Jingle All the Way (1996)

Well, Christmas has come and gone yet again, and I never did get around to reviewing a real Christmas movie in time. Damn it, just damn it – my own awful timing gets in the way yet again. What can I possibly do to make it up to you?

Director: Brian Levant

Starring: Arnold Schwarzennegger, Sinbad

IMDb

No, I don't think this counts. I don't think anyone in their right mind would consider Jingle All the Way a feasible manner of making amends with someone – unless you're apologizing for not annoying the ever loving piss out of your worst enemies this holiday season.

Oh, okay. It isn't that bad. Is it? IS IT?!

We start this one off with a Power Rangers-esque TV show for kids that I'm sure was made under the influence of all the leftover crack cocaine the studio execs had left over from the 1980s. Seriously, the way this is shot and the speed at which the action moves are so blitzkrieg fast, there isn't any fucking room for a story to be told. You'd have to be high on sugar to find this enjoyable.

When did they give the Ewoks Power Rangers costumes for Halloween, and when can we take them away again?

I didn't know the Flash's loser brother finally conned his way into a TV series.

...which, I suppose, would describe the majority of little children in the 90s and early 2000s. I mean have you seen their breakfast cereals? You could probably swim in an ocean of pure sugar and still be less energized and strung out than if you ate a bowl of Cinammon Toast Crunch.

Anyway, our main characters are well-to-do upper middle class white people with no serious problems. The father, Howard, is played by the obvious choice for any Christmas movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Apparently the big crisis in this movie is him not coming to his kid's karate class on time and not buying his kid a pre-processed action figure because he spent all his time working in the office to pay the bills – what a fucking tragedy, I tell you. Why was I ever worried about all those starving orphans/Charles Dickens characters in the streets on Christmas morning huddled around fires trying to stay warm? Clearly these people have it worse.

I do love the scene where he's trying to get to the class on time. He's stopped by a cop for driving in the emergency lane, which could have killed or seriously injured any number of people in any number of ways. I just feel so bad that he got stopped by that mean old cop for that little detail.

"You could have killed someone waiting in this lane for medical or mechanical assistance!"
"But officer, I have to get to my son's karate show on time!"
"Oh, well in that case...you're still a complete douche and should be arrested."

And then by the time he gets there, the place is cleared out and the janitor is mopping the floor:

"I don't know what happened, Mr. Schwarzenegger. The kids were so bad at karate, the parents just snatched them up and sprinted for home as soon as they could!"

Uh, how late DID Howard leave for that karate match? If he promised he'd be there on time and then got there THAT late, I highly doubt it was just the cop who held him up. Either he was way too far away to ever get there on time, or everyone just rocket-sped out of there, burning their heels on the hard linoleum floor, because the karate match was so bad.

Also, was it too much to ask for a scene of Jake Lloyd (who plays the son, Jamie) trying to break one of those wooden blocks in the karate match, failing horribly and breaking his hand? C'mon. Throw me at least that bone, movie.

"OW! MY HAND!"

At home, Howard gets a tongue-lashing from his wife because hey, him actually doing shit to pay the bills on time and support his family is a rotten thing to do. Plus, it's a Christmas movie – having a father who realistically balances work and family life at all would be stupid and inconsequential to the movie's poorly written plot.

Then he goes upstairs and talks to Jamie about how sorry he is, asking if he can make it up to Jamie in any way. After a bit of prodding, Jamie finally shouts that he wants a Turbo-Man action figure, which Howard promises him and fixes their little spat. I love this - “You can miss all my karate matches if you buy me that commercial piece of plastic! In fact, you can quit your job and be a deadbeat dad and never see us again if you buy it for me! That's how warped my sense of things being equal is!”

"I just may take you up on that last bit, son."

Later on we get some talk from the wife asking if he bought the toy for Jamie yet, to which Howard lies and says yes. Wait a minute – if they knew Jamie wanted this toy - and they had to, considering he watched that Turbo-Man show like an old lady watches televangelists - why didn't they buy it for him already? The dialogue establishes that it's near Christmas eve by now. You'd think they would have known their own son well enough to BUY him the fucking action figure BEFORE he had to tell his dad to get it as a way to make up for missing karate class!

