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InBad, Movie Reviews

Dredd (Review)

January 20, 2013By

Dredd


2012
Written by Alex Garland
Based on characters created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
Directed by Pete Travis
Dredd
If I hadn’t seen Eega, Dredd would be my favorite flick of 2012. Which not only surprised me, but surprised everyone who saw Dredd, from the small amount of people who saw it in theaters, to the increasingly loud amount of people just now discovering it on DVD. Dredd is awesome, a solid action vehicle that builds a believable world without drowning you in lots of back story.
Dredd
It’s sad that I knew Dredd would fail at the box office before it was even released, the scars of Stallone’s Judge Dredd is still too fresh in the minds of the American public, a public that has zero knowledge of the comic inspiration. But Dredd is having a second life, bolstered by loud supporters and a shocked new audience that is keeping Dredd on the top of the rental and sales charts.
Dredd
Dredd succeeds because of many reasons. By keeping the action largely confined to a single mega-block, it allows for saving on huge set costs and makes the action close and personal. The fighting becomes desperate as the characters are trapped. Dredd‘s score by Paul Leonard-Morgan is among my favorite scores, and is the first film album I’ve gotten in years. The operatic Slo-Mo segments based on a slowed down Justin Bieber song contrast wonderfully with the heavy-synth action tracks.

The integration of bullet-time 3D via the drug Slo-Mo is a creative way to put Matrix action into a film and make it feel natural, the first time since the Matrix movies where the slow-motion feels like it belongs and isn’t shoehorned in because some producer wanted to ape the Wachowskis.
Dredd
Olivia Thirlby’s Anderson is not your typical female action sidekick. Though in training, she’s an equal partner. Even though at some point she’s taken prisoner, she doesn’t just sit back and wait for Dredd to rescue her. She’s in control, she rescues herself, and she even saves Dredd. Anderson stays in power while going through the minds of awful people who think awful things, getting what she wants while not leaving any marks (well, not marks you can see.) It’s an equality seldom seen in today’s action epics, and painfully missed. Even Rakie Ayola’s Chief Judge seems natural, she has a respect for Dredd as the best street judge, but also firmly gives him orders.

Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) – The best judge in Mega-City One and a man who never needs backup. His pursuit of justice and punishment for those that break the law is his driving force and life. A lot of chin acting going on for Karl here.
Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) – New judge on her first day for evaluation. Due to her psychic ability, has a special dispensation to become a judge despite failing her exams. A mutant who doesn’t wear a helmet so her abilities aren’t interfered with.
Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) – Former bad girl gone badder, with a thing for ultra-violence. Brutally takes over Peach Trees with a pile of dead bodies and spend bullets.
Kay (Wood Harris) – Drug pusher whose attempts to be cruel to his competition cause the Judges’ interest in Peach Trees and the eventual trouble that ensues when he’s captured.
Clan Techie (Domhnall Gleeson) – He doesn’t even get a name, but this Seth Green on meth guy with bionic eyes is Ma-Ma’s best helper, realizing her control over the systems of Peach Trees all while narrowly avoiding her doing horrible harm to his body.

Dredd

InBad, Movie Reviews

The Man From Nowhere

January 18, 2013By

The Man From Nowhere

aka 아저씨 aka Ajeossi

2010
Written and directed by Lee Jeong-beom
The Man From Nowhere
Korea embarks on a tale of kidnapping and revenge, as a former special ops officer hunts down the men who kidnapped his young neighbor, the only person left he has a connection with. The travel embarks on a quest through the Korean underworld, dealing with organ trafficking, child slave labor, drug dealing, and identity theft. In the grand Korean tradition, things are non-compromising, with a bleak and desperate situation getting increasingly both as time goes on.
The Man From Nowhere
The Man From Nowhere is a good film to throw on for everyone disappointed with Taken 2. It takes the similar style of the original Taken (and also Man on Fire) and ramps it up. Cha Tae-sik becomes mixed up not only in the kidnapping, but with a turf war between different gangsters and the police who are trying to take everyone down. While the police often get in the way, they realize quicker than the arrogant gangsters that Cha Tae-sik is someone more dangerous than he appears.

