Month: March 2021

Released: January 1994

Director: Kim Henkel

Rated R

Run Time: 87 Minutes

Distributor: New Line Cinema

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Renee Zellweger: Jenny
Matthew McConaughey: Vilmer
Robert Jacks: Leatherface
Tonie Perensky: Darla
Joe Stevens: W.E. Slaughter
Lisa Marie Newmeyer: Heather
John Harrison: Sean
Tyler Shea Cone: Barry

At some point, certain film franchises get to the point where they inevitably become parodies of themselves.  Most of the time, it’s not intentional.  When a franchise starts losing steam, film-makers try to do everything they can to try and renew interest in these movies.  Sometimes it means taking the franchise in a different direction, like Wrong Turn.  But to get to the point, a film has to fail so badly at nearly everything that there really is no choice but to either kill the franchise entirely, or reboot it.  Franchises like Batman, Alien, Terminator, Superman, and Jaws are perfect examples of this happening.  When film-makers run out of ideas, they try to pull the “over-the-top” which lands the film squarely in camp territory, making the problem worse.  Batman and Robin is the perfect example here.  While Forever was still a decent effort, Batman and Robin went full-on camp and nearly capsized the film franchise entirely.  Thankfully, Warner Bros. was smart enough to bring in Christopher Nolan to reboot Batman for a new audience and the rest is history.  With Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, the franchise went full Batman and Robin 3 years before Batman and Robin came out.  I got curious enough to see how bad people were saying it was.  Sweet Jesus-Jumpin’ On-a -Pogo-stick Christ was this movie a wreck.

TCM: The Next Generation follows teenagers Jenny, Sean, Heather, and Barry as they leave Prom and head out into the night.  They inevitable take a wrong turn and eventually run afoul of a murderous family led by the totally unhinged Vilmer.  That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.  The story then devolves into what appears to be a conspiracy involving a shadowy government-style corporation.  It’s ridiculous.  I’ve been a fan of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series since I first saw the 2003 remake.  While story has never been a strong-suit of these films, they were at least chaotic enough to give such a flaw a pass.  The original 1974 film didn’t have much of a story, but what was there gave the film a nightmarish feeling.  You had no idea what was going on or why, and those answers never really came, hence the nightmarish feeling.  It was a raw and gritty affair.  The second film, which was also directed by Tobe Hooper, deliberately went full-on camp and silly, and for the most part, it worked.  How could you top the insanity of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre?  You couldn’t, so Hooper gave the second film a different kind of insanity.  It was this kind of insanity that drove the following sequels.  TCM III wasn’t awful, it was pretty fun, but The Next Generation?  I don’t know what happened here, but some film-makers and even cast members thought that this film was going to kill their careers before they even got started.

Let’s talk about the acting here.  It’s a mixed bag.   It’s an over-the-top mixed bag.  Renee Zellweger plays Jenny….and let’s just say that Ms. Zellweger has eventually become a fantastic actress in her own right.  This movie did her no favors.  Chalk it up to piss-poor writing with her inexperience, and you have a recipe for one of the worst performances of her career.  Thankfully, it happened early on enough that it really didn’t do a ton of damage, and she was able to rebound from it.  The rest of the victims were equally terrible to the point where I’m not even going to mention them by name.  I’m not blaming the actors entirely, as it wasn’t their fault for a god-awful script.  Matthew McConaughey.  I have to say that this guy excels at nearly every role that he plays.  Vilmer is one of Mr. McConaughey’s earlier roles, but I would like to think it’s one of his more memorable.  Not always for the right reasons, but he’s so much fun to watch here.  He has a unique kinetic energy that you rarely see from actors playing the bad guy.  The character is so over-the-top, but unpredictable at the same time.  Matthew gave it his all and it paid off, I think.  Toni Perensky plays his girlfriend, Darla.  Her character isn’t as wild as Vilmer, but Darla is just as bonkers.  Robert Jacks plays Leatherface in this film.  The character has been played by a lot of people over the years, but the late Gunnar Hansen started it all with the 1974 picture.  The only other actor to really make Leatherface feel like a serious threat was Andrew Bryniarski from the remake.  With all due respect to the late Robert Jacks, his version of Leatherface was a laughable shell of a villain.  He’s loud, incompetent, and not all that scary.  Vilmer is a far more terrifying character.

