The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu)

For F*** Magazine

THE WIND RISES (KAZE TACHINU)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast:  Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masahiko Nishimura, Steve Alpert, Morio Kazama, Keiko Takeshita, Mirai Shida, Jun Kunimura, Shinobu Otake, Nomura Mansai
Genre: Animation
Run Time: 126 mins
Opens: 20 March 2014
Rating: PG

Revered Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, The Wind Rises, has long been anticipated by the legions of admirers he has deservedly earned over his storied career. This addition to a filmography consisting of fantastical adventures is something different, an animated (and fictionalised) biopic of sorts. The film’s subject is Dr. Jiro Horikoshi, aviation engineer and designer of World War II-era Japanese fighter planes, including the infamous Mitsubishi A6M Zero.



Jiro (Anno) is an idealistic dreamer, harbouring a fascination with aviation he has had since childhood. Chief among his inspirations is Italian plane designer Giovanni Caproni (Mansai); Jiro often has dreams in which he meets his idol. Years later, while travelling home from university on the train, Jiro meets Naoko Satomi (Takimoto) and rescues her maid from the train when they get caught in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. He embarks on his dream career of designing planes, becoming close friends with his colleague Honjo (Nishijima) and eventually running into Naoko again, pursuing a romance with her. Jiro continues to cling to his boyhood passion for airplanes, but as the vision of Caproni has told him, “the dream is cursed”, his creations destined to become tools of slaughter and destruction.



The Wind Rises has been billed as Miyazaki’s last bow, and though he has apparently “retired” six times, the 73-year-old has assured fans that he is quite serious this time. If The Wind Rises really is the last Miyazaki-directed animated feature, it makes for an even more bittersweet viewing experience than it already is. It is a given that the film is gorgeous to behold, from the watercolour backgrounds to visuals of airplane wings warping and buckling, from engines huffing and puffing like beasts of burden to the inevitable vistas of planes soaring triumphantly through the sky, some of the finest visual representations of man’s ancient dream of flight yet. All this is supplemented by a capable voice cast and a typically gorgeous musical score by oft-collaborator Joe Hisaishi. We saw the original Japanese version, though the American dub voice cast (including names such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci and Werner Herzog) does hold our curiosity.

The subject of The Wind Rises has understandably attracted a degree of controversy, some accusing Miyazaki of lionising someone who “built killing machines”. Miyazaki makes a point out of establishing Jiro as a kind, idealistic, chivalrous man, who even suggests about the design of a warplane that “If we leave out the guns, we should be okay.” Miyazaki has covered similar ground in his interwar period-set fantasy adventure Porco Rosso, which was also an ode to the joy and wonder of powered flight, but The Wind Rises deals in a weightier subject matter and this has its pros and cons. Miyazaki’s gift lies in capturing fantasy and whimsy imbued with philosophical undertones. The Wind Rises consciously decides to never confront the horrors of war head-on (the Zero itself is not depicted in the film), intent on distancing Jiro Horikoshi’s ostensibly innocent aspirations from the carnage that they ultimately wrought. Miyazaki has said that he has “very complex feelings” about the war and these are not articulated in full here.



Still, Miyazaki has managed an adequate tonal balance, capturing moments such as Jiro noticing the elegant curvature of a mackerel bone during lunch and how that influences his designs. The latter half of the film puts the focus on the romance between Jiro and Naoko, taking on more of a traditional tearjerker feel with some melodramatic instances, but it's still effective in that regard. Other clichés are employed, such as that of the boyhood idol/imaginary friend, a role fulfilled by Caproni as he dispenses chestnuts such as “Inspiration unlocks the future. Technology will catch up.” Taking on a heavier tone than is typical of a Studio Ghibli production, The Wind Rises is still very worth watching, although it does not fully address the thought-provoking questions inherent in Jiro Horikoshi’s life and work.

SUMMARY: The film that may well be Miyazaki’s last is expectedly a visual feast, moving and entrancing even if it is sometimes troubling.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Need For Speed

For F*** Magazine

NEED FOR SPEED

Director: Scott Waugh
Cast:  Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots, Dominic Cooper, Ramon Rodriguez, Rami Malek, Harrison Gilbertson, Scott 'Kid Cudi' Mescudi, Michael Keaton, Dakota Johnson
Genre: Action, Thriller
Run Time: 131 mins
Opens: 13 March 2014
Rating: PG13 (Some Nudity)

In 1994, racing game The Need for Speed was released on the 3DO console (remember that?). 20 years and 19 additional games later, this film adaptation starring Aaron Paul as Tobey Marshall roars onto the screen. A mechanic from Mount Kisco, New York, Tobey is a gifted driver who takes on Dino Brewster (Cooper), a wealthy car upgrades entrepreneur, in an illegal street race. Dino sets Tobey up for a crime he didn’t commit, and two years later, Tobey leaves prison to settle the score. Alongside specialty car dealer Julia Maddon (Poots), Tobey drives cross-country from New York to California for a showdown with Dino, organised by underground racing host Monarch (Keaton). Backing Tobey up are his long-time friends, including mechanics Finn (Malek), Joe (Rodríguez) and eye-in-the-sky pilot Benny (Mescudi).



