Ridiculous is as Ridiculous does…

It’s Sandler versus Tarantino in a battle of the adjectives. SPOILER ALERT: Tarantino wins.

So you’re going to call your movie THE RIDICULOUS 6? An unsubtle spoof of the title of Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming humbucker, THE HATEFUL 8. In what universe are audiences unaware of this? It’s not even a spoof on the Tarantino movie itself, just a dig at its title, a joke so sophomoric and misleading that the filmmakers shoot themselves in the foot right outa the gate.

With a title like THE RIDICULOUS 6, we’re expecting a satire on Tarantino’s stylish violence, a mincing of his devil dialogue, a lampooning of his cinematic signature…  we’re expecting a comedy of the highest order. And when we say highest, we don’t mean how baked the writers were. And when we say comedy, we mean Rob Schneider shouldn’t be anywhere within puking distance. Unfortunately, co-writers Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler must’ve been on some good shit to write something so bad and think it was good shit. And Rob Schneider is here. So the path between Netflix and my bathroom becomes puking distance.

So RIDICULOUS 6 has nothing to do with Tarantino’s movie (except for marginally being a Western); rather, a simpering farce about a Caucasian raised by Native Americans (Sandler) who joins forces with five half-brothers (discovered individually when they reveal their name to be Stockburn, sired by the same father from different mothers) on a journey to rescue their mythic pater, Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte, wheezing and gulping lungfuls of oxygen like he’s about to keel over). 83 weak jokes, 45 aborted jokes and 325 non-jokes later, we realize this “comedy” is failing because it is trying to be two movies in one: a poignant tale of familial love juxtaposed over a comedic road tale where nothing is funny.

Sandler himself actually gives a fine straight-man performance as Tommy aka White Knife, rasping like Clint Eastwood, adept at everything manly – like a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE guy – whose superhuman skills in combat and knife-play leave everyone agog, with the refrain, “Man, that was some mystical shit!”

Through a series of misadventures, White Knife discovers his brothers, who are identified simply by mentioning their last name. Everybody just accepts it as truth. No one checks birth certificates or does anything Republican. And each new brah willingly joins the quest to find their dad, because I guess in the Old West there was really nothing better to do. There’s Terry Crews (who confesses he’s black), Jorge Garcia (who looks like director Kevin Smith and communicates in unintelligible grunts – like Kevin Smith), Taylor Lautner (who is surprisingly hilarious as the crossbreed of Forrest Gump and Simple Jack), Luke Wilson (miscast, looking for a way out), and Schneider (whom we will speak no more of).

“My momma says: Life is like a box of Adam Sandler films. Mostly shit.”

Directed by Frank Coraci (veteran of attempted comedies like ZOOKEEPER and HERE COMES THE BOOM, and the last Sandler belch-fart, BLENDED), RIDICULOUS boasts a cavalcade of droll cameos that keep it watchable (read as distracting from the weak comedy of the actual stars): John Turturro with an impeccable British accent, inventing baseball; Steve Zahn gouging out his only good right eye to be a part of The Left Eye Gang; Harvey Keitel as town sheriff Smiley (a Tarantino crossover!); Danny Trejo, Jon Lovitz, Whitney Cummings, Julia Jones, Will Forte, Nick Swardson, David Spade as Custer, Vanilla Ice as Mark Twain; and the most gross-out funniest cameo by Steve Buscemi as the town barber with all-purpose ointment – a fistful to swab a donkey’s ass with lube, then putting the remaining swab directly into Taylor Lautner’s mouth as soothing lip balm. Wolfboy enjoys.

The tone of RIDICULOUS resembles another Sandler absurdist comedy, YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (2008), which succeeded because Sandler found a sweet spot for playing it straight with a funny premise. He is most tolerable when he’s playing adept, as in ZOHAN – a fighter, a lover, a he-man. Under its authentic Western-styled soundtrack (by Rupert Gregson-Williams and Elmo Weber), RIDICULOUS might have been a revealing, serio-comic role for Sandler, had it not been for the uneven tone of the movie and the lack of conviction from his supporting players. Especially mouse-talented Rob Schneider, playing a Mexican like the best racist you ever saw.

