Month: April 2020

Released: April 2020

Director: Ethan Spaulding

Rated R

Run Time: 80 Minutes

Distributor: Warner Bros. Animation

Genre: Action/Fantasy

Cast(voice):
Jennifer Carpenter: Sonya Blade
Joel McHale: Johnny Cage
Ike Amadi: Jax Briggs
Steve Blum: Bi-Han/Sub-Zero
Patrick Seitz: Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion
Artt Butler: Shang Tsung
Robin Atkin Downes: Kano
Dave B. Mitchell: Raiden
Jordan Rodrigues: Liu Kang

When Mortal Kombat hit the arcades back in 1992, it sent shock-waves throughout the entire gaming industry.  It became a pop culture phenomenon.  For those who may not know(unlikely, but I digress), Mortal Kombat is a 2D fighting game featuring digitized actors.  It was fantasy-based fighting game about a group of fighters being selected for a tournament which would determine the fate of the world.  Mortal Kombat’s main competitor was Street Fighter II.  The one real thing that Mortal Kombat had over the other game was….fatalities.  When you beat an opponent, you had the option of using a command that would kill the opponent in various ways.  It was this particular feature that not only made Mortal Kombat the phenomenon it was, but it also pissed off a lot of people, namely parents and politicians.  It led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board(ESRB, for short) which would help determine whether or not a particular game was appropriate for kids or not.  The level of violence in that original game is NOTHING compared to the likes of Mortal Kombat 11, the latest entry into the fighting game franchise.  But over the decades since MK’s initial release, we’ve seen it be translated into comics, movies, books, and TV series.  While MK has had its ups and downs in both the gaming and film departments, the popularity of the franchise hasn’t withered at all.  In fact, it’s gotten stronger with a new live-action film in production and a new animated feature that was recently released.  That animated feature is what I’ll be covering today: Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge.

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge follows Hanzo Hasashi, a master of the legendary Shirai-Ryu ninja clan as he and his son return home to find his clan massacred by the Lin Kuei, a rival clan of warriors, led by Sub-Zero.  After brutally dispatching a large number of the clan’s assailants, Hanzo and his son are killed by Sub-Zero.  Hanzo is sent to the mythical Netherworld where he makes a deal with sorcerer Quan-Chi in order to have revenge.  Thus, Hanzo is dead and Scorpion is born.  Mean-while, thunder god Raiden has recruited Sonya Blade, a special forces soldier in search of a notorious criminal.  He has also recruited Liu Kang, a monk of the White Lotus Society and Johnny Cage, a disgraced actor looking to make a come-back.  Together, they had to the island of the mysterious Shang Tsung to compete in Mortal Kombat, a tournament that will determine the fate of the world.  The world of Mortal Kombat has grown exponentially since the original game’s release in 1992.  The lore and the stories in this brutal alternate universe are really quite interesting.  Scorpion and Sub-Zero are two of the most recognizable video game characters ever, but it’s Scorpion’s story that is most intriguing.  This guy is a tragic character in that not only does he lose his family, but he’s also tricked into servitude because of his need for revenge.  While the film takes place during the initial Mortal Kombat tournament, the film’s real focus is on Scorpion and his journey, and it’s a very violent one.  Getting to see how and why Scorpion became what he is, is quite compelling.

Adapting Mortal Kombat for something other than a video-game has been….problematic, to say the least.  In 1995, we got our first live-action film, which while it was entertaining and relatively faithful to the game in terms of characters and overall story, people weren’t happy with it, because it was a PG-13 movie.  Because of that, the violence that the franchise was famous or infamous for, was severely subdued.  I didn’t think it was a bad movie at all.  In fact, it was, and still remains, one of the best movies based on a video game.  The sequel: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was a complete disaster in nearly every way with bad special effects, horrendous acting and weak fight choreography.  Mortal Kombat would also get a live-action TV series with Conquest, which only lasted one season and was to be a prequel to the original film.  Scorpion’s Revenge isn’t Mortal Kombat’s first foray into the world of animation.  The first one was Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins which somehow ended up being a hell of a lot worse than Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.  There was also a short-lived children’s cartoon called Defenders of the Realm which didn’t last very long, either.  Where Scorpion’s Revenge succeeds where all others have failed, is that Revenge truly embraces what Mortal Kombat was all about.  This is not a cartoon for children.  This is a proper ultra-violent flick that made me wince on more than one occasion.  It is SAVAGE.  People are eviscerated left and right.  Decapitations, disembowelments, and plenty of stabbing action are par for the course here.  It doesn’t hold back.  In fact, it also embraces what the last couple of games introduced, the X-rays.  This is when an opponent is hit so hard that you see the internals of the character get busted up.  It’s visceral and the film is all the better for it.