Video game adaptations are always something of a gamble and this film does what it says on the tin: depict really cool cars going really fast. The plot is formulaic and predictable and there are as many moments of melodrama as there are of awkward comedy. We also get several cringe-worthy lines of dialogue and at 130 minutes, this is a touch too long. However, the film is shot beautifully and cinematographer Shane Hurlbut treats us to some pretty breathtaking vistas of canyons, salt flats and coastal highways as our characters traverse the United States. The cars also have heads-up displays (HUDs) at the bottom of the windshields emulating the game and the motion graphics do feel like a menu screen.

What counts here are the racing sequences, and those are pulled off pretty darn well. What’s very welcome about these scenes is that they do feel like real cars driving along real roads, there isn’t any distracting digital fakery and the actors don’t look like they were all filmed against green screens. The stunts aren’t really anything an action movie junkie wouldn’t have seen multiple times before but the special effects crew and the army of stunt drivers deserve credit all the same. Something that seems a little off are the cutaways to what seem like GoPro camera shots mounted on the cars for “crash point of view” moments, not unlike those quick POV shots in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug during the “dwarves in a barrel” scene. While some might find it adds authenticity to the moment of impact, others will find the sudden change in image quality jarring.

Following his acclaimed, entertaining turn as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul is destined to be a big screen A-lister. Need for Speed won’t necessarily be the movie to turn him into that A-lister overnight, but it shows his potential. Tobey Marshall could have easily come off as smug and over-confident, but Paul doesn’t overplay the “tough guy” aspect and does look at home behind the wheel. Imogen Poots is sweet and entertaining, and a conscious effort is made to not side-line her character even if the writing falls back on that “oh, the girl actually knows about cars!” cliché. Dominic Cooper is a believable bratty rich guy, even if there are no dimensions to his villainous character, and Michael Keaton hams it way up as the reclusive race organiser/commentator (he never physically interacts with the other characters and it looks like all his scenes were shot in a day). The comic relief sidekicks do wear on the nerves, Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi frequently annoying and Rami Malek forced to go the full Monty in a sophomoric gag. However, there is a kind of “aww shucks” quality to the friendship and camaraderie between Tobey and his “homies” after all.

Scott Waugh does a solid job of helming the flick and the former stuntman even rigged himself onto the landing skid of a helicopter to film Mescudi actually at the controls. However, there are several indulgent touches, like Bullitt playing on a drive-in theatre screen and a DVD of the director’s last movie Act of Valour prominently visible on a convenience store rack. Look out for the American Graffiti homage as well. Since Need for Speed is focused on the racing more than anything else, it doesn’t have the over-the-top physics mangling thrills of the likes of Fast & Furious 6, but petrolheads will come away delighted. This reviewer couldn’t bring himself to hate the film in spite of its frequent silliness because it’s got good leads, it’s gorgeously photographed and the races feel like they were photographed with actual automobiles.

Summary: We realise such things as “plot” and “character development” aren’t at the forefront when anyone goes to see Need for Speed, and on the basis of its car chases, this is worth checking out.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Tarzan

For F*** Magazine

TARZAN

Director: Reinhard Klooss
Cast:  Kellan Lutz, Spencer Locke, Trevor St. John, Les Bubb, Mark Deklin, Jaime Ray Newman, Anton Zetterholm, Brian Bloom, Robert Capron
Genre: Animation, Adventure
Run Time: 95 mins
Opens: 13 March 2014
Rating: PG

You’d think the much-maligned John Carter would have put producers off Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations but here we are with yet another Tarzan. Updated to a contemporary setting, Tarzan’s parents John (Deklin) and Alice (Newman) Greystoke aren’t marooned but perish in a helicopter crash. Their son, originally named JJ (Craig Garner) survives and is adopted by a family of apes, growing into Tarzan (Lutz), the king of the jungle. He catches a glimpse of the beautiful Jane Porter (Locke) and is immediately smitten. She is the daughter of scientist Jim (Bubb), an associate of Tarzan’s late father. William Clayton (St. John), the evil CEO who has taken over Greystoke Energies in Tarzan’s absence, stages an invasion of the jungle under the pretext of facilitating Jim Porter’s research. Tarzan must save the love of his life, the world he grew up in and defeat the malicious magnate.



