UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS (2017) * ½

I have never been a fan of the Underworld franchise.  The fourth installment, Awakening was the only one I genuinely liked, and even then, it was pretty much for all the wrong reasons.  Just because I dug it, doesn’t mean I remembered what happened in it.  Luckily, there’s a quick wrap-up of the previous installments right in the beginning to get the audience up to speed before the movie starts.

Werewolves are winning the centuries-long war between werewolves and vampires.  Desperate, the vampires offer the outcast “Death Dealer” Selene (Kate Beckinsale) a truce so that she may train the next generation of werewolf killers.  Naturally, she is betrayed and it isn’t long before both sides come looking for her long-lost daughter, whose blood might end the war once and for all.

The plot is full of double-crosses and triple-crosses between the two royal monster houses.  It all plays like a moronic version of Shakespeare with fangs.  It’s also sorely lacking the earnest silliness that made Awakening so enjoyable.

There is one nice touch early on when Beckinsale is being hunted by the werewolves.  They try to capture her by shooting multiple grappling hooks into her.  After she kills them all, she walks away nonchalantly, not even noticing that the hooks are still inside her and she’s dragging the grappling guns behind her.  It’s all downhill from there.

The action sequences are largely unexciting and quickly get repetitive and monotonous.  The stuff with the boring werewolf villain in particular is lame.  They establish that bullets have no effect on him, so what do the vampires continue to do?  Shoot clip after clip into him!  It would be called overkill, if only they could actually kill him.  It should also be noted that the CGI werewolves (I refuse to call them “Lycans”) are pretty bad.

The best new character is the sexy evil vampire queen.  You can tell they really wanted Eva Green for the role.  Her vampy sultriness would’ve been perfectly suited to play the character.  Laura Pulver is okay, but she can’t pull off the campy scenes that require her to chew the scenery and look sinister at the same time.  Take for instance the scene where she makes her underling go down on her while she talks about her diabolical plans.  If Green had done this scene it would’ve been amazing.  With Pulver in the role, it just sort of feels awkward.

I can’t honestly say that this is the worst Underworld movie, but if I ever see another Blurry-Flashback-Induced-by-Someone-Tasting-Blood scene, it’ll be too soon.

THE NINJA AVENGER (1982) ** ½

A female Ninja on a quest for revenge bumps off bad guys one by one.  Problems arise when her boyfriend learns she’s a Ninja killer.  Things get even hairier when she finds out her boyfriend’s sister is the woman who killed her parents.

I can’t say this is a great movie, but our heroine displays several unique methods of Ninja training.  Some people say go fly a kite.  This woman actually flies around on one to land in the bad guy’s lair.  Later, she brings along a roll of brick-colored wallpaper to hide behind while she’s sneaking outside of a bad guy’s house.  I can honestly say I haven’t seen that in a Ninja flick before.  In another scene, she uses an exploding remote control airplane to kill someone, which makes me think Andy Sidaris might have seen it and took notes. 

Sure, this is a goofier than usual Kung Fu flick, but not goofy enough to make it a classic.  The action is more from the American school of action than straight-up Kung Fu.  There’s a car chase that rips off Diamonds are Forever, as well as a scene where the Ninja jumps over a car just like Action Jackson.  Still, this is one of the few Kung Fu movies where both the heroine and the villainess are equally sexy, not to mention lethal, so that counts for something.  The soundtrack is all sorts of funky too.

Too bad the climax is so damned weak.  The poorly done finale definitely cost the film a good Half Star.  You also have to suffer through some boring relationship drama that sometimes makes the movie feel like a Kung Fu soap opera.  I do have to admit that some of the relationship drama is pretty funny though.  I especially liked our heroine’s boyfriend’s pick-up line:  “I’m an extrovert, but I’m not a womanizer.”

AKA:  Impossible Woman.  AKA:  Ninja Apocalypse.  

SIX WAYS TO SUNDAY (1999) **

Norman Reedus stars as a slow-witted teen susceptible to outbursts of violence.  When he gets an assignment to beat up a guy for the local Jewish Mob boss, he beats the guy within an inch of his life, which impresses his employer.  His newfound standing in the Jewish Mob eventually causes friction with his thug friend (Adrien Brody) and his domineering mother (Debbie Harry).

Six Ways to Sunday comes from director Adam Bernstein, who is probably best known for directing It’s Pat and the “Love Shack” and “Baby Got Back” videos.  While he does have a modicum of style, it’s evident he’s better off working in a shorter format that doesn’t involve feature length plots.  There are a couple of interesting character moments here and there, but it’s really not enough to sustain an entire movie.

