Movie review - "Carry On" (2024) **

 Two really good scenes. When Jason Bateman first contacts Taron Egerton and starts threatening him. And that car crash scene with the cop and the bad guy.

The rest is contrived. The baddies go to so much trouble. Is there not an easier way? The characters are uninvolving. Much feels generated by AI or has "sixteenth draft" syndrome - dull wife (pregnant with perfect hair and glossy lips and shoehorned action sequence), dull backstory (I want to be a cop)

I sensed I'd be in trouble with the opening sequence - Jason Bateman casually killing a bad guy, just shooting a fifty worder with one shot, walking into a car and blowing up a greenhouse just to be "cool". There was no real thought put into these scenes and so it proved for the rest of the film

I wish people who tried to copy Die Hard would study Die Hard more closely.

Movie review - "Chopping Mall" (1986) *** (re-watching)

 Combination of action film and slasher as some teens are locked in a mall with killer robots. Full of affectionate nods towards the Roger Corman oevre - Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov as a couple, Dick Miller as "Walter Paisley", clips from Attack of the Crab Monsters.

It's well made -this shows what Jim Wynorski could do as a director before his career got sidetracked. The actors look a little bit too much alike - I had trouble telling them apart - they needed to be costumed differently or something.

It's a great role for Kellie Moroney who plays a final girl but a really active, clever one.

Movie review - "Enemies Closer" (2013) **1/2

 Not bad little action film which suffers from the casting of Tom Everett Scott as an ex-seal naval vet - Scott's a good actor he just gives off suburban dad vibes. But this is off set by Jean Claude Van Damme having wonderful fun with curly air and veganism as the villain.

Orlando Jones is solid as a guy with a vendetta against Scott, though both actors are forced to monologue too much. Plenty of cheese, a body count that feels unnecessarily high - Sudden Death had this too - nighttime photography, quick pace, some twists, the nighttime setting is good, decent ish action. But the real novelty is Van Damme.

Movie review - "The Interceptor" (2022) **

 Plenty of cheese and high spirits in this cheerful Die Hard in on a se platform with Elsa Pataky having a high old time as a soldier who winds up as America's last hope when a secret American base containing missiles to intercept nukes is taken over by baddies led by Luke Bracey.

Familiar Oz actors like Rhys Muldoon, Colin Friels and Zoe Carides flesh out the support cast.

Movie review - "The Hostage Tower" (1980) **

This should have been good. A story from Alistair MacLean about criminals taking over the Eiffel Tower. Location filming in Paris, including the tower. A cast including Peter Fonda, Maud Adams, Britt Ekland, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Rachel Roberts, Keir Dullea, Billy Dee Williams.

But it's dumb. Annoyingly dumb. And bad.

It's directed with this dopey bad 70s TV way complete with silly music stings. The handling is far too light. I loved Fairbanks and Rachel Roberts as this duo running a crime fighting organisation but it didn't make sense... they knew Keir Dullea was up to something bad... so got Maude Adams and Billy Dee Williams to go undercover in the group... and went along with it as they took over the Eiffel Tower. Instead of, you know, stopping it.

It's so jokey and light. Keir Dullea's crack team includes not only Adams and Dee Williams but Peter Fonda who is out for revenge against him. The action isn't that fierce. You never fear for hostage Celia Johnston.

Adams makes a great thief/spy - ideal for this sort of thing. I liked seeing the others.

But this was stupid.

Book review - MacLean#8 - "Golden Rendezvous" by Alistair MacLean (warning: spoilers)

I didn't think much of the film but the book is pretty good - well the first few pages were wobbly but then once the action started it didn't let up with the pursuer discovering a dead body, then another dead body then another, and figuring out stuff that's going on and taking action but still being behind... then the ship is hijacked.

In top MacLean style there's plenty of passages where the hero describes himself as being in pain and how ruthless and smart his enemies are, and excellently described fight scenes. The baddies do let the hero live when surely they would suspect him more.

A girl is allowed along on this one - the daughter of the owner of the ship who proves brave as well as beautiful and badgers the hero into marriage. There's also a doctor, the gruff captain and a ruthless baddy and his son... plus an atomic bomb. Lots of clambering around ships and people being thrown off the edge.  The baddies do have quite a convoluted plan but they are effective enemies - smart leader, forty men.

