Killer Elite (2011) Dir: Gary McKendry

Based on a true story - five words that can provoke tremors of dread - this is a strange beast, not quite sure if it wants to be a taut actioner or a politically charged thriller.
In the end, it delivers neither.

The plot.
Jason Statham is Danny, an elite military operative trained in the black art of assassination. He works alongside Hunter (De Niro), a grizzled old sort who has seen more than his fair share of action. When an assassination attempt turns sour, Danny swears to put the life behind him, to get out of the game, and manages to do so for one whole year.
The lure to pull him back in?
Hunter is taken hostage by an Omani Sheikh, who will only release him if Danny assassinates those responsible for the Sheik's son’s deaths.
The catch?
The killers were British military, specifically the SAS.....

A reasonably neat set-up, this starts off promisingly, with plenty of pacey action scenes and gritty fight sequences but, before too long, the interest starts to wane. See, curiously, even though this is based on a true story, at no point was I convinced by anything that was happening on screen. The plot seemed contrived, artificial, plain ridiculous on occasion, so quite how many liberties were taken is anybody's guess.
The cast perform adequately enough, particularly Jason 'The Stath' Statham who is always watchable. I must confess to something of a man-crush, if truth be told. My God, he looks delightful bare-chested save for a pistol holster.
Enjoyment wise, a telling fact is that, though the run time is only 100 minutes total, this felt more like a two hour plus movie.
Never a good sign.
Stylistic confusion, humdrum plotting, and a scattershot approach to pacing means this is probably one best skipped on the big screen, kids.

2 out of 5

Thor (2011) Dir: Kenneth Branagh

You know, I really thought this would be awful.
The plot:
Having angered his father, Odin, by defying clear instructions not to wage war with the Frost Giants of the Jotunheim, Thor has imperiled the idyllic, peaceful domain of Asgard, as well as the other nine realms and, as punishment, is banished from his home, sent to present day Earth, stripped of his powers and separated from his mighty hammer (no, that's not a euphemism).
A trio of astrologers investigating astral phenomena bump into him, quite literally, and try to assist him, but are puzzled by his odd behaviour. He insists that he is Thor, son of Odin, speaks in a strangely dramatic manner and seems not to know how everyday things work. Convinced that he is who he claims, mainly on account of catching a glimpse of his Mighty Thor pecs' Natalie Portman's Jane Foster attempts to assist him in reclaiming his hammer but, to his horror, it does not awaken to his touch (still not a euphemism, people. Settle down at the back).
Meanwhile, in Asgard, Thor's father is taken ill, and his brother Loki sees the chance to seize the throne. Intent on betraying both his family and his people, Loki sends a terrible metallic giant to destroy Thor and also opens a gateway to allow the Jotunheim access to Odin, that he may be slain.....
It's hokum.
Of course it is.
And theatrical hokum at that, what with Anthony Hopkins positively chewing up the scenery with gusto when given licence by his Shakespearean brother in arms Branagh behind the camera.
The plot is ludicrous.
The costumes preposterously over the top.
The action set pieces nonsensically overblown.
But, I beseech thee, go check this out if you haven't yet because it is riotously entertaining.
Laugh out loud funny in places - far funnier than any 'comedy' movie I've seen in years - pulse-poundingly action packed with fantastic CGI work and a genuinely engaging lead character in the shape of man mountain Kim Hyde.
The first blockbuster of the year this most certainly is, and the bar has already been set uncommonly high.
By all of Heaven's Thunder, I liked it.

4 out of 5

NOTE - Version reviewed is the 2D print.

Transporter 3 (2008) Dir: Olivier Megaton

Statham's back with his big shiny car, his big shiny gun and his even bigger and shinier brow.
The plot:
Forced out of retirement by a businessman who won't take no for an answer, played with devilish glee by Robert 'Bagwell' Knepper, Staffam's reluctance to Transport again is soon overcome and, before he can say "You Slaaaags" he's got a device strapped to his wrist that will explode if he moves more than 75 feet from his beloved car, and an unwanted partner in the shape of a young Ukranian woman.
Mission unknown, reward unknown working for person's unknown, it can only be a matter of time before sheer fucking mayhem ensues.
Peppered with dreadful dialogue, Statham takes this all in his mega-muscled stride.
Fight scenes are sparse, but intensely violent.
Stunts ditto, though exchange violent for preposterous, and all the better for it.
If you've seen the first two movies, you'll know exactly what to expect and, whilst I didn't enjoy it quite as much, this was still a fun ride.
Let's face it, this is quality Eurotrash.

