Posts Tagged ‘Sylvester Stallone’

SLY: 3 STARS. “this is Stallone’s world and we’re just visiting.”

“Sly,” a new, reverent Netflix documentary directed by Thom Zimny, is an authorized look at the life of Sylvester Stallone, through the lens of his two best known characters, resilient boxer Rocky Balboa and blunt-force object John Rambo.

The doc begins as Stallone announces he’s moving house, heading east to New York City from his longtime, opulent west coast home in search of a change of scenery and creative rebirth. As a lifetime of memories and memorabilia—the L.A. house has a truly shocking number of statues and figurines of Rocky and Rambo—is packed away, he reminisces about life, his movies and, in one of the film’s few surprises, his love of polo.

Direct and forthright, he turns on the charm to describe his hardscrabble beginnings in NYC’s Hell’s Kitchen with parents Frank and Jackie. He spends a great deal of time on his father, a complicated, abusive man who later in life became jealous of his son’s success, but, strangely, almost no time on his mother who was a celebrity in the 1980s.

That’s just one of many omissions. There’s no mention of his softcore movie “The Party at Kitty and Stud’s,” for instance, but “Sly” is not for completists. As Stallone hopscotches through his filmography, focusing on his three successful franchises, “Rocky,” “Rambo” and “The Expendables,” with little or no mention of the other 75 or so films that fill out his resume, it’s clear he has a more high-minded philosophical job to do.

The Oscar-nominated actor-writer-director-producer attempts to find common ground between his personal story of tenacity and his best-known characters. It’s hard to deny the connection between the underdog Rocky and early Sly, or John Rambo’s survival skill set and Stallone’s ability to stay relevant in Hollywood. It’s a bit of a stretch to see how “The Expendables” fits the mold, but this is Stallone’s world and we’re just visiting.

Better than the tangential links between art and artist is a scene featuring Stallone re-listening to a decades-old interview on a battered old cassette tape. “Rocky,” he says as a young man, “is a character study.” “No, it’s not,” his contemporary self says, “it’s a love story!” It’s a nice and rare moment of self-depreciation that compares and contrasts Stallone in different eras; the heady days of early fame and the more self-reflective present-day version.

More than anything, the remarkably intimate portrait of the larger-than-life Stallone is a study in star power. As he talks about his life. usually looking directly into the camera, the elusive it-factor that made and kept him a star is self-evident. “Sly” may not offer up a lot of new material, but does put a personal and entertaining spin on the familiar stories.

EXPEND4BLES: 2 ½ STARS. “if you’re not a killer, you’re just filler.”

In the world of The Expendables it’s not enough to simply kill the enemy. In their boomtastic alternate reality every kill must be overkill and accompanied by a quip to punctuate the death.

“Expend4bles,” the all-star shoot ‘em up now playing in theatres, delivers quips and kills galore, but to paraphrase Tony Jaa’s character Decha, “The more people you kill, the less joy you have.”

In the new film, CIA agent Max Drummer (Andy García) rounds up the team of elite mercenaries—wizened warriors Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), sniper Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture) and new recruits Easy Day (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), and Galan (Jacob Scipio)—to prevent terrorist Suarto Rahmat (Iko Uwais) from stealing nuclear bomb detonators from Muammar Gaddafi’s former old chemical weapons plant in Libya.

When things go sideways, Christmas becomes the expendable Expendable, kicked out of the group and replaced by his mercenary girlfriend Gina (Megan Fox) and her deadly colleague Lash (Levy Tran). As the new band of soldiers set off to curtail a conflict that could ignite World War III, Christmas does his part to bring peace on earth.

This 103-minute ode to murder, mayhem and manliness doesn’t waste any time getting to the money shot. The first blast of action in “Expend4bles” lights up the screen roughly one minute in, followed by lots of talky bits that come between the boomy bits.

