Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026)

Mike (James Marsden) is looking to quit his job. He's enjoyed it for some time, but wants to move on. He doesn't want to be "Quick Draw" Mike any more. He's not sure if his boss, Nick (Vince Vaughn), will take the news well, but it's an easier conversation to have than the inevitable one about confessing to being in love with Nick's wife, Alice (Eiza González). Not that Nick and Alice have any real happiness left in their marriage. The thing that Mike doesn't realise is that Nick already knows everything, about Mike wanting to quit and him being in a relationship with Alice. He was initially pretty angry about it, which is why he framed Mike as a grass. Mike now has a hired cannibal killer after him, thanks to a job ordered by Sosa (Keith David). He also has Nick on his side though. Future Nick. Yes, this is a time travel movie, and things start to become complicated when Future Nick requests the help of Mike in capturing Present Nick, all with the aim of saving Mike's life and putting a number of things right.

Written and directed by BenDavid Grabinski, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is a lot more fun than I expected it to be. I liked the concept, and generally like the leads, but I assumed I would be watching yet another straight-to-streaming movie that might hold up, at best, as a fun time-waster. It's better than that, and I'd happily watch something that reunited everyone involved in this. 

What Grabinski does so well is to ensure that every different genre component works well enough. The comedy may not be hilarious, but it's constantly amusing, particularly when certain characters are interacting with one another (there are some great exchanges between Vaughn and Marsden, but it also helps that Jimmy Tatro has a main supporting role, and does the kind of oblivious idiocy that he does so well). The sci-fi aspect is good enough to keep the plot moving, but nobody gets bogged down by the details or potential paradoxes. And there are a couple of gunfights that are excellently staged and maintain a real sense of danger for our leads.

Vaughn is a bit less motor-mouthed than usual, and works surprisingly well in his two roles. It helps a lot that he's paired up with Marsden, who has become a very dependable talent lately when it comes to portraying characters with a strong moral core of goodness. González is positioned well between the two of them, showing her distance from one and closeness to the other without it becoming some melodramatically overdone soap opera. Keith is believably fearsome, Tatro (as mentioned) does his usual schtick, and there's also room for fun performances from Emily Hampshire, Stephen Root, and what amounts to cameo appearances from Ben Schwartz and Dolph Lundgren. Yes, Dolph Lundgren.

There's a chance that I am overrating this because of going in to it with such low expectations, but there's also a chance that this is just a really good bit of genre-blending fun, helped by a great cast all doing great work. I would rewatch this already, I'll hold out some hope for a sequel or spin-off, and I recommend it to everyone else.

8/10

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Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

Johnny Mnemonic is a pretty silly movie, in both the plotting and the way of so many '90s movies showcasing the future of technology, and I can't help but love it. It has some interesting ideas in the mix, a great cast, and a wonderful vein of dark comedy running through it.

Keanu Reeves plays the title character, a courier of sorts. He does jobs that involve data being stored in his head, delivered to someone who has the code to retrieve it. In need of a decent sum of money to retrieve memories that have been wiped for his work, in what seems like a bit of a vicious cycle, Johnny agrees to make one final delivery run, and it's one that will take up a lot more space in his head than he is used to. It's also a very precious bundle of data, so precious that he ends up being helped in his journey by a kickass woman named Jane (Dina Meyer) as he tries to stay one step ahead of various people who want to cause him harm, with a number of them literally wanting his head.

Written by William Gibson, who adapted his own story, Johnny Mnemonic can be described as many things, not all flattering, but it's never dull. The dialogue may often be slightly risible, with one or two notable exceptions, but this is a film that strives to do what it can on the budget to realise a near-future world and have fun with the main concepts.

Director Robert Longo, who gave us this as his one and only feature (to date), does a decent job of keeping everything in line, tonally, with the script. Silly moments abound, some intended and some not, but at least the whole thing doesn't devolve into a collage of music video moments, which is all the more impressive when you look over Longo's back catalogue of music video work. The action isn't ever as good as it could be, and a couple of big reveals in the third act just feel mishandled, but I really don't see why people view this as a BAD film. Okay, that's not true, I can see why the view it that way, I just don't understand why they can't overlook the failings to enjoy something so clearly interested in providing fun entertainment for viewers.