This had “dud” written all over it from the word “go”. We’re quite sure nobody is hankering for a new take on Tarzan, let alone one that has “updated” the premise in the most predictable of manners. Of course Clayton is no longer a poacher but a greedy corporation head. Of course there’s a mysterious meteorite that contains a revolutionary energy source, hidden deep in the jungle. It’s eye roll-worthy on many levels. It’s “AvaTarzan”, right down to a Quaritch-esque military leader named Miller (Bloom) and the laughable image of a convoy of about 50 helicopters flying into the jungle. The whole thing is a derivative affair, liberally aping (pardon the pun) Disney’s 1999 Tarzan, but without any of the charm or heart. Also, instead of being an infant at the time of his adoption by ape, Tarzan looks about 7 or 8 (the credits say he’s 4). At no point is it explained how he almost completely forgets about his childhood; the “feral child” aspect rendered fully implausible.

Created using motion capture animation, Tarzan doesn’t look entirely terrible – some of the environments are pretty and the fur simulation on the gorillas is good. But it’s still many steps down from the quality of CGI animation audiences have become used to. After the visual splendour of Tangled, Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, Rise of the Guardians, Frozen et al, it’s hard to be awed by something that looks like it was made a good 15 years ago. Thankfully, the characters don’t possess the eerie, hollow-eyed “uncanny valley” effect we all fear with motion capture animation, but there’s so little nuance in their gestures and expressions that it doesn’t feel like there were flesh and blood actors performing the motion capture. The 3D is okay, with noticeable depth of field throughout and there’s a fun sequence involving lava bombs flying out of a volcano, but there’s also the occasional “ghosting” (double vision) to contend with.



Kellan Lutz can try, but between this, the hilariously bad Legend of Hercules and the Twilight movies, we’re far from convinced he can act. At no point does his Tarzan sound believably tough – when he grunts, it sounds like he’s hacking up a hairball. Spencer Locke’s Jane takes the award for the in-distressiest damsel in recent memory, flailing and yelling for Tarzan to save her on multiple occasions. Their “love at first sight” is given no development and a romantic swim in the lake set to Coldplay’s “Paradise” (really) does not help matters. Almost all the voice acting sounds unnatural, but as a saving grace, the animals don’t talk. Veteran gorilla impersonator Peter Elliot, whose credits include Congo, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Gorillas in the Mist and indeed Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes does the motion capture for the ape leader, so there’s that.

The character of Tarzan is a cultural touchstone but this adds nothing to the mythos, wholly forgettable and unnecessary at every turn. The most undiscerning of young viewers might find this a relatively entertaining diversion and while unpolished, at least it’s not an ugly movie to look at. However, older viewers (especially those attached to earlier incarnations of Tarzan from Johnny Weissmuller’s to Christopher Lambert’s) will want to swing through the vines as far away from this as possible.

Summary: This Tarzan won’t be in your heart, it’ll be in the DVD store bargain bin.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Railway Man

For F*** Magazine

THE RAILWAY MAN

Director: Jonathan Teplitzky
Cast:         Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jeremy Irvine, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tanroh Ishida, Stellan Skarsgård
Genre: Drama, Biography
Run Time: 116 mins
Opens: 13 March 2014
Rating: NC16 (Some Violence)

Eric Lomax, a British Army officer during the Second World War, was one of many thousands forced to work on the infamous Thailand-Burma Death Railway as a Prisoner of War. He lived to tell his tale in the autobiography The Railway Man, which serves as the basis for this film. Colin Firth plays Lomax who, in 1980, meets and falls in love with Patti (Kidman). Lomax’s post-traumatic stress disorder manifests itself and drives a wedge in his and Patti’s relationship, so a concerned Patti goes to Lomax’s best friend and fellow WWII survivor Finlay (Skarsgård) to learn about what really happened. Flashbacks featuring a young Lomax (Irvine) and Finlay (Sam Reid) depict this. In the present, Lomax tracks down Takashi Nagase (Sanada), the Japanese officer who imprisoned and tortured him, to settle an old score.



As students, most Singaporeans would have studied the Japanese conquest of South-East Asia, but watching this first-hand account is something different altogether. With its intimate focus, The Railway Man personalises the historical tragedy in a way that is eminently relatable. The film starts out under the guise of a romantic drama, with a meet-cute on a train and the depiction of a middle-aged couple’s whirlwind courtship, but as old wounds are re-opened, the audience is thrust into the harshness of the Death Railway and the extent of the suffering borne by Lomax and many who were not as lucky as him is laid bare. A clever, haunting visual device has Lomax walk out of the hotel in which he and Patti are having their honeymoon and straight into Burma of the past, where he confronts the demons which have been gnawing away at him.

