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Live Free or Die Hard - or The DEATH of the Action film

Now, I haven't seen the film yet- but with a recent revelation that is finally official for the motion picture, you might as well just put your money on the film being an absolute wash.

Release Date: June 27, 2007
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Len Wiseman
Screenwriter: Mark Bomback; story by Mark Bomback and David Marconi
Starring: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jonathan Sadowski
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, language, and a brief sexual situation)

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS? What is wrong with Fox! What is wrong with Bruce Willis? And why on earth is Len Wiseman directing this motion picture?

The sum of these pieces has resulted in a crime against cinema - a Die Hard film, not only taking the motto of my current home state, but being rated PG-13. When I was quite young, my parents were big Bruce Willis fans (and pretty much still are)- my mother had one of his albums (that "Blues" stuff), and would frequently see all of his motion pictures. Die Hard was one of these prominent fixtures in the film going habits of my parents. I waited eagerly to see Die Hard and its sequels until I was allowed to, since I was just a young child when they were released in theaters. But now all that stuff that made the Die Hard series so amazing and successful might as well be erased from our memory, according to the stance that Fox has taken with this new film. A PG-13 Die Hard isn't going to incorporate the kinds of things that we expect with such a film- fearless action, badass terrorists, foul-mouthed McClane (and sidekick in some situations), and bullet-heavy life or death situations for our hero.

So now, with this watered-down version of the adventures of John McClane, they might as well revoke the title- since this is the state of Live Free or Die, living free includes saying what you want, doing what you want, and being able to live your life as an individual. Die Hard being Die Hard didn't ever include pleasing teenagers to rake in extra cash- it was about surviving against those who want to harm us- and the issues of terrorism in the series hasn't been for the faint of heart. Sorry Bruce- this Die Hard is already dead to me.

Posted by Cine Mallory at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)

Hostel: Part II

YET another unwarranted sequel, to my favorite film of 2006- Hostel: Part II isn't much of a diversion to the first film, but it does re-invent itself in the most simplistic and lazy ways possible- this sequel now stars three american women instead of men. It's the same damn crappy torture flick all over again, but with a slight expansion on the rich-and-bored businessmen we briefly met in the first picture. After a lame beginning sequence tying up the ends of the first feature, we meet three women named Beth, Whitney, and Lorna- played by Lauren German, Bijou Phillips, and Heather Matarazzo- who take the wrong advice from a euro hottie (if we've learned anything, these foreign women can convince americans to do anything). They decide to take a vacation from their abroad education of drawing naked women (surprise, surprise) to check out a spa, but first they must check into that dreaded Slovokian hostel.

The one new element of the film involves the very way that these young, unsuspecting americans meet their grisly end in the hands of perfect strangers- through a mobile phone auction, businessman Todd selects his prey, calling up his buddy Stuart to come along with him so that the two can each enjoy the death of an unsuspecting females. These two new characters don't feel like anything beyond that you'd expect- and director Eli Roth finds easy means to negate these characters at any chance he can, by destroying their manhood both in mental and physical ways. The pair of men are on-screen through Roth just so we have a chance to see some T&A through their actions, not for any deep reasons in examining the mindset of someone who wants to murder someone for their entertainment, as we'd all assume.

Getting back on course with the plot, the nerd of the group Lorna is snatched up first, and meets a disgusting end in the lone bloody (and rather overdone) scene of the film, but from then on, Roth drags us on through the same ups and downs that we already saw in the first film. This Hostel is not exciting, it's not shocking, and it surely isn't funny- the film soon results to tactics that make us want to root for these women, but they've merely become the victims of Roth's desires for content that so-called raises the picture above the horror fare of the past and present.

The ending of the film resorts to shock value content instead of a desired resoultion to the tactics of the Hostel/Torture workers, and why they make such a profit off of these dead Americans. Why actually get somewhere with the story when you can, instead, just execute so-called graphic imagery and call it a day. I don't think that this Hostel is worse than the previous picture, since it does try and clean itself up by not having so much gore and sex revolving around the females (however, this stuff is just left for the guys), but then again, it's more of a let-down because Roth clearly doesn't really know how to do anything with these women besides just get a few them killed and hit the auto-pilot. With the lesser success of this film at the box-office, we might be lucky and not see another Hostel picture. But this is definitely not the end for Eli Roth and his cheap horror.

RATING: D

Posted by Cine Mallory at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)