I am of the opinion that it would have been an excellent idea to pass the “Die Hard” franchise over from John McClane to his daughter Lucy. That would not only have been a fantastic move for an iconic franchise but breathed fresh air in to a stale movie series. Mary Elizabeth Winstead could have proven herself as an action heroine, the series could have revived the idea that females can lead action movies, and we could have visited a brand new character from the McClane legacy who could have brought a bold new angle to the “Die Hard” series. Sadly, casting females in action movies is still considered bold and new. The producers missed out on a golden opportunity to really change the genre as a whole. Instead we’re given this.
Tag Archives: Spy
Haywire (2012) [Blu-Ray]
“You shouldn’t think of her as a woman. That would be a mistake.”
Criticize director Steven Soderbergh all you want for casting someone who isn’t an actual actor to lead a star rich action film, but director Steven Soderbergh accomplishes something studios are often too narrow minded to try. He casts a woman who is brawn, beauty, and brains all in one. While Hollywood and directors have a fetish for casting wafer thin women who look as if they can barely hold a pencil let alone a machine gun (I’m looking at you Milla Jovovich), star Gina Carano is a woman who is built like a fighter in every sense of the word and approaches every single brilliantly staged fight scene with competence and believability, because there’s no doubting a woman of her presence can handle a man two times her size.
Nikita: The Complete First Season (DVD)
I didn’t think it was actually possible, but the CW and Warner actually managed to create yet another “La Femme Nikita” television series, and one that has managed to be the most entertaining yet. After the critically panned “Point of No Return” and the instantly forgettable Peta Wilson vehicle “La Femme Nikita,” I was admittedly very skeptical a network could tackle the Luc Besson action masterpiece and provide a watchable spin on it. Admittedly season one of “Nikita” isn’t perfect. The first three or four episodes meander in to romance melodrama and the writing is pretty clumsy all things considered, but once the season and the show finds its footing it manages to be a rather entertaining and dark spy thriller. Maggie Q finally gets her due leading the series “Nikita” which takes a new spin on the Luc Besson picture of the same name.
MacGruber (2010)
I’m still not sure if it was a large bid of admirable faith or mind numbing stupidity for Lorne Michaels to fuel an adult comedy based around a Saturday Night Live sketch that barely anyone is familiar with on a show no one really talks about anymore, based around spoofing an old 80’s television show that stopped being relevant ages ago. “MacGruber” is a film that is about eighty minutes too long, an endless barrage of ridiculous and droning attempts at comedy that fails on every single conceivable level.
Aiming at Nikita
So far this is the third variation of the Luc Besson spy thriller masterpiece “La Femme Nikita,” and the more variations we see of it, the more the actual point of the premise is loss. We had “Point of No Return” a remake with Bridget Fonda I think I’d rather forget if only for being a piss poor adaptation of Besson’s film and for becoming a relatively obscure nineties fixture that put some nails in to Fonda’s career coffin. Then there was the basic cable spy thriller starring Peta Wilson that I really never bothered to watch mainly because it felt like a version of “Mission: Impossible,” and now there’s “Nikita.”
Salt (2010)
I’m still trying to decide what about “Salt” annoyed me more, the goofy turn of events in the second half that had me gawking in sheer disbelief, or the insistence by the writers to include an ending that fades to black right in the middle of a big turn of events as if to leave a “To Be Continued” assuring audiences that there will be a sequel. Not only is this trend absolutely obnoxious (I pay to see whole movies, not parts of movies), but if there really is no sequel to “Salt” (god willing), then the entire closing scene is just a pointless wide open door left for us to presume what occurred after the writers decided we’d had enough story for now.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
I’ve had a rocky relationship with the GI Joe franchise from the start. As a kid I loved the action figures but I didn’t care too much for the eighties cartoon. I mean let’s face it, only Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow were really cool. The rest were pretty interchangeable characters. And then the comics came along changing my mind on the property further convincing me to enjoy the mythos with the Devil’s Due Publishing comic series that were mature, tense, and action packed. With Stephen Sommers aboard I obviously didn’t expect an adaptation of the modern series and instead just expected dumb fun. Well, dumb fun is what I got and I was pleased as punch once the end credits began to roll.