Category: Review

Kite

  By

★★★½
“Leon, if Matilda had been adopted by Stansfield, instead of Leon.”

Concerns about some content here means Kite has had a tortuous release in the West. First time out, in 1998, it was shorn basically of all explicit sexual content: given the potentially underage nature of the animated heroine, Media Blasters didn’t want to be hit with a kiddie porn charge – laughable though that may seem for a “cartoon”! – and played it very safe. Subsequent releases over the next six years restored first much, in the “Director’s Cut”, then all (“Special Edition”) the footage, but the OAV* might just work better without the sex. It’s hardly as if I finished it and thought, “Y’know, what this really needs is some sequences of the heroine getting molested.”

Because the story is interesting enough on its own. Sawa is a teenage assassin, basically mind-controlled by her foster father, Akai: he’s a cop who uses her to mete out vigilante justice to paedophiles, etc. [This is ironic given their relationship, the nature of which even the edited version makes fairly clear.] She meets a young man, Oburi, in much the same situation, and their growing relationship threatens to disrupt the status quo of everyday slaughter. And, “slaughter” is the word, since Sawa’s weapon of choice is bullets that first penetrate the victim, then explode. Cue more irony: in America, even animated teenage sexuality is entirely verboten, but teenage, paint-the-walls-blood-red carnage? Bring it on.

The action is certainly intense, well-animated and directed, though perhaps excessive. Even after falling from a building, through the road, down to the subway – then being blown up, flying back into the air and blasted through an apartment window, some BandAids are apparently all the medical attention Sawa requires. This conflicted badly with the gritty realism of the story, and I also hated the doodling sax soundtrack, which sounded like something rejected by Abel Ferrara for Driller Killer. Otherwise, though, it’s generally impressive and stylish, with a downbeat approach that is refreshing, as well as some spectacularly messy violence.

* = Original Animation Video, a common “straight to video” anime format. It’s only 50 minutes, about standard length for such things. A live-action version, directed by Jorge + Javier Aguilera, produced by Rob Cohen & Anant Singh, was announced earlier this year, but no release date has been scheduled. And No Doubt’s video for Ex-Girlfriend borrowed heavily from Kite – the bathroom assassination is re-staged, almost shot-for-shot, as this video shows.

Dir: Yasoumi Umetsu
Star (voice): Kotomi Naruse, Shingo Oyamada, Goro Shibusawa, Tatsuo Matoba

The Doll Squad

  By

★★
“Less an inspiration for Charlie’s Angels than the early works of Andy Sidaris.”

To describe this as eagerly anticipated would be… well, wholly wrong, actually. I’ll tell you how long the DVD has sat on our shelf: I bought it on honeymoon; we got married in July 2002. Not exactly required viewing, then. And having seen it, I can see why: while not as bad as we feared from the trailer, it’s remarkably dull. Mikels claims the concept was stolen by the creators of Charlie’s Angels, but going by the execution here, the word he’s looking for would appear to be “rescued”, not stolen. Sabrina Kincaid (York) assembles an all-girl team to find and take out the evil mastermind who’s blowing up American rockets. Quite why they must be girls is never quite explained; it’s down to Big Bertha, the government computer that assigns missions, and apparently values fashion sense over ability.

It’s really the middle where this falls apart, among near-endless scenes of the team running around an island in jumpsuits and white, high-heeled boots, getting captured, escaping and running around again. This is, as it sounds, remarkably dull, and outside of Sabrina, no attempt is made to give any of the other members any significant character traits. That’s a shame, especially since you’ve got Tura Satana, one of the most memorable action heroines of all time in Faster Pussycat. Here’s she’s reduced to a pastie-wearing cypher, who provides the film’s entire, insignificant skin quota. If you’re hoping this film makes up for in nudity what it lacks in most other areas, you’ll be disappointed.

