Day 349: The Replacement Killers (1998)

Last week we took a break when it came to having an Ass Whoopin Wednesdays film because we were busy watching another film for our 365 movies in 36 days challenge blog. So this week, we decided to pick a film Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) that we’ve always wanted to watch in The Replacement Killers. John Lee (Yun-Fat) is one of the best assassins that money can buy. After a drug lord’s (Kenneth Tsang) son gets killed, John is tasked with doing a revenge job for him, but John’s conscience gets in the way and he fails to do the job. Knowing that he failed to do it, he will seek the help of a documents forger (Mira Sorvino) to get papers to go back to China. The only problem is that the drug lord has already hired replacement killers to not only finish the job, but to take you out as well. The film also stars Michael Rooker (Guardians Of The Galaxy) as Det. Zedkov, Jürgen Prochnow (Das Boot) as Michael Kogan, Til Schweiger (Inglorious Basterds) as Ryker, Danny Trejo (The Devil’s Rejects) as Collins, Clifton Collins Jr. (Triple 9) as Loco, Carlos Gomez (Desperado) as Hunt, Patrick Kilpatrick (Last Man Standing) as Pryce, and the film was directed by Antoine Fuqua (The Magnificent Seven). To see the rest of the review, please click here to go to Moshpits and Movies.

Day 80: Spectre (2015)

There are certain characters in the history of cinema that transcend time and are so iconic they carry their weight for years. James Bond is definitely one of those characters no matter who plays him and that is why I chose Spectre for today’s film. Daniel Craig (Skyfall) once again reprises the role of James Bond in this film as he investigates a new, but familiar threat. The 00 program’s existence is being threatened by the potential merger of all the world’s security/spy programs coming together thanks to MI6, but M (Ralph Fiennes) will try his best to stop it. Something about it just doesn’t add up thanks to a message from someone familiar to James  and he is on the case. The closer he gets to the truth the more deceit their is to all of it and this organization known as Spectre. The film also stars Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) as Blofeld, Léa Seydoux (The Grand Budapest Hotel) as Madeleine, Monica Bellucci (Passion Of The Christ) as Lucia, Benjamin Whishaw (Cloud Atlas) as Q, Naomie Harris (28 Days Later…) as Moneypenny, Dave Bautista (Guardians Of The Galaxy) as Hinx, Andrew Scott (Saving Private Ryan) as C, Rory Kinnear (The Imitation Game) as Tanner, and the film was directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty).

First, I wanted to take the time to list all the things that I didn’t like about the film and one big one is the theme song. While I don’t think Writing’s On The Wall by Sam Smith is complete crap, I don’t think that it was a great follow up to Adele’s Skyfall theme. There are so many Bond themes that are better than this one even though it was the only element of the film that won an Oscar. There are three elements that are important to every James Bond film and those are theme song, Villain, and Bond girls and I have already discussed one. Some people may have been pissed that Dave Bautista had literally one line in the whole film, but I think that added to his benefit. You knew he was a bad ass thug with weird thumbs, but he didn’t have to speak to be the henchman. Christoph Waltz is a brilliant actor, but I struggled to find the brilliance in this film. I don’t blame him for that, but rather the writing. The Bond Girls were OK in my opinion, but strange how an almost life/death experience would drive one to want to make love. This wasn’t the best Bond film, but it wasn’t the worst either. I struggled to write what the plot of the film was in the above paragraph because there wasn’t really a plot. There was just action with a lot of nothingness in between all of it. If this was Daniel Craig’s last film then so be it. I think it’s time for some new blood in the role of James Bond anyways. I definitely appreciate all that Daniel Craig did for the Bond series, he was definitely a breath of fresh air at one point for the series. I am going to give Spectre an B- for a final grade.

Day 69: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Going into today’s Ass Whoopin Wednesday film, there were two reasons I chose the film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with one being that it was directed by Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and the second being that it stars Superman himself Henry Cavill (Man Of Steel). The Man From U.N.C.L.E. takes us all the way back to the 1960’s and the cold war as our setting for the film. Cavill plays American CIA operative Napoleon Solo while Armie Hammer (The Social Network) plays KGB Agent Illya Kuryakin in a film where the two agents are forced to team together against one common enemy other than each other. There is a rumor that some Nazi enthusiasts are close to creating an atomic bomb and along with the help of the beautiful Gaby (Alicia Vikander) they will try to infiltrate and retrieve the bomb before it is completed. The film also stars Hugh Grant (Four Weddings And A Funeral) as Waverly, Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) as Victoria, Luca Calvani (When In Rome) as Alexander, Sylvester Groth (Inglorious Basterds) as Uncle Rudi, Jared Harris (Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows) as Sanders, Christian Berkel (Valkyrie) as Udo, Misha Kuznetsov (25TH Hour) as Oleg, Marianna Di Martino as the desk clerk, and David Menkin (Zero Dark Thirty) as Jones. To check out the rest of the review and see some stats, click here.