I honestly can’t believe it took them 20 years to do a proper animated Mortal Kombat movie.  The artwork is absolutely amazing with some really great character designs.  You can clearly tell who is who.  Not only that, but the backgrounds are also really slick.  The animation is as over-the-top as the concept of the film and it really works.  When people get diced(that’s putting it politely), you get to see all the gory details.  The action is constant and it rarely slows down.  If you’re a fan of Mortal Kombat, you get to see many of your favorite characters here.  How many of them will actually survive by the end of the film?  Well, you’ll just have to see for yourself.  The characters in the film are all unique and fairly well-developed, but it does bring me to one my issues with the film:  For a film titled Scorpion’s Revenge, the film shifts the focus away from Scorpion for quite a bit, covering the actual tournament.  I would have been okay with it, had the tournament aspect of the film been kept to a minimum.  It’s an important part of the lore and it certainly is an important aspect for Scorpion’s story, but his focus was on getting revenge.  For the film to deviate from Scorpion for large chunks of the film was kind of unwarranted.

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge isn’t the greatest film, or even the best animated film that I’ve seen.  It definitely has issues, but for me, those issues don’t outweigh the strong elements that the film delivers.  It delivers on the action and outside of the opening 7 minutes, it doesn’t take itself seriously.  It’s as over-the-top as you would expect from a Mortal Kombat movie.  You’ve got some pretty solid voice-acting overall and the animated action is really good.  When it comes to recommending this film, that’s another issue that came up.  If you know nothing of Mortal Kombat or aren’t a fan, this isn’t for you.  This is a film for the fans, first and foremost.  A lot of the elements that you see here are only going to be noticed by people who have been playing the game for years, like me.  If you ARE a fan of the franchise and animated films, this one is worth checking out.

My Final Recommendation: For fans only. 8/10.

Released: April 2020

Director: Sam Hargrave

Rated R

Run Time: 116 Minutes

Distributor: Netflix

Genre: Action/Thriller

Cast:
Chris Hemsworth: Tyler Rake
Golshifteh Farahani: Nik Khan
Rudhraksh Jaiswal: Ovi Mahajan
Piyush Khati: Arjun
David Harbour: Gaspar

It’s pretty rough out there, right now.  We’ve got the Covid-19 virus making its rounds throughout the world and forcing people to maintain a distance of at least 6 feet from each other.  A lot of places and services have shut down during this pandemic.  One of the industries that’s getting clobbered right now is the film industry and that includes movie theaters.  Nearly every walk-in movie theater around the world is closed, with most drive-ins following suit.  As a result, movies that were supposed to be releasing within the next month or two have been pushed back by months or even up to a year.  In fact, some films have gone the way of direct-to-VOD as a result.  Those ones are generally the films that weren’t expected to make a lot of money anyway, but still, what’s happening now is pretty savage.  I haven’t been the theaters in over a month, and I’m not expecting to see the inside of one for another 3 or 4 at the very earliest.  That being said, there are still alternatives when it comes to watching new movies.  Not everybody likes the idea, but there are new movies coming out that are specifically being released for various VOD platforms like Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix.  There’s a lot of content out there to be enjoyed, especially at a time like this.  One of the new movies that was released this month is on Netflix by the name of Extraction.