When the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out back in 1974, it was criticized for it’s “extreme” level of violence and gore.  Here’s the thing, though: The original film really wasn’t gory at all.  In point of fact, there was barely any blood spilled.  Yeah it was violent and you saw a girl get put onto a meat-hook, but you didn’t actually see the hook enter her skin.  The gore in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was implied, but never shown.  People’s imaginations filled in the blanks, and THAT was far more effective than actually showing what was going on.  That was the brilliance of the original TCM.  Starting with the 1986 sequel, TCM has become gory in a lot of the movies.  The 2006 prequel is by far the goriest film of the bunch.  The Next Generation really isn’t super-violent.  In fact, there’s barely any gore at all and most of the deaths happen off-screen.  I get that less can be more, but when you have a film called Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you expect…well…a massacre, and we really didn’t get that here.  It was very disappointing on that level.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films have had their ups and downs over the years, and the franchise totally schizophrenic in its continuity, but I always avoided The Next Generation because of it’s reputation.  There’s a reason for that.  This is easily the worst film in the franchise by a country mile.  Say what you will about the 2012 film, it at least delivered on the carnage that we’ve come to expect from movies like these.  Same thing with the 2003 remake and that film’s prequel.  Those film-makers understood what the audiences had wanted and for the most part delivered.  Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation went full Batman and Robin, and you never go full Batman and Robin.  Ever.  Outside of a deliciously unhinged performance by Matthew McConaughey, this movie fails in nearly every other aspect.  I’m astonished that this film got a full-blown Blu-Ray re-release from Shout! Factory.  I don’t know why.  Most of the people involved with this film have distanced themselves from it, especially Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey.  This movie did NOBODY any favors and is the only film that Kim Henkel(the writer of the original film)has directed.  Come and stay for Matthew McConaughey’s performance, but forget everything else.  This is a film that should stay relegated to the dust-bin of film history.

My Final Recommendation: Good grief.  This thing is BAD.  2/10

Released: January 2013

Director: John Luessenhop

Rated R

Run Time: 92 Minutes

Distributor: Lionsgate Studios

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Alexandra Daddario: Heather Miller
Tremaine Neverson: Ryan
Dan Yeager: Leatherface
Scott Eastwood: Carl
Tania Raymonde: Nikki
Shaun Sipos: Darryl
Thom Barry: Sheriff Hooper
Paul Rae: Burt Hartman
Bill Moseley: Drayton Sawyer
Gunnar Hansen: Boss Sawyer/Leatherface(archive footage)
Marilyn Burns: Verna/Sally Hardesty(archive footage)

When the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released back in 1974, it sent shockwaves throughout the film industry.  While 1973 saw the release of the supernatural shocker, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre hit with the subtlety of a meat tenderizer.  It shocked audiences around the world with it’s level of violence.  So much so, that the MPAA(now MPA)had ordered the film to get an X rating because of its violence.  Here’s the thing: Horror movies in the 70s had a mean streak a mile wide.  The aforementioned Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left, and even Alien had a mean streak.  Some of them ended up on the U.K.’s “Video Nasties” list.  Boundaries were being pushed in all aspects of every day life during the 70s.  Everything from the Civil Rights movement to the antiwar protests during the Vietnam War influenced the direction that these movies were going.  I mean, what better to way to call attention to the issues of the period than movies that depicted the level of violence that was prevalent during the 70s.  There was a lot of social commentary in many of those movies.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre really wasn’t one of them.  As someone had once said, it was about the meat.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre didn’t ruminate on the goings-on of the 70s, all it did was just showing people going into areas where they weren’t supposed go and get slaughtered.  Nobody had seen anything quite like it.  Most people didn’t know what to make of it, other than to complain to their politicians about it.  The film was both revered and reviled by what it was.  While one could consider Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho to be the truly first slasher movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre truly revolutionized to the term and genre.  Since 1974, the film has gotten multiple sequels, remakes, and prequels.  One of which is 2012’s Texas Chainsaw.

