Alexander
October 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Originally when I heard that Hollywood was planning to make a bio pic on the life of Alexander the Great I was cautiously optimistic and then a year later when I found out Oliver Stone was directing, the optimism changed to out right dread. Turns out my dread was well founded because this epic saga is an epic snore fest of epic proportions. But, I will give credit to Warner Brothers for their release date choice because Thanksgiving would be the only time of the year to unleash this turkey on the world.
If you have ever seen the History Channel or opened a book in your life and read about the young king you would already have an idea of what you were going to see. You know he was born in 356 BC and died in 323 BC at the age of 32. You would also know that his empire expanded further than any other in history and from the time he left Macedonia at age 21 until his death in India 11 years later he never once returned to Greece(sniffle, sniffle - wahhh). These are documented facts and if you are writing or directing a movie about Alexander the Great since this is BIO-PIC about Alxander the F’N Great they should not be toyed with, Right? RIGHT. Stone does not follow the same rules everyone else does and he wants to make it his own. Seems he can’t make a movie unless there is a big conspiracy to hide the truth from him and he stays true to his nature this go round as well. WHO REALLY KILLED ALEXANDER? I know, I know. It must have been Johnson; he killed the president why not the King of Macedonia too. Stone is a schmuck. Don’t get me wrong; when the blood is spewing and the arrows are flying this movie ROCKS! Problem is that only makes up about 40 minutes of the almost 3 hours I had to sit there and watch this travesty.
The story is told through an educational lesson taught by a former member of Alexander’s council Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) as he has one of his students transcribe the tale. We first see Alexander as a young boy and throughout 5 or 6 scenes we get a feeling for the relationships he has with his mother, father and best friend (yawn) until he turns 20 and the real ‘fun’ begins…whoopee. Olympias (Jolie) is the lame duck queen to Philip (Val Kilmer) and since she knows her time is limited (new honey on the horizon) she pushes Alexander to marry and bear a son so his father would have no choice but appoint him successor to his throne. King Philip has himself a new biscuit and once she gets knocked up he doesn’t need Queenie anymore and Olympia knows she will be killed and Alex would end up at the arse end of the empire watching over a small outpost while baby brother sits on the throne. Time goes by and next thing you know Philip is assassinated, toes up, stiff as aboard, cold as a this turkey…so on and so on. The joke has lost it’s steam so I will get back on task. Alexander is now king and he plans to do something his father never did; Conquer Persia and take the land for his own to expand the borders of Greece. This is when the movie actually got good, the battle was great as long as you can ignore the pathetic motivational speech at the beginning by Farrell. Not his fault at all, just crap butt dialog that no one could make work. They fight. He wins. Story continues blah, blah blah.
For me the biggest problem other than gay man love was the editing and direction of this movie. One: It is too darn long. Could have cut out 30 or 45 minutes and it would have been better. Two: Too much character development for unimportant characters and not enough for ones you are supposed to care about. Three: GAY- man love… This is a site for men who like to look at breasts and watch things blow up and this movie made me watch men kiss and ‘cuddle’…..ooh. Wrong on so many levels. Last and certainly not least; The story is told in a way only Chevy Chases wife in the 1988 comedy Funny Farm can relate. 4 flashbacks, 3 flash forwards and 20 flash sideways made the movie difficult to follow and if it weren’t for 3 excellent battle sequences and Dawson raw as a steak from Longhorn this movie would not have gotten 2 stars from this reviewer so it is a good thing I got to see teeots. Oh yeah one last thing before I go…Stone is schmuck.
The Longest Yard
October 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
I went into The Longest Yard expecting to see a mildly funny remake of the original, nothing bad mind you, but perhaps a 3 star movie at best. Imagine my surprise to find myself awarding it a full 5 star rating, it really was that damn good.
The first 10 minutes of the movie stars Courtney Cox’s breasts, and some car. OK, it’s not just some car, it’s a Bentley, but those breasts! WOW! Maybe it was where I was sitting in the theater, but those things have shaped up a bit since Friends left the air. Adam Sandler is in there as well as her boy-toy/boyfriend who is an ex-NFL All Star quarterback who was accused of fixing a game and ended up out of the league and apparently out of money. She’s throwing a big party and wants him to come downstairs and mingle, and he just wants to drink beer and watch football. As the trailers show, he ends up taking her Bentley for a ride and has a bit of a run in with the cops. In about 10 minutes Sandler is in prison and the movie has begun. A short and sweet (and good looking) intro to the movie.