The talky bits are mostly lines of dialogue that sound lifted from the “Action Movies for Dummies” guidebook—generic stuff like “This is gonna be fun,” as the bullets start to fly—with the odd nod to something deeper, like a settling of accounts for one’s past. When we first meet Decha, for instance, he’s a former warrior, a reformed man of violence. But his peaceful ways don’t last long, because in “The Expendables” if you’re not a killer, you’re just filler.

If you’ve seen the other movies in the franchise, you already know what to expect; lots of R-rated violence, some dodgy CGI and a body count that would make John Wick blush. But this instalment feels different, less an homage to the days when Stallone and Schwarzenegger (who sat out this chapter) were blockbuster action stars and more a collection of familiar faces cut loose in a Jason “man-on-a-mission” Statham video game. It’s the Statham Show, which dissipates the camaraderie that gave the first movies a cohesive vibe.

By the time the end credits roll the thrill is gone. Despite its all-star cast, action sequences and kill ratio, “Expend4bles” proves Decha’s, “The more people you kill, the less joy you have” philosophy correct. On their fourth time out, the Expendables seems more expendable than ever.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3: 3 ½ STARS. “has a genuine sweetness.”

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the new sci fi action comedy from director James Gunn, brings the hip needle drops, off-kilter humor and mismatched, misfit superheroes you expect, but adds in unexpectedly heart tugging sentiments about family, second chances and personal growth.

The action begins on a downbeat note. Rocket (Bradley Cooper), the smart mouthed genetically engineered racoon, is feeling down, wallowing in the maudlin sounds of Radiohead’s “Creep.”

Star-Lord, a.k.a. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is using booze to grapple with the change in his girlfriend Gamora (Zoe Saldaña). She was killed by Thanos, but, courtesy of an alternate timeline, a version of her returned, but different, with no memory of her adventures with the Guardians or her love affair with Quill. “I’ll tell you something,” he says. “I’m Star-Lord. I formed the Guardians. Met a girl, fell in love, and that girl died. But then she came back. Came back a total d**k.”

Their world is given a shake and bake by caped supervillain Adam Warlock (Will Poulter). He is a powerful cosmic entity, with a third eye jewel embedded in his forehead, working with the man responsible for creating Rocket’s unique genetic makeup, a Dr. Moreau type known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). The ultimate plan is to kidnap and study Rocket to use the chatty racoon as the basis to sidestep the evolutionary process and create more hybrid species. “My sacred mission is to create the perfect society,” he says.

During the invasion, Rocket is severely injured, revealing to his co-Guardians—Star-Lord, Nebula (Karen Gillen), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (the voice of Vin Diesel) and Gamora—the extent of his genetic modifications.

As the racoon wavers between life and death, the film cleaves into two parts, Rocket’s origin story and the rescue mission to save his life. “Are you ready for one last ride?” asks Peter.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” succumbs to the usual superhero movie pitfalls. By the time the end credits roll, it has become a loud, slightly over-long orgy of CGI, but James Gunn brings something most other superhero movies don’t have.

Within the wham-bam action overload is a genuine sweetness that overrides the bombastic action. Under his watch the movies provide the expected wild ride while grounding the otherworldly action with poignant relationship drama. These movies are about logical, not necessarily biological, families, and that connection, above all else, is what makes these movies so effective.

If Gunn (and Bautista) can make a character named Drax the Destroyer loveable, then anything is possible.

SAMARITAN: 2 ½ STARS. “the kind of superhero flick you’d find at Blockbuster”

There was a time when, to be a hero, all Sylvester Stallone had to do was go a few rounds with Ivan Drago.

How times have changed.

In “Samaritan,” Stallone is a hero of the super variety. He has exceptional strength, is able to jump through walls, bound over lakes of fire and absorb high octane gun fire.

He even has a catchphrase, “Have a blast,” but Marvel, this ain’t.

“Samaritan” is the kind of off-brand superhero flick that used to decorate the shelves at Blockbuster. These days, you’ll find it streaming on Amazon Prime.