Texas Chainsaw picks up in 1974 immediately following Sally’s escape from the cannibalistic Sawyer clan.  Officer Hooper shows up at the compound demanding that Drayton Sawyer and his family hand over Jedidiah Sawyer, also known as Leatherface, for the brutal murder of Sally’s friends.  Before he can comply, a large group of vigilantes led by Burt Hartman show up and lay waste to the Sawyers, burning the house to the ground and killing nearly every Sawyer in the building.  The only survivor is a baby girl who is “adopted” by a pair of the vigilantes.  Some years later, the baby girl has grown up into Heather Miller, who receives a message saying that she’s inherited a large house in Texas from a previously unknown grandparent, who happened to be a Sawyer.  I actually think that it was pretty clever of the film to start off in 1974 right after Sally escapes.  In fact, the opening credits of the film use footage from the original film.  Again, it seems pretty clever on the surface.  Unfortunately, the film-makers made a massive error in writing here.  See, the infant in 1974 is supposed to be Heather, but the majority of the film takes place in 2012, which would make the character closer to 40 years old.  This is a massive issue because the film-makers knew about it, but they hoped/counted on the audience being stupid enough to not catch it.  It was a mathematical error that could’ve been addressed by setting the film during the 90s, when Heather would actually be in her 20s.  In fact, the movie actually tries to go out of its way to avoid clarifying the issue.  Nearly every date that involves August 19 has the year hidden.  They clearly didn’t keep that up when they showed Verna’s grave with the 2012 on the gravestone.  If they screwed that up, what else did they screw up?  The story has some interesting ideas, especially in humanizing Leatherface, despite his horrendous actions.  In fact, the story infers that a blood feud existed between the Hartman family and the Sawyers.  You know, kind of like the Hatfields and McCoys, but with more cannibalism.  In the hands of better film-makers, this could’ve actually worked better than it does.  Making Leatherface a more sympathetic character is NOT the worst idea in the world, especially when you consider that Leatherface is basically an adult with the mental workings of an 8-year old.  I honestly think that’s something that could’ve been explored a bit more.  You know, kind of a nature vs. nurture kind of thing.  Sadly, the writers either didn’t have the spine or the ability to pull something like that off.  Because of that, what we ended up with is a rather generic slasher film that happens to bare the name Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I have to admit, I was legitimately surprised when they brought on some of the actors from the original film.  Gunnar Hansen, who played the original Leatherface, has a cameo here as a different member of the Sawyer clan.  John Dugan, who played Grandpa Sawyer in the original, actually returns to play the same character here.  So, there’s some continuity there.  Marilyn Burns, who played Sally in the original film, plays Verna Sawyer, so it’s kind of an interesting twist.  Sadly, Hansen and Burns have since passed away, but having them show up in Texas Chainsaw was pretty damn cool.  Alexandra Daddario plays Heather, and she’s really the best part here.  Tremaine Neverson plays her boyfriend, Ryan while Tania Raymonde plays Nikki.  Bill Moseley plays Drayton Sawyer, and does his best to channel Jim Siedow as Drayton.  He does a pretty good, considering that this isn’t Moseley’s first foray into the realm of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  He showed up as Chop-Top in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.  Ever since then, he’s been in countless horror movies including 1988’s The Blob and Army of Darkness.  He’s most famous for playing the character of Otis in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, and 3 From Hell.  He’s a fantastic actor, and he nails it as Drayton.  Like Jason Voorhees, there have been a number of different people that have played Leatherface.  Gunnar Hansen was the first, while Bill Johnson would take over in the original part 2, and then we would see Andrew Bryniarski put on the mask for the remake and that film’s prequel.  Sam Strike would play the young version of Leatherface in the 2017 film called…Leatherface.  For the 2012 film, we got Dan Yeager.  He’s not bad at all.  He really isn’t.  While the character is still pretty brutal, you can see a hint of humanity in the eyes, and that’s Dan Yeager’s work.  Everybody else though is basically cannon fodder.

One of the things that really made the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre stand out was how so many people thought that it was the goriest movie ever made.  That really couldn’t be further from the truth.  While the film is violent, there’s really not a whole lot of blood spilled.  What got people was what they THOUGHT they saw.  The gore in the original film was more implied than anything else, leaving the brutality in the imaginations of the audience.  That was absolutely brilliant.  The late director Tobe Hooper would direct the film’s original sequel, but he gave that film a very different tone.  It was more goofy and silly, while actually gory.  There were some really gruesome moments in TCM 2.  You know what?  That was okay, it was a different kind of horror movie than the original, so it could get away with it.  Sadly, the franchise has relied more on gore and brutality since then, especially in the remake and the prequel.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that those movies had a gory mean streak.  But the truth is, none of those movies really had the edge and spark that the original film had.  It was new and terrifying.  Texas Chainsaw doesn’t really do anything to differentiate itself from any other slasher movie outside of the name.  Yeah, the gore is pretty good, especially when one guy gets sawed in half and another gets tossed in an industrial meat grinder, but the whole thing just feels to tame to be a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film.  In fact, I would actually argue that Texas Chainsaw is the wimpiest of the bunch.