Many movies have featured shell-shocked veterans whose lives are irreparably shattered following the trauma of war, but The Railway Man examines the long-term effects of such trauma as well as how it can weigh on a significant other. There’s also that “the past is a foreign country” theme, Finlay scoffing at tourists taking “Bridge On The Bloody River Kwai holidays,” a reminder to never forget the atrocities of war even if they seem like they may not directly impact us. However, a major change that this movie makes from the true story is how Lomax’s reunion with his tormentor is couched as an almost-Oldboy-esque quest of vengeance rather than one of reconciliation. Ostensibly, this is to up the tension and the scenes are indeed nail-biters, but the conflict comes off as feeling forced and this embellishment ultimately seems disingenuous.

The ever-dependable Firth is on expectedly excellent form, conveying the bottled-up torment of having lived through the war, while also displaying quick flashes of child-like innocence in Lomax’s love of trains. Irvine, who was a revelation in War Horse, is good as the young, pre-trauma Lomax, his performance lining up with Firth’s nicely. Sanada more than holds his own opposite the Oscar-winning Firth and he deserves his growing status as Hollywood’s go-to Japanese actor. Kidman is in a more passive role, having the story told to her for much of the movie, but she and Firth are relatively believable as a couple. While an excellent actor, Skarsgård’s Swedish accent is still audible and perhaps a British actor would have been better suited to playing Finlay. Seeing him and Firth together also conjures up images of a solemn semi-Mamma Mia! reunion.

Cinematographer Gary Phillips and composer David Hirschfelder both provide the film with plenty of atmosphere and, while the end result has its moments of stirring emotion, it can’t help but feel engineered and inauthentic at times. Even though the story’s focus makes it more involving, there’s also the danger of losing sight of the bigger picture and The Railway Man doesn’t quite balance this as well as the best war movies have. That said, Eric Lomax’s story is one that should be told onscreen and Firth’s performance possesses enough power to make up for the film’s shortcomings.

SUMMARY: The artistic license that The Railway Man takes feels forced, but Colin Firth’s turn as Eric Lomax is undoubtedly moving.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Men of Geri-Action

As published in Issue #50 of F*** Magazine

MEN OF GERI-ACTION

TOP TEN SENIORS WHO CAN KICK YOUR ASS
By Jedd Jong 15/2/14

Liam Neeson, he of the particular set of skills, displays his tough guy prowess once more in action flick Non-Stop. He’s 61. Kevin Costner seems to be following in Neeson’s footsteps in 3 Days to Kill; he’s 59. It turns out that they’re far from the only action heroes who aren’t quite spring chickens to have blazed a trail of bullets and fisticuffs across the silver screen. F*** takes a look at ten such “badass grandpas”. Respect your elders or face their wrath!

SEAN CONNERY

Born: 1930

58 in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

65 in The Rock (1996)

68 in Entrapment (1999)

72 in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

The original cinematic James Bond is the epitome of rough-and-tumble charm, a sexy Scotsman who only got more badass with age. Connery’s filmography is peppered with memorable parts and he made an oh-so-smooth transition from manly heartthrob to wise, seasoned mentor types. He played Indiana Jones’ dad (despite being only 12 years older than Harrison Ford) but turned down the chance to reprise the role in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull because “retirement ish jusht too damned much fun.” He got all the best lines in The Rock as a legendary former spy and the last man to escape from Alcatraz and he wooed Catherine Zeta-Jones, 39 years his junior, as a debonair gentleman thief in Entrapment. He had a miserable time filming the mediocre The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (“It wash a nightmare”) but was still as cool as ever as legendary adventurer Allan Quatermain. And oh, he almost got the parts of Morpheus in the Matrix films and Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings saga, but declined as he “didn’t undershtand the shcript.”

CHUCK NORRIS

Born: 1940

58 in Logan’s War: Bound by Honour (1998)

60 in The President’s Men (2000)

65 in Walker: Texas Ranger: Trial By Fire (2005)

72 in The Expendables 2 (2012)

Martial artist, actor and former Air Force serviceman Carlos Ray “Chuck” Norris became popular during the martial arts movie boom of the 70s, famously sharing the screen with (and getting defeated by) Bruce Lee in 1972’s Way of the Dragon. Norris created the martial art form Chun Kuk Do and has mostly starred in low-mid budget action vehicles, becoming a favourite of B-movie production house Cannon Group in the 80s. Many of his films were directed by his brother Aaron and were roundly mediocre straight-to-video or made-for-television affairs. He was also the star of Walker: Texas Ranger, which ran on TV from 1993 to 2001. Of course, the resurgence in Norris’ popularity can mostly be chalked up to “Chuck Norris facts”, satirical factoids attributing superhuman feats to the action star. These first started popping up on the internet in 2005, and Norris himself eventually acknowledged the meme onscreen in The Expendables 2 – R.I.P., unsuspecting cobra who bit Chuck Norris. Norris is also a devout Christian and his objection to the swearing in the screenplay almost resulted in a PG-13 rating for The Expendables 2, which was eventually rated R for its violence. Norris still got his way though – of about 100 uses of the f-bomb in the script, only one made it into the movie.