The warden of this prison likes his football, and has his eyes on running for Governor of Texas. As he says, in Texas they like two things, football and prisons. His prison team is made up of the guards and is considered “semi-pro”, but hasn’t won a championship in 5 years. This year isn’t looking any better for him due to a rough schedule, apparently made by people who don’t want him to run for Governor. His solution? Get Sandler to give a few pointers to his guards in hopes that they can win anyway and his political career will begin.
We all know that Sandler ends up putting together a team made up of fellow inmates to play a warmup game against the guards, and we know this will be a rather colorful bunch. All the stereotypes are here and I don’t think I need to run through the list. What’s unexpected at this point is how well this cast works together, and how well the football itself is presented on screen. If Oliver Stone could have shot football this well then Any Given Sunday wouldn’t have sucked so bad.
The comedy is top notch as well, with a huge number of one-liner jokes that will have you laughing out loud along with the rest of the theater. If you don’t bust a gut watching this movie, you need to seriously reconsider your maleness.
What we end up with is a very well written story (adapted from the original of course), acting FAR superior to what you’d expect, football action that’s among the best ever shot for a movie, and side-splitting comedy that will have you laughing after the movie as you remember the jokes. There’s nothing not to like about this movie, Adam Sandler is gonna make a ton of well-deserved money on this one.
Sin City
October 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Sin City is the best movie I’ve seen since The Matrix. It has an original look and feel, the story is interesting, and the action/violence scale is almost off the charts. In short, I loved loved LOVED this movie.
Sin City is a collection of three separate, yet intertwined stories like what you saw in Pulp Fiction. In fact Quentin Tarantino is listed as a co-director of Sin City and it certainly has his fingerprints on it. The dialogue is pure Frank Miller, but the pacing and emphasis feels like Quentin.
The thing that sets Sin City apart from everything else though is it’s visual punch. The movie is based on a series of graphic novels from Frank Miller, and the adaptation from that form to the big screen is nearly perfect. They didn’t tone it down from the source material either, this is one violent movie. I was actually surprised at how far some of the scenes went and I’m sure the ratings board must have considered an NC-17 rating for this one. But, in the more gruesome scenes the story is told in silhouette… just like the source material, which is why it managed to get the R rating. Seriously though, this is very violent, so don’t take a squeamish date and expect her to be all cuddly afterwards.
The weakest part of Sin City would have to be the story itself. It’s good, but it’s not great, and the transitions between the different parts of the movie can be a bit jolting if you aren’t paying attention. The dialogue is cheesy, but it’s supposed to be cheesy so I can’t knock that. Actually it all works for me except the storyline with Clive Owen. The eye candy in this segment is great, but otherwise it just feels disjointed. Of course, it could be the fact that in the theater I was in the movie actually broke during this part of the film, and we had about a 10 minute break while they first noticed the problem, then fixed it. So take my reservations with a grain of salt.
You’ll recognize almost everyone in this movie, and while the biggest names certainly would be Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba, they don’t overshadow everyone else (except for Jessica’s belly… wow.) Everyone involved in this project brought their A-game to the set and it shows.
I’ve gushed enough about Sin City, just go see it. Just remember that’s it’s very violent so keep the kids and weak stomached females away.
Land of the Dead
October 24, 2005 | Leave a Comment
In the wake of recent successful zombie movies like 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead and even a remake of George A. Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead, Universal decided to milk every last drop of rancid milk money out of that zombie teet. Romero was given a reported $15M budget (his biggest ever) to create Land of the Dead, the fourth movie in his “Dead” saga.
Like the previous sequels to Night of the Living Dead, none of the characters have returned even though the movie is set in the same post-zombie apocalypse America. Riley (Baker) and Cholo (Leguizamo) work on a retrieval team that moves around the country in an armored convoy. Their job is to explore smaller towns and gather food, medicine and other supplies, which they will return to a city full of human survivors.
The city is protected on two sides by rivers, and on a third side by soldiers and high-voltage electric fences. The entire city is run by the powerful Kaufman (Hopper). He has imposed a very strict class system, with the lower-class citizens doing most of the dangerous grunt work for the upper-class citizens, who live with Kaufman in a gigantic high-rise named Fiddler’s Green.
