What keys does Aquaman have on his key-chain? WHY does he have a key-chain?
Can he not leave his keys on his turtle when he goes on these missions?

Will make you wet.

AQUAMAN graduates to jewel of the DC Comics universe, as it finds a perfect mix of action, humor, sex and surf.

An American screenwriter’s dream come true, for its fishy foreshadowing and porpoiseful payoffs (couldn’t resist!); an origin story and a high sea adventure, an undersea war and a touching family redemption. It’s got everything, from skydiving to laser-beaming, from politics to swordfights, from monsters to montages, and Pretty Orange Explosions That Interrupt Important Dialogue Scenes.

And Jason Momoa. [Hold for standing ovation from all the women.] Okay, don’t get your knickers in a frenzy. (Is that a saying? That’s a saying, right? Yeh, that’s a saying!) With his badboy tatts, V-shaped torso, leonine mane, low-slung package, velvet basso, and smoldering Medusa eyes, this ain’t your daddy’s green and gold sea-man.

Momoa is Arthur Curry aka “the Aquaman,” born of a human man (Temuera Morrison) and a Queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman), on a quest to reclaim his rightful undersea throne from his half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson).

Writers David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall have a hard time making Orm a compelling villain, as his main goal is to rid the sea of all the land-dwellers’ discarded trash and return it back to the land from whence it came. So if Arthur wins the throne from Orm, will his first job as King be to, uh, keep the trash in the sea?…

Orm also seeks to unite all the undersea kingdoms under his mighty rule so that he will be declared – “Ocean Master”! … Uh, doesn’t so much sound like a regal appellation as a brutal top specializing in bondage urolagnia.

Willem Dafoe crosses over from Marvel to DC.
Are there no more fucken actors?

Willem Dafoe is Vulko, Orm’s grand vizier (who surreptitiously trains Arthur to be a warrior – probably because he wanted Arthur’s hot sea-mom), and Dolph Lundgren burbles his way through political wetwork as an undersea king of Atlantis Adjacent. Or someplace. One undersea kingdom includes a race of Sea Monkeys (remember that SOUTH PARK episode?) and there are even Craaab People Craaab People (they were on SOUTH PARK too! – Hell, even Aquaman was on SOUTH PARK – known by his man-love name of Semen—I mean, Seaman!).

Arthur is joined in his quest by Mera (Amber Heard in her tight green costume that unfortunately reveals absolutely nothing), the daughter of King Dolph.

There is a glaring power anomaly that AQUAMAN suffers from its first scene. The Aquaman is introduced lifting a submarine to the surface from the deep. Then he boards the sub and beats people up blah blah. But did you get that first bit? He lifted a submarine – not just above his head on land, which would be a pretty monumental feat – but through atmospheres of ocean water! Practically flew with it perched on his shoulders, up through the deep and into the air, letting it crash to the surface of the water! That means: every single act of strength Arthur performs after this submarine lift should be measured against that astounding act of strength. So when he hits a bad guy, that guy’s chin should shatter like eggshell, or his skull should separate from his spine and fly through the back wall. And when a bad guy hits Arthur, it should be like hitting the side of a submarine. But nope – Arthur engages in fisticuffs with bad guys like a regular Rocky verses Clubber, and they hit him and he falls down, then he hits them, and they fall down – and get back up again to attack him as if this wasn’t the guy who just lifted A FUCKING SUBMARINE.

And when Arthur battles his brother using his trusty quindent (the one he used in JUSTICE LEAGUE – which, apparently, is not the talisman it’s cracked up to be, as his quest involves finding his ghost father’s trident, which is eleventy times more magic), Orm is evenly matched with Arthur. Does this mean that everyone from Atlantis is super? But Arthur – if anything – should be less super, because he has land-man genes. (And by the way, can a land-man and fish-person even mate? Are their gametes even compatible? So they somehow sired a child – but why is he super?). Even Mera is super – demonstrated when she dives out an aeroplane with no chute using only her D-cups to break the fall. What are the rules? I dunno, I’m losing myself in Aquaman’s smoldering eyes—I mean, in the coruscating world of Atlantis, a CGI boobyscape of basilosaurian eye-strain.

Modern blockbusters can never quite get “outdoors” right, can they?
I got an idea: SHOOT OUTDOORS!

Besides the cool way Arthur handles his celebrity with the starstruck village-folk (there’s even a joke about Arthur being an “Aquaboy” – “That’s Aqua-MAN!” – wink wink, remember Aqualad?), and his loving relationship with his father, the film gives us many surprisingly poignant moments, as when Arthur stands before Orm about to do battle, and laments how he always wanted to meet his brother, to find him, to know him, because he was the only family Arthur has left (Queen mother Kidman was thought to be put to death by the King for playing patticake with a land-man) – and just before the dialogue tips into lachrymose, Arthur adds, “But I didn’t know you’d be such a dick!” It makes us wonder how the one-note villain Orm isn’t taken in by the street charm of his surface half-brother!

One thing we presume Arthur did inherit from his human father was the ability to talk to fish—wha?? Yes, not one Atlantean that actually lives underwater can communicate with sea creatures telepathically. But Arthur can mind-meld with them, represented in a very cool effect, as Concentric Circles of Communication (CCC) – just like the old cartoons! (I’m gonna put an unnecessary scientific spin on this, and conjecture that his parents’ slightly incompatible genes caused a mutation and created this evolutionary benefit.)

There’s even a secondary villain: big-headed Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) with his red bug-eyes and laser-beams that can actually kill Aquaman – if only he didn’t have Bad Guy Aim. Manta is merely a blip in the storyline for dumb action sequences and Pretty Orange Explosions That Interrupt Important Dialogue Scenes.

Pointy beard versus pointy chin in a battle to the cleft.

“You do your best thinking when you’re not thinking at all!” Not sure why Mera thinks she can treat Arthur like a big boob. Because he’s not. (This is one of those WOKE moments that doesn’t belong in this movie; a woman-empowering dig that requires the woman to put down the man in order for all women to feel empowered. Thanks, SJWs!) Arthur Curry is educated – he knows the names and legends of all the statues of great men overlooking the bay, he knows several languages, and he’s conversant with the cultures of both the sea- and land-people. It’s not Mera’s fault: she’s just written that way. Another example of stupid screenwriting: Arthur alludes to Pinocchio when they hide from pursuers in the mouth of a whale. Mera later shows him the book, and Arthur says, “It’s a book? I saw the movie.” If he saw the movie, then as educated as he is, he should know it came from a book. You filmmakers can’t have it both ways! (I hate this dumbing-down in American movies. ONLY in American movies, where they want the (obviously dumb) audience to relate to the hero. That’s why we hate you, Hollywood system! That’s why European movies have a greater cache with intellectuals – because those movies don’t talk down to their audiences.)