Reeves isn't doing his best work but he's just fine in his role, even when delivering some of the worst dialogue in the script. Meyer fares better in her role, as do most of the other supporting cast members, including Udo Kier, Takeshi Kitano, Ice Cube, Dolph Lundgren, and a typically ranty Henry Rollins.

Highlights include Lundgren attempting to steal his few scenes, a third act reveal that will have you either chuckling and staying on for the ride or wanting to check out immediately, a dangerous villain with a thumb attachment that unleashes a laser garrotte, Udo Kier enjoying moments that allow him to be full Udo Kier, and (while watching it nowadays) an amusing naiveté inherent in so many sci-fi movies from the past few decades when it comes to trying to showcase the technological marvels that were supposedly coming along some years from now.

I can't seriously recommend this to people, yet I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. Give it a go. If you end up hating it then at least the runtime is just over the ninety-minute mark. But I hope you learn to enjoy it as much as I do.

7/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the movie here.

Aquaman (2018)

Look, let me be clear, I don't have a dog in this fight. I have never been massively into comic books, with the exception of a couple of fun omnibuses that I had as a child (and the Knightfall storyline for Batman, which remains one of the best things ever), so I am not a person who has to stay in either the Marvel or DC camp. Having said that, it's almost impossible to argue with the fact that Marvel have set the gold standard in cinematic superhero adventures. I had heard good things about Aquaman though, so I was optimistic.

Hmmmmmm, yeah, that didn't last long.

Jason Momoa once again plays Arthur Curry, the half-Atlantean superhero who just wants to live his life peacefully, when he's not crashing into submarines that have been overrun by pirates and beating up lots of baddies. Unfortunately, plans are afoot underwater to wage war against those on land who have been polluting and changing the seas over the years. Those plans are being hatched by King Arm (Patrick Wilson). If only someone could turn up that has the potential to overthrow him and become the rightful heir to the throne. Mera (Amber Heard) knows that Arthur is that someone, even if he doesn't think it himself.

Although it has a runtime of over two hours, the best thing I can say about Aquaman is that it fairly flies by. The pacing is perfect, with the set-pieces nicely spaced out in between moments that showcase some fun exchanges between Momoa and Heard. Director James Wan, working from a script by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall, has a knack for making the potentially ridiculous into something enjoyable and entertaining, and he does it here once again.

Momoa is great in the lead role, Heard does well alongside him, and Wilson is suitably cold and dangerous in his villainous turn. Alongside those main players, you get some decent moments for Willem Dafoe (an advisor to Wilson but his loyalties may still like with Momoa), Nicole Kidman (being enjoyably badass in her few scenes), Temuera Morrison (the human father of Arthur), Dolph Lundgren (being Dolph), and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as an extra villain, Manta, seeking revenge.

I can see why some people really enjoyed this, and why some were saying it was the best DC film yet. The fun parts are more . . . fun than most of their live-action output has been so far. The world-building is impressively epic, a lot of lovely details are scattered throughout every scene, and the action beats aren't all dark and gritty. But all of that comes at a price. For every gorgeous moment (and few are more aesthetically pleasing than a scene in which Momoa and Heard fight back some dangerous fishmen as they dive into the depths of a dangerous underwater trench) there are many that aren't. Either due to the screen being too busy or just some bad cinematic choices, far too many scenes are just messy. People can't always use the right eyeline when it comes to looking at whatever is supposed to be in front of them, some of the design work is unintentionally laughable, and so much is made snazzy and complicated when it could so easily have been kept clean and simple.

While this is far from the best of the recent DC movies, at this point I am tempted to pick Suicide Squad as my own favourite, and to hell with the adverse reactions (although Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice got more right than wrong), it's also not the worst. That honour stays with Man Of Steel for a little while yet (although, for the sake of perspective, I rate both that movie and this one the same, with all of the others just edging a point ahead).

6/10

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Altitude (2018)

Here's the thing about my movie reviews. I often forget to mention the musical scores, I am woefully forgetful when it comes to namechecking people like cinematographers and designers (people that are vital to helping the director create their vision), and I don't always write essays based around the themes and subtext of the more meaningful cinematic classics I have watched over the years. Sometimes I try, don't get me wrong, but I'm often aiming to just relay a general feeling about the films I have watched. My reviews are often just about my reaction, as opposed to being a full dissection. Sometimes I manage to pack a bit more in there, and am always happy when the thoughts and words flow well for me, and sometimes I am happy that I am watching another film that doesn't really need such thoughtful criticism.

