Hardcore Henry is an action film completely shot from the first-person point of view of its lead character. Apart from found footage films that use the POV of a character's camera, I think this is probably the first total first-person POV film since Lady in the Lake attempted it in 1947. And Hardcore Henry is a hell of a lot more fun than that.
It's from director Ilya Naishuller who made the music videos I have embedded below. Once you've seen these, you'll have a very good idea of exactly what Hardcore Henry is going to be like. Below these is a snippet of my review of the film.
The titular Henry awakes in a flying laboratory after losing two
limbs and most of his face in some unseen grisly accident. His scientist
wife, Estelle (Bennett), is putting him back together with new robotic
parts when suddenly telekinetic villain Akan (Kozlovsky) bursts in,
kidnaps Henry’s beloved and sends his henchman to hunt and kill poor
Henry. But they’ve underestimated this half-cyborg super-soldier and his
determination to get his wife back, even if he’s running low on power
and hasn’t got any memories of his former life.
Just because films based on video games never work, it doesn’t mean
that cinema can’t have its very own version of a first-person
shoot-‘em-up. Hardcore Henry is so much like playing a video
game, that it feels strange not to have a controller in your hand.
Copley pops up throughout the film as Jimmy to tell Henry/you what the
next mission/level is that needs to be completed. You might find
yourself tilting your head, straining to see what Henry sees from a
clearer angle, or recoiling from the screen as his enemies leap, punch,
kick, and shoot at him. There’s even time for a sniper’s eye view as you
stand on a balcony picking off enemies below you...
Sad Keanu is ex-hitman John Wick, mourning the loss of his wife whose parting gift to him was a
cute little puppy. Rolling around in his beloved Mustang 69, he has the
misfortune to bump into the son of a dangerous Russian gangster. Played by
Alfie Allen, aka Theon from Game of Thrones, this nasty little man proceeds to
take everything Wick loves, meaning Wick is forced to come out of retirement in order to get revenge.
Luckily,
Wick’s skills in the hitman department have far from deserted him and he is
more than happy to bring the hurt on anyone who stands in his
way of getting to the man who killed his pooch. Formerly known as The Boogeyman,
he’s the kind of guy who can take out three guys with just a pencil. With the
firepower he now has, it doesn’t matter how many goons get thrown in his
direction, Wick has a wonderful way of killing them all.
Directed by
two stunt experts, Wick is action packed, stylish and blood thirsty. This is a
film for people who don’t mind how slight the story is, as long as the action
gets your blood pumping and the blood keeps spilling. It’s a very simply revenge tale, but it’s
also well worth noting that John Wick has some really interesting (and
bizarre) touches thrown into the mix.
Wick knows
a lot of the people he has tasked himself with taking out. This leads to some
very amusing exchanges and also makes Wick a pretty murky character himself.
The world of the film is also unique with a hotel for hitmen that lives by its
own rules, where all assassinations are off under the roof of this supposedly
safe haven. Little touches like this make the recently announced sequel an
interesting prospect, even if mostly all anyone will want to see is the
brutally stylish and kinetically directed fight scenes, excitingly mixing
gunplay with martial arts.
John Wick is no Matrix,
but it’s certainly one of Reeves’ best since.
The Lone Ranger is a Disney movie with a bit of a difference. Like Pirates of the Caribbean before it, The Lone Ranger gets away with some pretty harsh scenes of violence due to its 12 rating. Disney used to mean princesses, knights, enchanted castles and charming romances. It does not mean murder, revenge and slaughter. And yet The Lone Ranger reaches beyond your typical Disney moments of darkness and includes the gunning down of lawmen, a terrifying villain in William Fichtner and the slaughter of the Comanche by the United States army.