An action sequence is melded with a touching aside when Arthur finds the Trident Of Big Balls. Or Something. Guarded by a Kraken. Or somesuch. Instead of roaring right into the Predictable Final Fight With Giant Monster Effects, Arthur makes our eyes wet first. All through the movie, he has been claiming he is not a hero, he is not a king, and here, when the Kraken (voice of Julie Andrews!) asks who he is: “…for only the true king can take the Trident!…” we expect him to go Aragorn and claim his rightful throne – but this hulking super guy who can lift a submarine shows his place amongst the greater fishy world as he kneels and gropes for humility, “I am nobody. I am no king. I am no leader. I came because I had no choice. I came to save the people that I love.” Our tears lost in the undertow…

But of course, no other seeker of the trident has ever been able to “talk to fish,” and Arthur hits the Kraken with his CCC, and the Kraken is so confused that a sea-man can communicate with it, that it rises up to battle Orm’s giant army of sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads.

Austin Powers would be proud!

“Permission to come aboard?” Arthur coyly peeks over his shoulder to ask this question of two badguys on the submarine he just lifted, who must be getting massive paychecks from Villains, Inc. to attack this guy who just lifted their submarine…

But is Arthur really talking to US? To the whole cinematic universe, to accept this grander, bolder, sexier version of the underwater DC hero into our bosoms? Director James Wan (THE CONJURING) goes on a world-building spree where the CGI is surprisingly bearable for its ubiquity (not inflaming our nystagma like the overwrought visuals in BLACK PANTHER or at the conclusion of WONDER WOMAN) – and the underwater floating hair effects are flawless! Yet Wan balances his eye-bulging visuals with some very touching family affairs; and eventually – amazingly – even gets this street-cred Aquaman with the jeans and tatts into his characteristic comicbook green-and-gold gayboy gear (cough–battle armor!). Of course, it helps that the fish-man in the “armor” is the mighty Jason Momoa. If sex could be represented as a human, Jason Momoa is the walking penis to every woman’s howling vagina. So much so that even the upper-number sexiness of Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman is muted beside the pheromonic spasms of pleasure issuing like CCC from Momoa’s Atlantean chest and ruby thighs.

All through the movie we are told Arthur Curry is the real King of Atlantis, and in the film’s grandest payoff, when Mera shouts, “Hail to King Arthur!” that apocryphal historic epithet hits us square in the face. Like his pheromones. Ha! Why didn’t I see that coming?

Movie ends with Arthur’s affirmation, “I am – Aquaman!” and a posedown wetter than Wolverine roaring from the adamantium bath.

It will get your knickers in a frenzy.

END

Apollo’s CREED, OR, The Child Beater that became a Nanny.

When Apollo Creed’s son, Adonis, seeks out Rocky Balboa to train him in CREED, there’s only one thing Rocky can do – become Mickey. Sylvester Stallone takes on the role that made Burgess Meredith famous – cantankerous old fart who trains a contender.

It’s a strange animal, this CREED, about a young guy with natural talent and reckless instincts, a reluctant trainer, a tentative love story, a training montage, insurmountable foe; the boy shows heart, becomes Philadelphia’s favorite son… Isn’t that the 1976 movie called ROCKY? Copy and Paste. Change Rocky character to “Son of Rocky’s greatest Opponent.” Funding! Can we separate the nostalgia, the legacy, the legend, that informs the fabric of this new fiction? Even though that fabric is merely a mirror image of Italian Stallion? We must ask ourselves:

In NOWHERE BOY (2009), if the troubled teen wasn’t John Lennon, would it be Just Another Band Movie? If it wasn’t for the presence of Rocky Balboa himself, or tying in Apollo’s blood – would CREED be Just Another Boxing Movie?

Answer: probably. But that’s this movie’s hook, innit? That was its greenlight; its lifeline to box office. The only viable way to squeeze more cinema dollars from the character of Rocky Balboa as played by Sylvester Stallone was to take him down this road. That, or having him abducted by aliens, rejuvenated in their youth chamber, coming out as Tom Hardy, then taking on a space-boxer threatening the galaxy. ROCKY VII: ROCKY VS. PREDATOR. Believe me, after the dunderhead studio execs I’ve encountered, I wouldn’t be surprised if that script was floated at a Warner Bros. meeting and seriously considered while they were waiting for a confirmation callback from Sylvester Stallone.

Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan, rhomboids thrumming) chalks up boxing bona fides in underground Tijuana matches. He drops his mythic epithet, shortening it to Don, and takes his mother’s (Phylicia Rashad) maiden name, Johnson, because he doesn’t want to trade on his father’s legacy– wait!– Don Johnson? (I guess they don’t get MIAMI VICE down in TJ.) He forsakes his job, his mother, his easy lifestyle, to move from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, pursuing his dream – professional boxing. You would not be alone if you were perplexed by CREED’s opening scenes…

First scene finds Mrs. Cosby picking up young brawler Donny from a correctional facility, where the warden sums up, “He’s a good kid. He just fights all the time.” I think this warden needs to look up the dictionary definition of “good kid.” In the context of this movie, it’s foreshadowing, but in real life, “fighting” is not a condition anyone should aspire to; it’s a pathological disorder. (That’s why only sociopaths become politicians.) Though the screenwriters give Donny a solid motivation – another kid insulted his mother – any psychologist will tell you there are other ways to resolve such conflicts. Even his mother is against his belligerent nature, and tells him so throughout his life, yet she is painted as a dreamkiller. Young Donny is, in essence, an idiot-child, quick with his fists and slow with his wits. Later, Rocky will mention he can tell the 20-something Don is educated by the way he talks, the screenwriters thereby mitigating Don’s hebetude by giving him an imaginary education; imaginary because Don shows no signs of education in any other way, unless they expect us to consider working in a cubicle and wearing a tie a sign of “education.” Rather, Don comes off as an entitled snotnose, gambling away his Mustang on an impetuous boxing match, then quitting his cubicle job after getting a promotion. When he rolls into his mother’s gigantic mansion, we see why everything is easy-come-easy-go with this spoiled brat – he’s stinking rich, so there’s no desperation, no liability in losing money, a Mustang or a day job. There’s nothing that gives us a good feeling about this guy – except for the fact they’ve cast the magnificent Michael B. Jordan (FRUITVALE STATION), who brings a commanding presence and strength of will that his character here should not even possess.

On a giant flatscreen, Don shadow boxes to videos of his father (Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed) against Rocky Balboa.

When Don moves to Philly and visits Adrian’s Italian restaurant to reveal himself to its owner, the legendary Rocky Balboa, and ask for his help, they talk in front of an old action pic of Rocky and Apollo locked in battle. A meta-circular moment frozen in time: the past, the future, the franchise, the fired executives (who thought ROCKY VS. PREDATOR was a good idea)… Rocky is hesitant to take Apollo’s son under his wing, firstly, because there are worlds at stake when the names Balboa and Creed are involved, and secondly, because he just “don’t do dat no more.” He’s old. He’s done.

