No word on Nicolas Cage and John Travolta reprising their face swapping roles.
These are truly unsettling times. We have OFFICIAL news from Deadline that Paramount Pictures is developing a reboot / remake of the 1997 action classic Face/Off! And with that, truly nothing is sacred anymore.
This is not just a rumor, folks! Paramount has assigned the reboot to writer Oren Uziel whose only credits seem to include Sonic the Hedgehog (not yet released) and The Cloverfield Paradox. The Fast & Furious producer Neal Moritz is on board as well along with Executive Producer David Permut.
No word on the involvement of Woo, Travolta or Cage – but it seems highly unlikely any of them would be involved.
If this is a money grab, it’s in bad taste and probably not a great idea. Apparently Hollywood is just bursting with new ideas on which old 80s and 90s action movies to remake. Adding Face/Off to a list which includes:
And, we can probably be sure at this point that this list is very much incomplete. So, hold your original loved movies tight, and pray that reboots aren’t coming for them. RIP Face/Off, we’ll always cherish your insanity of existence.
To most, action films are just that – ACTION films. You might not even think the genre title needs a definition. Yet, for many film fans the term is sometimes misused and very often misunderstood.
According to the Wikipedia definition, an ACTION FILM “is a film genre in which the protagonist or protagonists are thrust into a series of events that typically include violence, extended fighting, physical feats, and frantic chases.”
The definition goes on to cite the importance of an ACTION HERO and their plight through life-threatening situations and against a main villain. The article goes on to talk about CGI and the rise of the genre in the 1970s as a spectacle-styled genre made to wow audiences in cinemas.
The definition above might be boilerplate, but at the heart of the genre, the “action” moniker really just means that the films have lots of “action” on screen. These can be fist fights, they can be car chases, they can be shootouts, they can be any number of things.
Truth be told though, perhaps the majority of American films (at least counting the Blockbusters of the last 30 or 40 years) have many of these elements.
Almost every movie has a fight of some sort. Some might be less physical and more psychological. Just about every movie has a hero and a villain as well. “Action” has really just become a catchall term that is usually used to tack onto other movie types when action occurs.
These “Action Hybrid Movies” allow for crossover genres where the heart of the story can be comedy, romance, suspense, etc… but allow for some level of spectacle – which is often the action genre definition.
But again, these get tricky. Some movies can easily be given this hybrid qualifier, while others might still have these action elements, but not formally used in the marketing or classification of the film.
One of the goals of the Ultimate Action Movie Club is to help define, and to appreciate, the ACTION film genre. That means both honoring the pure action classics. Films predominantly from the 80s and 90s before the genre moved further into hybridization.
As well as looking at the roots of the action genre, whether those be western, spy or war films of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Along with again delving into the 2000s and modern times at these new hybrid action films including sci-fi, martial arts and neo-action.
From Vietnam to Exomoon LV-426, how James Cameron combines war and horror into an ultimate action movie!
For a franchise which has endured the likes of Alien 3 and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, the original two features – Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) – stand tall as tentpoles of sci-fi action and horror.
While Alien excels in its pure suspense and horror motifs, Aliens is a notable favorite with the Ultimate Action Movie Club for its outstanding contributions to the action genre.
James Cameron, who was just coming off the success of his indie sci-fi action breakout The Terminator, turned Alien into a true box office smash that elevated Sigourney Weaver from a heroic final girl to a bonafide action hero.
However, one of the most timeless (and at times – odd) memories from revisiting Aliens now are those darn Colonial Marines!
Colonial Space Marines
A good portion of Aliens’ plot centers around the Colonial Space Marines that are sent to investigate the lost-contact terraforming colony Hadley’s Hope on Exomoon LV-426. The same celestial spot where Ellen Ripley’s Nostromo initially encountered the alien spaceship (and eggs) from the original film.
Ripley is eventually convinced to join the Colonial Marines on their expedition, along with Carter J. Burke (Paul Reiser) and the android Bishop (Lance Henriksen). Ripley is rudely introduced to the world of the hired mercenary space marines whose jovial, in-your-face attitudes seem to have not changed since the 1970s.
Which is a fun element to add to the story. A big part of the original film’s success came from the juxtaposition in tone between when the space crew were enjoying their camaraderie, against when they were isolated and alone fighting their alien stalker.
However, Aliens takes things up a notch quite a bit. In James Cameron’s third script (after TheTerminator and a first draft of Rambo: First Blood Part II), the young action auteur tries to capture the dialect and ethos of the young and rambunctious Vietnam soldiers who are forever stuck in their destructive youths.
The cast itself is really quite superb for the time with Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein all being very solid actors, as well as great role for Al Matthews as Sergeant Apone (RIP to a true legend…). The only blemish might be William Hope as commanding officer Lieutenant Gorman, but you’re supposed to hate him anyway so it works perfectly.
Cameron has openly cited that much of his inspiration and research for the Aliens plot and Colonial Marines came from the Vietnam War as well as Robert A Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers. And once the movie version of the latter came out in 1997, we were able to really see the similarities laid out.
Yet, what Starship Troopers captured was probably more in-line with the novel’s intentions. A certain naivety to the characters was perhaps better brought out in the version by writer Edward Neumeier and director Paul Verhoeven.
