Tag: Will Smith

Super Cops III (Bad Boys for Life, 2020)

Bad_Boys_For_Life_posterWho wasted a perfect title for a fourth film???? Seriously people… Bad Boys 4 Life.

Seventeen years after the last film, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett are back. A little older, a bit…um…thicker…but they are back. Burnett is desperate to retire and spend time with his wife and new granddaughter. Mike wants to keep being the badass cop.

But when there is an assassination attempt on Lowrey, they are called into action to try and determine who the killer is.

Bad Boys for life focuses on the impact of past choices, getting older, family and trust. Like, this is the first film to not make a joke about the closeness of these two men.  It treats their friendship as noble and good, not something to be embarrassed by.

The stakes get raised and while certain twists are not super original, they do work. The action sequences are incredibly easy to follow along with, yet still exciting.

Seriously, this is the best film in this franchise and I found myself curious for the clearly set up fourth film.  Bad Boys for Life is exciting, has depth the other two films lacked and was just a lot of fun to watch overall.

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Super Cops II (Bad Boys II, 2003)

Bad_Boys_II_POsterThe Boys are back. The bickering couple stuff returns.  The hot babes as props returns.  The Gay subtext of the relationship of Lowrey and Burnett is here again. The fast and confusing visuals are back.

Honestly, I found the second Bad Boys film painfully tedious. There are few bright spots. I mean, Gabrielle Union is good. Peter Stormare is always fun. But this film tired me out quick.

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Super Cops (Bad Boys, 1995)

Bad_Boys_PosterIn 1995 Will Smith was still primarily known as the Fresh Prince (with a lot of acclaim for his role in Six Degrees of Separation) and Martin Lawrence was riding high with a successful sitcom, stand-up and supporting roles in film. And Michael Bay? He had directed music videos.

Bad Boys is set in Miami and follows the exploits of two risk taking cops with attitude, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett.  When there is a heist that steals all the drugs from a recent major bust right from under the noses of the Drug Task Force’s vaults, they start trying to  determine how it happened. When a call girl, Julie, calls in demanding to speak with Lowrey. This leads to “comic hijinks” as, since Mike is not in, Burnett pretends to be Lowrey.

This forced Mike to stay with Marcus’ family as they pretend to be each other to keep the trust of Julie. They take shots at each other via putting themselves down and so on.  This is the Bickering Couple style of buddy cops, in the vein of Riggs and Murtaugh. Except, Mike has no death wish, instead he perceives himself as super awesome and is very into style and appearance.  Like, I have no idea what a detective in Miami makes, but I still feel like it is very likely they cannot afford the lavish lifestyle of Mike Lowrey.

This film kicks off poorly aging humor about how it sure seems like they are a couple and both men getting hyper sensitive about it. Bay’s use of women as either unpleasant scold wives/authorities or hot objects is on full display here.

It can be hard to follow the action and the film often feels more like it is a bunch of rock videos strung together.

Bad Boys really cemented Bay’s style very early on and not really for the best.  A lot of his weaknesses on display here have carried on through his career.

 

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Two For the Price of One (Gemini Man, 2019)

Gemini_Man_PosterHenry Brogan is the best sniper there is. He has spent his life  shooting terrorists and those who help them.  But when he retires, he discovers that his most recent target may have been an innocent man, and retiring from the top secret government agency is permanent.

He ends up on the run with help from an old friend and a young agent as they try and piece together the facts.  But the biggest issue is the incredibly skilled young men sent after Henry. As the trailers revealed, Henry has been cloned and it was sent off to kill him. Younger and all his skills give Junior the advantage over Henry.

But Ang Lee is not interested in simply pitting two forces against each other. Instead, Henry is more interested in altering Junior’s path from that of a brutal killer. It helps keep things from getting two formulaic in the action genre. The action scenes are really well choreographed and well edited.  I like the characters, but the story kind of falls apart towards the end.

The big talk around the film is the use of High Frame Rate.  I saw this film in the standard frame rate, and I must confess, I am not sure the film would benefit.  There were outdoor scenes that looked like characters were just in front of green screens, HFR seems like it would make that stand out more.

The film uses cutting edge digital technology to create a digital Will Smith that is imposed over another actor. And it never quite looks natural.  While the digital de-aging Marvel did with Nick Fury in Captain Marvel looked like a younger Samuel Jackson, the digital puppet for Gemini Man looks like an artificial creation.

Gemini Man is an okay film with some good performances and great action, but it is not destined to be a sci-fi classic.

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Fantasy Nation (Bright, 2017)

Bright_PosterNetflix has been focusing hard on original material over the past few years, especially now as they face the future of no Disney films.  Bright is their first foray into high concept, high budget action fantasy.