Tell Tarantino he needs to be afraid. Be very afraid. Because THE RIDICULOUS 6 is going to challenge his film making skills, i.e. if he watches it, he’ll be too dumb to direct anymore…

END

Cutting Coyote Comedy.

I can’t tell whether MACHETE KILLS is stupider than EXPENDABLES 2 or smarter than JACK REACHER.

Knowing that director/co-writer Robert Rodriguez intentionally crafts this movie with tongue planted firmly in Danny Trejo‘s ass cheek (sorry about the visual) affords it some leeway, however the hyper-reality clashes so discordantly with the ultra-stupidity that Wile E. Coyote called and said he wanted his Acme products back.

In this cartoonish sequel to the equally-cartoonish MACHETE (2010), body-inked, runnel-faced Trejo returns as the unkillable ex-Federale Machete, who is sent on a mission by the president to stop a Mexican terrorist from blowing up Washington DC.

Machete (the kewl pronunciation, of course: “Ma-CHET-ay”) prefers machetes, knives and swords to guns. He has a penchant for speaking of himself in the third person (“Machete don’t tweet!”), and he escapes bullets by running.

The American President Rathbone is credited “and introducing Carlos Estevez” – yep, it’s Charlie Sheen; overacting, underacting – I don’t know what that’s called. Jessica Alba reprises her character from the past movie for a few seconds and is shot immediately (y’know, I agree her acting is so bad that even Zooey Deschanel called and asked for lessons, but putting a bullet in her brain seemed quite extreme). Cuba Gooding Jnr. in a solid few minutes as a gritty assassin (why isn’t this great actor getting more great roles like this?). Lady Gaga takes her clothes off as an assassin, once again trying to distract us from her big Italian nose with her medium-sized dirty pillows. Antonio Banderas plays an American playing a Mexican; so… just playing himself then.

Michelle Rodriguez returns as eyepatched freedom fighter Luz, who escapes bullets by wearing hardly any clothes – because going into battle three-quarters naked is the best way to avoid being shot. I’ve always thought of Sofia Vergara as “Soft Viagra.” I know what you’re thinking, “Who needs Viagra with a curvaceous hoo-er like that?” Coincidentally, here she plays a curvaceous hoo-er – but with a nails-down-blackboard voice that guarantees the need for dick pills. Speaking of dick pills, Amber Heard; only good for two things on this Earth – and neither of them are acting.

Tom Savini (FROM DUSK TILL DAWN) is looking haggard. He killed Machete’s brother (Cheech Marin) in MACHETE; explained into this plot as a good guy because, uh, because he’s friends with the director.

Cool Demian Bichir (CHE, 2008) is multi-personality villain Mendez. At first it’s his bomb, then the real villain appears – Mel Gibson.

One of the great actors of our generation, brought low by his big mouth, Gibson has somehow lost his acting talent, but retains his big mouth. Like every cartoonish villain in action movies, he gushes to our Hero of his grand plan for no reason, reading pages of dialogue as exposition as if he’s reading pages of dialogue as exposition.

Serendipitously, he delivers half of his exposition while riding a replica of a landspeeder – a prop used in one of the renowned non-acting gigs in the universe.

MACHETE KILLS is one of those movies where bad guys constantly train guns on our Hero and never shoot him. Then when he’s running or leaping to escape them, they’re shooting like maniacs who literally can’t hit the side of a helicopter. In this movie where knives make a “shink” noise every time they’re moved through thin air, is it any wonder helicopters play into some of the most egregious stunts that only 7-year-olds will find entertaining (intestines into the blades, Machete swinging around on the blades chopping people, etc.)?

