It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first movie ever! Yes the multi-award winning Mr. Olympia finally gets to have his day on film with one of the dumbest and amazing, best worst movie ever. Yes, Hercules in New York or as it is also known as, Hercules goes Bananas, has the giant muscled Austrian being typecast as a muscle bound Hercules who is cast out of Mount Olympus and runs amok in New York with some of the cheesiest fight scenes and atrocious dialogue ever. Every actor has to start somewhere and for Arnold, this is where it all began.
God I am having one of those days where I just need a loud, senseless movie to just escape into and wouldn’t you know it, here we go. A movie that brought together so much manliness, explosions, blood, and a cobbling of all the action movies in existence, The Expendables 2 was enjoyable in the way that I enjoy Commando or Demolition Man or that one movie where Van Damme plays twins who fight some sort of drug lord cause that was the thing you did in the early 90s. This wasn’t a great movie by means, but satiated that need to see wonderfully over-the-top violence and action scenes.
I will admit, I was a little displeased as to how both of The Expendable movies turned out. The story was crap, didn’t care much about the characters and too many callbacks and in-jokes between the characters that harkened to their previous roles. Then again, I am watching an action movie that is supposed to be a throwback to the uber violent 80s and 90s action movie which is where most, if not all the stars found their fame in. The movie is just fun to watch in the brainless sense, so take it at face value with this movie. It is fun to see all these action stars in one place, just wiping out armies that could probably occupy a medium size country and the winks to the audience can be a bit charming if not serve to remind you that you are watching a ridiculous movie.
I can’t hate on it too much, since I did give it a middle of the road score. I knew what I was getting into and frankly that is all I can ask for with this movie. Loud explosions, lots of grunting, plenty of action and nothing else.
Below is a snippet from my original review and a link to the whole thing. Enjoy!
The story of The Expendables 2 see’s….you know what, fuck it. Who honestly gives a shit about the story for this movie? I am sure that Stallone sat down and pulled out his signature designed, limited edition Montegrappa Pen entitled “Chaos” and churned out a story by cobbling together all the plot and story points from past films. A little Rambo here, a sprinkle of Commando there, some Hard Target right in this area and then a climatic orgy of bullets and explosions. He sent that script to the studio’s, they pass out from sensory overload and Stallone took the script, loaded a shotgun full of his Montegrappa Pens and shot that script to shit. Seriously, I can’t stop talking about this pen cause it’s pretty much the greatest thing in the world that he had to show it off in the movie itself. I mean, fucking look at it!
After watching the manliest movie ever last night at the Drafthouse, which was Predator by the way, I felt inspired to see where it all began for the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mainly I am more inspired to lose some fucking weight, which is happening slowly, but Pumping Iron is a motivator for sure. My fascination is more on the voyeuristic side of this documentary, where in we get to see a young Schwarzenegger at the early stages of his career where is more known for being a multiple winner of the Mr. Olympiad and Mr. Universe Title. It’s such an intimate look into what would eventually become, the biggest action star around, and you get to see that talent develop along the way. Plus as an added bonus, you get to see a unrestrained Arnold talk candidly about life and training.
In just a mere two hours, I will be taking part in our local Alamo Drafthouse KC Tough Guy Movie Night. Tonight’s movie is Predator, with all the trimmings. There will be in-theater explosions, cap guns for each patron, booze and a bunch of die hard Predator fans. I can’t wait for this experience and it got me to re-up an old movie post for today only. Below is an excerpt from my original post and link to the new article.
Wish me luck and GET TO THE CHOPPAH!
This is just flat out a man’s movie. If you have never seen this movie, stop what you are doing right now and go watch this movie. This article can wait, but this movie cannot. Predators is basically all the trappings of the 80s action era rolled into one movie and exploded onto the screen. This movie was negatively reviewed hard, to the point where critics were just pulling apart the movie like the predator does to his victims. Everything from the story (a movie about an alien that hunts humans), mindless action drivel (macho men carrying guns and killing people), and a poor empty vessel for a sci-fi movie (lasers, ha amateurs). What the hell do those critics know? This movie still stands the test of time in terms of action and memorable villains.
I’m sorry, I can’t even focus on writing this review with all the explosions and gunshots that riddle the trailer of this bombastic sequel to the 2010 movie. I guess as an action film junkie, this is what I have been waiting for my whole life. I remember growing up watching countless action films from Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, Van Damme, Li, Lundgren and countless other action icons of the bullet screen. The Expendables was the dream team of action movies, but with a few shortcomings like really stiff character interaction, too fast to enjoy action scenes, and CGI blood (the biggest travesty), the movie only had a few handfuls of big action set pieces interspersed with OK one-off action scenes. I expected something more from that culmination of machismo and spare bullets. Well sure enough, I braved 3 Jean Claude Van Damme action movies, a pig heart eating contest and countless fist pumping awesomeness to get to the Alamo Drafthouses signature film premier, The Expendables 2.
Hell Yeah! This is what I am talking about, the classic 1982 flick that pits Arnold up against some equally huge dude in a film that, honestly, captures the spirit of Conan better than the 2011 remake, Bronan the Brobarian. Don’t get me wrong, the remake was entertaining except for the extreme bro-ish parts like when Conan frees those slaves by the port and then it turns into a weekend at the Hard Rock Casino pool. Not really the Conan I remember but it’s made for the Redbull chugging crowd nowadays. To me, this will always be the superior version of the series and that is what’s best in life.
The hits just keep on running by me as today is yet another gem from the 80s with your main man Arnold. Let’s face it, with reality TV, sports, and MMA fighting basically dominating the airwaves, couple that with an increasing prison population, we are bound to get some version of The Running Man in our lifetime. Now I am not saying we should, cause that is just ridiculous and I don’t think Richard Dawson would be up to take over hosting of a show like this, but considering our general lust for blood and entertainment, it is bound to happen sooner or later. There have been many movies that dealt with the whole blood and death game show. We had Gamer which was about convicts being controlled in a real life FPS shooter. Then you take stupid movie The Condemned with Steve Austin basically having convicts on an island, killing each other for a chance to get free all the while an audience is watching it unfold for a price. Battle Royale is the same way, except the film uses the island free-for-all as a means to discipline kids. The Running Man combines Arnold’s pecs and biceps, Richard Dawson in a non-Family Feud game show and ample amount of societal satire and killing, oh the killing.
If it wasn’t for the 80s, we really wouldn’t have some of the greatest action series and action stars to make it into pop culture. Say what you will but Arnold, Stallone, Willis, and a litany of other action heroes made the 80s interesting. All I knew as a kid was guns, explosions, bad ass monsters and ridiculously high body counts in movies. Sure there were some other great movies that set the stage for teenage raunch films and movies that defined an era of synth music and pastel colored outfits, but for my money it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks, Die Hard and Rocky IV. Also The Goonies and Monster Squad were bad ass as well. Today though requires a shot of testosterone and bullets, which also makes for a hearty meal. So why not choose a movie that some of the baddest mofo’s around and featured the ultimate villain, The Predator.