Extraction follows mercenary Tyler Rake as he’s hired to rescue the kidnapped son of a notorious international drug lord.  After rescuing young Ovi, Tyler tries to get the kid out of the city which is on lock-down by the gangster that kidnapped Ovi, but he has to avoid not only the local police, but also the hired soldiers from both gangsters.  That’s about as simple a set-up as you can get for an action movie, and at the base level, it works.  However, if you’re expecting something more profound or life-changing, keep looking.  There is nothing here that you haven’t seen before in terms of narrative.  In fact, I would actually argue that it’s not one of the better films of this kind.  It’s very predictable in terms of its execution and conclusion with certain moments being telegraphed a mile away.  There are also moments between action set-pieces that slow the film to a crawl.  There are moments when we see flashes of Tyler’s earlier life and what happened to his family, but it all feels incredibly forced.  Honestly, I think the film would have been better served if the main hero had remained a mystery.  There’s precedent for that.  There are lot of films out there where we know and learn essentially NOTHING about the main character, yet he/she still remain compelling BECAUSE of the mystery.

While Extraction doesn’t have a whole lot going for it in terms of story or characterization, it’s the action that moves the film along.  When it comes to action, this film is an absolute blast.  The shoot-outs are intense and the hand-to-hand sequences are brutal.  One of the best action sequences in the film is a 12-minute long chase sequence.  This scene is awesome, because it looks like it was all done in one take.  It wasn’t, but it was made to look like it was, and it’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in action movie.  Now, I’ve seen that kind of film-making used before in 1917, but that was for an entire film, this was just used for a particular sequence.  The way camera moves in and out of the vehicles is mind-blowing.  There are also a lot of explosions and awesome stunts on display here.  When the film is in action-mode, it fires on all cylinders, and there’s a lot of action in this film.  Almost too much, for some people.  If you’re looking for a film that blows shit up and has Chris Hemsworth running around beating the living daylights out of people, this is the film for you.

Chris Hemsworth has come a long way since playing Captain Kirk’s dad in the 2009 Star Trek reboot.  The movie that really put him on the map was Thor.  He’s been kicking ass ever since.  That being said, he’s also had some misses along the way, but you really can’t fault the guy for putting everything into every role that he’s had.  Even his stint in the ill-fated Ghostbusters reboot was hilarious.  The guy has range and is easily the most talented of the Hemsworth clan.  Here, he can obviously handle himself pretty well in terms of physicality.  Unfortunately, given how the character is written, Chris isn’t given a lot to do with aside from creating havoc and having some smoldering intensity.  That’s pretty much it.  The rest of the acting in the film is serviceable if not remarkable.  Stranger Things’ David Harbour is essentially nothing more than an extended cameo, but he’s still pretty good, even if his character arc is painfully predictable.

You know, for a film that was scripted and produced by the Russo Brothers, who did Captain America: Winter Soldier, Civil War and the last two Avengers films, I expected a bit more than what I got here.  Chris Hemsworth’s character of Tyler is pretty one-note as are the villains.  The dialogue is simplistic and not overly convincing.  There were supposed to be some emotional moments here and there, but they really come across as cliche and forced.   I honestly didn’t really care about the majority of characters in the film.  Also, a lot of the problems that I see in this film are the result of a first-time director.  Sam Hargrave is known for his stunt-work and stunt co-ordination.  You would think it would make sense for a guy whose specialty is action to helm an action film, like say, Chad Stahelsky or Jesse V. Johnson.  While you can tell that Sam is still new at directing a movie, the action sequences are second-to-none.  These are some of the best action sequences I’ve seen in a movie of this kind.  Also, to be fair to Sam, I’ve seen worse when it comes to directorial debuts.  A lot worse.  Honestly, if Extraction is any indication, Sam Hargrave has a lot of potential to be one of the best action film directors.  He knows his stuff, but I think he needs to work on the smaller and dramatic moments if he’s really going to stand out as a full-blown director.  If all you want is balls-to-the-wall action, you’ll get it and then some.  But if you’re looking for anything more than that, you’re not going to find it here.

My Final Recommendation: Come for the action, stay for the action…..and Chris Hemsworth’s smoldering intensity.  7.5/10

Released: December 2019(Hong Kong)

Director: Wilson Yip

Not Rated

Run Time: 106 Minutes

Distributor: Well Go USA

Genre: Action

Cast:
Donnie Yen: Ip Man
Scott Adkins: Barton Geddes
Danny Kwok-Kwan Chen: Bruce Lee
Vanness Wu: Hartman Wu
Yue Wu: Wan Zong Hua
Chris Collins: Colin Frater
Vanda Margraf: Wan Yonah

I’ve been watching Kung-Fu movies for as long as I can remember.  If I remember correctly, but this was a long time ago, my first Kung-Fu movie was Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon.  It was absolutely one of the most influential films of the 20th century.  Unfortunately, it was also Bruce Lee’s last completed film before he died in 1973.  Yet, because of Bruce Lee, we have legends like Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan to pick up where Lee left off and the rest is history.  The genre saw a huge explosion not just in the East, but the West as well.  Drunken Master, A Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Millionaire’s Express and even modern martial arts films like Ong-Bak might not have happened if it weren’t for Bruce Lee.  Yet, behind every legendary martial artist throughout history, there’s a master that taught them everything they knew.  For Bruce Lee, that man was the equally legendary grandmaster of Wing Chun, Ip Man.  The movie I bring to you today is the final film for Donnie Yen’s interpretation of the grandmaster, Ip Man 4: The Finale.

Following the death of his wife, Grandmaster Ip Man himself has come down with cancer and is struggling to try and support his son, Ip Ching.  After learning that Ip Ching got kicked out of school, Ip Man decides to travel to San Francisco to find a suitable school for his son.  While there, he learns that a former student, Bruce Lee, has been accused of causing tension with Chinatown’s Kung-Fu masters.  At the same time, another of Ip Man’s students, Hartman Wu, has been butting heads with a racist Marine platoon commander, Gunnery Sergeant Barton Geddes.  While I’m not saying that the story in Ip Man 4 is bad, far from it, but there’s a lot going on here.  You’ve got the tension between Bruce Lee and the Kung-Fu masters, which was a real issue back then.  You’ve got Ip Man trying to find a new school for his son, but he also has to deal with a racist Marine sergeant.  There’s a lot being juggled here, and not all of it is handled properly.  The issue with Bruce Lee and the Kung-Fu masters gets pushed to the side pretty quickly and throwing Ip Man into the mix didn’t really make a lot of sense, since he wasn’t actually a part of that issue.  I think that each of the film’s plot-points could have been enough for a single movie.  Narratively, the film felt kind of jumbled, but the focus was still on Ip Man and what he’s been dealing with.   From a story-telling standpoint, I feel that Ip Man 3 was a better film.

In terms of performances, it’s pretty solid across the board.  The guy that plays Bruce Lee, Danny Kwok-Kwan Chan, is pretty good and there are moments where he really looks like Bruce.  It makes sense, the resemblance is striking and Chan was trained in Jeet Kune Do, so it made sense for him to be cast as the character.  Some of the side characters are an absolute hoot to watch.  You’ve got Chris Collins as Karate Instructor Colin Frater and he’s basically a blunt instrument, which is odd, because Collins is also trained in Wing Chun.  Seeing Scott Adkins in an Ip Man film is amazing.  Not only is Adkins an amazing martial artist in his own right, but he’s really been knocking it out of the park over the past couple years with outstanding performances in movies like Accident Man and Avengement.  He’s gotten a lot better as an actor over the years.  Here, he gets the chance to really ham it up as Gunnery Sergeant Geddes.  As despicable as the character, you really can’t take your eyes off him because he’s so much fun to watch.  It’s clear that Scott is having a blast playing this character.  Donnie Yen, who is pushing 60 at this point, still remains the best actor to play Ip Man.  There have been others over the years, but nobody has done it quite the way Donnie has.  Again, Donnie Yen is a world-class martial artist, but he’s also a fantastic actor.  His portrayal of the grandmaster has always been amazing.  He gives the character a very human and surprisingly optimistic performance and you just can’t help but root for the character to win.

