Posted on 08/18/2010 9:05:21 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
So I wanted to see a movie at the shiny, sterile Century City mall in West L.A., and I had to decide. What should I see, the delicate, introspective, self-affirming, inner journey EAT, PRAY, LOVE, or some stupid shoot-em-up with a bunch of testosterone poisoned trigger happy gun slingers. What are you high? I'm going for the gun-slingers, mang!
I liked this movie! Okay, it's not Schindler's List, and here's a quick spoiler: Good guys win. Bad guys die. Actually, that's the whole review.
Nah, but it was cool. Sylvester Stallone seems like nice guy for a mercenary. Actually, a little too nice. His team starts out dealing with Somali pirates, and they garrot, shoot, and knife the bad guys into tomato sauce, but when one member of his team wants to hang a pirate, Stallone gets all squeamish on him. "That's now how we do it." Thus alienating a member of his team. This will complicate things, just so you know.
At first, I didn't get it. This seemed a little pointless to me; you've already killed about 20 guys in various ways, and they're bad, bad guys. I mean, they've had these hostages for 3 months, they're going to start killing them... hey, if one of your guys wants to string up the last surviving pirate, I say let 'im! It'll make him happy, what the heck.
But there's an element of "we may kill a lot of folks, but let's not lose our soul" to this movie that, although it's only a minor theme, barely discernable through the explosions, is a point of interest. I think actors routinely return to a theme time after time; it's how you know who they are eventually: Mel Gibson wants revenge, Jim Carrey thinks the world's not real, Ben Affleck feels really guilty about something, Keanu Reeves just wants to save humanity, and Tom Cruise is a little nuts. Well, Sylvester is willing to blow up a small country as long as he can save one person. One person, who represents some little corner of his soul. It helps if that corner has long hair, full trembling lips, and a nice set of haunches, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
So Sly and his fellow mercs, Jet Li (who looks more serious and troubled than I'm used to), Jason Stetham (who is having woman trouble), Terry Crews (who has the Best Gun Ever!!!!), and some guy with cauliflower ears set off to kill all the bad guys on some little Spanish-speaking island in the Gulf that is basically one big druggie plantation. They weren't going to take the job, but there's a girl there. A fiery girl with Spanish eyes who stands for something. Sly is captivated: his soul is a little dried out. Hers is not.
There are a couple of hours of explosions and fights, and our guys win. Okay, so here's what I liked and what I did not like. I'll do the NOT LIKES first because honestly, that's a shorter list.
NOT LIKE: 1.) Of course, the whole drug-running scheme started with the CIA. It's just lip-service, but I do get a little tired of the idea that no one in the world starts running drugs till the CIA gives them start up funds and a business plan.
2.) Jerky camera work that makes you feel so in-the-moment that you can't tell what's happening. BOOM! Bang!! The fight is on and I think I got hit in the nose because all I see is flying blood and flashes of color. Then it's over and a good guy is standing in the center of the scene looking down at the bodies of all the men he just took out. Makes me miss the old MATRIX battles, where you got to see every move Neo made during the beautifully choreographed dance of destruction with Agent Smith. Here, I was confused and then it was over. I heard the fight, but I didn't see squat.
LIKE: I liked that every character got a chance to let us know a tiny bit of their personality or backstory. I like Jet Li's complaints about being short. I like Dolph Lundgren's suggested battle with drugs. I liked Mickey Rourke's story about the time they were in Serbia. I like Jason Stetham's... well, I liked him. ;^) I liked Terry Crew's incredible gun! Man, that baby could cut people in half!! And he was right about noise. Noise scares the enemy! BOOM!! I liked Eric Roberts as the smirking, sneering bad guy. He's ... still got some appeal, speaking as a woman, here.
But most of all, I liked that Sylvester Stallone saw the girl, fell for the girl, went back for the girl, saved the girl... and then said goodbye to the girl with a chaste hug and not a single kiss. Because, although he didn't say it, she was 25 and he's 64, and apparently there is one man left in Hollywood who can look at a girl young enough to be his granddaughter and think, "No, man, you can't hit that. Give the kid a hug and let her go."
Yeah, I liked it. It made me want to go practice throwing knives at stuff. EAT, PRAY, LOVE? Ha. How about SHOOT, STAB, KILL! Much better.
EAT, PRAY, LOVE should have been named NIGHTMARE FOR MEN.
Just looking at the poster made me feel it was draining me of some precious life energy.
I rather like this review; it reminds of one of Joe Bob Briggs’ cinematic distillations. Now, I want to see the film all the more. Cheers.
In addition to your observation, I well imagine that it is terribly vapid and rather overwrought.
I loved this movie, the hubby thought it was ok. I felt like kicking ass the rest of the evening. I was quoting lines out of it and everything, hubby thought that was pretty funny. There are tons of things I loved about the movie....it is what it is but I don’t want to spoil it for the Freepers planning to see it. Suffice to say I will buy the Blue Ray and that is saying a lot for me!
I would have preferred it if Stallone moved in with her.
I can handle a well placed “yippie-Ki-Aye Motherf....” in a movie, but hearing Bruce Willis-in a church- ask Stallone and Schwarzenegger if they were going to suck each other d-cks reminded me that hollywood is simply trash.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It was actually the only nasty comment in the whole thing, if I remember correctly. It was a but much, though, wasn’t it? That whole scene was unnecessary. A cameo for fun and little else.
But, I'm not going to ruin it for anyone that hasn't seen it.
Than ‘you must deny them your precious bodily fluids’
Gen. Jack D. Ripper: Dr. Strangelove
... I'll bet a lot of male FReepers rightly think you sure live up to your screen name!
Haven't seen the movie yet, but husband and I have it on our "to do" list.
The good news is, he’ll have plenty more time to take starring roles in more explosive action movies now that his political career is all but over....
I agree, what you said....
You had me at "mang". I'm currently renting that movie; wife hadn't seen it and I'm trying to expose her to the classics. Today she was chasing the cats around the house, yelling "say hello to my li'le fren!"
It was a fun movie! My only real complaint is they didn’t play Paradise City at any point in the film. They used it in the previews and I thought, “Man, I’d forgotten what a great song that is!” Especially with gunfire.
Oh yeah, I do that when I whip the vacuum cleaner out of the closet. Cats scatter in all directions. LOL!
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