Gladiator II

Year 17, Day 93 - 4/3/25 - Movie #4,986

BEFORE: I've fallen a bit behind on posting because I had to work TWO late nights at the theater already this week, on tent watch, which means standing outside and keeping an eye on the press tent as it's being built, or being taken down, or when it's full of stars walking the red carpet. We had one TV series premiere on Monday and another on Wednesday, which meant I was just feet away from stars like Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.  Umm, those are the stars of both series, those people are not all on the same show - the shows were "Mobland" and "Dying for Sex".  Last night I had to stay while the whole big press tent came down, and it's held in place by these big concrete blocks that also needed to be loaded in a truck after the event, and then all these metal barricades had to be stacked up. But I didn't have to DO any of this work, just watch other people do it and make sure that the barricades keep passersby out of the work zone, so it's fairly easy work over long hours, which is exactly what I need right now.  Time to stand around and watch things happen and think about choices I've made...

Connie Nielsen carries over from "Basic" and I COULD drop this film and the next one, and the chain would close up the gap, but that would throw off my numbering system and a different film would then be Big Movie 5,000 - plus, I really want to SEE "Gladiator II", so dropping it and tomorrow's film wouldn't make much sense. So let's stay up late on a Thursday night and knock this one out. Damn, I wish I could have sent a Birthday SHOUT-out to Pedro Pascal, born April 2, 1975 - but I'm one day late. Well, if you see him, please send him my best wishes anyway. 

THE PLOT: After his homeland is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum and must look to his past to find strength to return the glory of Rome to its people. 

AFTER: OK, I'm determined to catch up this weekend - I don't have to work again until Sunday afternoon. Normally I'd drink a couple beers after coming home on Friday, but I want to stay up tonight and watch TWO animated movies, and that should bring me back up to speed. Right now it's Friday and I still haven't posted my Thursday review, that's no bueno.  I throw myself on the mercy of the court, as I was out late TWICE this week on tent duty, and today I had to go in for my last (?) day at the animation studio.  That's it, 31 years in, here's your hat, thanks for balancing the checkbook and cutting payroll checks one more time. They'll be lucky to stay in business six more months without me, I think - that place is a sinking ship. 

SPOILER ALERT - turn back NOW if you haven't seen "Gladiator II" just yet.

Speaking of ships, this movie's got them - Roman warships, ones that can attack a walled city from the sea. Ships with towers on them, so soldiers can climb up and get over the walls of a city and then get inside. For the glory of the Empire!  Also, ships that can sail INSIDE the Colosseum, and re-enact famous naval battles from the first century A.D. - which is great, because those who forget about history are condemned to repeat it. And isn't THAT what sequels are all about, repeating what came before?  If you remember the acclaimed movie "Gladiator" from the year 2000, well, this is more of that.  You may want to re-watch that one so you know who the players are in this film, set 16 years later.  But the only actors that carry over are Connie Nielsen as minor Empress Lucilla and Derek Jacobi as Senator Gracchus.  Jacobi was also famously in the PBS miniseries "I, Claudius" years ago, and has also done many Shakespeare plays, so at this point he probably shows up on set with his own togas. 

But that first "Gladiator" film was all about a disgraced general who had a falling-out with Rome's Emperor, and as a result he became a slave and then a gladiator, but one who tried to work his way out of the Colosseum and buy or win his freedom back. I guess there's a way to do this, if you stay alive long enough, or maybe it's just a line of B.S. they gave the slaves to keep them motivated.  But this is a totally different film, because it's about a disgraced son of the empress who had a falling-out with Rome's emperor, and as a result became a slave and then a gladiator, but one who tried to work his way up and buy or win his freedom back. See? Totally different. 

We actually don't know Hanno's background when we first meet him, in the faraway province of Numidia - or is it Humidia? It looks humid there. The Roman ships, led by General Acacius, attack Humidia and kill almost everyone, including Hanno's sort-of wife, who's a prominent archer.  Hanno and the rest of the survivors are shipped back to Rome to become slaves or gladiators or maybe extras in a gladiator film.  It's good honest work if you can get it. The Romans make them fight baboons in Ostia to see if they're ready for the big leagues, and I guess those that aren't ready get consumed by the baboons. Hanno bites the baboon, so the stable master Macrinus buys him for the gladiator games, and offers him the opportunity to kill General Acacius if he plays his cards right. 

The General just wants some time off, man, maybe a quick vacay with his wife, Lucilla (who again, is Marcus Aurelius' daughter and one of the only characters carrying over from the first film) but no, the two Emperors, Geta and Caracalla want to send him RIGHT back out to conquer Persia and India, right after the gladiator games held to celebrate his conquering Numidia, of course. Hanno wins a warm-up bout at a party and recites a verse from Virgil, the poet, which reveals that he has an educated background.  Hmmmmmm.......

Meanwhile, General Acacius and his wife, Lucilla, are conspiring with Senators to overthrow the two emperors (who look like Ron Weasley's older brothers if they got really sick) and I guess give the throne to Lucilla.  Great, good luck with that, let me know how that goes.  And meanwhile, Hanno is doing great in the gladiator fights, calling to mind another gladiator who did really well there, right up until he died, now what was his name again... Maximus, right?  Hmmmmmm.........

Lucilla watches Hanno fight and also recite that poetry again, and realizes that Hanno is really her lost son, Lucius, which surprises absolutely nobody, and for once, not even me.  But what's more surprising is that Maximus is really his father, who once had a thing going with Lucilla - but everyone naturally assumed that the father of Lucilla's son was her brother, the Emperor Commodus.  Yeah, you read that right.  Ewwww.....what a relief to learn that she had a relationship with someone other than her brother.  Well, it was a different time. 

Hanno/Lucius finds a shrine with Maximus' armor and shield in it, and now he really starts to look like his father.  Macrinus, who's kind of like the "Don King" of ancient Rome, sets up the match between Lucius and Acacius, who's kind of like his stepfather. How ironic that the man Lucius came to Rome to kill would turn out to be sleeping with his mother.  They have a gladiator fight and Lucius wins, but he can't bring himself to kill Acacius, so the Emperors do it for him.  

Macrinus also turns the emperor brothers against each other, he convinces the smaller, weaker one to kill the larger, stronger one, but honestly neither of them look like they'd be very good in a fight.  Too much inbreeding I guess, they both looked pale and sickly, better to let them kill each other with a couple plans within plans.  This is Rome, there aren't really elections but the throne tends to go to those bold enough to take it.  Geta becomes the Emperor and names his pet monkey as his VP, and Macrinus as the secretary of state or something. 

Macrinus isn't done yet, not by a long shot - he convinces the Senate to put him in charge of the Praetorian Guard, then arranges the public execution of Lucilla, hoping that this will start a riot in the streets, which would be enough for the Senate to depose the Emperor, and if Lucilla's also out of the way, then Macrinus becomes the best candidate to sit on the throne. Oh, there's a riot all right, but it's a riot of gladiators revolting against their keepers, I mean, come on, there's a lot of weapons just lying around, this feels a bit like a no-brainer, right? 

Lucius sends word for General Acacius's legions to approach from the port of Ostia, and the Praetorian Guard heads out from the city, and so the armies meet just in time to see Lucius and Macrinus battle to the death.  This gives Lucius the perfect opportunity to reveal his lineage and unite all the armies behind him.  Sure it's a bit corny, but this movie really swung big to try to tell an epic story.  

Hey, remember when this movie got released last year, on the same weekend as "Wicked"? People were hoping for another "Barbie/Oppenheimer" thing but it just didn't really come together.  I think maybe the two movies were so different that it would be hard to find people who wanted to see both the musical fantasy AND the gladiator film together.  Maybe there were a few people interested in both, but then they couldn't decide whether to call that "Gla-Dicked" or "Wadiator", so they really just called the whole thing off.  Then "Gladiator II" got nominated for just one Oscar, which it did not win, and "Wicked" won at least two of them.

