Category Archives: Action

Wolfwalkers

Wolfwalkers                       4 ½ stars

From the Irish studio Cartoon Saloon who brought us The Secret of Kells in 2009 comes their latest creation, Wolfwalkers, an animated tale set in Ireland about two girls from vastly different backgrounds who form a fast bond against troubling circumstances. Robyn is an English girl who has been brought to Ireland by her father who has the task of ridding the woods of its inhabitants of wolves. The wolves are very troubling to the local farmers as they attack their livestock. Robyn, being English is not at all accepted by the Irish children of the village, so she finds her own adventures. One day, disobeying her father’s instruction, she wanders into the woods where the wolves live and meets a strange redheaded girl, Mebh, who is very wild and outspoken and who happens to be one of the last of the Wolfwalkers, a mythical creature who is human by day, but transforms into a wolf at night when their human body falls asleep. Though very different, the two becomes fast friends and Robyn is convinced she must do whatever it takes to help Mebh and the wolves survive, even if it involves disobeying the orders and warnings of her father and the villagers. There is a villain involved in the form of the English Lord Protector, who believes he can only stay in power by gaining favor with the locals by having all the wolves killed or run out of the woods. It is an intense story about young people having to face the challenges of an adult world, but also about adults who have something to learn about the magic of childhood. I also enjoy the animation style of the movie as it is very colorful and full of movement and done is an imprecise manner. It is one that adults and children can both appreciate.

Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick          4 ½ stars

By now everyone has heard about Top Gun: Maverick, probably the most highly anticipated movie of the year. The sequel to the 1986 movie, Top Gun has been in the making for years and was delayed until it was finally released last month. Most have heard of the premise of the film, how Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is brought back to the military’s top flight school to instruct a group of the Navy’s best flyers, for a top secret mission against an enemy that goes largely unnamed, but is critical to US and NATO security. Maverick (Tom Cruise in his most famous role) is still a test pilot for the Navy having passed on promotions repeatedly and is still much the fearless risktaker he was in the original film. But certain events and relationships have had their impact on him, especially those related to Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of “Goose”, Maverick’s deceased wingman from over thirty years previous. One actor that doesn’t really have much to do is Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly who plays the woman that owns the bar where the Navy flyboys tend to hang out. I’m not really sure why she is in the movie. This is all background for the story, but the main impact of the movie are the thrills and performances of the navy jet flyers in the training exercises and the ultimate mission that involves the highest level of danger for our flying heroes. This is a movie that must be seen on the big screen to get the full experience of the speed and sounds of flying a jet at high speeds with the dangers of combat. Whatever you may think of Tom Cruise, you should not miss this movie while it is still playing in the theaters.

Greyhound

Greyhound                         4 stars

If it weren’t for the pandemic we would have had the chance to see Greyhound, the WWII thriller about submarine vs. convoy warfare on the big screen. As it is we have to settle for watching this action packed war film from 2020 on our TV screens. Greyhound was written by and stars Tom Hanks, playing Captain Ernest Krause, who is in his first command in early 1942 on an American destroyer as it escorts a troop convoy crossing the North Atlantic to Britain. The movie chooses to give us little character development on Krause, focusing mainly on the harrowing mission of protecting the convoy from a wolf pack of German U-boats that are intent on sinking as many Allied ships as they can. On the screen we see a troubled Krause dealing with uncertainty as he issues orders to the young crew and receives reports about the radio signals, radar sightings and sonar pings that are all part of the challenge of locating the feared U-boats. We never see the face of the enemy or any crew of the other Allied ships, but get plenty of at sea action through the heavy use of special effects. We know the other participants are there by their voices over the radio including a German U-Boat commander proclaiming: We will hunt you down! The story is fictional, but the conflict that it depicts about the war at sea is entirely real. I have to believe that the Navy jargon and the use of instruments as portrayed is highly accurate. The movie received multiple nominations and awards for its realistic sound effects including an Academy Award nomination. I only wish I could have seen it in the theater.

