Tag Archives: Karl Urban

Acts of Vengeance (2017)

22 Thursday Feb 2018

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D: Isaac Florentine / 86m

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Karl Urban, Paz Vega, Clint Dyer, Johnathon Schaech, Cristina Serafini, Lillian Blankenship, Atanas Srebrev, Mark Rhino Smith, Raycho Vasilev, Stacey Clickner, Robert Forster

Acts of Vengeance (or, the latest episode in the on-going series, Whatever Happened to Antonio Banderas) is, on the face of it, not a great movie. It’s another low-budget action thriller with Bulgaria standing in for America (and poorly at that; you know that a movie’s in trouble when the sign outside a book store says exactly that: Bookstore). It has a trio of internationally known stars who clearly had a fortnight’s break in their schedule, and nothing better to do, plus a cameo (from Forster) that lasts all of two minutes. The movie is a curious mix of the standard and the bizarre – which at least helps it stand out somewhat from the crowd – and it has a clutch of fight scenes that are well choreographed and shot. It keeps Banderas mute for much of the running time, has a plot that’s so worn out it’s practically invisible, telegraphs its villain with all the subtlety of a stampeding rhino, and features one laughably absurd scene after another. In short, it’s two steps away from being a complete disaster. But the movie has an ace up its sleeve, an ace in the form of its director, Isaac Florentine.

If you’re not familiar with Florentine’s career, and if you’re a fan of DTV movies, then where the hell have you been since 1992? Although he’s never made a mainstream movie, Florentine is more than adept at turning some of the least promising material into something that works in ways that it really shouldn’t do. And the man knows how to put together a fight scene. This is just as true here, with Banderas doing the majority of his own stunt work, and Florentine ensuring that Yaron Scharf’s cinematography provides the best coverage possible. So we have Banderas’ avenging lawyer, Frank Valera – he’s looking for the killer or killers of his wife and daughter (Serafini, Blankenship) – learning a range of fighting techniques, and getting into a number of scraps where his newfound skills are shown off to very good effect. These fight scenes, and Banderas’ involvement in them, are what raise the movie out of the various narrative doldrums that leave the story waiting around to be kickstarted again after stalling. These scenes are also the movie’s modus operandi; if they’re not any good, then what’s the point of watching it in the first place?

There are the aforementioned bizarre elements to help it along, though, such as the story being structured in such a way that quotes from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations can be used as chapter headings (“To expect bad men not to do wrong is madness”), and the recurring presence of Russian mobsters for Frank to beat up on – and without any reprisals. Factor in Vega’s handy nurse in a medical crisis, Urban’s illegal cage fighting cop (don’t ask), Frank’s hearing becoming pin sharp within days of his deciding to remain mute until he’s avenged his family (which has him acting like a sighted DareDevil), and the villain conveniently leaving his house key in a planter right outside his front door, and you have a movie that’s only on nodding terms with reality. But even with all that, Florentine has a clean, unfussy visual style that suits the material down to the ground, and he instills the movie with a rhythm that moves things along with a surprising amount of energy. While it’s true that the limitations of Matt Venne’s screenplay are evident in almost every scene, Acts of Vengeance has enough to recommend it as a one-off, just-for-the-fun-of-it viewing.

Rating: 4/10 – yes, it’s bad, and yes, it’s another nail in the career of its star, but thanks to Florentine’s involvement, Acts of Vengeance can be regarded as something of a guilty pleasure; with a handful of well choreographed fight scenes that belie the dire nature of the rest of the material, this is a movie that at least doesn’t outstay its welcome, and wraps things up neatly and concisely.

Hangman (2017)

23 Thursday Nov 2017

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D: Johnny Martin / 98m

Cast: Al Pacino, Karl Urban, Brittany Snow, Joe Anderson, Sarah Shahi, Chelle Ramos, Steve Coulter, Sloane Warren

Not every movie can be accomplished, original, or a must-see. In fact, the majority of movies – the vast majority – often have the effect of making you wonder just how they got made in the first place. And why. Sometimes it seems that there’s a lot of people out there with money to burn. Other times it’s as if a movie has been made on a dare. Some movies challenge the very notion that quality was ever a consideration when the movie itself was being made. And some movies provoke such an abject response – what the hell is all this? – that there’s nothing for it but to carry on watching in the vain hope that the whole sorry mess will find some way to improve (not that it does though). There are literally thousands of these movies made each and every year, and if there’s an end in sight to all of them, then it’s so far off in the distance as to not to be there at all.

