After riding high on the success of The Expendables and its sequel, a number of the action stars involved began to revisit their classic franchises. Willis has a new Die Hard in theaters; Schwarzenegger is attached to return to the Terminator and Conan the Barbarian franchises soon. But we’re not seeing that with Sylvester Stallone. That’s only because he already revisited his two main franchises in Rocky Balboa (2006) and Rambo (2008). But he’s still keeping busy. His latest, Bullet to the Head is an action crime drama as Stallone plays a hitman who teams up with a cop (Sung Kang) to track down the man responsible for the death of both their partners.
Let’s not kid ourselves that this film is in anyway innovative. The coolest moments have been done before. But it seems that the actor who was once Oscar nominated for writing and starring in Rocky is no longer expected to bring such acclaim. Stallone is now action only. Bullet follows a relatively simple progression that has the leads hunting and beating up (or killing) a series of bad guys on their way to the top of the villain ladder. Their methods of choice are guns, fist fights and explosions.
As the poor and lazy title would suggest, the film earns its R rating. But the violence is more effective than the cheap nudity and forced “cool” elements. I think after The Expendables the audience understands that Stallone likes tattoos. We don’t need a tattoo artist to play a major role in all his movies. Jason Momoa’s intriguing character who fights Stallone in the final showdown is one fresh point for fans to latch onto. There is also an axe battle! Okay Sly, you got us there. It will be interesting to see where the action legend goes from here. It probably won’t be a sequel to this though.
Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score
No comments:
Post a Comment