X-Men Origins: Wolverine tells the story of Jimmy aka Logan aka Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman) and his brother Victor Creed (played by Liev Schreiber) growing up, from when they were young boys and ran away from home, to participating in several old wars (seemingly not aging much through the centuries). Logan’s brother seems to have more of a bloodthirsty mischievous side – he even has pointy canine teeth. Still, Logan’s got his brother’s back. So they both get captured and sentenced to death but they don’t die, which is when Stryker (Danny Huston) picks them up and brings them into his team which includes Wade Wilson (played by Ryan Reynolds) who has super-human sword skills and will gain a lot more powers by the end of the movie where he’s known as Weapon XI – the final boss, and an early version of Deadpool. The supporting role he plays here, adds a nice bit of humour to the movie. His own Deadpool movies are too much toilet humour for my taste, but when he plays a supporting role it really brings out the best of him and adds good value to an otherwise alright action movie I think.
Within the first hour we learn where Logan got the name Wolverine from, and we see how he went from having claws made from organic claw type material, to having practically indestructable adamantium (derived from meteorites) replacing his claws and being bonded with his skeleton to make him bulletproof all over (not that our bones completely shield all our vital organs, but that’s the story here nonetheless).
The middle of the movie is dominated by the fact that Logan’s brother killed Logan’s wife. But in the second hour there’s an interesting plot twist, as Logan catches up with his brother and Stryker, only to find that they’ve got his wife and she’s still alive – they only faked her death.
Considering its balance of strengths and weaknesses, I rate this movie Bang Average, on a par with the three X-Men movies that came before it – probably slightly weaker but there’s not much in it.
This is the last of Pierce Brosnan‘s four James Bond movies, and the one which made the production team conclude that something needs to change. I don’t disagree that something needed to change, but they changed it in totally the wrong direction for my taste. I can’t stand Daniel Craig personally. Brosnan makes a great Bond compared to him. Still, the mass market of soppy drama fans seem to approve of Craig, even if they are a totally new audience and the loyal niche market of slick action hero movie fans who tolerated Brosnan in the hopes of someone better coming soon have become completely disenchanted by the whole Bond brand now.
Die Another Day gets off to a poor start, with an awful attempt at remixing two classic Bond tunes into one piece of deafening noise within the first 30 seconds of this movie. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie, since the musical direction is pretty wack throughout.
This leads straight into an extravagant surfing scene that’s hard to understand the context of until it’s all over. This makes a change from the popular ski chase scenes, such as the one that opened one of Roger Moore’s best movies, The Spy Who Loved Me. I’m not saying there’s anything terribly wrong with not knowing what’s going on until an action scene is over, but it’s a bit unusual for a Bond movie, and probably not the best idea for this genre. We can’t even see anyone’s faces while they’re surfing, so it could be anyone (although obviously Brosnan didn’t get his feet wet in the filming of that scene). I guess we’re just expected to admire the surfing for a minute while waiting patiently to find out who it is and why they’re doing it. There’s a much better surfing scene 90 minutes in, as Bond escapes an avalanche designed to kill him, and rides the tsunami wave that follows.
Fortunately, this soon turns into some interesting scenes, as James steals a suitcase full of diamonds and impersonates the previous owner, pretending to be an arms dealer in North Korea. James’s disguise is unsuccessful, so he attempts to escape, wrecking a bunch of hovercrafts and seemingly killing the general’s son, so he gets taken in for waterboarding & interrogation. General Moon is played adequately by Kenneth Tsang, his son (Colonel Moon) was played alright by Will Yun Lee, his son’s main assistant (Zao) who Bond goes after once released (since his freedom was traded for Zao’s) was played alright by Rick Yune.
Then we get the theme tune by Madonna, who also takes a on minor role in this movie (as a fencing instructor called Verity). It’s not the best James Bond theme tune by any means, but is certainly one of the catchiest. It’s basically just a cheap uncultured pop song that’s liable to stick in your head sometimes, especially if you’re a James Bond fan, and I dare say that makes it about equal to Madonna’s best work.
We meet a few good characters in the first half an hour, then we meet the main woman in this movie – Halle Berry. She immediately spends the night with James and their romantic scenes are quite classless, inkeeping with the poor humour throughout the Brosnan era of James Bond. The following and preceding scenes are not bad though. A lot of fuss was made on TV around the time of this movie coming out, about the appearance of Halle Berry as she comes out the water and meets James Bond for the first time. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not unattractive – she’s above average for a Bond girl, and not terribly far from the best of them – but the only reason she swings her hips so wildly is to compensate for the lack of natural width in her hips which would roll plenty within her natural unexaggerated stride if there were really anything to rave about.
Brosnan is also noticeably carrying a belly in this movie, while looking generally worse for wear due to his age and his untoned physique – I’m guessing this contributed to him being let go in favour of Daniel Craig who was younger and trained hard to achieve a good physique even though his personality is nothing like what Bond should be. Brosnan’s demeanour is a bit closer to the mark, in how it’s not the polar opposite of what we want, but it’s a bit dead & dry still – far from ideal for this role.
