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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on May 27, 2020 23:34:37 GMT
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on May 27, 2020 23:35:45 GMT
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Post by lostinlimbo on Jun 1, 2020 14:47:00 GMT
The third one off the ranks (behind "Above the Law" and "Hard to Kill"), comes another three word title in what is a familiar one-note, bone-crunching action vehicle for Steven Seagal --- but hey that's the way we love 'em! Simple, little story and Seagal handing out plenty of point-blank beat downs. However he's hard-pressed to do so, until it becomes personal. Then it never lets up, so Seagal in his usual cool and collected manner does it easy. Somehow despite the vicious threat and explosive situations, never do you feel that he’s in any real sort of danger. Although he does meet his match when he goes face to face with Screwface at the film’s savage climax. It’s a rarity, but yeah, he gets thrown around a bit. Just a bit. Still without leaving a scratch. After seeing his partner get shot-up on a botched undercover job, John Hatcher retires from the Drug Enforcement Agency to return back to his small hometown. Through one of his old pals he learns that a Jamaican posse led by drug lord Screwface have infiltrated his neighbourhood controlling the drug scene. At first Hatcher just looks away not wanting to get involve, but when he finds himself caught up in an incident between the Columbians and Jamaicans. Screwface vows that he and his family are now marked for death --- and when he lives up to that threat he goes after Screwface and his posse. After a blistering start, it does slow down before ramping things up again when Hatcher eventually breaks out his short-lived, self-pitying slumber when payback becomes a driving factor. It's so forced and overblown (this is all happening in a small town), but it's engagingly exciting and furiously staged with director Dwight H. Little's tight handling. The set-pieces, like the car chase/department store melee displays such confidence. The camera really likes watching Seagal in the grove, and his quick aikido abilities are simply are marvel to watch. Be it with a gun, sword or hand combat. It's all brutal and high-octane, and surprisingly at times it can become a nasty piece of work. The performances are acceptable with Seagal stoic as ever, but where it matters he's quick on his feet. Basil Wallace is a fearfully hammy treat as the commanding, over-the-top Screwface with those glaring green eyes. His presence just seems to linger, even when he isn't on screen and he does get some insane dialogues. Keith David is solid and so is Tom Wright. Joanna Pacula appears in a minor role and horror fans will recognize a young Danielle Harris. "Marked for Death" is excessive, ruthless, but mindlessly numbing early 90s action. Still Seagal’s best was to follow a year later. ★★★½/★★★★★
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Post by lostinlimbo on Jun 1, 2020 14:50:33 GMT
Followed ‘Marked for Death’ with; You should know what to expect. And with ‘Kill Squad’ you get what you expect. Silliness. Man-love. Rose beds. Friendly interrogating. Work place conflict. That's non-stop silliness, man-love, rose-beds, friendly interrogating and work place conflict. The only thing that was missing was Carl Douglas’ song ‘Kung-fu fighting’. Yeah, everyone (yep that's everyone who’s standing around on screen) fights like they know kung-fu or at least gives it some sort of shot. No one is safe from these party poopers. And nobody is safe from the sound FX too (swoosh, crunch and smack). All of this mayhem over a electronics company. Cheap, low-grade drive-in exploitation that's simply fun from start to finish. Its heedless approach is episodic, but it's all about the kung-fu set-pieces. Less talk, more fighting. Although there's bit of strutting as well. Well they can't help it because of its funky dory soundtrack. Sure it can be repetitive, but never does it become tiring due to its speedy pace and unsparing carnage. A small group of Vietnam veterans with special abilities reunite to seek vengeance for a friend who was left paralysed. The motto; "Joseph needs you." So after the brutal opening, we then see the squad
but before teaming up ("Assemble the squad Larry. You know where to find them."). They all get some sort of intro to show how badass and invincible they are (Although bullets are the exception). Then it comes "Joseph needs you." No hesitation, they're in and they deck up in their former army gear to help their pal. It's super best friends doing (a head nodding) Joseph proud, out to dig up leads (Cameron Mitchell their number one suspect), but finding nothing but trouble as they take matters into their own hands. Especially those you don't like to play fair, by bringing out a gun
but those moments do end up with comical and quite bloody results ("You better let me hold onto this before you kill yourself"). Plenty of humour, but never does it feel all that serious. There's a good mixture of laughs, sleaze and take no prisoners violence. That's not to say it doesn't get ridiculous, because it does
