Land of the Dead (2005)

If there ever was a flick that was over hyped during the 2005 summer movie season, it was the more or less remake of the 1985 zombie horror movie “Day of the Dead.” The original flick was ridiculous, overly long and an obviously cheap jack disaster. It was and is not a classic in any way. The 2005 version is the same as the original, except that its budget was much larger.

The only real difference between the two movies is that Day of the Dead concerned an underground bunker, Land of the Dead is about a walled city. This city is Pittsburgh, PA where the city’s elite reside in a skyscraper named “Fiddler’s Green.” There is no explanation in the flick on just how the city can survive despite the lack of sufficient farm land to sustain the inhabitants.

The world of Land of the Dead is an implausibly horrific one. Since the rest of the world has been overrun by undead zombies, the living have all gotten themselves holed up in the walled city of Pittsburgh. The wealthy all live in skyscrapers like Fiddler’s Green while everyone else have to tough it out on the streets.

Even more implausible is the nature of the walled city of Pittsburgh’s defense force. The defense is built around a single tank called “Dead Reckoning.” The men of the defense force are all mercenaries who were hired by the city’s leadership to defend the city from zombie attack. You would think that there would be more than just one tank to protect the city. Even worse is the idea that in a future when there is only one bastion of non-zombie humanity left, then there would be no need to hire mercenaries since the citizens would willingly volunteer to man the barricades. Besides all this, since the mercenaries were all hired from outside the city, then would that not mean that there must be other islands of freedom safe from the rampaging zombies? Clearly, this was not a well thought out aspect of Land of the Dead.

Even more poorly thought out is the ethnic and racial stereotyping that permeates Land of the Dead. It has slum dwelling Irish folk, an angry black man zombie and a loudmouthed young Puerto Rican. In addition to the stereotyping, there are tons of awful dialogue.

Essentially, Land of the Dead is a stupid movie that was obviously made for the sole purpose of making lots and lots of money. There clearly was zero artistic reasons for this movie and zero artistry was invested in it. Basically, the movie moguls behind it thought that they could pull a fast one on the movie going public and reap huge dividends. Thankfully, they miscalculated and Land of the Dead turned out to be a disappointment at the box office. If you decide to rent this movie out, you will be disappointed as well, unless you are really into bad movies.

Serenity (2005)

Usually, when a TV show is made into a movie, the movie version is pretty bad. There have been several recent examples of this trend such as Sgt. Bilko & McHale’s Navy. One recent theatrical movie that bucked this longstanding Hollywood tendency is the 2005 flick Serenity that is the movie version of the short lived science fiction TV series Firefly.

Firefly was hands down the single best TV show of this decade/century thus far. Firefly displayed great humor, well written dialog and there was excellent chemistry among the crew. The scenes around the dinner table were truly wonderful. Firefly was conceived as a “space western.” It invoked the concept of space as the final frontier as well as the original “Star Trek” and Firefly was far superior to any of the latter Star Trek series. Firefly was a great science fiction show full of that sense of wonder for which that you read/watch SF in the first place. Hopefully, the rumors of a new season of Firefly being produced for distribution on DVD turn out to be true.

Unlike most other movies based on TV shows, Serenity keeps practically the entire TV cast in the movie. As a result, there is nary a big time movie star in the entire flick. This helps give Serenity the feeling of a breath of fresh air instead of being more of the same old same old.

The movie’s name derives from the name of the ship Serenity. The crew of the Serenity is strictly mercenary and will take on any job regardless of its legality or morality. This includes assassinations, burglary and smuggling. The galaxy is ruled by The Alliance that achieved its position by winning a galactic war. Complicating matters is the fact that the captain of the Serenity, Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), was on the losing side in that war.

As a result of this defeat, both Captain Reynolds and the Serenity spend most of their existence hovering on the far frontier hoping to stay out of the clutches of the victorious Alliance for as long as possible. This helps give Serenity a “space western” feel. To a great extent, Serenity is a futuristic version of the Wild West of yore.