Altitude certainly falls into that latter camp.

Denise Richards plays Gretchen Blair, a female FBI agent who has boarded a flight after having a very bad time of things recently. She gets angry at an inconsiderate idiot who has ended up sitting in her seat and ends up being taken to first class. Result. Sitting alongside a man named Terry (Kirk Barker), her moment of happiness is short-lived. Some people want Terry, or at least what he has hidden away from them, and that means that they want to take control of the flight. Greer Grammer is the woman in charge of the criminal plan, and Dolph Lundgren is her right hand man (although she also has other muscle on hand, with the most recognisable being Chuck Liddell).

Altitude is preposterous. Of course it is. The characters are all ridiculous clichés, very few moments are plausible, and it's a film in which viewers have to accept Richards as the strong and smart goodie up against Lundgren.

Director Alex Merkin tries to keep everything moving along zippily enough, throwing occasional distractions in (like Jonathan Lipnicki as an over the top, dancing and singing, air steward) to break up the overly familiar plotting as we get the opening situation that puts our lead in need of a rest, an overview of the plane and the passengers, developing awareness of the dangerous plot, etc. The script, by Jesse Mittelstadt, also helps here, with the material sadly growing weaker when the actual action starts to take place. Neither Merkin nor Mittelstadt can do enough to get this anywhere close to any of the other, superior, plane-based action thrillers that we've already seen over the years. And some of the dialogue is either laughably cheesy or cringe-inducing, depending on your mindset.

Richards is okay in her role (although I did spend the majority of the movie squinting at the screen and asking myself "is that Denise Richards?"), and Barker is fine, if fairly bland. That leaves it to the villains to liven things up. They don't quite manage it, mainly due to the fact that Granmer plays her role in a way that makes you wish someone had been able to negotiate a fee for Krysten Ritter, and also the fact that Lundgren is sorely underused (he spends most of his screentime actually flying the plane). The least said about Liddell the better, but it's worth mentioning Jordi Vilasulo, who does a decent job as the air marshall who gets involved in the situation.

You could do a lot worse if you're after a mindless slice of action, which is all it is trying to provide. I'll watch anything Lundgren does, he improves pretty much any film that he stars in, and this may not be one of his better films, but it's still a fun one.

5/10

You can pick up the film, under the name "Hijacked", here.
Americans can get it here.

June-Claude Van Damme: Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning (2012)

The fourth (and, at this point, final) instalment in the Universal Soldier series, this stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren in supporting roles, playing incarnations of the same characters that they played in all of the previous instalments, but gives the spotlight to Scott Adkins as the new action lead.

Adkins plays a man named John who wakes from a coma after a home invasion that left his family dead. He knows who did it, apparently, and viewers may be surprised to know that it's Luc Deveraux (Van Damme). But is John remembering the truth or has his perception of events somehow been warped? He hopes to find out as he sets off on a one-man warpath.

Director John Hyams also returns to the series, having done such a good job with the previous instalment, and this time both directs and also helps with the script, co-written by himself, Doug Magnuson, and Jon Greenlagh. Although things get a bit twisted and overly complicated as the plot starts to develop, everything seems to make just enough sense and it keeps this instalment more interesting than just another retread of the material that we've all seen before.

Action movie viewers should already be well aware of Adkins, a guy who does just well enough in the actual acting stakes to make him a viable star when it comes to vehicles bult around his physical skills. He does great work here, thanks to some superb fights that really try to convey the strength of the fighters and the impact of the hits. Andrei Arlovski also returns, and is once again impressively badass in his role, chasing down Adkins like a Terminator and forcing him to fight for his life. Van Damme and Lundgren are used sparingly throughout, which may disappoint some, but come to the fore during the third act, with the scripted idea of a torch being passed on working for both the events of the film and also outwith the screen, with the older stars able to leave things in the hands of Adkins.