I like the ending where they were hanging around waiting for the baddies to blow up in an atomic bomb. I also like how Carter, the hero, maintained an element of mystery. The ship stuff all feels real - MacLean loved his boats.

This should have made a better movie than it did.

Movie review - "Under Siege 2" (1994) **1/2

By the standards of later Segal movies this is a masterpiece but there's no denying it's a drop from the first.

Instead of Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey there's Eric Bognosian and Everett McGill, both of whom are fine actually just not as good - Boganosian cuts lose and McGill gives a good wound-up performance (though I could've done without the creepy leching on Katherine Heigl).

Instead of a battleship there's a train, which isn't that bad a substitute - although some of the back projection is unconvincing.

Instead of Erica Eleniak there's Morris Chestnut, who isn't as pretty and isn't as fun - and means there isn't a love story (they sort of hint there's going to be one with this conductor person but she doesn't last). There's also Heigl, who's Seagal's niece - she's a good looking girl, but it feels a bit, I don't know, lech-y to have her there.

Geoff Murphy's direction is competent, I liked the views of the rockies and there's some decent action and stunts. Seagal kicks a lot of arse and has a good time.

There's some cute 90s technology - references to faxes and CDs.

Movie review - "Under Siege" (1992) ***1/2

In hindsight this would be the peak of Steven Seagal's career - good story, good director, excellent villains, strong support cast, high production values... He looks so slim, so relaxed and confident, it was kind of sad.

The Die Hard on a boat stuff works well - it's solid and entertaining with plenty of good set up stuff: Seagal working as a cook, the treacherous XO (Gary Busey), the loyal captain (Patrick O'Neal), the head terrorist being a CIA renegade (Tommy Lee Jones), Seagal's main ally being a stripper who jumps out of a cake (Erika Eleniak).

Funnily enough the end of this got a bit wonky - less exciting with people sitting around pressing buttons, less human somehow, and a not very convincing fight between Jones and Seagal (though it is funny how the knife is rammed into a dummy Jones' head - I always remembered the bad slow motion from this sequence). I felt he should've killed Gary Busey hand to hand.

There's not much chemistry between Seagal and Eleniak, she's more like his kid sister, but it's good to have her along. There's a nice "team" vibe you didn't get in many Seagal movies - especially when he teams up with some other people who didn't get caught.

Colm Meaney adds extra acting firepower as another baddy. But the film is stolen by Busey and Jones who have the time of their lives, acting up a storm - Busey's even in drag. Two great villains. It's a fun movie.

Movie review - "Invasion USA" (1985) **

Not one of Chuck Norris' best remembered films despite the delirious ambition of the concept - Chuck helps fight off an invasion of the US by commies. Because it isn't about that, not really - it's about a bunch of commies, led by Richard Lynch (an old nemesis of Norris') who arrives in the US and does this grab bag of terrorist activities: shooting up a boat load of refugees, trying to blow up a shopping center, trying to blow up a bus load of kids, randomly shooting people on the street, shooting a couple making out on a beach. They keep taking out time to try to kill Norris.

It's all hopelessly difuse and unfocused, which is why the film was a disappointment (and set back Norris' career after the breakthrough of Code of Silence). What's the terrorists plan? To unleash terror and... that's it? But Lynch keeps trying to kill Norris - indeed at the end Norris is able to gode Lynch's entire army to attack just to get Norris. It doesn't make sense.

It's a shame because there's some great action - car chases, over the top fights, a glorious battle at the end with National Guardsmen and baddies, and Norris kicks some serious arse. There's good ideas too - Norris starts off retired living in the everglades, the commies are in cahoots with drug smugglers (a promising subplot just thrown away). But its nonsensical - there's no real logic to the character's actions. They needed to focus it all down in terms of time and space - a specific attack.

Movie review - "Half Past Dead" (2002) **

Steven Seagal is a thief sent to prison - New Alcatraz - because actually he's an FBI agent secretly, and when a top level prisoner is going to be executed, some bad guys take over because they want to know where the prisoner has hidden is treasure, and Seagal has to save the day.

Die Hard in a prison - which is actually a great idea. But the script is murky and confusion for too long. Seagal's role is relatively limited. He drops out of the movie for great slabs - spends a lot of time sitting in a chair talking to people on radio. Was this when he started getting too heavy for action films?

