John Rambo

Stallone has thrown together some early footage from "John Rambo" to use as an enticement for distributors. He has also made the footage available on the internet to get some feedback from the fans. It's not a formal trailer (and features way more gore than even a red band trailer would allow), but I felt like reviewing it anyway.

Remember the characters in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" who tormented Harold and Kumar throughout the film? Y'know, those white guys in the SUV who were always doing some dumbass stunt while yelling "Extreme!!!" Remember those guys? Someday far from now, after "John Rambo" has left theaters and arrived on DVD, I suspect that if you were to place the DVD in your player and selected the Stallone commentary, it would consist entirely of Stallone screaming "Extreme!!!!"

The early footage reeks of desperation. I really liked "Rocky Balboa." What made that film work was how understated it was. It really wasn't about Rocky's triumphant return, but more about an aging star who felt alone and lost in the world where his reputation lived on, but his glory had long ago faded. "John Rambo," on the other hand, is about making sure the bad guys get blow'd up real good.

I hate using this word, but I can't think of a better adjective for the plot: retarded. John Rambo lives in some reclusive village and I guess rents out boats. I group of do-gooders gets the inane idea that they are going to rent a boat from Rambo, travel into war-torn Burma without any weapons, and convince everyone to live in peace. Rambo tells them they're idiots, so they get another boat and travel onward. Low and behold, they end up captured and tortured. Rambo then goes to rescue them because he feels guilty. Then bad guys die in lots of terrible ways.

Here are my immediate issues:

1. Anyone who goes into any country that has been warring within itself for decades/centuries/millenniums and thinks that they are honestly going to make any kind of positive difference deserves exactly what they get. You don't walk up to grizzly bear and calmly explain to it why it shouldn't eat you. Instead, you stay the fuck away from the bear. If peace could be easily achieved, it would have happened by now. I hate to bring this up, but history has already shown us time and time again that the only way to end a fascist military regime is pretty much to violently revolt. And even then it's still a long shot. Thus, any character in a movie that embraces optimism in a situation like this immediately loses my sympathy and caring.

2. The gore. Sweet jesus.

Let's get this out of the way: I love gore. When used correctly, gore makes me giggle uncontrollably. I always have been, and always will be, a horror fan. So gore is nothing new to me, and I certainly do not find it appalling.....unless it's used incorrectly. "John Rambo" is not using it correctly. Rambo decapitates a guy with a machete, fires a .50 caliber machine gun at a guy 2 feet away and pretty much liquefies him, makes various guys' heads explode, and rips out a guy's throat with his bare hands. This would be all well and good, but it all reeks of Stallone screaming "Extreme!!!" at the top of his lungs. The gore exists just to be gory. Horror can get away with that, because Pointless Gore is pretty much its own sub-genre. But so far none of the "Rambo" series have used gore to this degree, which makes its use in "John Rambo" just a mechanism to try to shock viewers into ignoring the retarded plot. It's overcompensation, plain and simple.

After his long absence, "Rocky Balboa" reminded us that Stallone is capable of making good movies, but "John Rambo" will most likely remind us why no one really missed him when he was gone.

War

Jason Statham and Jet Li star in "Jason Statham vs. Jet Li 12: War".

Hey, as long as they keep making money, these two will keep getting pitted against each other. This time Statham is a rogue FBI agent seeking revenge against Li for killing his partner/family/goldfish. Lots of kicking, flipping, car chasing, shooting, and glaring ensues. Also, Devon Aoki's character from "Sin City" wanders into the movie.

Bring plenty of popcorn and ear plugs, but feel free to let your brain take a breather.

Even Money

"Even Money" is another one of those movies where 400 different storylines share a common theme and intersect in ways that make no sense to the plot, and only exist so that the wives in the audience can turn to their poor bastard husbands and whisper "Hey look! It's that guy from that other story!" This time around the plot focuses on the negative effect that compulsive gambling has on the lives of gamblers and the people around them.

I expect this to go just like "Crash" did. It has a great cast (Forrest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Kim Basinger, Jay Mohr, Tim Roth, Nick Cannon, Danny Devito, Kelsey Grammer, Carla Gugino) that will star in a lumbering, heavy-handed moral drama that will go on to win lots of awards despite not actually being as good as everyone says it is. Just like "Crash."

Blonde Ambition

The movie stars Jessica Simpson.

There, now you know all you need to know.

You're not going to see this movie, and I'm not going to type about it. We'll all just go back to our own little lives and pretend that Jessica Simpson was a half-talented pop singer in the late 90's who then faded away, never to be heard from again. She never had a TV show, and never tried to be a comedic actress.

There, aren't we all happier now?

The Brothers Solomon

The movie looks like it should be a Will Ferrell movie. Except instead of one Will Ferrell, we get both Will Forte and Will Arnett. What's the deal with cinematic craziness and guys named Will?

The plot involved 2 loser brothers desperately trying to father a child so that their dying dad can have at least 1 grandchild before he goes. And yes, there is a montage of failed dates. Who could have guessed?

