Prime Time: Memory (2022)

Another week, another Liam Neeson action thriller. I like Neeson. He's an enjoyable actor, he has a good screen presence, and he often looks like he can actually do some of the stuff that his characters are supposed to be able to do. His filmography is really starting to become a chore though, with the duds easily outweighing the good stuff by now. Memory may well be his worst film in some time, although I say that as someone who has got into the habit of ignoring many of his recent releases.

Neeson plays Alex Lewis, a skilled assassin who wants to retire. We all know that usually doesn't work out well for skilled assassins, but Alex knows that he won't be able to do his job for much longer anyway. He is suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's disease, his condition sometimes kept in check by some medicine, but the clock is definitely running out on his time as a feared killer. When Alex refuses to kill one of the targets assigned to him, he finds himself in the frame for the killing anyway. It's all tied to some horrible crimes that have been committed by people who are protected by someone VERY rich and powerful. That wealth and power has stopped the police from being able to conduct any decent investigation, but Alex might be able to do things more effectively than the police.

All you really need to know about Memory is that Neeson plays a character who sometimes has to write pieces of information on his body in order to remember them. And there's a character played by Guy Pearce, who is given the thankless task of starring in this to seemingly remind viewers that Memento exists, and is a much better film than this piece of garbage. It's not just Neeson and Pearce who should be indignant about their casting in this. There's also a small role for Monica Bellucci, as well as Ray Stevenson. None of these familiar faces are doing anything close to their best work. Taj Atwal, Harold Torres, Ray Fearon, and Lee Boardman are also ill-served by the film, but they don't have quite so far to fall from grace.

The screenplay, by Dario Scardapane, is based on a previous screenplay, by Carl Joos, that was based on a book, by Jef Geeraerts (titled De zaak Alzheimer/The Memory Of A Killer). There may have been a time when the material worked, when it may have even felt fresh (the book was published almost 20 years ago), but now it's beyond saving. It's a horrible, limp, lazy, waste of the time and talents of everyone involved.

It's especially saddening that this is directed by Martin Campbell. Campbell has, one or two dips aside, often provided me with the kind of films that I can easily enjoy. Some are better than others, of course, but he can deliver some great action thrillers that use many familiar tropes and moments without feeling stale and worthless. You wouldn't know it from this film though. I really thought this was a film from some first-time director who had been lucky enough to be given a chance on a pet project for some studio producer, there's so little here to signify that it is in an experienced pair of hands.

I have racked my brain to think of one good thing to mention here, from the score to any of the action sequences. There's nothing. The acting from everyone is pretty bad, the plotting is painful, and it's genuinely disheartening to see the likes of Neeson, Pearce, and Bellucci slumming it in something so obviously unworthy of their talents. I am already wishing that I could completely forget it.

2/10

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Netflix And Chill: RRR (2022)

Beloved by many, and some seeming to view it as the greatest cinematic spectacle ever made, it would be a hard-hearted viewer indeed who was impervious to the charms of RRR, an epic piece of Indian cinema that teaches Hollywood a lesson in how to stage large-scale action sequences.

Set in India in 1920, a chain of events is started when a British governor (Ray Stevenson) and his wife (Alison Doody) decide to take a young girl, Malli (Twinkle Sharma), away from her mother (Ahmareen Anjum). They can do what they please, and don't care for the lives of the local people around them, as evidenced by the orders given to a soldier who is told to deal with the distraught mother. Bheem (N. T. Rama Rao Jr.) is the protector of the tribe, and he vows to rescue Malli. He heads to the city, where he eventually meets, and becomes firm friends with, Raju (Ram Charan). Bheem is unaware that Raju is actually an officer looking to protect the British officials, and Raju is unaware that Bheem is the main man he needs to track down and arrest. Those secrets, once revealed, are really going to complicate their friendship, and there is one other big secret that will change the lives of everyone involved.