The film brings in all these promising ideas and doesn't use them. Seagal is out for revenge against crime pin Richard Bremmer - great. But we only see Bremmer at the beginning. The death of Seagal's wife happens off screen.

Morris Chestnut is a very worth adversary. I loved seeing Stephen Cannell and Bruce Weitz (from Hill Street Blues) in the cast. There's some solid kick ass gals like Claudia Christian and Nia Peebles and a few decent twists - people shooting people who then turn out to be still alive. Action sequences were fine.

There's also a classic moment where Chestnut throws a Supreme Court judge out of a helicopter and Seagal jumps out of his helicopter to go rescue her. That sort of wackiness is a lot of fun and the film needed more of it.

There's a really good action movie in here - Seagal's quest for revenge, his relationship with convicted killer Weitz, it's all got the basis for something solid. But the film is too unfocused and stop-start and Seagal doesn't seem particularly interested. The stuff about Seagal dying then coming back - which inspired the movie - is barely used. Ja Rule, the black sidekick, really could've been taken out of the film.

I really didn't like the scene where Chestnut taunted Supreme Court judge Linda Thorson for her childlessness. That seemed particularly sadistic and mean. I know he was the baddy but it felt as though there was some other agenda going on.

Movie review - "Golden Rendezvous" (1977) **

One of several 1970s action movies aimed at an international audience, many of which, curiously, starred Richard Harris (The Wild Geese, Orca, The Ravagers, The Cassandra Crossing). This had the benefit of of an Alistair MacLean novel as source material and an inherently exciting set up - to wit, it's about the hijacking of an ocean liner.

There are some very good actors on display - not just Harris but people like Burgess Meredith, John Vernon, David Janssen, John Carradine, Dorothy Malone and Gordon Jackson. Ann Turkel has come in for a lot of criticism for her bad acting but she is stunningly gorgeous, and I was willing to go with her. The filmmakers try to compensate for her acting by getting her to change outfits a few times and to play love scenes opposite Harris, her real life husband at the time.

The film is hurt by some inept handling - shoddy camerawork, awful music, sparse production values. Films where terrorists take over pleasure cruises don't have the best track record (eg Speed 2, Assault on a Queen - yes there was Under Siege but it mostly look place on a military craft). There are logic problems, the story is needlessly confusing, the baddies are very naive about Harris, the romance between Harris and Turkel is oddly developed, David Janssen is wasted.

But you know it has action, and the story moves, and I liked this as it went along. You probably could remake this.

Movie review - "Sudden Death" (1995) * (warning: spoilers)

This and Streetfighter marked a turning point in the career of Jean-Claude Van Damme - his movies were getting steadily better, Universal Soldier and Time Cop were earning him more and more fans, then he started to flounder with some movies that were crap. This must have sounded like a no brainer - Die Hard set in an ice hockey rink, reuniting Van Damme with Time Cop director Peter Hyams, throwing in Powers Boothe as a villain and giving a decent budget. But the filmmakers totally stuff it, ending up with a ridiculous movie.

Why is it so bad? It's lazy - there's no logic. It's unpleasant. The villains are not smart, they are dumb - they kill people constantly: random workers, security guards, members of the general public, hostages; I think the intention was to go "oh yeah, they're going there, they're doing it, killing little old ladies" but the death toll is so high you become completely desensitized to people dying. There's no mystery to their plan - they take over, saying it's all for money, and that's it, there's no real twist except the head of security being in on the plan.

There's no reality - explosions are going off outside the game, there is a siege situation, and yet the audience of the game are completely unaware of what's going on outside (no one ducks outside? no one leaves? no one tries to contact a family member? even with the media there?). A villain runs around in a large penguin suit for extended periods of time, during which time she kidnaps Van Damme's daughter and fights to the death with Van Damme (was Peter Hyams taking this piss?). The main hostage is the vice president which means people are constantly saying "we need to rescue the vice president" which sounds ridiculous. Powers Boothe drinks scotch, smokes and relaxes during the hostage situation. Another villain plays a video game!

Also Jean Claude's two kids are there and his little girl especially witnesses a lot of violence, which is upsetting, even if it is comic book - she screams, almost plunges to her death, sees several people get shot. And his little son is an annoying brat.

