This begins with a bit of a prequel backstory, and gets off to a decent start thanks mostly to John Cena (as Agent Burns) who in the backstory set in the 80s was a special forces soldier on a training exercise when he sees Bumblebee landing on Earth, shortly followed by a couple of Decepticons.
But it goes a bit downhill when John Cena takes a back seat after the opening scenes, and the new lead cast member emerges as Hailee Steinfeld (playing Charlie Watson). Steinfeld was also a major supporting cast member in The Marvels (2023) which was a terribly ill-conceived and uncoordinated tomboy-power flop so that doesn’t stack up well for this movie.
When it gets going, this movie turns out to be like a cross between Transformers and Herbie, as Bumblebee takes the form of a yellow beetle car and the lead characters drive around in it, talking to it/him, experiencing various stunts, and getting him to help out with all kinds of tasks.
I would have liked to have seen John Cena take a more sustained role in this movie, and it would have been nice to get some additional good cast members involved too. Imagine if Cena had as much screen time as Jorge Lendeborg Jr (playing Memo, Charlie’s aspiring boyfriend). It could have been way more awesome but I guess that’s just not the genre this movie was going for – they wanted it childish and emo. For this reason I’m going to rate it Below Average, on a par with Transformers 3, thus declaring it joint weakest of all Transformers movies to date.
Sequel
Bumblebee (2018) was the sixth Transformers movie, and there’s been one more since – that’s Transformers 7: Rise Of The Beasts (2023). It comes with an entirely new cast of humans (yet again), plus the usual squad of Transformers, and a whole load of new ones too (the Beasts).
This movie tells the backstory of most of the core X-Men characters including: Professor X (Charles Xavier) played mostly by James McAvoy (co-star of Wanted alongside Angelina Jolie; also in Glass alongside Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis) to be a generation or two younger than Patrick Stewart’s version of Professor X; and there’s Erik aka Magneto played by Michael Fassbender (star of Assassin’s Creed) to be a generation or two younger than Ian McKellen’s Magneto. There’s also Raven aka Mystique played by Jennifer Lawrence; and Hank McCoy aka Beast played by Nicholas Hoult. We also see Alex Summers aka Havok (played by Lucas Till) – in theory his character is the younger brother of Scott Summers (Cyclops) who featured in the original X-Men trilogy from the decade prior. And there’s several more weird characters besides these.
The main antagonist is played by Kevin Bacon. His character, Sebastian Shaw, is the doctor responsible for torturing young Erik (Magneto) and killing his mother; and most of this movie revolves around Erik’s mission to get even. Sebastian Shaw also has mutant powers himself, including the ability absorb energy from all kinds of weapons, then transform it and throw it back as he pleases. He also wears the original version of what eventually becomes Magneto’s hat, preventing Xavier from reading his mind.
We also get a brief cameo from Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine, when Charles & Erik originally approach him, but he immediately tells them to get lost without even asking what they want, and they do, and that’s as far as his role in this movie goes.
Other significant characters include Emma Frost, a telepath with diamond skin played by January Jones; and Angel Salvadore, a fireball shooting girl with butterfly wings played by Zoë Kravitz. There’s also CIA agent Moira MacTaggert played by Rose Byrne, and a disappearing red-skinned devil type character called Azazel played Jason Flemyng. And that’s not all but we’ll be here all day listing every significant mutant in this movie – we’ve covered the main one I think, there’s just a few more.
Considering how drama-heavy this movie is, and how childish it often is from time to time, I have to rate is OK – no better than the original X-Men trilogy – in fact it’s probably slightly worse, on a par with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) but the margins are small so I’ve rated them all Bang Average.
There’s a lot of drama in this movie, and some decent action, and some intriguing aspects to the plot. Overall I rate it Bang Average on a par with the last couple of X-Men movies.
This movie is centred around the non-mutants (in this movie called ‘humans’ for some odd reason as if being a mutated human is equal to being a non-human) having found a mutant who has the ability to strip powers from any mutant who goes near him. From this ability, a ‘cure’ has been made, delivered in needle format. Magneto and friends team up against the ‘humans’, with the core team of X-Men trying to prevent a war. And the key concept that really defines this movie, aside from the ‘cure’ and Magneto’s antics, is Jean Grey coming back from the dead and having unlocked her Class 5 powers making her more powerful than anyone else – she even kills Professor X although that’s because she has a split personality between malevolent and benevolent sides, due to Professor X having repressed her powers for everyone’s protection since she was a child. Eventually, Magneto’s crew wage a siege on Alcatraz where the ‘cure’ is being made, but Magneto gets hit with the ‘cure’, then just as things are about to end amicably, the military fire on Jean Grey and this makes her angry, which is a big problem – only Logan can stop her by appealing to her heart before stabbing and killing her. What kind of culture is this movie trying to nurture with behaviour like this?
