The Scorpion King - stars The Rock

This was designed to ride the coat-tails of the very successful Mummy movies, and in fact was filmed while The Mummy Returns was still in production.  I've been umming and arring about this, as I do with suspected crappy films, but finally bit the bullet the other night figuring it was on a par percentage wise for me to get a good one.

You know what, its actually ok despite a shitload of negatives.  There's a ton of action, and its that good action with punches you feel and some pretty cool choreography.  Loads of sword play and dudes shooting arrows and throwing knives and the like.  Tops.  Thing is, its a weak storyline, its tried to draw heavily from Conan The Barbarian and The Beastmaster - those classic one man against the world with his sword movies, go Arnie! - all while trying to hold a Mummy theme.  Turns out this thing has absolutely nothing to do with the Mummy aside from the Scorpion King character, and there's no blood.  No blood!  So dudes are being axed from asshole to breakfast time and the impact is completely lost.  I tell ya, if they had've taken a leaf out of the Braveheart book of killing dudes with swords we'd have a whole different beast on our hands.  Seriously, not even the weapons end up with blood on them after they have quite clearly cut through some poor schmuck's torso.

Another let down is the regression to 80's cheesy action where our hero seems to have this never ending supply of weapons despite the fact he loses just about everything he lays his hands on.  He throws more knives than, er, a world record knife thrower (I dunno, I'm tired and analogies aren't coming to me today), yet they seem to gravitate, invisibly, to his weapon belt during chase scenes.  Or something.  And you can't have a film from this era without a Sorcerer/ess, I mean can you?  Nah, you can't.  So its got one of those, bit of a babe actually considering she's of Asian origin.  Nothing against Asians at all, I just don't find them attractive.  This chick's ok though, Kelly Hu's the name, she'll be appearing in the upcoming X-Men 2 as Lady Deathstrike too.  Oh and while we're on this you-can't-have-a-movie-without thing, there's a mad professor inventor in this flick as well resembling something of an olden-day Q, and no, he's not good looking.

You can also see a bit of WWF creeping into the fight scenes here and there, especially with The Rock getting his head smashed against stuff and falling through tables.  Its not overbearingly so, but its there.  And the villain looks an awful lot like Russell Crowe's Gladiator, anyone else notice that?  Now if you've wondered where the Scorpion King got his name, you find out in this movie, but it gets about as much air time as one of Eminem's songs on children's TV.  I find that the entire premise of a character is barely explained to be pretty poor.  I mean we know why superman is superman, Spiderman was made pretty clear as well, so the Scorpion King I feel should probably have his legend explained properly as well.  Remember what he looked like in the Mummy Returns?  Just wait what he looks like here...

So there you go, no blood, storyline which has tried to parallel some of Arnie's finest, no blood, endless weapons, mad scientists, no blood and a foxy sorceress.  And having said all that, its actually pretty good fun.  There's no lingering on topics and no mucking around, they just get to the next action scene without much ado and if nothing else this saves the flick.  Also impressive was the lack of CGI.  CGI's all good and well, but if you can pull all that stuff off without it and do it well it makes it more authentic.  Here, the Scorpion King achieves with distinction.  I'd love to give it 3 and a half stars but can't, so happy with 3.

Bootmen - stars Adam Garcia, Sophie Lee, Sam Worthington

I must confess I really dig tap dancing.  Ever since I saw Fred Astaire grooving away in some old movie that I wouldn't be able to tell you the name of now, I've thought to myself "self, that tap dancing's a pretty cool thing."  Needless to say this movie involves tap dancing, and with boots.  Tops!

Bootmen introduces Novocastrians' Sean and Mitchell, kindred in more than just genetics, they share a love of tap dancing.  But where anti-rules Sean wants to make a career of it, older brother Mitchell is adamant there's no security in dance so he's forging his own destiny and is saving to buy a truck...unfortunately it involves a bit of grand theft auto.  Their steel-worker father sides with Mitchell on this one not knowing what his extra curricular activities are.  Enter Linda, a newbie to town whose just opened a hair salon, she falls for Sean and they hook up.  But when Sean leaves town to pursue an opportunity with a big Sydney dance production, Mitchell moves in on Linda and things come to a head on Sean's return.  Crap!  So moving on, Sean puts together a dance troop for his own production, Mitchell gets in deeper with a local car stealing racket, their father sits on the couch drinking New cheering for the Knights, and the steel works is going down the tubes.  What can be done to make all this better?