Some people will tell you that this is the best of the series. It's a tough one to argue against, especially after having just watched some of the incredible fight scenes, but I put them on a par with one another. As mentioned in my review of the previous film, the original manages to feel like a more complete entertainment package, but this one is arguably more satisfying for those looking for movie action with a bit of . . . oomph (to use the technical term).

8/10

This is still a great way to get them.
Americans can buy the blu here.

June-Claude Van Damme: Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

A decade after the previous Universal Soldier movie, this sequel came along to surprise action film fans. Van Damme is Luc Deveraux again, and Dolph Lundgren is also somehow able to return as Andrew Scott (which may surprise people who remember the state of him at the end of the first film).

The plot sees a group of terrorists kidnapping the children of the Ukrainian Prime Minister and holding them hostage in the middle of Chernobyl. There's also a bomb set to detonate. And a tough, new, UniSol (played by Andrei Arlovski). Desperate times call for desperate measures, which explains why other Universal Soldiers are sent in to try and save the hostages. Some are ready for action, Andrew Scott (Lundgren) is always spoiling for a fight, but Luc Deveraux has spent years being deprogrammed, rendering him fairly useless unless the process can be reversed in time.

Directed by John Hyams (who is rarely mentioned without it also being disclosed that he is the son of Peter Hyams, most relevant here as his father gave Van Damme some of his best work), Universal Soldier: Regeneration reboots the series in an interesting way. It removes the glossiness and lighter tone that the first movie had, replacing those things with grit and lashings of ultraviolence. You still get moments that feel fun, they're just different kinds of fun.

Writer Victor Ostrovsky wisely decides to ignore the previous instalment, which also wisely ignored the two awful TV movies that came out in 1998, and instead simply throws viewers into a world that still has a working UniSol program, one that has naturally progressed from the science on display in the first film.

Although playing a different version of his character from the first film, Van Damme does well in the lead role. He spends less time in a mindless state, thinking his way around the confrontations  ahead even more than he did in either of the previous movies. Lundgren is a lot of fun again, and his character hews slightly closer to how he played him the first time around (tough, persistent, and not entirely mentally stable), and Arlovski is good enough in the role of the main villain. He's not the most charismatic of people but he definitely emanates menace and brings the right physicality to the role.

A lot of people now think that this film, and the sequel, ends up bettering the first film. I disagree. It's an excellent action movie, and even more enjoyable as a proper return to form for JCVD, but it doesn't match the first for the mix of action, characters, interesting ideas, and humour.

7/10

This is a good way to own the series.
Americans can buy the blu here.

June-Claude Van Damme: Universal Soldier (1992)

I'm always surprised that Jean-Claude Van Damme didn't spend more time mixing his action with either sci-fi or horror because some of his better, or at least more interesting, films (Cyborg, Timecop, Replicant, and this one being the main titles I can think of). This is a sci-fi action movie with one or two moments that feel very much lifted from the horror genre, and it's superbly entertaining stuff.

JCVD and Dolph Lundgren are two soldiers who die in combat. Unfortunately, they each died at the hands of the other. Lundgren went crazy, see, and was killing innocent people, cutting off their ears, and using them to make a necklace. When the two are given a second life in the military UniSol project, all goes well for a while before memories start floating back to the surface and causing glitches. Van Damme goes on the run with a plucky reporter (Veronica Roberts, played by Ally Walker), and Lundgren starts killing anyone who gets in between him and the traitor he is determined to fatally punish. And he still has his thing about ears.

Before they became known as world-destroyers, director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin made some fantastic little b-movies that had the benefit of either a great pool of talent or a great blend of ideas, or both. Devlin wrote the screenplay here, he wasn't in full producer mode yet, and Emmerich was moving up from the likes of Ghost Chase and Moon 44, and this already shows some signs of how their future careers would pan out. You get that great central idea, you get some fantastic set-pieces, there's a supporting cast that features a number of familiar faces I will mention below, and they're not worried about squeezing everything into a tight 90 minutes (which works here, but doesn't necessarily work for all of their movies).