The film came out on the tail end of all those Tarantino-inspired crime comedies.  This one is a little odder than most.  The subplot with Harry and Reedus’ weird incestuous relationship makes it more memorable than a lot of the similar films that came out around that time, but it doesn’t exactly make it better.  While the performances are good (I liked seeing Clark Gregg and Isaac Hayes paired as a couple of “Good Cop/Bad Cop” detectives), they are unable to pull the sloppy narrative together.

Things work in fits and starts, and while some stretches are diverting enough, the whole thing stops short of being completely engaging.  The erratic script and the obvious plot twists don’t do it any favors either.  If you want to watch a really great ‘90s crime comedy about an emotionally aloof hitman, check out Coldblooded, starring Jason Priestley instead.

AKA:  Blood with Milk.

THE MUMMY (2017) *** ½

Critics had their knives out for this one from the get-go, but The Mummy is just about as enjoyable as any of Tom Cruise’s past summer action tentpoles.  It won’t erase memories of Boris Karloff or Christopher Lee or even Arnold Vosloo any time soon, but it’s enormously entertaining and just plain fun.  It’s just different enough (the Mummy is a vengeful princess this time out) and at the same time familiar (the movie borrows elements from everything from An American Werewolf in London to Lifeforce) to make fans of both Tom Cruise and Mummy movies alike happy.

The idea of a Cruise/Mummy mash-up works better than you think.  The typical big budget action sequences are a lot of fun and are enhanced by some creepy atmosphere (especially early on).  The zero-gravity scene in the crashing plane is great and would feel right at home in a Mission:  Impossible movie.  There’s also a badass car chase in which Cruise’s truck is beset by an army of squishy mummy minions.  The various fight scenes in which Cruise dukes it out with various mummified monsters are pretty cool too.

In some ways, The Mummy is a deft deconstruction of your average Tom Cruise vehicle.  While he is still very much the star of the movie, Cruise is almost continually bested, shown up, and one-upped by his female adversary (and love interest), which is a nice touch.  Since The Mummy is in his head for nearly the whole picture, Cruise is incredibly susceptible and vulnerable to her charms, which also acts a neat reversal on the usual Mummy lore. 

The thing I liked best though was the promised Expanded “Dark” Universe that teases the appearance of more interconnected monsters in upcoming movies.  Some have decried this as nothing more than a cheap rip-off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll acting as sort of a Nick Fury to a new generation of monsters.  I dug it though.  Crowe’s performance is actually one of the best things about the film.  In fact, I’d say he probably needs his own Agents of SHIELD spin-off TV show.  I mean just the stuff that was teased in his elaborate monster warehouse alone is promising enough to sustain at least one season of episodes.

Cruise equips himself well as the roguish thief who passes himself off as a derring-do adventurer.  He isn’t simply just coasting on his talent here as he makes his character quite likeable and charming, even when he’s being a total dick.  He especially does well late in the game when he must pull off the old “tortures of the damned” routine that Lon Chaney used to do so well.

Sofia Boutella does a fine job as the new Mummy.  Like in Star Trek Beyond and Kingsmen:  The Secret Service, she proves to be a formidable fighting talent.  What I wasn’t expecting was the tenderness she brought to the role.  Even when she’s doing terrible things, you can’t help but feel a tinge of sympathy for her, which is the hallmark of all the great Universal monster movies.

If there is a flaw, it’s that director Alex Kurtzman isn’t much of a stylish.  The film really needed someone with more flair to make the action sequences cook.  Kurtzman presents the material capably and competently enough, but he lacks the zest of someone like Christopher McQuarrie (who co-wrote the screenplay). 

There was a big to-do recently when Kurtzman said he didn’t make his film “for the critics”.  Although I think that’s a bit of a cop-out, I can see his point.  This is a big budget summer movie we’re talking about, but one that does have enough ghoulish (PG-13) moments to make it worthy of the Universal name.  Regardless of who Kurtzman made it for, my daughter, whose favorite monster is the Mummy, loved it, and for that, it’s OK by me.

I for one look forward to more interconnected Mummy movies.  I particularly hope that the upcoming Mummy sequels will be interconnected to previous Tom Cruise vehicles.  I can’t wait to see Mummy:  Impossible, The Color of Mummy, or Jerry Maguire 2 where Jerry signs a mummy to play football and shouts, “Show me the mummy!”  Of course, if that all pans out, it will eventually lead to the biggest Tom Cruise monster movie of them all:  Jack Reacher from the Black Lagoon.  