And so we come to Hangman, the latest movie to feature Al Pacino in a performance that makes him look like a disinterested bystander and not the lead character. It fits so neatly into the genre of underwhelming thriller movie that should never have been made, that it’s almost scary. It’s bad in a way that actually elevates average movies into looking and sounding better than they are, and provides further evidence – if any were needed – that if you take a script that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and film it, then the finished product won’t make any sense either. A project that has been in development since at least 2011, Hangman arrives to dispel the notion that if you spend enough time on something then you can iron out all the kinks and grooves in a script and make something of real quality. Let’s make this clear: whatever time Michael Caissie and Charles Huttinger spent on putting the screenplay together, it wasn’t enough.

In a feat akin to shoving a square peg into a round hole, the makers of Hangman have taken one of the world’s most famous and enduring guessing games, and tried to make it the modus operandi of a serial killer (Anderson) whose motivations remain obscure and unconvincing throughout. And not only that, but the word the killer is challenging the police to solve isn’t even in English, a decision that further adds to the confusion created over the killer’s psychological state, and what drives him to murder. All this is as tortuous as it sounds, and the plot – such as it is – quickly surrenders any high ground and goes meekly along with whatever delirious developments Caissie and Huttinger’s screenplay can come up with. This leaves Pacino’s retired detective Archer, and Urban’s moody active detective Ruiney (pronounced Rooney), led by their noses from one staged, and unlikely, crime scene to another while they are gifted clues by a script that really doesn’t care how poorly constructed it is.

The presence of Snow’s Pulitzer-nominated journalist, Christi Davies – no offence, but really? – on assignment to shadow Ruiney for an article, adds a further level of creative insult to the mix as her “signed off by the mayor” involvement sees her included in crime scene searches, put at risk by Archer and Ruiney at almost every turn, and provided with a back story that should be relevant but isn’t. As for the serial killer himself, he’s yet another “brilliant” psychopath who’s always several steps ahead of the police, and can stage the most elaborate murder scenes at the drop of a hat. Thankfully, he’s also susceptible to the kind of cod-psychology musings that Archer comes up with when they finally meet, and Christi’s life is in danger. There are other characters, and much less important ones at that, such as Ruiney’s captain, Lisa Watson (Shahi), who finds herself targeted by the killer, potential suspect, Joey Truman (Ramos), and a raft of even more minor characters who are there to make up the numbers (or the killer’s victims). It’s a measure of the script’s desperate attempts to give these characters some kind of “life” on screen that Ruiney’s wife may have been the killer’s first victim some time before, Watson is in a wheelchair, and Joey and the first victim are lesbians into BDSM.

Wandering through it all, though, as if his reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation, or his position as joint president of the Actors Studio didn’t mean a thing is Pacino. The actor looks permanently surprised in so many scenes it’s hard not to think that each time it happens it’s as if he’s just realising how bad it all is. Whether he’s mumbling his lines or reacting just a beat too slowly to what’s happening around him, it’s a performance that could easily qualify as his worst, even worse than his portrayal as himself in Jack and Jill (2011). There’s no spark here, no animation in his performance, just the sign of an actor treading water and going through the motions. It’s a sad sight, and adds another level of dismay for the viewer to contend with. In contrast, Urban at least tries to inject some energy into his role, but he’s held back by his character’s bull-headed nature and one-note demeanour. Snow fares no better, and the movie wastes her talent as an actress by having her follow her male co-stars around while waiting to be the killer’s eventual last victim.

