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Post by stefancrosscoe on Mar 27, 2017 15:27:36 GMT
Blade: Trinity (2004) The action and special effects scenes has become a little better since the second one in the Blade series, but the real "masterstroke" was done by including Jessica Biel, as she alone automatically helps the film from a mediocre 5/10 and up to a very kind: 6/10
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Post by lostinlimbo on Mar 29, 2017 12:02:21 GMT
No Safe Haven (1987) 5/10 So-so Wings Hauser action-revenge vehicle. Starts strong with some brutal moments, to only fall away with some unwanted distractions & romantic filler for Hauser. So when he's not smooching around, his violently knocking-off a drug cartel. The support cast is excellent though with Robert Tessier, Robert Alhola and the amusingly intense Branscombe Richmond.
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Post by lostinlimbo on Apr 16, 2017 13:34:32 GMT
Reason To Die (1990) 6/10 Wings Hauser plays a street smart bounty hunter who goes after a psychotic serial killer (Arnold Vosloo) that flees New York to Angelique, South Africa where he continues to obsessively slash-up prostitutes who he blames for his sister’s OD death. It’s the two leads Hauser and Vosloo who are the main attractions in this durable low-cost action-exploitation vehicle with a good pace and impulsive tit for tat thrills.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 19:45:04 GMT
"Rambo: First Blood Part II"
Seven out of 10.
Gleefully over the top comic book nonsense with some serious themes. Good fun. Sly is in decent form and Steven Berkoff is a great villain.
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barkingbaphomet
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all backlit and creepysmoking
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Post by barkingbaphomet on May 7, 2017 22:50:37 GMT
Guardian Angel (1994) 6/10 the story is mostly banal and the the comic relief only sometimes hits but the fight sequences are solid and acceptably frequent. it puts to shame Cynthia Rothrock's lesser films but can't match the Action Spectacle of Undefeatable or the Feel Good Fun of China O'Brien.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 8, 2017 8:38:32 GMT
Breakdown (1997) Probably more of an thriller/adventure type of movie than the usual action film, still it feature some explosive stunts/car chases and have Kurt Russell playing the lead role as a "ordinary" guy, who gets stuck in the middle of nowhere, and to make matters worse, his wife is suddenly missing. I really enjoyed this when I saw it on rental VHS with my dad back in spring of 1998, but it just hasen't aged very well. The acting by Russell is ok, but far away of being any memorable, and J.T. Walsh in the villain part has rather little to work with here. He never rarely becomes scary or evil enough, even though there is one scene where he and his redneck pals are standing over Kurt's wife and J.T.'s character is talking about beheading her like it was a chicken or something, which we then get to see Kurt's desperate and furious face, but sadly the rest of the film is just far away of being that chilling. And the action parts is typical Hollywood style, full of explosions and loud schreeching noises, which feels more "clumsy" and like they were forced in at the last minute, to try and reach out to a broader audience, by "dumbing" the film and it's plot down, several grades. The soundtrack is very random, and I was disappointed to learn that the great Basil Poledouris was behind it, as it does very little to create any atmosphere. Breakdown tries to come off as a bit of The Hitcher (1986) and Frantic (1988) but in the end, it does not come close to those titles. I give this a kind rating, as I have always been a fan of Kurt Russell, and the film is pretty much straight forward entertainment, good for a watch every other 10 year or so, but not the kind of film I want to see again very soon, as it just does not have that "re-watchability" that my favorite movies has and I end up with a very nice: 6/10
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 9, 2017 10:52:54 GMT