The fights become increasingly more awesome and brutal. At first, all you see is breaking windows and an unconscious goon. Then you begin to see Tae-sik beating up small numbers of people. By the end, there is one of the best knife fights I have ever seen in a movie, and Tae-sik becomes a savage force of nature carving his way through the criminal empire.
The Man From Nowhere

Cha Tae-sik (Won Bin) – A former black ops officer who retired and runs a small pawn shop after the murder of his pregnant wife. Cha Tae-sik is withdrawn from society, his only real connection is So-mi, who practically inserts herself into his life due to her unfortunate home situation. When she’s kidnapped, Tae-sik stops at nothing to get her back.
So-mi (Kim Sae-ron) – Young outcast child who spends her free time around neighbor Cha Tae-sik because she has no friends and an absentee parent. Her mother is a heroin addict whose theft of drugs sets off the whole kidnapping situation. So-mi longs to do nail art, but she is too poor to afford most of the supplies, resorting to stealing it.
Man-seok (Kim Hee-won) – The de facto leader of a gang that includes his brother, they carve out their own criminal empire by double-crossing their former partners. Organizes all the horrible deeds done and sets up the bigger deals.
Jong-seok (Kim Sung-oh) – The most arrogant of the two brothers, is often wearing flashy clothes and is more likely to try to make a big show of how awesome he is. Is involved in more of the day to day operations than his brother. Kim Sung-oh is also in She is on Duty.
Ramrowan (Thanayong Wongtrakul) – Ramrowan is awesome, Western educated Thai gangster who is working for the Koreans for reasons unknown, who only speaks English for reasons unknown. He’s a great killer, cold and calculating, but has an honor code that is his and his alone instantly pics up that Cha Tae-sik is more than a simple pawn shop owner You get the feeling that Ramrowan could easily take over and be a boss, but he’d rather be an enforcer because he loves the job so much.

The Man From Nowhere

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Last Stand

January 17, 2013By

The Last Stand


2013
Written by Andrew Knauer, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and George Nolfi
Directed by Kim Ji-woon

The Last Stand
My hand is huge!

We got both a return of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Hollywood debut of Kim Ji-woon with the modern day western The Last Stand. But is the title prophetic and a sign that we should stay away? If you are looking for amazing action and a return to form for an actor turned politician, then you might want to keep waiting. But if you want a good forgettable action flick with some funny parts, then The Last Stand is a passable January release. It isn’t terrible, it’s just we’ve seen much better from both the star and the director, so things come out disappointing. And that’s the worst sting of all.

Kim Ji-woon is no stranger to Westerns, he directed The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, one of the best Western-inspired films ever. He’s also responsible for I Saw The Devil, one of those films that people watch and then describe with a single emoticon of a traumatized face staring into the distance. Kim Ji-woon is the first of three popular Korean directors who are making their Hollywood debut in 2013 (Bong Joon-ho with Snowpiercer and Park Chan-wook with Stoker are the other two.) He’s also the only reason I had any interest in taking the time to see The Last Stand.

I am sorry to say that things are up to Kim Ji-woon’s normal standards of excellence. But The Last Stand isn’t a wash, either. It follows the normal arc progression of a Western with the eventual showdown against the gang by the Sheriff and his deputies. There is a lot of scattered action sequences throughout the buildup, as the cartel leader escapes from captivity then carves his way through increasingly incompetent police roadblocks via increasingly ridiculous ambush attacks.

The Last Stand
Minimalist action theater

In the usual Western, the baddies are constantly harassing the town, the people the Sheriff likes and loves, and the danger is more personal. As Gabriel Cortez is more of a guy who is just passing through town, The Last Stand attempts to counter this by having some of his gang in town building an escape bridge. The gang causes trouble and is involved in a firefight with the Sheriff’s office. Though the gang’s leader is played by awesome dude Peter Stormare, the rest are all faceless militia types and there isn’t enough there to make them feel so evil you cheer when the hero kills them.

Sheriff Ray Owens (Arnold Schwarzenegger) – Arnold is the sheriff of Summerton Junction, where he went after a shootout went wrong during his career as an LA narcotics squad detective. He now deals with local town with small town troubles, but sometimes big trouble comes by.
Agent John Bannister (Forest Whitaker) – Forest Whitaker plays the desperate FBI agents who gets stymied at every turn by Gabriel Cortez’s escape. A role that requires a lot of yelling on the phone as whatever plan is happening goes terribly wrong.
Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) – The evil drug cartel leader and world class racer, driving down deserted desert roads at 197 mph. But he is too fast and not enough furious to deal with the Terminator!
The Last Stand
Police Academy: Honey Boo-Boo
InBad, Movie Reviews

The Raid: Redemption

January 13, 2013By

The Raid: Redemption

aka Serbuan maut

2011
Written and directed by Gareth Evans
Serbuan maut
One man, one building, hundreds of potential opponents. A police raid gone wrong, way wrong, sets up The Raid: Redemption, as the cops are wasted, leaving only a few stragglers to be slowly picked off. There will be no rescue, no backup, thanks to layers of corruption so thick they have to make the sequel about them. But no one counted on Rama being the best fighter in the universe.

