Stolen

...Another film by Simon West.

3 films in 2 years shows that Simon West is either a work horse or has multiple bills to pay. Regarding this Nicolas Cage gem, my money is on, like Nicolas Cage I'm sure, the latter.

Years after a bank heist goes awry, thief extraordinaire Will Montgomery (Nicolas Cage) is released from prison. He is now reformed and determined to do the right thing. And that first "right thing" is to make amends with his daughter, Alison (Sami Gayle). As such with a film like this, just as their reconciliation begins, his daughter wants nothing to do with him and bolts. Unbeknownst to Will, his old partner Vincent, (Josh Lucas) has other plans and kidnaps Alison.

Vincent's masterful plan involves holding Alison hostage in the trunk of a taxi cab, blackmailing Will and retrieving ten million dollars. Will has to race against time to retrieve the ten million dollars and to find Vincent before Alison is killed.

Good lord. This movie sucks. There is not really much to write about here. Basically, this plot has been done, and done much better by a lot of films. Even Gone in 60 Seconds, (the 2000 trash heap) which this film basically rips off, is a better film.

Nicolas Cage, like usual, is on auto-pilot as is Simon West. No one brings anything worthy to the film and makes it much more of a chore than it has to be. The script by David Guggenheim never takes any chances and follows the tired formula of a reformed criminal who must resort to "one last score" in order to save someone he loves. If that description of the film sounds familiar, then you already know how this story is going to go.

Unlike Nicolas Cage, Simon West and David Guggenheimm, Josh Lucas provides an interesting character with Vincent. Unfortunately, this isn't a good type of interesting and might actually be worse than what Cage, West and Guggenheim offer. Once the prologue for the film is done with and we are now eight years later, Vincent has changed since we saw him last. His changes are not for the better and actually made me laugh out loud more than once. It must be seen, as my limited vocabulary will not do it justice. Though, you might be better off just not experiencing this film. Either way, Josh Lucas' Vincent is one of the least threatening villains in the history of film. Fact.

Anyway, i just saw this film and I'm struggling to remember what happened. Just avoid this.

2.2/10

The Expendables 2

A film by Simon West.

As the tagline states, The Expendables are back and ready for war. And also, they are back to cash their paychecks.

Since the last installment in The Expendables saga, Mickey Rourke is nowhere to be found, and in his place is an Army sniper referred to as Billy The Kid (Liam "Not Chris" Hemsworth). Billy is teamed up with the rest of The Expendables: Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Hale Caeser (Terry Crews), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy Couture).

After completing their latest mission, Yin decides to step out of the film and Billy informs Barney that he is ready to quit The Expendables and live a normal life with his French girlfriend. Before that can happen, the mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) reappears and makes Barney and his team accept a mission to Albania where a plane has crashed with a safe. Barney and his team are to retrieve the contents of the safe and return the items, along with a tag along provided by Church, Maggie (Yu Nan), in pristine condition.

With such a simple job, you know things will never go that smoothly. Before Barney and the team are able to complete the mission, they are interrupted by super villain, Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). The contents of the safe are taken, along with the life of an Expendable. Needless to say, Barney and The Expendables are not happy with this turn of events and will not rest until they stop Vilain and blow up almost all of Europe.

The biggest problem I had with the original Expendables was that the film seemed to take itself way too seriously for a film that was supposed to be fun. The infamous monologue delivered by Mickey Rourke is a sequence that still makes me cringe when I think about it. The first Expendable adventure tried WAY too hard to be a fun 80's film. You cannot purposely make a fun 80's action film. Those things happen by accident (see 1995's Sudden Death starring Jean-Claude Van Damme for proof).

Most of the seriousness of the first film has been taken away, but that has created a new problem. The film is too self-referential now. Some of the most groan-inducing one-liners in the history of film found their way into The Expendables 2. This film finds itself on the other end of the spectrum when it comes to tone. Yes, I do think the violence is harder in this film, but when not blowing limbs off random bad guys, this film's tongue is planted way too firmly into it's cheek.

As bad as it is to say, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Trench seems to suffer the most in this film. Everything out of his mouth is a horrendous one-liner. Now, I love me some cheesy one-liners, but these one-liners are not about the action on film. These are more along the lines of describing the actors. If you don't believe me about the awful, forced one-liners, just wait for the "Yippie-Ki-Yay" one-liner. The way it is used is so forced that you just have to roll your eyes and stop yourself from booing at the screen.

Beyond the one-liners, Randy Couture's Toll Road still continues to serve no purpose in the film. Each character seems to have some quirk, but basically Toll is there to just stand off to the side. Along with Toll, Jet Li makes what should be considered an extended cameo instead of a starring role. Granted the action he does in the film is entertaining, it is just disappointing to see his character randomly leave the film without a proper goodbye. And then there's Chuck Norris' Booker. Well, he's useless. His character has no explanation as he is a "lone wolf" yet appears out of nowhere, disappears and then reappears again. A horrible character who is only there to sell a couple tickets for the people who would be wanting to see Chuck Norris on the big screen again.

And what is it about this franchise and the shoddy CGI? Good God. That and the CGI blood should really be reined in. The classic 80's action films were all about practical effects as it added an extra layer to the film.

I don't want you to feel this will all be negativity, as there were some good things in this film. As with the first one, Dolph Lundgren again is one of the best reasons to see the film. I really believe that Dolph is the only actor who understands what The Expendables films should be. He brings the action but also the fun. Beyond Dolph, Jean-Claude Van Damme is a very welcome addition to The Expendables franchise, even if he is underused. Van Damme brings a giddy menace that the first film was missing. His character wants to destroy the world (what else would a super villain want?) and will do anything to accomplish his mission. Unfortunately, besides his first scene and last scene, he is relegated to just barking out orders as his plan is under way. Overall, though, Van Damme is a good choice and you can tell he really embellished the role.

Overall, I feel this is a slight improvement over the first one. The humor adds to what the first film was lacking. Though with the added emphasis on humor in this film, the constant winking at the camera gets old (like it's stars) very quickly. If they can find a better balance between the action and humor for the inevitable The Expendables 3, that might make the film these guys have been trying for since the first one.

4.7/10