When it comes to Kung-Fu movies, you would expect some fight scenes, right?  Well, let me tell you:  Ip Man 4 delivers the goods.  Legendary(I keep using that word, but it’s true)action director Yuen Woo-Ping returns to choreograph the fight sequences in this film, and surprisingly it’s mostly grounded.  There is some wire-work here and there, but it’s mostly been kept to a minimum.  There’s a street fight between Bruce Lee and a handful of Karate practitioners that was pretty solid.  There’s also an amazing sequence between Ip Man and the local Tai Chi master which was really cool, but the real showstopper here and one that a lot of fans having been waiting for is the final battle between Donnie Yen’s Ip Man and Scott Adkins’ Sergeant Geddes.  This final battle is almost as good as the one from the previous film.  Scott Adkins and Donnie Yen absolutely match each other beat for beat and it’s just exciting to watch.

I’ve seen a lot of film series come to a close over the past couple of years and not all of them stuck their landings.  Star Wars is the most recent one and it didn’t stick the landing.  Ip Man 4, for all the issues that it may have, it gives the series and the character a fitting and heroic send-off.  I think the film could have been better served by tightening up some of the narrative threads, but what we ended up getting was still very solid and compelling and Donnie Yen gives his best performance as Ip Man yet.  Scott Adkins always makes for an entertaining villain and his fight with Donnie Yen is one for the ages.  I’ve been a huge fan of the Ip Man films since the first one appeared in 2009.  I think fans of the series are going to be pleased with this one.  For the most part, I know I was.  Ip Man 4 isn’t perfect, and I don’t think it’s the strongest entry in the series, but it’s still a hell of a Kung-Fu movie and it’s one that I highly recommend.

My Final Recommendation: 8.5/10

Released: January 2020

Director: Sam Mendes

Rated R

Run Time: 119 Minutes

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: War/Drama

Cast:
Dean-Charles Chapman: Lance Corporal Blake
George MacKay: Lance Corporal Schofield
Colin Firth: General Erinmore
Andrew Scott: Lieutenant Leslie
Benedict Cumberbatch: Colonel Mackenzie
Richard Madden: Lieutenant Joseph Blake
Mark Strong: Captain Smith

When it comes to war movies, I’ve seen a lot of films that deal with different wars throughout history.  Some of my favorite war movies include Saving Private Ryan, We Were Soldiers, Hamburger Hill, Apocalypse Now, Black Hawk Down, and Glory.  Some of those films cover World War II, Vietnam, and the American Civil War.  Those periods have tendency to get the most attention, because they’re extremely popular subjects in history and film.  But there are some periods in history which don’t get a lot of attention: The Korean War, The War of 1812, and more specifically, World War I.  World War I was a game-changer in many ways in terms of how we conduct combat on the battlefield.  The old-style of having entire battalions line up and charge at each other no longer worked, because technology had changed.  Instead of muskets, we now had machine guns, airplanes, and chemical warfare.  WWI was one of the most devastating conflicts that the world had seen up to that point.  While it was touted as “The War to End All Wars,” all it ended up doing was leading to World War II, a war that made the first one look like child’s play.  World War I is a backdrop that not many films use these days.  We saw it as the background of Wonder Woman, but we really haven’t seen a dedicated war movie about WWI in a long time.  There have been a few: All Quiet on the Western Front, Flyboys, War Horse, and most recently, 1917.  1917 is the film that I will be covering today.

1917 follows Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield as they are tasked with delivering orders to another British battalion instructing them to not press forward with their attack.  The Germans are leading them into a trap and it’s up to Blake and Schofield to deliver the orders on time to prevent the deaths of over 16,000 men.  One of those men happens to be Blake’s older brother.  So, with orders and supplies in hand, the two make their way across the treacherous No Man’s Land and across the country-side in order to accomplish their mission.  As simple as the story seems to be, it’s still very compelling, because it’s about two soldiers trying to do their duty in the face of overwhelming odds and without knowing what might get in the way.  The other thing is that the story is inspired in part by the stories that were told by Sam Mendes’ grandfather, Alfred Mendes, who served in the 1st Rifle Brigade along the Belgian Front.  So, if the story feels personal, that’s because it kind of is for the director.  The story presented here is fiction, but there is an element of truth and authenticity that makes it so compelling.