At the end of the day, Cameron’s Colonial Marines were always meant to fail. Much like America in the Vietnam war, they were ultimately overly and ill equipped to fight something which they didn’t truly understand.
And while Aliens is quite fun and entertaining in the beginning (I mean, we do spend A LOT of time with these marines as they show off all their tech and gear – and a very overdrawn “drop” sequence), the purpose of the story is to find Ripley again one-on-one against the alien monster.
It’s almost a shame, because the Colonial Marines deserved probably more of a fitting finish for the story arcs they presented. It’s as if there are two movies in Aliens, a direct sequel to Alien where Ripley returns to Exomoon LV-426 to get revenge for the murders of her friends and crew. (Along with her journey of dealing with her lost – and regained – chance at motherhood.)
Against another true space Vietnam saga where the Colonial Marines should have gotten their chance to learn from their hubris and bounce back to destroy the aliens on their own. Which in a small way they do, but at the price of all the best characters besides Michael Biehn’s Corporal Dwayne Hicks – who is even knocked out for the final battle and defeat.
2002 saw the release of action movie legend Walter Hill’s latest opus, the prison boxing movie Undisputed. Starring Wesley Snipes & Ving Rhames as 2 adversarial boxers heading toward their inevitable showdown, the movie didn’t exactly light the box office on fire, but gained a cult following on video later on.
4 years later, martial arts action movie icon Isaac Florentine was chosen to make a sequel to Undisputed. He took the job, but only if he got to put a martial arts spin on it. He then cast legit badass Michael Jai White in the Rhames role, promoting that character from the previous entry’s hissable villain to the now unlikely hero. And in the role of the new villain, Yuri Boyka, he cast a little known actor/martial artist named Scott Adkins.
From then on, Scott went on to make a name for himself in the action genre with a number of great action movies after that, including the next movie in the franchise, Undisputed 3: Redemption, where the character Boyka was himself promoted to the hero. And it was even better than the last one. But due to the majority of people illegally downloading the movie, it failed to turn a profit (and to those damn fools, in Adkins own words, shoot yourselves in the foot for that one), and the franchise was put on ice for the time being.
But even as he continued to persevere in his career, the fans kept clamoring for more Boyka action. Every post on social media from Adkins featured the question “When are you gonna make another Undisputed??” And just our luck, the action gods blessed us. Scott would be returning for the 4th movie in the franchise, titled appropriately “Boyka: Undisputed“.
Fans all over the world rejoiced everywhere, chanting BOYKA! BOYKA! BOYKA! And after a few delays, it arrived. I did my part by buying the movie LEGALLY. But, the question still remained: after all this time, and a change in directors (more on that later), would it be everything we were waiting for?
After unintentionally killing his opponent in his last fight, Yuri Boyka finds himself fighting on the underground circuit for the freedom of his opponent’s young widow, who is now indebted to a ruthless crime boss…
To answer your question immediately: Yes. It was everything and more. This is without a doubt the best Undisputed movie yet! Just the perfect entry in what has become arguably the best action franchise of our generation. Every entry is better than the last. No question about it.
But first, let’s give it up to Mr. Adkins for giving us his all as Boyka. Seriously, I feel this is without a doubt his best performance as Boyka yet! He injects Boyka with so much pathos and depth. Just completely amazing. It’s too bad that they don’t have an award ceremony for DTV action movies, because Scott deserved all the awards for his performance.
The supporting cast also give great performances, especially Teodora Duhovnikova as Alma, the widow, and action movie favorite Alon Aboutboul as Zourab, the despicable villain. They were equally good at adding dramatic depth to the movie as much as Adkins did. Kudos to them.
Now, onto the direction. Isaac Florentine was originally set to direct this entry, but due to the incredibly unfortunate passing of his beloved wife (May she RIP), he was unable to take charge, leading to Todor Chapkanov replacing him while he remained on the project as a producer.
Well, either Mr. Chapkanov was the best student in the Isaac Florentine School of Directing, or Isaac’s voice on the production was just very strong, because you can not tell the difference. It’s like he actually was there calling all the shots. So who knows? But anyways… Mr. Chapkanov, you have done a damn fine job doing Mr. Florentine proud. Salute to you.
But, we come to this franchise for the glorious action, and action fans, the action is GLORIOUS! Action Choreographer Tim Man once again proves why he is the best in the business as he gives us some of his most awesome fight scenes yet! The beauty of the choreography in this one is just sublime. This is one of those movies where you’re constantly rewinding the moves so you can see it again and again. Simply incredible.
Any issues? Nope. I am perfectly fine with the movie as is. No issues at all.
So folks, there you have it. The best movie in the Undisputed franchise. Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s been rumblings about them spinning Undisputed off into a TV series, and if that’s true, bring it on. As long as Scott and Isaac are involved, I will be there front and center. It’s the least I can do for them holding us action fans down for so long.
It’s not just the most kickass VHS cover ever, it also should go down as an absolute ultimate action movie classic!
In true Ultimate Action Movie Club fashion, I was at a VHS swap at an Alamo Drafthouse in Dallas, Texas when I found an elusive copy of Scorpion (1986). It stuck out to me not just because of the glass-smashing mustachioed gentleman on the cover, but because I had seen this image many times before in various forms online and in different Facebook communities.