Written and directed by S. S. Rajamouli, RRR is, let's face it, a superhero movie with a different set of clothes on. Both Bheem and Raju are super-skilled, super-strong, and survive injuries and incidents that would have killed off other people. They are gods amongst men, with their biggest super-powers being friendship and hating the loathsome Brits.  They can also sing and dance way better than I ever could, although I could say the same about most stars of Indian cinema. Because, yes, you get a few well-choreographed numbers here, although not many. The 3+ hour runtime flies by, and the musical numbers help with that, working like an extra set-piece in between the superb action beats.

Both Rao Jr. and Charan are excellent in their roles, practically overflowing with charisma and talent for every minute of their screentime, and I look forward to checking out more of their filmographies. In fact, it's worth noting here than I haven't seen anywhere close to as many movies from India as I would like to (and others who are more well-versed in the output from their still hold this in very high regard). RRR is a film that should work well as a gateway for anyone who is at least willing to expand their cinematic horizons, being such a solid crowd-pleaser for so much of the runtime. Stevenson is an excellent villain, Edward Sonnenblick is equally despicable in his role (a douchebag named . . . Edward), and both Alia Bhatt and Olivia Morris and very good as the respective love interests of Raju and Bheem. There's also a supporting role for Alison Doody, playing the nasty wife of Stevenson's character, and enjoyable turns from Ajay Devgn, Rahul Ramakrishna, Chatrapathi Sekhar, and others.

There is a wealth of impressive CGI on display, although some of it works better than others, and the emphasis is always on the epic. Every stunt takes things a step further than you might expect, the odds are always overwhelming, the feeling persists throughout that our leads are not just against one main villain, but all he represents with his attitude, and even just his presence in such a position of power in their country.

The hefty runtime, the songs that crop up to underline all of the emotions and details of certain events, the sheer, unabashed, joy of the main stars being showcased as absolute stars, RRR has plenty here to mark off any checklist of "things you expect to feature in Indian cinema". It's also a whole load of fun, unforgettable, and may well encourage people to start exploring more world cinema. I just didn't find it to be quite the masterpiece that so many others have labelled it.

8/10

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Accident Man (2018)

If you look back through the filmography of director Jesse V. Johnson it doesn't really have anything that marks him out as someone you can rely on to deliver solid film fun. I might be being very unfair there, having not yet actually seen any of his other movies, but that's just how it is. But having now seen Accident Man, and enjoyed it, I may have to give some of his earlier movies a shot.

I decided to give this a go because of Scott Adkins in the main role. Adkins is a decent action star and I hadn't seen him in anything for a while. And it was a Saturday night with nothing planned.

Mike Fallon (Adkins) is a contract killer who specialises in making the deaths look like accidents, or sometimes suicides. He works for a firm that also employs other killers, all with their particular styles (one uses poison, one generally just goes mental with an axe, etc), and all is going well enough until Fallon's ex-girlfriend is murdered. It was obviously a professional job, although made to look like a random burglary gone wrong, and Fallon can't contain his anger, which leads to him questioning the people who work alongside him. And when I say questioning them I actually mean fighting them until he finds out information that leads him to fight someone else.

Based on a comic book, with a screenplay co-written by Adkins and Stu Small, this is an unpretentious little film that should keep action movie fans delighted from start to finish. The humour of the material doesn't always work, which is the fault of both the script and the delivery of the dialogue, and you have to kiss goodbye to any idea of believability, but none of that matters when the fights are happening.

As well as our leading man, you also get Michael Jai White, Ray Park, Ross O'Hennessy, Amy Johnston, and Ray Stevenson all impressing with their physicality onscreen. The most impressive moments involve Adkins, White, and Park, but everyone has at least one decent moment, and Johnston stands out as the lone female who is more than a match for the men around her. There are also roles for David Paymer and Ashley Greene, as well as a cameo for Nick Moran, and they're all decent, if a lot less involved in the punching and kicking sequences.

