Ass Whoopin Wednesdays: The Great Wall (2016)

For this week’s Ass Whoopin Wednesday, I was looking for a film to watch that had some action and that was relatively new or recent. After some searching through Redbox, I decided that I was going to rent The Great Wall since I had earned a free rental for all the films that I watch. The Great Wall follows a couple of European Mercenaries and one in particular named William (Matt Damon) who has bounced from country to country with no allegiance to anyone. One day while on the run, they stumble upon the great wall of China and they discover the true reason behind the construction of the wall. Now William has a choice, he can either try to escape with some goodies or he can stay and help the Chinese with their extremely unusual problem. The film also stars Pedro Pascal (The Adjustment Bureau) as Tovar, Tian Jing (Kong: Skull Island) as Commander Lin Mae, Willem Dafoe (The Boondock Saints) as Ballard, Andy Lau (House Of Flying Daggers) as Strategist Wang, Hanyu Zhang (The Taking Of Tiger Mountain) as General Shao, Han Lu (See You Tomorrow) as Peng Yong, Kenny Lin (The Taking Of Tiger Mountain) as Commander Chen, Karry Wang (Pound Of Flesh) as Emperor, Eddie Peng (Rise Of The Legend) as Commander Wu, and the film was directed by Yimou Zhang (Hero). Before we get into the review, let’s check out some stats:

Now as far as the stats above are concerned, he only has 11 1/2 kills because he helps Commander Lin Mae with one of the kills (he helps set it up). We don’t really know much about William other than the fact that he was a child sold into the army and that he has always fought for food and money. We do know that the chance for honor is what motivates him in the film, but is Commander Lin Mae the love interest? The only problem with answering that question is that we don’t really find out if she is or not. No one close to him is hurt in the film, but he does help defeat the big boss. The one thing that I loved about the film and in my opinion is the saving grace is the colors of the film. The film at times can have some dark tones, but it can be very colorful as well. Each branch of the army that protects the wall and the city have their own distinct colors to them. one of my favorite scenes in the film is when they walk into one of the buildings that could be a cathedral of sorts, but it’s color overload. There are so many bright colors that i just captures your eye and I loved it. I tried finding a picture of it, but the one to the left is the best I could find. The rest of the film is OK, the acting was pretty good, but the story and the execution left much to be desired. It’s not a bad film, it’s just not a great film if you catch my drift. I am going to give the film three fists out of five for a final grade.

Ass Whoopin Wednesdays: Escape From LA (1996)

Believe it or not, today’s Ass Whoopin Wednesday film is one that I have never seen all the way through. When I saw that Netflix had John Carpenter’s Escape From LA  available to watch online, I jumped at the opportunity to see it. The film once again stars Kurt Russell as the bad ass outlaw Snake Pilskin. It supposedly 15 years after the events of Escape From New York and the world has changed just a little bit. The president changed the constitution and he rules forever and Los Angeles is no longer apart of California in the year 2013 (only criminals and deported civilians are sent there). The problem is that the president (Cliff Robertson)’s daughter Utopia (A.J. Langer) has stolen a device that takes satellites and it can shut down power all over the world and she is somewhere in LA with the villainous Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface) . So, the president gets Snake Pilskin into LA to retrieve the device in 10 hours or he dies and the whole world suffers. The film also stars Peter Fonda (Easy Rider) as Pipeline, Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) as Map To The Stars Eddie, Valeria Golino (Rain Man) as Taslima, Stacy Keach (American History X) as Cmdr. Malloy, Pam Grier (Coffy) as Hershe Las Palmas, Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) as Surgeon General Of Beverly Hills, Michelle Forbes (Battlestar Galactica) as Brazen, and the film was directed by John Carpenter. Before we check out the review, let’s look at the stats:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is definitely one of the most iconic and bad ass characters that Kurt Russell has ever played in Outlaw Snake Pilskin. As far as the stats are concerned, he has 24 estimated kills and I say that cause it could have been more, but hard to tell. He did however win one basketball game that he was told to play. He has no origin story and no love interest. One of the things I did was as far as a Love Interest/Family/Friend getting hurt, I answered that with no because he hasn’t really known the people for too long to really consider them friends in my opinion. The big boss is defeated in the film, but you have to see the way it’s done cause it’s poetic justice for Snake. You have to think that a lot of the film is done in that 90’s special effects that still have a little bit of that 80’s flare to the look that I loved about the original. The acting is as good as expected with this film as Steve Buscemi really shines as a two timing weasel in the film and Valeria Golino looks absolutely hot in this film. One of the elements that I enjoyed about the film besides all the outrageous action is all of the sets. The way they make Los Angeles look like a modern wasteland. That was what was enjoyable to me and it was also enjoyable to see Bruce Campbell as the surgeon general of Beverly Hills. The first one was a classic and exceeded all expecatations and this one doesn’t disappoint either. I am going to give it 3.7 fists out of five for a final grade.

