THE IRON FIST ADVENTURES (1972) **

No, this doesn’t have anything to do with that Marvel Comics guy.  It’s actually a ho-hum Jimmy Wang Yu movie.  Yu of course is most famous for playing The One-Armed Swordsman.  I guess this flick proves two arms aren’t necessarily better than one. 

Jimmy goes riding around with his loyal band of followers looking for the men who killed his brothers in battle.  Along the way, he gets framed for the death of a beloved leader and is arrested and put on trial.  After finally proving his innocence, he goes toe to toe with the crooked warlord who imprisoned him. 

You know, for a movie called The Iron Fist Adventures, Jimmy doesn't get to use his fists a whole lot.  Actually, the film features more gunplay than anything as nearly all the action starts with Yu and his enemy shooting at each other.  Then, when they run out of bullets, they draw swords and duel.  Then, when they knock their swords away, they fight hand to hand.  All of this gets repetitive after a while. 

Yu does what he can to salvage the movie.  When the film does work, it’s because of his cool charisma more than the middling fight scenes.  The other guys who make up his ragtag army are annoying though.  Their only purpose is to provide exposition and hammer home plot points.  It’s enough to make you wish Jimmy went on this mission solo. 

AKA:  The Adventure.  AKA:  The Cyclone.

A CURE FOR WELLNESS (2017) *

Dane DeHaan goes to a bizarro health spa in the middle of nowhere to get his boss to sign some important documents.  Inside of a minute, we know this place is bad news, but Dane hangs around for like an eternity before he figures out that the main doctor (Jason Isaacs from Soldier) has a screw loose.  It all drags on and on for the better part of two and a half hours until the big confrontation between DeHaan and Isaacs and even then, it plays out like a poor man’s version of a Guillermo del Toro Dr. Phibes remake or something. 

A Cure for Wellness?  More like a cure for insomnia.  Am I right?  

With this film, Gore Verbinski proves once again he has no business making horror movies.  Like his sorry Ring remake, there’s a lot of focus on a little girl with messy hair.  At least The Ring wasn't two and a half hours.  Heck, there’s not enough plot here for a half hour Twilight Zone episode, let alone a two-and-a-half-hour movie.  Gore, I’m telling you as a friend:  Stick to those big-budget Johnny Depp movies, buddy. 

The movie, in all fairness, looks like a million bucks.  However, the slick cinematography can’t hide the fact that there’s not a whole lot going on here.  Whatever plot “twists” we do get are predictable and incredibly drawn-out.   

I did however, find a cure for badness:  Take a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage every time someone says the word “well”.  It’ll be just what the doctor ordered.  

BOYKA: UNDISPUTED (2017) ****

Scott Adkins returns to the ring for his third (and so far, best) outing as Yuri Boyka, the World’s Most Complete Fighter.  This time out, he’s out of prison and looking to make a name for himself on the fighting circuit.  After he accidentally kills an opponent in the ring, Boyka puts his bid for glory on hold in order to make amends with the man’s widow.  When he learns that she is basically an indentured servant to a local gangster, Boyka agrees to fight a series of increasingly difficult matches in order to secure her freedom. 

Boyka:  Undisputed plays out sort of like an MMA version of Diggstown as our hero finds himself fighting a number of opponents as part of a bet with the crooked owner of a small town.  There's even a last-minute twist where he is tricked into fighting an extra bout with a notorious prison brawler.  This guy is known as ‘The Nightmare" and he looks like a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Master Blaster from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and he gives Boyka a run for his money.  

The fights are all crisply photographed and competently shot, but like the best sports movies, Boyka:  Undisputed gives you moments that make you cheer outside of the ring too.  I can honestly say that I got a little choked up when the fighter’s widow tells Boyka that she doesn’t need him to save her and he responds, “I’m doing this to save myself!”  Part of that is thanks to Adkins’ terrific performance.  He played a great villain in Undisputed 2 and made for a gruff, but likeable hero in Part 3.   Here, he excels as the brooding Boyka.  His internal struggle to be the best, but to also do the right thing is surprisingly touching. 

In Undisputed 2 and 3, Boyka fought in a prison.  Even though he’s a free man in this one, he finds himself in a prison of another kind:  The prison of his own expectations.  When you’re fighting to be the best, the only enemy you’ll truly face is yourself.  While the fact that he now fights for forgiveness as well as his own personal redemption might make it sound like the character has softened, let me tell you, this new, matured Boyka is just as vicious as ever.  

I don’t want to spoil the ending.  All I will say is that the character comes full circle and his emotional journey is one of the most touching you’ll see all year.  (The final shot gave me goosebumps.)  While I'd love to see Adkins continue to kick ass in more Undisputed sequels, the film ends on such a perfect note that it's going to be hard to top. Then again, I thought Rocky Balboa was the final word on Rocky until Creed came around, so anything is possible.

This is definitely one of the best movies of the year and probably the best Direct to DVD sequel ever made.

AKA:  Boyka:  Undisputed 4.  AKA:  Undisputed 4:  Boyka is Back.

GANG WAR (1958) **

Gang War gives Charles Bronson one of his earliest starring roles and plays kind of like a prototypical Bronson vehicle.  He stars as a meek schoolteacher who witnesses some gangsters kill a man.  When he reluctantly puts the finger on them, their boss (John Doucette) has his punch-drunk enforcer whack his pregnant wife.  This sends Chuck’s character, a Korean vet, on a quest for vengeance. 

All of this sounds like it can't miss, but it does.  It’s painfully slow moving and there’s not a whole lot of action.  Even though Bronson is top billed, he's not given much to do.  Mostly, it’s just scenes of Doucette sitting around and plotting.  

