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Keanu Reeves is one of modern cinema’s great oddities. No one might accuse him of being a master thespian, or even being particularly versatile, and depending upon whom one asks his acting skills range from passable to nonexistent. But once in a while, a character so well tailored to his particular strengths appears on his resume that proves why Reeves in the power player he has become today. Neo was such a role; John Constantine another; Klaatu of 2008’s The Day The Earth Stood Still remake might have been yet another had the film around him been up to snuff; and now along comes John Wick, the lead of a slick, no-frills shoot-em-up that’s sure to please fans of old school revenge flicks.

Our first introduction to Wick is the subdued, stoic Keanu we’re most familiar with, still in mourning over his wife (a there-and-gone Bridget Moynahan) whose relationship with John is illustrated in a few short, wordless flashbacks and an intimate iPhone video used to bookend the film. With the arrival - and subsequent loss - of a special pre-arranged gift, however, Keanu runs the gauntlet of human emotion and sells Wick’s turmoil like a pro. Even before a monologue late in the movie spells it out in plain and simple terms, the audience knows full well it isn’t so much the loss itself, which is tragic enough (animal lovers beware, this film will not be kind to you), but what the loss represents that drives Wick over the edge, and once that switch is flipped, any attempt at story complexity goes straight out the window to make room for as much carnage as humanly possible. In this, John Wick does anything but disappoint; Wick moves with cold, swift precision, wasting few movements and intending every shot as a kill. The camera is also kind to the audience in this respect, following the action with a minimum of obnoxious close-ups or quick editing. The film is shootout-heavy with a few hand to hand scuffles, but in such case favoring rough-and-tumble brawls over choreographed dances.

Alfie Allen as Iosef, essentially serving as a prop for which to draw Keanu from one action scene to another, is easy enough to hate, though the character isn’t vastly different from the one he plays on Game of Thrones; an entitled manchild with an inflated opinion of himself who manages to piss off all the wrong people and cause an awful lot of trouble. Adrianne Palicki appears as Perkins, a rival assassin with whom Wick shares a brief but amusing bullet-riddled “courtship” of sorts, bolstering her own action-movie credentials right on the heels of her debut as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest acquisition. Michael Nyqvist adds some welcome color to the otherwise hollow role as Viggo, Iosef’s father and Wick’s former employer. He garners probably the most of the film’s many unexpected laughs; the humor here is pitch-black, most often delivered in uncomfortable silences and single-word responses, and result from jokes about the dynamic of the “assassin’s life” - like how the question of “Where are the police during all this?” is swept out the way in but a few short sentences, establishing that even the cops know who John Wick is and want NO piece of his business.

Alongside a fanciful Ian McShane and an aggravated John Leguizamo, who are mostly accents to the film’s star-studdedness, John Wick boasts a surprising conga-line of cameos from asskickers of varying pedigrees - Keanu’s Matrix Reloaded costar Daniel Bernhardt, finally swinging fists and feet in a major motion picture again; former WWE star Kevin Nash; Mr. “Mayhem Like Me” himself Dean Winters in the odd role of Viggo’s non-Russian-speaking right hand man; even Legend of the Seeker’s Bridget Regan pops up as a sympathetic (and foxy) tattooed barmaid.

While the film revels in the simplicity of its plot, it leaves very little to spoil. As much fun as it gets watching the action unfold, major points of the story can be called well in advance, and Wick takes a few too many detours to reach his targets, though this is a minor issue next to the messiness of the film’s overlong final stretch, which could have been solved with some fine-tuning to the script. Once the main thrust of the story is concluded, the film rolls on for roughly another fifteen minutes to tie up certain loose ends, namely that of Willem Dafoe’s character. Dafoe’s Marcus is meant to have ambiguous intentions where Wick’s mission is concerned, but again, one can predict the role he plays fairly easily. The need to close the book on his part leads to several further action beats, which, while well-executed, close with a superfluous one-on-one duel with an antagonist who pretty much has a target for Keanu’s fists spray-painted on his face.

John Wick may not be deep, but it’s anything but brainless. It’s flashy without being ostentatious, and it strikes a booming emotional chord early on to get the audience in on the insanity and root for its hero without a shred of guilt. It’s not a game changer or anything meant to turn the genre on its head, but it succeeds big time at being a damn good tale of bad guys vs. not-quite-so-bad guys doing incredibly violent things to one another. And the moral is one anybody can get behind: Never mess with an assassin’s housepet.

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In need of geek wear that will make heads and turn and probably be scratched in confusion? You're in luck! My Smurfs/True Detective mashup "Blue King" is now available for the next three days at TeePublic! Get yours now and amaze your friends later!
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What follows are my immediate reactions to recent film viewings, some revisits, most first-time viewings, in the last few months, as originally posted on my Movie Fan Central page.