And the most egregious stunt/plagiarism of all: Machete riding a bomb (a la DR STRANGELOVE) while it is flying toward Washington. Using all his Wile E. Coyote skills, Machete saves the day by cutting the blue wire (it’s always the blue wire, isn’t it?).

It’s actually the eighth time Danny Trejo has sliced into the character of Machete, starting with SPY KIDS (2001), SPY KIDS 2, SPY KIDS 3D: GAME OVER, GRINDHOUSE, PLANET TERROR, MACHETE, SPY KIDS: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD. There is hilarious promo for another sequel: MACHETE KILLS AGAIN… IN SPACE!, but that’s purely just Danny Trejo’s ass cheek talking…

END

From duds to merely dull.

DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN surprises us by actually getting close to a plot!

After two sequels written by babies and directed like tweens measuring their dicks, this third sequel to DEATH WISH (1974) has actual pacing, quarter-decent acting and a halfway compelling plot that includes a couple of good twists. It helps that it’s borrowed from YOJIMBO.

(Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO (1961), remade as FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) starring Clint Eastwood, Bronson’s toughguy peer, and the man who actually holds the macho crown that Bronson might have contested had he not done any DEATH WISH sequels.)

So DEATH WISH 4, like YOJIMBO, like FISTFUL, is about a man playing two sides against each other until both implode in paranoiac gang war; in this tale, two Italian mobster families (led by Perry Lopez and Mike Moroff) who run the city’s drugs, square off. Well, they’re trying to portray Italian mobsters but Lopez, Moroff and all their hoods look like they’ve just come from a double-shift at the pizza parlor. Watch for Danny Trejo in a small role as an Italian henchman. See what I mean?

Architect/vigilante Paul Kersey is in yet another inexplicable relationship with a blond spinner 30 years his junior (Kay Lenz as Karen-faux-Farrah bo-bana fo-fana), and he’s architecturing the shit out of his job, leading a normal life, sleepwalking through this low-bar role – until Karen’s daughter dies from a forced cocaine overdose. They should have seen that coming when her date picked her up in a muscle car with the radio on the Generic Guitar Solos channel.

Featured high points of humor in the DEATH WISH series are when people are told that their loved ones are dead. Most of them react like they’ve eaten ice cream too fast.

After Kersey kills the guy who sold her the drugs – once again employing his blinkered modus operandi of attacking the bottom rungs of the problem – that would usually be the end of any DEATH WISH movie, but now a millionaire (John P. White) calls on Kersey, providing him weapons to go after the big fish, the mobsters who sell the drugs. At this point, in any good movie, we’d wonder what exactly is motivating Kersey’s vigilantism. In the first three movies this is never explored because he was exacting revenge for people close to him. But now he is being asked to “professionally” premeditate the deaths of numerous people whom he has no stake in. He’s already making a good living with his own architect firm, he doesn’t harbor any repression because he sates his revenge whenever he feels like it and doesn’t encounter any consequences, and he’s tapping the slimmest blondes in every town he lays his hat. Why would he go out of his way risking his life, risking legal capture, foregoing sleep, and for no pay, to infiltrate these two mob strongholds?

It’s a DEATH WISH movie. Oh.

Karen-fo-fana beseeches her generic editor to let her write an exposé on drugs, and is told that everyone from doctors to schoolkids are using cocaine so it’s passé, but she can do it as long as it doesn’t ruffle his perfect Lego hair. He’s teasing us though, because Karen and her goody-two-shoes story are completely excised from the script until the plot calls for the damsel-in-distress for the climax.

We can see Charlie Bronson has kept himself in shape, but is it realistic how Kersey can knock out everyone with just one punch? One guy goes down after being hit by Kersey’s lunchbox!