It’s at a point in my head that I almost doubted if the image was actually real. Or was some sort of parody from a Beastie Boys video or Sprite commercial that had been bouncing around erroneously as an actual, real thing. So, I was very pleased to find my hands on the VHS box which would finally answer (some) of my questions about its existence.
Scorpion is a 1986 film starring Tonny Tulleners as Steve Woods (aka his codename: ‘The Scorpion’). This would be Tulleners – an accomplished karate champion in his own right, who had even bested Chuck Norris in tournament – in his only cinematic role. And while you can probably guess some of the reasons why he didn’t have a long and storied action career, I have to say, from UAMC standards, he absolutely kills it in this movie!
Scorpion vs Cobra
What also sticks out almost immediately about finding Scorpion 30 years later is its obvious similarities (at least in name and cover art) to Stallone’s UAMC favorite Cobra (which, btw, is #1 on our Top 100 Action Movies of All Time list). Both films were released in 1986, but from looking up release dates, it looks like Cobra definitely came out first, released in the US in May 1986. Scorpion came out much later in the year in December.
I can’t find anything confirming if Scorpion was an intentional Cobra knock-off, but it wouldn’t come as much as a surprise. Tullener’s Steve Woods shares a lot with Stallone’s Marion Cobretti, they wear dark aviators, they don leather jackets, and they are law officers / special agents who don’t follow the book. They do things their own way. And they get results damnit!
I gotta say though, while the characters might be the same. Tonny Tulleners does a very admirable job in the role, and after some initial odd sequencing, Scorpion really finds its own form and creates a compelling narrative that is in no way just a Cobra knockoff.
Firstly, Steve Woods is actually much more morale than Marion Cobretti’s “crime is a disease, I’m the cure” demeanor. Neither respect authority or take orders, but the Scorpion is much more engaged in saving the lives of the innocent, rather than Cobra’s general disdain for anything but vengeance.
It’s also important to note that Tulleners rocks a bitchin’ 80s stashe which Stallone would never be able to pull off. Tulleners, once the aviators are off, actually looks (and even kicks) a lot like Chuck Norris – and it’s really a shame he didn’t have a whole career of his own. He and Chuck might have made a killer doppelgänger partner in some team-up film back in the day.
This might be spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen Scorpion yet (and if you haven’t, stop reading this do your damnedest to find a VHS copy now!), but you have to commend Scorpion for attempting to be just a little bit smarter and heavier of an action film than it presents. I mean, it’s pretty basic. And we don’t even get a love interest or leading lady save for a few shots of Scorpion waking up next to a girl to answer the phone.
However, the basic plot moves and turns in slightly unexpected ways, and it includes more than one red herrings to make you think you’ve figured things out as typical action plot points. There’s also one of the greatest tack-on endings that I’ve ever seen where Scorpion – for some forsaken reason – has to complete his journey by pushing over this giant marble statue in the middle of a public park.
Like, the thing has to weigh tons! And it’s only referenced once before in the movie with a short flashback. But at the very end, after Scorpion gets the bad guy, he just strolls by it and decides to shove the darn thing over. The movie ends with an awkward freeze frame as the statue is in mid-fall. It’s great. I’ve never felt more motivated to go shove things over in my life. Or to grow a moustache. Or to watch Cobra now that I think of it. But seriously, get a VCR, get a VHS of Scorpion, and enjoy the heck out of it – it’s awesome!
Revisiting the end of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond experiment.
Die Another Day, in many respects, is a 90s action movie. Make no mistake. It operates and functions as a film that is from that decade. However, while the action and characterization continue the action and 90s version of Bond we have gotten to know and love, there’s something particularly nasty and different about this iteration.
The title is the first dead giveaway that things are not going to go the same for 007 this time around. This is apparent right from the opening. While things start sure enough with Bond going about his duties, he finally meets his match with a villain that finds out who he is right away.
The Downfall of James Bond
Such a thing has never truly happened before in Bond cinema. This writer remembers seeing the movie for the first time and being shocked and surprised by what he saw. While Bond is successful in first getting into North Korea, Colonel Tan-Sun Moon and Tang Ling Zao, one of Moon’s freelance terrorists, have the latest technology that gives them the edge on our favorite secret agent.
During Bond’s entrance into North Korea, it is particularly over-the-top with him surfing on a surfboard into the country. It’s somewhat funny to see such type of action paralleled against what leads to one of the most brutal openings in the entire history of the Bond franchise. Moon and Zao are able to quickly confirm with their technology who Bond is and that he works for the British government.
Never before has one of his villains been able to do this but he is quickly bested. After seemingly killing Moon and defeating the North Korean forces, he is surrounded by General Moon, the younger Moon’s father. Here, Bond is arrested and incarcerated in a North Korean prison. The action throughout these sequences is first-rate with Bond on hover crafts shooting back at North Korean forces. There are chases with these crafts in North Korea that are particularly exciting. Some of the CGI is not the best, compared to today’s, but it still makes for a worthwhile endeavor.
