Léon: The Professional (1994)

Jean Reno is one of my favorite actors. I love when he's playing a tough guy, because he keeps it so low key that you're never quite sure of how much he's capable of, giving his characters an air of mystery and coolness about them. When he does finally break out the pain, it's almost like a surprise. A wonderful surprise with a sexy voice.

Gary Oldman is another one of my favorite actors. I particularly love when he's playing villains, which he has done on numerous occasions to legendary effect ("Dracula," "Air Force One," "The Fifth Element" anyone?). This is especially true when he goes over-the-top with it. Anything to make me sit back and say "Holy crap this guy is freaking crazy," which Oldman is very good at.

In "Léon: The Professional," Jean Reno plays a hitman and Gary Oldman plays a drugged-out maniac who kills people while ranting about Beethoven. I think it's obvious what my opinion on this movie is predetermined to be.

Widely considered director Luc Besson's masterpiece, "The Professional" is the story of Léon (Jean Reno), an assassin who finds that he does indeed possess a soul after saving a life for a change. When a family in the apartment next to him gets slaughtered by corrupt DEA officers, Léon takes in 11 year old Mathilda (Natalie Portman in her debut performance), the only survivor who was lucky enough to not be in the apartment at the time. Seeking revenge, Mathilda asks Léon to teach her how to be an assassin as well, which is something Léon reluctantly agrees to do on the basis of "She's going to try anyway, so better to teach her so that she won't die."

A hitman and a young girl walking down the street as she carries his plant, who is also his best friend. This movie is so French.

"The Professional" isn't just about gearing a kid up for violence, however. There's a real emotional core to this movie which is either extremely sweet or extremely disturbing. I can't quite tell which is more accurate. It's probably a helping of both. Léon and Mathilda make a great pairing as he becomes a father figure to her, giving her the support and affection that she never had before. Because of that he discovers what has been missing from his life, while giving her a new lease on her own. In the end this is a movie about two people saving each other, as she rescues him as much as he rescued her.

But on the other hand, their relationship from the beginning is based on killing people. So there's that weirdness that was mentioned previously. Much like "True Romance" or "Natural Born Killers" or even "Kick-Ass," it's always a freaky thing when you consider the nature of the relationships some characters have, to the point where it's difficult to tell whether or not we should be happy for them or even hoping that they succeed. Is it okay for characters to kill if the story is told from the perspective of the people doing the killing? Does the fact that we root for the main characters by default excuse anything they do? I find that to be a very interesting discussion.

 That's just wholesome right there.

Jean Reno is of course great, but Natalie Portman has to give one of the absolute best first-time performances ever captured on film here. Some of her lines may be a little hammy (not her fault), but I defy anyone to watch the scene when she walks past the bodies of her family to go to Léon's apartment and pleads with him to let her in and tell me that it's not gut-wrenching. I suppose it should be no surprise that she was great considering that years later she was able to maintain her dignity after being forced to say lines like "Anakin, you're breaking my heart." That's talent.

Although Léon and Mathilda are great, the guy who steals the show is the villain, Stansfield (Gary Oldman). This guy is a miracle, I swear. This is probably the scariest villain Oldman's ever played, and he's so unhinged and drugged out of his mind that there is absolutely no telling what he's going to do. He's one of the those characters who would never in a thousand years hold any kind of position of authority given the fact that he's clearly a psychotic butcher, but it doesn't matter because he's amazing while he's doing it. He's got many great moments, but the scene where he corners Mathilda in a bathroom and pulls out a gun, asking her if she enjoys life because he takes no pleasure in killing somebody if they don't, is one of the most chilling things I've ever seen.

Of course, most will remember the shouting.

"The Professional" also has a good amount of action in it, although it's not as much as you'd probably expect. After starting with a bang, the middle is more reserved for character development and slow building tension, with the final act making up for it as many bullets fly and many things blow up as a veritable army of SWAT team members descend on Léon and Mathilda in an ending which is the very definition of bittersweet.

