DVD Review: Non-Stop

The film was released to theatres last February and is now on DVD. I'm putting in plenty of spoilers so if you've not seen this film and you want to be surprised, don't read any further.

Liam Neeson must be basing his career on playing failed fathers who are law enforcement or ex-law enforcement officers. In the 2008 film Taken (which I didn't review here), he also played a "fallen cop" who was on the outs with his daughter but who, though the action of the film, managed to redeem himself. In Non Stop (2014), Neeson plays Bill Marks, an ex-NYPD officer fired after falling into despondency over the cancer death of his eight-year old daughter nearly ten years before. He's somehow managed to become a U.S. Air Marshall who's not doing so well as evidenced by his drinking and smoking habits.

Just another routine flight to London but of course, it doesn't stay that way.

Boarding the plane, he meets a little girl named Becca (Quinn McColgan) who is traveling alone to visit her father (no mention of her mother or other circumstances are given), which is the set up for Mark's redemption during the climax of the film.

The other most notable player is Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), the woman with a fetish for the window seat and who has something of a mysterious past.

Once airborne, Marks receives a text message from someone claiming to be one of the passengers. He (she?) wants $150 million transferred into an account or the texter will kill a person on board every twenty minutes.

Jack Hammond (Anson Mount), the other Air Marshall on the flight, thinks it's a hoax but Marks wants to notify the flight crew.

In an ironic twist, at the end of twenty minutes, Marks is the one who carries out the killing by defending himself when Hammond pulls a gun on Marks. That pushed credibility over the edge since the hijacker/terrorist had to have been able to manipulate both men with amazing precision. What if Marks had simply knocked Hammond unconscious? What if Hammond had shot Marks? No, the movie wouldn't continue with Hammond as the Marshall trying to stop the terrorist, Marks was the target all along. The account the money was supposed to be transferred into is in Marks' name.

Marks starts pulling together people he thinks he can trust (but can he?) in an effort to find who on board is texting him.

I wrote off the Arab/Muslim doctor early on as too obvious and discounted one of the terrorists (that's right, another twist, there's more than one) when Marks actually accused him of being in on the plot and taped his hands together (Marks carries a small roll of duct tape on him so he can cover the smoke detector in the plane's bathroom and have a quiet cigarette).

Next, the pilot dies by apparent poisoning leaving only the co-pilot to fly the aircraft (no engineer on board like in other "air disaster" movies).

In another twenty minutes, someone else is going to die and Marks' life and reputation unravels with each passing minute. Finally, no one trusts him except Jen, not his bosses at TSA, not the co-pilot, and not the passengers, who eventually see a news feed accusing Marks of hijacking the plane.

In the middle of all this, Marks discovers, thanks to the hijacker's texting, that Hammond was smuggling a large amount of cocaine in his brief case (Marshalls can just walk through security, no questions asked). He also finds a bomb. Apparently the hijackers never intended to leave the plane alive and it was never about the money...or so Marks believes.

Marks becomes (apparently) more unstable, announcing he's the Air Marshall on board, even after the co-pilot, under orders from TSA, takes Marks' badge and gun (Marks takes Hammond's credentials and gun shortly afterward), searching the passengers and reviewing their texts, including an off-duty NYPD officer. Unbeknownst to Marks, another passenger (not a hijacker) has been taking videos of Marks' actions and sending them back home, and they end up on the news, fueling the belief that Marks himself is hijacking the aircraft.

The co-pilot is ordered to make an emergency landing in Iceland and is escorted by two fighter jets. Marks is attacked and overcome by a number of the passengers who fear that Marks is going to kill them all by crashing the aircraft in a "9/11" type of terrorist attack.

By telling the passengers about the bomb and finally confessing his various failings as cop, father, and human being, he restores his credibility enough to regain some trust.

The video clips taken of him, once Marks finds out about them, give him the clues he needs to find out who one of the terrorists are but he neglects the other until it's too late.

Marks has placed the bomb at the rear of the aircraft and told the co-pilot to descend to 8000 feet to give the plane and passengers the maximum possibility of survival when it goes off (unlike other, similar films, no one on board can disarm the bomb). The fighter escort refuse to allow the descent into civilian airspace, but with only minutes left until the explosion, the co-pilot risks being shot out of the sky and sends the plane into a nose dive.

Speaking of 9/11 (major spoiler here), the two men who are hijacking the plane are ex-military who want to give America a lesson in how TSA anti-terrorist activities are a joke and there is no security. For one of them, it was also about surviving by parachuting (apparently, though I never saw any chutes) from the plane and collecting the money which was transferred into the designated account.

However the other terrorist is a martyr and plans for no survivors. For him, it was never about the money. It was about sending a message.

All hell breaks loose as the plane dives, the bomb explodes, and a gunfight takes place between Marks and the two hijackers.

Marks, of course, is the only one of the three who live through the shooting, but as the plane attempts to land, it starts falling apart in mid-air. A section next to Becca breaks off and Marks and Jen struggle to keep her from being pulled from the aircraft.

As expected they succeed in saving Becca from death, which redeems Marks since this is one little girl he can save. The plane lands more or less in one piece, the fighters never get the order to shoot the plane down (almost a moot point since it nearly crashes anyway), and Marks is publicly vindicated of hijacking and is announced to be the hero.

Nice action film with some interesting twists (I didn't specifically reveal the identities of the hijackers so you'll have to see the movie for that piece). I'm sure real pilots and Air Marshalls, as well as anyone familiar with networking, watching this film picked it apart over the various technical errors. However, if you put those to one side, it's a very watchable film. The ending is more or less predictable, but enough mystery, tension, and action is present to hold the audience's attention for the 106 minutes of running time.

The major plot hole I spotted was the level of information the two hijackers possessed on both Air Marshalls. I'm sure it wasn't hard to figure out Marks' past and his obvious alcohol abuse, but how the heck did they know about Hammond and his cocaine unless Hammond was in on it? That's the only explanation since the bomb was hidden in the cocaine, but Hammond was set up to be the first death on board. The film could have been about fifteen minutes longer so it could have the time to explain why any of this was happening and what would prompt Hammond and the two terrorist to commit such heinous crimes, fleshing out the characterization a bit more.

