Movie Review: The Expendables 3 (2014)

I feel as though no spoiler alert is necessary, as you should know what you’re getting from The Expendables franchise, if you ever had any interest in it, by now. There are no surprises. You’re getting a movie that tries to draw upon the nostalgia of action movies and actors from the past three decades. However, the action-hero movie genre should not be thought of as a homogeneous monolith. There are differences along a variety of margins.

Consider the original Die Hard. We see John McClane as quite vulnerable. Whereas other action movies have led us to perceive a bullet wound in an extremity as a minor annoyance, broken glass presents a real obstacle to McClane. We don’t see him taking on a million guys at once, but resorting to guerilla tactics due to his comparative weakness in force. Because of this, the drama is far more palpable and McClane seems much more heroic.

Contrast this with The Expendables 3, which contains no tension at any point. The audience is never led to feel that the protagonists are ever in any serious danger at all, despite the fact that they are routinely vastly outnumbered and outgunned. Regardless of all the “action” that occurs in the film, it makes for a rather boring experience.

Also disappointing is the missed opportunity in drawing on the potential nostalgia of the characters associated with the cast members. For example, there is a subtle reference to the character played by Antonio Banderas in Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but why not just make up some excuse to have El Mariachi in The Expendables rather than have Banderas play some generic guy?  I mean, it’s not like it would damage the plot in terms of its plausibility or cheesiness. The payoff of seeing guitar cases filled with guns or guitar cases as guns would be totally worth it. The same goes for other beloved characters like Statham’s Frank Martin. Would a story that finds a way to bring these disparate characters together make sense? Probably not. Would anyone care? Probably not. This is The Expendables, after all.

My final grief has to do with the phenomenon of the villain having ample opportunity to dispatch the good guy(s) and for no reason choosing not to. This happens multiple times in The Expendables 3. Early in the movie, the evil Mel Gibson has Rocky Balboa in his crosshairs, but chooses to wound another guy. He is able to capture most of Rocky’s team and later sets a trap that could kill Rocky and the other guys he brings to rescue them, but instead of just blowing them up, he gives them a 45 second grace period in which to disable his bomb. Why he does this, other than keeping the movie from abruptly ending, is not explained. And, in what was supposed to be the climatic showdown between Rocky and Gibson, Gibson has the ability to shoot Rocky dead but instead decides to toss his gun away in order to have a fist fight. The reason for this can’t be to see who’s the better fighter, as Rocky eventually grabs a gun and just shoots Gibson. All of this leaves one feeling as though the villain isn’t that evil (even though we’re told he did all these bad things in the past), but rather exceptionally merciful. Needless to say, this does not make for a compelling triumph over evil.

The Expendables 3 is not really satisfying in any way. It lacks creativity, plausibility, and a reason to keep watching. With Hollywood’s preference for producing tried-and-true formulas, I wouldn’t be that surprised if they tried to make another one, perhaps with an all-female cast. 

Dreamcast Review: Outtrigger (2001)

Is the world craving a new review of an old Dreamcast shooter? Thrasher sure thinks so! Join him on this journey of discovery and find out the answer to the burning question: should you play Outtrigger? The answer? Ummmm, maybe. Depends.

Outtrigger is about half Crazy Taxi (or maybe half Time Crisis) and half TimeSplitters. It's a multiplayer-focused, arena-style FPS with virtually no plot and an ever-present timer at the top of the screen. Matches last about two to three minutes and the backdrop is often little more than "Collect these coins!" or "Shoot these guys!" Wikipedia's plot summary is probably too good: "The story revolves around a counterterrorism organization called Interforce, set up in response to terrorist attacks on military research facilities." I didn't get even the faintest whiff of this story, such as it is, while playing the game.

Outtrigger's two main single-player modes, Arcade and Battle, task you with completing various training exercises and eventually missions, in which you ostensibly deal with vaguely-defined threats. Really, though, there is nothing to connect the single-player exercises and missions with anything. The Arcade and Battle modes have much more in common with Crazy Taxi's "Crazy Box" or TimeSplitters' "Challenge Mode" than anything else. Though the single-player is occasionally frustrating in spots, it can be easily completed in the course of a day. And like the Crazy Box, Outtrigger's single-player experience is seemingly designed to train players for the heart of the game, which in this case is the multiplayer.

Multiplayer matches in Outtrigger play by the same rules as the "Thief" mode in TimeSplitters 2: each kill is worth one point, while another point, rendered as a coin, can be collected by any player from the kill spot. Other than a team variation on the same thing, all multiplayer matches in the game play by the same rules. This can make for a rather repetitive experience, even with Outrigger's considerable variety of weapons and maps. Given the relatively small size of the arenas in the game, deathmatches can only realistically last for about three minutes before the map in question loses what little novelty it had in the first place. And while the multiplayer mode can be played with AI bots, many of the maps feature pits, which the AI cannot successfully navigate.

In terms of controls, Outtrigger really shows its age. Dual analog control has been a standard of console first-person shooters for a long time, and returning to the single-stick controls of the Dreamcast is difficult. Although some of the options approximate dual analog controls, none of them really come that close, and I never truly felt comfortable with the pre-set schemes. The game does allow you to switch on the fly from first-person to third-person view, which is neat at the very least, but it's hardly useful.