They brought together notorious Internet personality Max Landis (Screenwriting son of John Landis) and David Ayers (director of End of Watch and Suicide Squad) to present us with Bright.  Bright is a genre mashup, best described as a combination of Ayer’s own End of Watch and the 1988 sci-fi film Alien Nation*. Except, instead of aliens, it involves fantasy creatures.

Set in a version of our world in which elves, orcs, fairies and so on all exist and interacted with humanity for thousands of years, Will Smith plays the human cop Daryl Ward. His partner is the first Orc police officer, Nick Jakoby. Due to an incident where Ward was shot and Nick appeared to have let the perp get away, there is tension.  Nick pays lip service to the equality of the races when talking to his daughter, but he seems to struggle with it himself.

When the two stumble upon a young Elven Bright (a user of magic), they find themselves on the wrong end of gangs (both human and orc), evil elves and corrupt cops.  It is a chase through the city as they try and determine who they can trust and how they can stop the impending threat to the world.

Bright is not a terrible idea.  The film works hard to establish an existing racial hierarchy with it appearing to be Elves and Humans at the top, while Orcs face a lot of discrimination.  The film hints that the Orcs once threw their lot in with a dark lord, and so people generally do not trust them.

But this is also where the film falters. While it is a decent concept, some of the execution just feels lazy.  Smith has a throw away line about an orc being a “Shrek-Looking” thing.  Would Shrek exist in a world like this?  Would pop culture develop in the same trajectory?  Orc music is literally just death metal. Orc culture is basically “L.A. Gang Culture” stereotypes.  Sure, one character refers to having been a bus driver before moving to L.A., but we see no real examples of Orcs in any other life than gangs.

And to make things more frustrating, we never observe what kind of life Jakoby lives outside of being on the police force.  Oh, sure, he talks about how he has wanted to be a police officer since he was a child, and how he files down his tusks to appear less threatening. But we are told this.  And we know nothing beyond what he tells Ward. We see Ward’s home life.  We even know he is trying to sell his home.  We meet his wife and daughter.  Nick is likable in his somewhat teenage-ish exuberance and well intentioned demeanor.  Yet we never experience his life as an audience.  And the film really needs that.  This is where that Alien Nation comparison leaves Bright wanting. Alien Nation creates a real feel of the Newcomers trying to assimilate into the world around them. There are rich businessmen, street punks, teachers, prostitutes and most any profession out there. We are given important information through both show and tell. And it feels organic.  In Bright, it is all given through dialog.  There is some attempts to give us visual queue, mostly in the beginning where Ward and Jakoby are driving to work. This is mostly done through graffiti and Smith getting upset when they cut through Elven territory.

The villains are either stock characters (the humans and the orcs) or severely undefined.  While the film references the Dark Lord, the evil magic using elves seem to have very vague notions other than service to this Dark Lord.

This is not to say it is all bad.  I mean, the visual effects are nice.  The Orcs are appropriately brutish looking and the elves are both creepy and ethereal. The action sequences are exciting to watch.  But as much as I wanted to like this film, it just does not live up to it’s potential, especially when similar territory has done it so much better.

*I cannot take credit for this, the first person I saw make the reference was the talented comic book artist Jamal Igle. But this is by far the most accurate comparison.

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Suicidal Tendencies (Suicide Squad, 2016)

suicide_squad_2016_posterAfter the cool reception to Batman V Superman from critics and fans alike (It has it’s supporters) DC and Warner Brother started providing hype for Suicide Squad to divert attention.  Set to classic hard rock music the trailers screamed “This will be fun and exciting!”

Suicide Squad, for the uninitiated was a DC Comic written by John Ostrander (he actually was reviving an earlier comic, but the Suicide Squad as it is known now was Ostrander’s baby).  It was a government task force that forced some of DC’s baddest villains to take high risk jobs for our government in return for reduced sentences.  Of course, nobody was expected to survive long enough to get to take advantage of their reward.  Not a bad idea.

The film always seemed out of place for the DC Cinematic Universe.  We are actually meeting some of the enemies of heroes we have barely met.  Including Suicide Squad?  We have about two minutes of Flash time.  I am including that Justice League trailer from SDCC.  And this is actually one of the big problems with the film.  They are trying to fill in so much information, we are bogged down with tons of background.  The cast is pretty large, causing more than one character to get little to do.  Killer Croc has a few moments, but gets little to do until the very end of the film.

I wondered how the Kitana character would fit in (she is not a villain in the comics).  Here she is pretty much a baby-sitter until the final act.  It feels more like they put her in the film in case they wanted to use her in the future and she would already be established.