Cholo tries to buy his way into Fiddler’s Green, but is rejected by Kaufman because of his lower-class status. Cholo plots revenge, but that’s the least of Kaufman’s troubles. A fairly intelligent zombie (Clark), with an army of hungry zombies in tow, has followed one of the retrieval teams all the way back to Kaufman’s well-guarded city. Clark’s “learning zombie” character isn’t nearly as lovable as Bub from Day of the Dead, but he is much smarter and becomes quite the charismatic leader.
My initial reaction to the movie was that it was a pretty good big-budget zombie movie with several magical Romero touches of brilliance. Since it was financed by a Hollywood studio, I felt that Romero probably made some compromises. Hopper and Leguizamo were both great, but most likely were cast because they are well-known stars. How many stars were in the previous three “Dead” movies? None. Hopper and Leguizamo will always be Hopper and Leguizamo in every movie I see them in. I like them both, but they rarely disappear into a character. I personally would have preferred relatively unknown actors in those roles, but the presence of Hopper and Leguizamo in the movie trailer, and ultimately on the DVD box cover, will help this movie make more money.
In spite of any concessions he made, I have to commend Romero for managing to instill some social satire into this movie. It’s not quite as effective as his satire in Dawn of the Dead, but it does work. This time it’s all about Classism. In the opening scene, the retrieval team keeps the zombies distracted with “pretty” fireworks while they empty the stores of supplies. I believe it’s a subtle statement about big-budget Hollywood movies, untalented celebrities and flashy advertising. You make the connection. And the way the zombies rise at the end of the movie could definitely be used as a rally cry for the lower class. I’m curious to see if these themes hold up during a second viewing, or if they got too watered down by the studio before its release.
While it’s not quite as strong as last year’s Shaun of the Dead, I do think Land of the Dead is one of the better zombie movies to come out in recent years. It’s easily the second best movie in Romero’s “Dead” saga. There’s plenty of action and gore for everyone, and I highly recommend seeing it this weekend with a packed theater full of freaky horror fans.
Blade Trinity
October 24, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Comic book movies are the new action standard and Blade Trinity is right up there with some of the big ones. Not quite as comic booky as Spidey or X-Men due to it’s R rating, so in case you missed the first 2 Blade movies (loser) it follows more along the lines of The Crow or The Punisher (not that you would have seen them either if you missed these) due to it’s violence and pervasive language. Rock on! That would explain why we loved it so much.
The first Blade film from 98 was kind of an experiment between Marvel and New Line. Both, were a bit hesitant and that is evident by the way Marvel and or New Line decided to list the fact that ‘Blade’ is a Marvel property by tossing in a little side text before the directors name in the credits told the story; Even if they won’t admit it. Blade 2 having been released in 2002 and comic book movies on the rise, they decided to display the Marvel name more prominently with the next one but unfortunately they still held back on the reins a bit too much for my taste. Now, we have the 2nd sequel and with the success of 2 Spidey films, 2 X-Men films, Hulk, Punisher and Daredevil there is no doubt this go round where Blade was created and how to bring him to life… Again. You will know from the first few frames of Marvel’s now famous promo trailer until the end credits roll that you are watching a living breathing comic book and just like the real thing, if you let yourself go and submerse yourself completely in the story… you will be entertained.
This being the 3rd in the series the movie does not waste time with who or what Blade is and gets right down to bidness. The story for this episode begins in the middle of a desert where some very cool looking vampire commandos bail out of a helicopter and head into an old pyramid to dig up their master where the story for the ages with this series continues; The vamps decide to dig up daddy and use his ‘pure’ blood to continue their quest to be just like Eric and walk in the light of day without fear or turning into a piece of flashpaper. You know the drill. Meanwhile back in the big city, Blade is killing vamps in a warehouse district until a few escape and he hops in his GTO to dispense a little day walker justice. They run… He catches and he slays. Yeah Yeah, hIgh Five. Everything is business as usual for our hero until the vampire clan catches the whole thing on film and somehow the video ends up on the evening news (plot point) and due to a little misunderstanding (spoiler) he gets hunted by the police.
The cops track him down; a big shootout occurs with Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), Blade and about 100 SWAT officers. Blade and Whislter deal damage, Whistler gets popped, Big KABOOM, all is lost… emotion, emotion. Blade surrenders, the cops take him into custody and start to question him. From this point there is a big jail break sequence with Whistlers daughter Abigail (Jessica Biel), who is so hot she could live on the sun and her partner Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) who offers so many laughs it will have you doubling over. The 2 rescuers and Blade fight it out with the cops and a group of Vamps led by fang babe Danica Talos (Parker Posie) and Vampire Goon ‘Jarko’ played by former WWE World Champ, Triple H; Who I am happy to say did not suck… as long as he didn’t say much.