Sigh. The next day we get Howard's manic trek to find that damn action figure before the end of the day so Jamie can someday pass on a similar soul-sucking corporate mindset to his own children and further the Ouroboros-like cycle of cynicism that American culture is becoming...oh, I'm sorry, wrong meeting. The meeting at the docks is tomorrow night. Tonight it's Christmas family movie time!

We get introduced to Sinbad somewhere in the movie's jittery mess of a story, playing Myron, a postal worker who I am sure needs therapy of some kind to undo whatever is wrong with him. Why would I say something so cruel? Well, look at this.

That's what he does immediately upon Howard striking up a conversation with him. Was he just waiting to unleash that tantrum on anyone who spoke to him, or does he just do it to everyone he speaks to? Either way, I'm scared as shit now.

The look on Schwarzenegger's face pretty much sums it up, yeah: "What did I do with my life to get here?"

This movie is like 84 minutes long, and takes up a shitload of its runtime with brainless slapstick in the stores as everyone in this city apparently waited until Christmas Eve to buy Turbo Man toys. Who actually bought these things in the first place if ALL THESE PEOPLE are stampeding at the gates to get them the day before Christmas? Did they just order a shockingly low number of them to begin with? What gives?

Oh well. Just throw in more scenes of people tripping over things set to overly jubilant music, that'll fix it!

In his natural environment.

If you can believe it, there's also a scene where Howard gets taken to an underground black market for toys where for some reason, despite everyone just working from there, they're all wearing Santa costumes. Yes, every one of them. Really not much for unique costuming, are you? Or is this just supposed to be some kind of Santa cult of sorts? Either answer is enough to send your brain cells leaping off a cliff in a mass-suicide attempt, so pick your own answer.

If you can believe that, well, the movie is about to really test your sanity with a fight scene between Howard and a bunch of these Santas. Yes, really.

Also throughout the movie, we get scenes of this other guy, Ted, a next door neighbor trying to put the moves on Howard's wife. He's so un-subtle about it, I'm surprised he doesn't just kidnap the wife and prompt Schwarzennegger to revert to his past life as an action star to save her.

If only...

But that doesn't happen. Instead we get some more slapstick, and a scene with Myron going on another improv rant in a bar in the middle of the day, this time raving about a toy he wanted as a kid. I give credit to Sinbad for trying to flesh out this ridiculously underwritten, sloppy script – as a lot of his lines were just made up on the spot by him while filming apparently – but seriously, this is as funny as a stubbed toe. The first time was pretty funny, but this really isn't.

Then through another overly long and stupidly complicated chain of events, Howard and Myron find their way to some radio station promising to give away a Turbo Man doll. When they find out the station doesn't have it, they end up destroying the place and getting the cops called on them. Myron, being a stand-up guy, pretends to have a bomb package to throw off the cops. I guess he's just banking on the fact that his face is so forgettable in a crowd that they can lose him and he won't ever be arrested for this.

Except, it turns out, when one of the packages he happened to have at random IS a bomb:

And next up on 'scenes you'd never see in a movie these days'...

I guess it was just one of those bombs that makes you look comedically frazzled, and doesn't seriously hurt you. Oh, well, those are okay then.

After a bunch more boring things happen, including Howard trying to steal a present from Ted's house and Howard's wife all-but-divorcing him, Howard ends up dressed in a Turbo Man outfit for the parade going on. He doesn't have a chance to explain that he isn't supposed to be there, because like all professional productions, they don't give him a chance to talk and instead just shove him into an outfit. You know, because that wouldn't create all sorts of potential problems in real life, right?

You know, I really can't see how, even in a fictional universe, ANYONE thought having that pink monstrosity would be a good idea in a story. I mean it looks like cotton candy vomit from a grizzly bear.

Oh, and Myron shows up as the Turbo Man villain, too, which is so stupid I don't even have words for it. Oh wait yes I do – it's absolutely insane that he would somehow come to the conclusion to dress up as that character on purpose just to get the doll they're giving away as a prize. Seriously, the brain cells are heading toward the cliffside like lemmings here. Someone stop the madness!