Directed by Ridley Scott (director of "Napoleon")

Also starring Paul Mescal (last seen in "The Last Daughter"), Denzel Washington (last seen in "The Little Things"), Pedro Pascal (last seen in "Drive-Away Dolls"), Joseph Quinn (last seen in "Overlord"), Fred Hechinger (last seen in "News of the World"), Lior Raz (last seen in "Operation Finale"), Derek Jacobi (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Peter Mensah (last seen in "300: Rise of an Empire"), Matt Lucas (last seen in "Wonka"), Alexander Karim (last seen in "Dying of the Light"), Yuval Gonen, Richard McCabe (last seen in "Napoleon"), Riana Duce (ditto), Tim McInnerny (last seen in "The Aeronauts"), Alec Utgoff (last seen in "Mortdecai"), Rory McCann (last seen in "Slow West"), Yann Gael, Alfie Tempest (last heard in "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio"), Amira Ghazalla (last seen in "The Rhythm Section"), Richard Katz (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy"), David Ganly (last seen in "Body of Lies"), Hadrian Howard, Lee Charles, Chris Hallaways, Chi Lewis-Parry, Angel Gomez de la Torre, Tom Moutchi (last seen in "The Hustle"), Dean Fagan, May Calamawy (last seen in "Together Together")

with archive footage of Russell Crowe (last seen in "Thor: Love and Thunder"), Spencer Treat Clark (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story")

RATING: 7 out of 10 tiger sharks (yeah, that happened)

Basic

Year 17, Day 92 - 4/2/25 - Movie #4,985

BEFORE: John Travolta carries over again from "Gotti", and there are a lot of Samuel L. Jackson movies coming up - one now, and the rest to follow shortly.  But my reason for separating this one from the herd will make more sense tomorrow, a chance to work in a VERY big movie from late last year.  

This one looked like it was on AmazonPrime, and so that was the plan for last night, but I signed on only to find out that it was only available there for an extra fee, and that's no bueno, I'm not giving Amazon any more money than they get from my wife's Prime subscription. OK, it's not airing on cable either, so it's back upstairs to find out if it's streaming anywhere, which it apparently is not.  So I could rent it from YouTube, but I don't really want to give that corporation any more money, either - AND my fave pirate site is down, maybe the copyright police finally caught up with them.  OK, let me give iTunes another try, it didn't connect last time I tried, and I got the feeling maybe Apple shut down movie rentals on iTunes, probably because I was the last person using that service. Well, it worked, and I think I'd rather give my $4 to Apple than to YouTube/Google or Amazon.  I really have to think about which mega-corporation I fund, because that should make a difference in the long run, what with the looming recession and all. I guess iTunes is my safety net once again, if all else fails and I can't find a specific movie anywhere else, there's always iTunes, as long as my outdated computer will connect with it. 

Oh, and there's an accidental Birthday SHOUT-out today, going out to actress Roselyn Sanchez, born April 2, 1973, she plays a soldier named Nuñez in today's film. 

THE PLOT: D.E.A. Agent Tom Hardy investigates the disappearance of Army Ranger drill sergeant Nathan West and several of his cadets during a training exercise gone severely awry at Fort Clayton. 

AFTER: It's a bit of a "Pulp Fiction" reunion tonight, with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson working together again. Just last night on TMZ, I saw the recent footage of Travolta eating at a fancy steakhouse that serves their wagyu steak in a briefcase with a glowing light emanating from it, just like the mystery case in the film. So you know somebody worked very hard to set up that photo op with Mr. Travolta - I guess "Pulp Fiction" will just always be in vogue.  

I had a lot of trouble staying awake for this one - never a good sign.  And I was at my desk upstairs, watching it on iTunes - it SHOULD be harder for me to fall asleep sitting at a desk than it is while laying on a couch or on a bed.  But this is where we find ourselves, maybe because I worked in the same office for 31 years, I developed a tendency to fall asleep at a desk? That sounds bad. But perhaps I'm only partly to blame this time, this film was VERY hard to follow, because as the movie went on, there were several different re-enactments of the events being investigated, and the actions and perpetrators changed slightly each time.  Look, I get it, somebody loves "Rashomon", but still, we're re-hashing the same thing over and over again here, sure it's a little different each time, based on who's telling the story, but still, this is how boredom creeps in.  

I can't even really get into the details here, because that would give too much away, plus as I just stated, the details keep changing every time, so it's kind of like "A Few Good Men" crossed with "The Usual Suspects", and we're just not going to find out what REALLY went down until the very end. So, umm, why are we wasting everyone's time with five different versions of things, why can't we just skip right to the end?  Please?  

The best number of twist endings to have in a movie is probably ONE, provided it's a good one.  To keep having twists throughout the film, or letting five of them build up close to the end, that's not a good idea because the audience is then going to feel tricked, or perhaps that nothing is real after all once every little element of the story they were told before then turns out to not be true by the end. So there's very little chance to find footing here, and then after the biggest reveal at all, if you go back and think about some of the smaller plot points made in the beginning, well they don't really make sense at all, considering what got revealed at the end.  And then the plot is at crossed purposes with itself, and what the hell is reality, anyway, is ANYTHING really real?  

All we really know at first is that there was a military training exercise in the Panama jungle, a team of future army rangers led by master sergeant Nathan West, and somehow nearly everyone on the mission died or disappeared, except for Sgt. Dunbar, who came back to the base carrying the wounded Lt. Kendall.  A third man, Sgt. Mueller, follows them out of the jungle, but Dunbar kills him in self-defense.  

Military police investigator Capt. Julia Osborne interviews Dunbar, but he refuses to reveal anything about what happened, and will only talk to a fellow Army Ranger from outside the base. So the post commander calls in a DEA agent, Tom Hardy, who used to be an Army Ranger, and also trained under the missing Sergeant West.  Together Hardy and Osborne interview both the un-talkative Sgt. Dunbar and also the very talkative injured Lt. Kendall. From these men's stories, they start to piece together a chain of events that might explain why the men in these units might have killed their Master Sergeant (who was a tough bastard, sure, but aren't all military drill instructors?) or killed each other.  However, things just don't have a tendency to line up, and the story keeps changing every time someone tells or re-tells it. 

What does it all have to do with shipments of cocaine out of Panama, drug cocktails being given to soldiers who are exhausted from training exercises, and how far up the chain of command does the conspiracy go?  No spoilers here, but be prepared for a bunch of twists and turns in this story, and don't believe anything you see at first, especially in the flashbacks, which could turn out to contain false information, intentional or not. Me, I don't really like being "tricked" by a movie, so I have to factor that in to my scoring system.  

Directed by John McTiernan (director of "Medicine Man" and "Rollerball" (2002))

Also starring Connie Nielsen (last seen in "3 Days to Kill"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "The Marvels"), Tim Daly (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Giovanni Ribisi (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Brian Van Holt (last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Taye Diggs (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), Dash Mihok (last seen in "A Million Little Pieces"), Cristian de la Fuente, Roselyn Sanchez, Harry Connick Jr. (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Georgia Hausserman, Margaret Travolta (last seen in "Mercury Rising"), Nick Loren (also carrying over from "Gotti"), Cliff Fleming (last seen in "Jupiter Ascending"), Tait Ruppert, Timothy S. Wester. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 bullet holes in the roof

Gotti

Year 17, Day 91 - 4/1/25 - Movie #4,984

BEFORE: John Travolta carries over from "From Paris with Love" and here are the links that will get me to Easter: Connie Nielsen, Pedro Pascal, Ving Rhames, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Rapaport, Kevin Carroll, Roger Guenveur Smith, Carol Sutton, Jason Davis, and Tiffany Haddish.  That's only enough to reach 4/20, which is Easter, but I WILL reach Big Movie 5,000 sometime before that. I'll have to take some time in a week or so and figure out some connections to get to something for Mother's Day. 

THE PLOT: The story of crime boss John Gotti and his son. 

AFTER: The days are longer now, I'm at home more often because I'm skipping out on one job, I won't exactly say I'm doing the trendy "revenge quitting" thing, but at least I know what it feels like.  And hopefully the old boss knows now how valuable I was, even if he didn't realize it at the time, he might be starting to get some idea.  Soon payroll deposits will be late, insurance policies could be cancelled, and fines and penalties will start to increase, those are the sort of things I was keeping an eye on.  Oh, sure, sometimes I paid the withholding taxes late, but at least I made sure they were all paid eventually, and nobody left at the studio knows how to do that.  He asked me to teach "accounting" to someone else before I left, but that stuff took me YEARS to learn, especially payroll, and I told him I simply could not teach it to someone else in an afternoon, such a thing was impossible.  Am I a bad person for not training my replacement?  With 31 years at that job, with me taking on new responsibilities again and again, I thought I was making myself irreplaceable, and maybe I was doing that, my mistake appears to be not telling the boss how irreplaceable I was.  Eh, he never listens to me anyway, so really, not my fault, because it's not my company - I was just a hired hand for 31 years. Do we blame the navigator when the ship runs aground, or the captain for not listening to him? 