There are two cops hot on Kersey’s trail, George Dickerson and Soon-Tek Oh, but they aren’t what they seem. And neither is the millionaire. Double crosses fly like bullets, as writer Gail Morgan Hickman (who also co-storied Eastwood’s 1976 THE ENFORCER) knows a little about misdirection, reveals and payoffs; combined with new director J. Lee Thompson (taking over from Michael Winner, who ran the series into a ditch), it’s enough to make DEATH WISH 4 the best of the sequels.

Now someone wake up Charles Bronson and tell him.

END

Carving a niche for immigration heroes.

If you really wanna be street cool, you’ll pronounce it ‘Ma-CHET-tay.’

The much-overlooked yet mustered Danny Trejo brings his battleground face to the title role of Robert Rodriguez‘s hilariously vicious MACHETE, the story of an ex-federale (code name: Machete) going undercover against illegal politicians against illegal immigrants. The hook is that Machete prefers as his weapons of choice – carving implements rather than guns and grenades; slicing and dicing, with scalpels, meat cleavers, axes, even skull scrapers and a corkscrew wine-opener.

You gotta love Rodriguez’s filmic signatures – MACHETE is loaded to the hacienda with that gratuitous Rodriguez gore and sex that fans await hungrily: naked women, beheadings, gunning down henchmen, burning down buildings – and even Steven Seagal… all before the opening credits.

Robert De Niro is John McLaughlin, a redneck politician (which would make him Republican – his name echoing a very infamous 2008 presidential contender) who enjoys keeping his country safe by patrolling the Mexican-American border with Don Johnson, and shooting illegals as they sneak across (a method that the infamous presidential contender would have loved to employ). Jeff Fahey is Booth, a businessman who wants McLaughlin dead for political reasons, so hires Machete to kill him. Treachery afoot as Booth tries to kill Machete as he’s trying to kill McLaughlin. (Isn’t it the same with all hitman assignments?) Booth is in the treacherous employ of “Mexican” godfather Rogelio Torrez (Steven Seagal, so out of shape here, he looks like one of those blow-up clowns that you can’t knock over. Oh, and let’s not forget he’s “Mexican.” Royt…).

Jessica Alba is an FBI agent, who looks like she gave up stripping just yesterday. She still desperately can’t act. And by that, I mean she should stick to stripping. She gives a cringeworthy Inspirational Speech standing on the roof of a car – all that’s missing is the stripper pole – and I haven’t been that embarrassed since that time I went to school with no pants on.

Michelle Rodriguez is undercover revolutionary Luz, who turns up for the final showdown in her battle gear, which is apparently a halter top and leather pants pulled so low we can almost see her bagina.

Lindsay Lohan is completely strung out on meth amphetamines. And in this movie, Lindsey Lohan is completely strung out on meth amphetamines; along with her slut MILF mother, she folds into a threeway with Machete – matter of fact, for someone trying to bring politician killers to justice, Machete somehow finds time to get it on with every beauty this side of Guadalajara, replete with 70s wocka-chicka music.

Rodriguez perennial Cheech Marin is Machete’s priest brother; and Tom Savini is golden as a professional hitman whose TV ads are like a Shamwow infomercial, “Do you like what you see? Then call 1-800-HITMAN.”

MACHETE is one of those films you’ve got to keep telling yourself not to take seriously. Danny Trejo’s deadpan avenger glare is the perfect vehicle to carry such outlandish black comedy. Yet the premise is a timely indictment of our racist era 2010, as redneck politicians like John McCain (“Finish the dang fence!”), Louie Gohmert (“Terror babies!”), Haley Barbour (“Amnesty is not an option!”), et al, grapple with the problem of railing against illegal immigration without letting their white hoods show, and LEGAL immigrants are getting grouped into second-class status for the color of their skin or the flavor of their religion.

It’s about time a Mexican superhero efficiently cleaned up the illegal immigration red tape. Unfortunately, the way this movie cleans up illegal immigration is not to help people do it legally, but to kill off all the politicians who are responsible for making it an issue.