It’s slightly disorienting wrapping our heads around Sly playing an “old man.” This guy who we just saw as fit as a bridge cable in THE EXPENDABLES 3 (2014) is now pretending he can’t hold gloves or spar – his team has to shepherd Don through the rigors of training, while he drawls advice from the sidelines. (And when we see him trying to take the iconic Philadelphia Art Museum steps – camera tracking him from that same profile position – panting and holding Creed for support, it is heart-breaking. Fuck old age!) Admittedly, it’s a testament to his grand performance, because we know the nearly 70-year-old Stallone can probably knock out the 28-year-old Jordan if he wanted to.

Sad to see Rocky visit Adrian’s and Paulie’s graves. Where he realizes he’s got nothing better to do – except train the Creed boy…

1976’s ROCKY might not have been the first to use its many clichés and tropes, but – like DIRTY HARRY, LETHAL WEAPON and DIE HARD – it popularized them to the extent that, though CREED is a well-produced, brilliantly-acted and creatively-directed movie, it’s hard to get too pumped over something we’ve literally seen so many times over 40 years.

Don’s identity is kept secret, as he and Rocky move up in the boxing world slowly but winningly. Don’s first proper match is nothing special boxing-wise, but from a directorial standpoint, a triumph! In an unbroken take, director/co-writer Ryan Coogler (FRUITVALE STATION) moves amongst the boxers, in a sweat-drenched sweep that takes in the whole scope of the match (as we see the audience in 360-degrees of background) and its gritty interior (on the shoulders of the fighters themselves); a marvel of planning, blocking, fight choreography, set dressing, CGI, acting… not just one round – the whole match – following the fighters into their corners then back into the fray again. It’s one of the best filmed boxing bouts not just in a ROCKY film, but in any film. Besides Don’s opponent looking suitably savage – real life International Light Middleweight Champion Gabriel Rosado (fully-tatted, with a brow that tells us he hasn’t evolved past the Pithecanthropus subspecies) – this is not the bombastic Hollywood fighting of ROCKY III or IV, but a controlled, tactical, “real” boxing match.

Don finds his “Adrian” in Bianca (Tessa Thompson, SELMA), his musician neighbor who reminds us of Lisa Bonet in HIGH FIDELITY, except her New Wave music really sucks.

Don’s identity is outed by another trainer, and the stakes are ramped into the stratosphere as the world champion “Pretty” Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew, also a real life boxer and three-time ABA Heavyweight Champion) now challenges the Son of Creed, under the tutelage of Philly’s favorite son! It is refreshing that Conlan is built like a real boxer (because he is), not a V-torso superhero (which Jordan actually fills out quite sensually – ladies!), although his thousand yard stare indicates his family tree also stalled at Pithecanthropus. (When put up against the fact that boxing is not a sport but a cathartic regression to base instincts, is it any wonder these real boxers are walking examples of missing links?)

Cue training montage. But – noticeably – no Gonna Fly Now. Ludwig Göransson composes themes for a new generation, cut from whole cloth, and within the context of Don becoming Adonis, finding his roaring heart amongst the street bikers revving around him cheering him on, I’d say these motifs are just as driving, just as inspiring for this new generation as Gonna Fly Now was for the old. Göransson constantly teases us with snatches of motifs from ROCKY canon, but never lets us sup at the fountain. You can guess where we eventually hear Bill Conti’s uplifting horn theme – yes, in the last bloodmageddon where Our Hero gets an infusion of spirit (or “spiwit,” as Pontius Pilate might say; a touch of “dewwing do”).

Rocky gets cancer. But don’t worry – it’s nothing serious – it is simply to emulate the beats of the original ROCKY trilogy, where Mickey gets laid up and gives Rocky pause. Y’know, if this storyline was going to be so unoriginal, maybe ROCKY VS. PREDATOR wasn’t such a bad idea… Rocky’s cancer almost becomes a grand statement on Right To Die issues (“My wife tried chemo – didn’t work out – I’ll pass…”), but ends up being just an excuse to give Rocky an adversary. (In ROCKY, he was fighting against being an underdog; in II, against Apollo; III, Clubber Lang; IV, Russia; V, against brain damage; VI, old age.) As in the original trilogy, the fighter – Adonis – is despondent, but perks up, because he realizes the third act is near and everything’s gonna be okay. He tells Rocky, “If you fight [the cancer], I’ll fight!” Therefore negating any “right to death” issues – oh, so it’s all about the inspirational training montage continuing at the hospital, in humorous scenes that inspire us to do pushups in an ICU and shadow box while people are dying on intravenous drips around us. We coulda guessed a tentpole movie would never be brave enough to let Sylvester Stallone make a stand about dying honorably instead of withering away as an irradiated lump.

So the cancer is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. But why give someone cancer unless he’s going to drop at a crucial dramatic point, like Mickey did in ROCKY III? But this doesn’t happen in CREED, because the Rocky character is so much more renowned than the character of Mickey, and dropping Rocky would have removed focus from Adonis. So besides Rocky losing his hair and looking haggard, the cancer creates no further adversity, because that’s how cool Movie Life is. And we never get told whether it is in remission, or more treatment needed, nothing. The device outlived its usefulness by the third act, by which time Adonis Creed has become Rocky, fighting as the underdog – to his own father’s name, “probably the greatest fighter in history.” Thanks, Screenwriting Classes, for pulling us through the Act II hump.

Michael B. Jordan is the perfect vessel for carrying the Rocky/Creed legacy into the future: fiery personality, slick boxing style, excellent actor, a natural born killer. Now we wait for the sequels, where Adonis will battle a mohawked Mexican gangbanger (in place of a mohawked black guy – because in movies, Mexican gangbangers are scarier; those gangbangers from Compton are all in Whitey’s financial back pocket now), an ISIS terrorist (in place of Mother Russia), and – his most terrifying, ugliest, irrational, ignorant foe of all – a Republican, who hates that a black man is filling a role traditionally filled by a white man.

This is how they’re gonna reboot everything under our noses. They learned from the ill-fated PSYCHO remake: don’t put the same “type” in the role. Now Rocky is black. Now Thor is a woman. Darth Vader is Kylo Ren, John McClane is a pygmy from Botswana. And Dirty Harry is a non-racist Puerto Rican gay guy.

But if you want “original” you’ll just have to wait for Tom Hardy as Rocky Balboa in ROCKY VS. PREDATOR.

END

The wrath of Tolkien, the majesty of Jackson, the fickleness of Fandom.

Wizard Peter Jackson concludes the movie trilogy that stole his baby fat. THE HOBBIT comes to a spectacular end – greed, fury, purity of heart and interspecies love – to the wonderment of appreciative moviegoers and the chagrin of sniveling purists.

THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES is not for everyone. It’s not for people who enjoy well-made movies with sweeping cinematography, unbounded excitement, hero angles, evocative soundtrack and seamless CGI. (If you don’t want to see this kind of excellence – don’t go!) It’s also not for Hobbit fans who love touting their bona fides by citing every mismatched character name or location. (There are many divergences from the source material. You know this. Don’t go, only to complain about divergences from the source material.) It’s not for people who pretend a literary-to-filmic sophistication that would have us believe they could do a better job envisioning this monument than a master filmmaker (maybe you would have put that thing here and this thing there, but YOU deal with deadlines, unions, budgets, studio assfaces and people who pretend literary-to-filmic sophistication). And finally, it’s not for YOU. Go gripe somewhere else.