Mercenary for Justice (2006) I forgot that I had seen this before, which pretty much says everything that is needed about it. Another totally forgettable below average Seagal b-movie, straight to DVD. The good is that there is a lot of action here, almost the first 20 minutes is just one huge explosive action fest, with Seagal showing up here and there, and then the film tries to play "smart" and fails completely. The bad guys are of course the usual joke, with one sided fights, where they cant even get a look at Seagal, before being bitch slapped to the floor 50 times in a row, and pose of absolute no threat to Steven, who does his usual bullying, along with the smug and arrogant asshole approach, which he does in most of his films, and then you have the hot girl that must be 20-25 years younger, and who of course is all over him. 4/10
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Post by lostinlimbo on May 9, 2017 13:28:33 GMT
Mercenary for Justice (2006)I forgot that I had seen this before, which pretty much says everything that is needed about it. Another totally forgettable below average Seagal b-movie, straight to DVD. The good is that there is a lot of action here, almost the first 20 minutes is just one huge explosive action fest, with Seagal showing up here and there, and then the film tries to play "smart" and fails completely. The bad guys are of course the usual joke, with one sided fights, where they cant even get a look at Seagal, before being bitch slapped to the floor 50 times in a row, and pose of absolute no threat to Steven, who does his usual bullying, along with the smug and arrogant asshole approach, which he does in most of his films, and then you have the hot girl that must be 20-25 years younger, and who of course is all over him. 4/10 Can't argue there. I couldn't remember also, until I had a look on my IMDB profile page. Yep, seen it too. Same 4/10. This is the one when a crook calls him a poophole and Seagal decides to take out the entire public toilet along with the crook/s. These straight to DVD features seem to all gel together. I remember a couple years back having a binge on a bunch of Seagal and Lundgren 2000's films. Lundgren at times surprised me, Seagal did not.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 9, 2017 13:58:59 GMT
I do love me a bit of Seagals older classic action films that he made during his heyday in the late 80s and up till the mid 90s, before his ego become too big for Hollywood to handle. But after his last good movie Fire Down Below (1997), it has been just one letdown after another. I had my hopes up for the big man, that he would do some kind of a comeback after appearing in the great Machete (2010) as the bad guy, but then it was straight back to Romania to make 10-15 new crappy DTV films a year.
Agree on you with Lundgren, he and Wesley Snipes plus Van Damme seem to have done far better considering they also have been pumping out one DTV film after another, but they often look like huge Hollywood budget titles, compared to the work Seagal has been delivering for the past 10-15 years or more.
Anyway, if the action or plot is horrible, you can almost be sure for a bit of laughable acting, with hilarious bad looking Seagal stuntment/clones, including that terrible dubbing which I guess must have been the work of some hackjob director, who had Seagal coming by for an hour or two, then shooting some scenes, then Seagal was on the move towards his next film in another Romanian city. And they just sent what they had of little footage of Steven to the worst editor in the business, and we end up with 50 fast close-ups of Steven's angry and emotionless face, which is used throughout the film, along with the backside of a much smaller and skinnier stuntman, who of course also does much of the fighting sequences.
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Post by lostinlimbo on May 9, 2017 14:26:11 GMT
"Fire Down Below" & "Exit Wounds" were probably the last starring roles that were enjoyably passable. But true his action star rivals had a much better strike rate with their DTVs. I really enjoyed the last Van Damme I saw; "Enemies Closer".
Picking up on the stunt doubles are always quite funny in some of Seagal's DTV films, but the icy on the cake is when they're used even for walking from a to b in scenes. There were a couple times, it had me thinking "you're kidding me".