The Sea Beast

The Sea Beast                    3 ½ stars

With The Sea Beast, presented on Netflix, director and animator Chris Williams allows us to enter a world where those sea monsters of legend reputed to roam the seas actually exist. Here there are a cadre of heroes (both men and women) who sail in their wooden ships and hunt down and battle these giant creatures in defense of their kingdom. In this story, our two heroes are Jacob, a young man who was rescued from the sea as a boy and has served under Captain Crow of the Inevitable, (one of the best monster hunters who has served for decades); and Maisie, a young, orphaned girl whose parents were themselves monster hunters who lost their lives fighting the creatures. Maisie can’t get enough of the stories of the glory of the hunt, having read of them in her books, even including stories of Jacob. After Maisie stows away on Jacob’s ship and they do battle with a few of these monsters, including the most fearsome Red Bluster, Jacob and Maisie find themselves separated from the ship and her crew, stranded on an island inhabited by some of the creatures, including the giant Red Bluster himself. It is only after this encounter that they come to realize that Bluster and the other monsters may not be the dangerous creatures as told in the old stories. Perhaps the books are not telling the whole story. The film is another variation on the misunderstood creature that is befriended by a young person, who then must persuade the misguided adults into seeing things differently. This theme was present in the How to Train Your Dragon movies and in Raya and the Last Dragon as well as Nimona. The Sea Beast is much the same story, with the high seas as the setting. Chris Williams was the animator behind Big Hero 6 and Moana and has expanded his role to include director in The Sea Beast. It’s a good story for all ages but is clearly not original. It is reported that it may be getting the How to Train Your Dragon treatment with plans for a sequel. See it if you are a fan of animation. I recommend though to be wary of whales and sharks.

Bullet Train

Bullet Train         3 ½ stars

When I saw the preview of David Leitch’s Bullet Train it had to go on my must see list for this summer. This adaptation of a Japanese crime novel by Kotaro Isaka gets the John Wick and Kill Bill treatment in a non-stop action movie starring Brad Pitt as an unlucky assassin known as Ladybug who is trying to get back in the game with a simple snatch and grab assignment while being coached by his handler over the phone. His job is to board the world’s fastest train in Tokyo, Japan and grab a briefcase filled with cash and get off at the next stop without getting caught. What our self-deprecating criminal doesn’t realize is that this bullet train is also occupied by four other paid assassins all with interconnected and conflicting missions and a few other shady characters each with their own objectives. Throughout his acting career Pitt has done a variety of types of roles in dramas, comedies and action movies, not relying on one type of role. Here he plays the character strictly for comedic effect as mayhem surrounds him. Also on the train are two British assassins known as Tangerine and Lemon (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry) who must deliver the son of a Russian crime boss called White Death back to him along with the ransom money (in the previously mentioned briefcase) after rescuing him from a gang of kidnappers. One of them has an odd obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine and who can be characterized as a “diesel”. There is the young Japanese man (Andrew Koji), the son of a “yakuza” who is there to take revenge on the person responsible for pushing his young son off a rooftop who now lies in a hospital clinging to life. Joey King (actress in innumerable roles in teenage movies that I never heard of) shows up as the young woman who is much more dangerous than she seems. And there is an assortment of other suspicious characters who appear on this nearly vacant train traveling at incredible speeds through Japan. To fill in the story we get flashbacks to the events that led this deadly batch to the train that are filled with bloody killings in long action sequences. Once the killers meet, the anticipated fight scenes ensue, mostly involving Pitt’s Ladybug who is bewildered as to why all this is happening to him. Also, throw in an escaped venomous snake that is missing from a local zoo. (Snakes on a Train?). Thanks to the natural charisma of Pitt, Bullet Train rises above being just another violent action movie with two dimensional characters. There are a few notable cameos that you must watch for. This includes the reuniting of three well known stars who appeared together in another action comedy from earlier this year. I leave it to you to find out who they are.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever              4 stars