Making an even worse fist of things than he did on Vengeance: A Love Story (2017), director Johnny Martin continues to show a lack of aptitude behind the camera that, in conjunction with the terrible script, means the movie has no chance of succeeding as the clever, gritty thriller it so desperately wants to be. Whether he’s putting the camera in the wrong place or leaving his talented cast to fend for themselves, Martin does little to lift the material or make it interesting. As a result, the movie lacks pace and intensity, and stutters from scene to scene without any apparent attempt to connect them into a meaningful whole. By the time Archer and Ruiney come face to face with the killer, it’s doubtful just who the average viewer will want to see put out of their misery more: the killer, Archer and Ruiney, or themselves.

Rating: 3/10 – spectacularly awful in a way that, surely, couldn’t have been intended, Hangman is a low-concept thriller that misfires at every step, and makes for one of the  laziest, most apathetic movies of 2017; wrong on so many levels, this should be held up as an object lesson in how not to construct and shoot a movie when the script isn’t there, the director hasn’t a clue, and its main star can’t be bothered.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Star Trek Beyond

D: Justin Lin / 122m

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim, Lydia Wilson, Deep Roy, Shohreh Aghdashloo

It’s unfortunate, given the response to Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), that the latest instalment in the JJ Abrams’ revamped movie franchise opens with über-Captain James T. Kirk (Pine) lamenting his time in space as part of the Enterprise’s five year mission. After nine hundred and sixty-six days, Kirk is, frankly, bored, and as he puts it, “wondering what it is we are trying to accomplish”. It’s like a listening to a man who’s treading water in the ocean, far from land, and hoping a shark comes along to break the monotony. Harking after further adventure, Kirk sounds petulant rather than unhappy. But if it’s a challenge he’s after, then he need wait no further, because once the Enterprise has docked at the Federation’s new super-duper starbase, the Yorktown (a nod to the Enterprise’s original name in the original series’ pilot), an alien craft seeking help arrives and propels Kirk and his long-suffering crew into just the kind of adventure that he craves.

Told that an alien menace headed by someone called Krall (Elba) is responsible for the abduction and imprisonment of her crew, Kalara (Wilson), leads Kirk and co to the planet where her crew are being held. Orbiting the planet, the Enterprise suffers a devastating attack, and the main saucer is forced into a crash landing – but not before Krall and his men have invaded the starship and made it clear they’re after an artifact – the Abronath – that is on board, and not before the crew have been either captured by Krall or gotten away by means of the Enterprise’s escape pods. Spock and Bones escape together, as do Kirk and Chekov, while Scotty gets clear by himself. Down on the planet, Scotty meets Jaylah (Boutella), a scavenger whose people were captured and imprisoned by Krall in the past. She takes him to what she calls her ship, and Scotty is amazed to find it’s the remains of the USS Franklin, a ship long considered to have been lost.

STB - scene2

Meanwhile, Spock has been injured, and Bones is doing his best to keep him alive. Sulu and Uhura have been captured, and Kirk and Chekov head for the downed Enterprise to see if they can make it operational again. Krall appears to be one step ahead of everyone, and his motive for gaining the Abronath is revealed to be part of a plan of revenge on the Federation. Aided by Jaylah, the crew of the Enterprise come together to fight back against Krall’s homicidal intentions, and in the process, find some very unique ways of taking the fight to him.

When Paramount announced that they were rebooting the original Star Trek franchise and had given the project to JJ Abrams, it seemed like a risky proposition, what with William Shatner et al having become so completely associated with the roles of Kirk and Spock and Bones etc, that it was hard to imagine anyone else portraying them. But Abrams was more than up to the task, and even managed to come up with a plot device that allowed his “new crew” to have their own adventures independently of the original movie series’ timeline. Quinto was a great choice for Spock, Pine had the cocksure audacity of a younger Kirk down pat, and Urban was possibly a better (if underused) Bones than DeForest Kelley. Only the lack of a convincing villain stopped Star Trek (2009) from being a complete triumph. And then Star Trek: Into Darkness tried to be too clever for its own good with its “He’s not Khan/Okay, he is Khan” shenanigans, and overwrought plotting.