On the float, apparently no one stops to think that maybe the two guys fighting and screaming at each other in an intensely personal way ISN'T part of the stunt. Including when Jamie comes up and kicks Myron in the balls – I guess that part was part of the routine! I wonder if the parade people pay for the surgery that comes with ruptured testicles.

What a low blow. This kid is in for a good career as a cast member of the Bad Santa remake in a few years.

Also, apparently the parade people were able to get their hands on a rocket jetpack that can actually let Howard fly way up in the air with no protection or instruction. Another reason I'm really glad those idiots running the parade were SO DISCERNING with who they let wear that costume!

None of these images needed to be seen by mortal eyes.

After a climax that involves Myron chasing Jamie up to a roof top and almost killing him for the doll, we get our happy ending where Howard reunites with his family and all is good again. Myron, I assume, gets arrested and sent to jail for the numerous heinous crimes he's committed, the first and foremost of which is subjecting us to his performance in the movie. Ha ha ha! Man, I crack myself up.

…

So, yeah, this was completely insane. Nothing about it worked, from the scant runtime mostly taken up by over-long slapstick sequences, to the directing which was as boring and slack-jawed as it could get without any notion of pacing or comedic timing, to the plot which seemed to have been written by a group of monkeys on Ritalin and the acting, which was about as good as you'd expect from everything else in this – it's clear that not a lot of work was put into making any of this, despite the actors' best efforts.

While I like the idea this movie was trying to convey - a sort of satire of the rampant consumerism and rushing to get materialistic shallow Christmas gifts for children - the movie really just doesn't pull it off well, and instead comes off as stupid, rushed and thoughtless most of the time, with little wit or clever jokes.

But strangely, I don't really regret seeing it. Through all of its complete bonkers insanity on every level, the film reaches a sort of zen level of “so bad its good” schadenfreude. It really is fun to watch when you've got friends around who are eager to rip into it with you. For that, I'd say it's worth a watch. Plus, I did like it when I was a kid!

Don't tell anybody that last part, though. I have an image to uphold.

Oh, and merry Christmas and all that, yadda yadda. Until next year!

Images copyright of their original owners. I own none of them.

The Expendables 2 (2012)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, almost everyone else who survived the first movie except for Mickey Rourke for some reason, plus more

Director: Mark Price

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expendables_2

It is action time again! The Expendables are back, this time to take on a terrorist who is threatening to unleash a whole bunch of platinum on the world. Can they stop him?! Well, the villain is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, so probably...OR WILL THEY...?!!!

This movie basically gives you what you want and more. It opens up with a great action sequence and carries on with a lot of back and forth between the characters. Not really much more I can add to that, to be honest. Oh yeah, it also has a climax with Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger all firing guns at the bad guys. That right there is worth the price of admission!

If I had to name two problems with this film, it would be these:

First of all, the plot. It is not a bad plot per se. It is just that the first film had them taking out a dictator of a small country, while in this one they are up against a terrorist played by a guy who has not had a good movie since...umm...wait...has Van Damme ever had a good movie?! By the way, the name of his character is Vilain. Get it? Because he is the villain?! Haha, that is so cleaver. Anyway, kind of a minor difference, but its just doesn't seem like the stakes are quite as high and makes it so that the middle drags a bit.

Secondly...the in-jokes. You know how in the first film they had the (awesome) scene with Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger and they made a joke about the last guy wanting to be president (yeah, do not see that happening anytime soon, Arnold). That was fine and it worked well. But in this movie, they are FLOODED with in-jokes! By my own count, there are at least one Die Hard, one Rambo, and three Terminator references. Oh yeah, Chuck Norris is in this as well. Well, there is no way that they will make a joke about...they did, didn't they? You know how in the scene from the first one where Willis asks the other two if they "are done [verbally] sucking each other's dicks?"? Apparently they were not.

But you know what? I don't care. That is the point of the whole franchise! It is a tribute to action movies, with all their awesomeness and cheesiness rolled into one! I admit, even when the in-jokes did get kind of annoying, I still laughed at them. So if that is what they want to do...go for it!

Overall, this movie does not quite match up to its predecessor, but as far as squeals go, its pretty cool. So if you liked the first one, you'll probably like this one as well. I recommend it.