Anyway, it's a bit weird that this film falls on today's schedule, not because it's April Fool's Day but because today I was also dubbing "Oppenheimer" to DVD, so I'll always have a back-up copy if I should want to watch it and it's not available on cable or streaming. I know, it's silly because maybe 98% of all movies ever made are streaming or being broadcast somewhere, somehow, but still, I like the security of having a copy if I want to re-watch it, which I probably never will. Who even has time to watch a movie a second time if so many new movies are always being released?  Maybe when I'm officially retired and have even more free time (if that ever happens) I can re-watch all the movies I have on DVD before the final curtain. But let me try to stop being morose for a second. 

The connection between "Oppenheimer" is that they both use the same non-linear storytelling format, or "time-jumping" in laymen's terms.  What's odd is that "Oppenheimer" is generally regarded as a "good" movie, it did win the Best Picture Oscar after all, while "Gotti" did not win that award, and was instead nominated for several Golden Raspberry rewards, making it a "bad" movie, though I realize these terms are subjective and open to interpretation, and if you prefer "Gotti" over "Oppenheimer", well, who am I to judge, except that you're very wrong and I'm very right.  Now I will admit that there may have been some kind of point to letting Mr. Oppenheimer's bio-pic spool out in three different eras, and then jumping between the eras as they each advanced forward, so it wasn't completely random, the film was just portraying three different parts of his life mixed together, and the scenes from each era were in proper narrative order, only mixed with the other two timelines in order to create some kind of deeper meaning through juxtapositioning. (OK, OK, at some point I will re-watch "Oppenheimer", it's just not even my favorite Christopher Nolan film, both "Tenet" and his Dark Knight trilogy are way better, IMHO.). "Gotti", on the other hand, seems to prefer to present all of its scenes in random order, which suggests that the film just wasn't working as a linear narrative, and the director or editor instead decided to just cut the raw footage into scene-long strips, throw them all up in the air and then edit the segments together as they were picked up off the floor. Don't say it isn't possible...

But as a result, there is no deeper meaning created here, you will not gain any particular insight, intended or unintended, by viewing this movie's scenes in the order they are presented to us.  There's a scene from Gotti's later life, when he's incarcerated and stricken with cancer, and this could be followed by a scene from earlier in his mob career, when he's in jail for three years and being waited on hand and foot by corrupt prison guards.  One minute he's uniting the five families, the next he's grieving the loss of his 12-year old son after a car accident.  A lot of things happen, but given the randomness of it all, it's impossible to create a workable timeline to organize them all, or determine any reason for THIS event to be seen after THAT event, and before THAT OTHER one.  Why, why, why?  What information was I supposed to learn about the man that I missed because somebody else couldn't be counted on to organize it all properly?  

I knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw the opening vanity logo from EFO, that's Emmett Furia Oasis Films, and this production company made a whole bunch of those cheapo Bruce Willis action movies I watched a few years ago, like "First Kill" and "Hard Kill" and "Reprisal" and "Extraction".  The company made a few non-Bruce Willis films like "Empire State", "The Frozen Ground" and "Force of Nature", but before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2018, they seemed to follow a business plan focused on quantity rather than quality, because why make one "Escape Plan" movie when you can make three?  I guess I shouldn't be too hard on them, because they did release "16 Blocks" and "End of Watch", but those will only get you so far, and their company should be judged by its entire output, which is probably 75% schlocky action movies. 

What's worse about "Gotti" is that it fills the movie with mobster characters that did exist and we have heard about - like Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, Paul Castellano and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.  However, there's no time spent getting to know any of these real-life characters, obviously they wanted to focus on John Gotti, but then why mention all those other people at all?  Gigante was known for wandering around Greenwich Village in his bathrobe and slipper, in an apparent attempt to make everyone believe he was mentally impaired, and thus not mentally fit to stand trial for racketeering charges in 1990.  It wasn't until 2003 that he admitted he was only pretending to be crazy - but damn it, THERE'S a movie, right there, did anyone even try to make a movie about him?  Just call it "The OddFather" and it practically writes itself.  Oh, well, I just looked it up, I guess he's been portrayed in a few mob-based miniseries, like "The Deuce" and "Godfather of Harlem", and also in the recent theatrical film "The Alto Knights", still playing at your local AMC or Regal Cinema. 

The most helpful thing in understanding "Gotti" might be the film's Wikipedia page, which breaks down the different years portrayed in the film, and from there you might be able to assemble a working timeline for most of the scenes.  The earliest year shown is 1973, when Gotti, part of the Gambino crime family, is given the assignment of killing gangster James McBratney, who was thought to have kidnapped and killed Carlo Gambino's nephew.  Gotti is seen murdering McBratney at a bar, and a year later is identified as the killer and sentenced to four years in Green Haven.  However, during this time he is allowed to have "medical furloughs" and pretended to visit a dentist for long oral surgery sessions, and apparently would slip out the back door, commit another murder and then return to the dentist's office in time for his return to prison.   

He was released from prison in 1977, which was only awkward because he had to figure out where his wife Victoria and their children had moved to, but after some effort he found their house in Howard Beach, Queens.  At this point he rejoined his old crime associates and was declared a "made man".  Fast forward a bit to 1979, when he and his former childhood friend Angele Ruggiero were operating out of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, and his oldest son, John "Junior" Gotti entered a military academy.  In 1980, his middle son Frank was struck by a car and killed, and a couple months later the driver disappeared and the only witness to his abduction from a diner suddenly remembered that he didn't see anything happen. 

Skip ahead to 1985, when Junior decides he doesn't want to go to military school any more, but instead wants to join the family business, however he started a bar brawl that resulted in a man's death. Gotti senior also decides that boss Paul Castellano is too old and frail to lead the family, however at the same time FBI wiretaps of Gambino family meetings reveal Gotti's involvement in labor racketeering.  Gotti goes on trial but avoids conviction, however he also learns that his associate "Willy Boy" Johnson has been an informant since 1966, Gotti says he forgives Johnson for betraying the family, but a few months later, Johnson also goes missing. 

Then comes the big shoot-out at Sparks Steak House in Manhattan, during which Paul Castellano is killed before he could reorganize the family and disband Gotti's crew.  Gotti takes over the Gambino family, and a rival boss, Vincent Gigante tries to take him out, but fails and Gigante's associate, Casso, also survives a hit and tracks down and kills the hitman. 

Moving ahead again, in 1987 Gotti is prosecuted for the third time, and earns the nickname "The Teflon Don" when he skates yet again.  Also Junior Gotti joins the Gambino family. Then in 1992 Gotti goes on trial for the fourth time, charged with Castellano's murder, and this time Sammy Gravano testifies against him, and he's convicted and sentenced to life without parole. In Gotti's absence, his son Junior assumes control and but he's arrested in 1998, then during his prosecution he's offered a plea deal, and that's when he visits his father at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, which is very nearly the first scene of the film, even though it takes place chronologically last.  (Except for Gotti dying from throat cancer, that should be the end of the film only it takes place about 80% of the way through, and that makes no sense.)

John Gotti should have been the focus of the film the whole way through, but by the end it kind of feels like Junior was the lead character, and really, who cares about him?  Sure, the FBI put him through five trials between 2002 and 2009, but again, so what? This film is pretty much a hot mess throughout, so who is really surprised that it ends in a very confusing way?  I could not make heads nor tails of it at all, not until working out the timeline as listed above, with the assistance of Wikipedia.  Sure, the movie puts the dates up on the bottom of the screen, which is slightly helpful, however the whole film just needed to be organized better, or I'd settle for even organized at all. Glorifying John Gotti and his actions isn't this movie's worst problem, the worst problem is being so damn hard to follow. 