A third of the way in, as James enters Zao’s new lair, we see a rotating mirrored wall, probably inspired by Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon from 1973, much like the similar set in Roger Moore’s The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974 – since that one came out just one year after Enter The Dragon, the similarities are clearly far from coincidental.
The swordfighting scene was pretty good, after James joins the fencing club and meets Madonna’s character Verity agrees to a challenge from the main man in the club which starts off quite sporting with all the kit then comes lethal with real swords and no protection. It’s quite obvious sometimes where the stuntmen fill in for Pierce Brosnan though, as the faster scenes are very fast with his back to the camera then become terribly laboured when we see his face. This reflects his lack of real swordfighting ability of course, and probably also his lack of general martial arts acumen and even athletic capability.
Half way in, we get better acquainted with the second Bond girl in this movie – Miranda Frost played by Rosamund Pike (who also played the main baddie’s wife in Jack Reacher), who we briefly met earlier at the fencing club where Madonna’s character (Verity, the instructor) said Miranda was the most talented fencer in the club. Rosamund Pike has to be one of the least attractive Bond girls of all time, although due to her very prominent jawline I’m sure she appeals very much to certain types of people. To call her a tomboy would be an understatement. She also has a very bland demeanour and a face full of whitewashed makeup which creates a certain style that probably matches the role she’s playing quite well, however unappealing it may be. Having said that, she does make an interesting contrast with Halle Berry.
James’s car in this movie goes a level beyond any Bond car before, by being completely invisible. He can even sit inside it, and watch things happen around him, with people nearby being oblivious to his presence.
We know a James Bond villain loves a satellite weapon, and this movie’s villain is no different. The main villain, on the brains side, is Sir Gustav Graves, played alright by Toby Stephens, and he has a satellite that he uses to shine light on certain parts of the world, which can be used to assist agriculture in poor countries, but it can also be used as a deadly heat gun. According to the plot, Gustav Graves is actually Colonel Moon after a DNA changing operation.
Following the success of The Spy Who Loved Me which was one of the best Bond movies of all time (and brought in the best box office revenue since Goldfinger & Thunderball in the Sean Connery era) on a budget equal to 14 million dollars, which up until that point was the highest budget a Bond movie had received by far (in real terms) and was second in budget behind You Only Live Twice after accounting for inflation – the budget was over doubled for Moonraker in both real terms and after accounting for inflation. But Moonraker’s takings at the box office remained about equal to The Spy Who Loved Me, so budgets were reigned back in after Moonraker didn’t do as well as expected for the money spent – the same budget (after accounting for inflation) was not spent again until the Pierce Brosnan era nearly two decades later, and the box office takings of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker were not surpassed until the soppy Daniel Craig era whose movies I personally find quite unwatchable.
If your tastes matches mine, don’t forget to bookmark this site for masses of carefully curated action hero movie reviews & recommendations just like this one – tailored specifically to my own taste and anyone who thinks like me – I know there’s not many of us left, but let’s still help each other out a bit!
Both movies – The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) – were directed by Lewis Gilbert, but Moonraker lacks a woman with as much star power as Barbara Bach from The Spy Who Loved Me, and lacks an evil mastermind as convincing as Curd Jürgens. Still, at least we get the return of Roger Moore as James Bond (who performs excellently as usual) and his most legendary adversary, Jaws (another epic performance by Richard Kiel in the second of his only two ever outings as the most iconic Bond adversary of all time).
The main antagonist on the brains side, is Hugo Drax, played a bit demurely by Michael Lonsdale.
The lead females in Moonraker are played by American actress Lois Chiles (as Dr Holly Goodhead – on loan to Hugo Drax from NASA) and French actress Corinne Cléry (Corinne Dufour – personal pilot to Hugo Drax – she gets killed around half an hour in). They both deliver basic but adequate performances – both far less stunning or sophisticated than Barbara Bach from The Spy Who Loved Me, but that’s to be expected – they’re just about as tidy as an average Bond girl.
Blanche Ravalec plays the most fun female in Moonraker, called Dolly – a nerdy pigtail-wearing young woman who falls in love with Jaws and the feeling is reciprocated!
The most attractive woman in this movie is probably Emily Bolton who plays Manuela – James’s contact in Rio. She doesn’t appear until about an hour into the movie, and doesn’t get much screen time but she certainly brightens up the movie for a while.
The river boat chase after half an hour into this movie, is obviously inspired by the great boat chase in Live And Let Die, although this one is a bit cheap & nasty in comparison, but at least it’s original and not too close an imitation. And there is another boat chase in the second hour of this movie where James is given a much cooler boat. Then in turn, this movie’s boat races probably inspired Pierce Brosnan’s river boat race scene in The World Is Not Enough (1999).
When the boat becomes amphibious and drives around town about 40 minutes into this movie, that’s obviously inspired by the scene where the Lotus drives out of the sea in The Spy Who Loved Me. The reactions are a bit more developed this time round, but that’s not entirely a good thing – it’s all a bit cheesy, as if trying to be a comedy but not quite getting there, and the amphibious boat itself is a bit of a cheap looking stunt – something much improved in the second hour, and in The World Is Not Enough. Having said that, there is a nice bit of unspoken humour occasionally in this movie.