I really enjoyed MONEYBALL. Pitt and Hill make a great tag team of a downtrodden ex-player and an idealistic young'in making a play for something untested and scientific and therefore rejected by all the old fogies stuck doing things "the old fashioned way". It's not only a really good baseball flick, but an interesting examination of America's other great pastime, big money vs. no money.

***

THE RUNNING MAN: Holy crap, how have I missed out on this slice of cheeseball 80s awesome for so long??

***

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 is just as thrilling, funny, and heartfelt as the first, with not only the upgrades to its action sequences and emotional hooks you expect of a sequel, but with an additional maturity that warrants it all. This is turning into a film series that doesn't forget its audience is growing up, and treats its stories and characters the same way.

***

DEAR MR. WATTERSON is a very interesting watch. Not just an examination of the influence of and on Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes, but how his craft was affected by his early career and the state of the comic strip industry at the height of C&H's run, as well as an analysis of his ongoing refusal to merchandise the characters. Very much a labor of love for the filmmaker and communicated thusly in the production values and choice of interviewees.

***

I revisited Michael Bay's first TRANSFORMERS for the first time in years last night. I still love the shit out of the over-the-top direction, robot designs, and bot-on-bot action, but the goofball aspects have not aged well. Most of the human characters are insufferable, and I found I had the best time where the military troop with Duhamel and Tyrese were concerned. But, some credit where it's due; Mikaela is a legit proactive female lead and not just a damsel in distress (like Rosie HW in Dark of the Moon), and during the finale I kind of liked her having one very brief breakdown moment before putting on her "let's get down to business" face and driving Bumblebee back into battle.

***

I'm gonna be the weirdo in the room and say TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON is the best Bayformers movie so far, and yes I think that IS saying a lot. It has the greatest spectacle, the biggest stakes, the most coherent story, the least amount of annoying bullshit (relatively speaking, anyway), and it's Shia and Bay's best work in the series. And while it's more than a little backward that Sam fights the hardest for Carly because she actually NEEDS saving, Rosie HW is a genuine charmer who has the HELL filmed out of her at every opportunity, so I don't hold it against the movie that her character is largely a do-nothing.

***

I had a good time with GET THE GRINGO. Mel Gibson may be insane, but he's still crazy-fun to watch in stuff like this. In a lot of ways, it felt like some sort of long-lost sequel to Payback.


***

Color me VERY impressed by SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED. It rises above its initial screwball premise with a touching look at wanting to reshape the past vs. living for the here and now, meanwhile throwing the viewer completely for a loop by the midpoint only to deliver a visual and emotional jaw-dropper at the end. If Colin Trevorrow can make this great a sci-fi flick with 95% zero CGI, I'm giddily excited to see what he pulls off with freaking DINOSAURS.


***

I am in indescribable awe of how utterly BORED I was by TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION. Even when trying its best to be the least racially/culturally insensitive of the series, the plot is as slapdash and convoluted as Revenge of the Fallen, the robot action feels mostly lethargic, and the human elements are just plain DRAINING. Not even Sophia Myles being hot or John Goodman being JOHN FREAKING GOODMAN AS AN AUTOBOT could save this. Your energy for this franchise is depleted, Bay, and it shows. MOVE ON.


***

THE SHARK IS STILL WORKING is informative, thorough, often quite funny (particularly the interview bits with Richard Dreyfuss), and in one instance jaw-dropping when Spielberg relates the story of the original Orca's demise. A fantastic documentary and fitting tribute to the masterwork that is JAWS.


***

If Terry Gilliam combined the setting of 12 Monkeys with the style of Brazil and crafted the whole thing as a satire of Atlas Shrugged (inasmuch as Atlas Shrugged isn't already patently ridiculous, anyway), the result might be something like SNOWPIERCER, an engagingly bizarre class-struggle parable that's equal parts grim and absurd, often sliding to either extreme and back again at the drop of a hat with no sympathy for any failure on the audience's part to acclimate. A fair lot of good buzz surrounded this going in, and I'm happy to report it lived up.

***

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is the anti-Transformers; a smart, involving drama and action thriller, free of gaping plot holes and juvenile antics, full of story-driven spectacle from its brilliant opening bookend to its mirror-image closer. Andy Serkis reigns as the king of motion-capture performance, and WETA's digital work often looks like practical makeup, giving the apes greater life. But the Academy need take note: WETA made a monkey out of him, but there is no Caesar without Serkis. Bring on WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES!
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Like him or hate him, there's little denying the successes of schlock filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson. Event Horizon is an underrated science-fiction/horror mashup, Mortal Kombat still stands tall as the single best live-action video game adaptation to date, and even his increasingly silly Resident Evil series runs strong at five films and counting. His latest dials it down a few notches from the last Resident Evil and even his bizarre steampunk revision of The Three Musketeers to bring us Pompeii, a B-grade Gladiator-meets-Dante's-Peak wrapped around the plot of Titanic but not nearly as drawn out or melodramatic, and free of any "there was room enough for two" malarkey.