There are some minor pleasures to be had: York isn’t bad, and her team has no qualms about dropping someone, then adding a bullet or two for good measure [Though this isn’t necessary when you feed them high-explosive liquor] And the soundtrack is perhaps the best thing about the film, being 91 minutes of Grade-A, seventies cheese. However, on the whole, this is more a chore than a pleasure, and Mikels doesn’t do much here to redeem his name as one of the poorer B-movie directors of the time.

Dir: Ted V. Mikels
Stars: Francine York, Michael Ansara, Sherri Vernon, Tura Satana

Million Dollar Baby

  By

★★★½
“The harder they come, the harder they fall…”

The problem with boxing films is that it’s very hard to avoid the obvious cliches. Kid from the streets, initially seen as hopeless, eventually convinces a trainer to take them on, and struggles towards the goal of a shot at the big time. Million is no different, for the first two-thirds at least. Then, there is a sudden, unexpected swerve – or would have been unexpected, if our son hadn’t ruthlessly spoilered it, by wandering in and telling us of a scene in Scary Movie 4 which spoofed it. Thank you, Robert. :-) This shifts the movie in a radically different direction, though also divorcing it entirely from the action heroine genre and robbing it of at least half a grade, since reviews here center around such aspects.

What helps enormously are the three characters at the core of the film: trainer and gym owner Frankie (Eastwood), ex-fighter and general gym handyman Eddie (Freeman), and the thirty-something hillbilly waitress Maggie (Swank), who comes to the gym to learn the pugilistic arts. All three have their burdens, Frankie in particular, who blames himself for everything bad that happens to anyone he knows. Yet somehow, they fit together like crazy paving and become more whole as a result; it’s fascinating to watch, and much credit is due to all three actors. The fight scenes are well staged too. Swank looks the part – she was The Next Karate Kid, after all – as she makes her way through the ranks, ending up facing champion Billie the Blue Bear (Rijker – on the left in the pic, and in reality, 37-0 as a kickboxer, 17-0 as a boxer), and there’s little glamourous here.

You get some feeling for the appeal of the sport, and the commitment it demands, though the freak nature of the incident which drives the final third seems lazy writing. Despite a weak script, the performances, particularly Eastwood, lift this above and beyond. Recommended if you want a more thoughtful approach, and are prepared for action more to be a catalyst for drama, rather than a purpose in itself.

Dir: Clint Eastwood
Star: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Lucia Rijker

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

  By

★★★
“Patience is required, but decent fun when it gets going.”

Just imagine Jennifer Aniston watching this film: every time Ange appears on the screen, or gazes lovingly at Brad, Jen shrieks maniacally, “Die, sluuuuuut!” Such thoughts will keep you entertained during the sluggish first hour – you’ll need them, while you wait for the characters to realise what we know from the start: Mr. and Mrs. Smith are both assassins, now targeted by their respective agencies. For that is when the fun finally starts, not the overlong lead-up, where Brad + Angelina can only sustain the plot’s conceit (that – tee-hee! – they don’t know each other’s real jobs) by abject stupidity that flies directly in the face of their characters. She’s supposedly a top-level assassin with 300+ kills to her name, yet doesn’t notice hubby’s Batman-sized lair beneath the potting shed? Puh-lease…

But, must say, I enjoyed the action, which is directed with imagination – for example, Jolie abseiling down a building using only her handbag, provoking a rare “Wow!” from this jaded fan. Jolie is just right: it’s difficult to imagine the other options (Kidman, Zeta-Jones, Blanchett and, um, Gwen Stefani) doing as well. And the sniping banter between husband and wife has a particularly enjoyable sense of irony when its punctuated by… er, actual sniping. Some might say this both glorifies and trivializes the whole issue of domestic violence – and watching them brawl their way round the house before, naturally, tearing each other’s clothes off, it’s hard to argue. Yet at its best, this takes the “War of the Sexes” to a whole new level (she works for an agency that’s mostly women; he, for one that’s largely guys), and that angle could certainly merit more exploration.

