"The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"
by Matt Singer
Life's funny, in a disturbing, vomit-inducing way. Last week, I saw one movie in the theater, and rented two more. They managed to become perfect fits for our next installment of "Let's make fun of people and pretend I can write" or, as you know it (because of editorial constraints...slimy bastards) "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." I'm just kidding, I love my editors very much.
Fragments are fun! All right babblers, let's get babbling
THE GOOD
Hard Boiled (1992)
Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung
Directed by John Woo
Unrated, 126 minutes
You've likely heard of John Woo. You've probably even seen some of his movies. But until you've seen Hard Boiled you know nothing. Trust me. I was once like you; young, innocent, much like an early Hitchcock film. Thankfully, my eyes have been opened to the world that is John Woo's Hong Kong action films.
Yes, Woo has become an accomplished director here in the states. Starting in 1993, Woo has turned to American action flicks to make his moolah. After a couple of films that were mediocre at best, he hit it big with 1997's Face/Off, a pretty good action movie by our standards. By the time you read this, his Mission Impossible 2 will have hit the theaters. I suspect it will be a huge success and an awesome movie. When you read this, the verdict will be in and you will either praise my magnificence or spit on my grave.
Chow Yun-Fat, another HK action film immigrant (though sadly not yet as recognized as Woo) stars as Tequila, a cop who is all about killing thieves and being an all-around bad ass. He's the kind of cop who doesn't take no crap from nobody. If you're not with him you're against him. He's never eaten a doughnut in his life; hell, he probably hates doughnuts. Tequila loses his partner to a bust gone bad, and spends the rest of the movie avenging his death, primarily by killing lots of people. Meanwhile, a hitman (Tony Leung) is moving up through the ranks of Mr Hui's gang. When rival leader Johnny Wong tries to move in on Hui's racket, he turns to the hitman for help. Eventually, Tony and Tequila meet, and the results will surprise you.
The action scenes here are some of the best I've ever seen; well- directed, shot, and staged, intense as hell, and totally insane. Characters are constantly jumping, diving, spinning, and breaking stuff. The climactic battle, a hostage situation in a hospital full of innocent bystanders is over 45 minutes long, and includes an incredible shot following Tony and Tequila through the hallways of the hospitals, fighting their way though for about four minutes of uncut, uninterrupted carnage. Not only do they kill lots of people, who pop out of nowhere with the frequency of a difficult level of Lethal Enforcers, but they go into an elevator, onto another floor, only to continue the massacre, all without a single cut! How he pulled it off, I will never know. Think of the church-and-boat-chase scene from Face/Off and multiply that by ten in every respect.
This isn't exactly highbrow stuff, but this is visceral, exciting movie. The acting is terrific, and the familiar theme of cop versus thief is used to maximum emotional effect. We're not talking Citizen Kane here, but as action films go, you can't do much better. Highly recommended for fans of ludicrous violence and The Price is Right.
IF YOU LIKED HARD BOILED, CHECK OUT: The Killer (1989), an earlier John Woo HK collaboration with Chow Yun-Fat.
THE BAD
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Starring John Travolta, Barry Pepper
Directed by Roger Christian
Rated PG-13, 121 minutes.
My critics would call me jaded. Perhaps they are right. To confess, I read the reviews of Battlefield Earth when it came out, and decided right then and there that the movie was probably so bad I'd be able to laugh my ass off at it. I went in expecting a bomb. If the movie had been good, I would have looked silly, and yes, jaded. I might have had to rethink this whole review format. Of course, I didn't get a bomb. I got a thermo-nuclear warhead with long-range missile capabilities. For you see, not only is Battlefield Earth a BAD movie (not to be confused with ugly), it is one of the worst I have ever seen. There is not a single redeeming quality in this movie, except perhaps that I have not yet found one single person who enjoyed it. Even if it does stink, it renews my faith in the movie-going public.
Based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth is the story of the last remnants of the human race, devolved back into cavemen, fighting for survival against the alien Psychlos, allegedly vicious and malevolent creatures who decimated our planet in nine minutes, and now use it as a mining station. At least that's what they tell me. Watching this movie, which takes place a thousand years after the initial attack, I found the Psychlos to be unfunny, incompetent idiots, and the "cavemen" somehow smarter and better at fighting than their well-equipped ancestors. But I guess people change, right?
The actual plot focuses on the bizarrely named Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, played by Barry Pepper with the flair of a burnt match. A caveman captured by the Psychlos, he becomes embroiled in a plot by Psychlo Chief of Security Terl (played by John Travolta with the flair of an unlit match), who wishes to take earthling gold, for unexplained reasons. I guess it's valuable. Anywho, he makes Mr. Goodbar super- smart (Using a "Learning Machine," 'natch), whereupon Tyler decides to lead a caveman revolt against the Psychlo overloards. How do they revolt you ask? Simple! They all learn how to fly Harrier jets. Harrier jets? They still work? Of course they do, though who knows how they found the fuel, or unrusted parts! Well wait, how did they learn how to fly Harrier jets? In one week? Simple! They learned in the flight simulator of course! Still operating on electricity in the desolate wasteland that is the U.S.A. a thousand years in the future? Yes, you too can learn to fly your very own Harrier jet in just one week. If Tor the Quick can, so can you.