like the balaclava wearing sniper who suddenly appears from nowhere eliminating any clues / ties / the kill squad. While the climatic revelation is melodramatic ham that doesn’t make much sense. You just roll with it. Enjoyably dumb, macho kung-fu entertainment. ★★★½/★★★★★
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Post by wolf359 on Jun 2, 2020 5:05:25 GMT
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Post by Xcalatë on Jun 2, 2020 9:10:20 GMT
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge (2020)-Bloody gore filled animated movie based on the Mortal Kombat game franchise, much better than i expected. 8/10
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Post by stefancrosscoe on Jun 2, 2020 9:22:11 GMT
The third one off the ranks (behind "Above the Law" and "Hard to Kill"), comes another three word title in what is a familiar one-note, bone-crunching action vehicle for Steven Seagal --- but hey that's the way we love 'em! Simple, little story and Seagal handing out plenty of point-blank beat downs. However he's hard-pressed to do so, until it becomes personal. Then it never lets up, so Seagal in his usual cool and collected manner does it easy. Somehow despite the vicious threat and explosive situations, never do you feel that he’s in any real sort of danger. Although he does meet his match when he goes face to face with Screwface at the film’s savage climax. It’s a rarity, but yeah, he gets thrown around a bit. Just a bit. Still without leaving a scratch. I am very happy to see you are back to the action thread, as sadly the old section is lost, but so nice to see other people make use of this thread, and I love reading upon what kind of action films other have been seeing as of lately, either new or old ones. Yeah, the mention of "bone-crunching" is quite a fitting way of describing some of the earlier outputs of that of Steven Seagal, nasty, nasty work in progress, and I almost felt bad for some of the bad guys, knowing they will probably have to rely on other people to be able of wiping their own bottom for the rest of their misreable lives. But, then again, they were surely no "angels", and the bad guys who gets shot or killed instantly are almost the "lucky" ones. Speaking of Seagal and his usual one-sided (often ridiculous) later DTV fights, I love how at least Screwface (Basil Wallace) gets a bit of a shot at the hero, giving him some kind of trouble, even if it may lead him to a rather, nasty death which to my annoying surprise was cut almost "completely" out, in my first DVD copy that I bought (the british UK heavily censored cut from 2001). So I had to re-purchase it on region 1, which was thankfully uncut, but still, so many great and violent action classics of the 80s and early 90s got "destroyed" by the british back in the day. After seeing his partner get shot-up on a botched undercover job, John Hatcher retires from the Drug Enforcement Agency to return back to his small hometown. Through one of his old pals he learns that a Jamaican posse led by drug lord Screwface have infiltrated his neighbourhood controlling the drug scene. At first Hatcher just looks away not wanting to get involve, but when he finds himself caught up in an incident between the Columbians and Jamaicans. Screwface vows that he and his family are now marked for death --- and when he lives up to that threat he goes after Screwface and his posse. After a blistering start, it does slow down before ramping things up again when Hatcher eventually breaks out his short-lived, self-pitying slumber when payback becomes a driving factor. It's so forced and overblown (this is all happening in a small town), but it's engagingly exciting and furiously staged with director Dwight H. Little's tight handling. The set-pieces, like the car chase/department store melee displays such confidence. The camera really likes watching Seagal in the grove, and his quick aikido abilities are simply are marvel to watch. Be it with a gun, sword or hand combat. It's all brutal and high-octane, and surprisingly at times it can become a nasty piece of work. The performances are acceptable with Seagal stoic as ever, but where it matters he's quick on his feet. Basil Wallace is a fearfully hammy treat as the commanding, over-the-top Screwface with those glaring green eyes. His presence just seems to linger, even when he isn't on screen and he does get some insane dialogues. Keith David is solid and so is Tom Wright. Joanna Pacula appears in a minor role and horror fans will recognize a young Danielle Harris. "Marked for Death" is excessive, ruthless, but mindlessly numbing early 90s action. Still Seagal’s best was to follow a year later. ★★★½/★★★★★ I loved Basil Wallace in this one, a truly menacing and evil villain, along with Richie (William Forsythe) some of the most ruthless and memorable action villains of the early 90s, and while Screwface might be more of a physical threat to Seagal, Richie was just a complete wild animal, who had to be put down, and, yeah, I love these early and very gritty/violent Seagal films.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on Jun 2, 2020 9:50:39 GMT