While Casino Royale in 2006 is particularly known for torturing Bond, it was Die Another Day that did it first and in just as brutal a fashion. Throughout the Madonna musical opening credits, we see Bond being beaten and waterboarded continuously. It’s hard to stomach in many ways because of just how brutal it is.
As an audience, we’ve also gotten used to the fact Pierce Brosnan’s Bond has gotten out of all the sticky situations of the past. This is the part of the film that departs from past Bond films of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It marks a new path for Bond and one that is not necessarily fun to see but just as satisfying nonetheless from a cinematic perspective.
While not a fight, this is nonetheless pivotal to the rest of the film’s events. It shows the British and US governments exchanging Zao for Bond. The latter, this is not something he wanted. It leads to some tense interactions between Bond and M. It’s the first time where Bond lets his personality show and he is adamant he never wanted to be traded for Zao, someone who was the chief reason for his imprisonment.
What’s also different about this movie is the direct involvement of the Americans with Bond’s freedom. The NSA’s Damian Falco figures big in this and puts M on watch that if she does not control Bond, the Americans will go in to do it for them. All of this seriousness is subverted when Bond escapes and swims to Hong Kong.
When Bond gets to Hong Kong, it’s where we see the old Bond return. While at first, he looks like a homeless man from off the streets. He quickly is recognized by Chang, a Hong Kong agent. Rumor has it they were planning on bringing back Michelle Yeoh for a cameo as Wai Lin from Tomorrow Never Dies but that never happened.
It’s a shame she was not brought back for a short role. It would have made sense for continuity purposes. While Chang first suspects Bond of spying on the Chinese, the latter quickly figures out that’s what Chang thinks. Bond explains what his focus is and receives help from Chang in locating Zao to Cuba.
When we last saw Bond in Cuba, he was going after Alec Trevelyan for MI6. On his own, he is working for nobody’s government but his own in hunting down Zao. Through a series of contacts, he is able to find out that Zao is at a gene therapy clinic. He also meets Jinx Johnson, an NSA agent with the US government. Here, it would have made sense to bring back Jack Wade of the CIA. However, we already met the NSA’s Damian Falco, so it was sensible to include an NSA agent this time rather than Wade.
What starts as a simple flirtation turns into both characters infiltrating a gene therapy clinic, where Bond finds Zao. He stops Zao from undergoing the therapy but a chase ensues as Zao escapes in a helicopter. As Johnson blows up the clinic, Bond is late to the party as she shoots at Zao in his helicopter. In a great escape scene, Johnson seduces two Cuban guards and jumps backward off a ledge into the water. It’s quite a great scene when she salutes Bond as she drives away in a boat. There was no extra loud alarm clock nearby.
Once Bond makes his way back to London, he goes to the Blades Club, where he meets the famous Gustav Graves and Miranda Frost, his assistant. Little to Bond’s knowledge, she’s an undercover MI6 agent. Once Bond and Graves go at it in a fencing exercise, he’s given an invitation to a scientific demonstration in Iceland.
Eventually, Bond and M meet, which brings back Bond’s Double-0 status and a confirmation of doubts regarding Graves. It’s evident in their fencing battle that there’s something more to Graves than meets the eye. Concern starts to develop about the character. It’s what leads to the final end with Bond and Graves.
Johnson finds herself captured by Graves and Zao after infiltrating the latter’s command center. Bond eventually confronts Graves, who reveals himself to be Colonel Tan-Sun Moon who underwent gene therapy to become Graves. He modeled Graves off of Bond himself. Frost also shows her true colors as a traitor. The latter is not necessarily something we have not seen before. We saw this in GoldenEye with Alec Trevelyan and it was a much more interesting part of the film. After Graves reveals his true identity to General Moon, he is murdered by Graves. Bond stops him in the end on a plane, where Graves is parachuted and drawn one of the plane’s engines. Bond and Johnson escape. They eventually end up at a South Korean Buddhist Temple.
The film, itself, marked the end of Pierce Brosnan’s career as 007 and led years later to a rebooted Bond with Daniel Craig in the titular role. It was quite sad to see the end of Brosnan as Bond since he demonstrated a true commitment to the role. He had delivered phenomenal Bond films and it was all due to the reboot they decided.
While this film might have been a bit out there with the use of CGI and gene therapy, it nonetheless remained a solid Bond film with a timely story of North Korean treachery and the world-changing with Bond being held in captivity. It had a fantastic case, director in Lee Tamahori, and writers, Neil Purvis and Robert Wade. This film still holds up for remaining true to the action of the past two decades while paving the way for the future of the Bond franchise.
About the author: Tommy Zimmer is a writer whose work has appeared online and in print. His work covers a variety of topics, including politics, economics, health and wellness, consumer electronics, the entertainment industry, and an extra loud alarm clock.
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Tony Scott and Christopher Nolan would approve of this action thriller’s combustible world.
Let me preface, I don’t claim to be an astute expert of all things Hong Kong action. I know my John Woo. I know my Bruce Lee and my Jackie Chan. But that’s about it. I do also know that the ultimate awesomeness contained in this 2017 thriller shouldn’t be much of a surprise thanks in part to the legacy of solid action cinema that has preceded it.