Johnson doesn't really do much to take this up another notch, although I'm not sure how much more he could do when you consider the limitations of the leading man (Adkins has got the moves but he sometimes falters with other aspects of acting like . . . well . . . acting), but it's also worth noting that he doesn't do anything to ruin the whole experience. Sometimes that is more than enough.

Accident Man has quite a few faults, undeniably, but they're easy to overlook if you're looking specifically for the kind of violent entertainment that this absolutely delivers.

7/10

There's a DVD here.
Americans can get a Blu here.

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

It's been a while since I saw the first cinematic incarnation of this character, played by Dolph Lundgren, but I have more recently enjoyed both the film starring Thomas Jane and the series, with Jon Bernthal in the main role. The latter is the better portrayal of the character, but I still enjoy the film too, as maligned as it often is.

And now I have finally watched Punisher: War Zone, and I have a new favourite. Time will tell whether or not that remains the case but that's how things are for now.

Ray Stevenson plays Frank Castle, and the plot is fairly simple. He's taking out villains and one of them ends up in a nasty accident that leads to him renaming himself Jigsaw (Dominic West). Making a move for more power and money, Jigsaw and his cohorts end up setting themselves up for a confrontation with The Punisher, but our hero may be held back by the police officers who want him cuffed and off the streets.

Directed by Lexi Alexander, I really cannot see why more people don't love this one. Having spoken to fans of the comic, I am led to understand that a number of the onscreen characters are twisted a bit too far from their comic counterparts, and I can understand that being an issue, but the rest of the film is so gloriously entertaining and insanely violent that it would seem to be absolutely perfect for fans of The Punisher.

Written by Matt Holloway, Art Marcum, and Nick Santora, there's a fine blending of the grim and the darkly comedic throughout. It works really well, and is helped by pacing which means you're never too far away from either an action set-piece (some more over the top than others), a fun character moment, or a bit of ultraviolence. This thing barrels along. Stevenson may not get too much dialogue, The Punisher is a man of few words, but that doesn't stop the script from crackling elsewhere with amusing dialogue and entertaining statements of menacing intent.

Perhaps thanks to his relative lack of dialogue, but that may be unfair to say, Stevenson is fantastic in the main role. Seriously, he IS the best version of The Punisher I have seen onscreen. Lundgren was always fun, but also always Lundgren, Jane was okay (points for trying), and Bernthal is fantastic. Stevenson, however, just edges ahead. The size, the moves, the attitude, he's on point. West has a blast as Jigsaw, helped in a number of scenes by his crazy brother, played by Doug Hutchison. Wayne Knight is just fine as Micro, Mark Camacho and Keram Malicki-Sanchez are a decent couple of henchmen, Colin Salmon is fine and upstanding as the cop wanting to arrest Frank Castle, and Dash Mihok is enjoyable as the cop actually helping Frank when he can. Julie Benz is one of the few main actresses, and she does well as the widow of someone caught up in the crossfire between Frank and the gangsters.

I highly recommend this to fans of the character, to action movie fans, and to those who want some comic book fun that is far from family-friendly.

8/10

Buy it here.
Americans, buy it here.

Cold Skin (2017)

It's been quite a year for waterlogged inter-species fantasy/horror movie relationships. We've recently had the gloriousness of The Shape Of Water. I have heard good things about Blue My Mind. And here we have Cold Skin, the latest film from the talented Xavier Gens.

A man (David Oakes) arrives at a remote island to take on a role made vacant by the death of his predecessor. Once the ship he arrived on sails away, he is left with only one man for company (Gruner, played by Ray Stevenson). But Gruner stays in his lighthouse, with good reason. Because the island is invaded at night by aquatic creatures that seem to want to hurt/kill/eat the two human inhabitants.

Working best during the first third, Cold Skin is part siege film, part creature feature, and part psychodrama looking at human nature when in a perilous situation not a million miles away from The Divide (also by Gens). There are moments of impressive tension and a couple of nice revelations that, while not entirely surprising, start to paint an interesting picture. Things then settle down a bit, moving further away from the simple genre pleasures to show viewers the mindsets of the two men, and also the involvement of a third party (played by Aura Garrido). I also enjoyed all of this section but it seems obvious that not everyone drawn into the start of the film will be kept enthralled by how the rest of it plays out.

Gens directs the hell out of the material, and the film gets top marks for the visual style throughout, which is gorgeous, and also the very impressive sound mix. The script, by Jesus Olmo and Eron Sheean, based on a novel by Albert Sanchez Pinol, is good, but not great. It works best when crafting tension, be it on a small scale between the two human islanders or showing swarming invaders at night trying to get closer and closer to their prey, and then suffers slightly when trying to explore the impact of the loneliness and the strain on our leads.

Acting-wise, Oakes and Stevenson both do good work, and Garrido deserves praise on a par with other talented performers that we often find hidden under hefty prosthetics. The film doesn't reallly give us anyone else to spend time with, crowds of night-time visitors notwithstanding, but nobody does anything you can complain about.

Those seeking a straightforward horror movie will end up disappointed. I know that I had to recalibrate my own expectations when I realised that I wasn't going to be getting quite the Lovecraftian standard I somehow thought it was going to be. Is it better for moving further away from that field and looking at things with a very different perspective? I'm not sure, but I suspect it's ultimately more interesting. And we'll still always have Dagon.

7/10

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G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is the film that most people expected G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra to be. It's brainless, full of characters that it's hard to care about, and full of action sequences that are hard to watch due to the hectic over-editing. Of course, some people are already saying "but Kevin, that's exactly THE SAME as the first movie." Well, I disagree. I thought the first film was a blast. This, however, is a big disappointment.

Channing Tatum may pop up at the start of this movie, but it's not long before he's sidelined in favour of a new bunch of Joes, with the main one being Dwayne Johnson. There's been a mission to wipe out the unit, allowing the President Of The United States (Jonathan Pryce, playing a fake version of himself due to the events of the first movie) to move on with his dastardly plan, a plan that may leave a lot of countries seriously damaged by Project Zeus, which can cause all of the destruction of a nuclear blast without any of the fallout.

Leading man Johnson is accompanied on this adventure by Adrianne Palicki and D. J. Cotrona, two attractive people to appeal to any teenagers watching the movie. Unfortunately, neither of them have much screen presence. Thankfully, Lee Byung-hun returns in the role of Storm Shadow, Pryce is having a blast and Ray Stevenson gives a performance that, for all its faults, is at least fun and never dull. Walton Goggins is great in a small role, and RZA fans may enjoy his turn as Blind Master. The addition of Bruce Willis in a small role was, I guess, a big coup, but the character that he plays, and how he plays it, just ends up feeling smug, which is becoming a bigger and bigger problem with anything that Willis has been doing over the past few years.

The script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is disappointing, with the humour feeling a lot more forced this time around, the plot never having any real sense of urgency (the whole thing feels like viewers are killing time until the good guys blow up some more stuff and win), and everything just feeling distinctly . . . . blah.

Director Jon M. Chu does nothing to help the situation, of course. He still has some good material to work with, in the shape of main characters such as Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, Roadblock and Firefly, but he very rarely uses them well. A fight sequence involving Snake Eyes (Ray Park in the suit once again, returning from the first movie) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) against a number of soldiers on the side of a mountain looks nice enough, but is completely undone by just how far-fetched it all is. Yes, this kind of stuff IS allowed to be far-fetched, but it's still grounded in a real version of our world, even if it's a heightened reality.

I'm sure there will be some people who will like this film as much as the first movie, or maybe even more so. My advice is to give it a wide berth. It has some good moments, but doesn't make for a satisfying experience, overall.

4/10

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