Knight Rider (2008)

A new Knight Rider? Blasphemy, I say! Or said, when I first heard about this film being made. For some very strange reason, I thought this was a cinematic release. It isn't. It's a TV movie.

Now I know that a few of you are already heading for the exit hearing those words. And to be honest, I almost joined you. But I thought; I'll give it a go.

The whole thing feels very much like a long pilot for a TV show. That prospect had be shivering. Knight Rider was brought back a few years ago in the guise of TKR (Team Knight Rider). Team Knight Rider was dreadful Watching it was arse-wrenching (like gut-wrenching but much worse).

The only way to convey how bad it was, is to compare it to other horrors of TV and Film. For Star Wars fans, it's like watching the Star Wars Holiday Special (something that according to every fan who has seen it should never be attempted sober). For Star Trek fans, it's like watching a director's cut of Generations, where Picard travels across time to rescue Kirk, whereupon they fall in love, move to Venice Beach and set up a nightclub where Picard performs showtunes, dressed as a woman.

With my expectations set suitably low, I bunged this on and had a gander. It's surprisingly good.

The technology of KITT has been updated considerably. Instead of an indestructible shell, he now has a nano-morph skin that regenerates damage almost instantly. The effect for this is suitably impressive. They've kept the "super-pursuit" mode, but updated it so it doesn't look so naff. And having KITT be able to mimic other cars (albeit only other Shelby Cobras) is a nice and rather logical addition.

The story is what you'd expect from Knight Rider. Bad guys want to do bad things, KITT and his driver have to stop them. The lack of the Foundation for Law and Government was a major plot contrivance. This film also "de-canonises" Knight Rider 2000, the TV movie made with The Hoff after the TV series finished, and I can't shake the nagging feeling that something nasty has happened to the original KITT in the interim.

There are a few places where the CGI is a little obvious, and I'm not convinced that Val Kilmer was the best choice for KITT's voice. By all accounts he was a last minute choice after the original actor (Will Arnett - see trivia section) had to withdraw after he had recorded all his lines.

Soundtrack is quite good, updated title music is pretty neat and for the most part the special effects deliver. However if it does spawn a TVshow they're going to have to drop at least one character, as there's a couple too many in this film and they don't all have a major part to play.

Score: Overall it's a B - -

Trivia:

Originally, Will Arnett was cast as the voice of K.I.T.T. However, after he had finished recording his lines to everyone's satisfaction, a conflict of interest was raised. His is the distinctive voice heard on General Motors car and truck commercials, but K.I.T.T. is a Ford vehicle. As a result, Val Kilmer was cast as K.I.T.T.'s voice and all of the car's dialogue was re-recorded.

In the beginning, as the thieves are going through the garage, you can see many of the parts from a third generation Firebird, including the outline of an opened hood, a Tune Port Injected engine, as well as the dash of the Knight Industries Two Thousand. Continuity (which I spotted):

When Welther and Smoke are pursuing KITT and Sara in the helicopter, the exterior of the black helicopter is shown three times and each time it is a different helicopter.

Rambo

Isn't it odd? Stallone wanted to call his first Rocky film "Rocky Balboa" but had to shorten the title because the studio was concerned about a limited audience, and he wanted to call his first Rambo film "Rambo" but had to lengthen it to "Rambo: First Blood" because the studio was worried that the title was too ambiguous.

I saw an interview with Stallone about this film where he said that at his age he has to approach every project with the thought in mind that if this is his last film, how does he want to be remembered. So with the final Rambo film, he wanted to show the real horror of war. With the previous films in the Rambo legacy, the violence was sometimes so violent that it bordered on black comedy. There were times (and I'm thinking of a particular scene with a waterfall and an exploding arrow here), where I expected there to be a paid of comedy legs standing after the explosion. There is a sort of homage to that in this film, but it's done not for comedy or just to shock, but merely to show that the human body is not best equipped to deal with the sudden and catastrophic loss of it's own head.

This film is gritty, bloody and in places fairly disturbing, and it is made all the more unpleasant for being very very true to life. The Burmese government was very unhappy with the way their country was portrayed in this film, particularly their army as a group of barbaric drug dealers engaged in mass genocide. To which I always thought that the best response from the film-makers would have been: "But you are...."

The action scenes are very bloody and gory. Let's put it this way. This film really works hard for its 18 certificate. There's been a lot of criticism about the level of violence in this movie, but in all honesty it's about par with films like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. I think most critics are harsh on this because they have this view that historic films about the second world war are important and have something to say about noble sacrifice, whereas films about modern conflict do not. Which is a ridiculous position to take, since it implies that films about the deaths of soldiers sixty years ago are more important than films about people dying today. Whether Stallone intended it or not*, this film brings home the message that horrible things are happening to people all over the world right now, and if his intention was to show that war is not heroic and noble, but bloody and unpleasant then he's succeeded by a country mile. His point seems to be; there's no such thing as nobility in war.

The film is both written and directed by Stallone, and he's done a good job on both fronts.

Score: C+/B- Kind of teeters on the edge there. But then, it's a Rambo film, so you'll already know if you'll like it.

OQ: You're not changin' anything...

Although banned in Myanmar (formally Burma) by the military government, bootlegs of the movie are a hot item. Burmese Freedom Fighters have even adopted dialogue from the movie (most notably "Live for nothing, or die for something") as rallying points and battle cries. "That, to me," said Sylvester Stallone, "is one of the proudest moments I've ever had in film."