P.S. I know I spent a lot of time making complaints about this one, but to be honest, this has more to do with the fact that I am writing this about a month after I was suppose to post it. So do not take it the wrong way.

I do not own the rights to these images or links. They belong to their respective owners and are being used for entertainment purposes only. Please do not sue me.

Review: Hercules in New York (1970)

Director: Arthur Allan Seidelman

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Stang

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065832/

Everybody’s got to start somewhere, even the great Arnold Schwarzenegger. Starting from humble beginnings in rural Austria, he eventually came over here and started doing body building and winning Mr. Universe contests with his incredibly muscular physique. He also started acting with a little movie called Hercules in New York. And…it’s pretty much no different from the body building stuff, as clearly there’s no attention to good acting, cinematography or storytelling here! What’s the deal with this misguided, softheaded little movie from 1970? Well, let’s find out. Put on your sunglasses, because his shiny steel biceps might just blind you.

The movie begins with an introduction that takes us around the Earth from outer space, while a voice tells us that before myth and history became mystery (…that’s a weird pun…), there were the Gods and Goddesses of Athens, Greece, who ruled over the land. Then it…just decides to show us these Gods and Goddesses, who are still doing their dealings today. Right off the bat we see Schwarzenegger, uh, showing off his huge muscles while talking rather woodenly (because you can’t really call that acting) to a goat-like old man with a beard that looks like he probably bought it from some tourist stand in Florida.

This is supposed to be Zeus, and I guess what’s going on is that Arnol---I mean Hercules, is tired of seeing the same people and things all the time, and wants to go explore the Earth. Or that’s what it says on his cue card, at least. He and Zeus argue and shout at each other for a few minutes in very dull conversation. I mean seriously, can’t you move on with it? We get it! Hercules wants to leave Olympus and Zeus thinks he’s not ready yet. Why? Well, just watch any of Arnold’s social interactions with literally anybody else in this damn movie and you’ll see exactly why. It’s not like you have to be a fucking detective for that one, folks.

Hey, somebody tell them to get their crappy renaissance fair out of here...oh, wait, that's the real set, isn't it?

So Zeus finally gets tired of Hercules’ bitching, too, and zaps him out of Olympus, sending him to Earth like he wants. An old lady sees him falling from the sky naked and freaks out. Then he’s found in the water swimming by a ship of sailors, who give him some clothes. He basically just kind of wanders around and talks about how great he is…while having absurdly large muscles. That basically boils down to a lot of this movie, really. Him saying “Hercules bows to no man” or some other such phrase while the camera accents his muscles.

Sigh. Just go with it; the movie will be over faster that way. Probably.

For some weird reason, he tries to get off the ship when they dock in New York, and they won’t let him. Why? Did he unknowingly sign some kind of contract to stay on as a crew member? Did they just want him to stay for their daily afternoon gay orgy in the back of the ship? What, movie? What?!

They all chase him off the ship as he leaves and start attacking him as a team, resulting in some truly ridiculous fight scenes and camera angles. Like I love the part where they’re all just pushing on this big wooden plank and trying to shove each other down. I think I played that game in elementary school! I mean, seriously…how would you even do that? In what kind of warped-ass fight scene would this kind of thing happen? It boggles the mind.

And another thing; you know what? This whole thing is starting to look like it could have just been Arnold’s real story of how he got to this country! They just added in some bullshit story about Greek gods and bam! Hercules in New York. Couldn’t you just picture that? It’s exactly the kind of badass way of arriving that only Schwarzenegger would inspire.

So after that scene, he gets picked up by this dweeby guy who is worried for his safety. I’m sorry, what? Worried for his safety after HE just kicked the asses of like five or six guys all by himself? Something doesn’t add up here. The guy’s name is Pretzie, because he sells pretzels by the ocean – I’m glad apt character naming was a priority for the filmmakers. Pretzie and Arnold take a cab that Pretzie says can drop them off on the side of the road at a random intersection by some trees. So he just wants to be dropped off at some arbitrary location on the side of the road? Oh yeah, just the finest of New York culture for these guys! The side of the road; it’s a classic tourist spot!

