I may be a king, but I'm a wrestler first.

The Scorpion King

(2002)

I studiously avoided this prequel to The Mummy Returns on release because I was so repelled by that film’s incompetent CGI monstrosity of the Scorpion King himself. It turns out I did Chuck Russell’s film a small disservice for, whilst it bears originator Stephen Sommers’ smudged knuckle prints in the script department, he is crucially absent behind the camera. The result is an old-school sword-and-sandals picture, with more than a slight doffing of the hat to Conan the Destroyer, that doesn’t outstay its welcome and doesn’t make you feel like you’ve been beaten about the head by ILM (in the interests of fairness, eight effects houses are credited for the disastrous visuals in The Mummy Returns).

Russell hasn’t helmed a film in more than a decade; this is his last credit. Perhaps there are personal reasons, or he just hasn’t found anything to tickle his fancy. It’s not as if he was shunned for delivering a string of flops; he has the most respect A Nightmare on Elm Street sequel to his name as well as significant hits in the forms of The Mask and Eraser. Although, picking up on an inferior director’s “inspired” cast-offs does seem a bit like slumming it. Russell’s no auteurist dazzler behind the camera, but he’s a competent pair of hands who knows where to position the camera and how to ensure that action is coherent. He also doesn’t feel obliged to vault through the story at a breakneck pace, drama and tension be damned. He’s everything Stephen Sommers is not, basically, and for that he deserves some small praise.

I won’t get carried away, though. This is all relative, and I came upon Scorpion King after enduring TMR. Things don’t look good in the opening scene. The Rock appears wise-cracking (his first line, is “Boo!”) and there’s an inappropriate electric guitar on the soundtrack. But John Debney’s score proves to be agreeable rather than jarring in the long run, while John R Leonetti’s cinematography may not be striking but the plastic sheen of Sommers’ movies is thankfully absent.

The plot, as it is (I’m assuming the better elements come from the co-credited Watchmen and X-Men scribe David Hayer), sees Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s titular character (at this point a mercenary known as Mathayus) employed to kill nefarious King Memnon’s (Steven Brand) victory-ensuring sorceress Cassandra (Kelly Hu). Inspired name, that. I’ll bet that one came from Sommers. Of course, things don’t go quite as planned. Instead of killing her, he abducts her, and then leads a force against the King.

So it’s a bog standard premise, but Russell is blessed with the surprisingly charismatic Johnson as his leading man. His self-conscious delivery actually suits the material, so when you discover he has a pet camel, which he talks to, it’s amusing rather than tiresome. Most of the other performers don’t fare as well, from the obligatory comedy sidekick (The Men Who Stare at Goats helmer and Clooney pal Grant Heslov) to Michael Clark Duncan’s initially-at-loggerheads-but-sure-to-be great friends eventually tribal leader. Bernard Hill bizarrely shows up as a crackpot inventor, while Peter Facinelli (lately banished to Twilight movies) is a conniving turncoat.

Most damagingly, the villain is rubbish; Brand has little presence aside from acting like a swaggering prick. Hu, who would memorably clash claws with Wolverine in X2 the following year, doesn’t make an impression for her performance, it must be said. That’s okay, as it doesn’t seem to be why she was cast. Instead, her form is much-adored by the camera as she progresses through a series of skimpy costumes; certainly as scanty as a PG-13 will allow.

Obvious CGI is limited, aside from re-use of the series’ crawling critters programme; this time to have Johnson threatened by large red ants. King didn’t make even half the sum of its parent films at the box office, but then it’s in a difficult genre. And, quite possibly, the lack of ADD on the part of its director was off-putting to viewers who expected something that barely made sense. Too slow, no doubt. Or maybe, as seems to have been confirmed subsequently, the Rock just isn’t a major box office draw.

I’m making it sound like The Scorpion King is a good film. It isn’t, but it’s a tolerable movie that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. And you won’t finish watching it feeling as if your retinas have been assaulted. Which is more than you can say for Stephen Sommers-ville.

**1/2

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron ’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison. Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War , Infinity Wars I & II , Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok . It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions ( Iron Man II ), but there are points in Age of Ultron whe

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993) (SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

Monte Carlo or Bust aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969) (SPOILERS) Ken Annakin’s semi-sequel to Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines tends to be rather maligned, usually compared negatively to its more famous predecessor. Which makes me rather wonder if those expressing said opinion have ever taken the time to scrutinise them side by side. Or watch them back to back (which would be more sensible). Because Monte Carlo or Bust is by far the superior movie. Indeed, for all its imperfections and foibles (not least a performance from Tony Curtis requiring a taste for comic ham), I adore it. It’s probably the best wacky race movie there is, simply because each set of competitors, shamelessly exemplifying a different national stereotype (albeit there are two pairs of Brits, and a damsel in distress), are vibrant and cartoonish in the best sense. Albeit, it has to be admitted that, as far as said stereotypes go, Annakin’s home side win

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog