On the "morality" of cinematic action-movie massacres...

There is a moment at around the twenty minute mark of Olympus Has Fallen where a giant airplane piloted by evil North Koreans shoot down an American fighter jet which then crashes not in the water or in an empty parking lot, but smack-dab into a suburban home.  Considering the time of day the scene takes place, there's a pretty good chance whomever lived there was probably home at the time and was instantly burned to a crisp.  That moment would have jolting enough, but the attack sequence that kicks off the plot goes on for a good twenty minutes, offering countless innocent bystanders being bloodily gunned down in the streets, along with others being crushed by falling monuments and blown up by various explosions set off during the White House siege.  This isn't even counting the bazillion Secret Service agents who are slaughtered in the attack sequence, including a moment where enemy soldiers walk around the White House plugging wounded agents in the head (onscreen) for the crime of not being quite dead yet. Half of me was rather impressed by the rather horrifying onscreen body count.  Half of me was debating whether to be offended or bothered by it.

Review: Olympus Has Fallen (2013) is violent and stupid, a 'direct-to-VHS Die Hard rip-off' on steroids.

Olympus Has Fallen
2013
120 minutes
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

If taken at face-value, Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen is pretty much morally indefensible. Written by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, the film offers a level of jingoistic fear-mongering  the likes of which are more commonly associated with a 1980s Chuck Norris vehicle and/or the likes of Cobra.  It is astonishingly violent yet acts as if the safety of a single person is all that necessitates a happy ending.  While the slightly similar 'president in peril' epic Air Force One at least implicitly asked what cost in lives should be spent to preserve the life on a man who happens to hold a certain elected office, Olympus Has Fallen has no such weighty ideas on its mind.  It is not so much a Die Hard rip-off but a high-budget ($80 million) ode to the flurry of cheapie straight-to-VHS knock-offs that flourished in the late 1990s, complete with simplistic plotting and implausible levels of violence.  It isn't terribly smart and it peaks in the first act, but damned if I didn't enjoy the picture nonetheless.

Die Hard's oddest legacy: cheap action films...

This July will be Die Hard's 25th anniversary and much has already been written about its impact in Hollywood and its place among the top American action films of its time.  What sticks out 25 years later is not just that it made stars out of its leads (Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman) or revitalized the modern-day/non-science fiction action picture on the cusp of modern special effects advances, or that its character archetypes (regular guy hero versus larger-than-life "sophisticated" villain) basically changed the face of action cinema.  What sticks out is that Die Hard is the rare movie that basically created an entire sub-genre.  Call it "Die Hard on a/Die Hard in a", but Die Hard created a blue-print for an entire generation of cheap direct-to-video or direct-to-cable action pictures.  Using the Die Hard template, anyone could make an action picture with minimal expense.

Brandon Peters's Die Hard Rankings: Rank Harder

So as always, we do the “cool” thing and rank the films in the series from least to best.  I am going to say while there is a last place, all the Die Hards are well worth your time if you've never seen them.  Its quite easy to just sink into any one of these and enjoy the adventure.  The series features one of the most likable and charismatic leads you’ll find in any franchise, let alone action movie.  That alone makes me excited for any Die Hard film.  My lone wish for the future of the franchise would be one more McTiernan directed film, but I don’t believe that’ll happen.  If this next film is on par with the last one, I’ll be fine.  I’m not expecting it to be the best, just a fun, unique adventure featuring John McClane.

Brandon Peters retrospective review: Die Hard (1988).

It's time for another comprehensive franchise discussion from Brandon Peters, this time centering around the February 14th release of A Good Day to Die Hard.  As such, the first film on the list is, well, Die Hard.

Die Hard

1988

Directed by: John McTiernan

Starring:  Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, , Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, William Atherton, Hart Bochner, Robert Davi, Grand L. Bush

Rated: R

No fucking shit lady, do I sound like I’m ordering a pizza?

                        ~John McClane

If you’re at least 25, a male and haven’t seen Die Hard… you've got to be kidding, right?  John McTiernan’s 1988 action thriller arguably changed an entire genre and still has its effect ever so present in today’s action world.  The film launched what will be a five-film franchise coming this Valentine’s day.  Do they all work?  Should it have stopped after one?  two?.  That’s what we’re here to discuss.

Coming off the hit film Predator, director John McTiernan was offered the big screen adaptation of the book Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to The Detective (which was made into a movie in 1968).  McTiernan found the material too dark and turned it down initially.  Once the script was lightened up, he accepted.  Due to a contractual obligation, the star of The Detective, an aged Frank Sinatra had to legally be offered to the role first before anything was to move forward.  As expected, he turned it down.  The script was then refurnished to feature a younger lead and also the character’s daughter became his wife.  Joe Leland then became John McClane as to not confuse this as a direct follow up to The Detective.  And hoping to reteam with his star from his previous film, McTiernan offered the lead to Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Once he turned it down, the bill of usual action movie suspects turned it down as well (Stallone, Mel Gibson, Burt Reynolds, Harrison Ford, even Richard Gere). 

Why is Liam Neeson: Action Star more popular than Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme? Turns out, he's not.

One of threads of my Taken 2 review the other day was that I was shocked by how small-scale the action sequences were.  Rather than resembling a big-budget action sequel, it felt like a straight-to-video knockoff, the sort that 90s action icons Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal are currently pumping out.  So what is it that makes a Jean-Claude Van Damme action film go straight to DVD and a Liam Neeson action sequel open with $49 million over its opening weekend?  Well, I was curious about whether or not Neeson really was more popular than the action stars of 'old'.  The answer, using Box Office Mojo's inflation-related calculations, surprised the heck out of me, and hopefully it will prove interesting for you too.  To my surprise, the original Taken was not so much a runaway smash hit on its opening weekend but merely a lucky recipient of inflation and ever-rising ticket prices.  A hit is still a hit, but a comparison of the numbers shows that Liam Neeson really is the Steven Seagal of his day.  

Pet Peeve of the day: Attention action filmmakers - security guards are people too!

As a whole, Contraband is a pretty unremarkable would-be thriller.  There is almost no real action, and much of the middle act is a series of monotonous scenes of Kate Beckinsale being threatened and/or beaten by Giovanni Ribisi.  While Ribisi's character felt the need to continually antagonize Mark Wahlberg's family after Wahlberg has already agreed to do the crime in question is to be debated, since you'd think you wouldn't want to antagonize the professional criminal who is being entrusted with your precious cargo.  Anyway, Wahlberg is the classic 'former criminal gone straight' archetype, complete with a loving wife and kids.  If I my spoil the not-so shocking ending of the picture (...SPOILER WARNING...), Contraband ends on a mostly happy note, with Wahlberg having gotten away with the crime, protected his family (including his imperiled brother-in-law), and scored a large amount of capital for himself and his crew.  And even though Wahlberg's character is actually an accessory to a mid-film heist that ends in the wanton murder of about half-a-dozen people, he's still an okay guy.  After all, they were just security guards.