Directed by Kevin Connolly (last seen in "The Ugly Truth")

Also starring Spencer Lofranco (last seen in "Unbroken"), Kelly Preston (also carrying over from "From Paris with Love"), Pruitt Taylor Vince (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), William DeMeo (last seen in "First Kill"), Leo Rossi (last seen in "Narrowsburg"), Chris Kerson, Stacy Keach, Chris Mulkey (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), Nico Bustamante, Sal Rendino (lastr seen in "Dumb Money"), Tyler Jon Olson (last seen in "Force of Nature"), Luis Da Silva Jr. (last seen in "Paterson"), Victor Gojcaj (last seen in "Ambulance"), Michael Cipiti, Ashley Drew Fisher, Jordan Trovillion (last seen in "Setup"), Nik Pajic (last seen in "Carol"), Greg Procaccino, Donald John Volpenhein, Andrew Fiscella (last seen in "After the Sunset"), Megan Leonard (last seen in "Arsenal"), Rhys Coiro (last seen in "Finding Steve McQueen"), Carter Anderson, Silas Mayers, Kealy Welage, Grace Sena, Lydia Hull (last seen in "Precious Cargo"), Jonathan Rau (last seen in "The Taking of Pelham 123"), Michael Spagnoli, Robert Pavlovich, Charles Carnesi, Jordan Jacinto, Michael Woods (last seen in "Omen IV: The Awakening"), Jay Seals, Ashley Cusato (last seen in "Escape Plan 2: Hades"), Shea Buckner (last seen in "Arsenal"), Brett Wyman, Joe Gelchion (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Joseph T. Deters, Ruthy Froch, Tony Luke Jr., Connor Cadek, Cristina Carone, Richard Doone (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Jeff Ruby, Kevin W. Shiveley, Nick Stanner (last seen in "Goosebumps"), Kyle Stefanski (last seen in "Acts of Violence"), Ken Strunk (last seen in "Reprisal"), with archive footage of John Gotti (last seen in "Where's My Roy Cohn?"), John Miller

RATING: 3 out of 10 anachronistic Pitbull songs

From Paris with Love

Year 17, Day 90 - 3/31/25 - Movie #4,983

BEFORE: OK, last day of March, so let's check the format stats - it's a different situation now that I have a new DVR, I can record more stuff to DVD. Maybe I always could, maybe I just had a really unusually janky DVR, but that's neither here nor there. I'm not giving up on cable until I've seen every movie ever and have a copy of everything on DVD. 

MARCH

14 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Long Weekend, Priscilla, The Assistant, Bottoms, Retribution, Ordinary Love, Honest Thief, In the Land of Saints and Sinners, Marlowe, Mechanic: Resurrection, Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Transporter 3, From Paris with Love

1 Movie watched on cable (not saved): Shining Through

5 watched on Netflix: Love Guaranteed, Players, The Kissing Booth, The Kissing Booth 2, The Kissing Booth 3

1 watched on Amazon Prime: Memory
1 watched on Hulu: Blacklight

1 watched on Roku: My Love Affair with Marriage

1 watched on a random site: Made in Italy

24 TOTAL

The month kind of got bookended by "Love" - first film of March was "Love, Guaranteed" and now it ends with "From Paris with Love".  Tomorrow I'll post the actor links that will get me through to Easter. Today, Farid Elouardi carries over from "Transporter 3". 

THE PLOT: In Paris, a young employee in the office of the U.S. Ambassador hooks up with an American spy looking to stop a terrorist attack in the city. 

AFTER: This is a bit of a weird film - it's honestly hard to tell if Travolta is serious about playing a very wild character, or maybe wildly playing a very serious character.  There might be a very fine distinction between those two things, but I kind of want to know which it is. Like one minute he's poking fun at "Pulp Fiction" by eating that burger called the "royale with cheese", like how can you possibly take that seriously, and then the next minute he's shooting two guys in the head and acting like a Jason Statham character.  Can the same guy do both things, or does the "Pulp Fiction" reference break through the fourth wall and remind us that none of this is real, which subverts the process of suspending our disbelief?  It's almost like a "Deadpool"-ish moment, the character is letting us know that he's being played by an actor that was in another movie, just like Deadpool might make a joke about Van Wilder or Green Lantern, also played by Ryan Reynolds. Right? 

The central character is James Reese, a low-level U.S. diplomat in France, but he's got a secret ambition to be working for the CIA.  Or he already works for the CIA, but he hasn't proven himself worthy of a mission just yet - as a test, the agency gets him to place a microphone in the French foreign minister's office, despite the fact that the U.S. and France are allies, but hey, maybe it's not that important, and it was just a test, after all. He nearly botches it, but eventually finds a way to secure the mike to the underside of a desk.  The completion of this means he can be assigned to a real mission, which involves picking up his new partner, Charlie Wax, at the airport.  Charlie is fighting with customs, who will not let him bring cans of his energy drink into the country - jeez, you'd think that the TSA would have confiscated cans of mysterious liquid before the flight.  

But the cans hold something else, and it's not too hard to figure out what. Reese uses his diplomatic authority to declare the bag international mail or something, it's some weird customs technicality which then prevents James from needing to bribe the guy, which is what Charlie wanted him to do. You get the feeling right off that these two partners are very different people, and they're going to disagree a lot.  Charlie takes James out for Chinese food, but he's very specific about where they need to eat.  While James tries to impress with his extensive knowledge on the origin of egg foo yung, Charlie starts shooting up the place, revealing that it's a front for a Triad drug warehouse - but he only kills the waiters and chefs who shoot back at him.  Again, it's all just kind of odd.

James ends up carrying around a big vase full of cocaine, which Charlie samples quite often.  Nah, that doesn't call attention to them one bit while they're visiting the Eiffel Tower.  Charlie seems to be running a very random operation/investigation across all the ethnic neighborhoods in Paris, but he's really tracing the drug money back to a bunch of Pakistani terrorists, who are maybe planning to infiltrate the U.S. embassy.  In one abandoned apartment, they find photos of James pinned to the walls, which means someone may be either targeting him, or using him to gain access to the embassy.  OK, enough undercover work for one day, James invites Charlie over for dinner with his girlfriend and her roommate, what could POSSIBLY go wrong there? 

Again, I just can't quite figure out how seriously I'm supposed to take this film - when Travolta's character is hanging out of a car speeding down the highway and he's holding a giant rocket launcher, it feels kind of bonkers, like we're in Road Runner & Coyote cartoon territory.  Can Charlie Wax blow up the terrorist car with his rocket launcher before the terrorist blows up the motorcade full of diplomats?  Not if the car keeps swerving wildly like that.  Can James pull the trigger and kill the suicide bomber before they activate the explosive vest?  I guess we'll find out...

This film made some money back in 2010 but comparing the gross to the budget caused it to be regarded as a disaster. Well, sure, if you define a success as taking in more money than it cost to make, but isn't that old-school economics?  The real success comes from franchising your film, and writer Luc Besson talked about making sequels, however 15 years have now gone by and there's no sign of one yet. 

I didn't pick up on the James Bond reference, the title seems a bit based on the Bond classic "From Russia with Love".  It's a bit of an odd coincidence that tonight I worked at the theater at a premiere event for the new show "Mobland" and former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan was there.  I was a few feet away from him as he signed autographs for a group of fans.  

Directed by Pierre Morel (director of "The Gunman")

Also starring John Travolta (last seen in 'Die Hart"), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (last seen in "Albert Nobbs"), Kasia Smutniak (last seen in "Dolittle"), Richard Durden (last seen in "The Reckoning"), Yin Bing, Amber Rose Revah (last seen in "The Devil's Double"), Eric Godon (last seen in "In Bruges"), Francois Bredon (last seen in "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets"), Chems Dahmani, Sami Darr, Julien Hagnery, Mostefa Stiti, Rebecca Dayan (last seen in "Tesla"), Michael Vander-Meiren (last seen in "3 Days to Kill"), Didier Constant, Alexandra Boyd (last heard in "The Wild Thornberrys"), Stephen Shagov (also carrying over from "Transporter 3"), Mike Powers, Nick Loren (last seen in "Lucky Numbers"), Melissa Mars, Hang Yin, David Gasman (last seen in "The Sisters Brothers"), Frederic Chau (last seen in "Lucy"), Tam Solo, with cameos from Luc Besson, John Kiriakou, Kelly Preston (last seen in "Waiting to Exhale").

RATING: 4 out of 10 chess pieces

Transporter 3

Year 17, Day 89 - 3/30/25 - Movie #4,982

BEFORE: OK, I am back from Bermuda, we had a great time aboard a cruise ship for 5 days. Sightseeing, drinking and especially eating - the food on the ship was top-notch, we had access to the main restaurants, a specialty restaurant based on our suite class, and then we had vouchers for two specialty restaurants, one was French and one was a churrascaria.  Then we also had access to the ship's buffet (which was not 24/7, but pretty darn close) so I was able to squeeze in a few meals between our other meals. Prime rib, coq au vin, lobster deviled eggs, scallops, crab cakes, shrimp fettucine alfredo, and then at the buffet I found ribs, fried chicken on waffles, and infinite breakfasts.  So yeah, I definitely gained a few pounds, and now I'm going to have to work it off at the job I have left. Being on vacation took some of the sting out of losing one job, but I know that life on a cruise ship is not reality, and that in a few days I'd have to come back and try to put my career back on track somehow - it's a work in progress.  