Kit Harington stars in his first top-billed role as the brooding and vengeful, yet sensitive and heroic Milo. Harington possesses a palpable leading presence, even if the film doesn't ask much more of him than to kick some asses and look sensitive for the camera - the former of which plays to his Game of Thrones' experience, while the latter comes naturally to his babyface complexion and refusal to grow a full beard. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, put to much better use here than Thor: The Dark World, brings equal parts bravado and humor to the jovial Atticus, a veteran gladiator one victory away from winning his freedom, as the film reminds us many times; the subplot lends itself to the same ridicule as it would in any buddy-cop film, and Pompeii seems to treat this with a certain winking self-awareness, making Atticus' exit from the film a certifiable fist-pumping "Hell Yeah" moment. Like Harington, Emily Browning is not asked for much more than looking pretty, but Cassia bears a genuine if general kindness and sympathy that make her and Milo a good romantic coupling, and while their relationship develops only over the course of roughly 24 hours, it culminates in one of the film's few honest-to-goodness moving moments.

The easy standout however is Kiefer Sutherland as Corvus, a deliciously slimy Roman senator who rolls out his every line as if wanting to throw all subtlety to the winds and scream his foul intentions to the world. He is never not fun to watch, and while his character is a cardboard cutout, Kiefer gives him edges sharp enough to slice though the Colosseum. Rounding out the cast are Jarred Harris and Carrie-Anne Moss in the serviceable roles of Cassia's well-meaning parents, along with Cloverfield and Evil Dead beauty Jessica Lucas as Cassia's companion Ariadne, providing moral support and some choice cleavage shots. Their presence is welcome, but their every moment on screen is accompanied by an invisible countdown clock marking them as easy volcano fodder.

On the action side of the proceedings, the gladiatorial fights are well-choreographed but too quickly cut, often resort to rapid exchanges of close-ups with wider shots, making them disorienting to watch; this practice thankfully eases during the latter half of the film, wherein the best sequence is a merry chase with Milo on the tail of a fleeing Corvus and their subsequent final boss battle while Pompeii crumbles around them. Any effectiveness of the action is severely undercut, unfortunately by the movie's PG-13 rating where it should have been a red-drenched R, leaving fights full of on-camera slashes and stabs frustrating clean and bloodless.

Though the film presents itself with unnecessarily dead seriousness, and there is little memorable in the dry dialogue - of which the actors make the most they can, especially Kiefer and Adewale - the script does the film no major disservices, save for one event midway that, apart from meaning to develop Milo and Cassia's relationship and their mutual longing for freedom, makes no sense whatsoever, as it needlessly places Milo's life in danger and Cassia in Corvus' debt, enabling him to force his own desires on Cassia's parents.

But what of Mount Vesuvius, you may ask? Whatever one's opinion of Anderson, he can be credited with a fantastic grasp of 3D spectacle, and in the film's final act makes every use of it when the real star of the show becomes the volcano. Though nearly every beat of the mayhem may be predictably plotted, including a fireball taking out a fleeing ship boarded by a minor antagonist, the visuals are completely up to the task as smoking arcs of molten rock comet their way over the city, as flakes of ash blizzard around the actors, and as flying rocks jettison directly at the camera, making a few members of my screening audience dip and swerve in their seats. The effects are only betrayed by a few shots in which the seams of the composite are showing - which unfortunately supplies one character's demise with some unintentional humor - but the destruction is an overall visual delight, with enough visible human casualties to almost make up for the lack of liquid crimson in the fight sequences.

Pompeii may not change anyone's mind about Anderson's work, but it takes fine advantage of his visual talents, and could be called his best non-remake, non-video game adaptation in years. Its script is a blender full of borrowed plots, and its cast populated with broad character templates afforded just enough depth to keep an audience engaged for 100 minutes, thanks largely to Sutherland's energizing mugging, but it hits the notes where it's supposed to as the city is swallowed by fire and ash. And while its depiction of the eruption of Vesuvius is about as scientifically accurate as Roland Emmerich's 2012, it ought in time to carve itself a respectable place in the halls of Disasterpiece Cinema history. And especially if you're not the sort to spend the movie's run time wagging your finger at the screen shouting, "It wouldn't have happened that way!" you ought to have a fine enough time.
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When movies "based on a true story" go wrong, you get Pearl Harbor. When they go very, very right, you get Ron Howard's Rush, a fascinating story of honor in competition that quickly draws the viewer into its era and putting them firmly behind the wheel and behind the eyes of its characters, who gain life through able development and the charisma of their actors. Chris Hemsworth - proving his acting skills extend far beyond swinging large heavy weaponry and looking damn good doing it - and Daniel Brühl envelop themselves in their respective lead roles, opposites and yet mirrors of one another.

