!!!

You're goddamn right we did

The Viceroy is so badass

Wish I'd worn black

Actioned Out. Almost. Almost Actioned Out.

When we started this blog, I had huge, realistic hopes. Here's what I figured: similar to an 80's action hero, this blog would start with meager beginnings--the occasional post, the occasional reference to porn, the occasional picture of Jean Claude in a frighteningly small mankini--but through sheer force of will we'd develop a small but loyal Following. The Following would obviously include all the pretty girls at our high schools. Then a bigger, stronger blog would get so mad at us it'd embarrass us by posting mean comments or something. The pretty girls would walk away from us. We'd be a disgrace. Then Dave, clearly our weakest link, would come out of nowhere with a Judo Chop blog about something awesome. He'd probably put in some pictures too, because that's Dave. Then the Goob would wipe off the sting of his comment slap and write an epic recap of First Blood. People would cheer. We'd regroup. We'd do so much better than the bigger, stronger blog that we'd win back the pretty girls, and the patsies from the other blog would end up being embarrassed in front of their high schools. They'd probably have food and drinks spilled on them. Jerks. The nation would rejoice.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. We did not develop our grass roots following. Also, I ran out of steam. It turns out action movies are good in small doses. Unless Jean Claude is in them. Then they are awesome in all doses but zero. Zero is an unfortunate dose of Jean Claude. I think I last wrote about Scorpion King 2. Since then I've watched two movies, but oh such glorious plans I had:

The Deadly Chemical Medley part II

After reading this and watching this, how could I read the tease for Crank: High Voltage ("After surviving the brush with death that ended the first Crank film, top assassin Chev Chelios returns in this action-packed sequel to track down a ruthless Chinese mobster who has stolen his most prized possession: his heart.... he must continually jolt the mechanical ticker that beats within his chest") and not just plow ahead with the double feature? Per the blurb, its not exactly a chemical situation in this case, but the jist is the same.

It seems most appropriate to present my review in the same format as Dallas did. Plus that saves me having to come up with yet another way to vary my incessant posts. ONWARD!


1. Ridiculous Premise. After falling out of the sky (literally) some chinamen abscond with Chev to a mysterious back room where his heart, amongst other organs, are removed for transplant. Keeping Chev alive: a mechanical heart designed only to support minimal human activity for a couple days until the subject gets a transplant. Perhaps not as outlandish as the original, in this one Chev is constantly in search of some batteries or other clever way to get a shock. Naturally getting his electrical fix won't be enough for Chev; he's  going to get revenge on the motherfuckers responsible for stealing his heart while he's at it. Given the limits already set out, not a bad storyline. At the same time, given the limits already set out it probably wasn't too hard to say "lets take his heart".
Other plot notes of interest: Amongst the side characters: a guy with "full body tourrettes" (apparently the brother of the gay guy in Crank) (like they needed a reason for more jerky camera work and ridiculous spasticity) and some skinny asian bitch who just won't die, even when she's run over by a car going 50 mph. For some reason in the midst of a bunch of transformers, Chev and his Chinese nemesis grow to 50 feet tall and battle like King Kong, replete with bizarre facial prosthetics and building smashing. It's a hysterical scene. The buxom chocolate-skinned lady riding Doc's lap at the start of the movie helps Chev find the guy with his heart by playing a prostitute. A true hooker with a heart of gold story. At one point Chev comes face to face with the disembodied but still living head of one of his prior victims. This happens just before the gay guys come kill the ferret and save Chev from a super homoerotic cat-o-nine-tails lashing.
2 Stallones and a Statham for the storyline.
2. Earnest over-acting. One of the ways Doc tells Chev to get revved up is to use friction ("the rubbing of two like objects causes the transfer of electrons"). For some reason it takes him the better part of seven minutes to figure out that this can be accomplished not just by dry-humping an old lady, but also by sex. As he's about to lose it before the redemptive sex scene, he throws us a gloriously over-acted "Friiiictioooon" as his body wilts from his failing heart. Generally though, Statham's breed of grimace-and-run is just a different kind of action from the Stallone "It's like a switch" school of acting. 1 Stallone, 2 Stathams.
3. Ka-blooey! We open with Chev falling from the sky onto a Cadillac. It doesn't explode, but the peeling-his-body-off-the-cement sound effect was pretty swell. The rest of the movie, sadly, follows a very similar path. Lots of fighting, lots of jolting, lots of running around, but the ka-blooeys are few and far between. What it lacks in splosions it tries to make up for in blood, like when they cut off the tip of a guy's elbow, or when a failed cronie is forced to cut off his own nipples. However, this does not make up for the lack of explosions. Its just terribly disturbing. Yech. 2 Stathams.
4. Ka-boobie For some reason or another, Chev pops into a strip club. So, boobies abound, especially when the Mexicans come in and startle the strippers into bouncing their jubblies all over the place. Importantly, he also hooks up with Amy Smart there, and this time there's no doubt at all about the fact that she spends the next fifteen minutes with nothing but electrical taped X's covering her nips. So, incidental tits + leading character breasts (minus nipples) + occasional frontal nudity during the final poolside shootout gives us an upgrade over the original: three Stallones. However, minus one Statham for the scene later where Chev and Amy do it on the horse track in the middle of a race and expose nothing but Statham's buttcheeks. Net: 2 Stallones, 2 Stathams. It is a pretty awesome protracted ridiculous sex scene though.
5. Cheesy one liners. They're not one liners, but the film's repeated use of little graphical ploys is at least thematically entertaining and accomplishes what it sets out to do in making the film feel like a comic book. Chev tries a one-liner once with "Chicken and broccoli" after he kills a bunch of Chinese, causing their limo to crash, but that really doesn't make any damn sense. One Stallone.