If, on the other hand, you love movies, as I do, and appreciate an all-encompassing cinematic experience created with a surfeit of sincerity, with its cast and crew driving for excellence in art, entertainment, and capitalistic gain, then by all means, I’ll meet you at the corner of wealth and damnation and we’ll enter Peter Jackson’s final HOBBIT chapter together, holding hands with dandelions braided through our hair…

Somewhere between that second and third paragraph lies THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES…

Movie opens two seconds after THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013): Dragon coming. Lake-town aflame. Tauriel hot.

Until Bard the bowman (Luke Evans, power mullet) twangs into Smaug’s heart the Dragon-Armor-Piercing arrow from the Plot Convenience Warehouse.

With Smaug dead, his stolen mountain of gold under Erebor is for the taking. Which Dwarf leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) immediately claims for himself, barricading this ancient Dwarf stronghold from the outside world. His contingent of waddling Dwarfs reluctantly humor his delusions of grandeur, whilst at his behest, searching in vain for one solitary jewel amongst the hoard, called the Arkenstone. However, Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) has it in his Pocket Which Things Never Fall Out Of, and uses it as a bargaining chip to get more screentime. Thorin swoons over his gold, forsaking those less fortunate and condemning to death anyone with the bad taste to not be rich like him (aka Dragon Sickness, aka Mitt Romney Sickness). But… uh… guys, you’re sitting on a literal mountain of gold… with no dragon to guard it anymore…

Any wonder everyone wants a piece of that bitch?

Poffolas the Bowcuke

the five…

1) Bard the dragonslayer, who comes a-knockin on Erebor’s fortress, seeking his promised recompense on behalf of Lake-town, for giving the Dwarfs haven. Also needing those riches to rebuild, not that it’s anyone’s fault the Dragon fried their homes (cough–totally Dwarfs’ fault–)

2) Supermodel Elf king Thranduil (Lee Pace, whose character name is Elvish for “Men will be strangely attracted to me”) wants his share to buy hair products for his army of blondes.

3) Dain (Billy Connolly) a Glaswegian Dwarf who leads an army of drunks that just want a pint and some bangers. Dain’s specialty is shouting and headbutting, which is no acting stretch for Billy Connolly, as I’m sure this was a regular occurrence backstage after many of his standup shows.

4) Azog the Annoying, who leads the Orc army of Special Effects and wants to kill everyone just because.

5) Bolg, Azog’s ambiguously gay Burt Ward, who brings his psycho circus of goblins from Gundabad (which is the sound a Russian makes when he sneezes), and wants to kill everyone else. Just because also.

AS ONE MIGHT GUESS… the focus in this movie is completely off the title character and the One Ring he secretly carries in his pocket, that will cause so much agita a short time hence… Aside from a couple of plot points, Hobbit Bilbo Baggins is forgotten for the most part. But I’m not complaining, just observing a fact. This is a differently toned movie from its predecessors. Fer cryin out loud, it’s called THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES – and guess what happens? Five. Armies. Battle. No false advertising, no bait and switch. And the most amazing part: it never gets confusing. The director tracks all the action with a jeweler’s eye. Liam Neeson battles five guys in any TAKEN movie and our eyeballs spin at the try-hard directing. Here, five armies are pitted against each other and we never lose focus. Peter Jackson helms this sprawling battle atlas with an iron fist (with good ole Andy Serkis (Kong, Gollum, Caesar) as 2nd Unit Director!). And he is well aware that the gung-ho is only exciting because we care about all the characters stressing for oxygen within its framework; in, around and through this mighty fracas, each character’s emotional arc is given weight and played out artfully.

The badass Legolas returns!

Though Legolas (Orlando Bloom) does not appear in the book The Hobbit, we have seen him portrayed in these HOBBIT movies unlike the Legolas we grew to man-love in THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies; here, he is merely the clinical archer, with a cold affection for Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and a penchant for weird contact lenses. But that square-jawed swinger that brought down the elephant in RETURN OF THE KING (2003) is back! When he is not cockblocking Kili (Aidan Turner), he is swaggering through action sequences that make us braid dandelions through our hair. He is at the top of a tower overlooking a chasm that he needs to breach. No problem, as he characteristically squares that jaw and leaps onto a giant troll, shish-kebabs the troll through the top of its head and “guides” its stumbling death throes to head-butt the tower, which falls across the chasm and bridges it! What a badass!

As the Dragon attacks, proud Tauriel leads the refugees of Lake-town through watery channels aflame with dragonfire and— who am I kidding? All I’m thinking about is unbraiding her hair…

Anyone with a smidgeon of evolutionary knowledge will wonder at the Disneyfied “love affair” between Tauriel (an Elf) and Kili (a Dwarf). Firstly, these are not biological “humans” – their differences are not analogous to, say, Chinese and Russians; Elves and Dwarfs seem separated at a higher taxonomic level, more along the lines of Rick Santorum’s man on dog analogy. And if so, they cannot interbreed. If their chromosomes are incompatible, they would not even be attracted to one another. (Their attraction should thus be classified as “deviant.” Ask Rick Santorum. But he probably loves these movies, which shows what an ignorant hypocrite he is.)

If they are on the same species line, then sociological aspects would come into play: the female is larger and a fiercer warrior than the male, so she doesn’t require him for protection; she is self-sufficient, so doesn’t require him as provider; she is prettier (only just!), so no leaning on him for visual status, and even if she looked to him for social status (he is ascendant to the Dwarf throne; she a lowly silvan elf), she couldn’t possibly benefit from his throne as he would be kicked to the Mirkwood curb if he took a she-elf for a queen. How could this possibly be a two-way street? It would seem natural that HE would lust after HER greenery, but why on Middle Earth would she crave his stubby knob?

And even if we accept their unnatural, irrational attraction, why would Tauriel weep so inconsolably over Kili’s death, when they had never taken it to the next level – never taken it to any level other than sensuous whispering? Yet even through this weeping scene, which bleeds naiveté, we perceive the grand storytelling arc that was achieved. Thranduil had earlier mocked Tauriel’s “love” for the Dwarf, almost messing up his hair in his anger. Now, as she laments, “If this is love, I don’t want it! Why does it hurt so much?” his reply shows his heartfelt realization, “Because the love was real.” A recant of his earlier stance, and a testament to his understanding hair.

The badass from all the other Middle Earth films, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has no such scene-stealing here, and suffers the same fate as the underused Hobbit. Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) shines as a powerhouse, repulsing Sauron from a rocky knoll, along with Hugo Weaving (hero angles) and Christopher Lee (Famous Last Words).

2 hours, 20 minutes long, yet before we know it, FIVE ARMIES is rolling through its three endings. One very emotional, one very connected to LORD OF THE RINGS, and one very Thranduil.

