Month: July 2019

Released: July 2019

Director: Jon Favreau

Rated PG

Run Time: 118 Minutes

Distributor: Disney

Genre: Adventure/Animation

Cast:
Donald Glover: Simba
Chiwetel Ejiofor: Scar
Beyonce Knowles-Carter: Nala
James Earl Jones: Mufasa
Alfre Woodard: Sarabi
John Oliver: Zazu
Seth Rogan: Pumbaa
Billy Eichner: Timon
John Kani: Rafiki

There was once a time when Walt Disney Studios was the undisputed king of family entertainment. Throughout the past century, with films like Snow White, Bambi, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, The Fox and the Hound, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, you could always count on Disney to deliver something that was worth taking the entire family to go see.  While the animation styles had changed and improved over the decades, the high quality of the stories that Disney told were fairly consistent.  Myself, I grew up with Disney’s animated features and while I stepped away from Disney for a while, I find that their animated films are absolutely amazing.  I grew up with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid, the one film that I really loved was The Lion King.  Disney had perfected the idea of talking animals with absolutely incredible hand-drawn animation and combined it with state-of-the-art CGI, culminating in one of the greatest animated stories ever released.  Sadly, we’ve been seeing Disney go back and try to “update” their older films with modern technology and techniques.  Disney’s modern remakes of their classic animated films have been mostly a mixed bag.  We’ve had a couple of good ones with Beauty and the Beast and Maleficent, but movies like Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, and Dumbo are proving that while these films are profitable, Disney is bankrupt when it comes to originality.  Sadly, the highly anticipated Lion King remake is yet another example of Disney not putting forward enough effort to differentiate the new film from the original.

The Lion King tells the story of Simba, a young lion that is next in line to become the king of the Pride Lands.  In the shadows lurks his uncle, Scar, as he schemes to usurp the throne for himself by ridding himself of Simba and his father, Mufasa.  If you’ve seen the original film, you already know how this goes.  That’s not to say that it’s a bad story.  Far from it.  It’s a grand and epic story that is literally Shakespearian in nature.  It is Hamlet in animal form.  It works quite well, even though it has a far lighter tone than the original story.  It’s a story that still works, even in the new Lion King film, although it really does nothing to shake it up even a little bit.  It is very much, beat for beat, the exact same movie that came out 25 years ago, just with new animation technology.  That’s part of what my problem with the film is, is that it plays it far too safe.  Granted, it’s supposed to be a family film, but even those films need to be shaken up a little bit.  The whole thing was very predictable from beginning to end.  The worst part about how the story was handled here was there were certain sequences and moments that were taken out.  For example, there was a moment when the baboon, Rafiki, whacks adult Simba on the head.  It was a funny moment, but it was also a very poignant one about learning from one’s past and not running from it.  It’s a powerful lesson that doesn’t make it’s way into the new film.  Disney’s animated films, while primarily entertaining, also provided children with important lessons that could be used later in life.  We really get none of those in this version.  It’s weird: The Lion King cuts out some important moments and yet the film is longer.

The voice acting in the new film is very, very strong.  We’ve got amazing actors like Donald Glover, who plays the adult Simba, and he’s absolutely fantastic.  Beyonce plays adult Nala and I don’t think that she has the range of the original actress, but she doesn’t do a bad job.  Seth Rogan and Billy Eichner voice Pumbaa and Timon, respectively.  I’m not the biggest fan of Seth Rogan, but I actually kind of liked what he brought to the role.  He’s no Ernie Sabella, but he definitely makes the role his own.  The biggest piece of casting when the film was announced, was the return of James Earl Jones as Mufasa, and let me tell you:  He doesn’t disappoint.  He IS Mufasa, and recasting the character would have been a huge mistake.  Unfortunately, there were some casting decisions that sounded good on paper, but didn’t pan out very well.  First one is John Oliver as Zazu.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Oliver’s stand-up comedy.  His wit and timing are impeccable, but his turn as Mufasa’s majordomo didn’t work for me, at least, not as well as when Rowan Atkinson did it back in the day.  The other one and this one hurts the most, because I’m a huge fan of this actor.  Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Scar in this film, as opposed to Jeremy Irons who voiced the character in the original picture.  I don’t necessarily think that Chiwetel did a terrible job, but he was severely miscast.  He doesn’t bring the same kind of raspy menace that Irons did, and as a result, the character comes across as much less threatening.  Scar is one of the most iconic villains in Disney’s line-up, but he was not handled well here.