Set in Granite City, the movie takes place twenty-five years after the city’s protector, Samaritan, disappeared in the wake of the fight with his enemy Nemesis, opening the door for baddies like Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), who could pass for “Lost Boys” era Kiefer Sutherland, and his gang of ultraviolent goons to take over.

Imagine “The Warriors” but with masked heroes and supervillains.

Unemployment and poverty are on the rise. “It’s only a matter of time until the city implodes,” screams one newscast.

Granite City is also home to teenager Sam (Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton), described by his single mom (Dascha Polanco) as “good, but a little lost.” Sam is obsessed with the story of Samaritan, and is convinced his neighbor, a garbage man named Joe Smith (Stallone), is the superhero in hiding.

Joe denies any connection to the missing crime fighter. “Samaritan is dead,” he grunts. “I just pick up garbage.” But when Sam witnesses Joe survive almost getting snapped in half by a brutal car attack, he is more convinced than ever that his neighbour has special powers.

Over time a father-son bond develops between them and when Cyrus calls for a violent revolution—actually just rioting and looting—Sam pleads with Joe, “You’re the only one who can help.”

Question is, will Joe be able to clean the streets of crime or just pick up trash?

“Samaritan” has a distinct early 90s vibe. There is an undeniable nostalgic rush to the movie’s low-tech effects, villains who cackle with glee at every evil deed and city on the edge vibe. It’s the stuff of George H. W. Bush era direct to video flicks and put me in the mind of the days when I watched movies, rented for a day or two, on rickety old videotapes.

That being aid, “Samaritan” is set-your-expectations-low enjoyable. It is a hoot to hear Stallone explain the biometrics of his superhero body, and even as a lumbering superhero who eats his morning cereal with apple juice, and is afraid to jump off a building out of concern for his knees, the man formerly known as Rocky is a fun watch.

BOOZE AND REVIEWS: THE PERFECT COCKTAIL TO ENJOY WITH “THE SUICIDE SQUAD”

I make the perfect cocktail to enjoy while watching Harley Quinn, Bloodsport and Peacemaker rampage through “The Suicide Squad.” Have a drink and a think about the movie with me!

Watch the whole thing HERE!

THE SUICIDE SQUAD: 3 ½ STARS. “equal parts silly and serious.”

The difference between the 2017 “Suicide Squad” film starring Will Smith and this weekend’s sequel, “The Suicide Squad,” goes far beyond adding the definite article to the title. I accused the first film of “trying to echo the very movies it should be an antidote to.” You know, the self-important, self-absorbed superhero blockbusters that forgot to unpack the fun along with the story. “The Suicide Squad,” now playing in theatres, has some social commentary but it doesn’t forget the fun. Or the violence, daddy issues or anthropomorphic weasel.

There’s a lot happening in “The Suicide Squad.”

At the beginning of the non-stop 132-minute rollercoaster ride, cold-blooded government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) offers a selection of the world’s worst criminals a deal. the Join Task Force X, a.k.a. the Suicide Squad, work for her and, and in exchange she’ll reduce their sentences at the notorious Belle Reve prison. Stray outside the job, however, and a chip inserted at the base of their skull will be detonated, ending the mission forever.

Signing on for the mission to invade the (fictional) South American republic of Corto Maltese and steal and destroy a piece of alien technology from evil scientist The Thinker (Peter Capaldi), are a motley crew of supervillains.

There’s assassin Bloodsport (Idris Elba), patriotic vigilante Peacemaker (John Cena) who will kill anything or anyone in the name of peace, the neurotic “experiment gone wrong” Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), the dumb-as-a-stump fish-human hybrid Prince Nanaue (Sylvester Stallone), the rodent loving thief Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), the unhinged Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), crazed criminal and former psychiatrist Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and field leader Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman).

Add to that TDK (Nathan Fillion), Weasel (Sean Gunn), Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Javelin (Flula Borg), Mongal (Mayling Ng) and Savant (Michael Rooker), and you have a dysfunctional “Brady Bunch” charged with saving the world, if a giant, telepathic alien starfish doesn’t get them first.

