Expendables 2: God's Gift to Humanity

Why is The Expendables 2 pretty much one of the greatest movies ever created (a fact that provokes me to believe it was directed by The Eternal One himself)? Well to put it simply, it is the hiatus of the synthesis of the two best movie genres known to man: the action movie, characterized by yoked bad asses shooting guns at other people and annihilating everything in their path, and the comedy, characterized by hilarious jokes that cause people to literally pee from extreme enjoyment and some of the most memorable lines in movie history (for me at least). It may be rational to think that a genre so serious and caught up in its own awesomeness, such as the action genre, could never stoop so low to accept the low standards and self-deprecation of the comedy genre, but Expendables 2 manages to bring these two seemingly incompatible genres together in the most awesome and beautiful way possible.

Just look at the cast Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, and the freaking governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger  How is that not a recipe for the most epic movie ever. Even with this all star class, this movie succeeded for one reason, it didn't give two heaping turds about its image or how classy it was or how serious and dramatic it was. It didn't care, which was why it was so exhilarating and hilarious.

The first movie failed because it took itself too seriously, it tried to be approachable by actually caring about its image and stupid crap like character development, but similar to a shady guy in a van promising candy, people didn't latch on to it, mostly because the script was bad and though the facade was typical deep movie bull crap, the core was ridiculous stupid action. People felt  that The Expendables was lying to them by trying to wear the mask of a good movie, when in reality it was quite bad.

The Expendables 2 did away with all that makeup and revealed itself as the ugly duckling it really is, and furthermore, it relished in its hideousness and went out of its way to make itself the least sophisticated movie of all time. And this, against all odds, made every single soul love and enjoy The Expendables 2. Disregard the bad reviews, these people are just sauerkrauts that are too callous to admit that they loved this movie and thoroughly enjoyed it more than any other movie ever made. Why did the ugly duckling strategy work? Well this movie had great action, self-deprecating humor, and allusions to other famous action movies. The action was literally non stop, and constantly punctuated by some hilarity caused by epic one liners, or the simply over-the-top action scenes; which in all truth, were absolutely ridiculous, and the likes of which have and never shall be scene again. Bad guys were mowed down by the greatest action stars of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s by the thousands. In one scene, Chuck Norris kills about 50 people without so much as glancing at them. 

The lack of characterization and importance placed on the characters also made this movie that much better. The main bad guy, who is introduced by holding Liam Hemsworth's character hostage, is literally named Villan. That is how little this movie cares about your opinion. It names the villain a near phonetically identical name as the word itself. The characters need no introduction, they are the bad asses that everyone grew up with in their youth, and all you need to now is that they have one goal, to gain revenge and kill anyone that is in their way. Yes they have names, but I literally don't remember any of them, to me, they are Stallone and Crews, Li and Willis, Norris and Lundgren, and all that matters is they kick ass and spout one liners like it ain't no ones business. They have a monopoly on ass kicking, and are relentless in spitting out half baked one liners, and I absolutely would not have it any other way.

Thank God for these men.


This movie is the epitome of all things awesome and funny, and everyone on earth has an obligation to watch, salivate, and fall in love with The Expendables 2. No feature film will ever surpass it; well, I digress, Expendables 3 is definitely going to blow its predecessor out of the water.

Elementary: Episode 4 Season 1

Elementary: Sticks to its Elements in this Week’s Episode

This year, a new Sherlock Holmes series premiered on CBS and I was at first skeptical of its quality and potential. I had watched the riveting and often comedic BBC series called Sherlock and I was unsure if Elementary could reach that gold standard. After watching the first episode, I was pleasantly surprised by its twist on the usual Sherlock Holmes formula, yet at the same time, the show was a few points shy of being equal to Sherlock. In Elementary, Sherlock is a recovering drug addict who abused heroine and alcohol and Watson is actually an Asian-female sober companion who is living with Sherlock to ensure that he won’t relapse. I really liked this new interesting dichotomy compared the jokingly “homosexual” relationship of Sherlock and Watson in the BBC show. Although I like the new characters, I dislike how the plot of one episode in Elementary is – at least so far – unlinked to the plot the preceding, a tactic that Sherlock employed to give each episode a sense of progression, overarching plot development, and further characterization. Despite this, the characters in Elementary are proving to be fleshed out and each one fits into little niche, one great example being Sherlock’s arrogant and dismissive behavior, a quality that would be expected from a genius detective.