When it was announced that the new Lion King film would be a live-action remake, a lot of people were questioning how they would do it.  You know what happened?  They animated it.  Yeah, the animals are all CGI.  There was absolutely no way that it was going to be live-action.  Granted, a lot of the shots and visuals are spectacular as they use actual backgrounds from Africa, so there is an element of truth to the claim, but the animals are all animated.  Don’t get me wrong, they look fantastic.  The detail is extraordinary.  You can literally spot individual hairs on the hyenas and lions.  It’s absolutely remarkable at how far the technology has come when dealing with animal life.  Loved it…..mostly.  The real hang-up here, though, is because it’s mostly CGI.  In the original film, the hand-drawn animation, while exaggerated, allowed the animals and characters to have human-like characteristics, especially when it comes to emoting.  It’s what allowed the audience to connect with what was happening on the screen.  There really isn’t a whole lot of that here, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.  The voice-acting is great, but if you can’t see what the characters are feeling, that connection is almost non-existent.  To be fair, any of those wild expressions from the first film would fee; wildly out of place in this one, but at the same time, it doesn’t work as well.

The one element that really does work is the music.  Hans Zimmer, who scored the original Lion King returns for this film and he just nails it.  His work in the first film felt very grand and epic.  It’s the same kind of feeling here.  A lot of the original songs also make their return, including the grand Circle of Life which opens the film.  It was always a fantastic song and the new version is still pretty good.  You’ve also got I Just Can’t Wait To Be King, which is just as fun as the original song.  Can You Feel The Love Tonight? still has that easy-going and romantic flair that made the original so memorable.  Sadly, even the music gets shafted a bit here.  Be Prepared that was originally sung by Jeremy Irons is completely butchered here.  It only lasted about a minute and it was one of the most disappointing things I’ve ever heard.  Hakuna Matata is also not as good as the original film.  It doesn’t have the same visual flair.  Quite frankly, Ernie Sabella and Nathan Lane did a much better job with the singing.

I don’t hate The Lion King.  I really don’t.  However, I’m very disappointed in the shot-for-shot remake nature of the film.  While there are a lot of things to love about the film, and I will admit, that I did enjoy it.  However, the things that I noticed stuck out like a lion in a pack of meerkats.  The story is still really compelling and being able to see it on the big screen again was a real treat, but certain characters were not handled as well, and some of the voice acting was not as strong as it could have been.  If you have to pick between original and this new film, stick with the original.  It did it first, and did it better.  I don’t see myself owning this version when it hits home video.  In fact, I have no desire to see it again.  Disney had to screw up royally in order for me to feel that way.  With the exception of Mulan, I’m not really interesting in seeing anymore of Disney’s remakes.  I was behind them initially with films like Maleficent and Beauty and the Beast, but movies like the new Lion King are making it difficult for me to be excited anymore.  I want something new.  I want something original.  I want to see a return to the hand-drawn animation style that I grew up with and if anybody could do it, it’s Disney.  But they won’t.  It’s cheaper and easier to do everything in a computer.  These new remakes are nothing more than a cash-grab.  If you haven’t seen the original Lion King, this new movie is pretty good.  But if you have seen the original, there is nothing in here that makes it better.  In fact, in most ways, it’s actually very inferior to the 1994 film.

My Final Recommendation: Run away and never return.  6/10.

Released: November 2009(China)

Director: Jingle Ma, Wei Dong

Rated TV-MA

Run Time: 115 Minutes

Distributor: Giant Ape Media

Genre: Action/Adventure

Cast:
Zhao Wei: Hua Mulan
Kun Chen: Wentai
Jaycee Chan: Fei Xiaohu
Jun Hu: Modu
Angel Liu: Princess of Rouran

Adapting stories from the ancient world is nothing new.  Film-makers have been doing it for decades with varying degrees of success.  The 50’s gave us one of the greatest Biblical epics of all time: The Ten Commandments.  Stories from other ancient civilizations have also been adapted to the big screen.  A lot of Greek stories have been adapted like Clash of the Titans, Hercules, and The Odyssey just to name a few.  There have been multiple films based on the oldest known piece of British literature: Beowulf.  A lot of these stories tend to be fictitious in nature, but there is always a degree of truth to these stories.  China is no stranger when it comes to these kinds of stories.  In fact, I would argue that some of the best stories come from the Far East.  A lot of these stories involve certain philosophies and how to live in that particular world.  One of the most interesting stories to come out of China in the past 2000 years is that of Hua Mulan.  Most people would recognize that name from the Disney animated film, Mulan.  However, the version that I’m reviewing today is the film that was released back in 2009: Mulan: Rise of a Warrior.