The Raid was hyped as the most actiony action film that ever actioned, and then it actions some more. Well, I don’t know about all that, but it was pretty actiony. The fighting is intense and hardhanded, and quickly devolves to hand to hand combat. As the surviving cops’ numbers shrink and they are slowly hunted, the tension mounts up, keeping pace with the action.
Serbuan maut
The biggest problem with The Raid is the lack of good character development. The rudimentary structures are there, but aside from falling into some templates, the characters aren’t that rounded out. Rama is the good cop and son because he just is. Andi says he was a disappointment and is better at being a criminal…because he says so. If anything, only Mad Dog and the corrupt Wahyu have any sort of build beyond their templates. And while we don’t really need everyone to be fully nuanced, it’s nice to have some depth occasionally.

But still, the fighting is furious, the action is intense, and The Raid is one martial arts film you will watch again.
Serbuan maut

Rama (Iko Uwais) – Good cop and new member of the SWAT force enlisted to raid Tama’s building. Will do the right thing even if his supervisors disagree. Is also secretly searching for his brother Andi to take him back home.
Andi (Donny Alamsyah) – Rama’s older brother, who was a disappointment to his father and ran off to become a criminal boss. Is one of Tama’s chief lieutenants and handles the business aspects of the operations. No one besides Andi and Rama knows they are related, because it could be bad for both of them.
Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian) – Tama’s brutal enforcer who lives to fight and kill. Gets pleasure from ending the lives of others. Fiercely loyal to his boss. Both Andi and Mad Dog rightfully see each other as threats.
Tama (Ray Sahetapy) – The big baddie who controls the entire building and runs his drug operations through the city from there. Ruthless and demanding of loyalty to him above all others. Is also deeply invested in the corrupt police force and knows more about what is going on that actual police.
Jaka (Joe Taslim) – The Sergeant of the team that’s sent in to raid the building, he quickly realizes things are not what they seem and desperately tries to get as many of his men out alive as he can.

Serbuan maut

InGood, Movie Reviews

Beasts of the Southern Wild

January 10, 2013By

Beasts of the Southern Wild


2012
Written by Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin
Directed by Benh Zeitlin
Beasts of the Southern Wild
It may not be the best film of the year (though close!), but Beasts of the Southern Wild is one of those films that makes loving cinema great. An epic quest set against a backdrop of a unique and dying culture that exists outside but alongside our modern world, Beasts evokes wonder, tragedy, poverty, desperate struggle, and hope.

Beasts builds a believable world, sets up a culture of people and a believable lifestyle. The Cajun bayou living off the land is a way people do live in remote Gulf areas. Heck, some of them even have reality shows like Swamp’d! The denizens of the Bathtub live in an area full of life. Living things are all around them, the swamp is full of critters and plants, everyone has animals (dogs, chickens, pigs…) and there is always a harvest of shrimp or crab or fish freshly caught just a few seconds ago.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
But the Bathtub exists with the Sword of Damocles dangling overhead. The whole area is below sea level, and on the other side of a huge levee built to keep out the water. The constant reminder is the ice caps are starting to melt, and eventually the Bathtub will be underwater. Part of why the residents are so carefree and celebratory is the spirit that the world may soon be gone. But the other reason is they have little else to do but get drunk and party. The houses are all run down and crumbling away, the clothes are all raggedy, and most people speak with slurred speech while clutching a bottle. As we see things as Hushpuppy sees them, we see her joy and her fun and the firecrackers, we hear the music and it makes us feel free and fun. But you also see the grit behind the shine. The joy in the music helps give things a lighter air, the songs lifting things up, they are as full of life as the film, as the Bathtub.
Beasts of the Southern Wild

Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) – Lives in the Bathtub with her father, and the teller of the tale. Quvenzhané Wallis is an unknown with such a natural talent for acting, it is amazing. She’s now the youngest Academy Award nominee ever. And deserved.
Wink (Dwight Henry) – Hushpuppy’s father who isn’t about to leave his home even if it is about to be destroyed. Wants his daughter to be strong and independent. Is often wallowing in his own misery since Hushpuppy’s mom left him. Is also trying to hid his illness from Hushpuppy.
Aurochs (Pigs in fur coats) – Ancient aurochs tormented early man long ago, and have returned from the melted ice to eat those who are not brave.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

InBad, Movie Reviews

Yatterman

January 6, 2013By

Yatterman

aka ヤッターマン aka Yattāman

2009
Screenplay by Masashi Sogo
Story by Tatsuo Yoshida
Directed by Takashi Miike

Yatterman
It’s posin’ time!