Bermuda was fine, we took a bus tour and got some sun (and sunburn), went to one beach, but there was no time to swim and anyway I don't do that. The bumpy bus took us up to St. George's and then ended in Hamilton for some shopping, only the ship had delayed our excursion day and we ended up leaving the boat an hour later than planned, so by the time we were released for shopping, there was no time for shopping, a line was already starting to gather for the ferry that would return us to the cruise ship pier, so we figured we'd better get in it, or we'd miss that ferry and possibly the next one as well.  Sure, we still had another half day in Bermuda, but we used that time to explore the port and a nearby pub, then again make our way back to the ship two hours before the boarding cut-off, because why take any chances with that?  

There were some entertaining things to do on the ship, I won both beer trivia and superhero trivia, which got me signatures on my activity card that I could trade in for a free souvenir deck of cards at the end of the cruise.  And we saw one show at the theater on Deck 8, a jukebox musical called "The Choir of Man" - it was fine, but I think that some people are mainly drawn to it for the free beer offered from the pub set before the show begins.  But mostly we just enjoyed being spoiled, we had a butler who helped us get the show tickets and also brought us more snacks to the room, which is a bit like giving your kids sugar and then wondering why they can't settle down to go to sleep.  But we earned a vacation and we deserved a vacation, and we hadn't been on a cruise since 2013. 

Jason Statham carries over from "Crank: High Voltage", and I'll have to cap the Statham movies at four, because I don't have time to get to the theaters this weekend and watch "Working Man", plus that would throw off my count - I'm going to just make it to my Easter movie as it is - maybe I've got one day's leeway in case I get very busy in early April.  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Transporter 2" (Movie #4,831)

THE PLOT: Frank Martin is forced to deliver Valentina, the kidnapped daughter of a Ukrainian government official, from Marseilles to Odessa. En route, he has to contend with thugs who want to intercept Valentina's safe delivery. 

AFTER: I knew last year that there was a third "Transporter" movie, however it wasn't running on cable at the time. Sure, I could have watched it some other way (pirate site) but I was already watching so many Statham movies, I even crammed in a double feature on Labor Day weekend just to get to the ones that I did watch. Something told me to hold off on the third one, and that turned out to be the right call, because it happens to link me to the next section of films, which is going to get me to Easter Sunday.  In two days I'll print the links to Easter, but I just won't have the links to the end of April yet, because at some point in April when I get a minute I need to work out the chain to Mother's Day, that's just how this works. 

Ah, yes, Frank Martin, the guy who delivers packages and has three simple rules to follow, which I think he then proceeds to break in every film, right?  Then he gets to talk about the fact that he's breaking his own rules, which is good for a few beats in every movie, too.  I feel you, Frank, I lived by some simple rules, too - like "Don't teach your co-workers how you do what you do." Yep, I broke that one, and it cost me. Maybe the second one was "Don't ever call the boss stupid." Yep, I broke that one, too, and it cost me big-time. I can't really think of a third rule I had, maybe it should have been "Don't stay in the same job for over thirty years."  Hey, I just don't like job-hunting, it's a pain in the ass. That job helped pay for a condominium and then a house, so at least there was some benefit in staying in the same place for way too long.  Now I just have to figure out what to do next, because I'm still too young to retire. Keep the other job while I look for another one, I guess. 

But let's focus on the movie here.  This one kind of has it all, from toxic waste disposal to blackmailing a Ukrainian official by kidnapping his daughter.  And way back in 2008 none of us even really knew about Ukraine, right?  Except that it was a territory in the board game Risk...I mean, it was ONE of the Soviet Socialist Republics on the old map, but there were like 47 of them, so except for liking Chicken Kiev, nobody really gave Ukrainian culture a second thought, except for the Ukrainians, I guess.  But that official's daughter needed to be transported back to Odessa, do you see where this is going?  Frank had that rule about transporting people, so he apparently referred the kidnappers to his colleague, Malcolm, who managed to get shot somewhere along the way, so instead of Budapest, he could only drive as far as Frank Martin's house. Well, Frank did say Malcolm could "crash" there any time, but I don't think he meant that literally. 

This is a different spin on the "bomb in a car" trope, technically the bomb is in the car, but it's in the form of two metal bracelets on the wrists of the passenger and the transporter. If they get too far from the car, the bracelets blow up. If they try to dismantle the bracelets, they blow up. And if they disobey any orders from the kidnappers, well, you get the idea. Still, bomb in a vehicle, so it's yet another variation on the "Speed" formula.  If only Malcolm could have explained to Frank what the bracelet rules were, but no, he had to be unconscious, and the kidnapped girl was asleep in the back seat, so the poor EMTs pulled Malcolm from the car, and their ambulance blew up as they were driving him to the hospital.  Frank gets knocked unconscious, only to find that HE is now wearing one of the bracelets, and he's got to complete the transporter job, getting Valentina to Budapest.  Even worse, they rigged up that great car that Frank had with the revolving license plates, I mean, you just don't mess with a man's ride, or so I've heard. 

Now Frank has an ax to grind, revenge is on his mind, and there's nothing more exciting than a Jason Statham character motivated to get stuff done.  Once he hits Budapest, one of the bad guys steals the car with Valentina in it, which basically means Frank's got a limited amount of time before he blows up, so he gets on a BICYCLE and chases after the car. After a few bike stunts and a shortcut through a warehouse, he manages to catch up (??) with his Audi and dive into the car, simultaneously pushing the henchman out the other door, and not missing a damn beat, he's back on the road in his own car doing 80 mph without blowing himself up. 

Then he maneuvers the car of henchmen chasing him off a cliff, so THEY blow up real good, and gains the trust of Valentina by stripping for her and having sex with her. Hey, it's a rough job but somebody's got to do it. She finally spills her backstory, how she was partying in Ibiza and somebody slipped her a roofie, then ended up with the explosive jewelry to blackmail her father into accepting that cargo ship with all the toxic waste into his country, or something. I don't know, that part's a bit unclear, but I assume the bad guys are PRO toxic waste dumping and the Ukrainian minister is against it, hence the need for the kidnapping and blackmail. Look, I'm sure Valentina's a special girl and all that, but she's very difficult to work with and also closed off emotionally, still it's better than being Russian. Right? 

OF COURSE Frank delivers Valentina as promised - and OF COURSE the bad guys double-cross him and try to kill him.  That's why he doesn't get much repeat business, there's a big problem with client relations here - if you run jobs for dishonest people, you should pretty much expect they'll try to screw you in the end.  And if they kill you, well, then they don't have to pay you. That's a free pro tip to keep in mind.  Both ends of the bridge are blocked (one end with the dumpster full of toxic waste, nice touch...) so Frank chooses to do the unexpected and drive his car off the bridge and into the lake.  How he survives under water when his detective friend is over 10 minutes away is pure genius - further proof that Jason Statham could be and should be the next James Bond. (Supposedly he is kind of suggesting himself for the part.)

Whew, Frank survives and more importantly, his Audi survives, he's going to need it to catch up with the villains and Valentina on that train.  I'm willing to bet you haven't seen anyone board a train the way Frank does either.  We can only hope that after the bad guys die and the good guys live that the car is going to be all right. 

This was the most successful film in the "Transporter" franchise, as it did take in $109 million worldwide - but reviews were mixed, ranging from "a perfectly acceptable brainless action thriller" to "terrifically stupid fun" and "it's enough to pass the time."  Yes, this will pass 104 minutes of your time, but critics were also split on lead actress Natalya Rudakova, some noting that her romantic scenes were "not particularly charming or sexy" and others noting the delivery of her lines as "phonetic readings", meaning she technically was making the correct sounds, only maybe she was lacking in understanding them or the emotions behind them. Roger Ebert even said, "Well, she's no Bonnie Hunt."  Nope, I'm afraid not, only would you want to see Bonnie Hunt having sex with Jason Statham in a field close to a bomb-rigged car?  Maybe you would, you sicko. 