I don't think it was worth the amount of money I'd have had to spend to see this film in the theatre, but it was a good DVD selection.

DVD Review: The Expendables 2

I wrote my original DVD Review of the first The Expendables (2010) film on the eve of the theatrical release of The Expendables 2 (2012). Obviously, the second film has been available on DVD for quite some time and The Expendables 3 won't be released in the theaters until next August. The opportunity to rent The Expendables 2 at my local public library presented itself and so I took advantage of it, hoping I wouldn't regret my decision.

Actually, I almost passed up this DVD. I've avoided similar opportunities in the past simply because I wasn't all that enthralled with the first film. I figured, like most sequels, that the second film would be a downgraded version of the first with lots of violence and gore, but little else, capitalizing on what its targeted fan-base loves most.

I wasn't wrong, but that's why I think this movie is better than its predecessor. It doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

The first film was trying to find a soul for itself, something beyond the sheer gratuitous violence that is characterized in most of its frames. It almost succeeded but that "almost" painfully accentuated that what was attempted had ultimately failed. In this sequel, Stallone stuck to what works for this franchise. Don't deal too much with the characters as human beings or try to examine their histories or motives. Just stick to the mission and watch the body count climb.

There's one exception of course, "Billy the Kid" (Liam Hemsworth) a young ex-Army sniper who joined the team because of the promise of quick and abundant cash which he needed to marry his French girlfriend. He was given a sympathetic back story and a likable personality because his brutal death at the hands of the main bad guy Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), is what motivates most of the action in the film.

If you've already seen this movie (and I'll tell you even if you haven't), you know after the opening sequence where the team rescues a Chinese millionaire as well as Barney Ross's (Sylvester Stallone) mercenary rival Trench Mauser (Arnold Schwarzennegger) in Nepal, CIA Agent Church (Bruce Willis) "convinces" Ross to undertake what was supposed to be a "milk run" mission in Albania to retrieve a piece of undescribed tech from an downed aircraft. Church sends along agent Maggie Chan (Yu Nan) as the expert who will retrieve the tech for return to the CIA.

Ross, as always, is unhappy with having a female involved, probably because of his history of getting all the women around him killed due to his violent occupation, but he acts more hurt than angry. It's always interesting watching Stallone attempt to act as if his characters have a "sensitive side." It's usually the part in his films where I want to scream, "Just kill somebody, already!"

One flight to Albania later, the tech is retrieved but Billy's captured by Vilain and his gang of mercs. The Expendables have no choice but to hand over the computer (more on that in a minute) to save Billy's life. Here, Vilain establishes himself as a villain by killing Billy anyway and then he and his gang of thugs quickly escape in a helicopter (too bad Trench wasn't there to yell, "To the choppah!"

Maggie belatedly reveals to Ross that the device Vilain has reveals the location of five tons of refined plutonium hidden by the former Soviet Union. The Expendables manage to follow the signal of the device but only get so far on their own.

Ambushed after spending the night in an abandoned Soviet military base across the border in Bulgaria, the third "special guest" after Schwarzenegger and Willis appears. Ross's mysterious friend Booker (Chuck Norris) appears out of nowhere to annihilate the gang attacking the Expendables, including their tank, in just a matter of seconds. Then, after a few cute quips, this "Lone Wolf" disappears again, but not before giving Ross and company the location of a village of allies to help them find and stop Vilain's gang known as "the Sangs."

The Sangs have been raiding the village to use all of the men and boys as slave labor to dig up the plutonium. The Expendables make quick and violent work of the Sangs who again raid the village for more slaves, and then find Vilain and the rest of his crew at the cave, just in time for the bad guys to all escape with the plutonium and to trap the Expendables and the former slaves in a cave-in triggered by explosions.

You find out a few things about Gunner Jensen and the actor who plays him, Dolph Lundgren. To quote Wikipedia:

Volatile member of the team, undone by years of combat stress and alcohol abuse. Lundgren's personal history (including his chemical engineering degree) were incorporated into the character's story by Stallone.

Jensen tries to make a bomb to free the Expendables but predictably, it's a dud. Fortunately, Trench and Church arrive with a digging machine at this point in the story, and the gang chase the Sangs to a local airport. Joined again by Booker, there's an all out battle where the Sangs are wiped out, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) is given the honor of dispatching Hector (Scott Adkins), Vilain's right-hand man who you learn to hate almost as much as Vilain, and Ross goes up against Vilain himself mano-a-mano to get revenge for Billy's death (and who cares about stopping an international terrorist from getting out of the country with five tons of weapons-grade plutonium?).

The film is watchable, surprisingly so since it's also really predictable. It's fun because of the appearances by Schwarzenegger, Willis, and Norris, each mugging for the camera and saying each other's "tag lines" from their other movies. Besides the kick ass violence, it's why anyone would watch this film. It's like one long gag or series of punch lines. If you like a lot of blood, gunfire, and explosions, this is your kind of entertainment.

The Expendables franchise is also sort of a "good guy Stallone" project which I have to admire:

Sylvester Stallone explained that his casting was looking particularly for actors who had not experienced recent hits: "I like using people that had a moment and then maybe have fallen on some hard times and give them another shot. I like those kinds of guys. Someone did it for me and I like to see if I can do it for them." -from imdb.com

Ross tries to be the best "good guy" as leader of the Expendables, given the fact that the team is made up primarily of dysfunctional mercs who would never be able to live "normal lives" like most of their movie audience. Stallone is the mirror image in terms of being a "good guy" by opening opportunities to actors who otherwise might not have the ability to advance or even sustain their careers.

Don't look for too much reality in this movie or any others like it. Watching the huge battle at the airport, I caught myself wondering where airport security, the police, or even the Army were hiding. In real life, a major gun battle between a team of mercs and terrorists with a cargo of plutonium hanging in the balance would have gotten someone's attention. At least the passengers and other civilians in the terminal had the good sense to run rather than just stand there and get shot down.