Battlefield Earth is filled with dozens of ridiculous continuity errors like these. The fact that the acting is dreadful and the characters are uninteresting and not likeable certainly doesn't help either. John Travolta does a great disservice to himself and the general populus here, overacting even by Broken Arrow standards. After saying lines like "Pathetic man-animals!" he has the gall to throw his head back and cackle uncontrollably. Did anyone think that was really funny? I certainly didn't hear anyone laugh when I saw it. Weeping, yes. Laughing, no.
You would think that given the budget that at least the visuals would provide some relief from the drudgery. Alas no; director Roger Christian decides to film all "exciting" scenes in murky night settings so its always unclear who is shooting who. Special effects are blurred as well, and very hard to make out during the final "exciting" climax. In addition, Christian films his dialogue scenes at bizarre angles. John Travolta will be talking, and his large oval head will be at a thirty degree angle in the frame, but he's standing straight. I kept tilting my head back and forth to try to keep up.
At over two hours, Battlefield Earth is an exhausting, painful experience. I laughed at it a little in the beginning when the reality of how truly bad it was first set in. Then I was stuck in the theater for another hour and a half. By the end I had attempted to pull my eyeballs out to end the torture. It didn't work, but the scars I have now will remind me always of this dreadful film. Avoid it all costs; no matter what you are offered, turn it down. If you do not heed my warning, you will suffer great consequences, of this I can assure you.
INSTEAD OF BATTLEFIELD EARTH, CHECK OUT: Planet of the Apes (1968), one of the dozen or so movies that influence BE heavily and are far superior to it.
THE UGLY
Jaws the Revenge (1987)
Starring Lorraine Gary, Michael Caine
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Rated R, 89 minutes.
The first Jaws is a watershed of American cinema; one of the first true blockbusters, the first hit for director Steven Spielberg, and for a time, the highest grossing film in history. When a movie is that good and that popular, sequels are inevitable. So they made a Jaws II. I haven't seen it, and I doubt you have. I guess it did okay, cause they made a third, this one in 3-D. Once again, never seen it, you haven't either. Astonishingly, this one was good enough, or at least raked in enough dough overseas, to warrant a fourth, Jaws the Revenge. See this one and you'll know why the fifth never came out.
As I already mentioned above, this week I was questioning my entire belief system when it comes to poorly made movies. Was I being too hard, and not at all impartial? Seeing Battlefield Earth reminded me that bad movies deserve all they get. Jaws the Revenge reminded me why I started this in the first place; this isn't about fairness, this is about me suffering through crap so you don't have to.
The premise, which assumes that suspension of disbelief is a universal constant, is as follows: Jaws, the evil shark from the first three movies, is pissed off, likely because he's been killed at the end of each movie only to return from the grave again and again. He decides he's had enough of these endless sequels, and the only way he can stop the insanity is by killing off the entire Brody family. As you may or may not know, Chief Brody (played by Roy Schieder) offed the little bugger in the first two, and his son (played by Dennis Quaid) did the deed in the third.
A shark wants revenge? Isn't that a little, hard to swallow (And yes I intended that pun dammit!)? Well, frankly yes. I don't really consider myself a shark expert but I somehow doubt that sharks could know that two different people who fought them on two separate occasions were related. And that the rest of the people in this movie that he kills were all related to them too.
Obviously it doesn't seem that far-fetched to Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary), who not only believes that the shark is gunning for her clan, but is so convinced that she moves from Amity all the way to the Bahamas to outrun the shark. Of course, Jaws is too good for that, he shows up in the Bahamas in record time, and continues his wholesale slaughter of the innocent.
This film had the emotional impact of a cocktail napkin with a dirty joke on it. Characters died, and I really didn't care. In fact, I didn't care when anything happened in this movie. Because it really is so stupid, that is physically impossible to become involved in anyway with this movie.
How stupid you ask? Well, it's stupid enough to show Ellen having flashbacks of scenes that she didn't witness. It's stupid enough to have Ellen try to get away from Jaws, and her fear of water, by going to AN ISLAND. If she was that scared all she needed to do was move to Wyoming or something. Hell, if she felt compelled to move to the tropics to escape her fishy nemesis, why not Hawaii, or something like that? At least get into a separate ocean Ellen! I mean, Jaws is obviously very intelligent, but I doubt even he could navigate the Panama Canal to come after you.
It's also stupid enough to have one character killed by Jaws while on the deck of his boat; Jaws swims up, jumps out of the water (I think), eats him on deck (I think), and returns to the murky depths (I think). I say "I think" because I really don't know, director Joseph Sargent obviously felt that the sheer terror of a flying shark would be good enough to keep us in our seats to the point where he wouldn't have to show what was going on. This same "Show nothing" rule of direction applies to the pulse-pounding conclusion which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I watched it twice and I still have no clue how that damn shark bit it!
This movie really is ugly, not just by our standard definition. Not only is it devoid of any intellectual merit, it actually looks like crap! The shark looks as fake as Marv Albert's hair, and most of the cast aren't very fun to look at. I mean if they were going to make a movie about the Bahamas, why not cast some attractive people to wear the bathing suits? Am I asking too much?
IF YOU LIKED JAWS THE REVENGE, CHECK OUT: Jaws (1975), because that's a scary movie about sharks. JTR plays more like a ZAZ spoof of Jaws than an actual sequel.
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