The cast is pretty much the same as usual, with Hugh Jackman playing Logan aka Wolverine, Ian McKellen playing Eric Lehnsherr aka Magneto, Patrick Stewart playing Professor Charles Xavier, Famke Janssen playing Jean Grey aka Phoenix, Halle Berry playing Ororo Munroe aka Storm, Anna Paquin playing Marie aka Rogue, James Marsden playing Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn playing Raven Darkholme aka Mystique, Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake aka Ice Man, Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce aka Pyro, as well Daniel Cudmore as Peter Rasputin aka Colossus the metal man who always seems missing from the main set of credits for some odd reason.
Plus we get to see a lot more of Kelsey Grammar playing Dr Henry ‘Hank’ McCoy aka Beast, who’s involved in politics with the humans. And we get to see a bit more of Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde who can phase through walls, floors and ceilings, or people – anything really.
We also get the odd interesting new character, such as Vinnie Jones playing Juggernaut who can walk through walls and anything else – he is an unstoppable object when on the move. And Ben Foster plays a mutant with large wings like a bird, called Angel, and his father runs the lab that developed the ‘cure’, and his father wants to ‘cure’ him, but he escapes, then comes back in the end to save his father’s life, using his unique abilities.
Speaking of Ben Foster, the LGBT theme is a bit over the top in this movie, with men dressing up in women’s clothes too, and even calling themselves girls. It’s a bit weird, but that’s Hollywood for you – sometimes they can’t help themselves, and sometimes it seems like a key driver that helped get the movie sponsored.
Sequels
Now that we’ve completed the early trilogy, since Xavier died in this one, the following X-Men movies go off on a tangent to focus on the story of Logan / Wolverine, and simultaneously a few prequel general X-Men movies are made. So there’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), then X-Men First Class (2011) and it alternates back and forth between Wolverine movies and prequel movies, with releases in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, and then there’s Dark Phoenix in 2019 which very much resembles Captain Marvel from the same year (strong lead female with energy powers). By this time, Jean Grey (aka Phoenix) had been re-cast and is now played by Sophie Turner, the star of Dark Phoenix – the same Class 5 mutant that should have stole the show in X-Men 3: The Last Stand but her role as the most powerful mutant ever wasn’t properly capitalised on and most of the marketing placed more emphasis on Halle Berry (Storm) who was a big star at the time since she played the main Bond girl in Die Another Day (2002) and took the lead role in Catwoman (2004). Dare I say, there’s also been a recent X-Men spinoff in the form of the Deadpool trilogy starring Ryan Reynolds, which features Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I’m not a big fan of that toilet humour genre myself though, so I’m not recommending those Deadpool movies – just mentioning it for completeness.
Captain Marvel is an OK modern Marvel movie. It’s not very well made, but it’s not very poorly made either.
It’s got subtle and not-so-subtle undertones of a girls’ girl theme, but this doesn’t massively detract from the core plot or action scenes so it’s tolerable for those whose cup of tea it is not.
The action ranges from so-so to pretty good, and although its best scenes have most of the constituents of an awesome experience, they falls short of what the best Marvel movies have managed to achieve (both in action and in drama). The best action scenes, while still pretty good, are a bit limp and end up being a bit of a sissy version of what they could be.
The plot is fairly enjoyable when you’ve not seen it in a few years.
Brie Larson plays the main character, Captain Marvel, born as Carol Danvers and renamed Vers by her kidnappers who may have also wiped her memory. Her acting is alright but nothing special.
Samuel L Jackson plays the next main role, as Nick Fury, a senior agent of SHIELD and as Earth’s main liaison for Captain Marvel – initially trying to arrest her, then eventually helping her when he realises his own agency has been hijacked by the alien race who he initially thought were the enemy but eventually discovered were the good guys. Samuel does a good job and kind of saves the show from what would otherwise be little more than a poorly made, uncoordinated in drama interspliced with mediocre action, only a few scenes of which are sort of good.
Lashana Lynch plays Maria Rambeau, the tomboy-type forgotten ‘best friend’ (and maybe more) of Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel. Her acting doesn’t impress me.
Ben Mendelsohn plays Talos (the shapeshifting alien) and Keller (the agent who Talos impersonates, who is Nick Fury’s boss). He does a so-so job.
Jude Law plays the main antagonist in the second half of the movie, who initially appears to be a good friend of Vers – her senior comrade, supervisor and training partner (and secretly the guy who originally kidnapped her, before her memory were wiped). Jude does a decent job here, and significantly helps to make this is kind of respectable movie.
The main antagonist at the very end, who Jude Law’s character answers to, is Ronan (played by Lee Pace although you can’t really tell who it is behind the CGI, mask, outfit, makeup, etc). Ronan was the guy who served under Thanos in Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) before going rogue when he acquired an infinity stone and became the most powerful man in the universe and the main antagonist of that movie, until the Guardians took the stone back. He’s a cool character and wields hammer a bit like Thor.