Action Jackson (1988) by Craig R. Baxley A loud, big over-the-top late 80s action-clichee, which I guess was Carl Weathers go at becoming a action star, and when you take a look at all the talent both in fron and behind the camera, it sure looked like it was gonna be a interesting time. After hits such as the Rocky films and Predator, I think Weathers brought up in one of the documentaries behind Predator, that some big Hollywood producer was gonna make him the next huge movie star (very likely it was Joel Silver) and the film they were discussing surely had to be Action Jackson. I have always liked Carl Weathers, he has this larger-than-life charm going, and never "disappeared" in the jungle among all these other huge macho-profiles in Predator, so it was a very logical step that he would be thinking he could headline his very own films, not just be the "sidekick". Sadly, with my recent re-watch of Action Jackson, you kind of sense early on, that with all these talented people, and its huge budget, it still feels like it was the result of a rather hasty production, almost at times a b-movie with a-movie stars and producers. And the main thing that bugged me the most, was the generic and incredible dull soundtrack it had going, and it was not done by some first time "amateurs", as you had legends such as Herbie Hancock and Michael Kamen on the job. But, damn what the hell happened? It all sounds so, lifeless and boring, like it was just some poor left-overs from a low-budget tv-movie from the 70s. Not worthy to be used in a action film as this one, and for me, a good/great 80s early 90s action film, has to be backed up with a pumped up and bad ass soundtrack to go with it, and in this case it just never worked out how I hoped it would. Anyway, Action Jackson delivers when it comes to handing out great and hard-hitting action and fight scenes, very sexy women, a likeable hero, and a not exactly "likeable" sleazy but ruthless yuppie-villain, but as mentioned above, the music is such a letdown, that I just cannot ignore stuff like that. For me, the music is such an important part, and I was angry when I heard how lazy that turned out to be. Another rather important reason to why this film never quite gets to where it could have been, is when the lovely young Sharon Stone is written out, way too early, and all we are now left with, is Vanity and her "acting", and yeah, the woman was smokin' fine, but I do hope for her part, that she was a much better singer/pop star than as an actress, cause what she delivered in this film, was, well, quite bad. She and Carl har absolute not chemistry going, and the whole ridiculous dull "romance" part just did no effort to the films pace and dragged the scenes down, almost everytime. In fact, I thought that Carl and Sharon had far more chemistry going on, with the little time Stone had in this film, but I guess at that time, Stone was still a few years away of breaking through, while Vanity was probably at the height of her career. Craig T. Nelson delivers the goods, as a nasty businessman and evil villain, and I also got a kick out of seeing so many familiar bad guys/villainous faces in the film, specially Bill Duke (here as the typical angry police chief) but also another Predator co-worker in Sonny Landham, as knife-crazy thug. Anyway, I really wanted to like this movie, so much more, but it did not work out like I had hoped it would. Weathers does a very good job, but I feel he deserved a much better film to try and have a go at becoming a leading man, but still, I guess it could have gone way worse as well. If I remember correctly, I think Weathers talked about how this Action Jackson character was kind of based upon the early 70s blaxploitation cool guys like Shaft, and that there were plans of making several films with Jackson as the main hero, but since it may not have become the hit many hoped it would be, those plans dried up pretty soon. All in all, I think the action scenes, the atmosphere at times and lots of memorable bad guys, two very fine looking ladies, and again, Weathers proved he could handle himself on his own, but that it just never reached its potential, and I end up with a bit of a disappointing rating of: 6/10
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Post by wolf359 on Jun 3, 2020 5:37:13 GMT
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jun 3, 2020 6:20:10 GMT
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Post by wolf359 on Jun 3, 2020 12:23:46 GMT
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Post by wolf359 on Jun 3, 2020 20:48:35 GMT
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Post by lostinlimbo on Jun 5, 2020 6:28:06 GMT
