport plane means way bigger than a bank vault.
Fast and Furious 6 is set for a May 24, 2013 release date.
When Paul Greengrass completed The Bourne Ultimatumit looked like a perfect ending to the Bourne Series. Despite an ending that could be seen as a way to leave the door open to continue the series most people were content with the series ending as trilogy. That sort of thinking never enters the mind of studio executives who saw the success of this particular trilogy as still bankable even if it meant the filmmaker (Greengrass) and the series’ lead star (Matt Damon) weren’t going to participate.
What we ended up getting was a new lead in Jeremy Renner as another Treadstone-like agent, but one who didn’t have all the glitches that Jason Bourne had. Let’s just say that Renner’s character Aaron Cross would be Jason Bourne 2.0. I wasn’t convinced that a Bournefilm minus Greengrass and Damon would work, but after seeing this latest official trailer from Universal Pictures I’m quite excited about this latest film.
With the success of The Avengersand Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocolwhere Renner had substantial roles in it looks like this latest film in the series could get a nice uptick in the amount of interest it gets from the public. The sort of action Renner’s character goes through in this film one could easily call this Hawkeye: The Early Years. All his character would need would be a nice hi-tech bow.
The Bourne Legacyis set for an August 17, 2012 release date.
In 2010 Stallone released his love letter to all things 80′s action with his ensemble actioner The Expendables. The film was a modest success, but not the huge one some thought it would be considering it’s cast was made up of action stars of the past 20-30 years. Yet, it’s box-office numbers made the studio heads at Lionsgate happy enough that they greenlit a sequel.
This sequel, The Expendables 2, finally gets it’s official trailer and it looks to be more of the same as the previous film, but to a new level. The previous comes back with expanded roles for Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenneger who had brief cameos in the first film. This sequel also adds Chuck Norris to the cast and Jean-Claude Van Damme in the role of the film’s villain. There’s really no need to explain the plot of the film. What audiences should expect is lots of gunfire, explosions, testosterone-laced interaction between the actors and more explosions.
Stallone backs off the director’s chair this time around and hand’s over to veteran action director Simon West.
The Expendables 2is set for an August 17, 2012 release date.
Today we saw the release of the second official trailer for Paramount Pictures’ G.I. Joe: Retaliation(sequel to 2009′s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra).
This new trailer show’s a bit more of the plot that was hinted at in the first trailer. That trailer told us that the President of the United States has declared war on the Joes and the survivors of a preemptive strike on the team has to try and figure out a way to get their reputations back (plus show the world that the group Cobra is not the saviors they’re showed to be).
This new trailer expands on the film’s story and also gives a bit more detail on why Bruce Willis’ character, Gen. Joe Colton, was a big part of the formation of the G.I. Joes. That’s all well and good, but everyone going into this film knows all they want is some kick-ass action. The trailers shows that and more. Hopefully, the action scenes showed is just a hint of the action in this film.
G.I. Joe: Retaliationis scheduled for a June 29, 2012 release.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to be able to attend last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. If I was there I have a feeling that a little Indonesian action film would’ve been the highlight of my time at TIFF 2011. The film is The Raid (it will get the Redemptionadded for it’s American release) and from the look of these two trailers it just speaks the language of awesome.
All I can say is that it should put the Indonesian martial arts style Pencak Silat on Hollywood’s map the way Ong Bak did for Muay Thai a decade ago.
If there’s a recent guilty pleasure of mine the past couple years it has to be 2009′s G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Yes, that film was a mess with iconic characters from the G.I. Joe franchise of toys and comics so miscast that it was difficult to feel any sort of attachment to them in the film. But for some reason the film was still entertaining in that dumb, but fun way certain films just end up becoming.
No one thought a sequel would ever be made after that first film, but it looks to have made enough money to justify one for the studios making it. This latest trailer and Super Bowl tv spot for G.I. Joe: Retaliation has The Rock quoting Jay-Z while showing some new sequences in addition to ones already shown in past trailers. We get to see a more than quick glimpse of Cobra Commander in his new, but recognizable facemask.
I’m definitely going to be watching this the weekend it comes out and with Channing Tatum barely being shown as being in the film then my wish that he may not make it past the early minutes of this sequel may have been answered.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation is still set for a June 29, 2012 release date.
“I don’t know. Two toughest kids on the block I guess. Sooner or later they’re going to fight.”
[guilty pleasure]
Anyone who grew up during the 1980′s would say that some of the best action films were made and release during this decade. I won’t disagree with them and probably would agree to a certain point. This was the decade when action films evolved from the realism of the 70′s to the excess and ultra-violence of the 80′s. This was the decade which ushered in such action heroes as Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis. It was also the decade which released one of the most violent films ever released by a major motion picture studio. It’s a film that has been remembered through the prism of nostalgia. I speak of the 1984 war film by John Milius simply titled Red Dawn.