The rest of movie is spent trying to find out what was released from the tomb in the desert and why so many ‘familiars’ (humans that work for vamps) are running the city and more importantly how many tight shirts we can squeeze Abigail into (rarrrrrr). I am happy to say there are many.
3 words to finish this review: Go See It. Cool action, great hotty, many chuckles, decent gore, gun play out the yang and a car chase too. AND, the return of John Doe as an added bonus. In our book that is FIVE for FIVE for 5 fangs.
Batman Begins
October 24, 2005 | Leave a Comment
If there is one thing I know more than the rest of this staff it’s comic’s and comic book movies so it was fitting that I get to see it first and have the honor of sharing my experience with all of you. How was it you ask? It was F’N Awesome!!! This is the Batman movie fans of the comics and animated series have been waiting for. Batman Begins does not fail at any point during the 2 and a half hours you are sitting there. This is the kind of movie that immediately makes you want more, So much so that you start planning when you can come back and see it again. Who will be the next villain? Who will direct? I say it doesn’t matter who the villain is but it darn sure better be directed by Chris Nolan, he made this movie with absolute precision and perfection and fanboys all over the country will be praising his name after this one… well, they already do that but this movie will make their praise even more apparent.
DC has been getting their hiney’s handed to them for about 15 years (after Batman in 89) by Marvel at the box office so, I was glad to see the new DC offerings might be able to hold their own and bring honor back to the DC name. Rant over… back to the review.
The key to making a successful comic book movie that fanboys and nonfanboys alike are going to enjoy is a very simple. Just use the source material the creators intended with a story that is true to the character and it will WORK. Warner Bros. left Chris Nolan and the writing staff alone and let them use Bob Kane’s source material (with a couple of deviations) and managed to make the single best comic book movie ever. I have seen other movies and praised their efforts as far as this genre goes but none of them compare to the genius that went into this one.
Christain Bale is the first actor to play both Batman/Bruce Wayne and truly display the duality and depth of character inside the Dark Knight. Other actors could play one or the other convincingly but none of them were good at both. Keaton was a good Batman but a crappy Bruce Wayne. Kilmer was a good Bruce Wayne but a crappy Batman, Clooney… well he was sheeot all the way around. If anyone here can say his performance in Batman and Robin was anything more than cashing a check I will quit writing and sell pencils at the airport. Not sure if it was all in Nolan’s direction or if it was just an understanding on Bales part of how this character’s two sides should be played and to be honest I don’t care. I just know he nailed it.
The plot of this movie is short and sweet; Batman’s origin. Where the suit, car and cave come from, to the how and why he does what he does. Or, should I say why they do what they do. This is also the origin in some form or another of Commissioner Gordon (Oldman) that focused on the beginning of Batman and Gordons long time friendship. This really added a very nice touch to the finished product.
But what do we care about more than anything? The bad guys and he villains this time although EXCELLENT are not the star of this movie, Batman is which is exactly how the others should have been but somehow each of those focused more on the actors ‘pretending’ to be the characters on screen than the characters themselves. Ra’s Alghul (Watanabe) and Scarecrow (Murphy) are the villains and unlike another film starring Ahnold, that made me want to cry - These guys were menacing and convincing and added to the story not an intentional ploy to distract you from subpar writing and pathetic character development. Oops, I might have ranted a bit so I need to quit now.
Go see this movie ASAP and enjoy seeing what has driven the readers of the most interesting comic book hero of all time to keep buying his books after all these years. Three words; Depth of Story.
A History of Violence
October 22, 2005 | Leave a Comment
David Cronenberg for the most part is a pretty twisted director, and almost always selects films that make the average movie viewer shake their head, saying WTF as they walk out of the auditorium. A History of Violence is another one of those movies!