Norris's character appears, disappears, and reappears like a ghost. He has no back story, there is no explanation for his presence, and his ability to take on and defeat impossible odds is very much in line with what has become known as Chuck Norris facts.

At the beginning of the film when the Expendables rescue Trench, it is presumed that Trench was there in a failed attempt to rescue the Chinese hostage. Trench even mentions that his own team were hanging back, but when the Expendables, Trench, and the hostage all escape in a rain of bombs and bullets, we see no evidence that any of Trench's force is around or ever had been.

At one point in the film, Maggie tries to get close to Ross, and this is Ross's cue to explain why he keeps women at a distance. It's an attempt to introduce some of Ross's humanity into the narrative (and I guess you can only blow up so much stuff in an 103 minute film) but the scene just fills space until the next battle begins. As I said, the movie works precisely because it has no soul or depth. It's just what you want and expect: action and gags.

Near the beginning of the film, Yin Yang (Jet Li) has to bail out of Ross's plane with the former hostage to return him to his home (Li had a scheduling conflict and could only be present for the filming of the opening sequence). At one point, he and Jensen trade barbs and Yang says that if Jensen misses him, he can find some other minority to torment. Apparently, this doesn't translate into Chinese women, because later in the movie, Jensen clumsily attempts to flirt with Maggie (unless you count that as torment, too).

At the climax of the film, Ross confronts Vilain to get his revenge for Billy's death. Vilain is unarmed except for the huge and ugly knife he previously took from Ross. Ross has firearms, but he lets Vilain's "fight like men or sheep" speech get to him. In real life, tossing your guns aside to fight a homicidal maniac hand to hand as a matter of pride is dumb. Even though this is good guy (anti-hero) vs. bad guy, there's no guarantee that you are going to win. If Ross wanted to humiliate Vilain as well as kill him, he could have just said "Bullshit" to the "men or sheep" business, and started out by blowing off both of Vilain's kneecaps. Then, until you run low on ammo, keep shooting this jerk in various non-lethal areas of the body to maximize pain and then, when done, put one between his eyes to make sure he'll never come back for the third film.

Sadly, in attacking the cave, Ross chooses to sacrifice his Grumman HU-16 Albatross. Such a beautiful and classic aircraft. It was probably the thing I liked the most in the first two films. To make up for being such a shmuck during most of the film, Church gives Ross a replacement: an Antonov An-2 biplane. Not as classic to be sure, but I'm interested to see how it'll figure into the third movie. Yeah, I'll probably watch it...but not until it comes out on DVD...cheap.

DVD Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

I suppose it was OK. The odd thing about The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) is that I neither really liked it or disliked it.

OK, I liked it. The film was watchable and entertaining. I enjoyed it and would watch it again, but it wasn't "amazing" or "spectacular" or anything like that. It was just another superhero movie. It had its good points and its flaws.

Warning! Warning! Major spoilers ahead. If you're like me and waited for this film to come out in DVD before watching it (and you haven't watched it yet), I will give away a ton of secrets in my review. You have been warned.

I like that there was a mystery. So many superheroes get their powers by accident and I guess Peter did in this film too, but not quite by accident. In a way, his father created him.

When Peter Parker is four-years old, his parents suffer a home break-in. Someone specifically was looking for something in his Dad's office. Fortunately, Richard Parker hid the really secret stuff in a false bottom of his desk drawer (a trick older than Stan Lee, but the thieves still didn't tumble to it). Pawning little Peter off on his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, Richard and Mary Parker disappear into the night, never to be seen again. Later, Peter learns they died in a plane crash, but no one ever talks about it.

Richard Parker's work had something to do with cross-species genetics...and spiders.

It's interesting that teenage Peter Parker was interested in photography before becoming Spider-Man. In the original, silver age version, he started taking news photos as a way to support himself and Aunt May after his uncle's death. I found it particularly confusing though, when Peter webbed his camera to a wall to take shots of Spider-Man's battle with the Lizard, that the film had never established why he did it in the first place. In this movie, he is never shown to have a relationship with the Daily Bugle or making plans to sell his photos to them or anyone else.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Andrew Garfield did a very good job playing the geeky, socially awkward (to put it mildly) teenage Peter Parker. Of course, the audience has to get past the fact that all of the actors depicting high school students are really twenty-somethings, but we should be used to that by now. In fact, Garfield's Parker is so awkward, I found it amazing that the beautiful and quite articulate Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) ever found him attractive in the first place. Sure, Peter had just heroically tried to save some kid from being bullied by "Flash" Thompson (Chris Zylka) and gotten pounded into the pavement for his troubles, but that should have just made him look like a loser to most high school girls.

In some ways, I was more interested in Garfield's Parker than in his Spider-Man. It was very easy to see how Peter, abandoned by his parents over a decade before, was an alienated, malcontented, loner sitting on a lot of rage. He wasn't the "nice kid" that Parker was originally created to be by Lee and Ditko 50 years ago. Yeah, Garfield's Parker will stand up for the underdog, but that's because he is the underdog, not because he's intrinsically a nice guy. After all, at various points in the film, he blows off both his aunt and uncle, humiliates Flash Thompson just because he can, and even ends up on the school principle's "bad boy" list (although performing community service isn't such a "bad boy").

So you take all of that and give it "spider powers." What happens?

Oh, but wait. The mystery.

A water leak in the Parker home's basement leads Peter to discover his father's old briefcase that had been left to gather dust in some forgotten corner. Infinitely curious and desperate to know more about what happened to his parents, he examines the filthy old thing and, perhaps remembering the false bottom of his Dad's desk drawer, discovers a hidden pocket with a "secret formula." He also discovers a photo of Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), his Dad's former lab partner at Oscorp, and he aims himself in that direction to try and learn more.

By amazing coincidence, the day Peter goes to visit Connors at Oscorp, Connors is supposed to be lecturing new interns who are being taken on a tour of the place by (another amazing coincidence) head intern Gwen Stacy. Peter takes another kid's pass to get in (getting that kid subsequently thrown out) and gets his first look at Connors...and impressing Connors with his knowledge of cross-species genetics. It's the first time that the audience sees Peter has a brain built for science. It's never mentioned before this, and Peter might just have been another angry high school kid for the first thirty minutes of the film.