…oh, wait, no it’s not.

Hey, kids, did you ever wonder what would happen if you put an Austrian that barely knows English with two guys from New York who speak in nothing but slang, talking about money? Well, for the 0.0002% of you that did, that’s exactly what happens next. I mean seriously, these bozos stand there for like a full three or four minutes going back and forth with the cab driver about paying the money, which Schwarzenegger is appalled he has to pay for simply riding in a “chariot”! I’ve been refraining from any jokes about Schwarzenegger’s political career throughout this review for the sake of length, but how do you think it would fly if he tried to reinstate these political ideals in the modern day?

Somehow I don’t think it would go too well. But I promise that’s the last joke about his governor career that I’ll make in this review.

So then they go to the closest baseball field to the middle of nowhere and Schwarzenegger finds that he can do so much better than any of the guys warming up on the field. He throws a discus in the most wobbly and off-kilter way possible, and this amazes the token rich guy and his token hot daughter Helen in the crowd so much that they invite Schwarzenegger and Pretzie to lunch at their house the very same day. Don’t look at me; I didn’t write this movie.

At the rich peoples’ home, Schwarzenegger kisses Helen’s hand, and when she leaves, this prompts Pretzie to jump into a lecture about how you shouldn’t treat ‘dames’ that way. Yeah. Just because he kissed her on the hand politely, Pretzie thinks he’s being out of line. But then, this is also the guy who thought they were talking about drugs when they invited him for tea time, so I guess we can’t really expect groundbreaking logistical circles from him. Can we even expect the most basic of consistent manners with him? No. Hell no! This is Hercules in New York, bitches!

Ahem. So after that, Schwarzenegger meets the other guest that Helen has brought over, a handsome guy who he assumes is her ‘mate.’ When they rightfully express confusion at this outdated terminology and rash assumption, Schwarzenegger does the obvious thing and…picks him up and starts spinning him around over his head. This is starting to look like something that would appear on Jerry Springer.

This botched escapade for some reason attracts Helen, who I guess always likes large, socially awkward men who have muscles the size of ocean liners and speak in absurd ways and hurt the people she cares about. They just turn her on like no tomorrow! So the two of them go out again, this time alone, and find that they’re quickly attracted to each other by way of a lazily written script. They ride a carriage through the park when they’re attacked by…an actor in a very, very, very, very, very fake looking bear suit. He hobbles around like some weird goblin out of middle Earth. And Arnold has to fight it to get it away from the carriage.

Ugh…you know what, I’m not even surprised anymore. There is no point in acting like I’m surprised at a movie like this after some point. I’m just going to roll with the punches.

"This will sell the movie, my dearest, and someday we will rule this land!"

So because Arnold is gaining notoriety for being a crazy motherfucker who fights bears and stuff, he and Pretzie are in business as a pro-wrestling/weight lifting team. The mob cracks down on them and makes Pretzie sign over the rights to Arnold’s career – which he does with very little persuasion; what a great friend, right? Up in Olympus Zeus wants Hercules back, so he sends Mercury to go get him. When Hercules still doesn’t come back, Zeus then sends Nemesis after him, but Nemesis is stopped by Zeus’ wife Juno, who has a vendetta on Hercules and tells Nemesis to poison him and take away his godlike strength. Nemesis does this by slipping a drug into his drink at a restaurant.

…Really? That’s the best this Greek goddess could do? The equivalent of slipping him a roofie? What’s next, are they going to distract people by tapping them on the shoulder from the other side of them? I just can’t wait to see what’s next for these oh-so-divine gods and goddesses!

Okay, so the movie slips into a very boring spot here – yes, a movie called Hercules in New York becomes dull; I can’t believe it either. A lot of stuff involving Pluto the God of the underworld happens, and we see Pluto decked out in a suave black suit that makes him look more like he belongs in a night club rather than the eternal night. Arnold suits up for a big weight lifting contest, which of course he’ll have more trouble with seeing as his strength is going away! And…look at this. Isn’t it just about the gayest thing you’ve seen all week? C’mon, guys, can’t you put on some pants at least? Would it kill you? Oh. It would, then. I see.

