Tag: Gerard Butler

Cinema Dispatch: Plane

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Plane and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Jean-François Richet

Gerard Butler and I have something of an understanding; albeit one that’s completely one-sided.  As long as he doesn’t make anything as truly detestable as London Has Fallen again, I’ll continue to hold him up as one of our best B-Movie action stars.  Shouldn’t be too hard as being better than London Has Fallen is a very low bar to clear, and I’ve enjoyed quite a few of his post-2016 outings.  Will his latest outing, which looks to be as simple and straightforward as its title, prove to be another solid entry in his shining career, or will he finally sap away whatever goodwill I had left for him?  Let’s find out!!

Our pilot for this adventure is Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) who has the dark background, short temper, and cheeky wisecracks of a typical Hollywood action star, but he’s not in the mood for heroics and just wants to get home to his daughter after this one last flight.  Of course, it wouldn’t be a movie if something bad didn’t happen, and after being brow beaten by corporate to fly through a storm to save some fuel, the plane crashes on an isolated island far from their intended flight plan; leaving it up to our esteemed captain to keep order and find a way to bring everyone back home.  Complicating matters is the presence of a convict Louis (Mike Colter) who was added to the flight at the last minute, not to mention a bunch of whiney passengers who want to live stream their plight, but those concerns are small potatoes compared to the army of angry militias that are barreling towards them with the intent to murder them, ransom them, or both.  Will Brodie be able to keep the peace in such a tense situation while working on a way to contact the outside world?  Can Louis be trusted as an ally in keeping these people safe, and what will he do when the situation puts him closer and closer to being a free man?  Did they at least save the in-flight peanuts, or are those still gonna cost extra?

“You want my help, you gonna have to give me a blanket, three bottles of sparkling water, and every bag of Corn Pops you have left.”     “Anything else?”     “Do you still give away those Junior Wings?  I always wanted some of those.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Angel Has Fallen

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Angel Has Fallen and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

I didn’t want to see this movie.  Did ANYONE want to see this movie after that horrendous sequel?  If anything worthwhile had come out this week I would have seen that instead, but for some reason things are just drying up between now and IT Chapter 2, so I guess I’ll take what I can get even if it’s… this thing.  Frankly I would have preferred a sequel to that submarine movie he did with the dude from Black Flag, but no one went to see that one and EVERYONE went to see the one where Muslims destroy London, so once again I find myself at the mercy of mainstream taste when entering the multiplex.  Hey, at least it got us the MCU and WAY more Purge movies than anyone could have expected, so it might be worth taking the bad along with the good.  Does this movie manage to redeem a franchise after such an abysmal second outing, or will the trend continue downward with such velocity that it buries straight down into the center of the Earth?  No I’m not sure what that means, but let’s find out!!

Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is the unstoppable badass of the Secret Service who kicks butt and takes names like nobody’s business in service of the President who is now Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) taking over for Benjamin Asher.  I don’t THINK he died in the last movie so that would mean Trumbull got elected or President Asher died of some other means that Banning couldn’t punch his way out of.  ANYWAY!  What you may not have expected is that despite this being movie three it’s actually a Rocky 5 because all the damage that Banning has accrued over the movies we saw and the missions we didn’t have started to catch up to him as he has to take pain pills to manage his headaches and insomnia which have only gotten progressively worse.  Maybe it’s time to think about a desk job like his friend Wade Jennings (Danny Huston) who runs a PMC that I’m sure will have NOTHING to do with what’s about to happen!  While on a fishing trip, President Trumbull is attacked by a swarm of exploding drones that kills EVERYONE there except for Trumbull who is in a coma and Mike Banning who just barely escaped with his life.  That’s the good news, but the bad news he’s about to hear is PRETTY bad as FBI agent Helen Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith) has found enough evidence to convict Banning of trying to assassinate the president!  Apparently he couldn’t knock him into the water and say he slipped, he had to send out EXPLODING DRONES to cause MASSIVE explosions that he could have easily been caught in and managed to kill everyone EXCEPT his target.  Sure.  Okay then.  Well it’s hardly a surprise that Banning manages to escape custody and finds out that he’s being set up by the only new character introduced in this movie; namely his PMC buddy Wade who is using the full force of his company to try and kill him and any other American citizen in the way so he can cover up this frame job.  Mike is gonna need to recall all his skills, his wits, and even enlist the help of his estranged father Clay (Nick Nolte) to clear his name, stop the PMC and save the President if there’s time for that too.  Can Mike Banning save the world once again, even if his buddy is the one pulling the strings?  What do they have planned once Mike is dead, and are there greater forces at play in this grand scheme of theirs?  Out of ALL the people to put the frame on, why would they do it to the ONE person who managed to save the White House AND all of London already?  Couldn’t they pin it on Agent Bob or something?  I doubt he’s stabbed even HALF as many people as Banning has!