This is classic Aussie film-making.  Get together a bunch of earthy, identifiable characters, write an emotional and raw story and mash it all together in a well known Australian town and some familiar Aussie actors.  You're just about on a winner if you do that.  Its everything The Nugget, Crackers, The Dish and The Castle all set out to do - actually its closest to Crackers with its obvious lower budget and rawer quality, but that doesn't detract from the film one bit.  Throw in a bit of The Henderson Kids (I kid you not) and a sprinkle of the Village People and you're just about there.

Adam "Coyote Ugly" Garcia can not only act, he can dance.  Actually most impressive out of everything in this film is the actors actually do the dancing.  No body-doubles here!  This film is based on the highly successful Dein Perry musical Tap Dogs based on Dein's life, which circled the globe to high acclaim, and interestingly this is Dein Perry's directorial debut as well.  There's nothing more to be said really, its just a really comfortable Australian film that has none of that Hollywood gloss and all of that Australian vernacular.  "Aw you didn't fall for Door Knob did ya???".  3 and a half stars.

Point Break - stars Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Lori Petty, Gary Busey

Its been some years since I've seen this, in fact it might actually since back when it first came out in the early 90's.  I also recall it being a lot better.  I think everyone's seen this so there's no point going into story-line, suffice it to say its barely worth mentioning anyway.  Ex-President surfing bank robbers and going undercover to catch them.  An interesting spin on an overdone plot, but at the end of the day, its just overdone.

I tell you what though, this would be the very first (that I can remember) movie that incorporated what would now be considered extreme sports of its time - big wave and night surfing, sky diving, all while following the endless summer.  Connotations that still exist today of course, but now its all about jumping out of a hot air balloon at 35000 feet without a parachute onto the side of a snow capped mountain that you board down, all the while doing 720's and saying "dude" alot.  Cross-up anyone?

Moving on, Keanu looks dead set ridiculous trying to be serious, he yells way too much while maintaining a very sombre stare.  Gary Busey on the other hand is tops and the quotes he comes out with are worth the price of entry along, get some of these, they're some of the most priceless quotes put to screen that I can recall:

Go Pappas, lol.  Actually there's some great quotes from the all cast throughout this movie.  Bodhi's preaching of a higher spirituality does get a little grating, but apart from that, check out this conversations between Harp and Utah:

HARP: How was the beach? 
UTAH: Fine.
HARP: Surf conditions okay?
UTAH: A little mushy.
HARP: A little mushy! You think the taxpayers would like it, Utah, if they knew they were paying a federal agent to surf and pick up girls?
UTAH: Babes.
HARP: What?
UTAH: The correct term is babes, sir. Uh, this type of undercover operation is entirely dependent on picking up the idiom of the speech. Otherwise penetration is not possible, sir. Of the social infrastructure, I mean.

So yeah, the action is great, the wise cracks second to none, but Keanu lets things down in the end.  Still harks back to some great memories.  3 and a half stars.

Insomnia - stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank

We waited so long to finally see this that I'm glad we don't have insomnia.  Fair dinkum, it was on at the cinemas for like a week and we missed it.  We barely had time to say "hey, that look..." - GONE.  Crap!  So we waited for it to come out for hire.  And waited.  And waited.  Video Ezy and Video 2000 kept advertising it as coming soon, coming soon.  When's soon, three months?  Six months?  Then at long last we got a date from Video Ezy.  March 23.  March 23 came around and no Insomnia.  Really?  Date pushed back, now May 14.  Again we got there on the day and no Insomnia - May 22, you are kidding right!?!  May 22 came around and lo and behold, May 30 is on the sign.  The irony in all this of course is that when I went in there yesterday to return a bunch, it was sitting on the shelf, two days early.  LOL.  So I hired the bloody thing, but was the big ass wait worth it?