There's not many negative things I can say about "The Professional." It's a really solid movie. I think the biggest issue is the awkwardness a person is almost certainly going to feel whenever Mathilda is hitting on Léon, which is understandable. Besides that issue (which isn't even really an issue), the only thing I can find to complain about is the length of time a grenade takes to blow up. When that's the worst thing you can come up with to nitpick, that's pretty damn good.

Okay, okay. I know this trailer sucks, but you do get a little bit of Gary Oldman awesomeness in it.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Professional" is a fantastic, stylish, very French action movie that showcases some powerhouse acting talent. The action is great, the tension is pins and needles, and the characters are impossible to not love. But all that aside, honestly it's worth a watch for Gary Oldman alone. Great flick.

Taken 2 (2012)

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I have a severe man-crush on Liam Neeson. I apologize for and rescind nothing. The man is a mack-daddy of the highest caliber as far as acting is considered, and even in dreck like "Star Wars: Episode I" he can make utter crap halfway decent just by being in it. Well, maybe not decent, but we'll call it watchable. As long as he's on screen, that is. And not in the presence of annoying, racist CGI sidekicks.

And yes, I had heard nothing but bad things going into "Taken 2." And it's true that I had refused to see it in theaters even though I'm a huge Liam Neeson fan, and I loved the first "Taken." The reason I refused to pay to see it in theaters was because of the fact that producer Luc Besson has a nasty habit of releasing R-rated films edited down to a PG-13 in theaters, which is what both "Taken" and "Taken 2" did, only to release the "Unrated" cut later when it comes out to rent. This is actually just the original version of the film, not some super special edition. And I'm not paying $9.50 to see a version of a movie that I would see on TV. I'm a grownup. Let me watch my grownup films.

That aside, did "Taken" really need a sequel? It seems a tad unnecessary. I suppose there are worse films to make sequels to. Honestly if you're looking at from a storyline standpoint there's more reason to have "Taken 2" than there was to have, say, "Terminator 2," since the events of the first "Terminator" essentially make it so a sequel should literally be impossible. But it's not like "Terminator 2" where we're dealing with plotholes involving physical impossibility. Mills could feasibly have people come after him again, and they don't have to travel through time to do it. So sure, why not? Make a sequel.

But that brings up the worst part of the whole "Taken 2" idea. Based on the title itself, they've kind of roped themselves into a corner. The bad guys can only do one thing - abduction - because the name of the movie is "Taken." What if one of the baddies just said "Hey, why don't we plant a car bomb and kill him with that?" Would the other guy bring up the fact that the name of the movie they're in isn't "Car Bomb," and it's against the rules? And now they're talking about "Taken 3," and at that point it's like Jack Bauer and another one of his very long days.

 "Oh god, not this crap again. Who am I, Bill freaking Murray?"

For those reasons, including the fact that the only other film I've seen from director Oliver Megaton (really?) was "Transporter 3," an acceptable but forgettable affair, I wasn't expecting too much out of "Taken 2." In fact I wasn't expecting anything at all. This turned out to be a pretty smart way to approach it. "Taken 2" wasn't as bad as everyone was saying it was. But it still wasn't that good. It kind of just "was." It's a movie you'll see once, forget a good chunk of it not too long after it's done, and never really think too much on it ever again. But there are worse ways to kill an hour and a half.

Picking up a year or so after the first movie, "Taken 2" finds Mills and family on a trip to Istanbul. Once there, the relatives of the people Mills killed previously enact a plan to get their vengeance, and Liam Neeson and Famke Janssen end up being the ones who are kidnapped, with Maggie Grace being the one who has to save them.

Yes, I know the idea of Maggie Grace: Action Hero sounds lame. That's what the trailer would have us believe this movie is, but honestly there's more to it than that. It's true that she does a little bit of reckless driving through the streets and runs on some rooftops, but the whole ordeal with her saving Liam Neeson is only about a 20 minute chunk of the movie. Once she does rescue him it's business as usual from that point on as Liam does what Liam will do and kicks some ass.