It's certainly no Over the Top; its pretty much just a shadow of Crank. What do you expect though? It was a hell of a lot more entertaining than War or Death Race; they're all foregone conclusions but at least this one gets from A to B by way of breasts, flaming dream hugs, Journey, and SoA-approved awesomeness.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? -OR- Statham v. Stallone

When I first saw the cast listing for the Expendables, my first thought (other than Oscar bait!) was Jason Statham? Wha tha fuh? I was aware of him from Snatch and from the Italian Job, but somehow I had missed each and every one of his (I'm sure) adrenalin pumping, action-esque epics. So, long story short, I rented Crank, because it was a much dumber title for a movie than "Transporter," though I'll admit both are pretty dumb. Here's how Crank performed in the five most important action movie categories. For grading purposes, three Stathams equals one Stallone.

1. Ridiculous Premise. Oh my, yes. Statham plays an unlikable ass that is (probably justifiably) poisoned before the first scene of the movie. The poison will kill him unless he keeps his adrenalin up, so he's forced to snort coke, chug Red Bull, and instigate one senseless action scene after another to keep from dying. In a sense, it is a fairly genius premise in that it justifies the lack of rationale behind every scene in the movie. In a more real sense, however, it is just lazy screen writing.

A hypothetical situation

If I was to tell you that Jason Statham, a brooding tough action hero, and Jet Li, a quick, flashy, talented martial arts hero, were to make a movie, and to give it a title which implies combat and put them face to face staring at each other on the poster, what would expect the movie to be like?

So who's the baked potato?

There are two Death Race films, which conveniently both feature an Expendables star. I was going to compare and contrast, in a very concise and not overly verbose manner, producer Roger Corman's original 1975 film starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone and the 2008 adaptation starting Jason Statham. But about ten minutes into DR2K I realized you needed to come on the (preposterously verbose) journey with me. Enjoy it now because I'm not sure how many more of these I'll do.

So, without further ado, real time thoughts, analysis, and description of three-plus hours of tantalizing action, starting from the start.
*edit I'm trying the fancy jump break because Jay had the brilliance to reveal the button to me. This way this post will take up less front-page real estate. I assure you you should still read it though. It's brilliant.