I still remember a time when the likes of Peter Jackson’s series of films (which have miles more credibility than the HARRY POTTERs or TWILIGHTs, and are far removed from the STAR WARS prequel debacles) would have stunned audiences into lauding him as a Kubrick; instead, the democratization of the interwebs has given the snivelers, the ungreased wheels, the platform to spew their faux-sophistication in unbridled ignorance. With unconscionable spelling. I don’t remember a time in history when such a great film was lambasted with such vitriol for no good reason. I would say to the snivelers what Emma Stone tells Michael Keaton in BIRDMAN: You’re doing this because you’re scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don’t matter. And you know what? You’re right. You don’t.

My final recommendation for the majestic epic THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES: Don’t see it. You’ll just complain.

END

Attack of the Action Sequences.

Hobbit Bilbo Baggins and the troupe of Dwarves from Erebor continue their quest through Middle Earth to reclaim the Dwarves’ homeland from the Dragon Smaug.

Along the way they are attacked by Orcs, cocooned by giant spiders, imprisoned by Elves, barreled through rapids, smuggled by a boatman, sculpt a statue of gold, and ascend through a toilet, which is ironic when they pee their pants dodging a Dragon.

Martin Freeman is still Bilbo Baggins, Richard Armitage is still Thorin BadMotorScooter, Gandalf is still badass, and everyone else is still everyone else. We are thrown into the adventure headfirst after a short flashback prelude between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Thorin at The Prancing Pony (a familiar tavern from THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING … or at least, it will be a familiar tavern… uh, in the future). No time for foreplay as this movie – like that other middle movie, THE TWO TOWERS – is a continuance, and expects us to know our wood elves from our cave trolls. Consequently, there is barely time for characterization, as the action sequences pile on top of us like wood elves and cave trolls.

Director Peter Jackson continues his epic fairy tale with THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, the second part of a trilogy of films crafted around J.R.R. Tolkien’s small book, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Once again, it’s a monumental imagining of a fantasy world that has, up to now, only been envisioned dimly in cartoons. Jackson unveils his glorious, authentic realization of a mythic world – and it makes me wonder how many hugs some people missed as children when they refuse to accept this wondrous filmic escapism for what it is, and nag nag nag that it’s  “not like the book” and nitpick esoteric minutiae.As John Wayne once said, “No one should go to the movies unless they believe in heroes.” And special effects.

And since when have books been so sacred to you people, who would rather toggle a first-person shooter than sit in the sunlight, open a thing with pages and drink in its wonder? Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro (yes, that guy) have departed from Tolkien’s words considerably, but unlike some hubristic cave trolls who deign to rewrite Stephen King or Philip K. Dick, Jackson has transmorphed Tolkien’s 1930’s sensibility for a 21st century audience. His “dramatic license” keeps the tale kinetic, entertaining and – sexy.

As Liv Tyler balanced out the swimming testosterone in the LOTR series, here the sausage-fest is mitigated by the sunsparkle of Evangeline Lilly as Elf Tauriel, the most beautiful woman on Earth in this epoch (either that, or I’m looking at Orlando Bloom). Battle dynamism, magnificent bow-and-dagger choreography, sweeping arcs of dying Orcs, sex-on-the-hoof killing machine, tresses like fountains of chocolate cascading waterfall over leaf-green shoulders, opaline eyes, aquiline nose, cheekbones like battle daggers – and look! She has Steven Tyler’s lips!

Tolkien was a master tale-teller, but a product of his time, paying little pc attention to the raging homoerotic overtones of his man-quests, so Tauriel is pure invention from one of the master tale-tellers of our time.

And with Tauriel comes – Legolas! We are home again, as Orlando Bloom reprises his role as Elfin archer and Aragorn’s love interest from the LOTR movies. At one point, Legolas asks a Dwarf about an amulet that he carries, “And who is that?” The Dwarf answers, “My son, Gimli” (who, of course, would become grudging battle compatriot of Legolas in the RINGS trilogy, and the third side in the love-triangle between Aragorn and Legolas).

Dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner), voted Middle Earth People Magazine’s Sexiest Dwarf Alive, channels David Cassidy so much that Tauriel’s ears get pointier for him – but she’s Legolas’s lass! Not to worry, parents, as this love triangle is barely consummated with a few glances and spoken words between the three, rather than Legolas busting in on Tauriel and Kili doing it cave troll style. Later, Kili, though injured, shows he still got game, when Tauriel fights through Orcs to be at his side and cure him, saying to her in a delirious whisper, “You can’t be her – she walks a thousand miles away in starlight…” (Chicks – they’ll believe aything!) As his fingers cautiously intertwine with hers, “Do you think she could have loved me?” By now her little Elf-knickers have greened many times over, as she looks down at him – at us –  offering a tentative smile… it’s such a “moment” that it woke up my cave troll.

Gandalf is SUCH a badass!

After warding off Orc attacks from the Villain From The Previous Movie (Azog, a CGI bovver boy with magnificent trapezius), Gandalf tells Thorin to summon a meeting between the Seven Dwarf Kingdoms – waitaminute, are they having a laugh? You mean Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs own some kingdoms? No, dummy, seven Dwarf kingdoms! Oh, you mean seven teeny tiny kingdoms?… No, normal-sized kingdoms populated with Dwarfs! Uh, then how do the Dwarfs reach the doorknobs?…

”Let’s see what’s behind the door marked Dragon Ballz.”

Gandalf leaves the Dwarfs and Bilbo at the edge of Mirkwood Forest, to go do some other wizarding things, like washing his burlap robe before it starts standing up by itself without magic, entreating them, “Do not leave the path or you will never find it again.” After leaving the path and finding it again, they are captured by the Elves. Oh, my love thrums for those tresses like fountains cascading waterfall over leaf-green shoulders, opaline eyes, aquiline nose, cheekbones like battle daggers – wait, that’s Legolas’s father, Thranduil (Lee Pace).

Meanwhile, Gandalf is storming a haunted castle on his lonesome, with minimal help from that wizard with the jizz in his hair, Radagast (Sylvester McCoy). The evil entity Sauron appears to him, looking like the Dio devil from Holy Diver, and Gandalf engages in magic battle like the Lord of Badass that he is.

Escape from the blond beauties, the Dwarfs smuggle themselves into Laketown, via a handsome ferryman named Bard (Luke Evans, Zeus in IMMORTALS), where they meet the crusty Stephen Fry in an eccentric performance as the despot king.

Like TWO TOWERS, DESOLATION splits our heroes into three factions: the Dwarfs and Bilbo at Lonely Mountain, Dwarfs and Elves at Laketown (where it is implied that only Bard has the means to destroy the impending Dragon), and Gandalf’s wizarding solo tour.

