Category Archives: Action Movie

Movie Review: The Running Man

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There should be a documentary made about the decision makers in Hollywood who decide what movies to remake. Almost forty years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger made the original “The Running Man” about a man who tries to escape being killed by assassins, fully televised for a huge cash prize. Kind of like a modern day Rome and the Coliseum, from 2000 years ago. This movie also starred Richard Dawson as the host of the show and the accurate Rotten Tomatoes rating were 59% for a movie that was at best, below average and close to B movie status.

Why then, when producers are looking for a good acting movie premise for the rising career of actor Glen Powell, would this be the vehicle for his first solo action movie? The reason is, it takes too long, to create a new idea and write a new screenplay, so in order to take less risk, a well known movie name from a long time ago is chosen that starred a very well known actor in the hope that name recognition mostly from baby boomers would help make this movie a hit or be profitable. Unfortunately, this is a bad movie, no matter how much name recognition and action scenes you throw at it. It is slow, stupid in too many places and implausible throughout because as is always the case, writing a great screenplay is the most challenging part of movie making. Without a great story foundation, the movie will never been good and in the majority of cases will lose money – especially when the budget is 110 million dollars.

This film stars Sean Hayes as one of the hosts of the show Running Man, Lee Pace, as an evil assassin, Michael Cera who appears at the end of this movie for mostly filling time and Josh Brolin as Dan Killian, starring in the part originally played by the late Richard Dawson. Why Brolin took this part in a movie this bad, is anyone’s guess.

The low Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a correct 64% made even worse by a bad movie that runs too long another big mistake here. I rate this movie a run for your life, big pass.

Movie Review: Predator: Badlands

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The new movie “Predator: Badlands” is the eighth Predator movie in the ongoing franchise that started with the original Predator released in 1987. Two of these movies were crossover films: Alien vs. Predator (AVP) (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (AVPR) (2007). Since the first two movies released in 1987 and 1990 the majority of the other movies have been either average or bad, and were all about trying to maximize the money created from a great science fiction character invented in the first film.

This new movie, for the first time in all of these movies attempts to give some real emotions, and humanity to these horrible aliens who just want to hunt and kill living creatures as trophies. This time around the main alien Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is banished to a distant alien planet and becomes friends with a Robot girl Thia played by Elle Fanning. Due a a spaceship crash, Thia, who works for a company called Weyland-Yutani Corporation, has been cut in half and spends a good part of this movie in this halved condition, being carried around by her alien friend Dek. They later befriend another alien creature Bud (Ravi Narayan) and start a quest to find and kill a huge alien creature and bring his head home to his father, who in a rage, killed Dek’s brother at the start of this film.

There are attempts at humor in this movie, very unlike all of the other Predator films, mostly with the very likeable Thia, as she tries to understand Dek. The ending is mostly like the climaxes of the other Predator movies, with someone getting decapitated and a huge sword fight and many explosions.

The very high Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 85% seem way too high for a movie that is definitely better than all of the other Predator movies, except the first two, but mostly just above average with good special effects and not much else. My rating is a very marginal recommendation of 70%, mainly for die hard Predator fans.

Movie Review: Tron Ares

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“Tron” is a science fiction movie franchise that started in 1982, starring Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner. The last Tron movie was released in 2010 “Tron Legacy”, starring Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, with below average IMDB ratings on a par with the first movie, 6.8 out of 10.

The new movie “Tron Ares” is yet another example of name recognition, fans of the old movies and TV series, where the producers in charge think that throwing special effects at an audience is more than enough to get people to see any science fiction movie. Forego the screenplay, which takes too long; just pay a special effects company, and all we need is some dialogue. This summarizes this movie perfectly, because there is no story, no continuity, and no understandable screenplay anywhere in this disaster of two hours.

This movie stars Jared Leto as Ares, who is a robot, Jodie Turner-Smith who is another Tron robot with an appearance late in the movie of Jeff Bridges who once again plays Kevin Flynn and Gillian Anderson, who plays an executive, Elisabeth Dillinger. For all who see this very bad movie I suggest getting on your cell phones before the film starts and ask ChatGPT what this movie is about, otherwise nobody will have any clue with what is going on in one scene, after another scene, with no connection or logic, anywhere. The synopsis from rom ChatGPT, says it all:

  • After the events of Tron: Legacy, companies ENCOM (run by Eve Kim) and Dillinger Systems (run by Julian Dillinger) are competing to integrate digital programs from the Grid into the real world.
  • They’re limited by a problem: the materialized “digital constructs” only last ~29 minutes in the real world before “deresolving” (they degrade and disappear).

Discovery of Flynn’s Permanence Code

  • ENCOM and Eve Kim believe Kevin Flynn left behind a hidden piece of code (the “Permanence Code”) in an old remote Arctic research station which might allow constructs to stay permanently in the real world.
  • Eve successfully uses the code to bring a digital orange tree into the real world — it lasts much longer, proving the code works.

Introduction of Ares

  • Julian Dillinger creates Ares, a super-intelligent digital Program, intended as an expendable weapon, to deal with ENCOM’s threat and exploit the real-world materialization tech.
  • Ares is sent into the real world, and once there he begins to observe, question, and — to some degree — develop a sense of self, especially when confronted with nature, suffering, and real human consequences.

Conflict and Betrayal

  • Eve and Ares eventually align, as Ares starts diverging from Dillinger’s control. This sets up conflict between creator (Julian Dillinger) and creation (Ares + Eve).
  • Eve becomes a target because she has knowledge of the Permanence Code and maybe because Dillinger wants control of it. The stakes include asking who has the right to “create life” or let digital beings live permanently in our reality.

As far as Rotten Tomatoes critics reviews, which are a very low 53%, one critic Kyle Logan from Chicago Reader wrote: “Ares is also saddled with a truly atrocious script. Awkward attempts at emotional and thematic heft are laughable”. My rating for this very bad movie is around 15% only for some special effects. Hopefully this is the last we ever see the word Tron, anywhere, ever again. Run from this special effects mess.