Rise of A Warrior tells the story of Hua Mulan, a young peasant girl from the Northern Wei Dynasty in China.  When government officials come to conscript the men in her village, Mulan secretly takes the place of her ailing father.  Pretending to be a boy, Mulan heads off to join the army in battling the invading Rouran army from the north.  Despite secretly a woman, Mulan proves that she is a capable warrior and over 12 years, rises to the rank of general.  The story of Mulan is an extraordinary one, especially when you consider the time in which the original poem was written.  1500 years ago in China, women were expected to be faithful and obedient in accordance with the Chinese rules of propriety.  Obviously, there are times throughout Chinese history when that wasn’t the case.  Now, Mulan, as far as I’ve researched, isn’t a real person.  Rather, Mulan began as a poem, whose origins are lost to time.  From what I’ve been able to piece together, Mulan may have actually been inspired by a number of women who defied society in order to serve their country.  That’s part of what makes Mulan such a fascinating and incredible story.  This is a very progressive kind of story that’s set in a very conservative civilization and yet, it remains to this day one of the most inspirational and important stories ever told.  This movie differs wildly from Disney’s animated feature in that it’s handled in a realistic manner.  There’s no talking dragons or any cutesy humor or awkward situations.  That’s a good thing.  Despite the level of violence and action in this film, it’s a very compelling narrative about a woman who wants to honor her father and her country, even if it means defying her father’s wishes and societal norms.  There are a lot of lessons to be learned from stories like these.

The acting in Mulan: Rise of A Warrior is amazing.  While many of the actors in the film do a fantastic job, including Jackie Chan’s son, Jaycee, the real star of the show is Zhao Wei.  Playing the main character, Zhao carries this film entirely on her shoulders.  That can’t be an easy burden, considering how important the character is to the Chinese people.  There are moments where she comes across as a total bad-ass, but some of her finer moments are when she’s conflicted and outright vulnerable as a person.  Zhao delivers such an incredibly grounded and sympathetic performance.  You are with her every step of the way.  While I don’t think he has the charisma and talent that his father does, Jaycee Chan delivers a pretty good performance as Fei Xiaohu, a character that grew up with Mulan and knows her secret.  Kun Chen plays Wentai, the son of the emperor, who also discovers Mulan’s secret.  The chemistry between Zhao and Kun feels natural and there times when you really want to see these two end up together.

The action in Mulan: Rise of A Warrior takes a very different approach as opposed to other films in this genre.  Instead of the high-flying wire-aided action that we’ve seen from a lot of films of this type over the past several decades, Mulan takes a more realistic approach to combat.  There is very little wire-work to be found here.  Most of the action is grounded and brutal.  You’re dealing with swords, cavalry, spears, and bows and arrows.  Yeah, there is some kung-fu, but it’s not the fancy type.  It’s very direct and to the point.  Most importantly, the action in this film is framed almost perfectly, as you can see everything.  It’s also important that most of the actors seem to do their own fighting and stunts except for some of the more dangerous moments.  It’s very refreshing to see a version of Mulan that’s grounded in some kind of reality.  The costumes and design are very reminiscent of the time period that they are trying to convey.  There’s not a whole lot of bright colors here, and I actually appreciate that.

I find Mulan compelling as a film and as a story because it shows the even in the 5th century, certain writers were trying to have their characters break out of the roles that society had in place for them, and there’s a lot of empowerment in that.  In fact, for women and young women in general, Mulan proves that you don’t always have to be what society wants you to be, yet still provides a path for you to honor your family and country.  The strength of a female character, in my opinion, doesn’t come from physical strength, but rather the courage to fight for what she believes to be right, even if it comes at a price.  I also really like the fact that the character wasn’t sexualized in any form.  The point of her pretending to be a boy was to avoid that and in the context of the story, it really works.  Not every woman in a film like this has to be just a pretty face.  Even 1500 years later, the story of Hua Mulan is still very relevant.