The emphasis on the Joker and Harley Quinn relationship is that it…well, polishes up their relationship.  We do get a moment that makes it clear that the Joker tortures Harley Quinn before she takes on the identity.  The film apparently cut a lot of bit that really suggested the relationship was abusive.  It could have been an interesting opportunity to have her standing against the Joker, but instead, she keeps running back to him.  Harley Quinn is also often forced into the position of eye candy.  The character has always had a sense of being…innocent.  Like she just thinks she is being wacky and funny.  Like when little kids insult grown up and are “only teasing”.  One scene has her dressing in public, looking around and realize everyone is staring and then just asking “what?”  Had Robbie not been stuck in outfits putting her on display throughout the film, that might have been more effectively funny.

Jared Leto’s Joker has been the source of much criticism and concern for many fans.  I have run into many fans who were tired of him long before the film saw release.  And I did feel like he was one of the weaker links of the film.  Not because the performance was terrible…but rather the performance was inconsistent.  He has an effective scary laugh which is barely used in the film.  Sometimes he seems bored, but other times he is very menacing.

And yet, in spite of these things?  I enjoyed the film quite a bit.  I felt it worked far better than Man of Steel or Batman V Superman.  Smith’s Deadshot is an interesting character who on the one hand is a deadly sharpshooter and a doting father.  While not a wholly original dichotomy, it works pretty well here.  Harley Quinn’s big focus is as the Joker’s Girlfriend.  In spite of this, Robbie really captures the core of the character.  She seems carefree, but yet dangerous.  Almost sickeningly sweet, all while being thrilled by mayhem.  Robbie is endlessly engaging.  Viola Davis brought Amanda Waller to life in an amazing way.  She was every bit as frightening as she should have been.

The big surprise for me was Diablo.  I went in knowing next to nothing about him other than he was the fire guy.  His character is a pacifist refusing to use his power for fear he will lose control and kill people.

The action is pretty easy to follow as it unfolds on the screen, and aside from the obligatory slow motion shot towards the end, is exciting to watch.  The fact that you really have a bunch of characters that want nothing more to walk away makes a “Let’s Do this” speech entering into the final act really tough.  Yet, somehow, the group choosing to act as a team works.

The rumor is that a lot of the humor was from re-shoots demanded by Warner Brothers.  If that is the case, good call from Warner Brothers.  The film peppers humor through out the film that works effectively at keeping the characters likeable.  I know that there have been some real rough reviews…but I avoided reading them so far because I wanted to see the film without pre-set expectations of terribleness.  And I walked out entertained.  I am not saying it is a great film.  Of the Super-hero films we have had this year?  I still give it to Captain America: Civil War.  But I had fun, and that can be hard to say with DC films as of late.

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Taking Our Planet Back (Independence Day, 1996)

independence_day_poster24 Year old Me Reviews Independence Day: OMG!  That was awesome!  Cool Effects, funny quips.  Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum was great!  Bill Pullman plays the Version of a Democratic President Dean Devlina and Roland Emmerich wish Clinton was!  Cool movie!  Everyone should see it.

20 Years Later Me Reviews Independence Day:  Ehhhhhhh…this is a pretty dumb flick.  But in a weird way?  That is part of it’s charm.  Will Smith plays his standard Cocky Hero Guy, Jeff Goldblum is his standard nervous idealist guy, Bill Pullman is THE PRESIDENT, Randy Quaid is a version of his Uncle Eddie character (a version more deeply consumed by alcoholism), Mary McDonnell is the woman who must die to give Bill Pullman resolve (er, the First Lady) and Judd Hirsch plays Old Jewish Stereotype.

Visually, this film holds up pretty well.  Considering it relies on practical effects as digital (as Digital Effects were still in their infancy) the destruction still looks convincing.  The dogfights hold up and the aliens look quite good.

The writing is broad in the film.  Folks speak in quips and dramatic phrases.    Sometimes, as with Goldblum and Smith, this is effective.  They carry the burden of most of the humor, Though Brent Spiner (Star Trek’s Data) shows up briefly to play an amusing and socially awkward Area 51 Scientist.  Pullman plays earnest and plays it well.  There is a speech in the film that could have gone off the rails, but his delivery makes it seem better than it is.

Of course, the “Rah Rah America” gets overbearingly embarrassing.  The whole world was apparently sitting around waiting on America to come up with a plan to fight back against the aliens.  There is a moment where a British guy tells another soldier that the Americans have a plan and he pretty much says “It’s about time”.  The inspirational message to the world in the film? We are all America.

The overall cheesiness and goofy nature of the film does work to the film’s favor and it is the times when it takes itself to seriously that it feels like it will fall apart.  And even 20 years later it can be fun to watch, especially for the visual effects and the main performances.  And no matter who is in office, there are always going to be people happy to see the White House blown to bits.

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