Knight Rides Again

Coming to a TV near you sometime in the new year (February 2008 if you live in the US) is a nearly all new Knight Rider.

Justin Bruening plays Mike Tracer (cool name !!!), an Iraq war veteran and son of Michael Knight (can you see where this is going ?), according to IMDB:

Mike Tracer a bitter former Army Ranger and failed race car driver, just got a new lease on life, neither he cares for or wants this chance to make up for his past failings. FLAG* wants a new driver, but he is hesitant to join this mysterious group and doubts this super car or he can make a difference. He's got problems, he's in debt and people want to kill him. The choice is all too obvious for him and the Knight Industries Three Thousand (K.I.T.T).

*Foundation for Law And Government

That's right, he's one of the forgotten, down on his luck, but willing to do what it takes to make a difference. All he needs is one lucky break...

Having read this, as well as the mention on IMDB that The Hoff is also in negotiations, I was getting that warm feeling in my trousers, then I saw the car (a supercharged Mustang GT), initially here, here and here (cheers Nik), then after some digging, here too.

Wow. I wonder if there'll be an evil KARR version too ? Can't wait for this, I bet it'll be spectacularly rubbish.

Above The Law

Let me set the scene for you. Having been to a pub in Nottingham to witness yet another crushing disappointment in the arena of British sport, namely, being knocked out of the European football championships by a bunch of guys who would normally be on the receiving end of an action hero's roundhouse. Having had a couple of pints, my girlfriend and I made the walk of shame back home, only to have my spirits lifted by the mighty might of Above The Law, not only starring, but also co-written by Seagal himself.

In this ass-kicking display of bad guy bone crunching, Seagal wades through a swathe of bad guys in an attempt to right some plot-relevent wrong (something to do with drugs and explosives and something that happened in Vietnam - I missed the beginning, which made little difference), kicking ass and taking names all the way. Bringing together Hollywood royalty past (Pam Grier), present (Seagal himself) and future (Sharon Stone, in a supporting role as Nico's wife) and snapping the neck of one of the all-time great bad guys, Henry Silva as the awesomely named 'Kurt Zagon', the tagline probably says it all; 'He was a covert agent trained in Vietnam. He has a master 6th degree black belt in Aikido... and family in the Mafia. He's a cop with an attitude.'.

If you missed this on Channel Five last night, you missed a treat. Still, you can pick it up on DVD from Play for about a £11.99, and you should.

Raddest Movie Ever has Fansite

Why are there no good fan sites for seminal 80's action movies I hear you ask ? There are, I reply, there is this one, ActionClub, and there is also CommandoFans.com, the latter being brough to my attention by the ever-vigilant ActionWillis.

Just beware though, if you visit it, you may be persuaded to 'stick around'.

30 Days of NIght (Part 2)

A pointy teethed, frosty splatterfest, 30 Days of Night is a decent vampire movie with a great ending. I saw this at the weekend and really enjoyed it. It has style and flow and characters that you really want to survive. Good vampires, if a bit gothy and overacted, there's a high level of splattery death for a 15 certificate movie, or that may just be me getting old, with one or two shocks but nothing over the top. It was a choice of this or Resident Evil: Extinction, and this won the toss, which I'm quite pleased about. Still like to see RE:E though.

30 Days of Night

It's 'Lost Boys' meets 'The Thing'. Another graphic novel gets the big screen treatment, this time under the direction of newcomer David Slade, and starring Josh Hartnett and Melissa George. Vampires, who like the dark (apparently) have a field day in the arctic circle during the long period of winter darkness (30 days, or thereabouts) when the sun doesn't rise.

Much vampy biting action and screaming will inevitably ensue as the residents face an unenviable fight for survival against a bunch of pointy toothed goths in wooly jumpers (probably). Looks like it might be fun all the same, especially with the legend that is Sam Raimi on board as producer. Check out the official website. Here's the trailer...

Cloverfield ?

There are some great movies on the way, none moreso than this offering from the production office of the near-godlike JJ Abrams. Much speculation surrounds the content of this film, whether it's another Godzilla movie, a story based in the world and mythos of HP Lovecraft or a Voltron episode. The Teaser Trailer was shown at theatres with the Transformers movie and is supposed to have a January 2008 release date.