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“This is the LAST time I cover for you, Bob!  SO not worth the overtime!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Hunter Killer

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Hunter Killer and all the images you see in this review are owned by Summit Entertainment

Directed by Donovan Marsh

Ugh… you know what’s worse than being sick for two weeks?  Being sick for two weeks and then getting better JUST IN TIME to see Hunter Killer.  I didn’t get to catch Can You Ever Forgive Me while it was at the nearby theater!  Oh no, I have to drive out of town to see it now if I’m lucky, but the latest Gerard Butler vehicle?  Why that’s just a hop skip and a jump away!  I’m sure I’ll be cursing my recent good heath by the time this is over, but I guess you never know until you see the movie itself, do you!?  I mean sure it LOOKS like a generic submarine thriller starring America’s Fifth Favorite Action Figure, but… I guess it could be a FUN version of that!  Let’s find out!!

As the movie begins we see an American sub is following a Russian sub before getting blown away by a third sub, and so The Pentagon needs to send a second sub of their own to find out what happened.  Not just anyone can pull this mission off however!  Oh no, they need a PROFESSIONAL hard ass with a heart of gold and a bladder of titanium!  They need… JOE GLASS (Gerard Butler)!  Joe takes the USS Arkansas along with a crew of very professional character actors to see if they can find the original US sub, and after a rather intense skirmish with a Russian sub (presumably the one that shot down the first American sub), they manage to find our sub… as well as their sub.  Yes, it seems that the original Russian sub had been sunk somehow and JOE GLASS needs some answers!  While all this is going on, Admieral Donnegan (Gary Oldman), Rear Admiral Fisk (Common), and NSA analyst Norquist (Linda Cardellini) are coordinating an effort to get a squad of US soliders on Russian soil to find out if President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) is up to no good!  Said team is led by Lieutenant Beaman (Toby Stephens) along with the rookie Martinelli (Zane Holtz) and two other guys who find that things may not be as simple as we initially thought and that Zarkarin might be in danger himself.  Will JOE GLASS find the answers he’s looking for on that mysteriously sunk submarine?  What can Lieutenant Beaman and his crew do now that they know that something is up and they are the only ones in position to do anything about it?  With so much danger under the sea, will this sub sink faster than Gerard Butler’s career!?

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“THIS!  IS!  THE NAVY!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Den of Thieves

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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Den of Thieves and all the images you see in this review are owned by STX Entertainment