[quote source="/post/3987881/thread" I am very happy to see you are back to the action thread, as sadly the old section is lost, but so nice to see other people make use of this thread, and I love reading upon what kind of action films other have been seeing as of lately, either new or old ones. Yeah, the mention of "bone-crunching" is quite a fitting way of describing some of the earlier outputs of that of Steven Seagal, nasty, nasty work in progress, and I almost felt bad for some of the bad guys, knowing they will probably have to rely on other people to be able of wiping their own bottom for the rest of their misreable lives. But, then again, they were surely no "angels", and the bad guys who gets shot or killed instantly are almost the "lucky" ones. Speaking of Seagal and his usual one-sided (often ridiculous) later DTV fights, I love how at least Screwface (Basil Wallace) gets a bit of a shot at the hero, giving him some kind of trouble, even if it may lead him to a rather, nasty death which to my annoying surprise was cut almost "completely" out, in my first DVD copy that I bought (the british UK heavily censored cut from 2001). So I had to re-purchase it on region 1, which was thankfully uncut, but still, so many great and violent action classics of the 80s and early 90s got "destroyed" by the british back in the day. I loved Basil Wallace in this one, a truly menacing and evil villain, along with Richie (William Forsythe) some of the most ruthless and memorable action villains of the early 90s, and while Screwface might be more of a physical threat to Seagal, Richie was just a complete wild animal, who had to be put down, and, yeah, I love these early and very gritty/violent Seagal films. Yeah, it’s cool to see this thread resurrected again. Breaking bones.. it wasn’t a Seagal film without the sound of snapping bones. I think either Hard to Kill or Out of Justice which holds top honours. I use to own the cut DVD, but upgraded to blu and thankfully it was uncut. It was weird, because the certificate rating is now lesser for the uncut version than certificate rating when it was cut. Makes a lot sense. watching the final fight between Seagal and Wallace, I thought Seagal actually got a little more beaten up then he did... or at least showing a cut or two. After his head is rammed a couple times into shelves of bottled liquor. The stunt double really stood out in those scenes too. It was the only time I clearly noticed a stunt double in the film. I have copies of Relentless 3 and 4 to watch this weekend. And the third film William Forsythe is playing a serial killer. Wonder if he brings the same intensity to this role, like he did for ‘Out for Justice’ and ‘Stone Cold’?
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Post by lostinlimbo on Jun 5, 2020 7:00:01 GMT
Action Jackson (1988) by Craig R. Baxley A loud, big over-the-top late 80s action-clichee, which I guess was Carl Weathers go at becoming a action star, and when you take a look at all the talent both in fron and behind the camera, it sure looked like it was gonna be a interesting time. After hits such as the Rocky films and Predator, I think Weathers brought up in one of the documentaries behind Predator, that some big Hollywood producer was gonna make him the next huge movie star (very likely it was Joel Silver) and the film they were discussing surely had to be Action Jackson. I have always liked Carl Weathers, he has this larger-than-life charm going, and never "disappeared" in the jungle among all these other huge macho-profiles in Predator, so it was a very logical step that he would be thinking he could headline his very own films, not just be the "sidekick". Sadly, with my recent re-watch of Action Jackson, you kind of sense early on, that with all these talented people, and its huge budget, it still feels like it was the result of a rather hasty production, almost at times a b-movie with a-movie stars and producers. And the main thing that bugged me the most, was the generic and incredible dull soundtrack it had going, and it was not done by some first time "amateurs", as you had legends such as Herbie Hancock and Michael Kamen on the job. But, damn what the hell happened? It all sounds so, lifeless and boring, like it was just some poor left-overs from a low-budget tv-movie from the 70s. Not worthy to be used in a action film as this one, and for me, a good/great 80s early 90s action film, has to be backed up with a pumped up and bad ass soundtrack to go with it, and in this case it just never worked out how I hoped it would. Anyway, Action Jackson delivers when it comes to handing out great and hard-hitting action and fight scenes, very sexy women, a likeable hero, and a not exactly "likeable" sleazy but ruthless yuppie-villain, but as mentioned above, the music is such a letdown, that I just cannot ignore stuff like that. For me, the music is such an important part, and I was angry when I heard how lazy that turned out to be. Another rather important reason to why this film never quite gets to where it could have been, is when the lovely young Sharon Stone is written out, way too early, and all we are now left with, is Vanity and her "acting", and yeah, the woman was smokin' fine, but I do hope for her part, that she was a much better singer/pop star than as an actress, cause what she delivered in this film, was, well, quite bad. She and Carl har absolute not chemistry going, and the whole ridiculous dull "romance" part just did no effort to the films pace and dragged the scenes down, almost everytime. In