In 2018 the Marvel movie universe introduced us to Black Panther and the hidden African country of Wakanda. Then shortly afterward we learned that the star of the movie, Chadwick Boseman who played T’Challa, the king passed away from cancer. So, in the sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the opening scene deals with the sudden death of the king due to an illness. T’Challa’s sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright) is unable to save him and faces the loss along with the rest of the kingdom. This movie is very international in scope dealing with geopolitics and Wakanda’s place in the world. Wakanda has the most advanced weapons and technology in the world due to their possession of the metal, Vibranium. That means everybody else wants it. But then it turns out there is another hidden superpower in the world. This one is Talokan, an underwater kingdom, led by a godlike man called Namor (Tenoch Huerta) who is over five hundred years old. The people are descended from a Mesoamerican race forced out of their land by the Spaniards in the 1500’s. Namor’s mission is to find and kill a university student named Riri (Dominique Thorne) who invented a machine that can find new sources of Vibranium. (The Talokan’s also have access to the metal and have advanced weapons.) This aspect makes little sense though, since we know that once something is invented it can’t be stopped by killing the inventor, but don’t let that get in the way of a good story. The Wakanda Queen, Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri, Okoye (Danai Gurira) and T’Challa’s lover, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) decide to defend the student, making Wakanda an enemy of Namor, setting off a war between the two nations. This being a superhero movie, one must set aside the things that seem implausible and just enjoy the action. There are plenty of special effects with the vehicles and weapons causing mass destruction. The characters are kept interesting too, showing the grief they go through and their concern for one another. Ultimately, the situation does get resolved and it looks like we can expect another chapter in the story of Wakanda. And there aren’t even any aliens appearing in the movie!

The Woman King

The Woman King              4 ½ star

The historically based action drama The Woman King opened with much anticipation and succeeded in delivering. The mostly female production staff tells the story of an African tribe in the early 1800’s that was home to an all female army of fierce warriors who defend their home and people from neighboring warring tribes. This is in the period when the slave trade was still practiced in West Africa, though the United States was done with the trade by this time. The slave buyers here are represented by the Portuguese speaking Brazilians who pit the African tribes against one another, encouraging them to provide human slaves from their enemies. Viola Davis appears as the battle tested Nanisca, the general of the Agojie, the elite troops of the kingdom of Dahomey. Her role here is unlike any other she has had before (Fences, Doubt, The Help) as she goes full on action hero, charging into the enemy ranks and overseeing the training of the female soldiers. She has plenty of battle scars from her years of service and is very circumspect about her own situation in the quiet down times. One can tell there is a story from her past that is slowly revealed in the film. There is also the story of one of the young soldiers, Nawi, (Thuso Mbedu of The Underground Railroad) who is given to the army by her father after she refuses to be married off to an old rich man. Her path to becoming a warrior is equally intriguing to that of Nanisca as she learns the consequences of disobeying orders, but becomes key to the developments in the story. John Boyega of Star Wars fame does an impressive job in the role of the King of the Dahomey, who must decide what is the best path to take for his people and find a way of ending the practice of selling humans for profit. Like any good action movie there are plenty of scenes of fighting with the weapons of the time: swords, spears and flintlocks causing great loss of life and bloody wounds on both sides of the conflict. These scenes put together by director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, The Old Guard) become quite extended and realistic. The script is by Dana Stevens based on a story by Maria Bello and others. I don’t know just how much of the story is true, (It is an “inspired” story.) but it is well past time that this episode of history of African women fighters is recognized.

Halloween Kills

Halloween Kills                  2 ½ stars

It’s almost Halloween and that means it’s time for that masked maniacal killer Michael Myers to return to the town of Haddonfield, Illinois to go on one more murderous rampage through the residents of the town. Halloween Kills is actually the second part of a planned trilogy of new Halloween films by director David Gordon Green. This, after the original series with Roman Numerals appeared on screens in 1978 and the eighties. I saw all of the earlier series of films but missed the last one in 2018 (but did see later). This one picks up where that one left off with a wounded Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in a pickup truck being taken to the hospital with her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter after they have finally eliminated the spree killer, Myers. Or so they thought! We get an introduction showing us what happened forty years earlier with the first attacks against local teenagers and the town’s cops while Laurie had been babysitting and got caught up in the nightmare. It doesn’t take long before Michael shows that he is not so easy to get rid of and starts a fresh bloodbath using knives, broken glass and other sharp implements. He can make quite a show of creativity as he finds new ways of slicing and battering people to death! The earlier film got some good reviews, but this sequel, I admit was somewhat disappointing with Jamie Lee Curtis mostly sidelined in the hospital where she must recover from an earlier attack while offering philosophical statements about what Michael Myers represents in all of us. The fight is left to her offspring and a number of other characters who are determined to stop Michael as they chant Evil! Dies! Tonight!. This includes a local hot head (Anthony Michael Hall) who works the crowd into a frenzy after they gather in the hospital where the casualties come in. We get plenty of victims peering through rooms in the dark until the inevitable surprise attack by the masked Michael. It feels like a lot of the same without a satisfying resolution since we can imagine how it will end. It appears we will have to wait a little longer before this chapter comes to a close. Who knows. Perhaps Laurie Strode will still be fighting Michael into her eighties?