Directed by Christian Gudegast

You know, after The Commuter turned out to be a giant pile of nonsense, I don’t know if I’m up to getting even more of it shoved directly into my face with yet another gritty Cops and Robbers story that looks about as good as a January dump job would.  Maybe I’m wrong though!  Maybe my expectations are so low after seeing Liam Neeson fight The Illuminati on a train that something much more grounded will be a welcomed change of pace!  I highly doubt it, but if last year taught us ANYTHING, it’s to not give up hope even if everything is telling you that THINGS ARE ONLY GONNA GET WORSE FROM HERE!!  Does this manage to be the cinematic oasis in the crappy wasteland known as January Releases, or is this sucker yet another mirage that crush our spirits and keep them crushed until around March?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with the theft of an armored car by a bunch of BAD ASS criminals led up by Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) whose crew of Merry men includes Levi (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Bosco (Evan Jones), Mack (Cooper Andrews), and the new guy Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr) .  The crime is investigated by a crew of BAD ASS sheriffs led u by Nick Flanagan (Gerard Butler) whose posse of shitty lawmen includes… uh, okay I don’t think any of them other than Gus (Mo McRae) got a name, BUT THEY’RE BAD ASS!!  They’re so BAD ASS in fact that they break a WHOLE lot of civil liberties in the process of tracking down Ray’s crew and finding out what they’re up to.  It turns out that Ray wants to rob the Federal Reserve of all its discarded money that is set to be shredded, but with BIG NICK breathing down his neck, the plan becomes that much more dangerous; even if they’ve got an armored truck to work with.  Can this den of thieves pull off a scam that no one has ever been able to pull off, especially if they’re being watched the whole time?  Will Nick and his pals put their dicks back in their pants long enough to do some ACTUAL police work and arrest these guys at some point?  You know, come to think of it… why should I care about ANY of them!?  They’re all bad!  Wait… what if… the title of the movie… IS REFERRING TO BOTH GROUPS!?  MOVIE SHOCK!!

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WHAT A TWIST!!

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Cinema Dispatch: Geostorm

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Geostorm and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Dean Devlin

We’ve been getting a LOT of delayed films this year, haven’t we?  Tulip Fever took a while to come out, Rings took even longer, and that Amityville Horror sequel or reboot or whatever ended up failing so hard that it was released FOR FREE on Google Play.  Not in theaters; on the same storefront where you download crappy Tetris knockoffs and flashlight apps.  Now we’ve got this movie which may be the most interesting of the bunch simply because of how much money Warner Bros inevitably sunk into the damn thing to try and recoup its losses.  Not quite as much as Monster Trucks, but certainly enough that you’d question if anyone behind this damn thing had heard of the Sunk Cost fallacy.  Well it’s finally out now at probably the worst time imaginable (this story keeps getting better and better!) and with very little fan far from Warner Bros who may have finally realized it’s time to cut their losses.  Does this movie manage to rise above its troubled production to deliver something at least somewhat enjoyable, or is this possibly an even bigger mess than The Snowman was?  Okay, NOTHING is quite as shoddily put together as that film, but will this still be an absolute disaster and not in the way they were hoping for?  Let’s find out!!

The movie takes place in the very near future where humanity finally came up with an idea on how to combat Global Warming.  Not by recycling or embracing renewable imagery of course, but by putting a giant freaking net of satellites around the globe that can somehow shoot science beams at the earth whenever a tornado, hurricane, or anything else is about to threaten human lives.  Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler), who I’m assuming got this brilliant idea from Highlander 2: The Quickening, is the one dude bad enough to put this whole project together which is nicknamed Dutch Boy but is kicked off the project for infuriatingly political reasons.  Okay, he punched an inspector in the face, but what ELSE was he supposed to do!?  Listen to what he had to say!?  Anyway, his brother Max (Jim Sturgess) is the new head honcho of the project but the system starts to malfunction a few years down the road which leads to some isolated but very deadly weather events and no one knows what’s causing them.  I guess it’s time for good ol’ Jake to reclaim his throne and go up to the satellite to see what the heck is causing these problems and hopefully stop it before it threatens all life on Earth.  Will Jake solve the mystery before it’s too late and find out if its simple malfunctions or sabotage?  What will Max find out back on Earth with the help of one of Dutch Boy’s programmers (Daniel Wu) and a hacker that he apparently knows in the State Department (Zazie Beetz)?  Just how many things can they manage to blow up with a weather machine!?

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“Damn it!  I knew we shouldn’t have stored all those recalled Samsung phones in there!”