At this point, some of the critique against DESOLATION OF SMAUG gains weight: LORD OF THE RINGS was an epic tale because nothing less than the future of Middle Earth was at stake; THE HOBBIT is being made into an epic tale, even though all that’s at stake is one Lonely Mountain. And right about the third act, we start to feel the breadth of the tale not matching the stakes. For example, why are the Orcs still obsessively pursuing the Dwarfs? Why is Legolas obsessively pursuing the Orcs? Why is Gandalf badassing about by himself? And why isn’t Kili going cave troll on Tauriel?

And if the Dwarfs fail in their quest, well, it’s just a few Dwarfs failing to take back their literal mountain of gold coins and jewelry. Huh, not so much empathetic support now for these Wall Street pricks, I’ll wager. Thorin even does a Mitt Romney and starts treating Bilbo like the 47%, as if Bilbo owes it to the Dwarfs to sneak into the gold chamber and grab their Arkenstone (for a reason yet to be established by logic or physics).

Another irksome aspect is all the action sequences where each Dwarf is as adept as a superspy. During the barrel ride, Orcs come blazing at them from all sides, yet all these faceless glorified extras display a killing proficiency that rivals Tom Cruise in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II – even Bombur the fatty-fatty-boomsticks! (Okay, maybe they’re well trained, but when they’re all running from danger in a group, they all run at the same speed, even the fatty-fatty-boomsticks! Is Middle Earth gravity different from Earth’s? When they all fall from a great height, not only are none of them hurt, but you would think that Bombur’s obesity would affect him more adversely than the rest, but no, he gets up just as quickly as the others and keeps running!) These action scenes – though excellently choreographed, especially the inspiring killing skills of the Elves – have to be this outlandish because they are couched in this supposed “epic” – but we’ve just discerned the overarching tale itself as not really that epic, so in the end the action scenes are another dissonant chord in the movie’s tone.

But this is why THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG shines like a cerulean Arkenstone amongst a sea of blood gold:

The One Ring [insert Howard Shore’s eerily hypnotic Ring theme that calms us, yet scares us, that seduces yet repulses, that sings high in our temples, yet my precious… my preciousssssss….].

The effect of the Ring features heavily in this episode; the fingerband of gold with the power to turn its wearer invisible that Bilbo found in the Goblin cave (and that he keeps secret from everyone) is starting to affect his psyche. The more he uses it, the more adverse its effect on him, never more artfully rendered than in one startling moment, when he pulls the Ring off his finger, becomes visible again, and has to clap his hand over his mouth in terror to stop himself from screaming. That one second is what this movie was made for; Martin Freeman’s acting chops could rise no higher, wrenching a look of brain-damaging horror and confusion across his face as his panicked eyes regard the “wrongness” of The Ring.

Smaug the Dragon – that’s what you’ve been waiting for, right? After that sensational giant dragon at the end of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, Smaug better be ultra-cosmo! We know one thing about him – he’s got a gold fetish, covering himself completely in it like Scrooge McDuck. Visually, Smaug is untouchable – WETA Digital have outdone themselves – but psychologically, well, he doesn’t scare me. Because he speaks English. Like Benedict Cumberbatch. This is not Jackson’s fault, as Smaug was given dialogue by Tolkien, but when will fantasy writers realize that when animals can speak, it makes them LESS scary. Because they can be reasoned with. That’s why the dragon in HOW TO TRAIN was actually scarier. It was a dumb animal. We are much more terrified of those things that cannot communicate in any human way, that are so animalistic their small brains simply conjure survival instincts, with no room for rational thought or communication – you know, Republicans.

The end frames are a transposition of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s reaction to unleashing the power of the atomic bomb, as the Dragon Smaug is “unleashed” by the Dwarfs and Bilbo, flying toward Laketown to fulfill the prophecy of a Lake of Fire, intoning, “I am death!” (“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” Bhagavad Gita). And Bilbo looks upon the retreating Dragon, bereft, and echoes Oppenheimer’s next thought: “What have we done?” Crash to black.

Escape into DESOLATION. Your cave troll will thank you.

END

Back and There – Again…

Swooping over mountainscapes aglow with ice, through subterranean caverns ahowl with goblin revelry, over battlefields strewn with armored death, through the living forests of Mirkwood and the majestic spires of Rivendell… damn, it took me a long time to get to the theater!

The epic journey begins; the prequels, if you will, to THE LORD OF THE RINGS (2001). Genius director Peter Jackson, who brought us the RINGS trilogy in rainbow mayhem, now helms THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (from J.R.R. Tolkien‘s 1937 book The Hobbit, or There and Back Again), once again taking the stone-masoned words of Tolkien and amplifying them in sound and vision, with the soul of a necromancer, the magic of a wizard, and the balls of a balrog.

THE HOBBIT opens in Middle Earth, with Bilbo Baggins in his hobbit-hole in Bag End, Hobbiton, writing in his diary. A suitably calm introduction; also welcoming, reassuring, as we see that Bilbo is – Ian Holm. Then into the room walks Elijah Wood as Frodo! Oh, frabjous day! We are Home. Immediately charmed, creating continuity, a sense of returning to the beloved embrace of a world we left 10 years ago, that we missed like drunken lovers.

“My dear Frodo, you asked me once if I had told you everything there was to know about my adventures. Well, I can honestly say I’ve told you the truth, though I may not have told you all of it…”

While old Bilbo recounts his adventures in voiceover, in flashback we meet young Bilbo (Martin Freeman), as wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) enlists his aid to accompany a troupe of 13 Dwarfs led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) to reclaim their homeland Erebor from the Dragon Smaug; hiring Bilbo as a “burglar” because Smaug knows the smell of Dwarf but will apparently be confused by the smell of Hobbit. A big chance to take with a monster the size of a football stadium. (We are only granted visual snippets of Smaug, his full fiery fury no doubt awaiting revelation in Jackson’s next installment THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, slated for 2013.)

With his decision to make three movies from one small book, I worried that Jackson (and co-writers Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens) would pad the films with every single poem and arcane song and afterthought from Tolkien’s Appendices. When we hear two Dwarfish songs within the first ten minutes, that doesn’t bode well. If this kept going, I thought maybe I’d sneak into SKYFALL instead…

A fish-out-of-water tale, a chase movie, a quest for home, a redemption tale, a revenge and bromance all in one. Layered like Farrah Fawcett’s hair from the ’70s. With thankfully no more singing! Awe-inspiring sights to behold at every turn; not only the imaginative dressing and CGI of the massive 360-degree sets (Mirkwood, the capacious Goblin Hall, Rivendell), the raw wilds of New Zealand thrum and shimmer as living coruscating backdrop (the location scout really deserves some extra cookies). The astonishing creatures: Stone Trolls (one dumbass comment away from being the Three-Headed Knight in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL), the unholy Orc Azog (Manu Bennett), whose arm was claimed by Thorin; the sleeker-designed Wargs in a harrowing chase across undulating plains (magnificent scope and planning); eccentric Wizard Radagast (Sylvester McCoy – is that birdshit in his hair or dried jizz?); the bloated Goblin King (Barry Humphries) with a scrotum where his triple chin should be; the teasier-sleazier Gollum, one lisp away from being Jarjar Binks (Andy Serkis only does one scene as Gollum – from the chapter Riddles In The Dark – with even more sensors on his face to produce a more expressive gangrel creature than ever before; also employed by Jackson as the 2nd Unit director! “It wantses Action!” “It wantses Cut!” “Check the gateses.” “That’s a wraps, Precious!”)