Liam is actually shooting people. Maggie is just sitting there going "Rrrrraaaaaaawwww Pwaaaaaaaahhh EEEEEEEEEEK Brrrraaaaaaa HONK HONK! Rrrrrraaaaaaa..."

And really, aside from that bit it's really the same movie as before. Liam tracks down bad guys, Liam kills bad guys. While this is usually a point against a sequel, hey it's not like they're rehashing bad stuff. "Taken" was a good movie. The fact they're somewhat copy and pasting it isn't a bad thing. It just makes it fairly unremarkable and not very memorable.

Honestly the worst part is that compared to "Taken" this movie doesn't have nearly the same amount of action, at least from what I recall of it. Which truthfully isn't that much. I remember the French dude from the first movie getting killed, Maggie Grace throwing grenades and driving a car, Famke Janssen getting tortured, Liam getting a gun, and Liam killing the main villain with a coat rack (I think. It was really quick and hard to make out). That's all I remember. I still recall most of the first movie, and I haven't seen that in years. I saw "Taken 2" just the other day and I'm already blanking on all but that handful of scenes. Take that for what it's worth.

There were still some things I enjoyed about "Taken 2" though, and oddly enough they both heavily featured Maggie Grace. The first bit was that whole "grenade" thing I mentioned earlier. After being kidnapped, Liam is able to call Maggie Grace on a phone he smuggled in and coaches her through how to find him, using a map and loud noises. These loud noises just happen to be some grenades, which Maggie then proceeds to throw while Liam estimates distance based on how long it took the sound to reach him. It's a neat scene, and I found Maggie just chucking grenades where "it doesn't look like anyone is there" to be oddly funny.

But wait a minute. Timing that precise via cell phone would be all off because of the natural delay in reception... (Stupid nitpicky brain, stop that! You liked that scene!)

There's also a bit in the beginning when Maggie Grace is practicing for her driver's test, which they kind of bring back during the car chase where she's driving and Liam Neeson is still coaching her while shooting out the passenger window. I thought that was a fun callback which actually made decent sense in context, because even though the thought of Maggie Grace making like Steve McQueen is enough to make one roll their eyes, it's not like she's very good at it yet. She's barely keeping the car on the road and is kind of panicky, which is a reasonable reaction. Although having to suffer through her wailing "I can't!" before she does what she just said she couldn't do over and over again got really old.

That brings me to my last point. I don't like Maggie Grace. Never have. Probably never will. I don't think she's that good of an actress, she always gets moderately to severely annoying characters to play, and her forehead is far too big to not be distracting. At first I was willing to cut her some slack because I figured that I just despised her character on "Lost," Shannon, with the fiery passion of Eternal Hellfire so much that I just assumed my hate for that character was spilling over onto Maggie as an actress, which wasn't fair to her. But then the catch came when I saw her in things other than "Lost," and she's still basically playing Shannon. Not as horrifyingly wretched, of course, but Shannon is still in there. And she needs to be killed with fire.

I did cartwheels when they shot your ass in "Lost." CARTWHEELS.

So that's "Taken 2." It's not as bad as they all said, but neither is it worth spending 90 minutes with unless you're a huge fan of Liam Neeson, particularly if you've already seen the first film. If that's the case, you've already seen the better version of what is essentially the same story. And at least in the first one there wasn't all those events that happened in a movie proceeding it that the heroes seem to forget about, which makes them look stupid. What else am I supposed to think when they're saying stuff such as "You hear all about these terrible things that happen to people over there."

Kind of like that one time that your daughter and her friend went to Paris and got kidnapped and sold as a sex slave, resulting in her friend's death and the deaths of a whole lot of people you killed getting her back? Things like that? Yeah, that might have been worth remembering.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Taken 2" is not the cinematic abomination that it had been made out to be. Seriously, it's not that bad. It's a decent action movie, and I was reasonably entertained. Its biggest problem is that it's a sequel to a better film. Don't cancel any plans in order to see it, but it's not going to hurt or offend you or anything. And hey, it's Liam Neeson. Can't be all bad.