STB - scene1

Perhaps realising that going “darker” on the first sequel works only on other sci-fi franchises, the producers have decided with this third outing to go lighter and make Star Trek Beyond more like an episode of the original series; or to be more accurate (or cynical – you decide) a retread of Star Trek: Generations (1994). The script, by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung (who appears briefly as Sulu’s husband, a gender acknowledgment that carries no weight whatsoever in the grand scheme of things), coasts along for the most part, and does what the original series always did so well: focuses on the relationships between Kirk, Spock and Bones, gives Scotty a chance to shine when something needs fixing (which happened pretty much every week), adds an alien collaborator to help the crew overcome the villain, throws in said villain and ensures they have a grudge against everyone else, and sidelines Uhura at every opportunity (though she is involved, by reference, in one of the movie’s funniest scenes). A tried and tested formula, to be sure, and one that on this occasion makes for an enjoyable if underwhelming experience.

But while enjoyable is good – and in a loud, dumb, fun kind of way the movie is enjoyable – there’s something missing that stops it from becoming a Star Trek movie that makes you want to go back and view it again because you had such a great experience watching it the first time. Partly because Krall is yet another weak villain, partly because there are too many occasions when the solution to a problem is to “couple the doohickey to the whatchamacallit and transverse the first number you thought of” (and who knew Kirk was so familiar with the properties of FM radio frequencies?), and partly because any plot development that relies on the presence of a fully functioning motor bike on the bridge of a downed starship, is stretching credibility to snapping point. (There are other moments where the viewer’s jaw is in danger of hitting the floor, but to reveal them all would take too long.)

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In the director’s chair, Fast & Furious alumni Lin makes a decent enough fist of things but doesn’t manage to provide audiences with anything really memorable to go away with. It’s a turbo-charged experience, to be sure, and Lin, along with his editing team (Greg D’Auria, Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto and Steven Sprung) ensures that the movie zips along at an exciting pace. The visuals are as crisp and vibrant as you would expect, and even though there’s an over-reliance on CGI, this is to be expected: it’s a science fiction movie, for Pete’s sake; how else is it going to look? The cast enter into the spirit of things, though Elba struggles with his dialogue thanks to the kind of alien mask that looks great but probably isn’t that functional; and there’s a touching moment where Spock looks at a picture from the past (that he can’t possibly have).

All in all, Star Trek Beyond is a movie that falls under the heading of “honourable mention”. It’s not going to be at the top of anyone’s list of all-time favourite Star Trek movies, but it won’t be anywhere near the bottom, like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). It zips along like a young child eager to show off the neat-looking toy it’s just found, but as any parent will tell you, even neat-looking toys can lose their attraction quickly and without warning.

Rating: 6/10 – a middling, superficially diverting entry in the Star Trek canon, Star Trek Beyond is nothing new or special, and only occasionally rises to meet the demands of franchise (and genre) expectations; more a case of “boldly going where everyone has been before” than anything else, the movie is yet another reminder that the odd-numbered entries in the series are the ones that don’t always work.

Monthly Roundup – May 2015

31 Sunday May 2015

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There’s a phrase that everyone will be familiar with: “Too many [insert item here], too little time”. When it comes to the number of movies that I watch in any given month, that phrase is apt in relation to the ones that get reviewed here on thedullwoodexperiment. I would love to have the time to post reviews of all the movies I see, but it’s just not practical; and besides which, some movies just don’t merit the attention (Annabelle (2014), for instance). Sometimes it’s a case of choosing one movie over another, sometimes Life gets in the way of blogging and a movie falls by the wayside. To combat this, and to give these “other” movies their due, I’ve decided to present, at the end of each month, a brief “review” of all the other movies I’ve seen. There won’t be any synopsis, or proper full-length analysis, just the title, director, running time, cast, and then the traditional two sentence ratings summation. So, let’s see which movies didn’t quite make the cut in May 2015.