We don’t know whether the Smiths are “good”, “bad” or independent contractors, an interesting approach (we have no moral compass beyond their actions), yet disappointing. For another weakness is that the villains are merely faceless minions, when the genre needs a Big Bad for the climax – the obvious one here is the people that ordered the terminations. Liman, whose Bourne Identity was also about a killer with a contract on his head, might appreciate this more than most, and word is two such endings were shot, just not used. Still, I suspect that the sequel – likely inevitable, given this was one of 2005’s top ten at the US box-office – could very well be more fun than the original. At least we’ll have all the tedious set-up out of the way.

Dir: Doug Liman
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington

Bloodrayne

  By

★★½
“Don’t belief the hype: it’s not that bad.”

Director Boll has a rep as the worst filmmaker ever, making movies based on video games entirely for tax writeoff purposes. But have things got out of hand? I mean, Bloodrayne was in the IMDB All-time Bottom 50 before it opened. So cut him some slack – even though we may be the only folk on this planet who admit to liking bits of House of the Dead. Still, despite a fine cast [any film with Udo Kier is okay by us!], uniformly dire reviews meant we went in to this with low expectations – and made up most of the audience. Ouch. Yet, despite rumours of Madsen being drunk every day, Kingsley refusing to act with Madsen – something leftover from Species, I guess – and Rodriguez’ horrendous attempt at an English accent, this wasn’t entirely terrible.

Not great, sure; but as someone from Britain, I knew right off Rodriguez wasn’t even trying. I think all she did was limit her normal accent – wise for a Hispanic in a setting of Romania, circa 1700. Anyway, she and Madsen are hunting down Rayne (Loken), a human/vampire halfbreed seeking king of the vampires Kagan (Kingsley), who raped and killed her mother. Kagan, in turn, is after three artifacts to protect him from water, crosses and sunlight. Basically, imagine a period take on Blade with less actual imagination and more digital blood. There is certainly potential; Loken looks the part (dig her groovy swords!), as does the landscape.

However, the action borders on the incoherent, provoking little or no sense of awe or excitement. Gossip also states most of the stars signed on about two weeks’ notice, and that would certainly explain their apparent large unfamiliarity with pointy weapons. From the reviews, you’d think this was worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space, yet ignoring the anti-Boll hype, it’s largely only the poor staging of the fights which prevent this from being, at the very least, a credible rental. However, an action film with bad action is like a horror film with bad scares, rendering the other ingredients largely irrelevant.

Dir: Uwe Boll
Stars: Kristina Loken, Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez

Taking Lives

  By

★★½
“Another great concept is let down by depressingly obvious scripting.”

Rarely has a film started so promisingly, and gone so consistently downhill. The start is fabulous, with one of the most shocking moments I’ve seen…though if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll have had it spoiled. But regardless, the first time we meet FBI profiler Illeana Scott (Jolie), on special assignment to Montreal, she’s lying in a grave. She is hard as nails, and takes absolutely no crap from anyone: her local friend, Captain Leclair (Karyo) hardly needs to bother protecting her, despite the nicely-handled cross-border tension. The case is that of a serial killer who, as the title suggests, inhabits the lives of his victims: the crack comes when his mother (Rowlands), believing him dead for two decades, spots him in Montreal by chance. However, the only other person to have seen the suspect is art-gallery owner James Costa (Hawke), but Scott starts finding her emotions getting in the way of her work…

Which is where the film loses its way, deflating like a leaky balloon. We are forced to watch the inevitable sexual tension between these two characters; seeing Scott go about her business would be infinitely less cliched and predictable. There is a twist that is so obvious you’d need to be unconscious not to see it coming – though I’d forgive you for falling asleep during the aforementioned sexual tension – and a final act that appears to have been taken from a bad 80’s slasher movie. These failings merely open the door for you to stare more closely at the plot, and you realise large chunks of it are on wobbly ground. For example, Scott deduces from a draft that a bookcase must conceal a hidden door: er, why not simply an A/C vent? Part Se7en, part Silence of the Lambs, this comes over as taking the less effective elements from each film, leaving the potential of a female Sherlock Holmes sadly under-realised.