fact, I thought that Carl and Sharon had far more chemistry going on, with the little time Stone had in this film, but I guess at that time, Stone was still a few years away of breaking through, while Vanity was probably at the height of her career. Craig T. Nelson delivers the goods, as a nasty businessman and evil villain, and I also got a kick out of seeing so many familiar bad guys/villainous faces in the film, specially Bill Duke (here as the typical angry police chief) but also another Predator co-worker in Sonny Landham, as knife-crazy thug. Anyway, I really wanted to like this movie, so much more, but it did not work out like I had hoped it would. Weathers does a very good job, but I feel he deserved a much better film to try and have a go at becoming a leading man, but still, I guess it could have gone way worse as well. If I remember correctly, I think Weathers talked about how this Action Jackson character was kind of based upon the early 70s blaxploitation cool guys like Shaft, and that there were plans of making several films with Jackson as the main hero, but since it may not have become the hit many hoped it would be, those plans dried up pretty soon. All in all, I think the action scenes, the atmosphere at times and lots of memorable bad guys, two very fine looking ladies, and again, Weathers proved he could handle himself on his own, but that it just never reached its potential, and I end up with a bit of a disappointing rating of: 6/10 Craig T. Nelson’s assassin squad look like a bunch of rejects from an 80s electronic band. They do go missing halfway through the film... maybe they got some gigs Baxley is actually a good action director. Dark Angel and Stone Cold go on to cement it. The writing kinda brings this one down. Have you seen Hurricane Smith? It’s another action vehicle starring Carl Weathers set in Australia. More of a hardened turn compared to the charm of Action Jackson. Some nice coastal location work too. Similar in technical style to Action Jackson, but without the ensemble cast. Had some decent action set-pieces, sometimes brutal, just the pacing was a little lumpy.
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Post by lostinlimbo on Jun 5, 2020 7:04:44 GMT
Watched this for the first time a couple months back. Quite a decent action-thriller, which had me gripped to very end. l still got ‘Wanted’ sitting around to watch. ‘Salt‘ had me more intrigued to see it. Which of the two do you prefer?
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Post by wolf359 on Jun 5, 2020 8:17:04 GMT
Watched this for the first time a couple months back. Quite a decent action-thriller, which had me gripped to very end. l still got ‘Wanted’ sitting around to watch. ‘Salt‘ had me more intrigued to see it. Which of the two do you prefer?
Salt
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Post by stefancrosscoe on Jun 5, 2020 12:17:33 GMT
Craig T. Nelson’s assassin squad look like a bunch of rejects from an 80s electronic band. They do go missing halfway through the film... maybe they got some gigs Baxley is actually a good action director. Dark Angel and Stone Cold go on to cement it. The writing kinda brings this one down. Have you seen Hurricane Smith? It’s another action vehicle starring Carl Weathers set in Australia. More of a hardened turn compared to the charm of Action Jackson. Some nice coastal location work too. Similar in technical style to Action Jackson, but without the ensemble cast. Had some decent action set-pieces, sometimes brutal, just the pacing was a little lumpy. Craig R. Baxley sounded rather familiar, but I just could not somehow put my finger to it, but of course Dark Angel aka I Come in Peace and Stone Cold were not bad action movies either, in fact I re-watched Dark Angel earlier (I think march or sometime close to that) and I still think it is one of Dolph Lundgren's finest action films of the late 80s and early 90s. Funny, explosive (very explosive) and had a great villain, but the chemistry between the two leads was quite something. Sadly Dolph did not break through as a stand alone action hero, and it seemed his biggest hits usually were as the bad guy, either against Sly Stallone or Jean-Claude Van Damme, but Dark Angel, Red Scorpion, The Punisher, Showdown in Little Tokyo and a few other (I forgot right now) all showed he could deliver as a likeable or very good heroic character. Speaking of Hurricane Smith, I think you or maybe someone else brought it up in the old action board section, but I have yet to seen it, but might give it a try one day, as I would like to get a chance of checking up what other solo-action titles Carl Weathers did during his heyday.
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jun 5, 2020 21:54:34 GMT
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jun 6, 2020 5:32:00 GMT
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maxwellperfect
Junior Member
@maxwellperfect
Posts: 3,966
Likes: 1,683
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Post by maxwellperfect on Jun 6, 2020 5:35:41 GMT
Pretty sure it was Star Wars Episode 9.
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