Speaking of amazing coincidences, Peter just happens to run into (literally) Norman Osborne's top henchman Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan) and sees that the folder Ratha is carrying contains the same "secret formula" symbols that Pete found in his Dad's briefcase.

Even though Peter has a stolen intern pass and has left the rest of the intern tour, no one seems to question him as he follows Ratha through the corridors of a private corporate building with lots of trade secrets and watches him manipulate a touch pad to open a door to some secret room. Two guys come out and go with Ratha but for whatever reason, Peter decides to stop following Ratha and to get into that room.

I must say that it was lousy security that let Peter gain access. No smartcard, retina scan, or voice recognition software was required to open the door, just a series of finger movements across the pad, which Peter saw briefly and remembered. And what was in that room? Just a bunch of spiders on webs inside some sort of machine. Naturally, Peter decides to touch and spiders fall all over him. He manages to get out of the room again without setting off any alarms but takes an eight-legged hitchhiker with him, which manages to "put the bite" on Peter's neck right before Gwen catches him and kicks him out of the building.

I should mention at this point that Connors later tells Peter that no animal subject of cross-species genetic experiments has survived, yet, once bitten, Peter seems to do OK. (Should I mention that Peter actually gives Connors the secret of his father's formula at their first one-on-one meeting, making the Lizard possible?) But then, Connors also tells Peter that it was his father's breakthrough with the spiders over ten years ago, that enabled the project to survive. Maybe that's why there was a special room with spiders. They were the only ones who could pass on their genetic traits to another species without killing that species. But why were Richard Parker's spiders (or more likely their descendants) still around at Oscorp and if they were such a breakthrough (even if Parker Sr. took all his research with him when he disappeared ... apart from one briefcase), why in over a decade, were no experiments done with those spiders that would have ultimately created another Spider-Man?

The spiders were there for Peter to get spider powers, then that was that. Bad writing.

The film spends a lot of time showing us how Peter develops his powers. He doesn't immediately decide to become a hero or an entertainer or anything else. The fact that he gained new abilities is cool and a terrific clue as to what his father and Connors were up to, but he didn't decide to do anything with them at all (except mercilessly tease Flash Thompson and shatter a basketball backboard) until his Uncle Ben is killed.

And yes, Peter could have stopped the killer and no he didn't and yes, it pisses him off.

But he doesn't become a hero yet, he just becomes a guy looking for revenge. Ironically, he never finds it. He busts a bunch of guys who kind of look like the murderer, but he never finds the actually guy. Maybe the shooter blows town after he blows away Uncle Ben, but we never find out.

In the process of refining his vigilante role, Peter first develops a crude mask and finally the entire costume. Smart as he is, he can't actually create a "spider web formula" as in the original comics, but he "borrows" some from Oscorp after becoming chummy with Curt Connors.

Which brings up the question of what happens when Peter runs out of his supply? The only place he can get more is Oscorp. Once Connors is put away at the end of the film, his only other way in is his girlfriend. Sure, he invents the shooters, but he has no ability to independently create more webbing.

It's little details like this that kind of bugged me (yeah, that's a bad pun).

Peter finally becomes a hero, not while fighting a bad guy, but by rescuing a bunch of people who the Lizard endangers by throwing their cars off a bridge. Peter's webbing is strong enough to suspend the cards from the bridge, but he only rescues one kid from one car. I have no idea how the kid got stuck in the car when his Dad made it out just fine. I have no idea why Peter didn't rescue anyone else from any of the other cars (and if they were all empty, why did he stop them from falling into the water in the first place?).

But in saving the little kid and seeing the father's gratitude, he gives himself a name and a more noble purpose.

Gwen's father Police Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary) was a jerk for most of the film but he was supposed to be. Peter's dinner with the Stacy family was a total disaster, but what teenage boy hasn't been humiliated by his girlfriend's father at one point or another. It was kind of cool to see the face of "Diego" (Ice Age films), though.

And how the heck doesn't Aunt May know Peter is Spider-Man? Her first clue is right after she and Peter watch Captain Stacy issue a warrant for Spider-Man's arrest during a TV press conference, Peter storms out of the house. May looks at him like, "what they heck is that all about." Later, when Peter comes home all banged up after his last battle with the Lizard, she looks at him, doesn't ask why he looks like he went ten rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson, and just hugs him. I tell you, that woman was smart enough to put it all together. She has to know.

By the way, I really liked Martin Sheen's Uncle Ben, especially when he's teasing Peter in front of Gwen and calls himself Peter's probation officer. Everyone needs an uncle like that. I was also pleased that Sally Field's Aunt May wasn't constantly at death's door. In the Lee/Ditko version (and later), May always has one foot in the grave and the other on ice-coated Teflon. At least this Aunt May is a fighter (although I get the impression she's a lousy cook).

Another thing I liked was that Flash wasn't just a two-dimensional bully. After Uncle Ben dies (and everyone at school knows), Flash tries to make amends. Sure, Peter picks him up and slams him against some lockers, but everyone, including Flash, understands why Peter's so angry and hurt. Just a nice little bit of realism.

Another nice bit of realism was Gwen confessing to Peter how afraid she was growing up, watching her Dad leave for work as a police officer each day, and wondering if he'd ever come home that night. How could she stand being with Peter if he insisted on being Spider-Man and going after the Lizard?

This is a nice echo (though the filmmakers probably didn't intend it as such) to Betty Brant, Peter's first girlfriend in the Lee/Ditko comics. They eventually break up because Peter's job as a freelance crime photographer (Betty never finds out Peter is Spider-Man) is so dangerous. Her brother was also some sort of thrill seeker and was ultimately killed because of it (actually, he was in deep with some thugs and couldn't pay them back the money he took and they killed him). Peter finally left Betty because he knew she'd leave him if she ever found out what he really did every night.

Why did Peter put "Property of Peter Parker" on his camera? Who does that? It was a lame way for the Lizard to find out Spider-Man's secret identity.