Djimon Hounsou and Gemma Chan play members of Jude Law’s team – initially comrades of Vers (Captain Marvel). They add value. They’re at least as good as Brie Larson.
Annette Bening with weird contact lenses plays the AI character who helps to deceive & control Vers – modelled on Carol’s forgotten friend, a renegade pilot who developed the technology that gave Captain Marvel her superpowers when it crashed (shot down by Jude Law’s character, who also killed Bening’s character, kidnapped Carol and wiped her mind).
Clark Greg plays Agent Phil Coulson from SHIELD, working under Nick Fury. He’s a good character but only has a very minor role here – I’d be pleased to see him in a bigger role.
This movie gets off to an interesting start – the plot early on is pretty good. The action initially is not bad either. But in the second half, the action becomes little more than white noise. The plot loses track and the whole movie drops off. The very ending is an interesting one, but we went from a great build-up to a load of senseless, uncoordinated action & drama, such that ever since half way through this movie I’ve been mostly looking forward to what’s to come in the sequels because it never looked like any interesting plot developments were likely to happen in this movie.
Chris Evans himself does a decent job acting in this movie, and the CGI effects are quite legendary in how they make his body very small and feeble early on, before he takes the magic serum to become Captain America. He had help from a smaller body double for some scenes, where Evans’ head was placed on his double’s body, but most of it was based purely on footage of Chris Evans which was rendered through CGI to shrink his face & body.
Hayley Atwell is the main female character in this movie. She has a pretty face here, and makes an interesting character.
Samuel L Jackson plays a minor role in an authoritative position – he does a good job as always.
Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from The Matrix, over a decade older now) plays the main antagonist quite well.
There’s a strong military theme in this movie, as it’s mostly staged back in World War II (with the exception of the very start and the very end).
The superhero himself is quite a simple man, pushing American patriotism and military sentiment, and while the early story and early action are pretty good, this is a relatively weak superhero that I struggle to get behind, especially in the aimless back end of the movie. Having said that, when Captain America was first created, and chased after the man who killed the doctor, that was a great set of scenes which showed a flavour of the potential of this character in future movies. So while I’m keen to watch the sequels next after watching this movie, I am left quite disappointed by the level of this movie, especially in the second half, and for this reason I have to rate it just OK, roughly equal to Iron Man 2 which came out the year before and just as dull itself, with an equal amount of good bits, in stark contrast the first Iron Man movie, if you’ll pardon the pun. Did I mention Tony Stark’s father, Howard Stark, had a minor role in this Captain America movie? It’s an interesting crossover between Iron Man and Captain America movies, and sets the scene for many more crossovers to come in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). So far, at the time of this movie, we’ve seen Iron Man (2008) kicking off Phase One of the MCU movie series, followed by The Incredible Hulk (2008), then Iron Man 2 (2010), then Thor (2011), then Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and next in the Marvel movie series, to round off Phase One, is The Avengers (2012), then Phase Two kicks off with Iron Man 3 in 2013, followed by Thor 2 (2013) and Captain America 2 in 2014. So feel free to jump ahead and watch Captain America 2 next, or take it slower and watch The Avengers (2012) next where Captain America also plays a major role. You may even wish to back-track a bit, and watch Iron Man (2008) first, to work your way through all MCU movies in order from the start.
This already feels like an old movie because it’s been around so long and was one the very first movie produced by Marvel Studios, and the first to come under the umbrella of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s still pretty cutting-edge by today’s Marvellous standards.
Of course it’s not the first movie based on Marvel Comics – there were over a dozen before it, including the early Blade, X-Men and Spider Man movies, and even Howard The Duck going back to 1986.
Iron Man stars Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, the main shareholder and chief inventor for the world’s top weapons designer & manufacturer. Then he sees the damage his weapons are doing even to Americans and turns his back on the former business, instead focusing on developing his Iron Man suit that turns him into a one man army and a superhero.
Gwyneth Paltrow (in her mid 30s) plays Pepper Potts – Tony Stark’s beloved PA.
The main antagonist – initially the friendly VP of Stark International, called Obadiah Stane – is played quite convincingly by Jeff Bridges. He eventually builds his own Iron Man suit after analysing the wreckage of Tony’s prototype, and becomes known as Iron Monger.
Of course, as with any war related movie, there’s a lot of narrative pushing and conditioning built into this movie, which sickens me, but looking past that, the budget is good, the action is good, the acting is good, and the plot development is not bad either.