CLINT EASTWOOD

Born: 1930

61 in Unforgiven (1992)

62 in In the Line of Fire (1993)

66 in Absolute Power (1997)

69 in Space Cowboys (2000)

77 in Gran Torino (2008)

He’s the man with no name, the cop with the .44 Magnum, the greatest enemy of empty chairs everywhere: he’s Clint Eastwood, enduring cultural icon, the gold standard of masculinity and a talented, respected filmmaker in his own right. In 1958, Eastwood took on the lead role in the Western TV series Rawhide, but he truly made his mark in Sergio Leone’s 1964 classic, A Fistful of Dollars. Two more films followed in the spaghetti Western trilogy, capped off with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In the 1970s, Eastwood’s career soared, as he took on the role of Dirty Harry – and made his directorial debut with 1971’s Play Misty for Me. Eastwood is arguably one of the most successful actors-turned-directors, winning Best Director Oscars for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. Unforgiven, in which Eastwood played a former bandit who reluctantly returns to his old ways to pay off his farm, probably marked the point at which Eastwood cemented his position as “badass grandpa”. Like Connery, Eastwood had no trouble with the ladies, romancing Rene Russo (24 years his junior) in In the Line of Fire. He’s got a softer side too, co-composing the soundtracks for most of his films, but when he says “get off my lawn”, you can bet he means it.

MORGAN FREEMAN

Born: 1937

60 in Hard Rain (1998)

68 in Edison Force (2006)

70 in Wanted (2008)

72 in RED (2010)

73 in Oblivion (2013)

He’s the man with the dulcet voice, the go-to narrator who’ll make anything from penguin migrations to the failing war on drugs sound suitably epic. Freeman has carved out a career niche as the all-knowing mentor figure with a twinkle in his eye and while he isn’t the first name that comes to mind when one thinks “action hero”, he’s done more than his fair share of butt-kicking. “Maybe I just gravitate towards gravitas,” he once said. He’s driven Miss Daisy and he’s played God and has also appeared in various action films where he doesn’t get to do much shooting or running (the Dark Knight trilogy, Olympus Has Fallen and Unleashed come to mind). That said, he’s played an armoured truck thief caught in the mother of all thunderstorms, was the coolly vicious head of a cabal of assassins, was an ex-CIA agent labelled “retired: extremely dangerous” and was the leader of a small group of human survivors on a post-apocalyptic earth. And he uttered what is probably the greatest Oscar-related quote ever: “Is there a movie I think I should have won the Oscar for? Yeah. All of them." He’s had his “senior moments”, memorably catching some shut-eye during an interview for Now You See Me, but you can bet that we all get shivers when he yells “shoot this mother**ker!”

SYLVESTER STALLONE

Born: 1946

59 in Rocky Balboa (2006)

61 in Rambo (2008)

63 in The Expendables (2010)

65 in The Expendables 2 (2012)

66 in Bullet to the Head (2013)

66 in Escape Plan (2013)

The Italian Stallion skyrocketed to stardom with 1976’s Rocky, which won Best Picture at the Oscars and garnered Stallone Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor Oscar nominations. However, Stallone wasn’t destined to become a feted method-acting star of prestige pictures, but to become an action hero – which is fine by us. After a string of ho-hum action flicks, Stallone proved he had some fight in him yet when he returned to his two most iconic roles, that of Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, in 2006 and 2008 respectively, also directing both films. 2010 saw the release of the first instalment in Stallone’s nostalgia-driven Expendables franchise, an exercise in getting the gang back together. Witnessing the likes of Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger et al sharing the screen was a thrill for fans of old-school action flicks everywhere. 2012’s The Expendables 2 added the afore-mentioned Chuck Norris to the roster and had Jean-Claude Van Damme pulling villain duty. This year, The Expendables 3 will hit screens, boasting a bigger line-up than ever, with Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas and Harrison Ford joining the crew, up against Mel Gibson and Robert Davi as villains. Next to his hand and footprints in the forecourt of the Chinese Theatre in L.A., Stallone wrote “keep punching, America!” and with those ever-bulging biceps, he’s certainly taken his own advice to heart.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Born: 1947

64 in The Expendables 2 (2012)

65 in The Last Stand (2013)

65 in Escape Plan (2013)

66 in Sabotage (2014)

66 in The Expendables 3 (2014)

You know we couldn’t put Sylvester Stallone on the list without giving a tip of the hat to his rival-turned-best-bud Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bodybuilder/politician/actor is arguably even more of a larger-than-life figure than Stallone is. After all, he’s left an indelible impact on popular culture with roles like John Matrix, Dutch Schaefer, Conan the Barbarian and the Terminator, his endless string of quotable one liners, impressive feats of strength, willingness to (often awkwardly) dabble in comedy and the wonder of seeing political commentators say the words “Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger” with a straight face. Most moviegoers readily forgave him for his personal transgressions that made the news when Schwarzenegger left office and leapt back into movies, which is testament to his enduring popularity. His cameo in the first Expendables film was a taste of things to come, and he was given more screen time in the second outing. Plus, 2013 saw Schwarzenegger and Stallone get a proper team-up movie in the form of Escape Plan. He’s not slowing down this year, with action-thriller Sabotage hitting theatres soon and the third Expendables film following that. Schwarzenegger certainly wasn’t lying when he promised “I’ll be back” – rare for a politician!