4 out of 5

The Mechanic (2011) Dir: Simon West

Come on folks, you know what you are going to get with a Jason 'Staffam' Statham movie and, in every regard imaginable, this is no different.
The plot: The Stath plays Arffa' Bishop, a hitman or 'Mechanic' called in by his contacts when a clean hit is essential.
He slips in, does what he needs to do and gets the hell out, leaving a corpse, sure, but a means of death that will ensure suspicions lie elsewhere.
When called upon to take out his long time mentor, Arffa' has to comply and, in so doing, sets in motion a sequence of events that will see him taking his mentor's son under his wing to train him in the art of being a 'Mechanic.'
And it's derivative as hell, with the requisite tit shots, intermittent explosions, gun-play, close quarters fisticuffs and general Uber-male activities that make us mere mortals shrink into our cinema seats in shame. I could actually feel the larger of my testicles shrivelling in embarrassment at all of the manliness on screen, emasculating me more and more with each passing scene so that I was left to shuffle out of the theatre as the credits rolled, shamed to the point of agonised, pitiful tears.
Staffam does what Staffam does, which is fine with us here at Smell the Cult HQ, and Ben Foster is OK as the trainee Mechanic.
It will pass an hour and a half, folks, but it is guff, really.
Average.
Very average.

3 out of 5

Salt (2010) Dir: Phillip Noyce

Angelina Jolie action 'vehicle' Salt is a rather silly, surprisingly dull affair.
The plot: When a Russian defector walks into CIA Headquarters voluntarily to turn himself in, Jolie's Evelyn Salt is sent in to interrogate him, to find out what he knows and, just as importantly, to find out what he wants in return for his information. The man is unusually co-operative and, most intriguingly, he claims to want nothing in return.
Then he drops his bombshell:
He claims that an agent named Evelyn Salt is a Russian double agent, one of a batch of sleeper agents set in place by the KGB during the height of the Cold War in readiness for Day X, the day Russia would strike out at America and crush it once and for all.
Salt is rattled, her superiors more so who intend to take her captive, but she has other ideas, making good her escape in a manner so complicated and contrived it brought a genuine smile.
So begins a cat and mouse game of 'hunt the rogue agent,' Jolie protesting her innocence, claiming that she is just trying to protect her husband.
Famously intended as a Tom Cruise movie, the makers had to switch genders when he pulled out to make that height of banality Knight and Day instead, though this isn't much better, in truth.
The set-pieces are ludicrously unrealistic, which would be OK, but they are handled poorly, too, the CGI woven into the onscreen mayhem in a very slipshod manner.
Jolie is OK, I suppose, though she doesn't get to say much, her role pretty much confined to running around a lot, pouting with those freakish rubber lips and clinging on to the top of moving vehicles.
Interest levels aren't helped any by the casting of Liev Schreiber as supporting male, an actor so boring and lifeless he seems to suck the energy out of every scene in which he appears.
Whilst not as bad as I may be implying, this is effectively a watered down version of far superior espionage thrillers; Bourne, Alias, even Bond and, ultimately, just feels a little plodding and tame.
Yawn.

3 out of 5

The Expendables (2010) Dir: Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester 'pushing sixty five' Stallone delivers another pumping, high octane actioner.
The plot: A covert CIA agent (Bruce Willis) hires a motley crew of mercenaries, led by Stallone's Barney Ross, to take out the tyrannical ruler of a Gulf Coast island - played with some gusto by Dexter's David 'Angel Baptista' Zayas - and his wealthy American overlords.
Seriously, that's all you need to know.
As most will be aware, the lure of the movie is the red meat on show, with Ross' team made up of Jason 'The Stath' Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture (whoever he is) and Terry Crews (whoever he happens to be), half dozen of the primest specimens of manliness you are ever likely to assemble.
Stallone strings together a series of outlandishly implausible, yet riotously entertaining set-pieces, the script around which they are draped one of the weakest I have heard in manies the moon, with Sly making the classic mistake of trying to write comedy when, as a human being, he is about as humorous as a severe bout of throat cancer. A quibble, but a small one as, inevitably, it's the action that is the star here and, fortunately, it is just excellent.
Dumb as a bag of scratchings it may be, but this manages to showcase several scenes I have certainly never encountered in a movie before; the 'fuel dump' attack by the waterplane, The Stath's death move towards the end of the final showdown and a gun so powerful it makes those automated sentry guns in Aliens look like freakin' pea-shooters. Talking of THAT gun, whenever she appears there is the welcome addition of a touch of splatter, albeit of the CGI kind, though it is worth noting that CGI, for the most part, plays second fiddle to proper, live action stunt work done the old-fashioned way, lending the movie an air of credibility it may otherwise have lacked.
Set your brainwaves to dormant, stick matchsticks in your eyelids and strap yourself to an iron lung to keep your basic bodily functions active.
Then sit back and enjoy.

4 out of 5

Cellular (2004) Dir: David R. Ellis

Larry 'The Stuff' 'It's Alive!' Cohen is not a man known for wasting a good idea so, here, he retreads ground similar to that covered in the short, sharp 2002 Colin Farrell thriller Phone Booth.
The plot: A primary school teacher, Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) is kidnapped by a ruthless gang who believe her husband has something that they want, and they will do whatever it takes to get their hands on it. Trapped in her own attic, the wall mounted telephone smashed to smithereens, Jessica jiggles a few wires and touches a few cables together and gets lucky, managing to make a connection to a man called Ryan (Chris Evans) on his mobile.
At first, he doesn't believe her story but, when one of the gang members re-enters the attic and Ryan hears threats issued, he is convinced, kick starting a race against time.
Can Ryan reach Jessica's husband and son before Jayson Stayffum and his cronies get their hands on them.
High concept stuff, I'm sure you'll agree, with the mobile phone plot device an effective one, lending the movie a genuine sense of the frantic.
Of course, on occasion, things become somewhat implausible - Ryan's method of obtaining a charger, the fact that the police don't take him down within minutes of commandeering the Porsche, the fact that Ryan didn't just head straight to the nearest newspaper HQ the second he saw what the crooks were after - but these quibbles are minor, and kind of missing the point.
This is all about the adrenaline rush.
Have to say, ten minutes in I felt sure I was going to hate the movie, as Ryan's character was fleshed out on Santa Monica pier, his perfect physique and Jockish banter with his 'bestest buddy' enough to make you pray for the Megashark to emerge from beneath the waves and chow down on the insufferable prick, but give the film the credit it deserves, once the MacGuffin was in place, the energy carried it through to the end.
A good action thriller.
But no more than that.

4 out of 5

Predators (2010) Dir: Nimród Antal

I must confess, I was desperately excited about this movie, as evidenced by my first day of release viewing, something I can rarely be bothered to do, though my anticipation was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that, usually, I have a preference for old over new.
So, would the updating be an effective one?
Oh yes!
The plot: The movie opens in a quite dramatic fashion, with Our Hero Royce (the seemingly omnipresent Adrien Brody, if the trailers that ran before this movie are anything to go by) falling through the sky at great speed, a parachute strapped to his back, but the bloody thing won't open. Inevitably, he survives the fall, and meets up with several others who have befallen a similar fate, the last thing they remember a flash of light, then nothing, before awakening in freefall.
It soon transpires that the motley collection of dubious specimens have been deliberately selected for their specialist skills: a Yakuza, a black ops. mercenary, a guerrilla fighter...you get the picture, though amongst their number, a doctor, who doesn't quite seem to fit the mould.
Puzzled as to what has happened, it's not long before we are right in the action, a pack of alienoid dogs attacking the group, but worse is to follow. Realising that they are not on Earth, but instead on a strange, multi-mooned jungle planet, the band of disreputables soon figure out their purpose for being there: to be hunted.
More action packed than the original, though perhaps lacking a little in terms of atmosphere, there are some genuine standout moments:
The initial alien dog attack; the first glimpses of The Predators; Morpheus's sudden appearance, all bedecked in full on Predator suit, though his presence is more of a cameo, despite his high billing on the posters; the Yakuza guy's Samurai sword fight with a solitary Predator in a moonlit field of knee high grass.
Oh, and don't be fooled as I was. Rodriguez did not direct this movie, simply produced it, camera duties being handled by the marvellously monikered Nimród Antal, the man behind the lens for the pretty decent 2007 motel horror yarn Vacancy.
With The Predator's themselves fleshed out a little more than in either of the previous movies, I was more than a little impressed by this modern slice of sci-fi horror.
Liked it a lot.

4 out of 5.