In addition to the fact that Texas Chainsaw is the tamest of the bunch, it also shamelessly copies moments from the original movie.  There’s a moment when Leatherface sticks a guy on a giant meathook, but there’s also the jump-scare sequence in which somebody opens up a freezer and a girl pops up.  We’ve already seen that.  There’s also the hitchhiker.  Yep.  There’s a lot of moments in the film like that, that just don’t feel earned.  There’s also a scene during a carnival that had the potential to truly live up to the original name, but the film-makers chose not to capitalize on the moment.  Do I actually hate this movie?  No.  In fact, I actually enjoyed it for what it was.  It was a run-of-the-mill slasher movie that just happened to have the name Texas Chainsaw without actually understanding what made the original film such a classic in the first place.  In the hands of better film-makers, Texas Chainsaw could’ve been one of the greats.  Sadly, what we got is actually for more generic and formulaic than the film that inspired it.  Yeah, it got several of the original actors on board, but that doesn’t help the fact that Texas Chainsaw should not have been called that.  It’s not good enough to beat the re-make, but at the same time it’s not bad enough to be Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.  It sits somewhere in the middle, only to be forgotten.  There were plans to make more sequels to this one, but that’s not happening.  What is happening is that a new direct sequel to the original film is being made.  This time it’s being produced by Fede Alvarez, who directed the Evil Dead remake and Don’t Breathe.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is obviously hard to kill, despite numerous unintended attempts to do so.  The idea of a chainsaw-wielding maniac that wears human faces as a mask is a pretty horrifying idea.  In the hands of the right film-makers, Leatherface can be terrifying again.  Here’s hoping.

My Final Recommendation: Don’t look in the basement.  6/10.

Released: March 18

Director: Zack Snyder

Run Time: 4 Hours 2 Minutes

Rated R

Distributor: Warner Bros/HBO Max

Genre: Action/Adventure

Cast:
Ben Affleck: Bruce Wayne/Batman
Henry Cavill: Clark Kent/Superman
Gal Gadot: Diana Prince/Wonder Woman
Diane Lane: Martha Kent
Jared Leto: The Joker
Ezra Miller: Barry Allen/The Flash
Jason Momoa: Arthur Curry/Aquaman
Ray Fisher: Victor Stone/Cyborg

When I reviewed Oliver Stone’s Alexander, I brought up how I generally felt about extended versions of movies.  While most extended versions only add a few minutes of additional footage, and maybe some more blood and a few F-bombs here and there, those versions generally don’t distinguish themselves very much from the theatrically released product.  But there are a number of movies out there where an extended version does more than just add a few new scenes.  Sometimes, the content that is added can flesh out characters and motivations, but sometimes can actually change the structure of the film by adding missing subplots that are integral to the overall story.  Extended versions of movies like Alien 3, Kingdom of Heaven, and Daredevil are just a handful of movies that actually benefit from the extra material, because the extra material adds better pacing and actually allows certain scenes to make more sense.  It’s incredibly rare, though, for a movie studio to fund an extended version years after the theatrical film’s release.  Director Zack Snyder is no stranger to having extended versions of his movies.  Watchmen is one of the best examples.  Another is Batman V. Superman: Ultimate Cut, which added 30 minutes of extra footage that included necessary edits and plot points to flesh out a seriously flawed movie.  It ended up being much better in the long run.  Well, Zack Snyder is back with HIS version of Justice League, and this one is a doozy…..in all the best ways.