In this week’s episode, Sherlock is called in to consult for a banking firm who’s COO has been missing for the past day. Sherlock finds the location of the man in no less than two hours and when he arrives on the scene, the man is dead, seemingly from a heroin overdose. Sherlock is immediately suspicious of the “accidental” death, but his mind is more preoccupied with the heroin, as the viewer can derive a small internal struggle going on in his head through his blank stare, which denotes his withdrawn internal state. Luckily, Watson is there to push him in the right direction and he quickly snaps out of it, snaps at her because he doesn’t need her to help him maintain his sobriety, and then he quickly to Gregson, the police captain, explains how the death, was actually a murder. This short scene is a great example of characterization because it shows how Sherlock is still struggling with remaining sober and is arrogant nature, evident by his rude outburst at Watson for helping him.

Mexican Standoff- Sherlock versus Watson

Even though I thought the character development in this episode was well done, especially for Sherlock whom was forced to face his past problems of addiction, it was probably the least captivating by far. I found the mystery in this episode quite tedious and underdeveloped. The plots of the previous episodes, especially last week’s, were great and enthralling, which made this episode’s mediocre plot seem all the worse. Additionally, I thought that the episode’s one attempt at showing how Sherlock’s arrogance and confidence gets him into deep trouble lacked build up and tension, it just happened, and this expedience changed what could have been a thought provoking foray into Sherlock’s character, a simple mistake that ultimately came off as having little consequence. For me, this pitfall was expanded due to the fact that the BBC series would have capitalized on such an opportunity that would allow them to show Sherlock’s turmoil between his arrogance and his situational appraisal skills.

Overall, I grant a measly three stars to this week’s episode and a hope that this episode hasn’t set a precedent for future episodes or foreshadows the series getting stale in the future.

Walking Dead: Season Three Episode Three Review

I really enjoyed this episode, in fact, I have immensely enjoyed all of this seasons episodes, which pretty much defecate upon nearly all of last seasons emotionally boring and action-less episodes. I can say with one hundred percent certainty, that season three of the Walking Dead has been the best season so far. The reason for this; the episodes are dynamic, they hit multiple highs and lows and transition nearly seamlessly from tense emotional or dramatic scenes into gory action sequences

This weeks episode is another great example, however it sacrifices greater quantities of action for a more mysterious and foreboding vibe around the newly found utopia of Woodbury and its leader, The Governor; and at the end of the episode,the audience discovers has some seriously weird collectors items

"Nah guys, this bro definitely isn't a psychopath."

This episode centers around the character Andrea and Michonne instead of the usual crew, which is a nice change of faces and situation. In the beginning of the episode, they investigate go to investigate a helicopter crash site, but once they arrive, The Governor and his goons arrive as well, beginning to methodically pick apart the crash for anything valuable and save the one survivor. Andrea and Michonne are about to leave the scene, when they are discovered by Meryl, a former character of the first season who is now working for The Governor. They are then taken to the utopia of Woodbury, where zombies are pretty much a non-factor due to the walls surrounding the town. Andrea revels in this new safety, but Michonne has trouble adapting, as she feels it is too good to be true and is deprived of the one thing that makes her feel safe, her katana. That's the basic overview of the beginning of the episode and now I am going to get into my true review.

I found this episode very refreshing, in the sense that one may find a glass of their favorite drink more refreshing than a glass of ice cold water. I make this juxtaposition because I want to be clear that I found that I was just as emotionally invested with the previous episodes as I was with this one, the only difference being that I was eager to see what Michonne and Andrea were up to and this episode delivered. 

I liked the feel The Governor, whose mannerisms and outward behavior made them seem kind and sympathetic, but his darker underside was just barely palpable, and I could tell that The Governor and Woodbury were hiding some dark secrets, some of which were revealed in this episode, such as The Governor's true nature, but others were left in the dark.

Additionally, Woodbury proved to be a well constructed environment in regard to its ability to really set the mysterious and foreboding tone of this episode through its ominous vibe. While watching the episodes I wondered, " Are those walls really just to keep the zombies out, or are they also to keep the people in?", and after completing the episode, I decided that both were true.