John Milius is one of those filmmakers who never conformed to the stereotype of liberal Hollywood. He was an unabashed Republican (though he considers himself more of a Zen anarchist) in a liberal studio system who happened to have written some of the most revered films of the 1970′s (Jeremiah Johnson, Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry). He came up with a follow-up to his hugely successful Conan the Barbarian in the form of a war film set in current times (mid-80′s) America that he called Red Dawn. It was a story which takes an alternate history of the Cold War where Soviet forces and it’s allies launch a successful preemptive invasion of the United States. Before people think that this was the idea born of a conservative, warmongering mind it’s been documented that Milius’ inspiration for this film was a real Pentagon hypothetical exercise of what would happen if the Soviet Union conducted a conventional invasion of the United States and how the government and it’s population would react and resist such an occupying force. The story would finally get it’s final treatment with major input from screenwrtier Kevin Reynolds’ own story which added a certain Lord of the Flies vibe to the group of teenagers who form the bulk of the film’s cast.
The film actually starts off with an impressive sequence of your typical Midwestern high school day with students seated in their classrooms. One moment this Rockwellian image gets a surprise from soldiers parachuting in the field outside the school. Thus we have the beginning of the Soviet invasion with one of the teachers being gunned down for trying to peacefully interact with the airborne troopers. The rest of the film is about a group of highschoolers led by senior Jed Eckert (Patrick Swayze) and his younger brother Matt (Charlie Sheen) as they flee with a handful of their classmates the massacre at their school and soon their whole town as well.
Red Dawn uses the first half of the film to show the confusion and chaos created by the sudden appearance of foreign soldiers on America soil attacking civilians and, soon enough, whatever American military response that manages to react in the area. We’re put in the shoes of Jed and his band of teenagers as they try to survive the roving bands of Soviet and Cuban soldiers patrolling the plains and countryside surrounding their hometown of Calumet, Colorado. We see American civilians packed into re-education camps and rumors of KGB secret police making certain troublemakers disappear and worst. It’s the America Cold War nightmare scenario where the Soviet Evil Empire has taken a foothold on US soil and the government and military nowhere in sight to help it’s population.
The second half of the film solves this scenario by arming the teenagers led by Jed into a sort of teen guerrila force using their school’s mascot as their rallying cry. It’s the shouts of “Wolverines!” which has become part of American pop-culture as we get to see these teenagers conduct hit-and-run strikes on enemy patrols and forward bases while at the same time arming those they free from camps. It’s during this part of the film where the violence gets ramped up to an almost ridiculous level. It’s no wonder that for almost two decades this film would be considered by Guinness World Records as the most violent film ever put on the big-screen. Milius and his filmmaking crew do not skimp on the use of blood squibs as Jed and his ragtag band of teen fighters gun down Soviets, Nicaraguans and Cuban soldiers by the score every minute during a long montage in the middle of the film.
Red Dawn in terms of storytelling is actually quite good in the grand scheme of the narrative being told, but even through the prism of nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses the characters in the film get the short-end of the stick. With the exception of Swayze’s eldest teen Jed as leader of the Wolverines the rest of the band’s teenage characters look like your typical casting call stereotypes who fill in the required roles in any ensemble cast. There’s Darren Dalton as the high school class president jealous of the group’s leader Jed, but unable to act on it. We have C. Thomas Howell as Robert the mousy one when the film begins who becomes a hardened and cold-hearted killer as the film goes on. Everyone fits in neatly to their assigned role and noen of the young actors (at the time) bring much to their characters.
This film continues to be remembered fondly by it’s fans both new and old because of the “what-if” scenario being played out on the screen. I would say that if there ever was a pure American film I would think Red Dawn manages to fit the bill. It’s a film which highlights the so-called individualism and can-do attitude Americans see for themselves. How it’s up to each individual to fight to protect their loved ones and for what is theirs. Some have called this film as a conservative’s wet-dream, but I rather think it’s a film that should appeal more to Libertarians as it focuses on individual liberties and self-preservation when the government and military tasked to protect them have failed.
John Milius has always been a maverick in Hollywood and his unpopular political beliefs have kept him from doing more work in the film industry, but one cannot deny the fact that he made one of the most iconic films of the 1980′s. Whether one agreed with the film’s politics and thought it to be a good film or not was irrelevent. Red Dawn has become part of American pop-culture and will continue to be a major example of the excess of 80′s action filmmaking for good or ill. Plus, even the most liberal people I know find the basic story of fighting to protect the nation from invaders something that feeds their innermost fantasy of playing the good guys fighting the good fight. Red Dawn is a great example of the underdog film that just happens to have teenagers kicking Soviet military ass.