“The Suicide Squad” has many of the same features as a Marvel movie. The world is at stake, there’s an alien lifeform causing trouble, there’s villains and a team of outsiders with special skills who fight back. They may look the same on paper, and share blockbuster budgets, but DCEU’s “The Suicide Squad” is seedier; a sister from a different mister.

The kills are squishier and bloodier than anything seen in “The Avengers.” The sense of humour is more juvenile than “Thor: Ragnarok” and you’re not likely to find a cute rat with a backpack in “Black Widow.”

James Gunn has not forgotten his schlocky Troma Films roots. His resume includes a screenwriting credit for “Tromeo and Juliet,” and “The Suicide Squad” pays homage to “The Toxic Avenger.” That sensibility helps define the new Squad movie’s most memorable bits but Gunn also tempers the gross stuff with a certain kind of sweetness and some not-so-subtle social commentary.

When the characters aren’t in motion, kicking, shooting, punching, gouging or stabbing, they often engage in character work, explaining how and why life pushed them toward joining this unorthodox team. The stories are dysfunctional—being trapped in a box with live, hungry rats is the stuff of nightmares—but they create a bond between the Squad that is unexpected in a movie that, in the beginning anyway, values brutality more than empathy.

Built into the story of an invasion of another country are questions of US foreign policy and military integrity. Casting the likable John Cena as Peacemaker, a “hero” willing to do anything to protect his perceived ideology, is subversively brilliant. When one Squad member snarls, “Peacemaker… what a joke,” the line drips with meaning.

But don’t get the idea that “The Suicide Squad” has fallen prey to the foibles of the self-serious 2017 version. Gunn brings enough fun and absurd action to make the sonic overload of the second kick at the can equal parts silly and serious.

CREED II: 4 STARS. “another puzzle piece in the feel-good ‘Rocky’ saga.”

Whoever said history never repeats didn’t work in Hollywood. Remakes and reboots have taken over theatres, recycling ideas and characters in what can sometimes feel like a continuous case of déjà vu. This week we have “Creed II” a sequel to a reboot, which is also a remake of sorts of a film made before star Michael B. Jordan was even born.

When we last saw Adonis Creed (Jordan) he was a young man who never knew his dad, former world champion boxer Apollo Creed. He did, however, inherit the old man’s love of boxing and much of his skill. Working with his dad’s old friend Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to get into ring-ready shape he, like his father before him, wins the respect of the boxing world.

In the new film he finds confronted by his father’s legacy in the form of Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of the man who killed Apollo in the ring decades ago.

The year was 1985. Apollo Creed came out of a five-year retirement to give Soviet Olympic boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) a good old-fashioned American pummelling. Instead, with Rocky in his corner, Apollo is beaten senseless by the 6 foot 5 inch steroid-enhanced Russian. Just as Rocky drops the towel to end the fight Drago delivers the coup de grâce, a fatal blow that kills Apollo in centre ring. Determined to avenge Apollo’s death Rocky squares off with Drago in the Soviet Union in a Christmas season match. Journeyman Rocky shocks the world by winning, beating the statuesque Eastern Bloc fighter by knockout.

Flash forward to “Creed II.” The sting of that Reagan-era loss still bothers Drago (Lundgren, who else?). Shaping his son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) into a lean, mean fighting machine. Drago seeks to vicariously regain honour in the ring. “In Russia,”
Drago says, “no one will touch the Drago name. Everything changed that night.”

Father and son challenge Adonis, now the world heavyweight champion, to a match. “My son will break your biy,” Drago says, taunting Rocky. Despite Rocky’s warnings Adonis accepts the fight, looking for vengeance for a man he never knew. The showdown between the duelling sons brings into focus the shared legacy of the four men, Adonis, Viktor, Drago and Rocky.