The Lone Ranger sees the titular lawmen turn outlaw after teaming up with more-than-just-a-sidekick, Native American Tonto. After his brother is brutally murdered (and has his heart cut out... see kids it's full of fun!) John Reid turns vigilante with the help of new spirit horse (eventually named Silver) and damaged Indian Tonto played wild and weird by Johnny Depp. Seeking the men responsible and their leader Butch Cavendish (freaky Fichtner) The Lone Ranger takes to wearing a mask and must get to the bottom of why the Comanche are being blamed for attacking settlers before a war (or just plain old genocide of the Natives) breaks out. With the trans-continental train track being built as a back drop, the quest for revenge and justice sees the mismatched pair uncovering corruption at every turn.
Armie Hammer nails the stoic hero while Depp tones down the Jack Sparrow excess while still making Tonto memorable, noble and fun. Hans Zimmer's score is brooding, dark and occasionally mournful until the glorious final set piece unleashes the William Tell Overture to rousing effect. Verbinski mounts a hell of an action packed set piece with trains, horses and plenty of characters to throw around but it's all a bit too ridiculous at times and as a result has to frequently rely on grating CG visual effects. However after sitting through two hours of nearly as much talk as action, kids and adults alike will undoubtedly be relieved to see some spectacle.
The Lone Ranger is bloated. Some scenes feel unnecessary and one late in the game character reversal is so obvious that it feels like a long wait for the revelation. Helenha Bonham Carter is completely sidelined but makes the most of very limited screen time while the slaughter of the Comanche is talked about but barely shown. After all no matter how dark and violent this gets, it is still a Disney film. The film is admirable for flipping the old Western traits on its head and showing a hugely sympathetic side of the Native Americans while also relegating their representation to the odd, amusing but also wise Tonto. It's no Dances with Wolves but it goes some way to showing the dreadful treatment of the Indians at the hands of settlers, particularly for a big dumb fun summer blockbuster.
According to Box Office Mojo, The Lone Ranger may have only just managed to scrape back it's over $200 million budget with a particularly poor domestic take. It looks likely that instead of becoming a Pirates size franchise, this might be the Standalone Ranger after all.
Some films think they can get by on star swagger and a bit of witty banter. Throw in plenty of alpha male machismo, gunfights and explosions, a single sexy siren to gawp at and the plot can be as ridiculous as you like; apparently young men will lap it up for sure. 2 Guns has Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg in a plot so ludicrous that you wouldn't want to dare take a moment to stop and think about it or you might just be tempted to walk out the cinema.
Washington is Bobby Trench involved in dealing drugs and dodgy passports to cartels with his partner Wahlberg's quick shot, quick witted Stig. Sounds simple. Then it turns out Washington is an undercover cop and Wahlberg is working undercover for the Navy. Neither knows this until the shit hits the fan and then it gets even sillier. After robbing a bank full of what they thought was cartel money, it turns out the corrupt CIA have a stake in what they stole and now Bill Paxton's sadistic CIA bigwig is on their tail and Washington and Wahlberg are being double crossed and chased by everyone else in the film. Will their 2 Guns be enough to take down the cartels and the CIA?
More to the point, will the undoubtedly appealing double act of Washington and Wahlberg on fine swaggering form be enough to paper over the cracks in such a silly set up? The dialogue has occasional dashes of wit and the story moves quickly enough to drag you along without too many questions niggling at your logic sensors. However it doesn't matter how cool the stars think they are if the script never gives them anything memorable to say. Bill Paxton is very welcome (where's he been?) and gets the stand out villain character but he would have made more of an impact in a different film, one that didn't try to veer so wildly between comedic moments and attempts at some real threat and danger.
For an action comedy, 2 Guns delivers plenty of shoot outs and a healthy dose of exploding stuff but the script is weaker when it comes to the comedy. Without the charisma of Washington and Wahlberg, it is easy to assume this might have gone straight to DVD. It's quite fun while it lasts but you certainly don't want to spend any time afterwards pondering the plot. 2 Guns is neither Washington nor Wahlberg's best but it's still worth a shot, just probably not 2.