The first thing I want to talk about with this film before I get into anything else, is the cinematography and editing.  I honestly don’t think I’ve really seen a movie that was made this way before.  The cinematography is beyond exceptional.  I’ve made comments about how movies like Joker have great cinematography, but 1917 beats them all.  I usually don’t go into detail about cinematography, outside of how well the film looks, but there’s a reason for why this movie won Best Cinematography.  The way this movie was filmed is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.  I’ve seen movies that have long takes in them, but for an entire film to feel like it’s one long take?  I’ve never seen anything like that before.  This is also where the film’s editing is absolutely brilliant.  There are cuts in the movie at the end of certain scenes, but you don’t notice them, and that’s because of Roger Deakins’ cinematography.  I was watching the special features on the Blu-Ray, and it just blows my mind with what they did here.  Every set that you see in the film was created in a way that the scene had to be the same length as the set.  For a example, if a scene lasted 8 minutes, the actors had to walk for 8 minutes.  It was the same deal for each set after that, and they never used the same set twice.  This helped keep the flow of the film going smoothly.  The camera-work is truly exceptional, because of the techniques that they used.  The logistics for a movie done this way is mind-boggling.  I would say that it’s not something that every movie should use, as it is pretty experimental, but it really worked for this film.  Roger Deakins is a true master of his craft and he’s earned his Academy Award.

Because 1917 focuses on Blake and Schofield, everybody else gets pushed to the side, but again, that’s for the flow of the film.  There are a number of high-profile cameos in the film, however.  Colin Firth as General Erinmore, Andrew Scott as Lieutenant Leslie, Mark Strong as Captain Smith, Game of Thrones alumni Richard Madden as Lieutenant Blake, and fan-favorite Benedict Cumberbatch as Colonel Mackenzie.  They all show up for only a few minutes in the film, but they still manage to make a huge impression.  As I said, though, the film’s focus is on Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield, played by Dean-Charles Chapman(also from Game of Thrones) and George MacKay respectively.  The acting on display here is superb, even if the characterization is minimal.  It’s minimal in the same way that Dunkirk had minimal characterization, but there’s enough here to make us give a damn.

For anybody expecting Saving Private Ryan levels of violence here, you’re not going to get it.  In fact, I would argue that it’s not a super-violent movie.  It has its moments for sure, but it doesn’t dwell on them.  There are some disturbing images for sure, but those are to be expected on the battlefield, especially No Man’s Land.  But even though there’s not a lot of violence, the movie is incredibly intense, because we the audience are on the same journey as Blake and Schofield.  In fact, the way the film is made, there are moments when you feel like you are part of the team.  That’s not to say that there aren’t any war moments in the film, there are.  They are spectacular.  For a war film, 1917 is surprisingly and brilliantly restrained, as I think it needed to be.  You don’t need graphic violence to illustrate the intensity of war.  I would love for a World War I movie to be made in the style of Saving Private Ryan with all the graphic violence included, but 1917 is not that kind of film, and I respect it for that.  Are there any real negatives about this film?  Not really.  No film is perfect, but any nitpicks that I have are just that, nitpicks.  Quite frankly, it isn’t worth my time or effort to spell out nitpicks.  The overall quality of the film speaks for itself.  Sam Mendes has proven time and time again that he is an excellent director and he surrounds himself with the best people, including Roger Deakins.  I love this movie in every aspect.  It is, in my opinion, a modern masterpiece with an outstanding technical achievement in film-making.  This is the kind of film that you want students in film school to take a look at and see how a film can pioneer new story-telling techniques.  Even for those who may not be war movie buffs like me, 1917 is worth watching for the cinematography alone.  Why I missed this one in theaters, I will never know, but it comes with my highest recommendation.

My Final Recommendation: 10/10.  This is a must-see film for anybody who considers themselves a film enthusiast.