Pacino plays Will Dormer, a hard ass LA detective who is dispatched with his partner to an Alaskan town to investigate a murder.  Trouble with good ol' northern towns is they don't get dark in the summer, and when Dormer suggests a visit to the local school during his early investigations and is told "that's not possible, its 10 at night" he's completely thrown off.  Between the eternal light and him being dogged by his recent past including an IA investigation, Dormer can't sleep, yet must continue to try and function to solve the murder.  A foot pursuit of their murder suspect ensues, Dormer's partner is shot and killed; soon after which the murderer starts to call him, taunting him with the agony of sleep deprivation.  Dormer still can't sleep.  Will he succumb to the murderers wishes?

Having had some long periods of awakenessness recently I really felt this guy's pain.  The heavy burning eyes, the fuzzy brain, the parched mouth that can't be sated.  And coffee doesn't help!  Yeah this movie tells his pain very well.  Pacino plays a very good worn out person, I doubt they even had to use makeup, and Hilary Swank is exceptional as the outwardly naive yet wily Ellie Burr.  Outstanding above all else is Robin Williams as a bad guy.  An actor that cannot be typecast is, in my book, an outstanding actor.  I admit I had my reservations as to whether he could pull it off but he does, and in spades.  Closest I've seen Williams come to evil or bad would be that eerie doctor he played in Dead Again, but that was another story.  Insomnia's bad guy is fairly simple to act I would imagine, not being of thespian blood myself, but Robin's good enough to do it flawlessly and...look it just comes back to him being a bad guy.  I've never been able to picture it, and now I can, he's an evil bastard!  I can't wait for One Hour Photo!

Places where the film falls down a little are the Pacino-isms that don't seem to roll off him as well as they used to.  Where in Heat and Any Given Sunday (and most of his movies before that) they are powerful and profound statements, lately they're just tired and overused words.  It happens here a little, not as much as People I Know - struth, what a travesty that was - and previews I've seen of The Recruit are looking the same again.

Also the story itself is a whodunit of sorts, but when all is revealed, even though you really do sit there and question whether or not you believe it, its still a bit of a letdown.  I started reading all sorts into it (perhaps to perk it up for myself), and to a point I had validation, but otherwise, its a bit plain jane.

The settings are stunning and the music is great, has a very Northern Exposure look about the town, just glossier.  If nothing else, watch this for Williams the bad man, I think you'll approve.  3 and a half stars.

Postscript: Turns out this is a remake of the 1997 original starring Stellan Skarsgard (of Good Will Hunting fame) which is a far superior movie apparently.  Its set in the north of Norway and runs through similar circumstances, by all means enjoy the preview here.

Chain Of Fools - stars Steve Zahn, Salma Hayek

This is tops, it somehow got under my radar though, buggered if I know how.  I've got a nose for these things.  Zahn plays Kresk, a very bad barber, who through good fortune comes into possession of some rare and valuable coins.  But on one hand where luck seems to be on his side, not a lot is going right.  He's fallen for the policewoman investigating the theft, he met her while reading Playboy.  Fortunately his neurotic ex is in Italy which leaves the opportunity to dump the dead body of the hitman he got the coins off in the first place in her apartment.  Natch.  Meanwhile the original thief has hired a hitman to off the original hitman (not knowing he's dead already) and is then rehired to off the original thief - then there's the third hitman.  And could Kresk's nephew be asking for a bigger kick in the ass?

Totally quirky from the outset and a great cast to support it, this another one of those Big Trouble flicks that make you scratch your head one minute and laugh out loud the next.  Zahn's his usual bumbling self, probably a refrained Happy Texas if you know what I mean.  Hayek plays the only sane character in the movie so she's not stretching.  Jeff Goldblum is classic as a badass hitman, David Cross' zany take on a tough guy scout leader is up there as well.  As I said the whole cast - including Frodo playing a hitman as well - is brilliant, and the story intertwines them all nice and tightly, you wonder how they don't run into each other more often.

Think One Night At McCool's and Big Trouble, perhaps a splash of Evil Woman - its not quite as good as these - and you're there, 3 and a half stars.

BH