Directed by Olivier Megaton (director of "Colombiana")

Also starring Natalya Rudakova, Francois Berléand (last seen in "Transporter 2"), Robert Knepper (last seen in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"), Jeroen Krabbé (last seen in "An Ideal Husband"), Alex Kobold, David Atrakchi, Yann Sundberg, Eriq Ebouaney (last seen in "3 Days to Kill"), David Kammenos, Silvio Simac (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Oscar Relier, Timo Dierkes, Paul Barrett (last seen in "The Queen"), Katia Tchenko, Michel Neugarten, Farid Elouardi, Julien Muller (last seen in "Colombiana"), Arnaud Gibey, Guillaume Nail, Venugopal Balakrishnan, Semmy Schilt

RATING: 6 out of 10 55-gallon drums

Crank: High Voltage

Year 17, Day 81 - 3/22/25 - Movie #4,981

BEFORE: Yesterday and today, there were SO many actor birthdays in March, I was very close to having another birthday SHOUT-out, but it's a case of "close, but no cigar".  Both films have cameos from Chester Bennington, who was the lead singer of Linkin Park, and he died in 2017, but he was born on March 20, 1976. So I was one day off by watching "Crank" on March 21, therefore no shout-out. Other "Crank" franchise actors with March birthdays are Amy Smart (March 26), Jose Pablo Cantillo (March 30), Edi Gathegi (March 10), Ron Jeremy (March 12) and John de Lancie (also March 20). I hope they all have happy birthdays this year (OK, except for Ron Jeremy, he knows what he did...) but I can't just be giving out SHOUT-outs all over the place, their movies have to land on the right days...

Jason Statham carries over again from "Crank", and so do 13 other actors. 

THE PLOT: Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestrucible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker which requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working. 

AFTER: I'm going to take a guess and say that the most memorable bit from the first "Crank" movie involved Chelios shocking himself with those defibrillator (yes, I looked it up) paddles. Which weren't even used correctly, they're meant to be used only when someone's heart has stopped, and his was just slowing down. Sure, the shock charged him up on the adrenaline scale, but apparently it's more likely that his heart would have stopped completely after such a jolt. It's a movie, sure, so there's some poetic license, but still they should try to keep things within the realm of possibility, otherwise the whole exercise becomes some kind of impossibly fantasy film.  

Take the ending of "Crank", for example, when our hero falls from helicopter flight height all the way to the pavement, landing on a car and bouncing off it (!!!) then landing on the pavement and not being completely dead. How much adrenaline or epinephrine or Chinese toxin he had in his bloodstream at that moment wouldn't matter, as we saw in "Mechanic: Resurrection", if you fall from skyscraper height to the sidewalk, you'll be little more than a red stain after that impact. But Chelios is only mostly dead, which is also slightly alive, and a team of Chinese mobsters pulls up in a van and scrapes him off the street (they use a snow shovel, which is weird because who owns a SNOW SHOVEL in Los Angeles?)

He's taken to the finest Chinese heart surgeon working in the Chinatown underground (above the dim sum place, but below the lawyer's office) where they need his heart to keep a very old gangster named Poon Dong (again, !!!) alive, and they replace it with a baked potato wrapped in foil. Somehow Chelios is still alive, but he's relying on a battery pack to keep his artificial heart working, and the battery keeps running low on power, so he has to feed it electricity from the car he's jumpstarting, and so on. It's going to make things difficult (even more so than last time) if he's going to both figure out who's got his heart now, find it and somehow get it back in his body.  

That mob doctor is back again, via phone he lets Chelios know that if something happens to that battery pack, he'll only have about an hour to live, the device is simply not designed to keep people alive for very long.  Well, wouldn't you know it, the battery pack gets destroyed in a car crash, so he's got to hope against hope that receiving regular electric shocks to his skin will transfer energy to the heart's internal battery and keep it running - which leads to more and more absurd situations, like shocking himself with jumper cables from a helpful driver, or seeking out high voltage lines and grabbing hold wherever he can.  

All he knows is the name of the low-level Chinese gangster who was there during his operation, Johnny Vang, and the name of the club where he hangs out.  There at the club he catches the eye of a hooker named Ria, who sends him to a strip club, where he also sees his girlfriend, Eve, who naturally assumed he was dead since he hadn't called in three months and also fell out of a helicopter to his death. After a gunfight with Mexican mobsters, he learns the identity of the man trying to kill him this time - "El Huron", or "The Ferret". 

While the cops arrest people and start sorting through the bodies, Chelios escapes in a police car with Eve and another stripper, who happens to know that Johnny Vang also hangs out at the Hollywood Park racetrack - jeez, this is worse than "Marlowe", where the detective had to bounce back and forth between every social club/whorehouse in L.A.  On the way there, Chev meets Venus, the twin brother of his cross-dressing associate Kaylo from the previous film. (Venus is conveniently played by the same actor, who was available to come back for the sequel, however they'd killed his character off...). At the racetrack the heart starts losing energy again, so the mob doctor suggests that Chev rub up against strangers at the track to generate friction and static electricity.  So he rubs up against a horrified grandmother and also the guy from Linkin Park (also making his 2nd appearance in the franchise). 

But once Eve catches up with him again, an even better opportunity to create friction arises, and he and Eve have another very public sexual encounter in front of the track grandstand. And everybody digs it, nobody is offended, because back in 2009 it was a different time and public places weren't filled with Karens who called the police every time they saw something they didn't like, all right?  Two people are in love and boning right there on the horse track, you ENJOY it, you don't report it, umm, unless the lady is screaming for help, in which case that's probably a rape or sexual assault, yeah, go ahead and call that one in.  But not THIS one, except that it probably affected the outcome of the horse race.  

Then Don Kim (also from the last film) arrives in a limo to clue Chelios in about where his heart is headed, it's going to keep Poon Dong alive, because it's such a spectacular heart - after all the previous owner fell out of a helicopter and somehow survived, also he managed to outlive the Chinese poison in his system (see previous film).  But Don Kim double-crosses Chelios and tries to kill him, which would have prevented him from trying to get his heart back, but Chelios kills Don Kim and his men first, because he's righteous and owns better guns.  

Chev next boards an ambulance to get a new battery pack for his heart, then finds Johnny Vang near some kind of electrical transformer set-up, and this leads to some kind of weird fantasy sequence where the two men battle, but are dressed in giant Godzilla or kaiju costumes. I'm not sure if this in meant to be a parody or some kind of representation for the madness going on inside the dying man's head.  Anyway, Vang still has the red Igloo cooler, only the heart's not in it any more, it's already been placed inside the very old man.  There's something else in the cooler, but, umm, the movie doesn't show us what it is - maybe that's for the best. 

Chev is taken to Catalina for the final showdown with the Mexican thugs, who are led by El Huron, who then reveals his connection to characters from the first film, which perfectly explains why he really really wants to kill Chelios. Well, he's welcome to try, but so far everyone who's tried to kill him has ended up dead themselves.  Venus arrives with back-up (and his case of Fullbody Tourette's Syndrome) and Ria arrives (with her weird shaking caused by getting hit by a car, I think) and wow, if this is the cavalry arriving to save Chelios, really, he's better off without them.  Chelios takes a moment to power up before the final boss battle by climbing up some power lines, and then he's literally on fire as he beats the bad guy to death.  So now he's still got the artificial heart, he's lost his mind AND he's covered in third degree burns.  Well, it looks like the end for our hero but you know, we've thought that before.  

OK, so it's been a while since this sequel came out in 2009, why haven't they made "Crank 3" yet?  Oh, right, because the singer from Linkin Park died, I guess. 

Well, we're off to catch a boat early tomorrow morning, leaving from NYC for Bermuda and maybe parts unknown. If I don't stay on holiday then I'll be back here with one more Jason Statham movie next weekend. 

Directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor (directors of "Crank")

Also starring Amy Smart, Dwight Yoakam, Efren Ramirez, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Reno Wilson, Keone Young, Jai Stefan, Chester Bennington, Ted Garcia, Dan Callahan, Jay Xcala, Glenn Howerton, Carlos Ramirez (all carrying over from "Crank"), Julanne Chidi Hill, Art Hsu (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), J.J. Soria (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"), Bai Ling (last seen in "Nixon"), Clifton Collins Jr. (last seen in "Nightmare Alley"), David Carradine (last seen in "The Long Goodbye"), Corey Haim (last seen in "Murphy's Romance"), Geri Halliwell Horner (last seen in "Gran Turismo"), William Brent (last seen in "You Again"), Jamie Harris (last seen in "West Side Story"), John de Lancie (last seen in "Fearless"), Ho-Kwan Tse, Galen Yuen (last seen in "Rescue Dawn"), Shu Lan Tuan (last seen in "Because I Said So"), Eidan Hanzei (last seen in "Gamer"), Keith Jardine (ditto), Joseph D. Reitman (ditto), Kate Mulligan (ditto), Najja Meeks, Annie Girard, Yeva-Genevieve Lavlinski, David Rolas, Moses Romero, Dewey Kim, Portis Hershey (last seen in "Accepted"), Atticus Todd, Chad Damiani, Tom Roach, Maynard James Keenan, Danny Lohner (last seen in "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster"), Danna Hansen (last heard in "Garfield: The Movie"), Cherinda Kincherlow, Billy Gillespie (last seen in "Doc Hollywood"), Samuel Hubinette, Michael Weston (last seen in "Love, Wedding, Marriage"), Lexington Steele, Monique Alexander, Nick Manning, Jenna Haze, Ron Jeremy (last seen in "The Rules of Attraction"), Ed Powers, Larry Eudene (last seen in "Unfinished Business"), Reid Harper, David Scott Rubin (last seen in "Feast of Love"), Mandy Amano, Darryl Chan (also last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Tony Flores (last seen in "Domino"), Christine Q. Nguyen, Holly Weber (last seen in "The Ugly Truth")

With cameos from Lauren Holly (last seen in "The Chumscrubber"), Lloyd Kaufman (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), 

 

RATING: 5 out of 10 porn stars on strike (I think we all remember the big porn star strike of 2009, right? They were desperate times for all, indeed.)