If anything, life on the space frontier is even more perilous than it was on the Western frontier. This is because of the Reavers who are humans who have been gone crazy and have become cannibals. The movie starts with the crew of the Serenity pulling a bank heist only to wind up in the path of a marauding band of Reavers. Additionally, the crew of the Serenity are protecting a girl who they rescued from a sinister laboratory run by the glactic government. Needless to say, Serenity packs a lot of action in one film.
Serenity is a fun flick and as such is very well done. The fact that there are hardly any movie stars in the film adds to the fun and does not result in a production with acting values that are lower than most motion pictures. Unlike most science fiction movies, Serenity combines both good special effects with both a strong story and character development. Serenity is a great example of how science fiction films should be made and as such is warmly recommended.

Chicago Sun-Times Conveniently Leaves Out Part of the Dennis Farina Story

The Chicago Sun-Times has been running quite a bit of material about the late beloved actor Dennis Farina.   However, there is one thing that has been quite conveniently left out of the coverage:  Farina's politics were well to the right and he was a Republican.  This from a newspaper that has long published the political affiliation of GOP politicians who get into trouble while conveniently never mentioning it whenever Democrats are scandal afflicted.  There have even been times when  Democrats have become embroiled in scandal and the CST has misidentified them as being Republicans.

And to think that the CST calls itself an "independent newspaper" when in fact  it is partisan to the point of refusing to print the truth about the dearly departed.

Lawless (2012)

Almost always when Hollywood makes movies about the Prohibition Era, the action is set in the big cities.  This has always seemed strange in light of the fact that the bulk of the illicit liquor was made in the countryside and then smuggled into the big cities.  Also, when the liquor was made in big city stills, the raw materials came from rural areas.  In other words, if it were not for the collaboration of rural criminals with their urban counterparts, Prohibition would have been a success and might still be the law of the land even today.

Lawless is based on the real life story of the Bondurant brothers of Virginia.  Before Prohibition, the Bondurant family had been noted for its lawlessness and violence.  Prohibition would show that the Bondurants were able to hold their own against both big city racketeers and corrupt so-called law enforcers alike.

Unfortunately Lawless is not  as interesting as the historical events that inspired it.  This is a slow, boring flick with but little of redeeming value.  Its surprising just how dull this movie is given the excessive level of violence and killing just for the sake of killing that there is in this film.  There is also a gratuitous amount of what can only be called "torture porn" in Lawless.

There is little real plot or story to this flick.  Strangely, given all the violence there is also very little real suspense.  This despite the fact that there is one scene in which a man is tarred and feathered much like what happened to British tax collectors during the events preceding the American Revolution.  The combination  of gratuitous violence with characters who are all  unsympathetic, unlikable and  uninteresting makes for one boring movie.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Lawless is the actors who chose to be associated with this kind of garbage.  These are Gary Oldman and Guy Pearce who have held down prestigious roles in far better movies.  It is painfully clear that they agreed to be in this horrible flick only for the paycheck as shown by the fact that their performances were clearly phoned in.

Even worse is the fact that Shia LaBeouf is in this movie.  Shia LaBeouf plays the lead role as Jack Bondurant.  As in his previous movies, this guy is a mess.  He simply cannot do a convincing southern accent.  How he ever became such a prominent Hollywood figure is difficult to understand.

All in all, Lawless is a disappointment.  What could have been a historically sound action packed thriller is a flick that is loaded with all sorts of mindless sex and violence with little in the way of a coherent plot or quality acting.  Lawless is nothing more than a piece of trash and as such it ought to be avoided like the plague.

The Expendables 2 (2012)

The producers of The Expendables 2 have done the seemingly impossible.  They have made a movie that is even worse than the original The Expendables.  And the sequel was worse than the original despite the addition of Chuck Norris to the cast.  This movie was nearly unbearable with all too many former action stars that you hardly care about anymore doing things that just simply are not believable.  The plot was stupid in the extreme and things got to the point where you hardly knew just what was supposed to be going on.