Justice League follows Bruce Wayne as he tries to recruit people with unique abilities in order to fight a growing threat from another world.  Like the theatrical version of Justice League, that’s the gist of the plot.  I oversimplified it, of course, but this movie is so much more than that.  There were story points in the theatrical release that just didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and honestly, a movie of this scale really can’t be told in a two-hour film.  Two and a half-hours MAYBE.  Not this time.  Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League runs at 4 hours.  I’m not lying about that.  Here’s the thing though, it doesn’t feel like 4 hours.  The pacing of this version is amazing.  This version is broken up into 7 parts, mostly because it was going to be a mini-series at one point.  Justice League is a tale of two movies.  One which was abandoned, and one that was completed without Snyder’s input.  Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon, who directed The Avengers, to come in and basically reshoot a large chunk of the movie when Zack Snyder left the project.  Snyder ultimately left because of a personal tragedy that was more important to deal with.  As a result, Joss Whedon’s version ended up being a much lighter and shorter affair than what Snyder had intended.  Certain villains, including Darkseid, were cut out, and character issues were reduced to fleeting moments in order to drive a more action-oriented experience.  To an extent, it worked, but the final product ended up feeling a bit shallow and tonally inconsistent.  Zack Snyder’s version eliminates nearly all of Whedon’s additions, but expands on a lot of other elements.

One of the many things that Zack Snyder’s version is expand on character motivations and issues.  For instance, we’re given more detail into what Barry Allen’s life is like and see more of what he’s capable of.  In this version, he’s more naturally awkward, yet he’s fully committed to the team while offering good ideas.  He feels like a real addition to the team.  Steppenwolf himself is actually given more of a reason for doing what he’s doing.  The character failed his master, Darkseid, and is forced to conquer thousands of worlds to regain his footing with the dark lord.  His motivations are clear and make him feel like more of a threat than in the previous version.  The real benefactor of Zack Snyder’s Justice League is Ray Fisher’s Cyborg.  This guy is clearly the heart and soul of the film.  We learn that not only was he a great athlete, but he’s also incredibly intelligent, and we get to see more of his relationship with his parents, which adds a new level of detail to what’s going on.  Cyborg’s motivations are clearly personal.  Even the character’s father is given more to do and has a real arc.  The one thing that really drew my attention to this version was Darkseid himself.  The character is one of the most powerful beings in DC comics, even going so far as to be more powerful than Superman himself.  We don’t see a lot of Darkseid in the film, but when he shows up, you can feel it.  There’s a scene in which the original release showed Steppenwolf show up on Earth and battled the Amazons, the Old Gods, Atlanteans, and men.  In this version, it’s Darkseid that invades, and it’s spectacular.  We actually get to see a little bit of what Darkseid is capable of.  For the most part, though, he’s like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, mostly a behind-the-scenes puppeteer.  The 4-hour runtime allows for a lot more character and story development, but also cuts out unnecessary pork like the Flash and Superman evacuating civilians during the final battle.  A lot of those moments were cut for this version and rightfully so.

One of the major changes to the film was the design of Steppenwolf.  In the theatrical release, Steppenwolf looked like a terribly goofy CGI abomination with a lame outfit.  In Zack Snyder’s movie, this guy looks like a freaking demon.  His armor itself is a weapon with spikes.  As you can see in the picture above, the difference between the two is night and day.  There was also a lot of bizarre dialogue that made Steppenwolf feel weak.  In the original film, he just comes across as a typical egotistical maniac.  In Snyder’s movie, everything that he does is to try and get back in Darkseid’s good graces.  Even the designs of the parademons are more refined here and feel incredibly dangerous.  Tonally, Zack Snyder’s film is more in line with Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman.  More so than the theatrical release.  The tone in the original release was all over the place because you had elements that Snyder had shot along with Joss Whedon’s additions, and they just didn’t mesh well at all.  Here, the tone is far more consistent at least visually.  It’s dark, gritty, but there is still a sense of humor.  The color palate is also different than the previous version.  The theatrical was bright and colorful, while this version the brightness is toned down to fit in with Snyder’s other films.  The action is still really good and there is more of it for sure.  It’s also a lot more violent than the previous version.  This one earns it’s R-rating, because blood flows freely here.  People are dismembered and cut into pieces.  It can be brutal at times.  But it’s a better movie for it.

If there’s really one big issue with Zack Snyder’s Justice League, it’s that the film sets up for sequels that aren’t going to happen.  Don’t get me wrong, the way this version ends is pretty satisfying, but the fact is, is that we aren’t going to see how the Justice League are going to fight Darkseid in the future.  Zack Snyder won’t be back to direct in the DCEU, which is a shame, because I really love his movies.  Not only that, there are some CGI sequences that aren’t that great, and there’s a moment in which Batman’s voice is really bizarre.  I didn’t go over every little thing that was added to the movie, because I don’t want to spoil it.  Ultimately, I think this version is superior to the theatrical release in nearly every way.  It’s better paced, it’s got more character development, and gives us a villain to be feared.  I really enjoyed the previous version, but I think I’ll take this version any day of the week, even if it means sitting through 4 hours.  It’s worth it.  If you didn’t like any of Zack Snyder’s previous superhero movies, this isn’t likely to change your mind.  In fact, you would be sitting through 4 hours of misery.  Don’t do that to yourself.  If you’re a fan of his work or are just curious about it, it’s worth taking a look at.  The overall story in the film hasn’t changed, it’s just a lot of elements did and I think those elements make for a better experience.  I gave the original release an 8.5/10, and I stand by that.  But this is better.