Iron Man has some slightly stomached churning moments, bordering on horror, such as when Tony realises his heart has been replaced with a device powered by a car battery, and when the main antagonist pulls out that device later on. This, and the rotten America vs Middle East typecasting, also brings down my overall score of the Iron Man movie, causing me to rate it about equal to the likes of Doctor Strange, Venom, Black Panther and Blue Beetle. I rate it slightly weaker than the likes of Aquaman, Black Adam and Wonder Woman, mainly because their most thrilling moments are a bit stronger and/or their plots are a bit richer, and/or their downsides are less of an issue – but there’s not much in it. I rate Thor even higher. If we compare the best moments in Iron Man (such as when he makes his escape from the terrorists’ cave, and when he has a run-in with the F-22 raptors) vs the best moments in Thor (such as when Thor infiltrates the black site to go after his hammer, and when he regains his powers just in time to deal with the Destroyer robot that Loki is controlling) – they’re not massively dissimilar in terms of entertainment value. Thor’s scenes – especially the one where he goes after his hammer – may possibly be more credible, relatable and built up with better momentum, but the general entertainment value including good humour and healthy vibes throughout the movie Thor go a long way towards its ranking too.
I believe Pierce Brosnan makes a relatively bland & robotic Bond compared to the three greats before him; and this, probably by no mere coincidence, is exemplified in the first minute of this movie, when he does the “turn left and shoot” pose. Sean Connery holds his spare hand out to the side as a counter-balancing hand, a bit like would be done in fencing but with his hand facing down as if holding a pad for a boxer to throw an uppercut at, kind of like a surfer’s balancing pose; Roger Moore holds his gun with both hands; Timothy Dalton lets his spare hand hang to his side, with a realistic balance of tension & relaxation; then Pierce Brosnan leaves his spare hand down, similar to Dalton but more floppy, and his whole body flops round at the same time, very nonchalantly like a careless lifeless teenager or a synthetic dummy, or someone who has never trained any kind of martial art before but wants to portray dominant tactical movement nonetheless. The way he pulls the door open 25 minutes in, is no different. It’s like he’s huffing & puffing while trying to act slick, when really he’s all floppy and the door is the dominant entity between the two of them! Having said that, as bland and uncoordinated a Bond as he may be, the fact his movies are much more highly funded than his outstanding predecessors’ movies were, kind of brings his movies up to the same level as most of those Bond movies before him. The fight scene at 25 minutes in, for example, when James gets through the door on the boat he’s sneaked on, is all flashy camera switching. There’s no genuine martial arts acumen or even athletic acumen on display, but good cinematography has ways of compensating for this, and the tempo and general vibe of that fight scene was not bad to be honest.
Backtracking now – the opening scenes at the very start of this movie are a bit ‘Mission Impossible esque’ with jumping down cliffs and entering rooms through ceilings.
In the first 5 minutes we’re introduced to one of the other main characters – Alec Trevelyan (Agent 006) played by Sean Bean. I’m usually a fan of his but I’m not a fan of his demeanour in this movie – he hasn’t reached his prime as an actor yet, and he’s got a rather repulsive smug look on his face in this movie in my opinion. Either the role doesn’t suit him, or it came too early in his career for us to really see the best of him. Anyway, he’s one of the main supporting actors in this movie.
Another of the main supporting actors we meet in the first 10 minutes is Gottfried John who is best known for his performance as the main villain in this movie – General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov, who is also head of the Russian Space Division but turns on his own countrymen and goes rogue.
After we get a ridiculously unrealistic mid-air recovery of a nosediving passengerless plane to end the opening scenes, this leads into the theme tune by a croaky voiced Tina Turner in her mid 50s. It’s a funky tune but it’s not got quite the same kick as the best Bond theme tunes, for my taste. Another singer could have sang the same lyrics to the same tune and yet done it much better than Tina, I think.
One of the main Bond girl from this movie is Xenia Onatopp, who is played quite well by Dutch actress Famke Janssen (she also played Liam Neeson’s wife in the Taken movie series, and Phoenix in the early X-Men movies of 2000, 2003 and 2006) and now she plays the main female baddie in GoldenEye – she’s General Ourumov’s sidekick, who together with him, steals a state-of-the-art EMP-proof helicopter from a miliary demo after killing and impersonating an admiral then a couple of pilots. She also makes orgasmic noises after shooting & killing people.
Before the end of the first half hour, we meet the second of the main women in this movie, Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova, who is played by Polish actress Izabella Scorupco – she’s not a bad actress and is quite pretty too – definitely above average for a Bond girl but not on a par with the best of them for my taste. She’s a non corrupt programmer at a Russian top secret base that Ourumov & Onatopp shoot up. To their surprise, she manages to survive, then gets caught, escapes, gets caught again, and befriends James Bond who she’s being held prisoner with around half way through the movie. When we first meet her, we also met her colleague, a Russian programmer & hacker called Boris Grishenko (played alright by Scottish actor Alan Cumming, the main baddie in Spy Kids) and he is working with Ourumov & Onatopp.