The movie opens with a couple of tough characters sitting in a car outside a little motel on the side of the road. One guy is older and looks a lot like the great Lance Henrickson, the other, a little less creepy, looks like he could actually be Viggo’s little brother. Anywhoo these two guys are just chatting back and forth about being late and they need to check out so they can back on the road. This scene is pretty confusing as it takes a very quick detour down crazy lane without any warning. Younger thug goes inside, goes behind the counter to get what looks like a bottle of water as the camera pans back and you see a man and woman with their lids peeled back, blood everywhere. I’m thinking wait a minute where did this come from? Then it goes even further when a little girl opens the door and sees her parents splattered everywhere and this guy standing over them. Young thug tells her it will be OK and she should go back in her room and stay there. Yeah right! The scene ends with the thug reaching in his waistband pulling out a gun, pointing it at the little girl. Just as Cronenberg peels away you hear the shot and the scene changes. I realize that sounds like too much plot to expose but I assure you it’s not. In fact this isn’t the plot at all. I am just pointing out the tone so if you do decide to go check this movie out the shock and awe that Cronenberg is known for won’t catch you off guard. Now that we got that out of the way, to the real plot we go.
Tom Stall (Mortensen) is the owner of a small town diner who lives in the middle of nowhere and according to all around him… would never hurt a fly. Tom is married to his EXTREMELY hot wife Edie (Bello) who is the local defense attorney. They have a teenage boy and a younger girl that seem like pretty average kids. On the surface they look like the perfect mid-western family.
Tom is working late one night and just as the Stall Diner is about to close the two bad motor scooters mentioned above come in for a quick bite. Tom politely points out that they are closing and he can’t serve them this late and they should turn around and go. Of course these two guys want more than Punch and Pie so they aren’t planning to go anywhere. Young thug attacks Tom’s waitress on the orders of older thug and tells him to “do her” if Tom doesn’t cooperate. In a flash Tom busts a coffee pot on the face of older thug making him drop his .45, jumps the counter picks up the gun and fires 6 perfectly placed shots in the thugs chest blasting him through the front door, gets stabbed in the foot by barely conscious older thug and without a seconds hesitation fires the last shot into the top of his head, splattering brain and goo all over the place… Rock On!
Tom is labeled a local hero and although he tries to avoid the limelight, he not only gets his picture in the paper, he gets his face on national news. Uh Oh… not good! From this point on people from Tom’s past come around to pay him a visit so they can catch up on old times. Tom apparently isn’t just a diner owner after all! This is good place to stop or else I will give away the whole point of the movie, which I won’t.
A History of Violence is one of those movies that people are either going to love or they are going to hate the crap out of it. I liked it quite a bit but there were quite a few things that didn’t work for me. The role Hurt plays is terribly miscast and Viggo isn’t a strong enough actor to be Tom. Aragorn did OK in the role but there are so many other actors that would have been better IMHO. Those were the bad things. The good were really good - Ed Harris… Nuff Said! Maria Bello dresses up like a naughty cheerleader and lets us watch her have grudge sex in a stairwell, and last but not least the violence although in short controlled bursts is F’N awesome. Go see this movie if you are looking for something gritty and ‘real’ because that’s what you get and plenty of it with Cronenberg.
The Fog
October 14, 2005 | Leave a Comment
A guy walks into a Spencer Gifts one Saturday afternoon, buys a fog machine and thinks to himself “I bet I could make a movie with this thing!” Really there’s no other explanation for this movie, so I’m sticking with this story.
It’s a dark and foggy night, 4 men are rowing a small boat in the ocean when one of them spots something in the water. He looks closer… and closer… and BAM! A hand reaches out of the water to grab his head then drags him below to his death. There’s your opener, just a wee bit of cheese to go with your soda.
The next scene has some guys out in broad daylight apparently after a days worth of fishing. Pretty good day too considering the size of their catch. A bit of small talk ensues where we learn it’s a charter, the captain’s family has been in town for generations, and his girlfriend is out of town. When they raise the anchor to head back to town it gets stuck on something. It’s a really powerful wench they have too as it almost pulls the boat under water when it gets jammed in the on position. Must have gotten it off a Hummer. They break free just in time but not before they stir something up on the ocean floor. Ooo.. Scary.
Enough about the plot. Let’s just say the town has a history that very few know about, and the fog is pissed off at them. Or rather, what’s in the fog is pissed at them. There’s really nothing here you won’t see coming except for a few of the obligatory “BOO!” moments, and this movie is full of these things. The special effects budget was so low that they used a really loud knocking sound to invoke terror in the audience, but I think most of the terror was people wondering if their ears were bleeding. Seriously, you’ve been warned.
This booger movie follows the recent Hollywood trend of releasing PG-13 movies around Halloween, keeping the rating low enough to guarantee crowds of teenagers, but also guaranteeing no nudity and very little blood. This also means there will be an “unrated directors cut” coming out on DVD in 6 months or less. With this one, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it before Christmas.
