Movie Update 31

Crank: High Voltage


Remember when I said that the original Crank was actually less over the top and insane than it advertised itself as? This sequel, which brings back most of the significant characters in some way and attempts to escalate on everything the first movie did, corrects that issue. Instead of having to keep his heart rate up by doing things like getting into fights and having sex with Amy Smart, Jason Statham's heart has been replaced with an artificial one and he must keep its battery charged by doing things like electrocuting himself and having sex with Amy Smart (because it generates static electricity through friction, obviously). There's a lot more violence and nudity and general zaniness in this movie, so it succeeds at surpassing the first movie in that way. It does have a different problem though, which again prevented me from really liking the movie - it just seemed too mean-spirited. People don't just get hit in the nuts, their genitals get destroyed. A man is forced to punish himself for messing up by graphically cutting off his own nipples. Just lots of messed up stuff like that, and I thought it was usually more gross than entertaining. Otherwise, it's as kinetic and crazy as advertised, with a few moments of inspired originality.

Hoosiers


Hoosiers is as predictable an underdog sports story as you're ever likely to encounter. Gene Hackman comes to a small Indiana town to become the high school basketball coach, and he struggles to gain the acceptance of the locals before molding the team into an unlikely winner, more successful than they've ever been before. Dennis Hopper plays the father of one of the players, a drunk and embarrassment to the town who actually knows a lot about the sport. Barbara Hershey is a teacher at the school who questions Hackman's methods but eventually warms up to him. There's a kid who's supremely talented but unwilling to play, and a bunch of ignoramuses who have it out for the interloper. Though it's nothing you haven't seen a bunch of times, Hoosiers is still a charming and well-executed version of that formula. The acting is solid, and the basketball scenes are authentic and exciting. It was a bit weird for the only black people in the movie to appear at the end as players for the big bad final opponent (the movie takes place in the 50s), but otherwise there's not much to really hold against the movie. Pretty likable stuff.

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming


A weird mix of comedy and politics, The Russians Are Coming tells the story of a Soviet submarine crew that accidentally runs aground on an American island and attempts to get back in the water without causing an international incident. Unfortunately, they run into difficulties, and things are exacerbated by the locals who are alarmist about the threat and quick to gossip. Things almost totally boil over in a remarkably tension-filled stand-off before the film remembers it's a comedy and deflates it in a pretty cheesy, feel-good way. It's a likable movie, with some frustrating side characters and maybe too long a running time but not much else to complain about. The best part is probably Alan Arkin's lead performance as one of the Russian crew members, who doesn't actually get a ton of dialogue but when he does always manages to make a lot out of very little. I'm honestly not totally sure what it was trying to accomplish, but it's a pretty good movie.

Tom Jones


There's something about 18th century England that is just inherently interesting to me. The British accents, the horrible class inequality, the technology still stuck in the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, it's just... I don't know. Interesting. Tom Jones is based on a serialized novel published during that period, and features Albert Finney playing a bastard who's been raised in kind society and grown up to be a womanizer, well-liked by many but hated by some. The movie actually won Best Picture, which seems kind of strange, but I guess movies could do that back then without being dramas about serious issues or mediocre. Wow that was pretty harsh, I've actually really liked most of the recent winners of that award. Oh well, whatever. Tom Jones is funny, has an intriguing little plot about the secrets people sometimes keep, and has some nice performances. It also frequently features characters talking to or just looking at the camera, which somehow never gets old. And now that the movie has expired from Netflix streaming, the site doesn't have it at all. What's up with that, Netflix?

The Expendables

The Expendables is kind of weird, because in some ways it delivers on its promise of over-the-top 80s style action with a giant cast of movie veterans, and in some ways it doesn't. I definitely liked it, but I feel that it also could have been much better. The problem is the question of how seriously the movie takes itself. If the movie was straight-up homage to what movies used to be and maybe more tongue-in-cheek, it might have been better. But you get the feeling that Sly Stallone was being completely genuine in his attempt to bring back the glory days, and in that light it's not as successful. I mean, as far as replicating what's come before, he pulled it off. The problem is that those movies were rarely actually very good, and the script at work here is pretty damn weak. It gets made up for a bit by the advancements we've made in filming entertaining violence, but it's certainly a flawed movie.

Sylvester is the leader of a crack team of guns for hire, featuring knife expert Jason Statham, martial arts expert Jet Li, betrayal expert Dolph Lundgren, giant ridiculous automatic shotgun expert Terry Crews, and Randy Couture. Stallone is the only one whose character is really drawn beyond a very brief sketch, and while the rest of them all have what could be described as character traits, they're really just there to help blow things up. Even the second in command Statham is basically playing Action Star Jason Statham, with the only thing trying to avoid this being one of the most pointless subplots ever. Here's what it consists of: Scene 1. He goes home to his girl (played by Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and surprises her with a ring, but he finds out she's seeing another guy. Scene 2: He finds out the guy hits her, so he kicks his and his friends' asses on a basketball court and then drives off with her on his bike. Then she disappears from the movie.

And that's by far the most anybody besides Sly gets to do outside action scenes. Lots of guys get small parts, there's a fun scene where Sly gets a mission from Bruce Willis and has some half-witty repartee with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mickey Rourke forgets what movie he's in and acts his ass off delivering a monologue that helps Sly figure out what he has to do. Eric Roberts is an enjoyable smarmy villain, Batista from Dexter is the foreign general whose army is getting taken advantage of, and Stone Cold is menacing enough as the king henchman. So there's a lot of recognizable faces, and they all seem to be having fun kicking each other's asses. The action is surprisingly well choreographed, featuring an entertaining mix of guns, hand to hand beatings, and giant explosions. Unfortunately this is mired a bit by how dark the movie is, especially in the climactic scenes, and a tendency to match the current trend of very quick cuts despite the old pedigree, which occasionally makes the super violence a bit hard to see. So it's an action movie without a good story to prop it up, and the action isn't perfect either. But like I said, I mostly enjoyed it, laughing out loud on numerous occasions while acknowledging that it wasn't actually a very good film. Which is fine, it certainly could have been much worse. Personally, I'm hoping for a sequel with more Dolph, Arnie, and Bruce. And some decent lighting.

Crank

Crank is a very silly movie, but that's what it's trying to be, and it does quite a good job of it. The idea is simple; Jason Statham has to keep his adrenaline pumping to slow down a poison that was injected into him before he eventually dies, unless he can find a way to stop it. He's also trying to get revenge on the people who did this, and the entire movie consists of him running around and doing anything to stay active, from chugging energy drinks to driving cars through malls to having sex in public. I kept hearing about how it's non-stop action, and while it's true he's always running somewhere, the actual amount of traditional movie "action" is actually pretty moderate, although it gets heavier at the end. The majority of the entertainment comes from humor.

Obviously, there's a lot of laughs from the absurdity of the situation and how he deals with it, but there's also several other quirky things it does to keep it interesting. There's a lot of playing with subtitles and perspective. Going with this is the insertion of cutaways into other shots, like his friend on the phone somewhere else appearing in the rear-view mirror. Despite the focus on insanity, there is a plot to be found, a twisting little mob tale, and it has some good points, although it's largely typical and not that interesting on its own. The movie's quite short, so there isn't much time for character development or subtlety. Statham is pretty used to the action star with an English accent role by now and fills it fine. Amy Smart plays his girlfriend, and while she's not unlikable, she's really not a good actress, although that really only bothered me in one scene. It doesn't really matter though, because despite the ending that seemed ludicrous even for what had already happened, I liked it a lot. Neveldine and Taylor are a new writing/directing duo and I'm interested in what other stuff they have up their sleeves.