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 9, 2017 14:51:05 GMT
Enemies Closer was great, I think I gave it 7,5/10, and Van Damme nailed the part as the eccentric bad guy, which I felt he was "wasted" in the Expendables 2, but I have read some rumours about him being linked up with a possible return in a 4th Expendables film. Would be legendary if we got to see a fight between Van Damme and Steven Seagal, as the two of them have a bit of a history from what I understand.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 9, 2017 15:02:52 GMT
Picking up on the stunt doubles are always quite funny in some of Seagal's DTV films, but the icy on the cake is when they're used even for walking from a to b in scenes. There were a couple times, it had me thinking "you're kidding me". Only somebody like Seagal could get away with stuff like that and it will still come out as funny or entertaining. If it had been any other, it would have been just sad to watch. I mean, back in his day this man was a sadistic killer, who rather mutilated or disfigured his opponents rather than putting a bullet into their head, which he said " Which would have spared you a lot of pain" in Out For Justice (1991) against William Forysthe. Now you almost feel sad for the bad guys, as the fights are so one sided it's not even funny, just the same bullshit all the time. I remember seeing Michael Paré in the crappy Maximum Conviction (2012), more a Steve Austin film than Seagal production, and I hoped it would mean that we got to see a good and solid fight scene, for once. Guess again. It's probably one of the most one sided fights I have seen with Seagal, Michael Paré doesn't even get a chance, and I keep thinking will we ever see a less one-sided final fight in a Seagal film. The last I can remember was back in 2001 with Exit Wounds, where some rapper/hip hop dude (must have been in his contract that he only participated if it meant not being bitchslapped in a fight against Steven), and Seagal actually got beaten pretty good, of course it ended with a draw.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 10, 2017 12:10:08 GMT
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) Just what the world needed, more zombies. I have never played the original video games, even though I do remember that a friend of mine was big fan of them. Anyway, this is all the same kind of boring act/plot that have been done to death, too many times now. Like Blade, Underworld and other similar action-horror movies, you are being drowned with "look how cool this fight scene is" type of action, where we see the beautiful Milla Jovovich massacres 100-150 armed soldiers in slow-motion, before we have even hit the 15-16 minute mark, and with all that action, I must admit I was getting bored, and my eyes was already looking at the timer, thinking that "Boy, this is gonna be a long 90-minutes". I really hate this kind of thing, the whole The Matrix slow-motion, showing off, more slow-motion, then showing off some more: "Do this like cool or what?", FUCK!!!!. I am tired of this shit. Give me a god ol' gritty and brutal fight scene where you can actually feel that the hero is actually in some kind of a dangerous situation, and not just show off a pretty babe who just mows down an entire army without even breakin a sweat. And please, get rid of the terrible use of shaky cams and lousy CGI effects.
That was my little "letting off some steam" part, but the film actually went upwards a bit in quality after having been overrun by crappy action for over 15 minutes. Resident Evil: Afterlife is just another one of those "how the hell did this end up in my movie collection?", and I guess the answer must be that I bought it along with 4 other, in some kind of a "buy 5, pay for 4 situation" and I must just given in an grabbed any kind of film, to close the deal. Instead of throwing it in the garbage, I decided to give at chance, and well, the positive thing is that it actually picked up after the first 15-20 minutes, but it is junk-food entertainment, without any kind of re-watchibility towards it. Seen it once, never again. 4/10
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 10, 2017 12:15:20 GMT
I also took notice of the director's name, Paul W. S. Anderson and I kept thinking "what the hell happened?" as he used to make some pretty good sci-fi action films once upon a time. Event Horizon and Soldier I thought were pretty damn good, I even enjoyed the first Mortal Kombat film, but after that it seems like all he does is making terrible films with his wife.
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Post by lostinlimbo on May 11, 2017 10:31:20 GMT
Enemies Closer was great, I think I gave it 7,5/10, and Van Damme nailed the part as the eccentric bad guy, which I felt he was "wasted" in the Expendables 2, but I have read some rumours about him being linked up with a possible return in a 4th Expendables film. Would be legendary if we got to see a fight between Van Damme and Steven Seagal, as the two of them have a bit of a history from what I understand. The cast were indeed pretty good in "Enemies Closer", although Van Damme did steal the show. Felt almost like an 90s action film. Yeah, I remember reading something along the lines that Stallone wanted to get both of them for the second film, but there's some sort riff that got in the way. And Seagal's ego is another matter. Doubt these two will ever match up together on the screen.
