The Rock

2004 – Walking Tall

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Walking Tall (2004)
  • IMDB: link

Walking TallOn this date ten years ago Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson‘s remake of 1973’s Walking Tall hit theaters. Loosely based on real events, the simple premise finds war hero Chris Vaughn (The Rock) return home to find his home town at the mercy of an unscrupulous businessman (Neal McDonough) and old high school rival who keeps a stranglehold on the small Washington town with a shady business dealings and rigged casino.

Discovering the man’s total disrespect for the law, and after being assaulted and almost killed by the man’s hired thugs, Vaughn finds no help from the local police which causes the former Army Special Forces ass-kicker to bust-up the casino with only his fists and a two-by-four before running for office on the platform of cleaning up the town.

Along for the ride the film casts Johnny Knoxville in the role of comic relief as Vaughn’s idiot best-friend and Ashley Scott as a childhood friend turned stripper turned love interest.

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2004 – Walking Tall Read More »

Journey Double Feature

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Journey to the Center of the Earth / Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
  • IMDB: link / link

Journey Double FeatureRe-released together as a two-disc set on both DVD and Blu-ray, 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island star Josh Hutcherson as a young protagonist who discovers truth behind the writings of Jules Verne while looking for missing members of his family.

Of the two films, the first (co-starring Brendan Fraser and Anita Briem) featuring the group’s discovery of a secret world in the center of the Earth holds up better than its sequel (co-starring Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzmán, and Michael Caine) and the discovery of a secret island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Family friendly, the effects of the two films and the magical settings of each might provide enjoyment for younger viewers and even interest them in Verne’s original works (not a bad thing), but adults aren’t likely to come back to either film too often.

[New Line Home Video, Blu-ray $19.98 / DVD $12.97]

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Fast & Furious 6

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Fast & Furious 6
  • IMDB: link

Fast & Furious 6When the sixth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise plays to its strengths (fast cars, good cinematography, beautiful women kicking butt, and some terrific action sequences) it works well. Sadly, we are also forced to sit through the franchise’s usual hamfisted attempts at dramatic tension and clichéd (not to mention extremely corny) dialogue which give us a mopey Vin Diesel for the first half-hour of the film and an inexplicable subplot involving Paul Walker in prison that doesn’t so much shit in the face of logic as refuse to exist the concept exists at all.

Director Justin Lin reassembles the team from the last film as Hobbs (Dwayane “It’s Okay To Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson) recruits Toretto (Diesel) and his drivers to take down a mercenary group of high-speed thieves attacking military targets. For Hobbs its about using the lesser of two evils to stop a greater one. For Toretto its about bringing a lost member of his family back home when Hobbs informs him that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is alive and working for the murderous leader (Luke Evans) of the group.

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Pain & Gain

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pain & Gain
  • IMDB: link

Pain & GainBased on a somewhat unbelievable true series of events, Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson, and Anthony Mackie star as a trio of bodybuilders who decide to kidnap and rob a local businessman (Tony Shalhoub). Played to the hilt, the insane over-the-top Pain & Gain embraces the ridiculousness of the situation to deliver some truly funny sequences. Sadly, it delivers almost as many groan worthy moments and some disturbing violence that doesn’t always mesh well with the zany tone of the movie. The true story the film is based on is so unbelievable director Michael Bay even stops the film at times to remind the audience that (some form of) these events really occurred.

The characters, who don’t seem smart enough to remember to breathe, aren’t even caricatures so much as full-blown cartoons. There’s a scene from Michael Bay’s first awful Transformers flick where a group of giant robots tiptoe around a suburban house hoping no one will see or hear them. That plan is near genius compared to those of Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) and his confederates.

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G.I. JOE: Retaliation

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: G.I. JOE: Retaliation
  • IMDB: link

G.I. JOE: RetaliationFour years after the train wreck that was G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra, the sequel finally makes it to theaters after converting the movie to 3D and shooting additional scenes to cash-in on Channing Tatum‘s increased celebrity. G.I. JOE: Retaliation doesn’t prove to be worth the wait, but it’s certainly far better than the original.

For those of you unlucky enough to have witnessed the first film, you know that the terrorist organization known as Cobra had risen. Even if they had been defeated by the American special anti-terrorism force known as G.I. JOE, one of Cobra’s own, the master of disguise known as Zartan (Arnold Vosloo), had taken the place of the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce).

G.I. JOE: Retaliation picks up some months later with President Zartan orchestrating the public disgrace and destruction of the JOEs while Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Firefly (Ray Stevenson) break Cobra Commander (now played by Luke Bracey) out of futuristic prison in an overly-elaborate plan.

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