HARRISON FORD

Born: 1942

59 in K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

63 in Firewall (2006)

65 in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

68 in Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

71 in The Expendables 3 (2014)

With two iconic roles in blockbuster franchises to his name, Harrison Ford is one of the biggest movie stars of his generation. The carpenter-turned-actor is both the charming rogue space pirate (who shoots first) and the adventurer archaeologist who favours a whip and a revolver over a trowel. In addition to those landmark genre parts, Ford is a respectable actor in his own right, snagging an Oscar nomination for Witness. Ford is a badass grandpa in real life and not just in the movies, too. An avid aviation enthusiast, he assisted Teton County, Wyoming authorities on two helicopter rescue missions in his Bell 407. No word on whether he has ever said “GET OFF MY PLANE!” in real life. Ford has built a reputation as something of a curmudgeon, due to the wariness with which he regards overzealous Star Wars and Indiana Jones fans. “Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it's misinterpreted,” he said. Ford also angrily confronted Indonesian forestry minister Zulkifi Hasan while making a documentary on climate change. Besides a likely return to the Han Solo role for Star Wars Episode VII, Ford will join the Expendables 3 line-up, replacing Bruce Willis (with whom Sylvester Stallone had a falling out over Willis’ pay). Everyone probably agrees that it’s an upgrade.

JEFF BRIDGES

Born: 1949

58 in Iron Man (2008)

60 in Tron Legacy (2010)

60 in True Grit (2010)

63 in R.I.P.D. (2013)

63 in Seventh Son (release delayed to 2015)

Jeff Bridges has been acting for over five decades, coming from a family of actors including father Lloyd, mother Dorothy and brother Beau. To get an idea of the scope of his career, take a gander at this factoid: at 22, Bridges became one of the youngest actors ever nominated for an Oscar, for The Last Picture Show. And at age 60, he became one of the oldest actors to win, taking home Best Actor for Crazy Heart. His most famous role is probably that of Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski in the Coen Brothers’ cult favourite comedy The Big Lebowski, and traces of the Dude can be found in most of his performances since. Bridges suited up as the supervillain Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, taking on Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark in Iron Man. He revisited the role of Kevin Flynn from 1982’s Tron in the 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy. By way of visual effects wizardry, Bridges also played Flynn’s physically younger doppelganger Clu. He reunited with the Coen Brothers for the remake of True Grit, taking on the Rooster Cogburn role famously inhabited by the Duke himself, John Wayne. Bridges played a trigger-happy cowboy again in R.I.P.D. (it was a hammier performance). Bridges has completed filming the fantasy action flick Seventh Son, in which he plays a powerful wizard.  The film has been delayed multiple times and will eventually be released in February 2015. Married to his wife Susan for 36 years, Bridges had this to say, “Sticking with a marriage. That's true grit, man.”

CHARLES BRONSON

Born: 1921

63 in Death Wish 3 (1985)

65 in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

66 in Messenger of Death (1988)

71 in The Sea Wolf (1993)

72 in Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

The late Charles Dennis Buchinsky, better known as Charles Bronson, is a bona fide old-school cinematic tough guy, famously describing his appearance as “like a quarry someone has dynamited”. When he died in 2003 at the age of 81, Bronson had left behind a legacy of silver screen badassery in an array of Westerns, war movies and, of course, revenge flicks. Bronson served in the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Second World War and received a purple heart. A memorable early appearance was in the horror flick House of Wax (no, not the one with Paris Hilton. The original!) as the silent henchman to Vincent Price’s sculptor/serial killer. He hit the big time with war movies The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen, but truly became an icon with the role of vigilante Paul Kersey in the Death Wish films. “Audiences like to see the bad guys get their comeuppance,” Bronson said and boy, Kersey sure gave it to them. Bronson would play the architect-turned-gun-toting-avenger in four more films. Like Chuck Norris, Bronson starred in many low-budget movies for Cannon Films. The notorious British prisoner and bare-knuckle fighter Michael Peterson changed his name to “Charles Bronson” on the advice of his fight promoter, in spite of Peterson having never seen a Charles Bronson movie.

