For a most part my posts all feature an object of my frustration and irritation. This time what have incensed me are modern action films.
I’m a die hard lover of old action films (‘die-hard’ – see what I did there *insert emoticon for sarcastic, forced, cheesey, self parodying laugh, whenever they gets invented*). The more modern ones have some good efforts too e.g. the Bourne trilogy, however there appears to be a film coming to cinema that is going to come as close to killing the genre as could be believed possible of a fan such as I. Abduction.
This 2011 effort, for those who didn’t know, stars Taylor Lautner and is about the son of an American spy who infiltrated the Russians and acquired a list of the people in the CIA who are double agents, feeding the Russians back the information from their organisation. The rest of the plot I’ll keep to myself.
I’ll be the first to admit my ignorance here – I have not seen the film. But, and this is a crucial ‘but’, I’m not making a huge assumption in jumping to the conclusion, based on what I know of it, that it will be atrocious. Truly atrocious at that. Surprise surprise… I will now divulge my presumptions and views on the film to the faithful who haven’t stopped reading already.
So it begins...
Its 2011. The film was made this year. The cold war has been over for two long decades. Decades in which we saw the passing of Johnny Cash, Dimebag Darrell and Ronnie James Dio and the rise of Happy Hardcore, Olly Sykes and Nick Clegg. Yeah. Its been two long decades. Two long and too shit pretty well sums it up. More importantly people, its seen the coming of several entirely different wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, take your pick). So why are we still using Russians as our antagonists in our films? What would the Russians need informants in the CIA for? Why has everything turned to a colossal pile of glorious shit? These are the deep questions I am faced with internally and have tried to express in this short paragraph. It is 144 words long. That is far too few to truly convey my frustration at these items.
In the cold war I can certainly see what the appeal was in the ‘bad guy russians’. The James Bond films, Rocky IV and Red Scorpion were all good action films of this era with the antagonist Soviets. In fact I retract that statement it’s too controversial, I’ll amend it. They were not good films at all; they were fantastic films. There, that’s far less outrageous. But even the modern equivalents of these films have modernized. The recent James Bonds are not in Russia, Daniel Craig is fighting the James Bond cause against terrorists these days. As for Rocky IV and Red Scorpion – Sylvester Stallone who was in the former, and Dolph Lundgren who was in both have also adapted. Their most recent efforts were both seen in ‘The Expendables’. A modern classic of the genre, suitable for Russian antagonism allergies, though may contain traces of Somalian pirate, Latin dictators and nuts. To expand on the metaphor it is also incidentally enough of a meatfest to mortify your average vegetarian.
So frankly the Russian bashing in 2011 seems a little unfair to me. OK – they are pernickety buggers with their oil and granted, their history is best left unexplored when trying to note the positive attributes of the country. My point still stands however, that a film set in 2011 is NOT a film set in the cold war.
Of course I’m attacking an action film on the basis of its plot and story. Its probably something similar to attacking an idea based on blind faith such as creationism with the means of argument based entirely outside of faith and entirely on empiricism, i.e. logic. I.e. its missing the point of the former and the former of course cracks under the duress of the attack. So let me use this as mere food for thoughtful criticism and not the entire argument.
Most of my argument is going to be based on Taylor Lautner’s placement in this film. No it isn’t, correction, its going to be based on his misplacement in this film. Its an action film by its own admission, this I can accept. There is a film that wants some skinny, sex icon to star in it, this is also not something I dispute. The placing of these two precepts together is where I have my beef. Action stars are the realm of the big, the bad and the ugly. Lautner weighs 70 kilos. To put that in perspective – Stallone weighs 97, Schwarzenegger weighed 110 in his prime and Bruce Lee used to break 70 kilo punchbags with a side kick. I think someone who looked like the ripped musclehead guy in Twilight has gone from being the biggest fish in the smallest pond to the smallest fish in the biggest ocean.
Isn’t it enough that the guy honed his trade in the Twilight saga to know that he is not right for the role in an action film? If I put aside my personal view of the films in his filmography for a second and do not decry his credibility as a perfomer, I still think my point is valid that he ought not be making a film in a genre in which he is so clearly unsuited. Or perhaps we should overlook his past and see that he is trying to form a new career in manly films. After all who can forget the angsty teenage film that Dolph Lundgren and Jean Claude Van Damme boosted their careers with ‘Universal Soldiers’... the one with all the sparkling vampires... and all the scene kids... and all the crappy angst riddled sections layered on like proverbial intellectual concrete. Hahaha yeah they were different in their emo phases old Dolph and Jean Claude... oh wait...
Nothing else on his CV is jumping off the page at me that makes me think he’s prime choice to be hired for an action role. There was ‘Valentines Day’... more drivel. So yes. There is a traditional French phrase that sums up Taylor Lautner in ‘Abduction’, which translates as ‘as misplaced as a feather on a pig tail’.
Action films are not for the milkblooded. Whatever you think of them. Regardless of your view of Twilight. Entirely irrespective of your opinion of Lautner. Lets hope that the planned ‘The Expendables 2’ is a hell of a lot better than Abduction will be. Perhaps this rant was excessive, but they started this war, they drew first blood, not me. I look at the cast of the film and I all I can think is ‘I must break you’. I haven’t said all I wished to say but I was trying to pre-empt another page long marathon, which is perhaps futile as all I want to do is say to Lautner ‘I will find you. And I will kill you.’. This is the end of my rant until next time, when I’ll be back. (Say goodnight, asshole) Ok goodnight people.