Director Gene Fowler, Jr. has a nice eye for detail.  He brings the same visual flair that he brought to I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Married a Monster from Outer Space as the film often looks like a ‘40s film noir.  Too bad the sluggish pacing, low budget, and flimsy script pretty much undoes all his hard work. 

Although Bronson kind of gets the short end of the stick, he does have at least one memorable badass moment.  After he learns his wife and unborn child have been killed, he breaks open his dead kid’s piggy back with a hammer and uses the money to buy a gun.  Too bad his eventual clash with the villains is so lackluster. 

SONG TO SONG (2017) **

I always find Terrence Malick’s movies fascinating, even if they do have a tendency to leave me cold.  He has always had an eye for capturing beautiful landscapes, but his best films, Badlands, The Tree of Life, and The Thin Red Line, work because we can connect emotionally to the characters too.  Song to Song is for me, his worst film because not only are none of the characters likeable, the world they inhabit is kind of drab.

That’s not entirely correct.  The film is set against the backdrop of the music industry and several musicians (from Johnny Rotten to Iggy Pop to Patti Smith) cameo playing themselves.  A great movie could have been made set in this world, but it’s clear from the outset that Malick isn’t very interested in the cameos, or the various love triangles, or much of anything.

The plot follows a handful of characters (Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, etc.) who fall in and out of love while attending industry parties and hanging out backstage at concerts.  Malick uses the same kind of set-up he used for To the Wonder.  Most scenes are fragmented, contain dialogue that often feels improvised, and it hops around quite a bit.  This worked well in To the Wonder because it felt like memories of a loved one looking back to a simpler time.  This just feels like snippets of what people do before they hook up/cheat on/break up with their partners.

You know you’re getting bored by a movie when you start counting how many Batmans its director has worked with.  As dull as much of the film is, Val Kilmer has a great cameo as an erratic musician that goes nuts on stage.  Since Malick has worked with George Clooney in The Thin Red Line, Christian Bale in The New World, and Ben Affleck in To the Wonder, all he has to do is find a role for Michael Keaton in his next flick and he'll be five-for-five as far as Batmans go.

Overall, Song to Song isn’t very good, but if you ever wanted to see Magneto bone Thor’s girlfriend, I guess you might want to see it.

PATERSON (2016) ****

Adam Driver stars a bus driver named Paterson who lives in Paterson, New Jersey.  This seems like the premise for a really bad movie, but it’s actually one of the more quietly powerful films I’ve seen in a long time.  When he’s not driving the bus and eavesdropping on the strange conversations the commuters make, he’s writing poems in his “secret” notebook.  Paterson is also quite supportive of his girlfriend who is always busy making quaint art projects and baking cupcakes (not to mention those around him who create their own unique brands of artistic expression) while never really having the confidence to share his own work. 

Paterson is required viewing for anyone who juggles producing independent art with having a "real" job.  Since the character of Paterson is such a creature of habit, the first half of the film is a bit of a slog to get through.  That’s mostly because writer/director Jim Jarmusch does such an accurate job at portraying his boring, mundane everyday existence.  We need to experience the unchanging routine of Paterson’s life to fully appreciate him.  That way, when something outside of his routine happens, it feels almost catastrophic.  The last act of the picture may feel slight when compared to most films.  Since we’ve been so firmly placed in his shoes, we are devastated when something bad finally occurs.   

This is the kind of movie that flummoxes the Star Rating.  I was pretty bored with the deliberate first hour and actually turned the movie off halfway through because I started falling asleep.  I finished it the next day and was just about in tears by the end.  Despite the fact that I was bored by the first half, you really need that deliberate pace to sell the finale.  Without it, the ending doesn’t mean nearly as much.   

I watched this movie about a week ago and put off immediately writing about it.  I’m glad I did too because I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.  The more I think about it, the more it affects me on a deeper personal level.  I see a lot of myself in the main character and that is something that can often be hard to handle.  I have also dealt with setbacks similar to what he endures, which is both painful and exhilarating at the same time.  Paterson is a unique and haunting movie and one of Jarmusch’s best.

ATOMIC BLONDE (2017) **

Charlize Theron stars as a sexy British spy who beats the crap out of people in Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.  She’s great in it and she looks sexy as Hell while smashing, bashing, and Kung Fuing the bad guys.  Directed by David (John Wick) Leitch, the movie looks awesome.  The neon-lit atmosphere is cool and cinematography is crisp and eye-popping.  He also gives us a couple of inspired action sequences, including one that is done in a long continuous take (although the seams are easy enough to spot). 

So why does it all feel like such a dud?  Superficially, the movie works.  It’s just a shame that all the spy shit is so convoluted.  There are a lot of empty double, triple, and quadruple-crosses, but none of it really pulls you it or ultimately means very much.  Seriously, it’s hard to care when everything you just learned in the previous scene is immediately contradicted in the next. 

The ending(s) is the worst.  The script tries so damned hard to trick you that it eventually becomes annoying.  I know that movies like to try to pull the rug out from under you.  This one pulls the rug, the carpeting, and the floorboards.  By the time Theron has thrown her fourth agency under the bus, I was already looking for the exits.  Honestly, this might’ve gotten a ** ½ rating on style alone if it had ended four endings ago.  

Theron deserves better.  While she still gets to act like a badass and have a sexy Girl on Girl scene, the movie her character inhabits fails her at nearly every turn.  Leitch deserves better too.  Perhaps sensing the script’s shortcomings, he bombards you with his stylistic touches during the action while cranking the ‘80s music.  Unfortunately, all that does is turn most of the movie into one big music video.  If only they had a competent script at their disposal, Theron and Leitch could’ve made this one for the books.   

Sadly, Atomic Blonde never goes full blast.