On a side note, I got to interview Denzel Washington at the Flight premiere and I asked him about 2 Guns. Read the red carpet report here. Watch the trailer for 2 Guns below:
Gerard Butler stars in Die Hard in the White House, aka Olympus Has Fallen! Fuck yeah! Forget Team America, this flag waving assault on the heart of American political power is gloriously old school; explosive, unapologetic, possibly pretty xenophobic but a hell of a lot of fun.
Olympus Has Fallen has secret service man Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) as the only guy left standing on the inside of the White House when North Korean terrorists break in, sealing themselves in the bunker below with the President (Aaron Eckhart) and his staff. Banning has to get all John McClane on the rest of the baddies in order to save the President, the President's son and anyone else caught in the firing line of these dastardly North Koreans.
Olympus Has Fallen is the kind of movie I grew up on. In the wake of Die Hard, we were treated to Die Hard on a boat (Under Seige), on a plane (Passenger 57), on a train (Under Seige 2), in an airport (Die Hard 2), on a bus (Speed), on another boat (Speed 2)... bascially anywhere you could set one man against a group of heavily armed terrorists, we got it! But never Die Hard in the White House... until now!
I suspect most screenwriters would have laughed at the idea of terrorists not only getting into the White House but also into the bunker beneath with the President so any ideas were scrapped early on. But the bonkers premise provides an absolutely awesome assualt early in Olympus Has Fallen which the rest of the film struggles to live up to.
The terrorists are ruthless, efficient and incredibly bold in their manouvres and the guards and secret service men at the White House suddenly find themselves hopelessly ountnumbered and out gunned. Olympus Has Fallen actually manages to make this outrageous scenario seem plausible, despite the ridiculous number of special agents that willingly run into high calibre gunfire. It's an epic set piece; violent, explosive, erratic, chaotic and almost completely believable. And boy does the body count rise quickly.
Butler's Mike Banning finds himself virtually alone in the White House, playing cat and mouse with disposable North Korean baddies while the executions and body count continue to rise around him. His dispatch techniques are unapolegetically brutal, his quips not quite the standard of John McClane's best but still providing the odd laugh.
Olympus Has Fallen is old school to the core. It is bloody, brutal and unashamed of its patriotic, bordering on racist caricatures. When I was growing up, the baddies were always clearly labelled as the Russians or the Chinese or the Libyans or some other nationality. It never made me fear these people and I hope this film is accepted as the silly escapist piece of fiction it is. Conveniently it is not the North Koreans that are behind it but a North Korean terrorist cell but this also makes for a memorably savage villain in Rick Yune's Kang. Most importantly, his motivation has something to with an American land mine and therefore despite his brutality and ultimately devastating master plan, he is a man with an almost understandable grudge against the US of A.
You know what to expect when a film opens with the President sparring in a boxing ring with his trusted secret service man. Olympus Has Fallen is silly, big, loud action fun. It earns its 15 rating with plenty of blood and bone crunching violence, far more satisfying than the recent A Good Day to Die Hard.
Olympus Has Fallen is the Die Hard movie we've been waiting for since Die Hard With a Vengeance. Roland Emmerich's similar White House Down will have its work cut out to match the all out excess and explosive thrills and fun of Olympus Has Fallen. Gerard Butler and director Antoine Fuqua have raised their flag high with this one. Despite the cliches and the villainous stereotypes, Olympus Has Fallen is a throwback to simpler action films of the past and is all the better for it. Fuck yeah.
Over the next three Mondays I have three screenings I'm very excited for; the Evil Dead remake, Die Hard in the White House Part 1 Olympus Has Fallen and Steve Coogan in The Look of Love.
