Tag: Vin Diesel

Cinema Dispatch: The Fate of the Furious

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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Fate of the Furious and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by F Gary Gray

I hope all of you out there appreciate what I do for you!  A week ago, I had never even SEEN a Fast and the Furious movie, and yet I managed to binge watch ALL SEVEN OF THEM so that I can properly review this new one as the series now has a continuity more dense than the freaking Terminator, and that’s SUPPOSED to be convoluted!  I HAD TO WATCH TOKYO DRIFT FOR YOU PEOPLE!!  Sigh… alright, well it’s not like I even HATED any of the movies (other than Tokyo Drift) as most of them are at least DECENT if not all that engaging.  For me though, they didn’t pick up until part six when the BUDGET finally started to match the VISION that was always there, because let’s face it; Fast and the Furious was NEVER a serious series.  It was ALWAYS balls to the wall insanity, just at different degrees depending on what they could afford (except for Tokyo Drift which was just garbage).  So with the last two films finally managing to reach the potential this series was always capable of, does that trend continue with this film?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins in Cuba where Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) have settled down since the last movie where their house got blown up, and they’re doing their typical first act shtick of racing cars, talking about family, and forging new friendships!  That is until a super hacker hilariously named CIPHER (Charlize Theron) corners Dom at one point and shows him something that will CHANGE EVERYTHING FOREVER!!  Cut to a few days later where good ol’ Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) calls him and the rest of the crew up (Tyrese Gibson, Chirs Bridges, and Nathalie Emmanuel) to do another mission.  Everything goes according to plan except… DOM BETRAYS THEM!!  Their mission was to take an EMP from someplace in German (for reasons that I’m sure make sense) but he crashes Hobbs’s car right at the end and takes it for himself; leaving Hobbs to get thrown in jail back in America which JUST SO HAPPENS to be the same jail that Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is locked in as well… and they get cells right across from each other because reasons.  So now it’s up to our favorite crew of street racers along with Frank Petty (Kurt Russel) from the last movie who’s the leader of some sort of spy organization as well as his new protégé of sorts Eric Reisner (Scott Eastwood) to find out what Dom is doing, what CIPHER wants from him, and hopefully how to solve all this without taking him out as well.  Just what is the reason that Dom betrayed the one thing he cares about more than anything which is FAMILY?  Just what is CIPHER planning, and is it bad enough that the crew may have no other choice than to take Dom out?  Will Vin Diesel FINALLY give that Oscar performance he’s been hoping for!?

F8OTF1
“I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!  SLLLLLUUURRRP!”

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Cinema Dispatch: xXx: Return of Xander Cage

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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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?

xxxroxccd1
“Would you fuck me?  I’d fuck me.”

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Cinema Dispatch: The Last Witch Hunter

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

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The Last Witch Hunter and all the images you see in this review are owned by Summit Entertainment

Directed by Breck Eisner

And so we find ourselves with yet another chance for Vin Diesel to prove his nerd creds.  The guy is one of the biggest nerds in Hollywood and has shown it time and time again by attaching himself to big sci-fi and fantasy epics in between Fast and Furious sequels.  While some have been great like Pitch Black, others have not been so great like Babylon A.D.  Will The Last Witch Hunter be one of his better forays into bringing table top gaming to the silver screen, or will this be another misstep for an actor who can’t catch a break unless he’s behind the wheel of a car?  Let’s find out!!

The movie chronicles the modern day adventures of Kaulder (Vin Diesel); the immortal witch hunter who was cursed with this power by a witch he killed.  Seems legit I guess.  For the past couple hundred years he’s been working for The Axe and Cross to keep the peace between humanity and magic users who are allowed to live, but only under Harry Potter rules.  None of the humans outside of the Axe and Cross (which I’m PRETTY sure is just the Catholic Church) are to know about them and their powers and anyone who uses their powers on humans are the next victims of Kaulder.  After getting back from a trip to stop a witch from hurting herself and others with some dangerous rocks, Kaulder finds out that the Axe and Cross’s official liaison for him, the thirty-sixth Dolan (Michal Caine), is retiring and being replaced by the thirty-seventh Dolan (Elijah Wood).  However, his retirement is short lived as THE VERY NEXT DAY Kaulder gets a call that the dude had keeled over.  With bullshit detectors that have been sharped over hundreds of years, it doesn’t take long for him to realize that the cause of death was MURDER!!!  Who could possibly be behind his death!?  Well Kaulder intends to find out along with the thirty-seventh Dolan and a local witch (Rose Leslie) whose life Kaulder ruins yet still feels like tagging along for this very dangerous endeavor.  Will Kaulder find out who killed his friend?  Is there a greater mystery to be solved when they find out WHY he was killed?  Is this at least as good as Constantine!?

And those questions will be answered… right now.  Yes, yes, and HELL no!!!
And those questions will be answered… right now.  Yes, yes, and HELL no!!!

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