Now, one of the reasons that I decided to review this version of Mulan, is that I recently saw a teaser trailer for Disney’s live-action remake of their animated film of the same name.  In my opinion, it looks fantastic, but it definitely carries a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon vibe.  That’s not really a bad thing.  It’s funny: A lot of people, especially in the west, still seem to think that Hua Mulan was a princess, when in truth, she was anything but.  Even in the animated film, she defied the typical damsel-in-distress trope and literally brought the fight to her enemies.  While there have been many strong female characters in cinema, like Princess Leia and Ellen Ripley, I feel that the character of Hua Mulan deserves to be on that list.  Mulan: Rise of A Warrior is an absolutely fantastic film that takes a different approach than Disney, which works in its favor.  With strong characters and even better acting, Rise of A Warrior is a must-see for any fan of Eastern cinema.

My Final Recommendation:  Thank god there’s no talking dragon.  9.5/10

Released: June 2019

Director: John Herzfeld

Rated R

Run Time: 88 Minutes

Distributor: LionsGate Studios/Summit Entertainment

Genre: Action/Thriller

Cast:
Sylvester Stallone: Ray Breslin
Dave Bautista: Trent DeRosa
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson: Hush
Devon Sawa: Lester Clark, Jr.
Max Zhang: Shen
Jamie King: Abigail Ross
Melise: Daya Zhang
Daniel Bernhardt: Silva

It’s really bizarre that certain movies and certain kinds of movies that get sequels these days.  It’s especially bizarre to see sequels to movies that didn’t do very well at the box office.  To be fair, a good number of these films end up getting released directly to video.  The Dragonheart and Scorpion King sequels come readily to mind.  Obviously, some sequels are pretty much guaranteed to be made considering the success of their films: Star Wars, Fast and Furious, Saw, X-Men and Star Trek just to name a few.  But for some movies like I Spit On Your Grave, seeing a sequel to something like that has people going, “Where the hell did that come from?”  These days, I’m less concerned about where a sequel comes from.  I’m more interested in whether or not it’s any good.  So, today I am bringing my review of Escape Plan: The Extractors, the second sequel to 2013’s Escape Plan starring Sylvester Stallone.

Security expert Ray Breslin runs a company that determines how secure a prison really is.  One day, he’s approached by a Chinese gentleman, Shen, who tells him that the daughter of a billionaire tycoon has been kidnapped by the son of his former business partner.  While determining how best to rescue the hostage, Ray’s girlfriend, Abigail is also kidnapped and taken to a brutal and notorious prison in Latvia.  Calling on the services of his friend and partner, Trent, Ray and company head to Latvia to rescue the hostages.  Simplicity is the name of the game in movies like this, and I really do appreciate that.  It means the film doesn’t dick around playing with extravagant plot twists and conspiracies.  It gets right to the point.  That being said, we’ve all seen this movie before.  The original Escape Plan had a very interesting set-up involving Sly’s character busting out of prisons to prove how they are not entirely secure.  It was not a half bad film, but it wasn’t that great.  I haven’t seen Escape Plan 2: Hades, but from all accounts, it’s a terrible film.  For the third and final film, it plays out nearly exactly how you would expect it to, barring a minor twist or two.  The problem is, is that the story in The Extractors is about as far from the original story as you can possibly get.  The original film didn’t need a sequel, let alone two, but how this whole thing plays out is surprisingly underwhelming and not very compelling.

As far as acting is concerned, it’s not bad.  I’ll be honest: I’m a huge fan of Sylvester Stallone.  I’ve been a big fan for years.  Whether he’s playing Rocky Balboa, Rambo, or hell, even Judge Dredd, the guy is incredibly fun to watch.  As an actor, I think he’s definitely gotten better over the years as his performances in Rambo and Creed have proven.  Dave Bautista has always been an actor to watch these days.  Aside from Dwayne Johnson, Bautista is the only other former wrestler that I know of that has successfully managed to transition from wrestling to acting.  He’s actually a really good actor.  Most people will know him as Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy, but he’s put in some really strong performances in films like Final Score.  Max Zhang, who has become a huge star in his own right, plays Shen.  When it comes to Kung-Fu movies, Max Zhang is definitely one to keep an out for, as he’s done some really impressive stuff in films like Ip Man 3 and Kill Zone 2.  Devon Sawa…now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.  A long time.  The last time I saw him in a movie was 2000’s Final Destination.  While I’m not going to say that he’s a terrible actor, he hasn’t been in anything noteworthy since Final Destination.  He plays Lester Clark, Jr., the son of Breslin’s former partner, and seeks revenge for his father’s death.  I’m sorry, Sawa has too much of a “nice guy” vibe to him to really come across as a threatening villain.  Not really his fault, though.  Daniel Bernhardt, however, makes a pretty intimidating villain.  He’s an expert martial artist, and that always makes a villain intimidating.  He relishes being a bad guy, and he’s fun to watch.  Honestly, I would have made Bernhardt the main villain instead of Sawa.  Jamie King plays Abigail Ross, Breslin’s girlfriend and one of two damsels in distress.  Eh….?  She’s alright.  She’s certainly got more screen-time than 50 Cent, by at least 10 minutes.  Curtis Jackson, in my opinion, was a surprise from the original film.  I thought he was pretty good there, but he’s nothing more than an extended cameo in this film, despite the fact that he’s featured on the poster and DVD cover.