Evil Dead should be a nightmare for fans of the original trilogy but with the likes of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell producing this remake, this was looking good from the start. Juno and Young Adult fans will be pleased to note Diablo Cody is on writing duties and anyone who has seen the trailer will immediately be able to tell if this film is for them or not. The red band trailer below is certainly not for the squeamish. It looks absolutely mental, keeping a similar if perhaps slightly more serious tone to the original and whizzing tracking shots through the menacing woods still intact. Here is my review of Evil Dead at Filmoria. Check out the trailer:
Olympus Has Fallen is the first of two Die Hards in the White House of this year with Roland Emmerich's White House Down to follow later.This one has Gerard Butler as the one man army out to save Aaron Eckhart as his President. Next up by the way if you haven't already heard is Channing Tatum protecting President Jamie Foxx if that pairing takes your fancy. Either way, both of these sound like the ultimate movies for my 10-16 year old self. If no one dives in front of the Commander in Chief, saving them from a bullet while yelling NOOOOOOOOOOOO Mr Presideeeeeeeeeeeeeent, then I'll be sorely disappointed. Even Air Force One had a pilot throwing his plane in the way of a missile to save President Harrison Ford's own plane. I hope this is fun, check out the trailer:
A fortnight on Monday, I will be seeing Brit flick biopic The Look of Love starring Steve Coogan as controversial sleezebag entrepreneur Paul Raymond. It's got a pretty cool cast and is directed by Michael Winterbottom so could be good but it's probably the least of these three I'm looking forward to. Here's the trailer:
A sequel to Top Gun? A remake and a sequel of Child's Play? Today is my lucky day.
Completely hetrosexual
No I'm not making it up. Over 25 years after the original gave us an awesome soundtrack, topless men all greased up and playing volleyball on the beach to a song called 'Playing with the Boys', Tom Cruise riding a motorbike and flying the crap out of super speedy jets, fretting about his Dad, shagging Kelly McGillis in an impossibly blue, slow and sexy, sex scene, Goose getting an all time great death and some karaoke lovin' feelin losin comes this news:
Well...
'in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount executive Adam Goodman has confirmed that Top Gun 2 is in pre-production' http://entertainment.stv.tv/film/304999-tom-cruise-gets-jet-set-for-top-gun-sequel-as-pre-production-confirmed/
Well it's about time. The US Navy needs another big, dumb, cinematic recruitment advert. Hmmm. Shame Tony Scott's back. I wish he could dial back that attention deficit editing. The writer of Bad Boys 2 is involved which suggests extremely dumb but fun action scenes that will... wait for it... TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY! I hope Val Kilmer can make an appearance. And the ghost of Goose. Heck why not?
Wanna play?
Then I hear (two weeks after the news breaks but better late than never) Chucky from Child's Play is going to be back! Now if this was just another sequel I would be concerned after the attempted horror comedies of Bride and Seed of Chucky. But I still hold the original Child's Play trilogy in high regard. I loved those movies as a kid so it pleases me to hear:
'original creators Don Mancini and David Kirschner are cooking up a
remake that will stray from the more satiric leanings of recent sequels -
the last one featured John Waters, after all – and go for "a darker and scarier retelling of the original film, but one that will offer new twists and turns."'
http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/chucky-childs-play-remake-sequel/
Still terrifying?
However then I read over at Total Film:
'This new episode in the long-running franchise will be titled Revenge Of Chucky, and will again focus on the killer doll's immediate family, in a similar vein to Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky.
As
for the remake, Dourif indicated that original writer Don Mancini is
still working on script, with the theme thought to be a lot lighter and
comedic than the original.'
http://www.totalfilm.com/news/childs-play-remake-and-sequel-on-the-way
Well I hope they're wrong about the remake. I want to see Child's Play back to it's dark roots. I know it seems silly and ripe for comedic treatment but to me Chucky is still a little psycho and a terrifying alternative to Woody and Buzz coming alive when you're not watching.
What do you think readers? Does this news spell the end of the world or are you as excited as I am?
Not sure how fans of the original show are going to take this trailer. Insult or update? I only saw the Johnny Depp starring show a couple of times as a kid and remember very little about it. Therefore this trailer made me laugh out loud. It's got some hilarious lines and Jonah Hill is always excellent (looking forward to the upcoming Moneyball).