Has a kill count of 236, the most for any Rambo film, which averages 2.59 killings per minute.

*And I think he did.

Jumper

Short review: A weak premise of a film with an ad-hoc plot bolted on in an attempt to keep the audience entertained. It doesn't work.

Longer review: Plot (from trailer): There's these people called jumpers who can teleport themselves see, and then there's these other people called paladins who want to kill all the jumpers.

Now as with most films, I knew the basic plot before I went. I was expecting that the film would fill in the gaps with more plot during the movie. What I wasn't expecting was that the plot I've outlined above would turn out to be the whole shabang. There's nothing else.

Characters pop in and out of the film like they're big name stars cameoing on a TV sitcom. Whole segments of character backstory are tossed in and out of conversation with a single line. Plot progression is sporadic and confusing, particularly so when showing the protagonist trying to do things a normal person could do. There's a good reason for it, but it's never laid out for you or hinted at. They just never take the thing to it's natural conclusion. It's like hearing the first half of a joke and never hearing the punchline.
The ending is a complete cop out.

I could go on slinging mud at this film. So I will....

There's no motivation for the bad guys. In fact, so loose is the script and so little done to emote with the main characters, and (and I must say it) so bad is Hayden's acting*, that Samuel L Jackson is forced to ham it up to the extreme in order that you know he's the bad guy. If it weren't for this, I probably would have sided with his character during the film. He seems to get confused with his character motivation. At first he's killing jumpers for religious motivations "only god should be in all places at once", however later he admits that he's doing it because jumpers always turn bad. Hayden's character tries to convince him that he's different, but his character has no substance, no depth.

A much better film could have been made by blurring the line between the two sides so the audience doesn't know who's good and who's bad.

Score: D- I'm annoyed with the film, not because it was bad but because it had a lot of potential and threw it away.

OQ: There's no OQ as this film has no memorable lines.

Trivia: The roles of Davey and Millie were originally cast with Tom Sturridge and Teresa Palmer. After 2 months of filming and inflating production costs, Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson were recast as the leads. This really explains a lot.

Eminem turned down an offer to star.

The crew was allowed to film inside the Colosseum for three days under the condition that no equipment could be placed on the ground. Shooting was allowed only between 6.30 and 8.30 am and again at 3.30 pm to 5.30 pm to avoid disturbing tourists. The only lighting allowed was natural sunlight.

*In fact this is another film that features two actors playing the same part, with Hayden playing the older version of the character. And yet again, the younger actor is better. By some margin.

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

Mmmmm.......not sure what I can say about this film.

It's certainly entertaining, it's got good action pieces, it continues the tradition of breaking into impossible places, it's got a good story.

Except, you could easily add the words "just not as good as the first one." to all of the above statements. The story is virtually identical, with a few trips down cliché boulevard to trick you into thinking it's different. The action pieces are broadly similar, the clues they follow are presented in a similar manner (and order) and the finale is pretty much the same. All this being so noticeable detracts considerably from the sense of peril that should have underpinned the film. At no point did I ever feel a sense of danger.

Overall the whole enterprise smacks of "why did they bother?" It's basically a remake of the first film. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, it's a reasonably good action film. Just don't expect anything radically different or new.

Score: C-. Would probably have been a B- if I hadn't seen the first film.

OQ: Maybe one day I'll wear this to a party I'm actually invited to.

Trivia: According to IMDB, there are a plethora of lines in the US trailer that didn't appear in the film.

Because of her role in The Queen (2006), Helen Mirren was invited to meet Queen Elizabeth II, but couldn't make the meeting because she was in South Dakota filming this movie.

Blue Thunder

Having my sister up to stay with me over the weekend, I thought I'd introduce her to some classic 80s cheese, and what could be cheesier than this?

I'm a big fan of Roy Scheider; The French Connection, 2010, SeaQuest DSV, the lot. I think he's a great actor who can put across a lot of emotion and depth of character. The man can emote more with one brief look than a lot of modern actors can with their whole repertoire.

Basic plot: Frank Murphy (Scheider) is an LA police helicopter pilot and along with his new partner/observer Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) is assigned to test out a new police riot response helicopter, Blue Thunder. A helicopter with more firepower than the entire Los Angeles SWAT division. While out playing with their new toy, the boys discover that the helicopter contractor along with Lt. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell) are planning to stir up trouble in order to prove what the machine is capable of.

This film was made in 1983, but it feels like it came from the 70s, in terms of the way Murphy's relationships with colleagues and girlfriend are portrayed. There's lots of unspoken backstory that you have to work out for yourself and often you're not sure if the witty insults are just friendly banter or genuine hostility.

The final showdown pitches Murphy in Blue Thunder against a SWAT team, two F-16 and finally Cochrane in an attack helicopter, while Murphy's girl rushes to the TV studio with the evidence.

Score: C
Worth watching for the cheese factor, or if you're a Roy Scheider fan.

The TV show spin-off that followed scores a decidedly lower D-. Truly awful film-to-TV transition that throws away the film's final message in order to make some money for the studio. Presumably they were trying to recoup come of the money spent on the helicopter (which does look the mutt's whatsits).

OQ: Has one of the best lines in film history "You know he measures his sanity with a wristwatch." "What do you use? A dipstick?"