Check out after the jump for some thoughts on movies recently watched or re-watched...
The Raid 2 (2014) - Director Gareth Evans re-teams with leading man Iko Uwais in this sequel to the surprise action hit from 2011. The earlier one was pure video-game, but the action was so well choreographed and filmed that it turned out to be a nearly brilliant exercise in pure, unadulterated violence. In this one, Evans can't resist the temptation to amp up the plot, resulting in a bloated film that isn't nearly as operatic as Evans treats it. The ambition is welcome,however, even if it doesn't work out perfectly. Evans also amps up the violence and gore, leading one to wonder why the MPAA even bothers to keep the NC-17 rating in existence if this movie doesn't get it. Don't get me wrong, though, the thing looks great. Evans can paint a picture. And the fight scenes are again fantastic. Wonderfully staged and directed. Evans doesn't over-cut, he uses effects as an aid rather than a crutch, and he includes plenty of medium shots that are close enough to get the audience into the action but far enough away that you can see everything going on. In short, Evans knows what he's doing when it comes to filming an action movie. He also changes up from the first film's drab look and goes with plenty of color here (particularly in the top villain's lair). If only he could have avoided the temptation to also try to stuff an under-cooked Shakespearean tragedy into the mix (making for a film that feels even longer than 150 minutes). The best scene - one that absolutely grips - is the finale fight between the star and the bad guys' top fighter in a kitchen. An absolutely brilliant action scene that had me involuntarily sitting forward in my seat. The least interesting action scene is a woman killing a bunch of guys on a subway with a hammer. It's the closest Evans comes to over-cutting the action, it lacks tension, and it feels done before. I would also point out that this film loses the first film's central moral code. In the first, the star was a rookie cop just trying to stay alive in a cesspool of murderous villains so that he could return to his wife for the birth of his child. You couldn't help but root for him. In this one, he goes undercover as a gangster, but Evans loses track of that plot and it turns out to be more or less a red herring to just drop Uwais in the middle of a gangster drama. He is one of the gangsters here, whether he believes it or not, even if he gets lost for uncomfortable stretches of the film while Evans works through his larger plot of an aging gangster and his foolishly ambitious son. Flawed, but definitely worth a watch. Screened in the theater.
The Running Man (1987) - If you're of a certain age - around the same age as me, that is - then you might have fond memories of the golden age of Arnold Schwarzenegger and of the film The Running Man. It's just too bad that the film doesn't quite live up to the memories. It isn't Schwarzenegger's finest work - he's more wooden than usual, he doesn't seem terribly invested, and he uncharacteristically does not bring much physical presence to the film. I honestly wondered as I was re-watching it whether he was suffering from an injury during the filming. The movie should be - could be - a sharp satire, but the edge gets lost here as the movie vacillates between straight action film and broad comedy. Tonally it just never gets quite right. That's not to say it is all bad. Richard Dawson's performance as a sleazy game show host has been rightly praised and it still holds up marvelously well. He nails the character as a combination of a bubbly personality that grandmas love and a ruthless egomaniac that wants to give the audience all the blood and guts they crave to score an extra ratings point. Coming off worst here is Maria Conchita Alonso. Director Paul Glaser mostly has her play the part as a hysteric and Alonso seems to be playing the role almost as if she was told she's the comic relief (only it isn't funny). It's pretty annoying and it makes it all the more jarring when out of the blue she dons a flak jacket and picks up an uzi to lead the resistance in the final act. The thing also looks a lot cheaper in retrospect. The action is pretty uninspiring and too many of the details don't hit. Glaser doesn't innovate - he shoots everything in purely formula mode. The filmmakers give one passing shot at mocking media commercialism, but they can't make it work (contra Paul Verhoeven's Robocop). Whenever there's a moment where it seems the film might start to cut into social commentary, you can feel the filmmakers pull back into safe Schwarzenegger studio action vehicle mode. Dawson makes it entertaining enough to re-watch, and there's nothing about the film that is offensively bad. It's just far more average than it could have been had they taken some chances and better nailed the details. Screened on Amazon Prime.
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