So after Hercules loses, the mob starts chasing them, and Helen and her father split up with them and get into a car, fooling the mob into chasing them instead. Hercules and Pretzie steal a carriage with horses and everything and start THE BEST CHASE SCENE YOU’LL EVER SEE IN THE HISTORY OF SCHWARZENEGGER FILMS! Seriously, Terminator and Terminator 2 got NOTHING on this shit!

Just every day life for Mr. Schwarzenegger circa 1970...

When they start fighting in the warehouse Hercules starts to lose real quickly, and off to the side in Olympus, another goddess secretly calls for Atlas and Samson to go help beat the bad guys, even though Samson has nothing to do with Greek mythology. Isn’t having a biblical figure in a movie about Greek myths kind of a slap in the face? It’s like having a WalMart built over your house only for salespeople to come and try and pitch you various items from the WalMart! That’s just insensitive, in the funniest way possible.

And I also love how Zeus reacts to Atlas and Samson coming in. Does this guy have like, no control at all over anything in his empire? First he didn’t know that Juno went behind his back to trick Hercules, and now this. He’s completely clueless!

Okay, this has gone on for long enough. Hercules and Pretzie beat the bad guys, and then Hercules decides to leave. In a strangely reflective twist, we see Pretzie going back to his lonely apartment and thinking sadly about all the good times he had with Hercules, saying that he will never forget him as long as he lives. Which is…touching in a creepy way, I guess, except for one little detail. In all of the little flashback scenes shown here, it’s not stuff the two of them did together. It’s stuff Hercules did while Pretzie just stood around and watched! Yeah, real deep friendship there, right?

Maybe we’ve all been misjudging this movie. It’s not just a campy and poorly made 70s movie. It’s a veiled character study on a lonely and depressed man named Pretzie, who had no friends at all and had to cling to the only person he could find who would ever waste his time with him…a socially awkward, Austrian-accented Greek god who had no idea of any kind of human culture.

Well, after putting it like that it just sounds dumb. This movie is just…I don’t even know what to say. The title pretty much sums up the entirety of the plot, since most of the movie is nothing but a showboat for Arnold’s gigantic muscles. There’s really nothing else to it. But I can’t help but think the film does have a certain innocent charm to it, a magical, transcendent quality to its stupidity…let’s just call it moldy 70s shlock.

All images Copyright (c) their original owners. Except for the Enquirer picture, I used Paint to make that in like 2 minutes.

My Theater Experience With The Expendables (2010)

First, I would like to introduce you to a new segment called Looking at some Trailers. Which I will find a better name for eventually, but for now, bear with me. Here are some of the movies showed in the previews for The Expendables, and what I thought of them based on the trailers:

Buried

Oh, hell yeah, this looks awesome. I mean, what more could I ask for out of a movie? A race against time, a dark, claustrophobic motif, and characters distressed and not knowing what to do. Just pure bliss for a thriller fiend like myself. I feed off things like this, and seeing a new one really gets my blood boiling. Will definitely be seeing this on opening night.

The Town

This sent chills down my spine. First of all, directed by the guy who made Gone Baby Gone? Sign me up! But it just looks really cool. The espionage, the dreary, drab settings, the off kilter and creepy Halloween masks…this just looks like a really cool movie. I can assure you this will be on many top 10s for the year, and I’ll review another horrible Japanese horror remake if I’m wrong!

…please, please don’t let me be wrong…

The Green Hornet

Alright, somebody needs to fire Seth Rogen’s agent. What’s the deal with this guy? Can’t he ever appear in a movie that is an actual film, and not just some cheap-ass bucket of “awkward” laughs and hammy acting? It’s insufferable. Also, “let’s act like villains so nobody knows we’re the real heroes”? That’s retarded, get this off my screen and never bring it back. Phew.

There were also trailers of The Last Exorcism, which looks so lame that I’d rather bash my head against a wall seven times than watch it, and SAW 3D, which if anyone thinks it’s really the end of the franchise, you need to get a reality check. But I’m not going to post those trailers, because I’m better than that, and this segment is going on too damn long already.

So, without further ado…drum roll please…THE EXPENDABLES, directed by Sylvester Stallone and starring more people than you can count!