Lockout (2012)

Hoo boy. Where to start with this one. I remember that I was looking forward to this film, partly because A) It came right the hell out of nowhere, so it had the element of surprise going for it, B) It looked interesting enough, what with a prison in space, and C) I like Guy Pearce.

Well actually, that last part isn't 100% accurate. I am not irritated by the presence of Guy Pearce. I really don't have anything negative to say about him, but neither do I gush over his performances. He's kind of the definition for me of an "average" actor. He gets in front of the camera, says his lines in a competent but very "straight C student" manner, and at no point am I really buying what he's saying. But it's never bad enough to tear down my suspension of disbelief. 

If I see him on the box, I say to myself "Oh. Guy Pearce. I didn't even know he was in this. Cool." Then I set the case down and reach for the newest Val Kilmer movie.

Movies like "Lockout" are not helping my neutrality on Guy Pearce. If there was going to be a movie that made me jump on The Pearce Express, if such a thing existed, this ain't the one. And again, much like Guy himself, it's not that "Lockout" is overtly bad so to speak. It's just so damn "straight C student" average that it's difficult to care. Although this is where the analogy breaks down a bit, because honestly, "Lockout" isn't pulling a C average. This is like the C student getting wasted the night before finals, sleeping through half of them, and subsequently getting his GPA pounded into the D range.

You know it's on when The Guyster turns his gun all ghetto-grip.

The idea of "Lockout" is that there is a prison that has been built in space to hold the world's most vile criminals, the world's only "Ultra-Max" prison. The point of that is, of course, that the prison is escape-proof, because there's literally nowhere to go. For some reason that I honestly forgot by the halfway point (it doesn't matter) the President's daughter, played by mobile landing strip...er...forehead...er...actress...yeah we'll go with that, Maggie Grace, goes to the prison along with some secret service guys in order to interview some prisoners for some reason.

I think it had something to do with uncovering an EEEEEEEVAL corporation's plans to use prisoners as test subjects for the effects of cyro-freeze for long term space travel. Why the corporation using them as frozen test subjects is EEEEEEEEVAL when the prisoners were frozen in stasis anyway is a bit hazy, especially considering they are all mass murdering psychopaths. It seems to me that using these criminals (in a manner that doesn't hurt them in the least, by the way) to do some good for the betterment of mankind, like the exploration of freaking space, is something of a noble idea. Weyland-Utani these guys ain't.

Bitch please...

Anyway, of course the pooch gets predictably screwed when one of Maggie Grace's secret service idiots does a titanically stupid thing and winds up inadvertently arming and setting loose one of the inmates, who promptly frees every other inmate in the prison. This takes him about 34 seconds, by the way. This scene is so bone headed for so many reasons that it really helps sum up why this movie kind of just sucks.

1) Before the interview, the secret service guys are told to relinquish their weapons. Of course, the one guy is a freaking idiot and keeps the gun he has in his boot on him. What a pro. But besides that, are you telling me they didn't have to go through a metal detector or any security screening whatsoever? They just took his word for it? This is supposed to be "THE MOST ADVANCED PRISON EVER MADE," and it's easier to bring a gun through its security than it is to get through a TSA checkpoint?! More on the advanced nature of the prison in a bit.

2) Why, of all the prisoners there, do they trot out the most insane, clearly psychotic, uncooperative, dangerous inmate they could possibly find for the President's daughter to interview? This guy is like if you took SID 6.7, crossed him with The Joker and gave him "killing Tourettes" where he has a clinical need to murder something every 14 seconds. This guy actually knows the secret service guy has a gun because he smells it on him. Oh yeah. that sounds like a great person to talk to: The guy who can smell guns. Let's get Barbara Walters on this!

