Cinema Dispatch: The Naked Gun

The Naked Gun and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Akiva Schaffer

What, another reboot of a classic comedy from the eighties? I don’t know about you, but the Gen-X nostalgia for Ghostbusters alone has me wary of any revivals from the Reagan years, but people were surprisingly optimistic about this one, and the trailers at least put a solid case for itself to be taken seriously as a genuine successor to the original. It would certainly have to find a new angle given how different cops in both media and real life fit into popular culture, but it has some interesting talent behind it, and Neeson certainly seems game to fill Nielsen’s iconic shoes. Could this be the rare reboot that finds a way to be both faithful to what came before while also forging an identity of its own? Let’s find out!!

Detective Frank Drebin Jr (Liam Neeson) is a hard-nosed and sharp witted cop; right on the edge and peering over the side into the darkness below. This intuitive insight into the depths of man’s inhumanity to itself, along with the pleas of Beth (Pamela Anderson), the grieving sister of a man who died under suspicious circumstances, puts our intrepid hero from the venerable Police Squad on the trail of billionaire tech genius Richard Cane (Danny Huston) who’s all smiles and charm in front of the camera but is hiding something sinister behind closed doors. What is this fiendish villain planning, and does Frank Jr have the wherewithal to overcome whatever silly challenges get in the way of cracking this case? Where does Beth fit into all of this, and will she prove to be a strong ally to Frank or the sexy cause of his sexy downfall? With a man like this leading the charge, what could possibly go wrong?

“Fitting an entire hot dog in your mouth is not merely a challenge; it’s a show of domination to the rest of the food. They will KNOW who’s at the top of the chain!”
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Cinema Dispatch: xXx: Return of Xander Cage

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xXx: Return of Xander Cage and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by DJ Caruso

I know I’ve SEEN the first xXx movie, but the only things I can recall are a fake diner, non-lethal bullets with fake blood in them, and a bunch of scientist being killed by the bad guys because reasons.  Needless to say that it didn’t leave much of an impression on me considering how poorly I can recall it as well as the fact that I never felt the need to go back and rewatch it.  Still, what with The Fast and the Furious becoming the most popular international franchise outside of Marvel, they obviously had to milk this franchise again; something that didn’t seem to go well the last time they did it with Ice Cube, but I guess now that XANDER CAGE is back, we can take one more swing at it!  Does the return of Vin Diesel breathe new life into a franchise that’s been comatose for over a decade, or is this just one big Weekend at Bernie’s scheme gone even worse than any of us could imagine?  Let’s find out!!

The movie opens up with NSA Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson), who I guess was in the first movie, trying to recruit some football player (as in Soccer) to be a member of xXx, though I’m not sure if that’s a title, the name of the organization, or both.  It doesn’t really matter though because both he and the football player (Neymar) are killed by a satellite that drops out of the sky.  Normally these burn up on reentry LONG before they could really cause THAT kind of damage on the ground, but this is no the movie to be asking those kinds of questions in.  The more important question is… WHO’S RESPONSIBLE!?  Well, government operative Jane Marke (Toni Collette) seems to have an idea of HOW if not exactly WHO as the government JUST SO HAPPENS to have some sort of box that serves NO OTHER PURPOSE than to drop satellites from the sky.  Okay… well the box is stolen by a bunch of badasses (Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Tony Jaa, and Michael Bisping) which means the government has to find an EQUALLY badass person to hunt them down; namely Xander Cage (Vin Diesel).  It doesn’t take long for Jane to recruit him for the mission, and he brings along a crew of people with a certain set of skills to help him out.  Adele the sniper (Ruby Rose), Tennyson the stunt driver (Rory McCann),a nd of course Nicks the DJ (Kris Wu) because apparently you need one of those for this kind of mission.  Can this rag tag crew of Gatorade chugging XTREME athletes save the world before the OTHER Gatorade chugging XTREME athletes destroy it?  What was the government planning to do with that ridiculously specific doomsday device anyway?  Most importantly, does Vin Diesel look cool in this?

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“Would you fuck me?  I’d fuck me.”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: xXx: Return of Xander Cage”