It's as though the filmmakers thought up all these "great bits" that they "just had to have" and tried to construct a movie around it. So there's Jean Claude pretending to be a hockey player, and using the lights outside the stadium to pass on a message, and using sign language to communicate with his son. And it's just dumb and stupid and annoying.

Movie review - "White House Down" (2013) **

I've got some affection for this film because it's so obviously trying to pretend it's still 1998 or thereabouts - with its action man lead role and obvious spec script origins (a story full of elements of other successful films) and dopey action. 

And, you know, some of this isn't bad - Die Hard meets Seven Days in May is actually a great idea and the sequence where the baddies take over the White House is well done. And there is one good idea in particular - the head of security has used his position to collect a group of bad guys from all over.

But it's not a very good movie. 

Channing Tatum is a likable star but he's miscast in the lead. I never got a fix on him - a war hero who never does up his tie, a distracted absent dad but he seems to be always around. He's too warm - someone like Arnie or Clint or Steve Seagal would have carried weight and history with him. Channing needed more of a defined character to play.

Also I feel it was a mistake to cast Jaimee Fox as president. He lacks gravitas, clowns it up far too much (I liked the joke about the nicorette though), and has been given too much action stuff to do - it's ridiculous.

Most importantly the movie sets up all these interesting things and then does nothing with them. 

For instance, the baddies are a collection of random nutters/terrorists and ex soldiers... that's a fantastic idea that you could do heaps with but they just have a few people shout at each other. 

Or James Woods is upset at the president's peace plan in the Middle East - fantastic, a modern day Seven Days in May... but in the end Wood mostly ends up yelling and cracking one liners. 

Channing didn't vote for Fox, great - but instead of making them really mismatched (eg super conservative cop and liberal president or vice versa) and getting drama out of it they just sort of hang around. 

The media break flight curfew and endanger the life of Channing's daughter by splashing her name all over the press... but there's no come uppance. 

It's frustrating. The filmmakers have obviously studied Die Hard but not nearly enough.

Jason Clarke and James Wood are good as the main baddies and it's nice Maggie Gyllenhaul is given some status as the head of security. And sometimes the over the top silliness of this is really fun (secret tunnels underneath, a limo on the lawn with a bazooka firing at it.) 

But as the movie goes on it just gets dumber and dumber.

Movie review - "Die Hard" (1988) ****1/2

This holds up incredibly well. Not completely: it's glamourisation of smoking, the subplot about the fat cop who rediscovers his ability to kill and the wife who learns to reclaim her married name.... but it is wonderful. Well staged action, Bruce Willis was so much more likeable in many ways with hair (and he's perfect in the role), a terrific plot from the bad guys who have a chance of pulling off the heist all the way until the end (one of the best ever baddy plots up there with Goldfinger), Alan Rickman's stunningly good bad guy (despite unprofessional henchmen), Bonnie Bedelia's likeable wife (why didn't they use a daughter/wife under threat again in films three onwards... as in all the way though not in bits), some terrific complicating "non-helpers" in the form of the FBI, media and the police (all too believable). A genuine classic.

Movie review - "Sailor of the King" (1953) *** (warning: spoilers)

If I'm being honest there really isn't enough story here for a feature film - it doesn't go for much longer than 80 minutes as is, and there's a bit of padding: the opening prologue involving Brown's mother, setting up the big battle, the big battle... almost an hour has clocked in before Brown gets on the island with his rifle taking pot shots at the Germans, and this bit doesn't go for very long. To be fair, I couldn't see how much longer it could go - the action as it is works out logically (the Germans try big guns, then a boat crew, then have to bail because the British are coming). I think the material was suited more to an anthology series.

Having said that, I did like it. It's professionally handled by Roy Boulting, the navy stuff seems real to someone who knows very little about the Navy (e.g. the battle sequences, terms used), there's some good performances from Wendy Hiller (proper girl who's up for five days constant shagging), Michael Rennie (all craggy dignity and that great voice), Peter Van Eyck (the German captain) and Bernard Miles (the lower decks sailor who along with Brown is the only survivor of the sunken ship and conveniently speaks German).