THE ASSIGNMENT (2017) ** ½

Remember when Walter Hill fucked up The Warriors with that terrible director’s cut that was filled with unnecessary comic book panels and crummy looking pop art?  Well, sad to say, he uses that same style with The Assignment.  If I told you the plot, I’d be spoiling the film’s best aspect:  The anything-goes nuttiness that makes it almost worth watching.  (Imagine if Robert Rodriguez had directed The Skin I Live In and that might give you an idea of what to expect.)  However, Hill’s use of lame comic book panels is just way too on-the-nose.  It’s like he doesn’t want us to take it seriously. 

Well, why not?  Why wouldn’t we take it seriously?  Why make a balls-out crazy movie like this if you want it to be merely dispensable entertainment?  Can’t it be a wild, tasteless action flick AND a well-crafted motion picture?  Why purposefully dumb it down like that?  Maybe if Hill concentrated on developing his characters a bit more and less about the schlocky comic book style, it could’ve been a winner.

The film is divided into two distinct parts.  There are the scenes of the quack surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) being interviewed in a nut house by a doctor played by Tony Shalhoub.  The other half of the movie is devoted to a hitwoman (Michelle Rodriguez) on a quest for revenge.  While both sections have their charms, neither is wholly successful.  It never quite meshes in the end, but the performances (especially by Weaver and Shalhoub) keep it grounded even while the whole thing threatens to veer off the tracks at any given moment.

Still, warts and all, it all feels very much like a Walter Hill movie, which is a good thing.  It is very much like a spiritual successor to Johnny Handsome, one of Hill’s more underrated works.  Both feature characters that go under surgical procedures and have to readjust to their new lives, often while mired in violence.  Johnny Handsome is clearly the better film, but the sheer audacity of The Assignment’s plot alone makes it worth a look. 

AKA:  (Re) Assignment.  AKA:  Tomboy.  AKA:  Revenger.

TERMINAL ISLAND (1973) ***

Before Escape from New York and before No Escape, there was Terminal Island, the original Stick-a-Bunch-of-Prisoners-on-an-Island-and-Let-Them-Kill-Each-Other movie.  Since the prison island is co-ed, it’s much more interesting than your usual prison flick.  Because of the presence of beautiful (but still capable and deadly) women, the film also falls into the Women in Prison genre.  Unlike most of those pictures, the men who try to humiliate and brutalize them aren’t guards or wardens; they’re fellow inmates.

Another reason that makes Terminal Island stand out from the rest of the pack was that it was directed by a woman.  Stephanie (The Working Girls) Rothman handles the action with an assured hand.  The finale, in which stuff blows up real good, is solid and proves that she can deliver the goods as well as her male counterparts. 

Rothman also takes time to establish and build both the male and female characters alike.  While Phyllis Davis and Barbara Leigh do some fine work as two of the busty female prisoners, it’s a pre-Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck who takes the acting honors as a junkie doctor who kicks the habit in order to help the women rise up against their male oppressors.  What makes it even more fun is the presence of Magnum’s Roger E. Mosley as one of the barbaric badasses who rule the island with an iron fist.   

The film is also filled great music.  The soundtrack is really funky and adds to the gritty atmosphere.  Plus, the theme song “It’s Too Damn Bad” is thoroughly awesome and is sure to be stuck in your head for days after.

Although Terminal Island is consistently entertaining throughout, it’s not quite sleazy enough to be considered a classic.  We do get a healthy dose of nudity (including a solid skinny dipping scene) and a funny scene involving some bees.  However, those expecting a more exploitative type of Women in Prison picture might walk away a tad disappointed. 

AKA:  Knucklemen.

22 JUMP STREET (2014) ***

Having successfully infiltrated a high school in the first movie, undercover cops Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum graduate and go to college to stop more drug dealers in this solidly entertaining sequel.  Most sequels are content to do the same thing all over again, just in a different location.  The smart screenplay knowingly accepts this and has a lot of fun playing with the conventions of a sequel. 

It helps that Hill and Tatum willingly accept the ridiculous premise and embrace it.  We also get a pretty funny subplot where Hill gets in hot water with his boss, Ice Cube when he hooks up with his daughter.  (Cube does a fine job yet again as basically the Yelling Captain of the piece.)  The new players, which include Wyatt Russell and Jillian Bell also get some laughs and make the most of their screen time.

22 Jump Street is at its best when it’s satirizing the art of fast-buck sequels.  It’s less interesting (and funny) when it allows Hill and Tatum to split up and “investigate other people”.  While that scene itself is funny, it quickly becomes obvious that they work better together as a team and not so much as two separate solo acts.

Make sure you stick around for the end credits, because it’s easily the best thing about the movie.  It’s here where we get to see trailers for the next ten installments of the series (including a video game).  This section also features some great cameos too (one in particular made me applaud), so keep your eyes peeled.  I don’t know if the team of Lord and Miller will ever get around to directing all (if any) of these future installments, but the clips alone were enough to put a smile on my face.