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Post by lostinlimbo on May 11, 2017 10:37:53 GMT
I also took notice of the director's name, Paul W. S. Anderson and I kept thinking "what the hell happened?" as he used to make some pretty good sci-fi action films once upon a time. Event Horizon and Soldier I thought were pretty damn good, I even enjoyed the first Mortal Kombat film, but after that it seems like all he does is making terrible films with his wife. Never really have been a fan of the guy. I don't think I rated any of his films higher than 5/10. Very vanilla. Rewatched "Mortal Kombat" last year and it wasn't as enjoyable as I remembered that I gave away my copy. I always found "Event Horizon" to start strong, but to fizzle out.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 11, 2017 14:14:51 GMT
The cast were indeed pretty good in "Enemies Closer", although Van Damme did steal the show. Felt almost like an 90s action film. Yeah, I remember reading something along the lines that Stallone wanted to get both of them for the second film, but there's some sort riff that got in the way. And Seagal's ego is another matter. Doubt these two will ever match up together on the screen. I think with Seagal, beside his ego, it has something to do with some of the producers, who have a bad history with Seagal, not sure whom, but it has been going on for a long time. Enemies Closer was a nice surprise, as it really made me think about Van Damme during his early 90s, with cool action sequences but that backed it up with bad ass characters and memorable scenes/move lines. I thought it was Van Dammes best movie since Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009), and he seems to get his best out of working with the Hyam's (father and son). John (Hyams Jr.) is working on making a remake of Maniac Cop, produced by Nicolas Winding Refn and, I it would be cool if Van Damme might gotten a part there.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 11, 2017 14:33:09 GMT
Soldier (1998) if you have not seen it, is a (mindless) but very entertaining action-sci-fi film, where Kurt Russell plays the meanest soldier of his class, only to find out he and his men are about to be replaced by a new and better product, and ends up being dumped at some waste-disposal planet. It is part Commando/Rambo and a bit Universal Soldier, where Kurt even wears a bit of the same make-up/war paint as Arnie did in Commando. The fight scenes are also very far away of what Paul Anderson has done far too many times over, the last decade or more, with more gritty/brutal old-school stuff, instead of just a hot chick relentlessly slaughtering down hundreds of enemies in slow-motion. The film was written by David Webb Peoples (Blade Runner) and features a rather solid cast, including Jason Isaacs, Gary Busey, Jason Scott Lee, Connie Nielsen and Michael Chiklis.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on May 12, 2017 16:23:04 GMT
Once a Thief (1996) Im on a below average roll now, it seems. Another "letdown", this time by John Woo, who during this time was one of the biggest action names in the business, and I got fooled once by Blackjack (1998) with Dolph Lundgren. It was not a bad movie, but I did not go in knowing it was a made for TV film, so I was not too impressed, and Once a Thief is even worse than Blackjack, but still it does manage to come up with several cool and impressive stunts/fights. Sadly, it features one of the most annoying and unlikeable lead guys I have seen in years. They could have not find a better replacement that this smug douchebag? Who seems to just have one facial expression, which is (I look like the douchiest guy on the planet, right?" Well, it did pick up after the first 20-25 minutes, which was painful but this has to be one of the weakest films Woo has done, but I made it through and I am maybe a bit too generous by handing out another: 4/10
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Post by lostinlimbo on May 13, 2017 7:22:48 GMT
The cast were indeed pretty good in "Enemies Closer", although Van Damme did steal the show. Felt almost like an 90s action film. Yeah, I remember reading something along the lines that Stallone wanted to get both of them for the second film, but there's some sort riff that got in the way. And Seagal's ego is another matter. Doubt these two will ever match up together on the screen. I think with Seagal, beside his ego, it has something to do with some of the producers, who have a bad history with Seagal, not sure whom, but it has been going on for a long time. Enemies Closer was a nice surprise, as it really made me think about Van Damme during his early 90s, with cool action sequences but that backed it up with bad ass characters and memorable scenes/move lines. I thought it was Van Dammes best movie since Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009), and he seems to get his best out of working with the Hyam's (father and son). John (Hyams Jr.) is working on making a remake of Maniac Cop, produced by Nicolas Winding Refn and, I it would be cool if Van Damme might gotten a part there. Don't forget about that Van Damm's hair I really like those latter two Universal Soldier sequels. Especially "Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning". Those two sequels, along with the original are the only ones that exist in my eyes. That's interesting, as I thought it was Nicolas Winding Refn directing. Anything is possible. In regards to Paul Anderson's "Soldier". Great cast, but it just didn't do anything for me.
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