bruce willis | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: The Expendables

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Darren

Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. When it was mentioned that Sly Stallone would be putting together a dream team of action movie stand-bys – Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren – our minds immediately go to a happy a place. We remember the joys of films like Rambo: First Blood or Die Hard or Total Recall. However, we forget that a great many of the films produced over that iconic era we look back to were also just plain terrible (or, at best, woefully mundane): Red Heat, Cobra, Tango and Cash, among many others. Sadly The Expendables stands more with the latter than the former. Which is a damn shame.

Sly managed a long and arduous shoot...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 1980s, action, actions movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger, bruce willis, Dolph Lundgren, eighties, Eric Roberts, expendables, film, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Movie, non-review review, review, sylvester stallone, the expendables | 4 Comments »

Die Hard and the Rule of Escalating Threat…

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Darren

Bruce Willis has started talking about Die Hard 5 (maybe that should be Die Hard 5.0, but I digress), and has suggested that the next logical step for John McClane is to save the world. Think about it. In Die Hard, he saved a building full of people – not bad, you might say. In Die Harder, he saved an entire airport and the planes in the sky – impressive, you might agree. In Die Hard With A Vengeance, he saved New York from a mad bomber – maybe a little outside of his pay grade, you’ll possible argue. In Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free and Die Hard), McClane pretty much single-handedly (because nerdy sidekicks don’t count) saved the United States of America. The remark that McClane is porbably going to save the world – while probably a bit of a joke on Willis’ part – got me thinking: is the rule of escalating threat necessarily a good thing?

More sequels, less hair...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bruce willis, die hard, die hard 4.0, john mcclane, Movies, sequels, the first law of metafictional thermodynamics, the rule of escalating threat, threats | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Unbreakable

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Darren

When people hear the name M. Night Shyamalan, a lot of different films pop into their heads. Everyone knows The Sixth Sense – most know Signs. He’s ridiculed for The Village and The Happening. The Lady in the Water slips under the radar, but that might be a good thing. What tends to get forgotten in the midst of all this is Unbreakable, which is probably the best movie that Shyamalan has directed. He’s known as something of a one-trick pony, relying on twist endings that throw his audience for a loop and – though Unbreakable contains its own novel twist in the tale – this is the one film on his filmography that doesn’t depend on that reveal. It’s a movie that stands up to the scrutiny of a second viewing answering questions and actually seeming painstakingly obvious in retrospect. It’s so good that it barely missed my list of the top 50 movies of the decade.

Holding out for a hero...

Note: As alluded above, the ending of this movie is a key part of discussion about it. Rather than splitting this post in half, I’m going to discuss it below. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a head’s up. I would make one recommendation though: don’t spoil the movie for yourself. It works better whent he audience doesn’t know quite what they are expecting. You could make the case about most movies, but I think that this movie in particular deserves to be seen sight unseen with an open mind.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bruce willis, M. Night Shyamalan, Movie, non-review review, review, samuel l. jackson, twist, unbreakable | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Surrogates

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Darren

Surrogates is a solid actioner with some great ideas, a recycled plot and an above-average director. In short, it’s quite satisfying for what it is. Perhaps beating Avatar to the punch (and certainly dealing with its core ideas in a much more interesting fashion), it imagines a future where human beings can interact in the real-world much as they interact on line at the moment. Denying genetics or lifestyle, they are able to craft a robotic body double to their own design (skin-colour, age, sex, weight, height) to send out into the world, allowing them to live via uplink. You could live your entire life without ever leaving your bedroom. It isn’t exactly a new idea in science-fiction, but it’s certainly a big idea for an action movie to tackle. Thankfully, it manages very well.