Dir: D.J. Caruso
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Tchéky Karyo, Ethan Hawke, Gena Rowlands

D.E.B.S.

  By

★★
“Teenage lesbians! With guns! How could they go wrong? Well…read on.”

As Kim Possible proves, there’s certainly scope for a high-school action heroine who has to save the world from evil. Unfortunately, here, the potential largely gurgles down the plughole, in favour of a smug, self-satisfied romantic comedy, that manages to be as bland as a film about teenage lesbians could be. Amy Bradshaw (Foster) gets a perfect score on the test hidden within the SAT, and is recruited into a spy academy; there, with her classmates (Good, Ritchie and the always amusing Devon Aoki), she carries out secret missions, wears plaid skirts and agonises over her relationship with her boyfriend.

So far, so good. Then, by unlikely plotting, she meets and falls for evil mastermind, Lucy Diamond (Brewster), and decides to quit school for Lucy. But does the road of true love ever run smooth? This, unfortunately, is where the film goes off the rails entirely. While I’ve no problems with homosexual love stories – okay, especially where the protagonists are cute and female – Robinson abandons wit for a series of cliches, causing nothing but slow boredom. Originally a ten-minute short, it doesn’t appear any additional ideas went into the script, meaning it’s good for about ten minutes of fun. Logic is all but non-existent, even in the “ironic” D.E.B.S. world: for example, the teachers can teleport around, but at the end, are unable to get past a locked door.

The action isn’t too bad initially, with a sprightly shootout in a restaurant. However, that’s your lot, save the “daring” lesbian angle. Though, being mainstream cinema, it’s just a couple of clothes-on kisses, and bad, unconvincing romance is no fun, regardless of a character’s orientation. This aspect is so po-faced and politically correct – it is, clearly, supposed to be taken Very Seriously – that proceedings come to a grinding halt, while what appears to be the director’s iPod on shuffle plays as a witless soundtrack. Look! An Erasure song! How appropriate! ‘Cos, y’know, they’re gay. Kill me. Kill me now. Then bring me a copy of Naked Killer.

Dir: Angela Robinson
Star: Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster, Meagan Good, Jill Ritchie

Lady Jayne Killer

  By

★★★
“Unquestionably flawed but cheesily energetic fluff.”

Memo to self: don’t tell your wife the star of a film was in Playboy. Chris’s interest, already somewhat on thin ice, evaporated entirely, pretty much the moment I made that mistake, and I almost had to handcuff her to the bed to prevent a sudden trip to the supermarket. The concept here is kinda cool: Mom Emily (Eleniak) vs. anti-Mom Jayne (du Page). The latter is a hitwoman for the Mob, with 20 kills to her credit when she decides to abscond with a million in cash. She ends up hitching a ride beside Emily and her 16-year old son Kerry (Lelliot) on their way to San Antonio, with the former owners of the money in hot pursuit. And the cops. And the FBI. Then Kerry – when not fantasizing about Eleniak in the shower [cue Chris’s neo-departure!] – decides to solves Mom’s financial problems with thievery of his own.

I certainly don’t blame them for changing the title from the amazingly bland original – though suspect a colon got lost somewhere on route… And this is contrived: with a cellphone, and more than enough ready cash, Jayne could easily hire a limo – or even take a cab to San Antonio. So why use Emily – then hang around, even after their car breaks down? That sound you hear is the film whistling loudly and putting its fingers in its ears. And despite a strict and straight-laced parent, underage Kerry still sports a Superman tattoo on his arm. This kind of sloppy attention to production detail damages a film which is sometimes smarter than it may appear.

For instance, Emily’s line that her son is knows about every woman who has appeared in Playboy is nicely self-aware, given Eleniak’s familiarity with the staples therein. :-) But she stays dressed here, leaving the lingerie to Du Page, and Kerry’s interaction with the babe dropped into his life are amusing – hey, in his shoes and at his age, I’d be a gibbering fool too. The plot twists its way, albeit predictably, towards the final battle between Mom and anti-Mom. As a time-passer, I found it by no means awful: while it’d have been nice if Emily had snarled “Get away from him, you bitch,” when she found Jayne holding a gun to Kerry’s head, I guess you can’t have everything.