If you’re under 15 and want to see a generic horror movie, this will fit the bill. Anyone else will be better off waiting to rent the DVD.
Domino
October 9, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Based ‘very,very’ loosely on the life of former model and sorority girl Domino Harvey comes a pretty cool action flick from Tony Scott, and crew. I along with many others do not know where the real ends and the movie begins, but I can almost guarantee no one else can either. If you ask me and you are if you are reading this; there isn’t much real in any of this 2 hour action packed adventure tale. Let’s analyze, shall we?
Real life Domino was the daughter of actor Laurence Harvey and born in 1970 BUT, this Domino was born in 1985. Real life Domino looks like a cross between Annie Lenox with bad teeth and a cross dressing used car salesman, this Domino looks like Elizabeth Turner from the Pirates movies. I prefer the Pirates chick.
“The Movie” starts out with young Domino attending her fathers funeral and from here spends the next few years bouncing from home to home while mom lands someone comparable to Laurence. This makes Domino resentful, rebellious and bored with her socialite existence so she goes all out to not fit in. She gets booted out of college and believe it or not she’s too violent for modeling? This is a chick that has no place in society. So, one day she sees an ad for a bounty hunter seminar and decides to give it a shot. Of course this seminar is nothing but a scam being ran by master skip tracer ‘Ed’ (Mickey Rourke) and his silent but violent sidekick Choco (Ramirez). Domino is quick to their scam and demands to get what she paid for and learn the bounty hunter biz.
Ed agrees and gives Domino a job on the condition that she doesn’t get him or Choco shot. The first mission (according to the movie) is a former gang banger in the wind, that’s hiding out in his girlfriends place. Ed asks the GF where the thug is located and in a very convincing display claims he is a cheating SOB and she has nothing for him anymore and if they wanted him to look across the street. The crew heads to the house in question with guns up, but instead of finding one banger with an active warrant, they find a house full of heavily armed killers. Things look bad for the hunters until Ms. Knightly decides to offer a lap dance in exchange for the real location? WTF??? A lap dance? It is a damn good one however so the bangers hand over their partner in crime; Thus beginning a career of people hunting for the model.
This movie is full of action and humor and if you don’t spend too much time trying to decide what is real and what is fantasy, you will enjoy yourself quite a bit. Walken is funny as always, Delroy Lindo is good as usual and the biggest surprising performances come from former 90210 stars Ian Zierring and Brian Austin Green. They are both very funny as ‘celebrity’ hostages.
Unleashed
October 4, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Unleashed is the story of a dog that has been trained to fight on command. As long as he has his collar on, he remains calm no matter what is going on around him. But if you take the collar off, he’s ready to follow instructions and fight to the death. However, this dog isn’t a pitbull, it’s a human. And his bite comes in the form of martial arts.
Jet Li plays Danny the dog. He is abandoned at an early age and picked up and raised by Uncle Bart, played by Bob Hoskins. Bart feeds and houses our pup, but he’s mean to him as well and thus makes him mean. Turns out that Bart’s character is a thug with a nice little racketeering business. Wanna borrow some money at a ridiculous interest rate? He’s your hookup. Dont pay it back on time, and he sicks his dog on you.
Enter Morgan Freeman as the blind piano tuner who befriends Danny dog by being kind to him, a new experience for the dog. When the opportunity arises he runs away to the blind man and begins to learn how normal people live. But Uncle Bart wants his muscle back.
This is a fairly complex storyline for a martial arts movie. And there’s the rub. This isn’t really a martial arts movie. It is a drama with a lot of martial arts in it. And as it turns out, this isn’t totally a bad thing. The story is good and the performances are absolutely remarkable. Jet Li is totally convincing in his role as a human dog, he does everything short of lick himself and pee on the floor. And as you’d expect from Freeman and Hoskins, two great actors, their performances are excellent as usual.
But let’s get down to what you guys really want to know. How are the fight scenes? I dare say this is some Jet Li’s best work yet. He’s paired here with legendary fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping, and the result is some very creative fight sequences. We are also quite glad they went with the R-rating instead of compromising the fight sequences for the sake of a theater full of teenagers.
We give Unleashed 3 stars, and that is really because of the quality of the fight sequences. The drama was well done, and although it was long and drawn out, it did not put us to sleep. But this is not why we go to a Jet Li movie, and we’re not along as there was a fairly steady stream of people who left this movie early. See it on DVD, that way if you just cant deal with the drama, you can just skip ahead to the excellent fight sequences.
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