Yes, this was all set up to be the action movie extravaganza of the summer, and did it live up to those expectations? Well, let’s just say it had an unfair disadvantage. But it’s still a hell of a ride. This movie is so jam packed with explosions and so completely action packed that your head will just about explode even just thinking about it! Of course the main draw was all the big names. I mean, they got Bruce Willis, they got Jason Statham, they got Jet Li, they got Mickey Rourke, they even got Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzenegger, back on the silver screen at last! What a treat.

I’ll just go ahead and tell you that the best scene of this movie is sadly one of the shortest, and it’s where Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone meet in a church. Willis does his typical latter-day role where he plays an almost mobster-like character who keeps in the shadows and intimidates through words rather than through guns and punching people like in the old days. Schwarzenegger is a pompous older mercenary who doesn’t have time to help out Willis’ cause, and it results in one of the best lines in the movie – I won’t even spoil it for you, it’s that good. This scene is just great. Seeing all three of these huge icons on screen together even for a few minutes is a ton of fun.

But the rest of the movie doesn’t slack off too much, either. The plot is pretty simple – a bunch of ragtag, weathered mercenaries are hired to go take down a governor in South America (who is played by Angel from Dexter…). One of them, Lee (Jason Statham), is having troubles with his girlfriend. Which means…he finds out she cheated on him because she didn’t know what he did at work even though they had been living together for a year and a half. Got that? Good, because it doesn’t come up very much again, even if they do try to shoehorn in a positive message about how he’s trying to find himself. It doesn’t really take any kind of precedence over the main story with Stallone, though. Speaking of Stallone, he’s trying to fight his way to save a pretty girl who he got the hots for the second he saw her. A noble cause, and I will ignore the clichéd nature…sometimes that’s just what you need after a long day’s work.

And the explosions, oh, man, the explosions. They’re all over the place here. They’re so abundant that by the end they’re even happening on top of one another; it’s flat out ridiculous. But it’s also really awesome. It’s like Stallone just went, “Hmm, we need explosions in action movies. Okay, put in about fifty times the usual amount. That ought to do it.” I love every second of it.

If I had to pick out any real problems with it, it’s not so much about what the movie did wrong, but more about what it could have been. This movie is a lot of fun, but with the pedigrees of acting involved, it should have been a real epic as opposed to a short, quick film like this. This should have blown us away and given us a transcendent work of action masterclass. But the fact that it did not really live up to our expectations doesn’t mean much, because this is still a pretty solid film.

The Expendables uses a lot of action movie clichés, but it never actually feels dated or trite for all that, and its quick, snappy pacing and huge doses of explosive fun are really enjoyable. It’s clear that Stallone really loves action movies (and I would hope he does a lot, for what he does for a living), and I really enjoy the earnest, balls-out way The Expendables executed its foray of action-packed goodies. It’s an action fan’s action movie. I can’t picture any fan of the genre hating it. This is Stallone’s latest contribution to the genre he loves, and if you want an explosion-filled action flick, I can recommend this with no caveats.

Twins (1988)

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger Danny DeVito, Kelly Preston

Directed by: Ivan Reitman

"Twins" is a film about...well, twins...who are separated at birth, and are unaware of each other's existence until decades later. It soon becomes clear that they are very different, and not just in physical appearance, as they try to bond, evade dangerous criminals, and search for their long lost mother.

This is a good movie. To be honest, it was not quite as funny as I thought it was going to be and I did not like it as much as "Kindergarten Cop" (one of Arnold Schwarzenagger and Ivan Reitman's other collaborations). Still, I had a decent amount of laughs while watching the film and it has its own little charms. It was kind of amusing seeing Schwarzenagger playing a "Mr. Sensitive" role for once. Danny DeVito also does well as a schmuck who gradually learns that he has a conscience, and the two of them have good chemistry with one another. There is one scene in the movie where DeVito's character successfully persuades his girlfriend to help him out using a puppy-dog look. That really sums up the feel of the movie: you know what you are getting is not high-quality material, but you cannot help but be won over by it. It is not a strong recommendation, but it is a recommendation nonetheless.