It takes a little bit to get to the action, but when it hits, it’s non-stop, and I really enjoyed the action here.  There’s no wire-fu going on.  This is good old-fashioned action in a lot of ways.  The fight sequences are really good.  Max Zhang, as far as I’m concerned, is the real star of the show.  Not only does have the charisma to carry a movie, has talents as a martial artist are on full display here.  His best fight and arguably the best one of the film is Zhang’s fight with Daniel Bernhardt.  David Bautista even gets to face off against his stunt double in the film, which makes for a pretty fun display.  The real interesting fight, though, is between Breslin and Clark.  Evidently it wasn’t choreographed at all.  They just winged it and it’s brutal.  While the fight sequences are pretty damn good and some of the kills are very satisfying, there are some issues with the action.  There’s a lot of poorly CGI effects that populate some of the more explosive sequences.  The blood is mostly CGI and the explosions are definitely CG, and it’s pretty obvious.  One thing you should note about the film is that it’s ugly.  Not just in tone, but in the way that it was filmed.  Don’t get me wrong, you can see what’s going with the fights.  The framing is good, but the picture quality is dog-shit.  I picked this up on Blu-Ray and the picture is awful.  I get that this was a very low-budget film, but couldn’t they have used better cameras?

There are a couple of other issues that I want to bring up.  For one, there’s a degree of logical inconsistencies going on here.  For one, Abigail and Daya are both captured from the United States and flown to Latvia.  How exactly does that happen, in this day and age?  Even if you’re flying in a private airplane from a private runway, there’s a lot of security involved in dealing with really important people.  You would expect that the security guys that they used would have been thoroughly vetted and investigated.  Also, the logistics of flying kidnapped people OUT of the United States isn’t exactly kosher.  With security around airports these days, you would figure that somebody would have suspected SOMETHING.  Ultimately, though, those are just some quibbles that I have.  As an action movie, Escape Plan: The Extractors isn’t an awful movie.  It’s got some pretty good things going for it, but it’s hampered by a low budget, poor picture quality and an overly generic story-line.  The action is damned good though, and it hits hard.  I have to give props for that.  Honestly, though, it’s just not that great of a movie.  It’s far from the worst that I’ve seen, but it’s nowhere near the best.  It’s strictly middle-of-the-road for me.

My Final Recommendation:  You’ll want an escape plan to get away from this franchise. 6/10

Released: March 2018

Director: Ahmed Khan

Run Time: 144 Minutes

Not Rated

Distributor: Fox Star Studios

Genre: Action/Romance/Thriller

Cast:
Tiger Schroff: Ranveer Pratap Singh
Disha Patani: Neha
Manoj Bajpayee: DIG Ajay Shergill
Randeep Hooda: Loha Sing Dhull
Deepak Dobriyal: Usman Langda

If you told me a decade ago that I would actually enjoy Bollywood movies by the year 2019, I would’ve laughed at you.  Seriously.  I would’ve told you to get out of my face.  Of all the countries that I’ve seen movies from, India was the one that I avoided the most.  Why?  Call it a cultural misunderstanding, if you will.  A lot of India’s movies were not necessarily made for the rest of the world.  I heard about India’s movies having some decent action and stories but constantly peppered with bizarre musical numbers.  That turned me off of their movies for the longest time.  I’ve since learned that music has important functions in India.  It’s important not just in entertainment, but also in terms of spirituality and religious practices, both of which are deeply ingrained within Hindi culture.  It wasn’t until Heropanti that I got my first taste of India’s cinematic offerings.  I was shocked at how much I actually enjoyed it.  Was it a great movie?  Not really, but I saw what they could do and that is what draws me towards Bollywood, now.  To most Westerners, movies from India can come across as cheesy, overly sappy, and completely silly.  Some of them really are, but these films have become a large part of their cultural identity.  I don’t want them to change that at all.  I want them to make better films for sure, but not at the expense of their soul.   I’ve since seen a few Bollywood action flicks since Heropanti.  Baaghi, Commando 2 and Baaghi 2.  Baaghi 2 is what I’m going to be looking at today.