But here I am. Jaw-dropped. Covered in sweat. And damned surprised at how much I enjoyed Shock Wave. Let’s review…
A Review of Shock Wave (2017)
Directed by Herman Yau and starring Andy Lau (who shares producing credits as well), Shock Wave is a high-octane big blockbuster thriller that feels like a mix between The Hurt Locker and Enemy of the State. It’s about a bomb disposal unit (the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bureau – EOD in the Hong Kong police force) superintendent (Andy Lau) who becomes the target of a large scale terrorist hostage take-over that is slowly revealed to be centered at the main bad guy seeking to single out revenge on Lau’s character Cheung Choi-san.
It’s a BIG movie, so it’s hard to explain it in more detail because a lot happens and it creates a great deal of narrative to unpack. But man, it might be one of the best examples of a true ACTION thriller where inside of every tense situation and slow-burn emotional build up are some ultimate action explosions that are well choreographed and completely earned.
The Frenetic Energy of Tony Scott
I really would like to focus in on the thriller / action direction a little more at the hands of Herman Yau. This was not Yau and Lau’s first film together as they’ve done two prior (1991’s Don’t Fool Me and 1999’s Fascination Amour), and Yau has over 70 movies to his name at this point. But this is a well crafted actioner that has Tony Scott’s DNA all over it.
Focusing on Scott’s frenetic mystery / thriller / suspense / big explosion payoffs of some of his greatest hits like Enemy of the State, Man on Fire and The Last Boy Scout, Shock Wave has that same whodunnit feeling that pushes the movie along at a pace much faster than you’d expect for a 2 hour feature.
It feels bigger by the second as story is well designed to keep getting more intense as every second passes by. And by a plot device, having multiple bomb disarming scenes throughout the movie is a great way to bring in suspense on the reg.
Cheung Choi-san vs Hung Kai-pang
Aka Andy Lau vs Jiang Wu (who plays the main mastermind antagonist), Lau’s performance is a perfect match for Wu’s Hung Kai-pang (who goes by the very ULTIMATE codename of BLAST). We actually do get some great mano-y-mano showdown-age at the end of the movie between two characters with so much loaded baggage it could explode a Hong Kong underwater tunnel system (plot!).
Wu’s Blast, while not an imposing figure, does the part of a Bain-esque comicbook villain quite well, with a nice personal touch with some scenes involving his reformed brother. His crew of henchmen (mostly American mercenaries) are a solid ensemble who I would have maybe liked a standout second in command character, who do their best to terrorize the hundreds of hostages Blast takes in the standoff which is the crux of the movie’s plot.
(Note: I’m so happy this wasn’t just a third act development, instead it start rather early in the film, so we really get to spend some time with this situation and get to know the hostages, the characters and the city’s despair in the tense multi-day standoff.)
“I Was Never Your Brother”
But as mentioned above, the absolute most ULTIMATE moments come at the very end when Lau and Blast finally meet in the tunnel as all hell breaks loose and we get a very fiery, and very drawn out battle that allows the two to go at each other while carnage flairs all around them.
There’s a moment where the two are forced to both hop in abandoned cars and attempt to ram each other while each spray from uzi’s outside their windows. It’s awesome! We also finally get some really great actin lines like this from Lau:
“I was never your brother. You are a thief. I am a cop. Even if I died and became a ghost I would still arrest you!”
Isn’t that great? Lau’s Cheung is of so pure and noble heart that even in the most trying of times his duty for the law is unflinching – even beyond the grave. It’s these character dynamics that make this feel like such a big movie. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight would feel at home in this Hong Kong. And RIP to Tony Scott, who would love to explore its seedy streets for injustices.
It’s very much worthy of any UAMC screening. Which would be wise as a Shock Wave 2 (although it might be a non-thematic sequel) should be coming out soon!
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Sylvester Stallone has shared a clip chronicling the ultimate workout that helped him become an ultimate action movie hero on films like Rambo and Demolition Man.
Believe it or not but there was a time when Sly cut a far slender, less toned figure.
That all changed around the time he began to find fame and fortune with the Rocky movies and a whole host of action film outings.
Chief among these was First Blood, Stallone’s first outing as John Rambo and a movie that saw the Hollywood icon transform himself into a killing machine.
It took plenty of work though, as Stallone was only too happy to highlight on Instagram this week by sharing a video, titled “The Rambo Workout” on Instagram.
The clip is everything you would hope it to be and more besides.
It starts with a martial drumbeat cut to a moody close-up of Stallone’s toned and ridiculously glistening shoulder.
A post shared by Sly Stallone (@officialslystallone) on
Next, the action cuts to First Blood co-star Brian Dennehy who offers up a neat summation of Stallone’s efforts.
“That guy re-molded his entire body. I’ve never seen anybody do that,” he said.
“You can’t imagine what he put himself through. We’d get up at five o’clock in the morning, he’d go in and work out, on heavy weights, free weights, and all kinds of exercises.
“Then we’d finish a day’s work, a very hard day’s work, and he’d go back in the gym again and work out again.”
Fans are treated to scenes of Stallone, as Rambo, flexing and fighting, while Stallone’s co-stars laud his dedication to training.
Stallone then appears, kitted out in the iconic Rambo headband: “It was about eight months of training, four hours a day, to toughen myself up.”
