Action

Ninja

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Ninja (2009)
  • IMDb: link

Ninja movie reviewThrowback Tuesday takes us back to 2009’s Ninja starring Scott Adkins as an American raised in a Japanese temple tasked by his sensei (Togo Igawa) to protect the temple’s most sacred artifacts from a rival former student (Tsuyoshi Ihara) using the skills taught to him to become one of the world’s deadliest assassins.

Ninja is the kind of movie where the police get involved, but only manage to get in the way or arrest the wrong person until they step back to let the ninja fight. Very much the B-action movie it appears to be, Ninja also teases a love story between Casey (Adkins) and the sensei’s daughter (Mika Hijii) as well as Casey’s search for family. Neither amount to much as the film works best when director Isaac Florentine queues up the rivals’ series of action scenes.

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F9

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: F9
  • IMDb: link

F9 movie reviewF9 is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. In a theater, on television, on the Internet, or in real life. Even for a mediocre franchise like Fast & Furious that is known primarily for hot cars, hot girls, car chases and explosions, and ham-fisted messages about family, F9 is a really, really dumb movie. Characters return from the dead, never referenced brothers are shoehorned into backstory, characters drive a car in space, a computer device capable of controlling the entire world (which turns out isn’t all that well protected) falls into the hands of yet another evil version of our crew, and the only ones who can save the day are Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his friends. Let the insanity commence.

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Batman: The Long Halloween (Part One)

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Batman: The Long Halloween (Part One)
  • IMDb: link

Batman: The Long Halloween (Part 1) DVD reviewWarner Bros. Animation finally gets around to adapting the thirteen-issue maxi-series from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale which follows Batman (Jensen Ackles) over one year as he attempts to catch a murderer know as Holiday for a killing on every major holiday tied to the Falcone crime family.

“Part One” takes us from Halloween and the first crime through New Year’s Eve (roughly through the first 4 issues of the storyline). As in the comic, we get appearances from several of Batman’s rogues gallery including the Joker (Troy Baker), Calendar Man (David Dastmalchian), Solomon Grundy (Fred Tatasciore), and Catwoman (Naya Rivera). Both Catwoman and Harvey Dent (Josh Duhamel) have large roles in the story as along with Jim Gordon (Billy Burke) they all are looking to take down crime boss Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver). The dense storyline has been simplified a bit, and the Joker’s extended sequence remind me of one of the comic’s original failings as the more colorful villains distract from the narrative as they take over center stage.

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Batman: Soul of the Dragon

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Batman: Soul of the Dragon
  • IMDb: link

Batman: Soul of the Dragon Blu-ray reviewBatman: Soul of the Dragon leans heavily into 1970s style with a tale of Batman (David Giuntoli) teaming up with the other former students of his former sensei (James Hong) to prevent evil being unleashed in by the Kobra Cult. I was quite impressed with the first-half of the movie, although the straight-to-video movie reminded me more and more of Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which also started off quite strong but lost its way a bit in its second-half.

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Tango & Cash

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Tango & Cash
  • IMDb: link

Tango & Cash home video reviewThrowback Thursday takes us back to the last film of the 1980s. Tango & Cash is the ridiculous, balls-to-wall, over-the-top pairing of Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell as rival super cops forced to work together after they are framed for murder. Stallone stars as the upscale Ray Tango while Russell’s Gabe Cash is more working man. Without realizing it, both men have been cutting into the business of Los Angeles’ hidden kingpin Yves Perret (Jack Palance in full scene-chewing mode) who frames the super-cops for murder, gets them relocated to a different prison than they were sentenced, and attempts to have them killed behind bars.

The film was plagued by production issues including multiple script revisions and the firing of director Andrey Konchalovskiy. The last film to be released in 1989, Tango & Cash is a glorious homage to the action movies of the decade. Dumb as rocks, with a script full of plot holes, it nevertheless entertains. Teri Hatcher, who makes use of her dance background as Tango’s younger sister, Brion James, James Hong, Marc Alaimo, and Michael J. Pollard, as Cash’s goofy weaponsmith, round out the cast.

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