The script & screenplay get pretty intense & captivating as Bond & Simonova are questioned by Defense Minister Dimitri Mishkin (played pretty well by Tchéky Karyo, who also plays corrupt Inspector Jean-Pierre Richard, the main antagonist in Kiss Of The Dragon, a Jet Li classic). Simonova then points the finger at General Ourumov who then walks in, acts suspicious, tried & fails to argue, then kills the minister and tries to kill Bond & Simonova but they manage to escape. Simonova soon gets caught again, but Bond makes his way out in a tank. The scene where bond bursts through the wall in a tank, hot on the tail of Ourumov & Simonova, is quite epic. In fairness, any actor could have pulled off Bond’s role in that scene – all credit to the writers and cinematography there for making one of the most outstanding & memorable scenes in the history of the James Bond movie saga. The following scenes of Bond in his tank brushing past buildings and knocking chunks out are quite wild too.
Shortly after 90 minutes in, we’re introduced to CIA operative Jack Wade, played quite well & charismatically by Joe Don Baker. He helps Bond & Simonova with their insertion into Cuba via the United States, and he has a bit of a jolly, low-IQ, all-sorted demeanour. This appears to be another attempt to replicate the outstanding humour of Sheriff JW Pepper from the Roger Moore era, and it falls short, but it’s not a bad effort either.
In the final half hour we see a satellite dish hidden under water, which gets raised out of the water when needed to control the GoldenEye. This is reminiscent of the space rocket base hidden within the seemingly water-filled volcano in You Only Live Twice (1967) – a Sean Connery classic from 3 decades prior.
The Living Daylights is the best Bond film of all time in my opinion. Closely followed by Goldfinger (starring Connery), Live And Let Die (Roger Moore), and The Spy Who Loved Me (Roger Moore and Barbara Bach) which all compete for second place.
This movie opens with a great scene where a bunch of 00 agents pit themselves against the SAS in a mock raid of Gibraltar, which is defended by the SAS who are waiting on high alert and armed with paintball guns. Unfortunately a real enemy agent infiltrates the exercise and kills one of the 00 agents. Naturally, James Bond (played excellently by Timothy Dalton, in his first of two outings as James Bond) clocks on to this and goes after him, leaving the SAS quite confused. This set of scenes ends with James funnily landing on a boat occupied by a woman who’s on the phone saying she longs to find a ‘real man’.
This leads into the theme tune by A-ha, which is one of the best Bond theme tunes of all time.
The script unravels quite intruigingly and concisely from here on, as Bond manages to extract a defected Russian general from enemy soil, and in the course of this, non-lethally takes out an enemy sniper (played quite well by the beautiful Maryam d’Abo) after seeing she wasn’t really a trained sniper – something fishy’s going on and James intends to get to the bottom of it without shooting any seemingly innocent women in the process. Props to the writers, directors and editors, and of course actors – especially Dalton for carrying the vibe of the movie with his energy and seriousness, plus the odd dose of humour.
Good to see Miss Moneypenny is replaced by a younger woman at long last. This time she’s played by Caroline Bliss, who is in her mid 20s here. She does a fair job – nothing special but not terrible or inappropriate either. Up until this point, Moneypenny was played in all the Bond movies through the Connery and Moore eras by Lois Maxwell, who was alright when she debuted with Dr No in 1962 (in her mid 30s) – her chemistry with Bond was believable there – but when she’s still around in A View To A Kill in 1985 (in her late 50s) she seems long past her sell-by date, especially when she’s supposedly being romantic with James Bond. So it’s great to see her finally replaced – this was long overdue, I suggest.
This movie features one of the most iconic baddies in the entire Bond saga – the understated KGB agent called Necros (played very well by Andreas Wisniewski) who initially poses as a milkman after killing the real milkman, and manages to infiltrate an MI6 base to extract the defected general back to Russia. His role is continuous throughout this movie, as the main muscle on the baddies’ side. He’s a bit like John Wyman’s character Erich Kriegler, the young blonde KGB agent in For Your Eyes Only (1981), crossed with Ivan Drago from Rocky IV (played by Dolph Lundgren, who also appeared for a second in the previous Bond movie, A View To A Kill, which came out just a few months prior to Rocky IV, which itself premiered on Bruce Lee’s birthday, Nov 27, 1985).
40 minutes in, we become properly introduced to the lead female in this movie, called Kara Milovy, played quite well by half-Georgian actress Maryam d’Abo who is up there among the best Bond girls of all time. She had great chemistry with Dalton both on and off-screen. Although I’ve found no reports of them officially dating, they were occasionally pictured together in the late 80s and into the 90s. Anyway, back to the movie. So, James has a good chat with Kara to make sure she’s innocent, then helps her to shrug off her KGB tail. Shortly before this, we were also introduced to a nice Bond car – something completely missing from the last Bond movie (A View To A Kill, 1985). This time it’s an Aston Martin equipped with laser beams, missiles and bulletproof glass, as well as skis and tyre spikes for moving over snow & ice, plus a rocket-powered turbo booster. But the car eventually crashes and this leads into one of the most iconic Bond movie scenes of all time, where Timothy Dalton and Maryam d’Abo (as James Bond and Kara Milovy) slide down a snowy mountainside using an opened cello case as a twin bobsled and the cello itself as a steering rudder. They slide all the way down to the country’s border and beyond, where the militia that was shooting at them stops giving chase.