Hemsworth finely conveys the "look good, feel good" philosophy of James Hunt, the reckless womanizer and life of the party whose own existence turns out quite hollow when his passion project is stripped away from him mid-film, his bravado before the cameras effectively undercut by fits of pre-race vomiting and the constant nervous fidgeting of his hands, his cigarette lighter snapping open and closed like a set of chattering teeth. Brühl's Nicki Lauda is cool, precise, and calculating to the point of alienating everyone around him, including his sponsors and teammates. He is reserved and mannered but also startlingly blunt, leading to some humorously awkward segments of Lauda's attempts to socialize, including his diagnosis of a car's working condition by the vibrations felt in his posterior. Equal narrative focus is granted both Hunt and Lauda, to the point that each are awarded introductory voiceovers at the start of the film, and their respective journeys and the lessons learned - or not learned - are what keep the movie appealing between their racetrack encounters and verbal snipes.

While the film is lovingly captured in crystal clarity, the cinematography also bears a somewhat grainy, fuzzy quality that complements the 70s hair and clothing, lending credibility to the setting particularly when modern-day shots are intercut with stock footage from the real events. The headlining talents are the racing sequences, which expertly convey speed, intensity, and even emotion, without extraneous quick-cutting to disorient the audience (and better yet a minimum of CGI) while the roar and hum of engines are sure to give theater speakers a serious workout, and perhaps secure a few sound design nominations come awards season.

But truly the star of the show is Lauda in the film's third act, following the horrific crash - shown both in stock footage and a dazzling, highly-detailed recreation - that nearly ended his life and career. The makeup effects rendering Lauda's injuries are nasty to look upon, and images of the bandages being removed from his fresh wounds are made extremely difficult to watch. But as the adage goes about car wrecks, one is hard-pressed to turn their gaze away.

This is the film at its most uncomfortable, but also its most engaging; while we root for Lauda's recovery and return to the track, we also see the best evidence of the effect Hunt and Lauda have upon one another, and how the spirit of competition better them both. Not that the effects are equal; Hunt enters the story a self-centered, irresponsible jackass and exits much the same way, but at the very least gains some nobility in the process, most notably when we takes a reporter to task over an insensitive question following a press conference. The climactic World Championship race in Fuji, for those unfamiliar with the real-life events, does not end as one might expect, but the result is still triumphant, and the victory feels solidly earned.

The film slightly, and only slightly, hiccups in a few areas. While it moves at a steady pumping pace even when the cars aren't rolling, it hampers its ability to properly relay the passage of time. Hunt and Lauda's first Formula 3 encounter and the fiery crash of 1976 is spaced by six years, but dates and locations are thrown at the viewer in such rapid succession that it's easy to get lost, particularly as a mid-film montage chronicles the two's wins and losses.

Additionally, so sharp is the focus on Hunt and Lauda that it comes at the cost of supporting players who might have offered some outside perspective on the whole ordeal, such as Lauda's racing teammate Clay Regazzoni (Pierfrancesco Favino of Howard's Angels & Demons), but namely Suzy Miller, Hunt's model wife played by Olivia Wilde, who struts into the film as if out of a pleasant dream in a brief but penetrating supporting role.

While Miller's whirlwind marriage to Hunt immediately following their first meeting  - seriously, they meet once and in the very next scene are hitched - works from a comedic standpoint, the divorce is handled in the same "oh, so that just happened" fashion, where a touch more setup toward their inevitable rift would have been welcome even if such steps had to be fictionalized; Hunt's verbal abuse during his depressed period might have been reason enough, but their final face-to-face sees Miller rattle off a laundry list of transgressions to which the audience is never witness (meanwhile one wonders if a cameo by a Richard Burton lookalike was cut from the film).

Awarded greater attention is the equally impressive Alexandra Maria Lara as Lauda's wife Marlene, and not unrightly so, as she has greater impact on the story. She is the first to bring out the more Hunt-ish, daredevil side of Lauda, and becomes the face of supportive worry through the final stretch of the film once Lauda suffers the consequences of "chasing Hunt like an as asshole", as he puts it.

As a historical drama, Rush just plain works because it benefits even those without knowledge of Hunt and Lauda's rivalry or of Formula 1 racing at all, dropping tidbits on the rules and practices of the sport without diving into lengthy expositions. It instead lets the races speak for themselves, and when the engines stop, it's the characters, not simply their dialogue, driving the action and its lesson, that not all rivalries need remain bitter.
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Featured

John Wick (Movie Review) by shokxone-studios, journal

'Blue King' now available at TeePublic by shokxone-studios, journal

Movie Blurbs, Spring/Summer 2014 by shokxone-studios, journal

Pompeii (Movie Review) by shokxone-studios, journal

Rush (Movie Review) by shokxone-studios, journal