Baaghi 2 opens as Neha is dropping off her daughter at school when she’s attacked by two masked gunmen.  After knocking her out, they kidnap her daughter, Rhea.  2 months later, Neha is continuing to look for her child, but either nobody cares, or they’ve never seen her little girl before.  Desperate, Neha contacts her ex-boyfriend, Ranveer, to help her.  Ranveer is a Captain in India’s Special Forces, but gets permission from his commanding officer to go on leave.  Ranveer decides to help Neha find her daughter, but soon discovers a sinister conspiracy.  Baaghi 2 is a sequel to 2016’s Baaghi in name only.  In fact, it’s a remake of a film from 2016 called Kshanam.  See?  Western cinema isn’t the only industry in the world to be plagued by remakes.  So, what do I think of the story?  It’s really not that bad, at least in my opinion.  The first half of the film is more about establishing what’s going on and character set up.  It does get a little too convoluted for it’s own good, though.  The second half of the film feels like an entirely different movie altogether.  It becomes more of a thriller and straight-up action flick.  The tonal differences between the two halves are night and day, and I don’t think it works the way that Ahmed Khan wanted it to.  I think the first Baaghi did it better.

In terms of performances, I think this is Tiger Schroff’s best performance yet, given what I’ve seen in previous years.  He actually puts more of an effort into actually acting than just looking good for the camera, although there’s plenty of that to go around.  Disha Patani plays Neha and…well….she’s certainly beautiful, but it takes more than good looks to have chemistry on screen.  I didn’t really see any of that between the two characters.  Yeah, there was a romance between them, but it didn’t feel natural, but then again, this is Bollywood we’re talking about, so there is a certain amount of give-and-take that you have to consider.  Overall, the acting isn’t terrible.  The musical numbers look pretty good and the songs are catchy, as they tend to be in these movies, but you can definitely tell that the singing isn’t done by the actors.  There’s a reason for that.  They may have been trained to dance, but singing is not part of their repertoire, that being said, I’ve long since learned to give Bollywood movies a lot of leeway when it comes to these things.  It’s just how they are, and on certain levels, it’s wonderful.

If there’s one thing that Baaghi 2 delivers on, it’s the action.  While the film can overdo it with slow motion, a lot of the time, you can definitely see what’s going on, and the fight sequences are well-choreographed.  There is a little bit of wire-work here, but like a lot of Bollywood films, the exaggeration is often on purpose to highlight the hero doing what he or she does best.  As I have stated on my other Bollywood film reviews, I try not to apply the same kind of standards that I do with other Asian or Western movies.  If I did that, the film would come across as being much worse than it actually is.  If there’s a complaint that I have with the action in the film, it’s the last half-hour.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s very spectacular, with Tiger’s character being a one-man army taking on a ton of bad guys.  There’s something inherently satisfying about that.  However, the film borrows a little too much from Sylvester Stallone’s First Blood.  Certain lines are literally ripped from the first Rambo film, which is ironic because Tiger Schroff is going to be Rambo in India’s remake of Stallone’s film.  Now, I’m curious, but I digress.  The actual hand-to-hand combat sequences are surprisingly hard-hitting and violent.  There’s a sequence where Tiger does a front flip and caves a guy’s head in.  Damn.  Tiger is an undiscovered action star, as far as I’m concerned.  I would really like to see him branch out from India’s film industry and be a part of something from other Eastern and Western films.

Baaghi 2 is not that bad.  It’s a hell of a lot better than Commando 2, I can tell you that right now.  However, I don’t think it’s as good as the first Baaghi.  The tone of the film is all over the place and some of the acting and musical numbers feel really out place.  It also runs a little too long at times.  144 minutes is kinda stretching it a bit.  It’s well-shot, though, with some pretty decent cinematography and the action is spot on and a lot of fun to watch.  Yeah, Bollywood is bonkers, but you know what?  That’s fine by me.  I could use a few more bonkers movies in my life.

My Final Recommendation:  It’s time to kick-ass, take names, and….dance? 8/10