Every detail breathtaking, every battle nail-biting, every stabbing scrotum-shriveling.

Of course, to construct a tale so action-packed compelling, it must necessarily become one long succession of “out of the frying pan, into the fire” (the title of Chapter 6 in The Hobbit), and thus one deus ex machina after another, as our heroes are pulled from, carried away from, fall out from under, or merely find a path to run away from, imminent death. The most annoying of these deus exes is – as in RETURN OF THE KING – the Eagles, Gandalf’s ever-vigilant big birdie pals. Whenever he’s in a jam, Gandalf asks a moth to summon them and sure enough they arrive, and easily un-jam Gandalf with their size and power. They can take out orcs, wargs and Nazgul fer cryin’ out loud – and when we ask the sensible question of why they don’t just fly our heroes to their destinations, we get apologist explanations like, “The Eagles are not slaves; they are a proud race and cannot be told what to do blah blah…” Well, why turn up at all? Hey Eagles, you know that Gandalf is always doing something for the good of Middle Earth, which means it would help you too, right? Why not help him by hanging around? You got better eagle-y things to do than saving your own eyries? Screee, my ass!

Poffy Baggins

Not only do Holm and Wood make cameos, but also any actor required to reprise their roles from LORD OF THE RINGS: Elf Hugo Weaving as the sweet transvestite Elrond, Christopher Lee as the white mummy Saruman, and svelte elven Cate Blanchett bringing her estrogen as Galadriel, the only woman in the cast, to balance out the dwarf sausage-fest.

One of the best things Tolkien did was write about these mythical creatures as warriors. Whereas our image of Dwarfs and Elves have been skewed by Snow White’s impotent bedwetters and Santa’s communist workforce, Peter Jackson took Tolkien’s imagery and elevated it to the best medieval hand-to-hand battle scenes in film today. Real warriors, real battle, as rabid as anything from RINGS, from beings which had the rep for being cutesy sprites and lemonheads. Revel in the man-chest of Dwalin (Graham McTavish), the ferocity of Oin (John Callen) and Gloin (Peter Hambleton), the understanding of Bofur (James Nesbitt)… And there’s Kili the bowman (Aidan Turner) channeling David Cassidy – some stunt casting For The Laydayz!

As much action that blazes across the digital magicscape (accompanied by Howard Shore‘s mystical, biblical, cosmo themes), Peter Jackson brilliantly balances poignancy and introspection: As invisible Bilbo aims to take off Gollum’s head in a sword-stroke, he sees the desolation in the creature’s eyes – as we all do in one tear-jerking moment – and spares him; when the Dwarfs heckle Bilbo about yearning for home and why he rejoined their sausage-fest when he had the chance to leave the quest, he unflinchingly replies, “Yes, I miss home and everything in it, but I have a home. And you don’t. And I will help you take it back if I can.”

Martin Freeman brings his bemused, slightly jumpy manner to Bilbo Baggins; it’s Tim Canterbury from THE OFFICE (2001) in Middle Earth! Nonetheless, it fits him like a vest of Mithril. Though he starts the adventure by channeling Ian Holm, he becomes very much his own Hobbit by the time he gives that touching monologue above. By which I mean, he becomes Tim Canterbury.

Yes, the film downplays Bilbo’s avarice in seeking his 1/14th share of the treasure; it seems like he is ALL ABOUT helping his fellow woodland creatures – but then we see how he secretly guards the Magic Ring he just found (complete with its own musical theme), how he inadvertently realized it made him invisible when worn…

With a running time of nearly three hours, we hardly notice. Before we know it, the Eagles have deposited our heroes on a lonely escarpment overlooking the 100 miles remaining to their destination, and flown off to do more important Eagle-y things. For why they couldn’t have simply flown them the rest of the way in a few minutes, see above excuse. And our heroes gaze out over the misty miles and see the sequel in post-production.

Unlike George Lucas, Peter Jackson has triumphed with this first prequel. HOBBIT aficionados will no doubt take minor issue with some filmic liberties (Azog, who does not appear in the book, becomes the villain device here, the relentless pursuer of Thorin, who must stand up to him or die trying; for dramatic purposes, the story arc centers around Thorin reconciling with Bilbo in man-appreciation), but the rest of you Shire-folk will marvel at this filmmaking juggernaut. You will gasp, you will laugh, you will weep, you will dance with chocolate in your hair. You will taste the soul of a necromancer, the magic of a wizard, and the balls of a balrog.

END

He’s a Fighter, Not a Lover.

Remember when we were kids and the image of a sixty-year-old man was a white-haired fogey with a cane and wobbling knees, using an ear-trumpet and calling everyone “sonny”?

Sylvester Stallone is 62 years old. Black hair below the collar, stampedes like a buffalo, fires a 120-pound 50-calibre machine-gun with the kick of a Mack truck – and built like a brick shithouse freight train.

Oh, and he’s Rambo. In RAMBO.

Bemusing to think that this symbol of virile youth, synonymous with bringing down the thunder on the establishment, is now an elder statesman telling us “nothing does change.”

John Rambo is eking out a quiet life trapping snakes in Thailand when stupid white missionaries (led by Paul Schulze and Julie Benz) cajole him into boating them upriver into strife-torn Burma. It is quite obvious Rambo is convinced into this deluded venture by the blondness of Benz, but in his stunted emotional state, cannot express it in any way other than to FIGHT for her. Schulze asks her why she keeps talking to him. Well, maybe cos he’s built like a brick shithouse and can do her for hours, unlike you, you Missionary-Position Missionary.

Against Rambo’s advice, they go, of course. Imprisoned by Burmese military – of course. Guess who comes to the rescue? Of course.

Plot is as simple and illogical as the RAMBO oeuvre we’ve come to love and hate, but there is a disturbing added element to the 2000’s Johnny Rambo.

Poffbo

Rambo, instead of being recalcitrant about his SAS killing prowess (as he was in RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and RAMBO III) now embraces it and admits to himself he enjoys being a war machine. While his initial hesitance to take the missionaries into hell prompts a belief that Poor Peacenik Rambo has been dragged into someone else’s war yet again, Rambo actually narrates that his nature is to seek out conflict because that is how he is built; to seek a Warrior’s death – as opposed to fading far from the fray. Due to our inculcation that Rambo is a “hero” and heroes shouldn’t enjoy war, it takes a long time to sink in that this Rambo fella is actually as shallow as we’ve always joked about him over the last 25 years!

It’s safe to say we all know Rambo, if not the man himself, then at least the character, the icon; as a touchstone, a cultural reference that has insinuated itself into our vernacular. It is hard to believe that before 1982’s FIRST BLOOD, there must have been another reference for uber-tough guys who could burn you down in a heartbeat and take on anyone or anything; maybe it was Tarzan or Samson – whoever it was, that persona was effectively sidelined by Rambo, for the simple fact that media promulgation at this point in history is such a gluttonous bloat.