Jeffrey Hunter isn't that great - he seems like such a nice chap and made all those John Ford films, I want to like him more than I do, but the fact is he's bland. He runs around without a shirt for most of the movie, as if the filmmakers were aware of this and wanted to ensure they at least got some teen girls along. It doesn't help he plays yet another Canadian in the British army (yes, I know there were some, but there were South Africans, Aussies, Kiwis, Indians, etc too).

The Germans come out of this fairly well - they're not sadistic, Van Eyck is reasonable and doesn't torture Hunter, an officer tells the Brits about Hunter being on the island, Hunter's guards are friendly to him, the doctor looks after Bernard Miles even though he's injured, etc.

There are two endings - the copy of the film I saw actually had one ending after another. The first one involves Hunter dying and Hiller posthumously receiving a VC - the second one has him surviving. The second one is much better - it felt really mean to kill him off after all he'd been through.

Movie review – “Die Hard 2” (1990) ***

Big, dumb and stupid but sometimes you’re in the mood for that, and the fact it’s set during a snow storm makes it visually different. The performances of the bit part actors is shocking (those British Airways passengers and staff, that hostess to talks to Bonnie Bedelia) and the one liners woefully unfunny, but it’s clever to get out of the plane by an ejector seat, the twist of the soldiers being bad too is good, the villains are imposing and different (military men as opposed to Europeans). Some irritating stuff: why is it so bad journalist William Atherton wants to report that terrorists have taken over an airport? Isn’t that something people should know?

Radio review – SGP – “Blind Alley” (1940) **

Years before Analyse This, Hollywood produced another movie about a gangster who gets psychoanalysed. Only this isn’t a comedy; it’s closer to The Petrified Forest – the gangster holds the shrink hostage, and the action is treated seriously. That’s still not a bad idea for a film, although what follows is mild. Maybe part of the problem is you want the gangster to be played by Bogie or Cagney or Robinson, but here it’s Joseph Calleila (a good actor, don’t get me wrong – just not one of the big boys); Edward G Robinson plays the shrink. (The leads in the film version were Chester Morris and Ralph Bellamy, so that lacked star power too.)

Movie review - "Die Hard 4.0" (2007) **

Big explosions, cartoon stunts (falling out of a helicopter and off a plane just gets you a scratch), snazzy visual styles, silly mistakes:it's a bright idea to have all electronics, power, etc shut down in the US, but where's the human stakes? It's annoying, sure, but no lives are threatened (cf the first two Die Hards). They try to fix it by throwing in McLane's daughter at the end, but that should have been in the first act not the third (Justin Long means nothing to him - how about making him his son in law or son or something?)

Tim Olyphant is fine as the baddie and Maggie Q very strong as his sidekick. But the references to the first film (eg an FBI agent called "Special Agent Johnson", McLane's daughter taking the name "Genero" until the end when she becomes "McLane") only serve to remind the viewer what a better, cleverer film the original was.

Movie review – “North Sea Hijack” (1980) **1/2

Always had fond memories of this film from watching it on video. It holds up pretty well, if you’re into films about hijacking oil rigs. Actually they take over a boat rather than an oil rig, but it’s still a more interesting target than a bus or something.

The other big plus of the film is Roger Moore’s performance as the sabotage expert – woman-hating, eccentric, lives in a castle, loves cats and stitchwork. Moore is clearly having the time of his life in the part – presumably he knew a lot of similar nutters like him, and the change from James Bond does him the world of good, he seems really animated and into the role. I also enjoyed Anthony Perkins as the leader of the hijackers, though part of me couldn’t help wishing that James Mason (who plays an admiral) played his part and Perkins played a second in command or something – Mason is kind of wasted and the villains could have used a bit more weight in the acting department.

The film does have a central flaw, in common with other films where baddies take over a small area (eg a plane in Executive Decision) – there’s not a lot of room to move, so the scriptwriter has to juggle a bit to find things for people to do, and there’s not a lot of action until the final charge. 

In something like Die Hard it’s not as much a problem because they take over a big room and there’s ventilator shafts and stuff to fight in; in Speed they fixed it by having a big opening sequence, setting it on a bus which is speeding all the time, and having an extra action scene at the end on a train (which was actually one too many). So it does slow up in the middle.

Also, Moore has it over Perkins a bit too easily – a major reversal would have helped.

The film features a female British Prime Minster who doesn’t look like Maggie Thatcher but who provides an amusing clash with woman-hating Moore.