Crank

Year 17, Day 80 - 3/21/25 - Movie #4,980

BEFORE: Yes, it's true, I left my job at the animation studio after 31 years - or I was fired, depending on who you ask. It's complicated, maybe, but it comes down to personal problems between me and the boss, who believed for some reason that being the boss makes you right about everything, which I do not agree with. I like to run an animation studio a certain way, make sure the bills are paid on time, make sure that the Kickstarter backers get their rewards within a certain period of time, and also I like the ability to be right once in a while when I know the boss is NOT right about something. Turns out the boss did not see things the same way, and I maybe complained one too many times about how he tends to do a lot of things the wrong way.  For this reason I was labeled as having a "bad attitude" and was again reminded that the boss is always correct, and when I disagreed with that point, I was offered the choice of quitting or being fired. Since I can't file for unemployment if I quit, I chose the latter, and I look forward in the coming days to him learning the hard way about all the things that I did for the studio that nobody else knows how to do, and those are things that will now not get done.  Some of those things are little things, while others are the kind of things that could put him out of business, like not renewing the worker's compensation insurance or paying the payroll withholding on time. I won't say I practiced "revenge quitting", but in any action movie you might see the hero walking away from an exploding building or vehicle without looking back, and that's my mood right now. While the explosion hasn't happened yet, really, it's just a matter of time.  

But who knows, I'm about to take a week's vacation and get on a cruise ship, so a week of people trying to run that studio without me, and not having the knowledge I have, or the passwords I have, could be a game-changer in how valuable I actually am to that business. It should be fun to find out - meanwhile after the cruise I'm going to be really busy at my other job, and honestly, this is the main reason that I HAVE the other job, so I would have something to fall back on if the primary job closed or my boss got sick or something - the back-up plan also comes in handy if I get fired. Really, I can find another job, what I could not do was make that studio run properly or 100% legally, and that's been frustrating me for the last few years. So this is a relief in many ways, and tonight's film is appropriate because it's all about the stress level of the main character, only he needs to keep his UP and I very much need to keep mine DOWN. 

Jason Statham carries over from "Mechanic: Resurrection". 

THE PLOT: Professional assassin Chev Chelios learns his rival has injected him with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops. 

AFTER: Life can be a real roller-coaster ride, that's the point I was trying to make earlier. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, sometimes you work a lot and make a lot of money, sometimes you have to take a few months off and re-assess your life. You get married, you get divorced, you stay single for a while and at some point you realize it's not only a roller-coaster ride with ups and downs, but at some point every ride is over, or at least you find yourself back where you started, and maybe you can go around on the big crazy ride one more time. There are circles within circles, everything is cyclical, but for now let's just focus on the ups and downs, highs and lows, gutters and strikes. 

We don't know EXACTLY what Chelios did to get on somebody's bad side, but he's a hit-man, so he was contracted to do a hit and then somebody didn't like it, so they vowed to get revenge. It probably happens a lot in that business, we don't know for sure because we only really know the Hollywood version of hit-men and assassins, and I'm willing to bet there are more hit-men in movies than there are in real life. But again, I'm not an expert. Chelios works for Don Carlito Carlos, and apparently he was tasked with taking out Don Kim from Chinatown. And now Ricky Verona wants to kill him in retaliation, so Verona sneaks into his apartment at night and injects him with a poison, and then he leaves Chelios a video on a DVD to show him what he's done - because what's the fun of killing somebody if you don't also take the time to brag about it?  There's maybe a NITPICK POINT here, because what if his poison kills Chelios, and police investigate the scene and find that DVD?  Visual evidence of murder, right there on digital media - and this was done somehow BEFORE cel phones had cameras, so it must have taken some time to burn the footage to a DVD, maybe it's not that long, but still it represents some effort. 

The poison inhibits the flow of adrenaline, which will eventually slow down Chelios' heart and kill him.  (Why did they choose a slow poison, just to give him enough time to watch the DVD? Still seems odd.). Anyway Chelios calls the mob's doctor and gets the advice that he needs to keep his adrenaline flowing through any exciting action, like driving fast or fighting somebody or putting himself in danger. You know, anything that will also look really cool in this movie.  So Chelios goes out and picks fights with a whole club's worth of black bikers, and also some reckless driving through a MALL, chased by a police car. Wooo, that's how you feel ALIVE, getting chased by the cops!  

Another option is to track down some epinephrine from a pharmacy or a hospital, and when the pharmacist balks, one helpful person at the drug store points out that there's epinephrine in the nasal spray, so why not give that a whirl?  He also makes it to the hospital and tries to get some from a rolling crash cart, but this only alerts some cops at the hospital, so he has to settle for shocking himself with the defribb - the defirbrill - you know, the heart-starting paddles. Well, that should put some hair on his chest.  Finally he gets a syringe of epinephrine and injects himself, then runs off to pick a fight with a motorcycle cop, and we learn what a proper English action star wears under his hospital gown. Hint: it's nothing. 

Another check-in with the mob doctor (who's delayed flying back from Vegas) reveals that Chelios probably just took TOO MUCH epinephrine, because he really didn't ask how much is enough, he just took some in the syringe and some more in the nasal sprays, so now his body is dealing with that overdose, and he's sweating but he's cold and he also has a big erection. OK, good to know.  Time for some very public sex with his girlfriend, who's been asleep most of the day, that's why she wasn't answering her phone, and she doesn't QUITE understand that rival mobsters are coming to her house to kill her, but sure, she'll go with her boyfriend to Chinatown to have sex in full view of a bus of tourists. Really, they never seem to find the time to have sex any more, so this is a welcome change for her. Wait, WTF?

Chelios gets a tip from an informant who's both a cross-dressing party boy AND the link to the "Napoleon Dynamite" universe, and he's spotted Ricky Verona's brother, Alex - so Chelios heads over there to ask Alex where to find Ricky, or kill him, whichever comes first. But at least Chelios gets a line on Ricky and heads over to the Triad warehouse to (because this is still a Jason Statham movie) work his way through an astounding number of guys with weapons and martial arts training, using some killer acrobatics and occasionally shooting one gang member with another gang member's gun. So those negotiations don't go well either, but at least Chelios knows that Verona and his own boss, Carlito, are working together to kill him.  

Finally the mob doctor is back in town and manages to squeeze Chelios in for an appointment. He finds that he can slow the poison down, but he can't cure it. So Chelios arranges a meeting with the people trying to kill him, because it seems like he's got nothing left to lose.  But surprise, the triads arrive and Chelios didn't kill Don Kim in the first place, he just wanted him to disappear for two days so he could, umm, wait, what was the reason for faking the guy's death again?  Whatever it was, it lead to Chelios getting poisoned so maybe it really wasn't the best plan after all.  Anyway Verona tries to escape by helicopter, but Chelios jumps on board and as they fly over the city, he pulls Verona out of the helicopter and kills him as they're falling to the ground.  Seems like overkill, really, he doesn't need to kill him, the ground will do that for him, but what do I know? 

All in all, it's another film in the same vein as "Speed", it's just that instead of a bus that will blow up if it goes below a certain number of miles per hour, it's a man whose heart will stop if he stops doing dangerous and exciting things.  But you can see the resemblance, right? 