This movie gets a little slower and less exciting for around quarter an hour, towards the middle of the movie, as we learn a bit more about the baddies and their complex relationships and agendas, as well as what Bond’s strategy is. These scenes can get a bit boring for those who have seen this movie many times before, and this brings down my overall rating of this movie from what could have been Pretty Good, down to Decent which is still the highest rating I’ve given to any Bond movie – just one step better than the best Bond movies by Connery and Moore. After quarter an hour of less thrilling scenes in the middle of the movie, it soon sharpens up and becomes quite spicy when James’s colleague is killed and he regains vigour for his mission, then smells another rat and pretends to kill someone in the hopes that everyone will now show their cards.
The action heats up nicely again, around 40 minutes before the end, as James and Kara make their escape from a Russian airbase in Afghanistan, making friends with a powerful local Afghani resistance leader in the process after setting him free the day before his execution were due. The Afghani resistance leader was called Kamran Shah, and he was played quite well by Art Malik.
The ending is quite strong – it stays quite interesting and has a decent tempo. There’s good musical effects during the fight scenes towards the end too. Although it can still get a little tedious for people who have seen this movie many times before. The suspenseful scene with Bond and Necros hanging onto the ropes out the back of the plane while the bomb is counting down, near the end of this movie, drags on just a little too long for my liking, as someone who’s seen this movie many times before and remains thoroughly entertained by much of it. The entire fight scene on between Bond and Necros while the plane was in the air, only lasted a few minutes, but I would have liked it to be more concise and less prolongingly suspenseful still, personally. After that, when Bond dropped the bomb on the Russians crossing the bridge, to put an end to them chasing his new Mujahideen friends, that was a very nice touch. Props to the writers and the whole team for that level of clever detail. The plane losing fuel after that, and the escape plan in the jeep, was a nice twist too, keeping us on our toes, in a good way. After this, the very ending stays quite concise, with decent action and good humour.
The basic concept is a good one but the script and cinematography never catch fire, they seem a bit soul-less, a bit like a B movie. The UNISOLs are meant to be cold, not the whole movie.
This movie lacks any significant female role. It had potential for a bit of warmth with the introduction of a non-UNISOL soldier played very well by Mike Pyle, giving Andrei Arlovski‘s latest generation of UNISOL a run for his money. But just as Pyle was growing into his role he got killed off. Interesting plot twist at the very end though, as Pyle’s character appears to have been cloned to create a load of new UNISOLs – this whets the appetite for the fourth & final movie in the saga (Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, 2012) which brings back Van Damme & Arlovski while also co-starring Scott Adkins, but unfortunately does not feature Pyle so the ending to Regeneration is a bit of phony cliffhanger.
Dolph Lundgren does well in his return to the Universal Soldier movie series, as of course does Jean-Claude Van Damme – the main star of every movie in the series except the last (Day Of Reckoning) where Adkins takes over as the main protagonist since Van Damme is getting quite old by this time (in his early 50s) while active soldiers in the real world are generally young (with elastic bodies and impressionable minds). It’s just a shame they’re working with a weak script and deadpan cinematography, so I can’t rate it higher than So-So even if the genre, stars and concept are all excellent.
This movie offers a novel twist on the already creative concept established in the original, while also featuring strong new co-stars in Bill Goldberg and Michael Jai White. This is actually the fourth movie in the Universal Soldier franchise, but the second & third did not feature Jean-Claude Van Damme or anyone else of note (the main protagonist in both was Matt Battaglia) so you’ll be forgiven for watching the first movie then jumping straight to this one – the fourth.
We don’t see enough of wrestling superstar Goldberg in this kind fast action movie – he makes a very convincing tough guy. Plus, this is easily one of Michael Jai White’s better performances – the robotic superiority-complex role matches his real life demeanour.
Overall I rate this a Decent movie – it’s a bit less of a revelation than the original but still quite creative with a fresh new concept, and features multiple action superstars, but on the downside the plot is a bit one dimensional – the script could have easily been developed more to make it an even better movie. There are multiple females in this movie, including a reporter and a fellow UNISOL, but none of them are particularly worth mentioning – they all deliver bland performances.
Fun fact: this was actually Van Damme’s last widely-released-in-cinemas English-language movie until 2 and a half decades later, when he released Darkness Of Man in 2024 (excluding movies where he wasn’t the main star, such as The Expendables 2 in 2012). Maybe he wasn’t totally playing ball with Hollywood’s sickest shenanigans, but they eventually rewarded him for keeping quiet during the deceptions of the 2020 era? Or maybe his movies had only a small niche audience? The fact that Inferno (1999) had only a limited cinematic released is odd, and the fact that The Order (2001) went direct to video is outrageous.