Yatterman is a big pile of dumb fun. Based on a cartoon show from back in the day (back in the Japan day) of 1977. Smart people (or people who know how to quickly Google things) will know that Yatterman was the second show in the Time Bokan Series, which is a group of cartoons from Tatsunoko Productions. The cartoons evolve and feature similar groups of heroes and villains. Yatterman was the longest running series, and has even sported a revival cartoon in 2008.

Yatterman is about two super-heroes who fight a variety of monsters/giant robots that are the work of the Doronbo Gang, baddies attempting to get the pieces of the Skull Stone together to awful things will happen…and also the Doronbo Gang gets rich. The hero is the teenage son of a toy store owner who has modified his dad’s toys into weapons to fight evil, and does so with his girlfriend. Yes, the concept is nuts, and that’s why we love it.

Yatterman
Subtext? What’s that?

Genre fans of Takashi Miike might be disappointed that there is no slicing of nipples, piano wire, or transexuals firing darts from their vaginas. But then, if that’s still all you expect from Miike by now, you really need to get out more. This isn’t 2001, people. Miike brings his usual over-the-top exuberance to Yatterman, this time translating it into the cartoony style that fits perfectly with the universe.

The Yatterman world is a ridiculous one, but also full of whimsy and wonder. Evil villains scheme and build giant robot machines, but are easily defeated. Characters are both stereotypical archetypes but also complex and developed personalities underneath.

Yatterman
The extra Ds are for a double dose of Doronbo!

Like all the best films, the villains are a thousand times more interesting than the heroes. Lady Doronjo is the hot girl who is evil, yet also hopelessly in love with her biggest nemesis. Tonzura aspires to be a wrestling champion and barely seems evil, while Boyacky is that guy who’s leering at you the entire bus ride. He’s also a mechanical genius and hopelessly in love with Lady Doronjo.

The entire film is packed with sexual innuendo. By innuendo, I mean totally blatant. Giant robots have breasts or what looks suspiciously like a giant wang (and all of these things fire things out of them) and there is a disturbing scene involving robot ants. Yatterman is one big pervert’s paradise.

Throughout the film, The Doronbo Gang embarks in a series of scams to acquire a large amount of money to build their mechanical creations in order to battle the Yatterman squad. Their methods are often genius, and all three of them could easily find legitimate employment and make buckets full of money, but they love the freedom of being able to do whatever they want, and also the dream of getting even richer and more powerful.

Yatterman
This is the best movie ever.

Because this film is weirdtacular and strange, it must be thoroughly examined and gets a full scale breakdown. Yatterman style!

Takada Gan/Gan-chan/Yatterman No. 1 (Sho Sakurai) – Takada Gan is the son of a toy store owner who builds his own mecha out of his father’s toys. Dresses up as Yatterman No. 1 to battle evil, and ropes his girlfriend along with him. Sho Sakurai is part of the male singing group Arashi
Kaminari Ai/Ai-chan/Yatterman No. 2 (Saki Fukuda) – Gan-chan’s girlfriend who goes and plays Yatterman with him as Yatterman No. 2. Becomes rather jealous of Takada Gan as other women begin to show interest in him.
Lady Doronjo (Kyoko Fukada) – Leader of the Doronbo Gang and sexy woman of desire of more than one main character. Wants to be rich, but also wants to settle down and get married. Leads her group’s search of the Skull Stones.
Boyacky (Katsuhisa Namase) – Doronbo Gang member who wears a big nose with big rabbit teeth. He builds all the mecha for the group. Is also a gigantic perv, probably the biggest pervert on the planet. Katsuhisa Namase specializes in playing characters who wear comical wigs, which I didn’t know was a thing.
Tonzura (Kendo Kobayashi) – Tough guy of the Doronbo Gang who wears a pig nose, because wearing animal noses are where it’s at these days. Dreams of becoming an amazing wrestler.
Yatterman
If you count all the skulls in this movie, you will unlock the secret number from the movie Pi!
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