Polite Society

Polite Society. 4 stars 

Polite Society appears in the Sundance Midnight section which usually means there will be horror and pain.  This is where you will find some of the bloodiest movies you can imagine at Sundance.   Not so with this one as it is a comedy with martial arts action and British humor featuring young girls.  It took some imagination to create this story set in a London girls school with a mostly Pakistani cast.  Schoolgirl Ria has been studying martial arts and her dream is to become a stuntwoman.  Her sister Lena has dropped out of art school and Ria is horrified to learn that she is being set up for marriage to a wealthy young Pakistani doctor and then moved to Singapore for a nefarious reason.  So Ria makes it her mission to stop this marriage enlisting the help of some of her classmates.  This fast moving comedy uses many of the same techniques seen in modern Asian action movies only with high school age girls.  It’s an interesting blend of genres that we seldom see.  It is directed by Nida Manzoor and stars Priya Kansara of Bridgerton as Ria. The cast and crew were present for the Q&A following the world premiere. 

Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar: The Way of Water            4 ½ stars

The most anticipated release of the holiday season has finally arrived with James Cameron’s return to Pandora in Avatar: The Way of Water. Following the success of the original Avatar in 2009, this sequel can’t help but have some high expectations to aspire to. In the first movie we had the conflict between the technologically advanced humans from Earth and the primitive tribespeople of the planet Pandora called the Na’vi. In that battle one human, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), an avatar in the form of a Na’vi man switched sides and aided the Na’vi leading to the expelling of the humans with the help of the sentient natural world. Now after many years of peaceful living, the humans or “sky people” have returned to Pandora where Jake has made a new life for himself with his Na’vi family. Everything about the humans is violent as their very landing on the planet destroys the environment in a firestorm. Leading a commando unit of humans converted into blue Na’vi bodies is Quaritch (Steven Lang) whose mission in life is the capture of Sully the traitor in order to help subjugate the indigenous population and conquer the planet for human habitation. That’s the background but there is much more to the movie and more than I can adequately describe. The scenes of the natural world of Pandora with the otherworldly creatures of the air and the sea are amazing to watch. The color and movement we see on the screen are beautiful and something we never grow tired of. The story itself is rather basic with the focus on the struggle between the invaders and the primitive but determined defenders represented by Jake’s Na’vi family. They are forced to flee their home in the forest and learn the ways of the island people who survive with the help of some incredible sea creatures. There are a variety of subplots that involve the four Na’vi children, the island people and the giant whale-like creatures called tulkun that may be as intelligent as people. Part of the wonder of the movie is the way that it was filmed. Most of the movie is animated but the animated characters are superimposed over the human actors. So this means that the scenes taking place underwater were actually filmed that way with the actors having to act out their scenes underwater, requiring them to learn to hold their breath for several minutes at a time for the filming. Then the creation of the world of Pandora is done with an army of animators. Part of the attraction is the amount of detail that went into making the facial expressions of the Na’vi characters. This goes a long way toward making them seem real. As far as the story itself goes, the conflict involving Jake seems small when you consider that an entire planet is being invaded. But since this movie is actually the second of an expected five movies in the franchise, I can forgive that. The situation is similar to that of The War of the Worlds where Earth was facing a technologically superior race, which itself was said to represent the plight of the American Indian. The ending is definitely set up for a sequel that is to come in 2024. Look for a multitude of awards for Avatar, The Way of Water and repeated viewings from the fans. But be prepared for a long sitting for a runtime that exceeds three hours!