Neither Forte nor Arnett feel as naturally funny as Ferrell consistently does, but combined they seem to have a comedic rapport that will hopefully work in the film. However, by the end of the 2 minutes I did notice that there seemed to be no variance in their roles. They were always smiling and calmly saying crazy-sounding things ("What do you say we get out of here and I go put a baby in you, no strings attached?"). Sure, the films looks funny, but it also looks like it will have overstayed its welcome by about the 45-minute mark.

Fido

Man oh man I can't wait to see "Fido." A retro 1950's-esque world where zombies have been incorporated into everyday life to do menial jobs and help out around the house? That's awesome. I can't tell what the plot is about, but I don't really care. The cast has great fun with the concept, and I can't wait to see Carrie Anne Moss get to be funny for a change. After this film and "Shaun of the Dead," I really hope Zombie Comedy becomes a popular genre.

Signal

The plot synopsis of the film says that the story involves a signal that transmits through all regular forms of electronic media (phones, computers, TVs, radios, etc.) and turns people into zombies, or vampires, or monsters, or something. The trailer I watched, however, was just a series of half-second jolts of random chaotic footage interlaced with TV static. I've seen this technique used before, but this time the trailer never stopped or slowed down to focus on anything. Without even just one iconic image, it's just a mishmash of grainy footage. How's that supposed to interest me?

Also, I see no credit given to Stephen King, which seems like an oversight since this film's plot is identical to the one in King's novel "Cell."

Captivity

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I remember when Elisha Cuthbert had some real promise. Now she is almost intolerable. I remember when director Roland Joffe was great ("The Mission", "The Killing Fields"), and slowly succumbed to mediocrity ("Super Mario Bros", "The Scarlet Letter"). And oldschool horror director Larry Cohen (80's camp classics "Q: The Winged Serpent", "The Stuff", and "It's Alive") is now an empty shell of a screenwriter. Only this collection of faded talent could produce a film which looks like nothing more than a straight-to-DVD "Saw" sequel.

Wedding Daze

I think Jason Biggs is a fine comedic actor, and I wish he were given more opportunities to play something other than a slight variant of that pie-fucker guy. This movie does not afford him said opportunity. Not only does "Wedding Daze" have Biggs once again slipping into his "American Pie" shoes, it also appears to have Isla Fisher playing her "Wedding Crashers" role. And I mean identically playing her previous role. Same crazy laugh and everything. In fact, I had to look the movie up on IMDB after seeing the trailer just to confirm that it's not a "Wedding Crashers" sequel.

Biggs plays a guy who proposes to his girlfriend. She is overcome by the gesture and dies of a heart attack. For some reason or another, he proposes to a random waitress at a diner, and she unexpectedly says "yes" and is super excited (providing the only part of the trailer that made me laugh- "I'm getting married! To this guy!"). Then the two try to be a real couple. Hijinks ensue. The movie doesn't look good or bad. It's just another one of those zany romantic comedies that we all see 20 or so times each week.

Poor Biggs.

Joshua

Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga begin to suspect that their perfect little boy, Joshua, is a burgeoning homicidal sociopath. While the tone of the trailer was deadly serious, and Rockwell appears to give another strong performance, I couldn't help but think I've already seen this concept done to death. It's plainly obvious from the creepy shit the boy says that he is unhinged, and yet the parents do nothing but worry to themselves and their friends. Any normal parents would stick him in therapy and fill him full of happy drugs. Hell, parents these days do that just to stop their kids from singing loudly in the shower. But not in the movies. It takes a dead dog and a kidnapped baby before they start to think "something may be wrong with our son." Really? You mean the kid with the dead eyes who is always wearing a formal black suit and smirking? Never would have guessed it.

You Kill Me

Here's what I can piece together about the plot:

Ben Kingsley is a hitman and an alcoholic. While on a job to kill Dennis Farina, he gets drunk, falls asleep, and misses the hit. His boss (the always-dependable Philip Baker Hall) sends him to San Francisco to attend rehab. In AA he befriends a gay Luke Wilson (that's a description of the character, not my opinion of the lesser Wilson brother), who becomes his sponsor. Bill Pullman sets Kingsley up with a job at a funeral home, where he meets a grieving daughter (Tea Leoni) and begins a romantic relationship with her. Kingsley tells both Leoni and Wilson that he is a killer, and neither one seems to care. In fact, it appears that Leoni helps him out with training to be a better, sober killer. Then he gets the call that he has to go back home and finish the Farina job. His confidence is shaky, and he looks to his friends for support.

Sound like I've already watched the movie? The trailer looks good, and the fact that is seems to give the entire plot away in 2 minutes suggests to me that the movie will be more about the characters than the story. With a cast like this, I'm fine with that. The film is directed by John Dahl, who has a pretty good track record. Even his misfires have at least been ambitious. The tone of the trailer drifts dangerously close to making it seem like a "Grosse Pointe Blank" knockoff, but Kingsley has a much more assured presence onscreen than Cusack did. I'm curiously looking forward to this one.

'Sup

Hey, remember that time I posted trailer reviews for 3 months, then took a year and a half off? That was awesome.

The reviews shall continue soon.