“Creed II” isn’t really a movie about boxing. There are two brutal fight scenes but narratively this is about finding a sense of purpose, inside and outside of the ring. It’s about the why rather than the how. On that score it works. Director Steven Caple Jr. focuses on the characters allowing us to get to know them better, or in the case of Rocky and Drago, get reacquainted with them.

The film takes its time setting up the relationships before getting into the more traditional “Rocky” tropes, ie: unconventional but effective training methods and a rousing finale, complete with a riff on Bill Conti’s rousing “Rocky” theme song “Gonna Fly Now.”

This study of fathers and sons, of vengeance and reputation is really a look at brittle masculinity. These characters are all broken somehow, looking for something they are unlikely to find in the ring. “Why do you fight?” Rocky asks Adonis several times, sending him off on an introspective journey that leads him back to where his quest began, his father.

“Creed II” reverberates with the echoes of “Rocky” past but transcends being an exercise in déjà vu by amping up the emotional content to TKO levels. It is neither a rehash nor completely original work. It’s simply another puzzle piece in the feel good “Rocky” saga.

CTV NEWSCHANNEL: Richard & Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 star Michael Rooker.

“Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2” surpassed expectations after posting $146.5 million on its opening weekend. Richard spoke with one of the film’s stars Michael Rooker. Check out the interview now!

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Metro In Focus: Guardians’ return is even more fun than the first.

By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opens with a battle scene that would not be out of place in almost any other superhero movie.

The set-up has the Guardians — Peter Quill /Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) — working for the Sovereigns, a thin-skinned race of aliens who have hired the heroes to protect valuable batteries from an inter-dimensional monster.

The action is as wild and woolly as we’ve come to expect from these big CGI extravaganzas, but the thing that sets the scene apart from all other superhero movies is the sheer, unbridled joy brought to the screen by Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), a tree-like being too small to take part in the fight. Instead he blissfully dances throughout to Mr. Blue Sky, the lush, Beatles-esque ELO song that underscores the sequence.

The scene and the movie brim with the missing element of so many other big superhero movies — fun.

“That’s what we hoped to do,” says star Michael Rooker, “bring back the fun. It was fun as hell doing it.”

Rooker reprises his role as blue-skinned, red-finned mercenary Yondu. The former Walking Dead actor — he played Daryl’s older brother Merle Dixon — jokes that his normal look, his handsomely craggy face, is actually make-up, and the Blue Man Group style we see in the movie is the face he was born with. “It takes four or five hours to get this on,” he says, pulling at his cheek. “The real problem is getting the fin off.”

Yondu’s weapon of choice is a flying arrow made of special sound-sensitive metal he controls through whistling.

“Dude,” he says, “everyone is digging that weapon.” It’s the character’s trademark and Rooker laughs when remembering talking to director James Gunn about the role. “Man, I was glad I was able to whistle.”

“The first time I got to whistle I did the melodic whistle… I hypnotized one of the aliens and then I shot out a piercing whistle. Yondu has different whistles.”

One wild action sequence with Yondu’s deadly arrow and set to ’70s pop ditty Come a Little Bit Closer is a showstopper, an imaginatively staged set piece with a huge body count and just as many laughs.

“That whole sequence is very much like a western gun fight if you think about it,” Rooker says. “You go out, and jacket pulled back, methodical, not fast. It is a total tribute.”

In the scene he is accompanied by two computer-generated characters, Baby Groot and Rocket, a genetically engineered raccoon-based bounty hunter. Neither actually appeared on set while shooting, but Rooker says they were there in spirit.

“Because these movies use a lot of CGI they require your imagination to be fertile and open and ripe for seeding,” he says. “I’m like, ‘There is Baby Groot. He’s over there and he’s sopping wet…What have they done to him?’ I talk to them like they were any other two characters.”

Yondu may be a vicious, arrow-wielding mercenary but he’s also the film’s emotional core and James Gunn says people will be “surprised by Michael Rooker’s performance. He deserves an Academy Award nomination. No joke.”

What does Rooker think? “We’ll see about that bro. I’m up for anything.”