Stallone goes on to detail the SWAT combat training, archery courses, and survivalist courses he took, while working closely with technical advisors to keep the Rambo story honest.
40 years on from that first Rambo outing, Stallone is returning to the role next month with Rambo: Last Blood.
Something tells us he’s been back in the gym a lot over the last few months.
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Few people have been so destined to play James Bond as Pierce Brosnan.
Which was the first movie Brosnan saw at the cinema at the age of 11? Goldfinger. Who was the first woman he married? Cassandra Harris, a Bond girl to Roger Moore’s Bond in For Your Eyes Only. Which famous role did he pursue in 1986? James Bond, but he didn’t get to play it due to his Remington Steele obligations. What happened to him in 1994? Pierce Brosnan was announced as the fifth official actor to play James Bond.
In this obscure and somewhat aggressive world where Daniel Craig has given a current day portrayal of Ian Fleming’s secret agent which bears links to Timothy Dalton’s unaccepted performance as Bond in the late 1980s, the decade where Pierce Brosnan played agent 007 seems harshly overlooked, and that’s another way to say unfairly trashed.
Back in 1990, EON Productions wanted to bring James Bond back and treatments for a seventeenth movie starring Timothy Dalton were written. Then things got complicated: MGM was taken over by Italian businessman Giancarlo Paretti, who among other things tried to make an unauthorised sale of the television rights of the Bond movies, getting into a legal conflict with EON and Danjaq, the holding protecting the cinematic rights of Ian Fleming’s character. This halted the production of the movie for a couple of years, yet when the dust was settled, Dalton turned down the role. He wanted to return for one last outing, while producer Albert R. Broccoli expected him to do a couple of movies in quick succession to compensate the long absence for the character, but the Welsh actor thought he had lost too much time and preferred to focus on his other projects.
There had been screentests with many actors, but Pierce Brosnan seemed the obvious choice now that Remington Steele was over and he had little projects. Negotiations began, and Brosnan’s posture was simple: “I don’t need Bond in my life, but if they want to offer it to me, I’ll definitely do it because it’s like unfinished business,” he said to his agent Fred Spector when rumours began to circulate that he would become the new Bond, fearing a media circus that would grant him the “James Bond That Never Was” tag forever.
It was on June 1, 1994, that Spector phoned him and told him the good news. Exactly one week later, he was greeting the photographers and journalists at the Regent Hotel in London after being officially announced as James Bond, to star in GoldenEye, set for a summer 1995 release and later moved to November.
Bringing James Bond back to life in the mid-1990s wasn’t an easy job: journalists everywhere were wondering if the character had a place in a post-Cold War era and if he could match heroes like those played by Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Arnold Schwarzenegger in films like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and True Lies, the latter taking a huge amount of inspiration from the Bond flicks. The bad box office numbers and poor marketing campaign for Timothy Dalton’s swan song Licence To Kill in 1989 has also endangered the franchise. Although this film is heavily appreciated now on its 30th anniversary, back in the day people didn’t embrace that dark, gritty and unstylish Bond.
Screenwriters Michael France, Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein had in clear that Licence To Kill wasn’t an inspiration for GoldenEye, but that they shouldn’t go to the parodic extremes of Moonraker and other Roger Moore movies. They should balance action, humour and drama in exact quantities and the film had to look exotic. The audience had to experience the feeling of being in a Monte Carlo casino as well as being sitting on a Cuban beach or escaping the Russian Army in the middle of St. Petersburg. Professionals like director Martin Campbell, aided by cinematographer Phil Méheux, editor Terry Rawlings and production designer Peter Lamont, who replicated the streets of Russia on the backlot of the improvised Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire, achieved the task with great success and throughout GoldenEye one really feels that James Bond is back with a vengeance.
Pierce Brosnan combined the best of his predecessors: the audacity and aplomb of Sean Connery, the sympathy of Roger Moore and the human side glimpsed by George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton.
He almost gets romantically involved with many of his women, even when it could be argued that he “uses” them to achieve his objectives, there is always the feeling that his Bond is protective. While Connery and Moore could have kissed and dropped them after getting the job done, Brosnan worries and wants to protect them. This is the case of Paris Carver, an ex-girlfriend he abandoned in the past and has now married the villain Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies. Likewise, in The World Is Not Enough, he wants to protect Elektra King, the daughter of a businessman assassinated by an explosive inside the MI6 Headquarters. He gets closely attached to her and feels the blow when he discovers she had betrayed him and was, in fact, plotting world domination in league with the apparent leading antagonist. GoldenEye’s Natalya Simonova also shares a scene with him that has a romantic tint, questioning Bond’s way of life, “his guns, his killing, his death”, on a Cuban beach. A scene that ends with a passionate kiss that in a masterstroke of the editor fades into the fire of a bungalow’s hearth. While Natalya may not be as important to Bond’s life as Vesper Lynd (Casino Royale) or Madeleine Swann (SPECTRE and the upcoming No Time To Die), she marked a precedent for this kind of women who questioned his profession and hoped he wouldn’t risk his life on the field.