The fencing with the kendo swordsman in this movie probably inspired the swordfighting with Madonna in Die Another Day too.
It’s not till half an hour before the end when we finally see why the movie is called Moonraker – we finally see the hidden space city as James & Holly secretly board one of Drax’s shuttles.
I rate Moonraker an OK movie, like most Bond movies up until this one.
Having a messier a plot than the original Highlander, and having overly drawn out fight scenes that get especially boring for rewatchers, Highlander II deserves a lower rating than the original but is still just about watchable – generally worth watching sequentially after the original and before the third and fourth.
The best part of this movie is the re-appearance of Sean Connery in a strong supporting role albeit with a lot less screen time than Christopher Lambert, the star of the first four movies in this series. There are 5 movies in total, in the Highlander movie saga, and none of the sequels are as good as the original, but the 5th instalment deserves erasing from history altogether.
Michael Ironside does a fair job as the main antagonist in Highlander 2. Not a pleasant character – sick in every way – but respectable acting.
Virginia Madsen does a decent job as the main female in this movie. She makes a credible couple with Lambert.
The plot takes us to the future, to 2024 (considering the movie came out in 1991) where baddies have blanketed the sky with a “shield” (that looks like modern “con trails”, to use the less controversial name for them). This shield was originally installed to protect the earth from radiation of the sun, due to a hole in the ozone layer, but after it repaired itself, the bad guys left the shield in place for nefarious reasons without telling anyone that it’s no longer needed.
There are a few good scenes in this movie, but there’s a lot of slow & dull material here too. It’s mad how it had a budget of over $30 million – about twice that of the original, yet ended up in the state it did. The producers of Highlander II: The Quickening could hardly have done a worse job if they tried!
The Highlander (1986) starring Christopher Lambert has an interesting plot with some cool bits throughout the movie, including a strong appearance by Sean Connery. This just about makes up for the cheesy bad acting, which is so bad in places, it’s borderline satirical – not helped by the extremely cheesy music played throughout, by an 80s band called Queen.
Highlander is about a few ‘immortal’ men, who can not die, unless they are decapitated. Lambert’s character, Connor MacLeod (pronounced MacCloud) has lived for a few hundred years until the present day (1986, in New York), and this movie follows him during his first lifetime in the Highlands of Scotland, a few hundred years ago, as well as during his time in ‘present day’ New York. Plus there’s a short clip of him participating WW2.
The basic concept is, those few immortal men must meet and fight each other until there is only one left. MacLeod makes friends with some of them, including Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez (played fantastically by Sean Connery) who has lived for thousands of years, and teaches MacLeod about his powers and trains him how to fight; but there is one big and nasty man called The Kurgan (played adequately by Clancy Brown) who beheads all of Lambert’s friends for hundreds of years until finally it’s just the two of them left to decide the winner in present day New York City.
There’s no other strong or important performances to speak of in this movie, as far as I see. The various women in MacLeod’s life were all played satisfactorily by different actresses but none of them stand out to me as being especially noteworthy.
So all in all it’s not a terrible movie. It’s worth watching once in a blue moon when you’ve got nothing better to do. Christopher Lambert is his usual self – he does a generally decent job; and Sean Connery is his usual self – excellent in his role although he has less than half the screen time of Lambert here.
If you enjoyed this movie, don’t miss the many sequels, which continue with the same theme, and offer a similar level of stunts and acting.
Although this movie was not made by Marvel Studios and is not considered part of the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe, the character Blade still originated from Marvel Comics and did eventually appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a character in the 2024 movie Deadpool & Wolverine.
Wesley Snipes is a top-tier action movie hero when given the right movie to work on, as we saw earlier in his career with Demolition Man and Passenger 57; and this movie brings out the best of him. Undoubtedly inspiring the Matrix to some degree, which came out the year after, with agents instead of vampires dodging bullets, and a larger team instead of a single man against them. Wesley Snipes has less of a cool ‘hacker’ feel than Keanu Reeves, but more of a convincing martial artist vibe about him, so this movie is very close to the level of the Matrix in terms of acting performance and convincing execution of plot. Wesley Snipes makes a very convincing animalistic/vampiric human being – his moves are sharp and slick, helped very much by great camerawork but also largely thanks to Wesley’s real life martial arts background and his general on-point demeanour.
It’s a very combat oriented theme, with fists and blades and guns from start to finish. Adrenaline is pumping intermittently throughout. Cast wise, we have the odd strong character and a few less strong – this movie could easily benefit from an additional very strong cast member if the plot would allow.
Blade is a rare example of a ‘vampire horror’ that appeals to people who prefer non-gritty, fast-paced, martial-arts-packed action movies that thrill rather than scare. I don’t personally enjoy horror movies, but this one’s just about bearable as it’s more of an action thriller than anything, however, it becomes a bit more sickly when you realise how closely it resembles what really goes on in this world.
Like The Matrix, Blade also has a couple of sequels, which is inevitable considering how strong the original movie was; and like The Matrix, Blade’s sequels are not quite as good as the original but are still worth watching sequentially.
