BEFORE: I've been on jury duty telephone standby for the last few days - which means I was assigned a juror number, and there's a phone hotline I call every day after 5 pm, and it tells me whether or not I need to report to a NYC court the next morning to serve as a juror. So far I've been lucky, the message tells me I don't have to show up, but I need to call again the next day. But, we made plans to go out of town before the big holiday weekend, and I just know that if I cancel the trip, my juror number is not going to come up - but as soon as I drive upstate, the message is going to tell me I need to report. I can just feel it in my gut, Murphy's Law in action. I should have postponed it two weeks ago, and now it's too late to do that - I just have to let it be whatever it's going to be.
At least my movie chain is back on track - and Jason Patric carries over from "Speed 2", just like I planned.
THE PLOT: After being betrayed and left for dead, members of a CIA black ops team root out those who targeted them for assassination.
AFTER: I had high hopes for this one, it seemed like it would be a good blend of action and dark humor, which it is, but I can't help feeling that it's also a bit generic. A team of ragtag mercenary soldiers with different skill sets, betrayed and framed - isn't that also the set-up of "The A-Team"? and there's a bit in this film where the team boosts an armored car - isn't that straight out of "The Italian Job"? OK, so they did put a bit of a new twist on that.
Maybe I've just seen too many action films, or too many groups of close-knit bickering soldier-types, fighting for just causes - or at least causes that are slightly more just than the other guys' causes. I was looking for wild, outside-the-box operations, and this one aimed high, but kind of didn't deliver. Come on, I expect more from a team that has BOTH the guy who played The Comedian in "Watchmen" and the guy who played Captain America/Human Torch.
Explosions? Sure. Stunts? I suppose. Trick-shots with a sniper rifle? OK, that last one was a bit of coolness - but other than that, I didn't find much that was unique here. Sorry, I guess I'm jaded. I also had a problem with the tone, the level of humor/silliness in an action film. Was this meant to be a comedic parody of action films, or the ultimate expression of them?
And I know it's a movie convention, to fake one's own death - but can anyone point to a case in the real world where someone actually got away with it? I guess we wouldn't know, because if we did know, that would mean they failed. For that matter, what was the first instance of a movie or literary character being brought back from the dead - apart from Jesus, that is. I have a feeling that it might be Sherlock Holmes, but I'm not sure how to prove it.
Also starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan (last seen in "Jonah Hex"), Chris Evans (last seen in "Captain America: The First Avenger"), Zoe Saldana (last seen in "Avatar"), Idris Elba (last seen in "Thor"), Holt McCallany (last seen in "Alien 3").
RATING: 5 out of 10 soccer balls
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