Like many other arcade-style games for the Dreamcast, Outtrigger is enjoyable in short bursts only. Dreamcast aficionados may want to find a copy simply for the sake of curiosity, because it is a truly strange game, but everyone else can probably find something else to play.

PS2 Review: kill.switch (2003)

I have the Wikipedia page open for kill.switch (or just Kill Switch, apparently, but I prefer the more idiotic title). I'm in need of a plot summary because the narrative of this game is opaque, and that's putting it nicely; stupid as hell is another. You play as a generic super-soldier, kind of, but not really. Actually, you play as an elusive evildoer "controlling" this super-soldier through remote neural connection telepathy or a contrivance of this kind.  You are flung about the globe on a series of random solo combat missions by your "controller" in order to create chaos and destabilize the existing global order. Between missions you are treated to a series of fantastically cheesy FMV sequences in which some lady keeps asking you to "Say my name" and eventually to save her from, I dunno, life in the simulation or the matrix or something. It's all meaningless and derivative drivel, like an undergraduate's version of Memento. And even worse, it's entirely separate and tacked on to the gameplay, and nothing you do while playing feels even remotely relevant to the narrative. You shoot things and pick up keycards and get to the exit, and that's all.

In terms of gameplay, though, kill.switch is alright. It's a straightforward cover shooter, long before that became a genre or sub-genre of its own. You hold L1 to hide behind pillars or crates (always plenty of crates lying around) and press up or over on the analog stick to poke your head out and fire off a few rounds. And unlike its goofy-ass predecessor, Winback, you can shoot while moving in kill.switch. You can also blind fire from behind cover, but it's too inaccurate to be useful. Though, while the levels are built generally built around the cover mechanic, there are a few frustratingly sticky situations and overall poor level designs. kill.switch is also alarmingly short, clocking in at four hours or so to complete for even the most meandering players. You earn nothing for completing it on any difficulty level, either. Hooray!

Technically, kill.switch is pretty neat for a PS2 game. It looks and animates very well, even though the art direction of the whole thing is pretty bland modern warfare stuff. And it sounds fine, too. kill.switch is mostly just a tech demo. It's fun to play and appeals to the senses, but it lacks depth or longevity. It's no Winback killer, in any event.

Movie Review: Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)

I was not a big fan of the previous attempt at a film adaptation of our favorite bald and bar-coded assassin in 2007's Hitman. It felt too much as though the writers were trying to develop 47 into a character quite unlike the one seen in the games. An example of this was the scene where Timothy Olyphant's Agent 47 reads a magazine article about animal mating in order to learn something about human women. It is true that 47 is not simply a rabid killing machine totally lacking conscience; we see his attempt at living a peaceful life at the beginning of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. However, this does not mean he is also attempting to settle down and have a family. That is just not him. Neither is 47 a curious adolescent trying to learn more about human sexuality. This scene simply didn't fit with the character and was written by someone seemingly unfamiliar with the games.

Fortunately, Hitman: Agent 47 improves upon the previous movie in this respect and is enjoyable for what it is. They do not attempt to engage in much character development of 47: he is an assassin, he is very good at what he does, and he was a clone bred to be a killer. (Which reminds me of another indication that the writers of the previous movie were unfamiliar with the games: there is a fight scene between 47 and other agents who happened to be ethnically diverse, which makes no sense as they are supposed to be clones.) But the improvement is only slight. It still feels like a rather generic action movie. What I would really like to see out of a Hitman film adaptation are the distinctive aspects of the series' gameplay. In other words, fewer shootouts and more creative smuggling of weapons where they are prohibited, over-the-top disguises, and elaborate assassination plots (perhaps of morbidly obese mob bosses). Hitman is (supposedly) a stealth game after all, and the films should reflect that.

Movie Review: The Transporter Refueled (2015)

My principal concern going into The Transporter Refueled was the replacement of Jason Statham with this non-Statham guy, Ed Skrein. I was right to be concerned, in a way. Skrein is truly a nothing actor. He has none of the childish charisma of Statham. Sure, things happen to him, but his reactions to them aren't particularly interesting, dramatic, or humorous. Thankfully, though, the things happening to him are much more fun than most contemporary action films. In this reboot of the series, Frank Martin (boring-ass Skrein) is busy transportin' stuff in France when his hip old man comes for a visit. Instead of bonding with his father as planned, Frank instead takes a job as a getaway driver for four mysterious women looking to rob a bank. They have plans of their own for Frank, however; his father is held hostage until Frank agrees to help them assassinate a Russian gangster.

Now, this is not a bad premise for an action film, but the first thirty minutes or so almost derail the whole thing. Most of this is attributable to the bland performance of Skrein, as he sourfaces his way through the introductory and characterization bits of Act I. It all gets much better once he is forced to take the job "offered" by the lady assassins. Refueled reminded me of the quality, middle-budget martial arts films that were staples of the Code Redd Net diet in the old Geocities days: Transporters 1 and 2, obviously, but also Jet Li's Unleashed (2005), for example. Once the exposition is finished, Refueled is blessedly short and lean, and the non-entity of Skrein is subsumed by the generally excellent fight scenes and car chases. There are several beautifully absurd action sequences in unusual spaces, such as a car chase through an airport terminal, and a precision missile dropkick delivered through a car window. The choreography is delightfully shaky-cam free, too. All this is to say that while Refueled is certainly not in the same league as Transporters 1 and 2, especially the boring stuff at the beginning, it's still a solid reminder of what action cinema can be.