Directed by Mark Neveldine (director of "Gamer") and Brian Taylor (ditto)

Also starring Amy Smart (last seen in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"), Jose Pablo Cantillo (last seen in "Ambulance"), Efren Ramirez (last seen in "When in Rome"), Dwight Yoakam (last seen in 'When Trumpets Fade"), Carlos Sanz (last seen in "Stronger"), Reno Wilson (last seen in "The Great White Hype"), Edi Gathegi (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Glenn Howerton (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Jay Xcala, Keone Young (last heard in "Wish"), Valarie Rae Miller (last seen in "La La Land"), Yousuf Azami (last seen in "12 Strong"), Laurent Schwaar (last seen in "The Divorce"), David Brown (last seen in "The Drop"), Dorian Kingi (last seen in "Antlers"), David T. Green, Eve Loseth, Allen Bloomfield, Stephanie Mace (last seen in "Gamer"), Dan Callahan (ditto), Sam Witwer (ditto), Chester Bennington, Michael McLafferty, Earl Carroll (last seen in "Alex & Emma"), Sean Graham, Noel Gugliemi (last seen in "Dragged Across Concrete"), Daniel Venegas (last seen in "School for Scoundrels"), Francis Capra, Peter Choi, Toshi Toda (last seen in "Just Married"), Jai Stefan, Jacki R. Chan, Rich Shuster (last seen in "Eraser"), Ted Garcia (last seen in "Zodiac"), Carlos Ramirez (last seen in "Stillwater"), Robin Wilson (last seen in "Lucky You").

RATING: 6 out of 10 Google Earth satellite images

Mechanic: Resurrection

Year 17, Day 79 - 3/20/25 - Movie #4,979

BEFORE: OK, I'm going to pick up with Jason Statham right where I left off - I watched 9 Statham movies last year, and the last one in the chain was "The Mechanic".  I'm only going to watch four more this year, because that's how many I have now. But his films will get me to my vacation week, and then nearly to the end of the month, which is fast approaching.  Whether I'll still have my main job at the animation studio at the end of the month is another question entirely, the boss is after me to quit or get fired, and I'm not crazy about those choices. I'm hoping that a week without me there sort of highlights how much I do for the company, because when I'm not there to do those things, they don't get done. That may work to my advantage, but it's also possible that the damage is done - like why am I even fighting to keep this job if the boss doesn't want me there?  Wouldn't it be a relief to just give up the job that drives me crazy, and then I could work more shifts at the job that doesn't?  The job that drives me nuts pays better, unfortunately, and the job that doesn't drive me nuts doesn't have any staff positions available right now, so I'm kind of stuck. I need to keep making money, but not at the cost of my sanity.  Maybe a week away from both jobs, on a boat, might bring some clarity to all parties involved. 

Atanas Srebrev carries over from "Memory".  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Mechanic" (Movie #4,832)

THE PLOT: Bishop's most formidable foe kidnaps the love of his life in order to make him complete three impossible assassinations and make them look like accidents. 

AFTER: Ah, there's nothing quite like a sequel to a remake. Can we call that a requel?  The original 1972 film called "The Mechanic" never had a sequel, so if Statham's popular and somebody wants to turn that into a franchise, well, go ahead. Statham's also got a new film coming out now, called "A Working Man" but I don't think I'll be able to work that into my chain.  Again, I want to remind you that my blog takes NO MONEY from advertisers at all, so if I tell you that "A Working Man" is being released in theaters on March 28 and is from the same director as "The Beekeeper", it's only because I think you might want to know.  Damn, if I wanted to go see that the weekend we get back, I probably could, it would fit right into my chain. But I kind of JUST lined up what I want to be Big Movie 5,000 - so if I did that, I'd have to drop something else. Still, it's possible - I've got tent duty that weekend, though. The theater where I work is showing 3 big premieres, just not "A Working Man".

Arthur Bishop, aka "The Mechanic", went into hiding at the end of the first film, he blew up his old life (literally, along with his car and his safehouse) and we learn here he's been living in Rio de Janeiro under another name. But someone from his old life finds him (there are cameras everywhere these days, that's the explanation) and wants to hire him to kill three targets.  But Bishop pulls the old "use everything in this public place to disarm and defeat everyone, then escape" trick, and he takes off for Thailand. Using his computer skills, he scans the photo of the message courier and determines she works for Riah Crain, one of the world's biggest arms dealers. 

His friend Mei, who runs the beach resort, asks him to help out a woman with bruises, she's out on a boat and being beaten up by her boyfriend. Bishop rescues the girl, Gina, but also accidentally kills the boyfriend in the process.  But Gina reveals she's part of a set-up, she's been forced to try to get Bishop's attention and fall in love with him, Crain would then kidnap her and force Bishop to take the assassination jobs.  Gina just runs a children's shelter in Cambodia and wants to be left alone, but Crain threatened to kill all the kids unless she seduces Bishop. So Bishop decides to play along, but pretending to fall for Gina leads to him actually falling for Gina, so really, he's playing right into Crain's hands, and the mercs come to abduct her for real, and so I guess all this was inevitable, or we wouldn't have a movie. 

Now Bishop has to complete three jobs in 36 hours, and considering how far apart the hits are, I'm not sure that it's even possible to travel all that distance in such a short time.  First he has to get arrested in Malaysia so he'll be brought to the prison where his first target is, then he's got to get the lay of the land in that prison really fast, well I've always heard that you need to find the biggest baddest guy in that prison and challenge him to a fight, but that's probably not a good idea here. Instead he saves the life of Krill, the imprisoned warlord, and in doing that, he gains his trust. This enables him to have dinner with Krill, and kill him while his bodyguards are conveniently elsewhere.  Then it's just the matter of starting a prison riot and escaping through a quickly-blown up hole in the wall, and jumping off a high cliff into the ocean. Easy peasy. 

The second target is an Australian billionaire, former sex trafficker and current arms dealer (Ah, I get it, Crain's trying to eliminate his competition...).  This billionaire goes for a swim every morning in his skyscraper penthouse's very expensive and obnoxious pool, which hangs over the side of the building and has a glass bottom, so yeah, you can probably guess what's going to happen here, Bishop's going to break into the building and drill into that pool from the bottom, so it looks like an accident. It's very dramatic, cinematic and ironic, though, it's a bit like if you killed Elon Musk by running him over with a Tesla Cybertruck. No, even better, by blowing up a Tesla Cybertruck with him in it. All the people poorer than him (which is everybody, really) would then just go - "Yeah, that's an ironic enough death. No notes."

OK, so after traveling to Malaysia and Australia, those 36 hours are almost up - once you factor in all the time of getting to the airports, checking bags, going through customs, and sneaking all those weapons and explosives in somehow, Bishop's got like 5 minutes left on the countdown clock. Plenty (??) of time to get to Bulgaria and take out the third target, an American arms dealer named Max Adams, who's got an enormous collection of submarines for some reason.  Sure, he COULD just kill the guy and maybe save his girlfriend, and be done before lunch, but Bishop probably doesn't trust Crain, he could kill the third target and then Crain might kill Gina anyway. 

So, Bishop approaches Adams, and together they come up with a plan to take down Crain, who's really a thorn in both of their sides.  First they have to fake Adams' death, to make it look like Bishop came through and held up his end of the bargain.  Bishop lures half of Crain's men to the submarine pen and takes them all out, then makes a scuba beeline for Crain's mega-yacht, where he's holding Gina hostage, so he can take out the other half.  

Finally, after finding Gina and putting her in an escape pod submersible, it's down to just Bishop and Crain, two men on a yacht that's set to self-destruct. It's a perfect place for Bishop to both get his revenge AND pull another disappearing act, because everyone who knew he was still alive would think he just blew up with the mega-yacht.  But did he? 

It's a worthy sequel - I'll give it the same score I gave the first film. Now why is it, exactly, that Jason Statham's name never comes up when they talk about who should play James Bond next?

Directed by Dennis Gansel (co-director of "Berlin, I Love You")

Also starring Jason Statham (last seen in "The Mechanic"), Jessica Alba (last seen in "Barely Lethal"), Tommy Lee Jones (last seen in "The Burial"), Michelle Yeoh (last seen in "A Haunting in Venice"), Sam Hazeldine (last seen in "The Last Duel"), John Cenatiempo (last seen in "Cellular"), Toby Eddington, Femi Elufowoju Jr., Anteo Quintavalle, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam, Bonnie Zellerbach (last seen in "No Escape"), Francis Tonkala Tamouya, Tais Rodrigues Dias, Lynette Emond, Allan Poppleton, Soji Ikai, Vithaya Pansringarm (last seen in "The Meg"), Rachel O'Meara, Geoffrey Giuliano (last seen in "Kate")

RATING: 7 out of 10 cigarettes brought into prison (one with something extra in it, but I didn't really understand what that was. fuel cell? tracking device?)