I’m a die hard lover of old action films (‘die-hard’ – see what I did there *insert emoticon for sarcastic, forced, cheesey, self parodying laugh, whenever they gets invented*). The more modern ones have some good efforts too e.g. the Bourne trilogy, however there appears to be a film coming to cinema that is going to come as close to killing the genre as could be believed possible of a fan such as I. Abduction.
This 2011 effort, for those who didn’t know, stars Taylor Lautner and is about the son of an American spy who infiltrated the Russians and acquired a list of the people in the CIA who are double agents, feeding the Russians back the information from their organisation. The rest of the plot I’ll keep to myself.
I’ll be the first to admit my ignorance here – I have not seen the film. But, and this is a crucial ‘but’, I’m not making a huge assumption in jumping to the conclusion, based on what I know of it, that it will be atrocious. Truly atrocious at that. Surprise surprise… I will now divulge my presumptions and views on the film to the faithful who haven’t stopped reading already.
So it begins...
Its 2011. The film was made this year. The cold war has been over for two long decades. Decades in which we saw the passing of Johnny Cash, Dimebag Darrell and Ronnie James Dio and the rise of Happy Hardcore, Olly Sykes and Nick Clegg. Yeah. Its been two long decades. Two long and too shit pretty well sums it up. More importantly people, its seen the coming of several entirely different wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, take your pick). So why are we still using Russians as our antagonists in our films? What would the Russians need informants in the CIA for? Why has everything turned to a colossal pile of glorious shit? These are the deep questions I am faced with internally and have tried to express in this short paragraph. It is 144 words long. That is far too few to truly convey my frustration at these items.
In the cold war I can certainly see what the appeal was in the ‘bad guy russians’. The James Bond films, Rocky IV and Red Scorpion were all good action films of this era with the antagonist Soviets. In fact I retract that statement it’s too controversial, I’ll amend it. They were not good films at all; they were fantastic films. There, that’s far less outrageous. But even the modern equivalents of these films have modernized. The recent James Bonds are not in Russia, Daniel Craig is fighting the James Bond cause against terrorists these days. As for Rocky IV and Red Scorpion – Sylvester Stallone who was in the former, and Dolph Lundgren who was in both have also adapted. Their most recent efforts were both seen in ‘The Expendables’. A modern classic of the genre, suitable for Russian antagonism allergies, though may contain traces of Somalian pirate, Latin dictators and nuts. To expand on the metaphor it is also incidentally enough of a meatfest to mortify your average vegetarian.
So frankly the Russian bashing in 2011 seems a little unfair to me. OK – they are pernickety buggers with their oil and granted, their history is best left unexplored when trying to note the positive attributes of the country. My point still stands however, that a film set in 2011 is NOT a film set in the cold war.
Of course I’m attacking an action film on the basis of its plot and story. Its probably something similar to attacking an idea based on blind faith such as creationism with the means of argument based entirely outside of faith and entirely on empiricism, i.e. logic. I.e. its missing the point of the former and the former of course cracks under the duress of the attack. So let me use this as mere food for thoughtful criticism and not the entire argument.
Most of my argument is going to be based on Taylor Lautner’s placement in this film. No it isn’t, correction, its going to be based on his misplacement in this film. Its an action film by its own admission, this I can accept. There is a film that wants some skinny, sex icon to star in it, this is also not something I dispute. The placing of these two precepts together is where I have my beef. Action stars are the realm of the big, the bad and the ugly. Lautner weighs 70 kilos. To put that in perspective – Stallone weighs 97, Schwarzenegger weighed 110 in his prime and Bruce Lee used to break 70 kilo punchbags with a side kick. I think someone who looked like the ripped musclehead guy in Twilight has gone from being the biggest fish in the smallest pond to the smallest fish in the biggest ocean.
Isn’t it enough that the guy honed his trade in the Twilight saga to know that he is not right for the role in an action film? If I put aside my personal view of the films in his filmography for a second and do not decry his credibility as a perfomer, I still think my point is valid that he ought not be making a film in a genre in which he is so clearly unsuited. Or perhaps we should overlook his past and see that he is trying to form a new career in manly films. After all who can forget the angsty teenage film that Dolph Lundgren and Jean Claude Van Damme boosted their careers with ‘Universal Soldiers’... the one with all the sparkling vampires... and all the scene kids... and all the crappy angst riddled sections layered on like proverbial intellectual concrete. Hahaha yeah they were different in their emo phases old Dolph and Jean Claude... oh wait...
Nothing else on his CV is jumping off the page at me that makes me think he’s prime choice to be hired for an action role. There was ‘Valentines Day’... more drivel. So yes. There is a traditional French phrase that sums up Taylor Lautner in ‘Abduction’, which translates as ‘as misplaced as a feather on a pig tail’.
Action films are not for the milkblooded. Whatever you think of them. Regardless of your view of Twilight. Entirely irrespective of your opinion of Lautner. Lets hope that the planned ‘The Expendables 2’ is a hell of a lot better than Abduction will be. Perhaps this rant was excessive, but they started this war, they drew first blood, not me. I look at the cast of the film and I all I can think is ‘I must break you’. I haven’t said all I wished to say but I was trying to pre-empt another page long marathon, which is perhaps futile as all I want to do is say to Lautner ‘I will find you. And I will kill you.’. This is the end of my rant until next time, when I’ll be back. (Say goodnight, asshole) Ok goodnight people.
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