The Forger (2014) / D: Philip Martin / 96m

Cast: John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan, Abigail Spencer, Anson Mount, Marcus Thomas, Jennifer Ehle, Travis Aaron Wade

Rating: 5/10 – Travolta’s art forger comes out of prison to spend time with his dying son (Sheridan) and pull off an audacious robbery; a derivative, occasionally unappealing crime drama that tries to do something different with its dying child angle, The Forger is nevertheless a movie whose “one last heist” scenario has been done to death elsewhere, and with far better results.

Forger, The - scene

The Gunfight at Dodge City (1959) / D: Joseph M. Newman / 81m

Cast: Joel McCrea, Julie Adams, John McIntire, Nancy Gates, Richard Anderson, James Westerfield, Walter Coy, Don Haggerty, Wright King, Harry Lauter

Rating: 6/10 – Western legend Bat Masterson (McCrea) tackles corruption supported by Haggerty’s devious sheriff in Dodge City and faces romantic problems as well from minister’s daughter Adams and saloon owner Gates; a middling, mildly diverting Western, The Gunfight at Dodge City benefits from McCrea’s solid, no-nonsense performance and Newman’s underrated abilities behind the camera.

Gunfight at Dodge City, The - scene

Comet (2014) / D: Sam Esmail / 91m

Cast: Justin Long, Emmy Rossum

Rating: 7/10 – Long and Rossum are the soulmates whose on-again-off-again relationship is examined over the course of six years; with the narrative continually fractured and reassembled, Comet is replete with the kind of “serious” romantic musings that sound alternately pretentious and profound, but the two leads have a definite chemistry and this helps immensely in making the movie as enjoyable as it (largely) is.

Comet - scene

Murder at Glen Athol (1936) / D: Frank R. Strayer / 67m

Cast: John Miljan, Irene Ware, Iris Adrian, Noel Madison, Oscar Apfel, Barry Norton, Harry Holman, Betty Blythe, James P. Burtis

Rating: 5/10 – two murders and a dying confession confuse matters for a detective (Miljan) who’s just trying to take a vacation – next door to where the murders have taken place; packed full of seemingly endless exposition and no shortage of suspects, Murder at Glen Athol is a sprightly murder mystery that packs a lot in but not always to its best advantage.

Murder at Glen Athol

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) / D: Paul Tibbitt / 92m

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Mr. Lawrence, Carolyn Lawrence

Rating: 7/10 – when the formula for Krabby Patty is stolen by the notorious Burger Beard (Banderas), SpongeBob (Kenny) is forced to team up with Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) to get it back… and venture above the surface; freewheeling fun with the denizens of Bikini Bottom that features lots of gags and the usual bright visuals, but takes an awfully long time in getting to the “sponge out of water” part.

SpongeBob Movie, The

Chappie (2015) / D: Neill Blomkamp / 120m

Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret, Johnny Selema

Rating: 6/10 – with a robot police force firmly established in Johannesburg, the introduction of artificial intelligence leads to one robot, named Chappie, learning what it’s like to be human; disappointing outing from Blomkamp that never quite gels or seems sure of what it’s trying to do or say, but does feature an excellent performance from Copley.

Chappie

Impact (1963) / D: Peter Maxwell / 61m

Cast: Conrad Phillips, George Pastell, Ballard Berkeley, Linda Marlowe, Richard Klee, Anita West, John Rees

Rating: 5/10 – when newspaper reporter Jack Moir (Phillips) is framed for robbery by arch-nemesis “The Duke” (Pastell), he swears to get even when he gets out of jail; a low-key crime drama that seems busier than it is and which gets bogged down in the mechanics of Moir’s revenge plot, Impact does allow for a welcome appearance by Berkeley aka Fawlty Towers‘ Major, and an above average performance by Pastell.

Impact

The Loft (2014) / D: Erik Van Looy / 103m

Cast: Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Isabel Lucas, Rachael Taylor, Rhona Mitra, Valerie Cruz, Kali Rocha, Elaine Cassidy, Margarita Levieva, Kristin Lehman, Robert Wisdom

Rating: 6/10 – the discovery of a woman’s dead body in the loft apartment shared by five married men for their secret liaisons prompts them to suspect each other of the crime; alternately gripping and implausible, The Loft is a modern day cautionary tale that loses credibility with its solution then recovers with a great twist, but still has the air of a thriller that its writer never quite got to grips with.