The acting, pacing, and action in the episode were also spot on so I don't feel the need to go into any detail on those aspects, but the conglomeration of all the great qualities of this episode have made me inclined to give it a 5 out of 5.

Taken 2: Failure to take me away

I really wish somebody took me out of the movie theater before the movie started because I highly regretted sitting through one hour and thirty minutes of melodrama, horrible line readings, and mediocre -- but painfully short -- action sequences.The movie begins in the richy-rich suburbs of L.A. and to my utter surprise it began not with a bang, but with some slow music and melodrama. I thought that I just bought a ticket for a Spanish telenovela it was so cheesy and horribly executed. I don't really blame the actors for this, I think they tried their best do deliver some really bad lines, which were by far some of the most bland and tedious lines that I have ever heard in any movie ever. In addition to the bad lines, the first thirty minutes of this movie put Liam Neeson out of his expected role and into the shoes of a caring daddy who speaks like a robot. He wasn't kicking ass and killing bad guys in an indiscriminate rampage, he was comforting his wife and stalking his daughter. WHAT THE HELL? I didn't come to soap opera night at the theater! I came to see LIAM "BAMF" NEESON beat the living crap out of a bunch or kidnapping, sex slave peddlers.

The good part didn't even begin until a little before the halfway point of the movie, and it still started slowly. Liam Neeson was running away from the bad guys, and this scenario usually constitutes a good chase scene; but yet again, this is the Taken franchise and Liam Neeson, so he should be killing his attackers without remorse, not running from them. The first murder didn't even occur until about 50 minutes into the movie. This is unforgivable. I came to see Liam Neeson kill guys with ridiculous precision and super-human skills from the get go, not more than halfway through the movie. The rampage should have started from the get go and looked like this:

Not like the picture above, where he is relaxing with his daughter and having an awkward conversation with her. By the time the rampage got going, it was underwhelming and occasionally, Neeson's actions seemed the exact opposite of calculated. At one point, he drove a taxi straight through the U.S. embassy in order to avoid the bad guys, breaking down barriers and getting shot at by marines with 50 caliber machine guns. He could have simply stopped the car, showed his passport, and explained the situation; but instead, he risked his daughter's and his life by trying to drive through various military blockades in a crappy taxi. For me, that sequence was excruciating and I simply couldn't suspend my disbelief and disregard it.

After his daughter was safe at the embassy, Neeson yet again goes out for revenge and to save his wife. He tracks the arch-bad-dudes location and kills about four guys without blinking. Finally, he reaches a hexagonal room where a fat dude is waiting for him, but this fat guy isn't the main bad guy, the main bad guy uses this fat guy as his last line of defense; so as Neeson slowly approaches him in the most overly dramatic way possible. 
The boss battle was actually pretty good and I enjoyed it, but was still annoyed about how the director works so hard to emphasize this battle and pretty much shout at the audience "HEY GUYS, BE EXCITED, IT IS A BOSS BATTLE! LIKE MARIO VS BOWSER!", like we don't understand its the final fight before the end. 

Anyway, after some intense grappling Neeson dispatches the guy and confronts the arch-baddy, whom he gives the choice to let his wife go and stop seeking vengeance and in return Neeson will not kill him. WHY? WHY? Your are a hard core bad ass who doesn't take revenge lightly, in the last movie you literally tortured and murdered every single bad guy, and now, you offer this pathetic old man who wants to kill your whole family and you a chance to live. Talk about a two-faced character, this was a complete change of personality for Neeson's character. I understand the moral, but I can't reconcile that with the sudden personality change that Neeson undergoes. I guess all that soap opera crap in the beginning really did make Neeson a forgiving  understanding man. Luckily, the bad guy still tries to kill Liam Neeson, whom responds by swiftly smashing his head into a piece of crowbar protruding from the wall, which would be awesome if the cinematography of this scene was not so horrible. It was nearly impossible to see what Neeson slammed his head into, the crowbar was barely visible in the scene, so if you were not paying complete attention it would have looked like Neeson just lightly pushed his head against the wall and the pathetic old man died. They should have just cut it off at that point, but they had to end one last family man scene in which he eats dinner with his family and his daughter's boyfriend, whom he doesn't scare this time. The End. Thank God