It’s a start. Take note, John McCain, Louie Gohmert and Haley Barbour…

END

Roaring Ripping Rending Rebirth!

At last – the sequel to PREDATOR we’ve been waiting for!

With the internet ablaze with derogation over the casting of Adrien Brody in the lead role (purely because action fans cannot comprehend life after Arnold), and the B-movie schlock of the ALIEN VS. PREDATOR movies sullying DVD rental racks around the planet, it would seem PREDATORS had little chance of being taken seriously by moviegoers or the men who make the moving pictures.

But Robert Rodriguez (producer) and Nimród Antal (director) have bowed their heads in fealty to the legendary 1987 PREDATOR film, shinked out their arm-talons and ripped forth a roaring rebirth for the franchise.

PREDATORS starts in free fall – literally – as eight nameless characters drop from the sky into a mysterious jungle. They’re all the best “predators” in their killing fields. They discover they’re on another planet – a grand vista of three gigantic moons in the sky and a sun that “hasn’t moved since we got here” tipping them off.

And they’re being hunted by something.

The planet is a game preserve and they’ve been dropped here for sport. The over-arching theme, which is sometimes used as the embarrassing tagline: “When the predators become the prey.” Oh, I feel dirty.

Adrien Brody, an American Special Ops merc, is the tacit leader and therefore has to put on the raspiest voice. There is the Russian Special Forces soldier (Oleg Taktarov, last seen with De Niro in RIGHTEOUS KILL and 15 MINUTES), a Mexican drug enforcer (Danny Trejo, last seen in any Robert Rodriguez film), a Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Sierra Leone soldier (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, last seen buying another vowel), an Israeli sniper (Alice Braga), a death row inmate (Walton Goggins, last seen as Sam Rockwell in THE GREEN MILE) and a disgraced bean stem of a doctor (Topher Grace, last seen apologizing for being an actor).

(Of course, physics is once again given short shrift, as three giant moons that close to a planet would not make it humanly habitable: the planet would either be torn apart by gravitational forces, have no atmosphere or suffer continual tectonic upheaval and volcanism. Also, it’s very unlikely the sun would appear the same size in the sky as our sun, and if it doesn’t move, how come night falls?)

Onward to plot that makes sense if you discount everything else.

Luckily, Brody has read the script and rasps the exposition above. But you don’t need the script if you’ve got someone who saw PREDATOR; Alice Braga recounts the story of the Special Forces guy (that would be Arnold, fanboys) who killed one of the hunters and described its proclivities.

Can’t help feeling the cast is a leetle too international for the sake of worldwide box office – or maybe they’re just auditioning for a crowd of passengers in another SPEED movie.

First act is tight, effective screenwriting; characters introduced smartly, situation assimilated; inexplicable jungle mystery, thriller, action, even some horror. All the classic story elements that made PREDATOR so good. PREDATORS reminds us of ALIEN 3: back to basics to bring the solemnity under control again.

Suddenly – Laurence Fishburne. A surprise cameo, an eccentric old hermit, well-built, brain-fried, and whispering in that Morpheus velvet about surviving for ten seasons. He reveals the Predator hunting party travels in threes.

And then, in maximum cool – we meet The Predators…

They’re played by Carey Jones, Brian Steele and Derek Mears, and they’ve been given names by the filmmakers that we discover only by reading the credits: the captive, strung-up Predator is Classic Predator; the leader of the three hunters is Berserker, larger and scarier than Tracker and Falconer. The armor and headgear of these new Predators is akin to the development of Batman’s suits; more jagged and streamlined than previous versions. Makeup by Greg Nicotera and Howard Berger goes above and beyond the call of B-Movie duty. Like the rest of the production, they’re taking it very seriously indeed.