Further Sequels
If you enjoyed the original Universal Soldier movie from 1992, as well as this one – Universal Soldier: The Return – from 1999, which is the second one starring Van Damme; then you’ll be pleased to know there are a couple more decent Universal Soldier movies to enjoy after this one.
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) rekindles the rivalry between Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, then they both come back again for Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) with the addition of Scott Adkins as the main protagonist in the final movie. Both of these movies from 2009 & 2012 also make a significant role for Andrei Arlovski, the former UFC heavyweight champion who still holds the record for the most wins in UFC heavyweight history to this day.
Not to be confused with the Indian film of the same name, from the same year. Soldier (1998) is one of Kurt Russell’s best action hero movies. It’s beautifully composed and has a very original concept. It also has a great soundtrack by Loreena McKennitt (Night Ride Across the Caucasus).
This movie follows the story of a cold-hearted team of soldiers whose leader is played by Kurt Russell – the strongest and fastest of them all. After many successful campaigns, he eventually gets made obsolete as a new breed of soldiers are introduced, who are stronger and faster than the old ones. The leader of the new soldiers is played by Jason Scott Lee (from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, which is not an accurate depiction of Bruce Lee’s life story but is a decent movie nevertheless).
Now obsolete, we see the leader of the old soldiers left for dead on a garbage dump planet where no people are thought to live. But he soon gets taken in by a community of locals, and we see him gain a heart and eventually help these people to defeat all the new soldiers when they eventually come to wipe out the people on this planet.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) is a bad third movie in the series – it’s about equal to the second one (Temple Of Doom, 1984) and has a lot less of the weird occult stuff although there is a strong religious angle to this one.
This time, Harrison Ford (who plays Indiana Jones as well as usual) is joined by Sean Connery (who plays his father) for a good chunk of the movie. Both their performances seem a bit laboured, not as crystal clear as they are when they’re performing at their best, but they still both put in decent work here.
Considering it’s the third of 5 movies in the saga, they’ve done a good job in maintaining a fairly decent standard although the original is probably still the best movie of them all since Harrison Ford is a bit younger there and his age is clearly catching up with him now. This time the movie is set in the WW2 era and is largely based in Germany, while featuring plenty of military personnel with credible accents, mannerisms and uniforms, etc.
This is more of an evolving adventure movie rather than a martial arts movie per say, and is more of a team endeavour than a single action hero job compared to most action hero movies featured on this site, but there’s plenty of fast action scenes including fighting with fists, whips, guns, tanks, planes, etc as you would expect from any Indiana Jones movie.
As with the other Indiana Jones movies so far, there’s a lack of potent female input, although Alison Doody does a fair job as the lead female with minimal screen time. She’s plays Elsa Schneider who keeps jumping back & forth from supporting Indy and his father, to double crossing them, to supporting them again. She’s probably still the third main character in this movie. She’s not unattractive, she’s just a bit basic and isn’t given a substantial role either.
Other supporting cast members do a fairly good job as usual in this series. They include River Phoenix in his late teens, who plays a younger version of Indiana at the start of the movie – he died of an overdose just four years after this movie was released, at the age of only 23. John Rhys-Davies also performs well as Sallah, Indy’s accomplice in the desert.
Some of the best parts of this movie include when Indy bumps into Adolf himself – great comedy there; plus when Indy and his father get on a German zeppelin airship – another outstanding comedy moment there; and when Indy finally meets the immortal guardian of the Holy Grail – that was a cool moment too.
Another nice touch to this movie was its scene in the ancient city of Petra, in Jordan. This place, according to some people (such as Dan Gibson, who has an interesting YouTube channel) was the true home of the religious prophets Ibrahim (Abraham) and Muhammad, and is allegedly still the direction that all the world’s oldest masjid prayer walls point to today. Can anyone prove him wrong? He seems to welcome the challenge.
Lionheart is a fun concept for first time watching, and for infrequent rewatching, but if you see it too often this movie becomes simplistic and drags on a bit – especially the fight scene at the end, and the sobbing scene that follows it – so leave it a good few years between each viewing.
This movie was also released under the names AWOL: Absent Without Leave (in the UK) and Wrong Bet (in Australia & Oceania).
Cast
Van Damme is his usual self – good acting and exhibiting his trademark moves. But we don’t see any fun training scenes or learning scenes, he just begins as a decent fighter fleeing the French Foreign Legion to see his dying brother, then fighting to earn money to help his brother’s widow & child.