Of course, any hard-core Bond fan will point out that the first women in the film series Bond got seriously involved in was Tracy Di Vicenzo in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, cueing the events of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming where 007 got married and his wife was shot dead hours after the wedding. Naturally, Tracy was far more important than Natalya in Bond’s life, but she seemed to play along with Bond’s sense of adventure (sharing a few laughs here and there while evading SPECTRE skiers on the Swiss Alps) and she never questions his actions or his profession – it’s Bond the one who feels he has to find another job in order to lead a life and have children with her.
Three of the four Pierce Brosnan Bond flicks were released in the last lustrum of the 1990s, the fourth opening in 2002 and being the first of the new millennium and 21st century. There is perhaps no other era in the 007 history that has emphasised that much the current days as Brosnan’s, although it should be noted that every film heavily relies on its production year as observed by the fashion trends, filmmaking style and the tunes selected by composers like John Barry or Marvin Hamlisch.
GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough work as a build-up for the Bond of the 21st century, while Die Another Day delivers it. These films are all part of the same era, but a notable change of tone can be seen in the production closing this cycle.
GoldenEye was a return to basics with the mood of international intrigue proper of a eurothriller: a lot of the action takes place in Russia, described as “a land of opportunities” where arms dealers have emerged after the fall of the Berlin wall. It had a cast full of relatively unknown actors who gave outstanding performances such as Gottfried John and Tcheky Kayro, not forgetting Sean Bean, Alan Cumming, Famke Janssen and Robbie Coltrane. It is one of the few Bond films where secondary actors are all important in their own way and represent something: Cumming, Karyo, John and Coltrane, for example, all represent the faces of the new Russia where the military power isn’t as powerful as before and politicians are now running the show and supervising them, and as a result this leads to the emergence of arms dealers and computer hackers applying the law of the free market in their own wicked way on the once heart of the Communist pride.
Tomorrow Never Dies, on the other hand, leaned more into the territory of the 1990s action blockbusters like Air Force One or True Lies: action is everywhere and overshadows every kind of drama or glamour that could be present in a Bond adventure, much courtesy of director Roger Spottiswoode’s style who wanted to keep an urgent pace which, curiously, seems to reflect the hurried schedule the producers had to deliver the film for Christmas 1997. Many would consider the film lacks depth and that it doesn’t look as spectacular as GoldenEye, however, it was ahead of its time. In a world where social network users (even the President of the United States) have accused some media of “fake news”, Tomorrow Never Dies had the novelty of a media mogul villain heavily inspired in Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch, whose goal is to confront China and Great Britain through headline misinformation to be granted broadcasting rights in the Far East.
The last Bond movie of the decade (and the millennium) was The World Is Not Enough in 1999, where significant changes were made: a drama director like Michael Apted was hired and screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, known for Let Him Have It, another drama, were hired to pen a story. It was Brosnan’s insistence that after the abuse of pyrotechnics in Tomorrow Never Dies this film should have a more emotional vibe and better character development. He got his way: the threat emanates from M’s past, the terrorist she issued a death warrant on years ago survived and now wants revenge. This terrorist has kidnapped the daughter of her friend Sir Robert King and she advised him not to pay the ransom to stall. The woman escaped and agent 009 found Renard, the terrorist, and put a bullet in his head. Flash forward to 1999: King is killed in a bombing against MI6, Elektra is the next target and Bond goes to protect her from the clutches of Renard. However, he finds out later that Renard and Elektra King are working together and that she planned her father’s death. Now she wants to take over the world and has now kidnapped M to avenge for advising her father not to pay the ransom.
Surprisingly, this sounds pretty much like Skyfall: a former MI6 agent M had his cover blown and handed into the Chinese has survived a cyanide capsule and now wants revenge. His plan begins with setting up an explosion on the MI6 Headquarters, revealing classified information exposing operatives infiltrated in the Middle East and it finally ends with the death of M. However, unlike the dramatic or moody endings of the Daniel Craig films, The World Is Not Enough played it at safe and had a formulaic climax with Bond stopping Renard from provoking a meltdown on a nuclear submarine below the Bosphorus, getting his reward in bed with Denise Richard’s character Christmas Jones. But it can’t be denied that this film set a precedent for the 2012 adventure who still remains the biggest commercial hit in Bond’s history.
The violent, sombre, gritty tone of the Daniel Craig James Bond movies was anticipated in 2002 by Die Another Day. This film is very millennial and the influence of technology and modernity is already showcased by the CGI bullet fired by 007 himself during the classic gunbarrel opening sequence. The 20th Bond adventure was a victim of an excessive profusion of special effects and a filmmaking style that resembled that of Mission: Impossible II, Face/Off and Charlie’s Angels with fast and slow-motion camera shots almost everywhere. However, the level of grittiness in the story broke new ground into the movies and by that time it was unarguably the most violent Bond film since 1989’s Licence To Kill. After completing a mission in “the world’s scariest place”, Bill Clinton’s words to describe North Korea, agent 007 is captured and locked up for 14 months on a dirty cell while being regularly tortured with scorpion venom, beat ups, and a combination of fire and ice administered by an anonymous and tight-lipped female guard.