Van Damme gives one of his best performances here, mixing his favoured naivete with great fighting moves and some fleeting nudity to please a large portion of his fanbase. Having said that, Lundgren steals the show with his maniacal villain. His enjoyably over the top performance is what helps to keep this near the top of the JCVD pile. Walker also does very well, she's one of the quirkier female leads to work alongside our action star, and she has a nice balance of vulnerability, bravery, and comedic line delivery. Ralf Moeller is another UniSol, Ed O'Ross is the man in charge of the whole operation for a short while, Jerry Orbach is a doctor who helped create the soldiers, and Tommy 'Tiny' Lister is hard to miss in his small role (can you ever describe his screentime as a small role, considering the size of the guy?).

If you haven't seen Universal Soldier by now, and if you are a fan of action movies, then you owe it to yourself. It holds up almost as well today as it did back in the early '90s, remaining a top-tier outing for both Van Damme AND Lundgren.

8/10

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Dark Angel AKA I Come In Peace (1990)

Although released towards the end of 1990, it's hard to think of a more brilliantly '80s action movie than Dark Angel AKA I Come In Peace. This has everything you could want from a Saturday night action film from that time, from the sharp fashions worn by our hero to the script that feels like an action movie cliche "greatest hits" mixtape.

Matthias Hues plays an evil alien, named Talec, who lands on Earth and starts leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. He pumps his victims full of drugs and then harvests the chemicals via a large needle that is stabbed in their head, with the end result being unsurprisingly fatal. Dolph Lundgren is Detective Jack Cain, a cop who ends up crossing paths with the alien as he tries to bring to justice the drug dealers responsible for the death of his partner. Cain is now partnered up with an uptight special agent named Arwood Smith (played by Brian Benben), but he won't let that stop him doing things his way. He's unorthodox but, dammit, HE GETS RESULTS!

If you measure Dark Angel up against a selection of outright cinematic classics (e.g. Casablanca, The Godfather, etc) then it's going to come up short. The script, written by Jonathan Tydor and David Koepp (using a pseudonym), is full of dialogue and characterisation that would make many cinephiles roll their eyes and chuckle, and the direction by Craig R. Baxley is competent, if a bit more restrained in places than I wanted it to be.

But it's also those exact same qualities that make the film so much fun. The action starts up quickly enough, the stereotypical leads are put in the right places at the wrong times, and there are enough set-pieces (either action or just showing the bad alien working on his plan) to keep things perfectly paced.

Although it's the general premise of the film that makes it such a fun ride, the other major plus point is Lundgren in the lead role. He remains a great action star but there are definitely some standouts in his filmography (and this is one of them). His performance is the one that carries the material from start to finish, other than Hues with his villainous turn. Benben is decent enough, but stuck in the role of unwanted partner who tries too often to stick rigidly to the rules, Betsy Brantley is as poorly served as you might expect the lone female figure to be in this kind of film, and Sherman Howard is underused as the head human bad guy Dolph really wants to get his hands on.

If you somehow missed this when it was first released then make up for that error now. It remains a lot of fun, especially for fans of Dolph.

7/10

There's a DVD here for UK fans.
Americanos can get it here.

The Expendables 3 (2014)

Well, here we are again. I enjoyed The Expendables, as did many other people. The Expendables 2, on the other hand, fell a bit flat. It was too busy being smug and self-referential to work as well as the first movie. Thankfully, this third outing is a bit of a return to form.

The plot this time sees Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) recruiting some newcomers to help him track down a very bad man (Mel Gibson) who was once one the same team as Barney. But will the newcomers be up to the task? Or will Barney still need some help from his regular colleagues (Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and Jet Li)?

That's all you need to know. The essence of the movie has already been made clear from the advertising campaing. If you haven't seen it then let me surmise it for you just now: STALLONE, STATHAM, LUNDGREN, CREWS, COUTURE, LI, SCHWARZENEGGER, BANDERAS, SNIPES, FORD, ROUSEY, ORTIZ, LUTZ, POWELL, GIBSON. If this is successful enough to lead to a fourth movie then they're going to need a much bigger poster, because it's all about mixing the action beats with more star power than you'd usually glean from a dozen movies of this ilk. Everyone does a good enough job, all clearly having fun, and that fun is infectious. Gibson is a bit underused, although he does his best with the role, but these movies always struggle to give everyone enough screentime (Harrison Ford only gets a few minutes, and Jet Li pops up for what amounts to a fleeting cameo).