DANNY TREJO

Born: 1944

58 in Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

65 in Machete (2010)

67 in Bad Ass (2012)

68 in Dead in Tombstone (2013)

68 in Machete Kills (2013)

With over 250 movie and TV roles to his name, Danny Trejo is undoubtedly a B-movie icon, and the guy just keeps trucking. Tough, grizzled and unfazed, Trejo isn’t just putting on a tough guy façade for the camera: he was a teenage drug addict, bank robber and convict before turning over a new leaf as a drug counsellor – in fact, that’s how he got his first acting role in Runaway Train, counselling a kid working on the film when he was approached to be an extra. “I just totally got hooked. I found my calling…For the first half of my life, I went to prison for being a bad guy. Now they’re paying me to be a bad guy,” Trejo said. After years of playing bit parts, Trejo took the title role in Machete, continuing his long-time collaboration with director (and second cousin) Robert Rodriguez. Machete had its origins as a mock-trailer in the throwback exploitation double bill Grindhouse, and it played on Trejo’s image as a violent, nigh-superhuman Federale agent, gifted with the bladed weapon that is his namesake. He has seven films coming out in 2014, ranging from Muppets Most Wanted to vigilante thriller Bullet. Rodriguez has said that he views Danny Trejo as something of a Mexican Charles Bronson and he certainly wouldn’t be too far off.

3 Days to Kill

For F*** Magazine

3 DAYS TO KILL

Director: McG
Cast:         Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen
Genre: Action, Thriller
Run Time: 100 mins
Opens: 6 March 2014
Rating: TBA

After playing Pa Kent in last year’s Man Of Steel, Kevin Costner is pulling daddy duty again in 3 Days To Kill. This time, he’s playing veteran CIA agent Ethan Renner, who is stricken with brain cancer that has spread to his lungs. On the brink of death, he is offered a miracle drug by fellow CIA agent Vivi (Heard) in exchange for a successful kill. The target: terrorist arms dealer Wolfgang “The Wolf” Braun (Richard Sammel). With mere months left to live, Ethan goes to Paris where his estranged daughter Zoey (Steinfeld) is living with her mother, Ethan’s ex-wife Christine (Nielsen). Having neglected his wife and daughter due to the obligations of his dangerous job, Ethan must make up for lost time, fight through the drug’s hallucinogenic side effects and stop the Wolf once and for all.

Moviegoers know what to expect from Luc Besson, who established his brand of Euro-action in the 90s and has been directing and producing such genre entries ever since. Besson co-wrote 3 Days to Kill with Adi Hasak, but directing duties were handled by McG who, suffice it to say, is not the most popular director out there. 3 Days To Kill is something of a mess but at least it doesn’t look it, cinematographer Thierry Arbogast having lensed Besson movies such as La Femme Nikita, Léon and The Fifth Element. Beautiful sunrises over Paris and seedy, neon-lit nightspots get showcased in equal measure. However, this can’t help but lend a certain ersatz quality to the film; that McG is trying his hardest to approximate that Besson look and it comes off as self-conscious. Furthermore, the premise is practically identical to that of Besson’s French TV series No Limit.




3 Days To Kill feels like two different movies hastily stitched together, in many ways coming off like an unsuccessful version of True Lies. In both films, a spy has to address domestic problems in his family life while saving the day. However, True Lies was an all-out action comedy, while 3 Days To Kill is unable to settle on a tone. It wants to be taken seriously as an action thriller and there are some fairly brutal combat sequences and a violent onscreen death or two. However, we’re also supposed to be invested in the melodramatic tale of a duty-bound father trying his hardest to reconnect with his stubborn, distant teenager. In addition to that, the film’s attempts at humour are awkward and misjudged. For example, lots of serious confrontations get interrupted by Icona Pop’s cheerful I Love It, which Zoey has chosen as her father’s cell-phone ringtone.

Costner has been trying for a comeback and appears to be after a Liam Neeson-style career renaissance – after all, Taken was also produced by Luc Besson. Costner is okay but he lacks Neeson’s intensity and just comes across as somewhat bored, at times dangerously close to phoning it in Bruce Willis-style. Steinfeld’s Zoey is a thinly-sketched bundle of “rebellious teen” clichés, right down to her petulant insistence on addressing her father by his first name. Steinfeld is certainly better than this, but the character is just annoyingly written. Heard does a lot of posturing as a femme fatale, her exaggerated appearance with that peroxide blonde do and uber-red lips making it seem as though she’s just walked off the set of Machete Kills. Also, it’s never made clear why Vivi can’t just kill the Wolf herself.