Connors survives the film, saves Peter's life in the end (after killing George Stacy) and goes to jail. I'd love to see his defense attorney's strategy. Technically, Connors was under the influence of a mind and body altering substance when he committed his crimes, so can the court really convict Curt Connors for what he did when he was the Lizard? Well, probably, since Connors injected himself with that stuff in an attempt to regain his lost arm. If a junkie shoots up and is high when he kills someone, he's still libel for the murder after he stops being high.

Promises you can't keep are the best kind. OK, it would have been a lousy promise to try and keep, and I don't really remember Peter agreeing to stay away from Gwen as her dying father's last request, but Peter just plain blew off the seriousness of a father's genuine love for his daughter and desire to protect her.

Lots of little interesting developments. Stuff for the future. Supposedly Ratha was pressuring Connors to begin human trails on cross-species genetics because Norman Osborne (owner of Oscorp and usually the Green Goblin) is dying...but we get no details on what's killing him and how the Connors experiments are supposed to help.

Does Peter ever go after the guy who killed his uncle again?

If Aunt May knows Peter is Spider-Man, what will she do about?

It's strongly implied that the plane crash that killed Peter's parents was no accident and that it was arranged because Richard Parker refused to start human trails on his formula. Connors is alive at the end of the film and has this knowledge, but will he ever tell Peter? If Peter finds out, what will he do, go after Norman Osborne? If Osborne wanted the secret of Parker's cross-species formula, why kill him? Why not kidnap his wife and son and hold them hostage (or some other equally evil plot) and force Parker to give up the formula?

And if Osborne wants human trials to begin now because he's dying, was he dying ten years ago when Parker also refused to perform human experiments, or was there another reason (like lots and lots of money)?

I understand that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is in pre-production and scheduled for release sometime in 2014.

Maybe we'll find out some answers then, and get a look at Mary Jane Watson...and maybe Electro.

DVD Review: The Expendables

I suppose with the theatrical release of The Expendables 2 just days away, it's about time I got around to seeing the original Expendables film (2010). I had always wanted to see it and heard that it was a good action film, but just never got around to it.

I rented the DVD without doing any sort of research on the film. I didn't talk to anyone about it and whatever "buzz" had been going on two years ago about this movie, didn't stick in my memory so I really had no idea what to expect.

I was disappointed. Yes, of course there was a lot of action. Lots and lots of shooting, explosions, throats being cut, dropping F-bombs, but somehow it just lacked something. I don't know what exactly.

Maybe a direction beyond an extremely high body count.

The film starts out right in the thick of things with Ross's (Stallone) team of mercenaries setting out to rescue some hostages from Somali pirates. The character Gunnar Jensen (played by Dolph Lundgren) is established as a dangerous rogue (even for a member of a team of hyper-violent mercs) right from the start, so I expected bad things from him and he certainly delivered.

The film seemed like standard action fare at this point, but the problem happened when the movie dared to develop some actual characterization for Ross's number two man Lee Christmas (played by Jason Statham). There wasn't any. After the film's first mission, Christmas (yeah, the ridiculous names for many of the characters was a distraction, too) rides off to find his girlfriend, who he hasn't seen in over a month, and he's shocked...shocked to find she's with another man. He avoids beating her or the other guy up (on this occasion) and rides off, wounded but proud. But I found I really didn't care. It was a cosmic "so what."

I know it's tough to pull off character development in an ensemble piece because you've got a lot of people to cover, plus you have to actually insert some action in the movie, but in this case, why bother? Of course, Statham's strength never was actually the ability to act as much as it is to create (or simulate) mayhem. This problem trickled down to the other principle actors.

I stopped looking for real acting ability from Stallone a long time ago, though many of his action films are watchable and even fun, but it seemed like it was impossible to make a real emotional connection with anyone associated with the Expendables...

...except Tool (played by Mickey Rourke). Stallone gave Rourke the job of defining the film's purpose and (literally) soul. There's a sequence (sadly not quoted at IMDB.com) where Tool is recounting to Ross a mission they were on many years before. At one point during the op, Tool says he was watching a woman on a bridge. They made eye contact and Tool knows that she's going to commit suicide. His response was to turn and walk the other way leaving her to die. Tool says that if he had saved her instead of walking off, not only would he have saved her life, but he'd have saved his soul. This is the only real emotion and sense of poignancy the film managed to convey and it only lasted about five minutes.

Beyond being the best acted scene in the entire film, you don't actually realize that it is the scene of the film until the climax, when Ross is rescuing the film's female lead Sandra (played by Giselle Itié) from the villain Munroe (played by Eric Roberts). At the point where Munroe either escapes with his hostage Sandra or dies, he screams at Ross that they're both alike, that they both have dead souls (supposedly a requirement for being a long-term merc or a drug dealing ex-CIA scumbag). Munroe is subsequently blown away and stabbed simultaneously, Sandra is saved, and Ross establishes for the audience that his soul remains intact.

But it was a stupid conversation and in real life, it never would have happened. Munroe wouldn't have given a damn about anyone's soul and even if he did, it was a dumb time to wax philosophical. I know that it was important for the film to actually say this stuff and it's how we can apply Tool's lament to Ross, but I just didn't "feel it." Sorry, Sly. Frankly, I think it was the worst part of the film...the attempt to say something more than "I'm a mindless action film...have fun." Stallone tried to imbue his movie with something beyond blowing up buildings and turning people into chunky salsa and failed. More than anything, that's why I was disappointed with The Expendables. Stallone took the one good scene in in the whole film and wasted it.

The cameos. This film marked the first time movie tough guys Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in the same film and in the same scene (although Willis and Schwarzenegger never appeared in the same frame). Yeah, it was bitchin' just to see them together, but it was an obvious set up for the sequel, since Schwarzenegger's character Trench wasn't necessary for the scene.

After Gunner (Lundgren) tries to kill Yin Yang (Jet Li, and would they please get rid of these stupid code names) in a really nasty way and is shot by Ross for his troubles, I was disappointed to see Gunner alive and with the gang at the end of the film. OK, keep him alive for the sequel as an antagonist or as the lost soul who redeems himself by heroically saving the team before he dies, but don't just reinsert him into the group after he betrayed them and tried to kill one of their own.