Dir: Mark L. Lester
Star: Erika Eleniak, Julie du Page, Jeremy Lelliot, James Remar
a.k.a. Betrayal

G.I. Jane

  By

★★★½
“The training Jane stays mainly in the pain…”

The opening hour of this must be great entertainment for sadists, watching Demi Moore get pummelled, ground-down, chewed-up and beaten into a bloody pulp by the war machine, as part of Navy SEAL training. The first woman to go through it, she could open the door for others if she succeeds – which is exactly why the stops are pulled out to ensure she fails. While the most obvious face of this is Master Chief Urgayle (Mortensen – his character here would eat Aragorn for lunch), her political mentor Senator DeHaven (Bancroft) also finds the pressure coming down to pull the plug on this social experiment. But Jan…er, Jordan O’Neil (Moore), won’t give up at any cost, demanding absolutely equal treatment. Of course, after what seems like a 75-minute training montage, she wins the respect of her colleagues, overcoming the Senator’s intervention thanks to a peskily imperfect fax machine.

An eye-poppingly brutal look at what our soldiers go through (leaving me with even more respect for them), it’s the second half where the movie kicks into life. Their final training mission has the SEALS diverted to Libya to help recover a device containing weapons-grade plutonium. This “no man left behind” would be revisited by Scott – and cranked up to the max – in Black Hawk Down, but the restraint he shows here is a lot more effective. To me, showing ability in a combat situation, as our heroine does, would seem a better way of obtaining the admiration of your fellow soldiers – rather than telling Urgayle to “Suck my dick!” But, hey, I’m a civilian, and very happy to be one, so what do I know? It’s a shame there wasn’t a resulting franchise; as the last hour shows, there is a lot of potential for development, with O’Neil kicking butt in a variety of exotic foreign locals. However, at 43, Demi Moore is perhaps too old these days. What’s Jessica Alba doing?

Dir: Ridley Scott
Star: Demi Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Anne Bancroft, Jason Beghe

Painkiller Jane (pilot)

  By

★★
“It’ll probably be the audience who need the painkillers to get through this tedious tale.”

This SciFi Channel original movie is based on a comic-book series, but makes some radical changes to the storyline, though the basic idea is intact: a woman becomes immune to injury after the usual mysterious something happens to her [radioactive spider bite, barrel of toxic waste – the usual graphic novel contrivances, in other words]. In the comic, she was an undercover cop; here, she is a Special Forces soldier in Chechnya who is exposed to an experimental biological agent. Naturally, she subsequently finds herself much sought after, by both good and bad factions, since she’s the first to survive the treatment.

And initially, this isn’t so bad, as she escapes from the military, encounters a gentlemen thief and his posse of sidekicks, and tries to get all her mental ducks in a row, so she knows who to trust. As a set-up, it’s fine, with its share of paranoia. However, the longer this goes on, the less interesting it gets: you’d think having a heroine who is virtually immortal, would lead to almost non-stop mayhem. Not here. The action here is very limited and when it does appear, is simply boring – unfortunately, there’s no other word for it.

Now, I know this was intended as much as a pilot for a project TV series as anything, and they have to keep their powder dry for future episodes. But unlike, say, Chameleon, there’s precious little here to make me want to watch, should they decide to bring it back. Indeed, I fell asleep as the “gripping” scene at a shopping mall unfolded. For any action film, that’s about the kiss of death, and while the performances aren’t bad – Vaugier as our heroine has a nice attitude that reminded me of Yancy Butler in Witchblade – there wasn’t nearly enough meat on these bones to satisfy me…

Dir: Sanford Bookstaver
Star: Emmanuelle Vaugier, Tate Donovan, Richard Roundtree, Eric Dane