Decent supporting actors include Harrison Page who does a good job as Van Damme’s hustling manager from the streets, who was the organiser of his first paid fight and climbed the ladder with him. Deborah Rennard also did well as the higher level fight manager who has a crush on Van Damme’s character; and Brian Thomson did alright as her head of security. Ashley Johnson also did alright as Van Damme’s brother’s widow. There were no really bad performances – the whole cast was of a decent standard. Vojislav Govedaricaty was also very convincing as the legionnaire sergeant who followed Van Damme to America in order to escort him back home; and Michel Qissi (born Mohammed Qissi) played the sergeant’s accomplice, also tasked with bringing Van Damme back.
Good to see Michel Qissi get a role here, as he also played Tong Po, the main adversary in Kickboxer (1989) just one year prior to Lionheart, although he’s unrecognisable as the same person. He also had a minor role as a competitor in Bloodsport (1988) the year prior to that – again, that was a totally different look. It really looks like three different people. Michel also came back to play a minor role in Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016), which was the first official sequel to the original (the four Kickboxer movies in between were not affiliated with the original and did not feature Van Damme). Meanwhile, Michel Qissi’s real life brother, Abdul Qissi did quite well as the final boss adversary in Lionheart. Abdul later went on to play Khan, the final boss adversary in The Quest (1996), and he also had a minor role in The Order (2001).
This simple plotted war movie is an unexpected recipe for success, thanks to Van Damme plus a strong supporting cast, solid screenplay, and no nasty “proper gander”! Legionnaire is a genuinely balanced war movie that accurately portrays the injustice of the invasion & occupation of Arabia by the French foreign legion in the 1920s.
Van Damme is his usually self – impressive as always. Strong supporting cast members include Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Nicholas Farrell and Daniel Caltagirone who play Van Damme’s closest friends, as well as Steven Berkoff who plays the unfriendly Sergeant, and Jim Carter who plays the mafia boss trying to kill Van Damme.
The plot is a bit thin and dragged out to cover the movie, when really this movie could have easily been doubled in length then cut to be more concise. It could have had interesting plot developments following where it ended, and then could have been rounded off nicely – instead it feels a bit cut shot. It’s still an entertaining watch for someone who hasn’t seen it in several years – the screenplay is remarkably captivating for such a simple story – but given its drawbacks I wouldn’t recommend rewatching it until you’ve mostly forgotten it. For this reason I rate this movie as below average for a Van Damme movie, but not far off the average.
Again, credit to the directors & producers, and to Van Damme if he had a say, for presenting an honest & balanced perspective on war – a pleasant surprise that I totally did not expect but really ought to be the norm. Legionnaire was a mild box office success around the world, but USA cinemas didn’t to show it – maybe they feared it was too truthful & impactful, to the point it would deter American military recruitment and general public support for modern invasion & occupation campaigns.
Under Siege (1992) was the fifth movie in Steven Seagal‘s career, and in most objective movie buffs’ perspective, remained his biggest and best role of all.
This movie is generally very well made. It has good timing, good acting, good budget, good sets, good sound effects, good camera work… It’s a decent movie all round. The plot is a bit simplistic and this makes the movie a bit one dimensional but it’s generally well executed and is right up there as one of the best movies in Steven’s career, if not the very best – some people prefer Under Siege 2 although most believe the first was the better one, and some people prefer Glimmer Man, but Under Siege is still right up there in everyone’s eyes as one of the best if not the very best movie he’s ever made.
Cast includes Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey as the main baddies – they both do a decent job, if a little unpleasant but that’s probably the fault of the director more than the actors; and Erika Eleniak plays the lead female role – not very impressively in my humble opinion but I guess she’s just doing her job and is not there to act like a trained navy seal, she’s there to play the role of a bimbo and that’s exactly how she comes across so maybe she deserves credit in a way? Fortunately she doesn’t take up too much screen time, so it’s not a big problem. Many other supporting cast members put in strong performances – too many to mention right now.
All in all, I personally rate this movie as Seagal’s joint best performance – roughly equal to The Glimmer Man – on a par with most of Van Damme’s above-average movies like Inferno and Assassination Games. Under Siege is not just an OK movie, it’s better than OK, it’s rather decent. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as pretty good, but it’s only one level shy of that. It’s just a couple of levels shy of Very Good. Indeed, the entertainment value of Under Siege is solid and quite consistent. Any boring bits are rare and don’t last long. It’s a fairly strong product that was quite deserving of its sequel.
In its day, this movie was easily the best so far in Steven Seagal’s career. He later went on to make one or two more on a similar level, but this is a level he never significantly topped, if ever at all.
The best moment in this movie is probably when the bad guys, having just taken over the ship and locked away all but one of its crew members, get hold of the captain’s personnel files and realise the harmless Cook running loose (played by Seagal) is actually a former Navy SEAL.
Sequel
If you enjoyed Under Siege (1992) you should definitely check out its sequel Under Siege 2 (1995), which has a very similar style except in the sequel Seagal is re-taking control of a train instead of a ship.