This is definitely one film I'm glad I didn't spend money on to see in the theatre. I'm convinced more than ever that I won't see The Expendables 2 until it's released to DVD and then I might wait a couple of years before I get around to viewing it. Yeah, I like a good action film and the action parts were really good if mindless mayhem, murder, and torture (at one point Sandra is "waterboarded" by Toll Road, played by Randy Couture), but in spite of Stallone's best intentions, The Expendables just didn't have a soul.

Superman: The Man of Yesterday

I frequently see updates on the filming of both The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Superman: Man of Steel (2013) in my twitter timeline. Most of the time, I cave in and have a look at the latest spoilers and set shots, but occasionally I get a spine and resist, out of the desire to let the films surprise me by what they are as finished products. Having every little tidbit and nugget about the making of each film crammed down my throat on an almost daily basis is a kind of death.

I think Christian Bale's interpretation of Batman has made the transition into the 21st century quite well. Both Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) have done extremely well and avoided the terrible curse of campiness to which many past superhero films have given way.

Then I think about Superman.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I've always been disappointed with the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. Granted, the first film was released in 1978, but it wasn't the lack of CGI or 3D technology that was at fault but the attitude of the film makers. Superman was played completely for camp. There was some taking him seriously in the first film but with each sequel, he became more and more silly. Here's an example.

Remember the first appearance of Superman in the original film? Lois's helecopter is disabled, the pilot is knocked unconscious, and Lois is suspended a hundred stories over the streets of Metropolis, hanging only by a seat belt and screaming for her life. Clark makes his magical transformation into Superman and lifts both her and the falling helecopter back to the safety of the roof of the Daily Planet building. Afterward, Superman gives Lois a supportive talk about how air travel is still the safest way to fly. Boy Scout as always, right?

The gag is, as Superman turns away from Lois and as he's walking out of the scene, he gets the biggest grin on his face. The whole Boy Scout speech was just an act. He's totally having her on (she passes out a few seconds later).

Cut to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1981) which was horrible and total anti-nuke propaganda. Superman narrowly prevents a total subway disaster which would have killed hundreds. After the rescue, he gives an impromptu speech to the passengers he just saved about how Metropolis's subway system is still the safest in the world.

The problem is that here, he's totally serious. The campy "mask" he wore in the first film became his real "face" by the last movie. Superman became a clown in a cape. It didn't have to be that way. But what went wrong?

Part of it was that Hollywood never took comic book heroes seriously and it showed in the writing and directing. The actors did their best, but you can only work with the script in hand and those scripts made superheroes seem like...well, comic book characters. If you actually read a comic book from 1978 or before, they really did sound campy and sappy. The dialog could be terrible if said outloud in real life. Comic books don't translate into reality without a lot of massage work. Christopher Nolan was willing to take a completely different approach with his Batman films and it paid off magnificently. Let's hope Zack Snyder can pull it off with the next big screen incarnation of the last son of Krypton.

There's another problem, though.

Both Superman and Batman were originally created in the context of the 1930s. They both represent two sides of the same Depression-era coin. Batman represents the pulp fiction heroes popular during that time period and the darkness and dispair experienced by victims of street and corporate crime. The original Dark Knight had an almost "it takes a thief" approach to crime fighting, by becoming as menacing and as fear-provoking as the people he battled.

Superman was almost as "dark" in a sense. I once had the opportunity to read the first appearence of Superman in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) online (this was years ago and I'm sure it's been taken off the web by now). Superman was pretty heavy handed back then, extorting confessions out of crooked politicians by hanging them off the rooftops of tall buildings, threatening to drop them to the ground (sounds more like Batman). I understand that young, 21st century comic book Superman is doing similar things in the 2011 version of Action Comics 1. The original Superman fought rampant political corruption and criminal gangs by overwhelming them with his power. He was like everyone's big brother and protector. If a helpless person was victimized by a big, tough "bully", Superman was bigger and tougher than the "bully" and he'd beat the snot out of him. The victims were saved and they had someone who would always look out for them.

Times changed.

If you look at the development of Superman and Batman across the 1940s through the 1970s for example, you'll see their very natures and characters changed dramatically. Batman and Robin really were as corny as their 1960s TV show counterparts (it really wasn't Adam West's and Burt Ward's fault after all). The tough, action oriented, no-nonsense heroes of the 1930s became the clowns in capes of the 1950s and 60s. No wonder the movie Superman of 1978 acted the way he did. "Darkness" in comic books didn't return until the 1980s and 90s and certainly by the 2000s, it was time to try and take them back to their roots.

With Batman, that's certainly possible, but will it work with Superman? In 1938, there really were "great metropolitan newspapers" which were a force for "truth, justice, and the American" way. It was completely realistic for Clark Kent to work as a reporter to get the inside scoop on the latest emergencies and crimes happening in Metropolis and beyond. Today, newspapers are dying, and instead of being beacons of truth and information (OK, I'm exaggerating, there's always been "yellow journalism"), they're now (for the most part) propaganda machines, selling a single social and political vision of the world that hardly resembles the lives we really lead (kind of like "reality TV"). Who would Clark Kent be today, where would he work, and how would he act if we didn't have the model of the 1930s Man of Steel?

What would happen if we just tossed the 21st century into the trash can as far as Superman goes? What would happen if the next Superman film was set in 1938? Little Clark's spaceship would have crashlanded in a Kansas wheat field during or near World War I. Clark would have grown up in a world without the Internet, without TV, without microwaves, or iPhones, or Lady Gaga. In that place and time, his adoptive parents, the Kents, would have almost certainly been Christians, so Clark would have been raised with a specific set of attitudes. He would have grown up in a world where Chicago was completely dominated by the mobs. Tales of Capone and Dillinger would have been all over the news as would Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and Joe DiMaggio.

The tough part for modern film makers would be to capture the essence of the era and the people living in it, including Clark Kent/Superman, without imposing 21st century politically correct attitudes on the movie. Superman would have to be a Superman who was completely a child of his environment. Who would he be like? The Superman of Action Comics 1, June of 1938? Certainly. But could we relate to him? Could we even stand him?