My Final Recommendation: For Darkseid. 9.5/10

Released: August 2019(China)

Director: Oleg Stepchenko

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 120 Minutes

Distributor: Lionsgate Studios(USA)

Genre: Action/Fantasy

Cast:
Jason Flemyng: Jonathan Green
Jackie Chan: The Master
Arnold Schwarzenegger: James Hook
Anna Churina: Miss Dudley
Charles Dance: Lord Dudley
Rutger Hauer: Ambassador
Xingtong Yao: Cheng Lan
Li Ma: Witch

Over the past two decades we’ve seen action stars come together in various movies like The Expendables and Machete.  The Expendables brought together folks like Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Gary Daniels and Eric Roberts.  Machete united Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, and Don Johnson.  In fact, the marketing for some of these movies actually relied on getting these familiar faces together.  For the most part, in my opinion, these movies actually delivered on their promise of being old-school action.  Every once in a while, though, you would get a film where it would feature a big-name actor and he or she would only be in the film for about 5-10 minutes.  Bruce Willis is notorious for showing up in movies that feature him as a minor character only to have him take top billing on the poster/DVD cover art.  I’m sure it has more to do with ego and a paycheck than anything else.  Well, we’ve got ourselves another film that does the same thing.  Ladies and gentleman, I present to you Iron Mask, Viy 2, or The Dragon Seal depending on which region you’re in.

Iron Mask follows scientist and cartographer Jonathan Green as he travels the world mapping as he goes along.  When he enters Russia hoping to get the cooperation of Peter The Great, he’s thrown in prison to avoid exposing an imposter.  The REAL tsar is imprisoned in the Tower of London.  Mr. Green is allowed to leave the Russian prison with a Chinese prisoner to help him travel east towards China.  In the Tower of London, Peter is imprisoned with a Chinese kung-fu master who happens to be the father of the Chinese prisoner that’s traveling with Mr. Green.  The Chinese prisoner, Cheng Lan is actually a princess and the kung-fu master is her father.  Together, they’re supposed to protect a great dragon in China that provides the people with a healing herb called tea.  Both the master and the Cheng Lan were imprisoned by greedy wizards who are in league with a witch to steal the herbs and make vast amounts of money while they’re at it.  It that seems convoluted, that’s because it is.  I don’t mind complex story-telling at times, if it’s easy to follow, then it can be really satisfying to experience it.  But there’s a difference between complex and convoluted.  Complex story-telling has a lot of different moving parts, but there is a path to follow and a method to that madness.  Convoluted story-telling is basically throwing in everything and the kitchen in a jumble hoping that something makes sense.  That’s one of the main issues with Iron Mask.  It’s too convoluted for it’s own good.  There are too many subplots to keep track of, and some of them aren’t even fully addressed by the end of the movie.  When the film decides to focus on one particular plot, that’s when it gets interesting….except that it happens far too late in the movie.  There just wasn’t enough time to flesh everything out in a 2-hour movie, and it suffered for it.  It’s batshit crazy, but there’s just way too much to keep a handle on.