3 Days To Kill isn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill, formulaic spy action flick, but it seems it might have been better off as one. Even with a ticking-clock element built in, the film fails to muster a sense of urgency or tension. That’s because the secondary plot involving Ethan’s reconciliation with his daughter is shoved to the fore, stopping the action from gaining any proper momentum and feeling like someone’s changed the channel from a spy thriller to a sappy family drama. While the tonal dissonance isn’t quite as jarring as in Besson’s own Malavita/The Family/We’re a Nice Normal Family, it still gets in the way of what could’ve been a slick if forgettable actioner. The presence of a large family led by patriarch Jules (Eriq Ebouaney) who are squatters in Ethan’s flat is an obvious attempt to up the heart-warming quotient. Add stereotypical comic-relief side characters like limo driver Mitat (Marc Andréoni) and Italian Guido (Bruno Ricci) to the mix and 3 Days To Kill just ends up being muddled and unsatisfying.

Summary: An awkward combination of father-daughter relationship drama and espionage action thriller, 3 Days To Kill fails to hold together.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

300: Rise of an Empire

For F*** Magazine

300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE

Director: Noam Murro
Cast:         Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro, Hans Matheson, Jamie Blackley, Jack O'Connell, Andrew Tiernan, Callan Mulvey, David Wenham, Mark Killee
Genre: Action, Fantasy
Run Time: 103 mins
Opens: 6 March 2014
Rating: M18 (Violence and Sexual Scenes)

The comedians at Rifftrax theorised that a sequel to 2007’s 300 would be named 300 2: 301. Instead, we have 300: Rise of an Empire, best described as a Bourne Legacy-style side-quel. Athenian general Themistocles (Stapleton) leads the Greek fleet at the Battle of Artemisium, a naval engagement that was unfolding concurrent to the Battle of Thermopylae fought by King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans. The Persian navy is led by the ruthless Artemisia (Green), cunning, manipulative and skilled with the sword. Themistocles also visits Leonidas’ wife Queen Gorgo (Headey) to petition for access to Spartan ships, and we get some back-story about the Persian god-king Xerxes (Santoro).

The first 300 film is very similar to the first Matrix movie in that both utilised a visual style that was captivating and ground-breaking initially, but that quickly got run into the ground by imitators in the years between the original and the sequel(s). While the two Matrix sequels arrived four years after the first Matrix, 300: Rise of an Empire comes a whole seven years after 300. In that time, everything from Immortals to the Spartacus TV series to The Legend of Hercules to the Malaysian film Vikingdom has tried to recapture the striking aesthetic of Zack Snyder’s movie. As Snyder was busy with Man of Steel, new director Noam Murro dutifully duplicates 300’s look, but the novelty and charm has slowly eroded away, annoyance taking its place.



Nobody’s going to call this a “historical movie” with a straight face (say hi to the sea serpents), but then again, that’s part of why 300 became such a huge hit, its stylisation of Ancient Greek history and its interpretation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel original and eye-catching. Here, we get another parade of chiselled physique, pixelgallons of computer-generated blood and what can best be described as “sexfighting”. The blood here seems already semi-coagulated when it is drawn, seeming more like chocolate fudge than anything else and slopping across the lens with regularity. We guess there’s nothing wrong with an R-rated action flick in an age where every studio executive wants every movie to be rated PG-13 to reach as wide an audience as possible, but 300: Rise of an Empire crosses into unintentional silliness all too often, due in part to the excessive, cartoony violence.

If King Leonidas came from the Scottish section of Greece, then Themistocles came from the Australian section. Themistocles is a more measured, less choleric protagonist than Leonidas and Sullivan Stapleton does look the part of an action hero, but he’s also far less charismatic than Gerard Butler was and does at many times feel like an also-rans substitute. Eva Green, a dab hand at playing the femme fatale, glowers and pouts her way through the film in a scenery-chomping turn that is just impossible to take seriously, though that was probably the intention. It seems she took inspiration from Angelina Jolie’s equally ridiculous performance in Alexander and it is difficult to buy Green as a battle-hardened warrior. It’s also eye-roll worthy that someone as formidable as Artemisia has to fall back on her seductive wiles. It is nice to see Lena Headey return though, for the primary purpose of providing a lengthy voice-over or two.



This isn’t a terrible movie, but it’s more of the same seven years too late. 300 was far from the most sequel-ready of films (spoilers for something that took place 2500 years ago: all the 300 Spartans died) so this seems unnecessary and forced. A lot of the film is taken up by exposition and flashbacks and all the naval battles blend together into an indistinguishable mash. There’s also a father-son subplot with Scyllias (Mulvey) opposing the idea of his son Calisto (O’Connell) joining the fight, an unsuccessful attempt to inject pathos into the proceedings. And to top it all off, co-writer Kurt Johnstad sneaks in the line “an act of valour” which has got to be a reference to the movie of the same name he wrote. Still, it’s entertaining, there’s an effort made to establish continuity, it isn’t poorly made and the 3D is pretty fun.

Summary: Madness? THIS! IS! A! MEDIOCRE-BUT-WATCHABLE! SIDE-QUEL!

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong