Stolen (2012)

Damn it, Nicolas Cage! Why are you playing me like this, bro? You're my homeslice. My Ace in The Hole. My D-O-G-E. I go to you to be entertained by your madcap antics! I'm not really watching you so you can go all subdued and stuff. I don't go to you to see you do your best Liam Neeson in "Taken" impression. Frankly you're not tough enough for that. But between this and "Seeking Justice," it seems that Nicolas Cage wants to tone it down some. That is, if he currently has any say in what movies he's in, which he might actually not.

Oh Nicolas. Nicolas, Nicolas, Nicolas. Don't do that. Don't let them do that to you. You're the best there is at what you do, but what you do ain't subtle. You are up there with Christopher Walken in terms of actors who are brutally, unapologetically unique and frightfully entertaining because of your uniqueness. But as good of an actor as you are, most of the material you're being given is not worth that serious dramatic talent. You want to be serious? Save that for Werner Hertzog. Save that for a great movie like "Bad Lieutenant." Don't save it for "Stolen." It's just not worth it.

See, "Stolen" isn't bad. In fact I'd dare say that it's pretty decent as far as your standard "You have X amount of time to get Y amount of money or your kid dies" movie goes. But that's the thing. How many of those movies are out there? The answer is "A metric crap-load." This is not a movie that needed to be made. This is not a movie that needed to be written. It's so stock, it's so cliche, and it's so utterly generic that I find it hard to imagine why anybody thought that it was a story that needed to be told, unless there were something really unique about it.

"Listen, I don't know who you are, but please just tell me why I'm yelling into a phone in every movie I'm in!"

Something like Nicolas Cage, perhaps? If the Cagester had been fully unleashed in "Stolen," playing up the zany, wild eyed madness to the hilt, then we would have at least gotten an entertaining performance out of it. But no, he's not unleashed. He's playing it pretty down-to-Earth, which is just sad. It seems as if the film is scared of having any kind of fun goofiness in Nicolas Cage's performance. No, evidently serious movie is serious.

Well, except for the scraggly, one-legged, psychopathic, murderous, gleefully evil villain played by Josh Lucas. Apparently it's okay for Josh Lucas to act like Nicolas Cage would act were he playing a crazy villain, but it's not okay for Nicolas Cage to act the way Nicolas Cage would normally act.

WHY IN THE BLUE HELL WASN'T NICOLAS CAGE THE BAD GUY?!

Honestly, that's the biggest fault with "Stolen." It was cast all wrong. Nicolas Cage should have been allowed to do what Nicolas Cage is wont to do. Because seeing Josh Lucas, an actor who isn't as convincing as an-over-the-top character, play a villain that is almost literally screaming for a Cage/Walken/Travolta/McDowell style performance isn't as fun as it should be.

"Stolen" has Nicolas Cage playing the "World's Greatest Thief," who we find doing the prerequisite "one last job" at beginning of the film. When things go bad and he's left holding both the literal and proverbial bag he winds up doing 8 years in prison. After he is released, his daughter is kidnapped by his former partner (Josh Lucas) in an effort to get the 10 million dollars from the heist that Cage said was destroyed, but he is sure that Cage had hid before getting nabbed.

That one last "one last job" thing rears its head again, as there are few ways of making 10 million dollars in 12 hours besides robbing a bank or something. And I must admit, as sketchy as the methodology was in how Cage gets his hands on the loot, especially in terms of bank security, I must admit that the idea is pretty clever, and was something I hadn't seen before. Take that for what it's worth, but how many movies have you seen that feature bars of gold being smuggled out of a bank via melting? It was pretty cool.

True story: This is the second film Josh Lucas has starred in called "Stolen." I'm not even joking. #needbettermovietitles

So do I regret seeing "Stolen?" Hell no. I got my Nicolas Cage fix. I'm good. Do I wish the roles had been reversed? Hell yes. He needs to play more bad guys, anyway. I swear if he actually is cast in "The Expendables 3," he better be playing the villain. He's got a good head start since Simon West directed both this and "Expendables 2." And I'm serious. I will be so upset if he's not the baddy in "The Expendables 3." Did you even see "Face/Off?" Remember him in the beginning, before Travolta was playing Caster Troy? That kind of corny should be packed and sold in individual bottles to get you through those tough days. It's delicious and nutritious!

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Stolen" wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't that bad, either. It's got an old school vibe to it, which is enhanced by the kickin' jazzy "Cowboy Beebop" style soundtrack. And while I'd rather see Cage be unrestrained, Josh Lucas did make for a passable villain. Although the movie does get docked a few points for not knowing the proper definition of "moose knuckle."