Maybe or maybe not. I love the time period and am a big fan of dieselpunk, so I think he'd work out just fine for me, but how about you?

Will Superman, the iconic image, the "greatest American hero", be able to survive, let alone thrive, in the 21st century and be taken seriously? We won't find out until 2013. I certainly hope so. I'm still hoping that someday the film studios will become bold again, groundbreaking again, and make Superman 1938. I think it would be a blast!

Why So Panicky?

By now, anyone who gives a rat's arse knows that British actor Henry Cavill has been cast in the role of Clark Kent/Superman in the upcoming film Superman: Man of Steel (2012). Yesterday morning, I woke up to twitter ablaze with this news and many of the Superman and Smallville fans were more than alarmed...they were enraged.

Why?

Well, first off, a significant number of the fan base, at least those I'm aware of via twitter, are either Tom Welling or Brandon Routh supporters and would rather have seen one of those gentlemen wearing the big red cape. The Smallville fans (at least the rabid ones) are having a very difficult time letting go of the series, which ends this coming May, as well as the vision that Tom Welling is the "only" Superman (and Erica Durance as the "only" Lois Lane).

History lesson.

The very first Superman ever to grace the silver screen was a former ballet dancer named Kirk Alyn in the 1940s. Even then, he didn't star in a single full-length motion picture. Back in the day, when you went to see a movie, there were things called cartoons, news reels, and those wonderful serials. A serial was sort of like a television series ...a set of short episodes describing a continuing story that cycled once per week. If you wanted to keep up with the story, you had to go to the theater every week to see what happened next. Often, each serial episode ended in what's called a "cliffhanger", which could be literal but otherwise meant that the hero or the "damsel in distress" was caught in some sort of trap or situation that looked like certain death. It was part of the hook to keep the fans coming back for more and to see how the hero or the damsel escaped (which they always did).

For those into trivia, Noel Neill, who later played Lois in the 1950's Superman series opposite George Reeves (I'm getting to that) also played Lois to Alyn's Clark Kent/Superman. If you want to think of the "first Superman" in motion pictures, it was Kirk Alyn.

Television's first Superman was George Reeves. For people in their 50s and 60s today, Reeves is Superman, or at least the nostalgic Superman of their childhood. Like the Kirk Alyn serials before it, the Adventures of Superman was filmed on a very tight budget with the characters often wearing the same outfits over and over, episode after episode, and making liberal use of stock film footage and repeated scenes (for instance, the same scene was used in most episodes showing Clark dashing into the Daily Planet's storage room while taking off this glasses and then leaping out the window as Superman).

The next time we see Superman, he is portrayed by Christopher Reeve (no relation to Reeves) in Superman: The Movie (1978). Even for younger audiences today, Reeve is their Superman. Nostalgia makes this, and the three film sequels seem better than they were, but Reeve remains a favorite among the fans and has a warm place in many hearts. Even in real life, his memory remains that of a true hero.

Dean Cain was the next television Man of Steel in the 1990s in the program Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. I rented the first season on DVD, but it was so horrible, I returned it without watching all of the episodes.

2001, the beginning of the 21st century, saw the rise of an intriguing reboot of the Superman legend. Tom Welling became the new Clark in Smallville. Smallville departed significantly from the accepted canon and, for the most part, did a good job at reinventing the legend before Clark becomes a legend. Unfortunately, a show that probably should have lasted only seven seasons, tried to stretch its life expectancy to ten with disappointing results. Nevertheless, Tom Welling is the (pre) Superman for many people in their 20s and 30s today. Hence the angst at Welling not being cast as Superman in the upcoming Man of Steel film.

Superman Returns (2006) is the most recent film version of the Last Son of Krypton, as played in a rather lackluster manner by Brandon Routh. I've seen this film exactly once and, when I tried to watch it again, I just couldn't get past all of the scenes where Superman is stalking Lois and her lover Richard White (James Marsten). It was just so amazingly boring (though I liked the Superman saves the plane sequence in at the start of the film).

So here we are. How many Supermen have there been? Did you count?

1. Kirk Alyn (1940s)


2. George Reeves (1950s)


3. Christopher Reeve (1970s)


4. Dean Cain (1990s)


5. Tom Welling (2000s)


6. Brandon Routh (2006)

Six Supermen, and each and every one of them was beloved by the fans of their generation.

And now comes Henry Cavill as Superman number seven; the Superman of 2012 and beyond. Each actor who's played the role has had their day in the sun and each one has eventually passed the torch to the next generation. For 70 years, Superman has appeared in one form or the other in motion pictures and television. He also had a radio show in the 1940s and has appeared in various animated cartoons, stage plays, and musicals. The comic book version of Superman has changed a number of times since his inception in 1938 (and if you've ever had the chance to read any golden age Superman comics, the comparision to the current version is rather striking).

Do not panic. Bitch and whine if you will because your idea of Superman isn't presupposed by Henry Cavill, but try to hang onto the fact that this has all happened before...many times. Cavill is simply the latest in a line of "Supermen" that stretches back seven decades. If you don't think you can let go of Reeve, Welling, or Routh, don't worry. If Henry Cavill isn't going to be "your" Superman, he'll be the Superman of the generation that's coming up after you.

Up, up and away.

Now, who should be cast in the film as Lois Lane?

Casting Superman: The Man of Steel

I took a look at Scott's (derfel85) fantasy casting list for the upcoming Superman film and my inner evil twin came out laughing. Oh boy! I could really have some fun with this one. OK, why not?

Here we go. Remember, this is not just tongue-in-cheek, but tongue-straight-down-your-throat bizarre. Well, I hope it's bizarre. Let me know if I didn't go far enough after you read this. I promise I'll try harder next time.

Superman: Anybody but Tom Welling. I know, I'm evil. Sue me.

Lois Lane: Oh my! Choices, choices. There are so many good leading ladies out there. A lot depends on how old Clark is supposed to be in the upcoming film. How about adding some spice to the deal and making Lois older for a change? I'm thinking Courteney Cox is a natural for a "cougar" role if we cast a 20 something as Superman...and at age 33 (34 next April), Welling is already too old to pull it off.