At the beginning of this movie, some of the Expendables mercenary outfit  execute an operation designed to free an allegedly innocent man named Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from a Nepalese prison.  Trench is a haggard looking character who turns out to be both extremely dangerous and anything but innocent.  After this mission, Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) informs the Expendables theat they need to seek revenge for a fallen compatriot.

So they go to Russia to keep him from getting Russian nukes to sell on the open market. Believe me, I’m making it sound better than it is. Far better. So much action, so boring and stupid. And the addition of Chuck Norris does not make it any better.

When things go wrong, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory, where the odds are stacked against them. Hell-bent on payback, the crew cuts a swath of destruction through opposing forces, wreaking havoc and shutting down an unexpected threat in the nick of time - five tons of weapons-grade plutonium, more than enough to change the balance of power in the world. But that's nothing compared to the justice they serve against the villainous adversary they seek revenge from.

From this point on, The Expendables 2 becomes nothing more than an exercise in all too predictable action filmmaking.  There are ony two things that are surprising about this flick.  First off, just how boring a movie can be when there is so much death, explosions and shooting going on.  The second is just how boring and confusing that a movie can get to be at the same time.

The Expendables 2 is a horrible excuse in movie making.  It is an exercise in highly predictable paint by the numbers film making.  The actors are all over the hill losers who are in this particular flick strictly for the paycheck.  The plot, along with the screenplay, was stupid in the extreme.  The production values were simply not there.  To put things mildly, The Expendables 2 is a movie that you need to avoid like the plague.

The Expendables (2010)

The Expendables is one of those movies that starts off great and then gets pretty bad really fast.  This movie begins with an exciting battle against Somali pirates by a band of American mercenaries.  It appeared as if this was going to be a top notch thriller.

Unfortunately, The Expendables turned out to be just another Hollywood flick in which America is evil.  Here, the always rotten and up to no good Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has placed in power a diabolical dictator of a fictitious Latin American country called Vilena.  This CIA puppet thug is a mass murderer and is also engaged in smuggling illegal drugs into America.  The movie's plot has it that the CIA is involved in this racket.

The plot is most depressing in light of the fact that the creator of The Expendables is none other than Sylvester Stallone.  During the 1980's, Stallone was one of America's most outspoken patriots.  His Rambo movies were about the struggle of American freedom fighters against godless tyrannical Communism.  And now Stallone has made a movie that trashes America.  Given the fact that the American people have made Stallone fantastically wealthy, why does he hate America so much?

The plot is also unrealistic.  In this movie, Stallone and his fellow mercenaries are paid millions to go around and indiscriminately shoot up all sorts of things and people.  In real life, mercenary operations are carefully planned and executed to cost as little as possible in terms of both lives lost and property damaged.

Much of this movie is annoying.  Have you ever wanted to see a veteran he-man actor such as Mickey Rourke cry?  In The Expendables, you get to see this happen.  You also get to see the aging Sylvester Stallone hang on to an airplane zipping through both air and bullets alike.  Now that is the kind of scene that threatens your suspension of disbelief.  Essentialy, the Expendables is nothing but a glorified reunion of aging action movie stars angling for an easy payday for nothing but a lot of phoned in performances.

However, not all of the performances are worthless.  Jason Statham is great as Lee Christmas while Terry Crews is decent as Hale Caesar.  The fetching beauty Charisma Carpenter has a bit part in which she shows some real acting talent.  The cinematography and special effects are above average.

In the end, The Expendables is a mess.  The plot is stupid and makes very little sense.  America is evil and the CIA is even worse.  The United States of America is apparently behind all evil in the world.  Movies like The Expendables help further the hatred of America and American values all around the world.  Movies like The Expendables need to be avoided like the plague.

Richard Roeper Nailed the Lone Ranger

Richard Roeper is not one of the best film critics around.  Hell, he is not even a good movie reviewer.  However, in the case of the recent abomination "The Lone Ranger" starring Johnny Depp as Tonto, Roeper hit the nail on the head when he wrote that it is both a "big mess" and a "train wreck."