Wrath of The Titans (2012)

For anyone who saw the remake of "Clash of The Titans," they will remember it as a lackluster, boring mess with not nearly enough clashing or Titans. It was more like "Mild Scuffle of The Big Things." There didn't seem to be much room for improvement, either, especially after "Immortals" showed us that for some reason Greek mythology about monsters and Gods in titanic struggles for the Universe is generally really, really dull. I don't know what it is about these movies, but they can't seem to get a decent one going. The best case scenario we could hope for with the "Titans" sequel was a certain level of "not sucking."

And I got just that. It didn't suck. It wasn't that great, but it didn't suck.

MEDIOCRE.

 BECAUSE IF YOU'RE TOO GOOD, THEY'LL EXPECT SOMETHING FROM YOU NEXT TIME.

"Wrath of The Titans" starts off about 16 or so years after "Clash of The Titans," and Perseus has gone back to his life as a fisherman and is raising his son since his wife died off camera in between films. In keeping with the story, the Gods are growing weaker since nobody prays to them anymore, and it's getting to the point where they are half a step away from being mortal and dying.

In their desperation, Hades and Ares come up with a plan to get their immortality back by doing something exceedingly silly like releasing Chronos, the ancient creator of the Gods, so that Chronos might grant them their powers again. And of course, Zeus is the only one who remembers that Chronos had tried to kill them all and destroy the Universe before they imprisoned him. One might cut Hades slack by imaging that it had probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but honestly, when the plan goes belly-up like it obviously would, Hades has nobody to blame but himself.

But he seemed like such a trustworthy fellow...

With Zeus imprisoned, Perseus has to save the day like always, and you can pretty much write the story from there. There are no big plot twists or anything not happening like you'd imagine they would. It's pretty par for the course.

So what is it that makes "Wrath of The Titans" better than "Clash of The Titans?" Well, that's an easy answer: Action. The biggest difference between the two movies is that the sequel actually has a decent amount of it. And while some of the same problems plagued "Wrath" as plagued "Clash," they tended to be less and not as frustrating in nature.

I've said that the first film's biggest problem was that it put Perseus up against creatures that were far too powerful. For that reason, Perseus can't really fight them properly, and has to instead go around looking for a one-hit-kill-loophole to exploit, which makes sense, but it tends to undermine the badassery of the hero. I mean, I'll bet Schwarzenegger would have at least found a way to punch the Kraken in the face.

Ngyaaaaah!!! You kill my fatha!! Eeyaaagh!!! Git to da Pegasus!!!

I seriously need to be in charge of all the movies, but my vision may be too much awesome for the public to handle. Anyways.

The good thing about "Wrath" is that Perseus actually does some fighting against things that aren't that ridiculous for him to take on. I mean, true he does fight Ares, the God of War and win at one point, which while a bit out there at least involved swinging swords, punches and headbutts. That's preferable to holding up a Medusa head and saying "Here, look at this." At least he's doing something.

The casting of "Wrath" is held over from the first movie, with Sam "Oh please James Cameron make Avatar 2 and 3 so people will care about me again" Worthington as Perseus, Ralph Fiennes as Hades, and my personal unapologetic man-crush Liam Neeson as Zeus. They're all pretty much the same as last time, only this time Zeus doesn't whine as much, and Hades doesn't wheeze anymore, so improvement all around on that front. Worthington is still way too English to be Greek.

One notable addition to the cast, however, and by far my favorite part of the movie was Bill Nighy popping in to play a crazy old outcast God, Hephaestus. I swear, I could watch that man act all day long. When he's given an odd, quirky character, he turns in some of the most unique performances of anyone I've ever seen every time he shows up. It's quirky yet never annoying.

And no, he's not "The Science Guy." I'm so tired of having to explain that. Watch "Shaun of The Dead" for crying out loud.

 He's quite alright. He ran it under a cold tap.

There were some problems, naturally. The biggest plot hole of the movie involves the final, ultimate destruction of Chronos, which was well within the God's grasp from the beginning...which begs the question why they never used it to finish him off. The other question that sprang to my mind is why nobody is praying to the Gods anymore after the events of "Clash of The Titans." I mean, that was some heavy stuff. Zeus basically came down and said "LISTEN TO ME OR I'LL KILL YOU." That didn't change any minds?

Oh well. I'm just happy something got punched in the face in this movie.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Wrath of The Titans," for all the good things I've said about it, wasn't a great movie. It was just OK. If you liked "Clash of The Titans" for some weird reason, you'll love this because it improves on it in every way. If you hated "Clash of The Titans," well, this one is better. It's not great, but it's better. Recommended for a rental and lowered expectations.