Before opening in cinemas nationwide, The Expendables 3 was already getting a lot of attention for two main reasons. One, the content was being toned down to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Two, a torrent of DVD quality leaked online a few weeks before the big release date. For the first part, I have to say that I didn't notice this being a lighter affair. There may be less actual bloodshed, but the fights and stunts are all still top-notch stuff. As for that torrent, the conspiracy theorist in me wonders whether or not someone had the bright idea of doing that to head off any potential disappointment at the box office. I recommend seeing the movie in the cinema, with all of the action accompanied by some major, seat-rumbling, surround sound, and I hope it actually does well enough to satisfy all those involved.

Patrick Hughes may be the director this time, with Stallone on screenwriting duties once again (this time accompanied by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt), but this is a film, and indeed a franchise, that seems designed to work no matter who is behind the scenes. It's all down to the stars, it's down to the set-pieces, and it's down to the many fantastic stunt performers who help create such memorable moments.

Highlights include an opening sequence that celebrates Wesley Snipes joining the crew, and actually features a winking gag that works well, a sequence in which Stallone is joined by Kelsey Grammer as he looks to recruit his new team, Banderas being a non-stop motormouth, and pretty much any scene starring the lovely Ronda Rousey.

It's cheesy, it's dripping with machismo, it's completely over the top. In short, it's in line with the series, and delivers exactly what fans will be hoping for.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/The-Expendables-3-Sylvester-Stallone/dp/B00HLSW674/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1408020670&sr=8-7&keywords=expendables+3

Stash House (2012)

Briana Evigan plays Amy Nash, a young woman surprised by her partner, David (Sean Faris), when he presents her with their dream home as a birthday present. Unfortunately, the previous owner used the house to store drugs. Of course, if they remained happily oblivious then the previous use for the house wouldn't matter. But they don't. Amy and David discover a whole heap of heroin, and then they discover that two men (played by John Huertas and Dolph Lundgren) are outside their home, eager to get in and get their hands on something very valuable. Amy and David discover that they can put the house on lock down, but that may not be enough to keep them safe from the determined intruders.

I went into Stash House expecting some dumb fun. Well, it certainly was dumb, but not in a good way. The script, by Gary Spinelli, is an expansion of Panic Room, essentially, but the execution of the material, by director Eduardo Rodriguez, leaves a lot to be desired. You may watch the movie and think different, but I'll be very surprised if everyone isn't rolling their eyes as much as I did by the time the movie gets to the final ten minutes, which takes any suspension of disbelief you may have had and then craps all over it.

Faris and Evigan are perfectly fine in the main roles, although it's amusing to note that the latter seems to make a habit of being in the wrong house at the wrong time. They don't have to do much beyond looking confused and afraid, and they manage that. Huertas is fun as a villian, despite being overshadowed by the mighty Lundgren. The action star is, however, poorly treated by a script/characterisation that falls flat while it thinks it is being entertaining and slightly quirky. And the less said about the unnecessary character played by Alysia Ochse the better. The actress isn't bad, it's just that her reasons for popping up are groan-inducingly obvious.

There are one or two good moment here and there, I won't deny that, but it's hard to enjoy them in between so many scenes that end up feeling pointless. What should be a lean, mean thriller ends up feeling saggy and stretched way beyond breaking point. And I really can't overstate the case for how awful the ending is. You've been warned.

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Stash-House-Blu-ray-Dolph-Lundgren/dp/B004YJZECC/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1404880384&sr=1-1&keywords=stash+house

Battle Of The Damned (2013)

Writer-director Christopher Hatton is a man after my own heart, judging by this enjoyable slice of daft entertainment. He's a man who writes a script that involves not-quite-zombies aka infected and some weaponised robots. He then gets Dolph Lundgren for the main role. Job done, basically.

Battle Of The Damned isn't, as you may already have guessed, high art. It doesn't benefit from a big budget or a deluge of original ideas. However, it benefits from Lundgren as the lead character, named Max Gatling (yes, his surname is GATLING), and pacing that helps it to play out as a pleasant diversion, rather than a bit of a chore.