Cheeseball Cinema: Godzilla Vs Hedorah (1971)

We decided to do something a little different for Cheeseball Cinema today and that is we are reviewing a monster movie (of sorts). Ever since I was a kid, I loved all of the Godzilla movies even though some of them are cheesy while others are pretty good. Today’s film, Godzilla Vs Hedorah (or Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster) is one of those films that we would include on this list. In this film, the Japanese have been abusing the planet so much with the smog that a creature is born out of all the pollution. Hedorah as he is called almost immediately starts creating havoc in Japan as he starts destroying buildings and killing the people of Japan. With the help of a scientists ideas, Godzilla will take on the smog monster before he completely destroys all of Japan for good. The film stars Akira Yamauchi (Tattooed Life) as Dr. Toru Yano, Toshie Kimura (Sword Of The Beast) as Toshie Yano, Hiroyuki Kawase (Godzilla Vs Megalon) as Ken Yano, Toshio Shiba (Lost Paradise) as Yukio Keuchi, Keiko Mari as Miki Fujiyama, and the film was directed by Yoshimitsu Banno (Throne Of Blood).

There are a lot of things that can be said about this film and why I chose it for Cheeseball Cinema. The director of the film definitely took a different approach to this film then what I was used to from past films that I have seen. You can definitely tell that it was a guy in a Godzilla suit in this film and I think he was obsessed with the 60’s flower power movement of the US as a lot of those elements are incorporated into this film. It’s one of those films that you just read about all the time as you can see that Hedorah obviously has sprayers of some sorts underneath him as they seemed to mechanical to believe and at one point int he film you can see the rope attached to him as he is flying by Godzilla who also likes to gesture to fight more than actual fighting. That was the one thing that also killed me about this film is that at times there isn’t a lot of dialogue and too much of Godzilla trying to goat Hedorah into attacking him. There’s also some animated sequences thrown into the mix to help explain why they do what they do or how Hedorah has evolved. I haven’t seen enough Godzilla films to tell you if this is the worst one I have seen, but that 1998 American abomination of a version is still the worst right now. On a scale of one being close to an A-List Hollywood film and five being the cheesiest film of all time, I would have to give this film an four for a final grade.

Ass Whoopin Wednesdays: Mission: Impossible (1996)

For Ass Whoopin Wednesdays, we’ll be doing the same exact thing that we did for Mad Max by counting down, but this time its for the release of the brand new Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation which comes out in theaters on July 31ST. There are about to be five films in the series, but we are starting with the very first film. There are rumors that a man is about to deal out a list that has all the identities of every IMF agent and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team are put to the task. The only problem is that it’s a task gone wrong and everyone’s dead except for Ethan and the IMF suspects that he is disloyal. So, Ethan will assemble a new team to infiltrate the system in order to figure out who the real mole is before it’s too late. The film also stars Jon Voight (Heat) as Jim Phelps, Emmanuelle Béart (8 Women) as Claire Phelps, Jean Reno (The Professional) as Franz, Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction) as Luther, Kristin Scott Thomas (Gosford Park) as Sarah Davies, Vanessa Redgrave (Howards End) as Max, Ingeborga Dapkunaite (Seven Years In Tibet) as Hannah Williams, Rolf Saxon (Entrapment) as CIA Analyst William Donloe, and the film was directed by Brian De Palma (The Untouchables). Before we get into the review of the film, let’s check out some stats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mission: Impossible movies are always amazing and they always deliver on non stop suspenseful action that will please any action espionage fan. Although, the film may not have a lot of stats as far as kills/knockouts are concerned, but Tom Cruise knew how to deliver and he does in Mission: Impossible. Now back to the stats, in the film Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has only five (really 5 1/2) kills in the film which I believe is the lowest total we’ve done so far. He doesn’t really have an origin story because all we know is that he is a secret agent and we don’t know if he has a love interest or not. As far as a friend/family member being hurt, we do know that his whole team appears to be taken out and eliminated which is what drives him on this mission and the big boss behind the whole thing known as Job is taken out and defeated. Of course, the film features one of the most iconic scenes which you can see in this very paragraph and that is what you get. The film delivered on the whole secret agent/action/espionage craze that people needed filled and as we know there are three more films with another on the way that is sure to deliver. The acting is amazing on all ends and I didn’t realize that Emilio Estevez makes an appearance in this film. The editing is phenomenal as well as the cinematography which worked well together as it needed to in order for the film to work. We have three more films o check out and you can see this one on Netflix as we speak. I am giving the film four fists out of five for a final grade.