The pairing of Hill and Tatum looks like comedy gold but hopefully this 3 minute trailer(!) has not completely sucked all the goodness from the film. I've just got to make sure I avoid watching any more promotional material for the film so there's still something left to enjoy in March when it's released. Anyone got an opinion? Will this be funnier than Starsky and Hutch or The Other Guys? I hope so.
A good friend of mine once pondered a delicate question. Tirelessly, he argued for two hours with his own brother to get to the bottom of this thorny issue. Who is the greatest action hero of modern cinema… Schwarzenegger or Stallone?
With The Expendables 2 in pre-production and rumours circulating of bigger roles for Bruce Willis and Big Arnie The Ex-Governator, it’s time to put this debate to rest.
So in the red corner we have the Austrian Oak; Conan, the Terminator, the Commando, Dutch from Predator, the Eraser, and um… Mr Freeze?
And in the blue corner the Italian Stallion; Rocky, Rambo, Cobra, Tango, the Demolition Man, and um… Judge Dredd?
They’ve both been in some stinkers so let’s just forget most of the attempts at comedy; Junior, Oscar, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot to name a few. Stallone takes the crown for king of crap just by looking at his CV for the early part of the new century. The Get Carter remake? Driven? D-Tox? Hello…. anybody? You’d be forgiven for thinking these were attempts at comedy if they weren’t so f**king boring.
But then there’s the good stuff that so many of us grew up on. The guns, the explosions, the endless dispatching of villains and henchman and the plentiful bloody, beaten faces as our heroes pummeled the next sorry victim to get in their way. Who needs acting lessons when you got muscles and an arsenal like these guys?
So… Arnie's icons: Conan the Barbarian and Destroyer, camp, fun and bloody bloody but not the best action films ever made. Terminator 1 and 2 and even his other collaboration with James Cameron, True Lies, made for some of the best action cinema in history. So many classic moments and the casting of Schwarzenegger was the perfect choice for the emotion-less cyborg from the future. Dutch getting all muddy and declaring the Predator to be ‘one ugly motherfucker’. Even the Kindergarten Cop got some good action and even better lines to play with.
But on the other hand Stallone has Rocky and the Oscar nominations to prove his under dog was a hit with audiences and his Hollywood peers. He also has the inferior sequels to answer for and the same goes for his other icon, Rambo. Classic first entry followed by dodgy Vietnamese and Russian bashing in the follow-ups.
Arnie has a couple of smaller gems that should also be noted; Commando and its genius one liners including ‘he’s dead tired’, ‘I let him go’ and ‘let off some steam Bennet!’. Last Action Hero and the post-modern take on the action film hero. Even The Running Man, Red Heat and Terminator 3 had their moments.
Sly has even more little nuggets of gold in amongst the sea of stinking shite he’s been a part of. Tango and Cash is ridiculously fun and makes the most of teaming serious Sly with silly Kurt Russell in the mis-matched buddy cop genre. Cliffhanger is pretty much Die Hard on a mountain and gets by on some awesome stunts and mountain-top fights. Cop Land is an under-rated and under-seen semi-classic with a great performance but not much action from the aging Stallone. Demolition Man is stolen from Stallone by Wesley Snipes and Denis Leary but is still great action/sci-fi. Daylight and Assassins aren’t too shabby either.
But who comes out on top? Both Arnie and Sly have undisputed icons in classic films. Arnie may only have the Terminator compared to Sly’s Rambo and Rocky but for me this all comes down to Terminator VS Rambo. The quality of the sequels of Sly’s films dips dramatically whereas the Terminator films are all impressive. It boils down to this:
Top 5 Schwarzenegger
The Terminator
Terminator 2
Commando
Predator
True Lies
Top 5 Stallone
Rambo: First Blood
Rocky
Cliffhanger
Demolition Man
Tango and Cash
It’s time to put this to rest. Schwarzenegger or Stallone? Arnie or Sly? Oak or Stallion? The greatest action film star of our generation is….
Bruce Willis.
The Die Hard series … Last Boy Scout… Armageddon… The Fifth Element, … ‘nuff said.