Gatling has made his way into a dangerous city, full of people afflicted by a deadly virus, because he is tasked with collecting a young woman named Jude (Melanie Zanetti). Jude's father wants her back home, safe. While fending off the not-quite-zombies who keep rushing around him, Gatling finds Jude and explains the situation to her. Unfortunately, that doesn't take into account what Jude wants. She's been surviving, thanks to her inclusion in a group of survivors led by Duke (David Field). She also has a boyfriend (Reese, played by Matt Doran). Are they all going to make their way out of the city together, or is she expected to leave the others behind? It soon becomes clear what Gatling would prefer, but the whole operation starts to look more and more impossible with every passing minute. And then the robots appear.

Making the most of some great locations in Malaysia, from what I can gather, Battle Of The Damned is a film that can't ever overcome its shortcomings, despite trying hard, but throws enough elements onscreen that some of them stick. Hatton makes up for the technical aspect of the movie by making sure that there are just enough fun and/or cheesy moments throughout for fans of this kind of schlocky fare to enjoy.

In case I didn't make it clear earlier, Lundgren is the best person onscreen (but, of course, he often is). Zanetti and Doran are a bit . . . . . . flat, so it's good to have the character played by Field, who is at least a bit more interesting. Jen Sung, Lydia Look and Oda Maria make up the rest of the gang, with each one having at least one majorly cliched moment apiece.

I've gone on for far too long when all you needed to know was in the first paragraph. Not-quite-zombies, weaponised robots, and Lundgren being as tough as usual. Judge it by any standard criteria and it will be deemed a failure. Judge it as disposable fun for undemanding action movie fans and it does the job.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Damned-Blu-ray-Dolph-Lundgren/dp/B00GOYC3ME/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1404188216&sr=1-3&keywords=battle+of+the+damned

Red Scorpion (1988)

It's funny how people can go for many years without seeing classic movies. There are so many to get through, and so little time. It's also funny how many movies can be considered classics in different genres. I had never seen Red Scorpion up until today. I soon realised that I had missed out on one of the classics. It's a testosterone- soaked action movie that puts many others to shame, features a great central performance by Dolph Lundgren and looks as if the budget was made up of 50% money and 50% blood, sweat and tears.

The plot sees mighty Dolph playing a mighty Russian KGB agent who is tasked with killing a revolutionary leader. He has no problems following orders until he starts to look closer at the situation and find certain elements that don't seem to add up. Eventually, he ends up being left hung out to dry by his country and decides that he will turn things around and fight back. After all, he is spetsnaz (translation = Russian special forces agent).

The screenplay by Arne Olsen is competent enough, and the direction by Joseph Zito is pretty good, but there are two things that make Red Scorpion such a treat for action movie fans. The first thing is the action sequences. It seems like a no-brainer for an action movie to have good action sequences, but anyone who has seen as many Steven Seagal movies as I have can tell you that far too many action movies just don't deliver the genre goods. Red Scorpion, on the other hand, delivers far beyond expectations. The movie is bookended by two absolutely storming set-pieces, stuff that really gets the blood pumping and raises a smile, but it also has a number of smaller, equally enjoyable, fights and outbursts of violence throughout, keeping it perfectly paced and never dull. Let me put it this way, if you look at my rating for the movie and think it might be a bit high then bear in mind that I almost went even higher. In my opinion, the film is THAT good in the action department.

The second thing that makes this film such a treat is the cast. Lundgren has always been a great action star, it's just a shame that he never got the A-list career to show for it (if you don't enjoy his movies then get back to me after watching Dark Angel AKA I Come In Peace - if you're still not convinced then I will play THIS clip until you cave in and accept Dolph as the best actor to ever perform an Elvis song at an award show EVER!). As well as Dolph, you get the presence of the great M. Emmet Walsh. Yes, M. Emmet Walsh stars alongside Dolph Lundgren, even sharing some screentime during the fantastic action sequences. If that's not enough for you then how about the addition of the great Brion James? Oh yes, he gets a few good moments in this one. T. P. McKenna plays a general, Al White and Ruben Nthodi are among the revolutionaries and the prolific Carmen Argenziano gets to have some fun treating Mr. Lundgren quite badly.

Just writing this review has made me want to put the movie on again, it's THAT much fun. If you've somehow managed to avoid the movie until now, as I had, then correct that mistake as soon as possible. You won't regret it, even during the strange and wonderful scenes that make the title so appropriate.

На здоровье, which I THINK should say na zdorovie.

8/10

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