While these scenes were integrated into Daniel Kleinman’s main title sequence over Madonna’s song for the movie, these are still shocking to see. The audience is later offered a black and white flashback when Bond remembers his torture that is even more shocking. The future of 007 is questioned as MI6 disavows him under pressure of the American government thinking he might have succumbed to the torture and revealed information: “You are no use to anyone now”, M tells him. The relevance of a secret agent in the field has been a predominant theme in Skyfall and SPECTRE, and the fact that MI6 is under surveillance and M follows his hunch to believe Bond is also a reused subject in Quantum of Solace. But it first happened in Die Another Day, even with all the questionable artistic decisions taken in the film.
When talking about the violent vibe of this movie, it should be noted that Brosnan has given perhaps his grittiest performance in the role here. In the opening hovercraft chase, he strangles a driver while shooting his other enemies and then jumps to a bigger vehicle where his nemesis Colonel Moon was escaping through the minefield in the North Korean DMZ. Getting his feet over this big hovercraft, Bond blind fires a burst into the driver’s cabin with a Mac 10 submachine gun, killing him instantly, before going after his prey. All of these scenes are also given a desaturated colour grading by cinematographer David Tattersall, giving the film a sense of depression and drama proper of the dictatorial nation where the scenes are taking place.
All of the Pierce Brosnan era movies were a financial success, with their grossing passing the box office numbers of the 1980s Bond films when adjusted to today’s inflation. The good numbers of GoldenEye were unexpected given all of the doubts people had about Bond’s return, and while Tomorrow Never Dies was affected by being released the same day as James Cameron’s Titanic in the United States, the film was still a commercial hit. The World Is Not Enough performed better than its two predecessors and Die Another Day topped them all.
More than that, Pierce Brosnan guaranteed the existence of James Bond in the 1990s and the new millennium not only by pleasing the old Bond fans but attracting new generations of fans in a way that resembled the 1960s mania with the face of the new Bond attached to caps-firing toy guns, Aston Martin DB5 replicas, video games and action figures. It also paved the way for the existence of James Bond in the 21st century, in a much more aggressive world than ever before. His era was a much needed bridge between an old way of doing Bond films, the days of producer Albert R. Broccoli and directors like John Glen or Terence Young, into the rebooted series which producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli recognise as their own fresh start, hiring acclaimed filmmakers like Sam Mendes or Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Many wonder why his Bond wasn’t explored as much as the ones of Craig and Dalton, when Brosnan proving he could be capable of that as he showed in the role of KGB agent Valeri Petrofsky in 1987’s The Fourth Protocol and, later, as kidnapper Tom Ryan in Butterfly On A Wheel, released in 2007. The actor himself has expressed many times that he wanted to offer a more dramatic and violent side of Bond, but the thing is that the audiences wanted different things in the 1990s and people preferred triumphalist heroes over existentialist protagonists (and villains) as today’s blockbusters tend to offer. This was proved by the failure of Licence To Kill and the success of Casino Royale or Skyfall: it all boiled down to what audiences expected in the release year of those films, and the success of the Brosnan adventures proved that the producers weren’t really wrong with that adventurous action-hero style of movies that offered a small window for drama and humanity for the world’s most famous secret agent.
In conclusion, it’s safe to say that James Bond fans –and Bond himself, as an institution– owes Pierce Brosnan very much. Had GoldenEye failed, the franchise would have joined a corner in the room where cult TV series and retro films conversations are held. Had every other Pierce Brosnan 007 adventure like Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough or Die Another Day failed, the retro club may have been joined today by a few 1990s kids. However, it was thanks to this era that James Bond had not only survived the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium, allowing the chance of a rebooted series with Daniel Craig that has extended the life expectancy of our favourite secret agent, who will start a new decade next year proving why he has no time to die.
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The original starred JCVD as Darren McCord, a French Canadian-born firefighter forced to intervene when a group of terrorists kidnap the Vice President during the seventh game of the NHL Stanley Cup.
Forced to dispatch a selection of colourful villains using his familiar brand of high-kicking justice, Sudden Death is arguably best remembered for Powers Boothe’s inspired performance as the film’s scene chewing bad guy mastermind, Joshua Foss.
A solid hit at the US box office, the film is notable for being one of many to following the action movie blueprint laid out by Die Hard and echoed in similar movies like Steven Seagal’s Under Siege.
The main difference here though was that a bunch of people were held hostage in a giant ice rink rather than a high rise building, resulting in some memorably slippy action set pieces.
Now the formula is set to be replicated for laughs with Welcome to Sudden Death.
According to Deadline, the action comedy remake is being directed by Dallas Jackson with Michael Jai White and comedian Gary Owen set to star.
Michael Jai White and Gary Owen are busy filming the newest Sudden Death movie. Follow along on social media and catch the movie coming next year #SuddenDeathMovie #SuddenDeath
It’s being described as “martial arts heavy …with a comedic twist” while the presence of White is a definite positive given his action movie track record.
Jackson doesn’t have much experience as an action movie director, though his previous effort as writer and director, Thriller, gain positive reviews.
It remains to be seen as to who will be playing who or if Van Damme will be returning for a cameo, but production is likely to start soon with a June 2020 release date already confirmed.
The news comes just a few months after plans for an all-female remake of the Sylvester Stallone climbing classic, Cliffhanger, were confirmed.
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