Countdown to “Man of Steel”!
“Superman II” isn’t entirely better than “Superman,” though it’s often considered by many to be the superior film in the entire series. “Superman II” is, in the end, a perfectly good action film that offers what the first film doesn’t. It gives Superman a match that offers him an incredibly hard time. Especially when he loses his powers. In spite of all of the hooplah behind the scenes involving Richard Donner being pushed out of the film’s production, and most of the cast following him out the door, “Superman II” is still a really good action film that manages to expand on the Superman mythos.
Originally I was very upset at the notion of a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” back in 2003 when it was announced. The original is so perfect as is, it’s tough to think that someone would try to top it. Thankfully the remake didn’t top it, and after watching it I realized my antipathy toward it was pointless because “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is one of the many genre classics that’s been unofficially remade almost a dozen times already. So what’s the big deal? And as much as I enjoyed the sequels, they also couldn’t quite top the original film. And Tobe Hooper was behind the second film, oddly enough.
Where the first in the series of action films was a remake of “Point Break,” director Justin Lin’s “Fast Five” is an iteration of “Ocean’s Eleven.” This time around, Justin Lin assembles characters from the first four “Fast” films to combine forces and steal from the richest man in Rio De Janeiro. When Dominic is broken out of jail by his old friend Briand and his sister Mia, he disappears leaving his friends to wonder where he ended up. During a big heist involving boosting cars from a local drug lord Hernan Reyes, Dominic appears to help Brian and Mia complete the job. But all goes wrong, when the group’s cohorts decide to change the deal. Little do they know that within one of the car’s is a chip containing a crucial stats about Reyes operation.
“Ninja III: The Domination” encapsulates everything you loved about the eighties. There are ninjas, Sho Kosugi, Aerobics instructors, Lucinda Dickey with puffed hair and an Aerobics uniform playing an arcade in her house, a synth pop soundtrack, and yes, a callback to “The Exorcist.” To reflect upon the fitness-centric decade, Dickey’s character even seduces a man by pouring V8 juice down her body. Teaming a revenge film with a possession film, “Ninja III” is every bit the silly genre mashing I remember from when I was a kid. While I have fond memories of Lucinda Dickey being called upon by her floating sword back then, “Ninja III” watches surprisingly well today. It’s silly as all hell, but in the end it’s a fun eighties trip that you can’t help but smile through from beginning to end. And who didn’t love Ninjas back then?
I’ve always had this idea that the sequels to Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” were just glorified remakes of the first film. While it’s true they’re all very similar, filmmakers didn’t start to remake Hooper’s horror film until “The Next Generation.” The Hooper fueled sequel, and “Leatherface” are different films from the first film with finales that are in fact nearly identical to the end of the first film. It’s almost as if the writers never really know where to go once they’ve had their fun, and just go back to the whole dinner scene where the heroine screams bloody murder for thirty minutes. Wherein the second film in the series had poorly developed story, “Leatherface” really has little story.
So, the sequel to Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw” wasn’t the sequel. They were sequels, but perhaps there’s a parallel Sawyer family out there somewhere. Maybe there’s a Leatherface A and a Leatherface B? The stories from parts two, and three in the eighties that followed Tobe Hooper’s original “Texas Chainsaw” were all nonsense that–I’m presuming–were just Nam flashbacks told by a hippy or something. Maybe there were “What If?” storylines. Or perhaps they were scenarios about what became of the Sawyers after Sally managed to escape Leatherface’s clutches. In truth, it’s just hackey studio tinkering that works best if you ignore it. At this point the “Texas Chainsaw” series is more convoluted and confused than “Halloween” and “Nightmare on Elm Street.”