But the “ideal” of Rambo has always been someone who doesn’t take shit (as in FIRST BLOOD), or someone who, against all odds, pulls through with his manly might (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II), or just plain body oil extravaganza (RAMBO III). But in RAMBO, we find out he is not a nice person. A woman’s pink bits might twitch for this man, but only as a locomotive love-machine for a one-night slam, not as someone to “love” or raise kids with, or even as a provider or boyfriend showpiece. He is pure – but that is not a compliment. After all those years in obscure jungles trying to “find himself,” in RAMBO, he does – the “ideal” of Rambo is revealed as pure war and death.

As writer-director, Mr. Stallone is fully to blame for the absolutely nonsensical plot: he pounds it into us how ruthless, godless and inhumane the Burma military is; scenes of military grunts sadistically making prisoners run across rice paddies where they’ve arbitrarily thrown mines, betting on who will make it across or be blown to bits; we witness a commander (Maung Maung Khin – a real-life survivor of the Burmese military) slaughtering a village, “If you ask the Rebels for help, I will cut out your tongues! If you go against me, I will feed you your intestines!”; he shows us brutal beheadings and arm-loppings and rapes… and then expects us to swallow that this same bloodthirsty military would decimate a village, killing even the dogs – and let all the White American Missionaries live, taking them prisoner – even though none of them is important in the LEAST politically, diplomatically or morally. And then to further insult us when Rambo liberates the white prisoners and the whole Burmese army chases them for the purpose of… uh, recapturing them and penning them next to pigs again, I guess – (?) We can rest assured not one of the guys playing Burmese officers went up to director Stallone and said, “Uh, Mr. Lambo, what my motivation?”

Among the White Americans is Sarah (Benz), a clean-smelling, smooth, flat-bellied, luscious blond. If we – as normal red-blooded guys, leading normal sex lives with girlfriends, wives, mistresses and the odd groupie – are still thinking of touching the White Chick in all her woman-places, think of what should be going through the heads of the depraved Burmese army swine. Hardened killer soldiers (who rape and kill their countryfolk as easy as breathing) confronted with a HOT BLONDE never lay a finger on her for all the days she is in her pig-pen prison!

You lost me at the corner of Amish and Eunuch, when you played the White Hollywood Actor card.

The commander constantly paces and gives Sarah contemptuous meaningful looks through the bamboo bars – but what is he doing? Working up the nerve to ask her for a date? She is not a dignitary or diplomat; not the least bit important – she is a missionary, an expendable nobody, so there is absolutely no tactical, political or moral reason not to rape her continually until the end credits roll. This negligence is almost as infuriating as the film-makers’ faux-concern over Burma’s real life genocide plight.

So Rambo and a clutch of mercenaries infiltrate the jungle prison and liberate ALL the White prisoners and as many Burmese women as they can (who are busy getting gang-raped – unlike their White American counterpart).

Somewhere along the way, Rambo gets to philosophize, “Live for nothing or die for something.” Embarrassed? I know I am. Ironic that these words come from such a self-admitted misanthrope, who proves his inherent distaste for Mankind in a climactic shootout scene that makes THE WILD BUNCH look like HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL.

When Rambo plants a claymore mine on a defunct WWII Tall Boy bomb, the explosion is like Oppenheimer’s atomic mushroom cloud – Rambo had reached his apex; as Robert Oppenheimer said when he saw his first atomic bomb tested: “Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.” (The test director replied to Oppenheimer’s poetic citing of the Bhagavad Gita with a more realistic claim: “Now we are all sons of bitches.”)

Then the shooting starts. Rambo’s tree-limb-thewed arms entwined in loving ecstasy with a 50-calibre machine gun, bodies splattering and smattering, ripping torsos from midriffs, limbs from torsos, heads severed from spinal cords, nonstop cascade of thudda-thudda-thudda bullets slamming, searing, bombarding, intestines, gushing gouts of arterial red fountains, foliage decimated, vehicles sprayed vermillion with carnage; shards of flesh dangling, pieces of shattered bone and brain smudging the camera lens and on and on and on and on and on and on… and on.

It is amazing how much startling violence this movie is chocked with and still gets away with an R rating. The film-makers were actually shocked that they avoided an NC-17 with such realistic gore, but they forget the key ingredient in the MPAA’s hypocritical criteria: you can have as much graphic murder as you want – let’s see those shredded skulls and shinbones sticking out of flesh and heads on spikes – just don’t touch the White Woman’s Vagina or we’ll ban you sick horrible perverts!

On the DVD Extras, Stallone regrets deleting a “preachy” scene: in that direct soldier’s way of mumbling half-intelligibly, he speaks Truth: “War is in this country’s blood and peace is an accident… but it’s okay cos you’re killing for your country. But it ain’t your country who’s asking – it’s the guys up top who want it. Old men start it. Young men fight it. Nobody wins. Everybody in the middle dies…”

All the Missionaries’ platitudes about helping people and believing in something other than yourself were all proven horseshit, as their presence did NOT help, but only exacerbated the military’s anger, spurring them into a fiercer rage to go Sam Peckinpah on them. When Rambo warned them they wouldn’t change anything – he was right! If they had kept their noses out of Burma (or Myanmar, as the junta have renamed it), LESS people would have died.

Just because these Missionaries have “good intentions” doesn’t mean they have any sense; trying to breach a political problem from exactly the wrong end of the mule. Instead of infiltrating government or congress in order to stick their unwelcome noses into the internal problems of a foreign country, they try to curb the Burmese-Karen civil war by praising Jesus and bringing penicillin to a handful of people who are going to die in the next raid.

When Rambo gets on the 50-calibre, joyously slicing military bodies in half, at least the mercs behave like mercs and fight back ferociously; they don’t sit by idly or cry like lady-boys like most B-Listers in these movies – Stallone (as director/writer) allowing them their own Rambo-moments in the sun.

After clinging to that 50-calibre way past the time any mortal could possibly wield it without their flesh being shucked off their bones, Rambo at last brings peace to Burma by killing everyone. With his shirt ON the whole time!

Well, he did win Viet Nam in 1985, beat Communism in ’88. How hard could Burma be? He surveys the scene with a heavy heart as the music swells, then walks off, as char-blackened and sweaty as one of Bruce Willis’s t-shirts in DIE HARD. His next assignment, we presume, must be Darfur.

And just when we think it’s safe to go trekking in the jungle without being cut down by howling junta crossfire, we hear RAMBO V is in pre-production. As Stallone says at the conclusion of FIRST BLOOD: “Nothing is over! Nothing! You don’t just turn it off! Heroes ououdaw wohhaah red ’58 Chevy convertible gonna cruise till the tires fall off aoohawou this kid comes up wid a shoeshine box ouuwahou houwanhaaarr.”

More poetry from the Destroyer of Worlds…

END