Jimmy (Jimmie) Olsen: Lindsey Lohan. Hey, who says Jimmy/Jimmie has to be a guy? Are you sexist or what?

She started out life as a natural redhead so if she can ditch the cheap bleach-blond "do", it would work. Lohan's career, not to mention her life, has been in the crapper so long, she probably feels like she's taken up permanent residence in the Los Angeles sewer system. She needs something big to get her movie career back on track and while the role of Jimmy/Jimmie isn't stellar, it's attached to a project so big that she has to be noticed. She can either pull a Robert Downey Jr. redemption out of her butt, or completely flush the rest of her life into the cesspool.

Perry White: Robert De Niro. He's played psychos, tough guys, and goofy ex-CIA agents so portraying a hard-boiled old school newspaper editor should be a breeze for him. Besides, Little Fockers is going to be so bad, that he'll need something to help pick him up off the floor after that one crashes.

Lana Lang: Christina Hendricks, who else? She's also a natural (as far as I know) redhead and she's got everything up front to grab and hold a man's attention. The only problem would be that Clark wouldn't be able to take his X-ray vision off of her D cups long enough to even notice that Lois is alive (and since Lois needs saving on a daily basis, I figure that ends her career and her life within the first 10 minutes of the film.

Jonathan and Martha Kent: I've always wanted to see Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis team up again after watching True Lies (1994). They're about the right age (OK, they're older than about the right age) and they had fabulous chemistry together. We'll just ignore Schwarzenegger's accent like we always do in films where it is an absolute bad fit. Arnie's out of a job now that he's no longer the Governor of California so I bet he'd jump at the chance to play a Kansas farmer and adopted Dad to the most powerful man on earth. As far as Jamie Lee Curtis goes, I bet she's a really cool Mom, having done everything from Halloween to Freaky Friday (speaking of Lindsey Lohan).

Jor-El: That's a tough one. I would never have picked Marlon Brando for the role in the 1977 Superman film. I can't separate him from his roles as a dumb pug in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) and "On the Waterfront" (1954) (although a comparison between "The Godfather" and Jor-El is obvious). How about Anthony Hopkins? Fresh from his role as (another) super powerful "Big Daddy" Odin in Thor (2011), I'm sure he'd be up for a substantially similar part. Besides, there isn't a role in existence that Hopkins couldn't eat with a spoon. Playing Jor-El wouldn't even make him work up a sweat.

Lex Luthor: Bruce Willis. Hey, don't laugh. OK, go ahead and laugh. He's the first bald guy that popped into my head, but what the heck, why not? At least he'd add a little muscle to Lex. The movies always pick someone less than "physical".

Brainiac: Depending on how you want to play him, I'm thinking total CGI. He is an alien cyborg or computer, depending on who you listen to. But what about the voice? Call me nostalgic, but why not Mark Hamill? Hamill was incredible as the voice of the Joker in the Batman animated series in the 90s. I'm sure he could use the work and who knows...maybe he can get Brainiac to make us laugh.

Where Have All the Heroes Gone?

This isn't a review of The Expendables. Frankly, I haven't even seen it yet. I did hear that it has completely blown away the Julia Roberts film Eat Pray Love. It's not that I don't love Julia Roberts and it's not like I don't like a good "self-discovery" film, but my heart will always belong to the action, explosion-packed, car chase, gun shooting film genre. Heck, I watched Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Blue Thunder (1983) over the weekend just to get my fix.

But let's face it, Bruce Willis is 57 and Roy Scheider died in 2002 at the age of 75. Our classic film heroes from the 1970s and 80s aren't getting any younger. For that matter, Sly Stallone is 64 (and up until the Expendables, his more recent films haven't been doing so well) and Arnold Schwarzennegger, who along with Bruce Willis, had a cameo in The Expendables, just turned 63 a few weeks ago. Why are old guys still making action films. Is it because there are no young guys to step up to the plate?

The younger action heroes that immediately come to mind are Christian Bale from the Batman films and Terminator Salvation (2009), Johnny Depp from the various Pirates of the Caribbean films (On Stranger Tides comes out next year), and Leonardo DiCaprio from the recent hit film Inception. Also, with the power surge of super hero films that have been recently released and those coming at us in the next few years, we can hardly say that we have no young, kick ass actors out there to play these parts, so why haven't people like Stallone and Willis either retired or gone on to play older guys in character roles (imagine Stallone as Don Vito Corleone in a remake of The Godfather (1972))?

We have young guys playing action roles but frankly, they're not legends. Maybe the concept of the legendary action hero has disappeared. We used to consider action heroes with a sense of awe. Not in the way that people might drool over Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio, but these heroes were "men". I know that sounds sexist, but they were a sort of role model for the inner hero in the average, ordinary guy. Sure, we weren't about to grab a gun and go blow away an army single handedly, but these were the "ideal" men. Men of courage against overwhelming odds and often, saving the world, even while half bleeding to death, with a sense of humor and some "killer" one-liners. These guys used to be everywhere. Who didn't admire John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas (yes, Michael's Dad), Michael Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and on and on and... Where did they go?

The actors are there but perhaps the allure has disappeared. Today's action hero is less a hero and more a guy in a suit doing heroic stuff. We are entertained but we're not awed.

However, we're still awed by our aging classic heroes.

Today is the 33rd anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll and even people who weren't even born 33 years ago are commemorating his death and celebrating his life. Did we run out of musicians in the 21st century? No, but we may have run out of legends.

I don't think you have to die to be a legend and I don't think you have to get old before you become a legend, but you have to possess something that younger actors and other celebrities just don't seem to have today. Yet, is it a lack in them or in us? Maybe as a society, we've lost the ability to generate those feelings any more and we only feel them for older stars by way of nostalgia (and a weird sort of nostalgia if you are in awe of someone you never experienced while they were alive). I can't really decide which way it runs, but there must be a reason that a film like The Expendables not only gets made in the first place (and studios don't make films unless they expect to make a lot of money on them) but does amazingly well at the box office.

Has Elvis left the building?