A more trustworthy face you couldn't hope to find.

3) Why in the sweet hell are the secret service guys even on the same side of the glass as the criminal? Aren't there prison guards for that? You know, people TRAINED for it? People who wouldn't, say, bring a gun into the room with the ridiculously dangerous man? But nope. Not a prison guard in sight.

4) THE GLASS ISN'T BULLETPROOF?!?!?!?

5) There are no security countermeasures in place at all? No bulkheads being automatically locked down? No knockout gas? No shutting off life support? No electrified floors? No collars on the inmates like "The Running Man?" No machine gun turrets? Like NOTHING?! That's all this ultra-max slam has in the way of security? A non-bulletproof pane of glass, two unlocked doors and a dude with glasses armed with only a clipboard to guard the button that lets EVERY CRIMINAL LOOSE AT ONCE!?

6) You're telling me that somebody actually programmed a command on that panel to "Open Every Door And Immediately Thaw Every Prisoner." When in the name of Odin's Mighty Butthole would you ever need that, especially when the inmates seemingly outnumber the guards about 10 to 1? That seems like not only an absurdly pointless command to even make possible to execute, but a mind-shatteringly dangerous one as well, for situations, oh I don't know JUST LIKE THIS ONE. Let's face it, when the glass on this piece of space junk isn't even bulletproof, I'm guessing prisoners getting out is a real possibility!

I don't even know if it's worth it to continue. That scene is pretty much the dumbest thing I saw in that film, and it really never gets any better. I'm surprised I haven't even mentioned Guy Pearce in it yet, which is a plus for him because he honestly pissed me off, too.

I think this is the only movie I've seen Guy Pearce in where he was memorable enough to annoy me. It's the same thing that got me about Tony Stark in "The Avengers," which is that every goddamn line out of his mouth is a quip or a joke or snide sarcastic remark. It's one thing to have a character who makes funny comments, or has a sense of humor, or who is irreverently sarcastic. But it needs to be tempered with "normal person speak."

No human being on earth is going to have something smarmy to say in response to everything single thing said to them. Even Snake Plissken said "What?" a couple of times. But it always makes me grind my teeth down to a fine powdery residue when I am forced to suffer through a character that talks like Oscar Wilde writing John McClane. And again, even John McClane, as badass and funny as he was, didn't have a "Thanks for the advice" moment every line. When they do, I don't want to see them kicking ass, I want them to shut the hell up!

"Uh...something witty...um...how do ya like THEM apples...supplements...damn it, CUT! Gimme a minute...damn it...apples...come on, Guy, THINK!"

There were other grievances I had, but it really just wound up being a haze of annoyances that held me in a perpetual state of "why the hell am I watching this?" for 90 minutes. From the absurdly bad CGI in the beginning bike chase that looked like bad PS2 graphics, to Peter Stormare's incredibly annoying "where the hell are you supposed to be from" accent (seriously I can't stand that guy), to a shot of adrenaline, instead of being injected somewhere that makes sense like the heart, being shot into someone's eyeball (and not the tear duct, right in the middle of the freaking pupil, because that works) to that really bad blowjob joke that was in the trailer, to none of the inmates stopping the craziest inmate from constantly screwing everything up by killing stuff, to gravity suddenly working in space, and finally to a free fall from orbit around Earth to ground taking less than 20 seconds...it just wasn't working for me.

It's unusual to say, but Guy Pearce is too good for this. Or perhaps this is the perfect Guy Pearce vehicle. Maybe he's really on to something with the whole "being in a bad movie" idea. If the movie is bad enough, it would make a middling actor look much better in comparison. In that case, well done?

Not bad.

THE BOTTOM LINE - There are so many better sci-fi action flicks out there that would be a far superior film to this. Hell, just watch "Escape From L.A." Even that brain-dead schlock is way more fun at least. Watch "Doomsday." Watch "The Running Man." Anything but "Lockout." It's just a waste of time. Skip it.