If there’s a description for the movie that I would use, it would be this: Indiana Jones meets Big Trouble in Little China by way of Pirates of the Caribbean.  I wish I could say I was wrong about that description, but it really isn’t that far off the mark.  There’s a lot of things here from a thematic standpoint that seem to be in competition with each other.  But enough about that, let’s get to the casting of Iron Mask.  On the poster and DVD/Blu-Ray covers, it features Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger in what appears to be big roles.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  In fact, the lead of the film is Jason Flemyng who plays Jonathan Green.  Mr. Flemyng is an underrated actor in my opinion, but he’s definitely not leading man material.  He never has been.  He’s alright, but there’s nothing in his role that suggests that the character couldn’t be played by somebody else.  The Master is played by legendary action star Jackie Chan.  He has scenes with a character named James Hook, played by ANOTHER legendary action star, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  It’s actually really amusing to see Arnold dress up in the red and white uniform of a British soldier, complete with tri-corn hat and absurd mustache.  I have to admit, seeing Chan and Schwarzenegger in the same movie together is quite a sight, and their scenes together actually work.  There’s enough charisma from both actors to make it plausible.  They even have a little scuffle together which is humorous to say the least.  Outside of these three actors, the acting is legitimately awful.  There are a number of reasons for that, but one stands out among everything else:  The dubbing.  Do you folks remember those old kung-fu movies with the incredibly cheesy dubbing?  That’s what you’re getting here.  Arnold, Chan, and Flemyng aren’t dubbed, but everybody else is, and the dubbing is dog-shit.  Even the folks that can speak English are dubbed.  It’s unintentionally hilarious.  This is why I hate dubbing.  Unless you happen to be Jackie Chan, or the original actors, there’s no way that you can match the performance of your voice with what’s happening on screen.  It just doesn’t work.

The action in Iron Mask is a bit of a mixed bag.  While the action was handled by Jackie Chan’s elite stunt team, it doesn’t really feel like their best effort.  I know what these guys are capable of, but for some reason, a number of action scenes just aren’t that convincing.  There’s a bit of a tussle between Chan and Schwarzenegger that’s rather amusing, but that’s mostly down to the actors having a bit of fun, especially when Chan reaches for different weapons, but Schwarzenegger objects to them being used.  It’s silly but I rolled with it.  When it comes to kung-fu actually being used, that’s where the movie tends to pick up, especially in the last act when they take on the witch.  Now, I brought up Big Trouble in Little China as a comparison, because there are a couple of “wizards” in this movie that feel like The Three Storms from John Carpenter’s movie were ripped off.  You’ve got one wizard that used electricity, while another has jade armor, the third uses sound to cripple their enemies, and the fourth utilizes fog.  Once you discover how these guys are doing what they’re doing, it’s rather clever.  The fight choreography towards the end of the film gets substantially better, especially the final battle between the princess and the witch.  It’s actually really good.  In most movies I would bitch and moan about wire-work being used, but this is a fantasy film, so I tend to be a bit more forgiving.  Let’s talk about the visual effects and the CGI.  Oof.  Outside of the dragon itself, the CGI in this movie is really bad.  I know that Russian and China are capable of better CGI than this, but this is embarrassing.  I enjoyed the sequence where Peter pilots his ship through a maze of rocks, which was pretty exciting actually, but the overall CG is late PlayStation 2-era at best.  I will say that I did like the design of the dragon here.  The detail was pretty good, but that seems to be where the money went.

Jackie Chan set the standard back in the late 70s and 80s with his unique combination of action and comedy.  He also elevated stunt-work to a whole new level.  I will always be grateful to Jacki Chan for movies like Police Story, Drunk Master, and Rumble in the Bronx.  Sadly, it seems that even the greats get to a point where they just aren’t able to keep up with younger generations.  Jackie Chan is pushing 67-68, so I can understand him not being able to really do much of his own stunts anymore, at least without wires.  The body can only take so much, and Chan has given so much to his craft.  He’s broken every bone in his body multiple times and nearly gotten killed almost as much, but he was willing to put himself on the line for our entertainment, and he’s delivered some of the most iconic action sequences in cinematic history.  It breaks my heart to see that some of his more recent outings have been extremely disappointing.  I just watched Vanguard and honestly, that movie is awful.  The last good movie that Jackie Chan made was The Foreigner with Pierce Brosnan.  Chan is a really good actor, and I think he needs to really focus more on his acting than his action.  Arnold Schwarzenegger was clearly having a hoot and a holler with this one, and it’s actually nice to see him take himself down a few pegs.  Because of that, he’s pretty entertaining to watch here.  Iron Mask is NOT a good movie.  Far from it.  It’s got some good elements, but the overall package is pretty weak.  Yet, I can’t bring myself to condemn this movie wholeheartedly, because I had a lot of fun with it.  Some of it was not what the film-makers had intended, but I wasn’t bored by the overall proceedings.  It’s a crazy movie, and I think it’s worth a watch.  Just don’t think about the plot too much, you’ll get a head-ache.

My Final Recommendation: 7/10.