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Cinema Dispatch: London Has Fallen

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

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London Has Fallen and all the images you see in this review are owned by Focus Features, Gramercy Pictures, and Lionsgate Films

Directed by Babak Najafi

Look, Gods of Egypt was a mistake, alright?  Gerard Butler was certainly not the ONLY one responsible for that catastrophe and was frankly one of the few saving graces for a movie that deserved none.  He’s learned his lesson though and is coming back with a sequel to probably his second most popular film (after 300).  Will this be the shot in the arm his career needs after that unfathomable mess, or will this befall the same fate of pretty much every other sequel to a surprise hit which is to crash and burn spectacularly?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows Secret Service agent Mike Bannon (Gerard Butler) and President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) who are in London so that the President can attend the funeral of the recently deceased Prime Minister.  Not only is he in attendance though, but so are many leaders of the western world which is something this movie seems to think has NEVER happened.  Uh… world leaders get together all the time.  Has this movie ever heard of the G8 summit?  Anyway, the death of the Prime Minister turns out to be a ploy for a known arms dealer Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul) to take his revenge on the US (and presumably the rest of the G8) for a drone strike that was targeting him, but managed to kill everyone at his daughter’s wedding.  There’s only ONE person who seems to think that something might be up though, and when shit hits the fan Mike Bannon is on the job to save the president and kill as many bad guys as possible!  While this is going on, Vice President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) is dragged back into the situation room to deal with ANOTHER crisis where the President is smack dab in the middle of utter chaos and he does… stuff.  I think.  Will Mike be able to save the President and the free world before the day is over? Is there a mole in the British military or spy network that helped these terrorist pull of their plan?  Did all the people they dragged back in from the first movie at least get a nice paycheck out of this?

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“Wait, is THAT the movie we’re in!?”     “Yes…”     “Sweet merciful baby Jesus.  WHAT HAVE WE DONE!?!?”

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Cinema Dispatch: Gods of Egypt

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 9 Comments

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Gods of Egypt and all the images you see in this review are owned by Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate

Directed by Alex Proyas

No one was asking for this!  No one wanted the director of Dark City to make a Gore Verbinski style summer tent pole!  Where the hell did his even come from, other than the pits of Hell?  Brace yourselves people.  We’ve got a REALY bad one on our hands.  How bad?  Well you’re about to find out!!

The movie is primarily about the God Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who is the son of Osiris (Bryan Brown) and will be given the throne to Asgard… I mean Egypt.  Osiris’s brother Set (Gerard Butler) has other plans however and stages the worst (yet somehow most effective) coup I’ve ever seen where about five hundred soldier dudes just enters the main palace with no resistance from Egypt’s own military.  Set kills Osiris and challenges Horus to one on one combat which seems like a pretty dumb idea in hindsight considering Horus almost beats his sorry ass and only loses once Set’s soldiers get involved.  Horus’s own soldiers never show up, and the other Gods observing the ceremony don’t step in to HELP him, so Horus loses the fight and has his eyes plucked out.  Set is now the king, goes full Egyptian Nazi on their asses, and has plans to… take over the afterlife?  I don’t know exactly but whatever it is, it’s nefarious!  Who can stop Set?  Well apparently a simple thief can as Bek (Brenton Thwaltes) breaks into the pyramid where Set keeps Horus’s eye and steals it away so that he and his girlfriend Zaya (Courtney Eaton) can bring Horus back and stop Set.  Zaya gets killed in the process unfortunately which means Bek has to use the eye as leverage to get Horus to bring back his girlfriend in exchange for it.  So now that Horus is back in action (at least half way what with one eye), he needs to come up with a plan to defeat Set with the help of Bek who seems to know a couple of things about Set’s operation and his natural abilities as a thief prove to be quite useful.  Will Horus find a way to stop Set before he does something REALLY bad?  Will he get any help from the Goddess of Love Hathor (Elodie Yung), the God of Wisdom Thoth (Chadwick Boseman) or his own grandfather Ra (Geoffrey Rush) who apparently lives on the Justice League Watchtower space station?  Does… anyone really care?  Was anyone looking forward to this?

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“Ugh…  What am I even doing here?”

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