There are numerous homages to PREDATOR, creatively intertwined into this tale, and Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally (which is blaring in the chopper on the way to the drop zone in PREDATOR) plays us out over the closing credits. There are the unavoidable cliché moments: Walton exalts, “We killed it! We killed it!” and is suddenly shot in the back by “it.” There are the interesting twists of character, and even a grand moral dilemma: when Topher is injured, rather than carrying him as dead weight, Brody decides, “We leave him as a booby trap.” When Alice protests, he elucidates on how the Predators maimed Topher to slow down the fleeing humans, knowing they would carry him, “They’re banking on us being human.” I love the smell of sociopath in the morning.

And when Yakuza finds a samurai sword, we know there must be a reckoning – between an arm-bladed Predator and Yakuza gettin’ his Toshiro Mifune on. Like Billy on the log, Yakuza stops in a field as the rest of the humans continue to flee. He turns to face the oncoming Pred, who, true to form, decides to grant his prey the courtesy of a “fair” battle… as he shinks out his arm-talons…

It seems Predators are taken down not by their superior technology or weaponry, which, if utilized judiciously, can take down any prey in the galaxy – they are done in by their own hubris! They are arrogant beyond caution. Brody (covered in mud like Arnold) goes mano a mano against the last Berserker; when the Pred could easily shoot Brody as he lies squirming on the ground, he opts to grab Brody by the neck and throw him. Even picking Brody up by the neck could warrant an efficient killing stroke if the Pred just shinks his arm-talons up through Brody’s throat. Nope. They take toying with their prey to new levels of carelessness.

Maybe it is this inherent ego, conceit and pride that makes them hunters in the first place (those characteristics sure work for Man); maybe this same presumption of their superiority impels them to waste resources bringing animals from throughout the solar system to dump on this planet as prey; all we know is: “Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18). Another reason for Predators to read the bible – they’d kill us more efficiently. They should also stop watching 1960s Batman episodes.

It’s almost as if the words of the Little Richard song reflect the taunting hubris of the Predators, “We’re gonna have some fun tonight – whooo!/ We’re gonna have some fun tonight – whooo!/ Have some fun, havin’ me some fun tonight!”– Oops! Blown up by humans again!

Whooo!

END

Just Another Con.

Nice mullet, Nic!

His pooch hairdo effectively takes attention away from his massively-developed arms and Kirk-body-oiled man-chest.

A prisoner plane, the CON AIR of the title, transporting the biggest bunch of cliched criminals this side of Blockbuster Screenwriting 101, is overrun by said archetypes, led by an exceptionally-maladjusted Malkovich. Elvis comes to the rescue in the form of morose Nicolas Cage (one of the “good” convicts – no rape, murder or listening to Hansen music – therefore the anti-hero), who eventually commandeers the craft and lands it ostentatiously on the Vegas strip amidst traffic.

Written by Scott Rosenberg (with that Blockbuster Screenwriting Guide on his lap): the twisted mastermind (John Malkovich), the quiet serial killer (Steve Buscemi), the Badd Mexx (Danny Trejo), the black guy (Ving Rhames), the gigantor redneck (M.C. Gainey), the gopher (Dave Chappelle), the sick con who is automatically regarded as “wrongfully jailed” simply because he’s sick and a friend of the Anti-Hero (Mykelti Washington), even the obligatory fruity gay guy). Simon West directs with the Michael Bay Handbook on his lap.

The great John Cusack is completely wasted as a Marshall pursuing the hijacked plane and bland Monica Potter has outdone herself – in a career of vapid, unconvincing roles, this is surely the best and blandest in her reel, as Cage’s wife, awaiting him in desperate ambivalence with a daughter who looks like she was cast five minutes before cameras rolled.

Everyone pretends to be really Hard (even the winsome Dave Chappelle!) and there are lots and lots and lots and lots of pretty orange explosions and guys diving in slow motion while shooting big guns, but ultimately this movie is just another excuse to land Nicolas Cage in Las Vegas.

So bad I accidentally grew a mullet.

END