Loft, The

Unfinished Business (2015) / D: Ken Scott / 91m

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, Nick Frost, James Marsden, June Diane Raphael, Britton Sear, Ella Anderson, Uwe Ochsenknecht

Rating: 5/10 – Swarf salesman Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) has to overcome all sorts of obstacles to land the contract that will save his fledgling company from going under, including a visit to a Berlin gay bar; a bit of a strange fish, Unfinished Business suffers from being two separate movies joined at the hip: one a raucous comedy, the other a thoughtful study of bullying, but together they don’t make for a cohesive whole, and it’s yet another movie where Vaughn coasts along on former glories.

Unfinished Business

Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie (2013)

26 Thursday Dec 2013

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D: Barry Cook, Neil Nightingale / 87m

Cast: John Leguizamo, Justin Long, Tiya Sircar, Skyler Stone, Karl Urban, Charlie Rowe, Angourie Rice

Taking his kids Ricky (Rowe) and Jade (Rice) to an archaeological dig, Zack (Urban) fails to engage a reluctant Ricky into moving far from the car.  While he waits for his dad and sis to come back, Ricky is greeted by a talking bird, Alex (Leguizamo).  Alex chides Ricky for his lack of interest in the past and begins to tell him a story set 70 million years before, the story of Patchi (Long), a pachyrhinosaurus.  Born the runt of a litter, Patchi has trouble fitting in, especially with his brother Scowler (Stone); they are at odds from day one.  After a run-in with a predator leaves him with a hole in his frill, Patchi’s efforts to fit in become even harder.  When the weather changes, an older Patchi must join his herd on a great migration; thus begins Patchi’s road to acceptance not only by the herd, but by his brother and by love interest Juniper (Sircar).

Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie is a mash-up of The Land Before Time (1988) and The Incredible Journey (1963). The mix of live action and CGI is impressive, with several of the dinosaurs achieving a level of photo-realism that bodes well for the forthcoming Jurassic World (2015).  Their “interaction” with the real world is well-staged and handled, and there is a pleasing sense of verisimilitude throughout.  Taking its cue from the BBC TV series of the same name, Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie looks amazing from start to finish (and in 3D it looks even better – despite being converted in post-production).  The detail is nothing less than breathtaking.  The backgrounds, shot in Alaska and New Zealand, are spectacular, and add a pleasing sense of scope to the movie despite its (relatively) small budget of $85m.

Walking With Dinosaurs The 3D Movie - scene

What isn’t so pleasing, however, is the script by John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Happy Feet), a dialogue-driven disaster that manages to make dinosaurs seem un-cool and almost entirely lame in their pea-brained outlook.  That their lips don’t deliberately move in sync with their lines isn’t as distracting as the fact that what’s being said is so childish and immature (it’s actually amazing there isn’t a fart gag in there somewhere).  While Leguizamo fares better than the rest, even he can’t pull off some of his dialogue, and Long is saddled with some of the dopiest, silliest lines he may ever have to deal with.  Granted Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie is meant to be a children’s movie, but do kids really respond to, or appreciate, this level of half-baked, jokey, verbal simplicity?  If I was over the age of eight and watching this movie I might feel so insulted I’d want to chuck my popcorn at the screen in protest.

With things so hampered by the script, everything else suffers.  The plotting and story arcs are simplistic and predictable, the characterisations equally so, and the sense of danger provided by a pursuing trio of Gorgosauruses is never allowed to accrue too much tension.  Directors Cook and Nightingale at least ensure that things move along at a decent pace (helped by their editor, John Carnochan), but fail to inject much of note into proceedings.  The photography, as already mentioned, is impressive, and the scenery often breathtaking, but these aspects are unable to offer a distraction from the awkwardness of the movie as a whole.

Rating: 5/10 – saved from a lower score by its visuals, Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie is a movie that will probably impress very young children, but will frustrate teens and adults alike; a missed opportunity that sounds as if the producers lost faith in it somewhere during the production.