If you haven't seen the trailer, check it out here and find more information on Wikipedia, on the Empire website and also on IMDB where it's still listed as an 'Untitled J.J. Abrams Project'.

Die Hard 4.0 Out on DVD

Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard was released on DVD yesterday. Have you bought your copy yet?

Chuck Norris Action Jeans

Have you ever had problems with pinching or binding in the crotch area when performing double roundhouse kicks on Mr Big's goons whilst trying to rescue the President's daughter ? Chuck Norris used to, but not any more, not now that he has his signature ActionJeans in his kung fu armoury. Developed by the Chuckster himself, 'they have a unique hidden gussett which allows greater movement without binding or ripping', handy when leaping from fast moving trucks.

Guns of The Matrix

I like guns. I also like action movies. Imagine my surprise (clue: there was very little of it) when I found not one, but two websites with masses of information about the guns used in The Matrix movies. Clickage below.

Guns of The Matrix on the awesome Internet Movie Firearms Database

Guns of The Matrix on madogre.com

Enjoy.

Die Hard 4.0: Action Overload

It's incessant, relentless and certainly action packed, it's the fourth installment of the Die Hard series, it's Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard.

The most action you can have in two hours and ten minutes is at the cinema now. It makes most of Michael Bay's movies look like Amelie (see Transformers comment below) and there isn't a dirty vest in sight. Bruce Willis resumes the role of John Mclane, now a senior NYPD detective who gets called in to pick up a hacker suspected by the FBI of being at the end of a 'denial of service' attack on the US Governments cyber-security department. Waiting for him is an array of Euro-goons armed to the teeth with state of the art German small arms and another bad day ensues.

Possibly the best, if far from the most realistic ('This is ActionClub, not PhysicsClub' - Mike Willis) episode in the painful life of Mclane, it features unrealistic fight scenes and IT technology but is a crazy rollercoaster ride of fight scenes, vehicle chases, explosions, outrageous deaths and cool one-liners.

Deadwood's Timothy Olyphant plays the bad guy superhacker with a grudge against the Government and Maggie Q plays his kick-ass ninja girlfriend/head goon, both deliver great performances, despite Olyphant not talking through clenched teeth enough (watch Deadwood if you don't know what I mean).

An honourable mention should go here to the cameo appearance by Kevin Smith as hacker supremo and king of the nerds, 'Warlock'. I guess there must have been a meeting somewhere where the casting director asked 'who is the biggest nerdboy in Hollywood, we need a believable supergeek for this movie' and Kevin Smith was the answer.

I haven't seen the Transformers movie yet, and so I can't say for definite that this is the actionest film of the year, but I can definitely say that it will be in the top two.

File under 'A' for Action. A definite Yippee Kay Ay for DH4.0:LFODH.

Die Hard 4

Today marks the release of Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard so get those dirty vests on, pull out the Beretta 92 and get some bad guys. It's terrorism again, only this time it's cyber-terrorism. Yippee Kay Ay.

...and then there's Footloose.

There's just not enough homoerotic dance montages in movies these days, not like in the 80's when you had Kevin Bacon teaching Chris Penn how to bust chick-winning moves like 'skipping' and 'forward rolls' to the incredibly manly tune of 'Let's Hear It For The Boy' by Denice Williams. Who could resist ?

Dispelling all doubts about how gay Top Gun is...

Rambo Trailer

Sooner than I expected, but eagerly anticipated, here is the first trailer from the upcoming Rambo movie, John Rambo. Enjoy.

Heath Ledger's Joker: First Pics

The first picture of the joker from next years Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight has been released as part of a subtle advertising campaign for Gotham City District Attorney candidate, Harvey Dent. The first ad shows the campaign poster and the second, a vandalised version that dissolves into the face of The Joker himself.

The plot summary for the movie, according to IMDB is:

'Batman and Lt. Gordan work together to bring all the inmates and Crane back to justice. They soon find alliance with the new DA official, Harvey Dent who's Rachel Dawes' new partner. Out of all the escaped inmates, only one hasn't been captured. His name is Jack Napier, but refers to himself as the Joker. He becomes obsessed with Batman and uses his sick, twisted sense of humor to lure Batman out into the open by killing all that are close to him. Will Batman Bring him to Justice or has the Joker had the last laugh?'

For batman fans, this should be a good one. Batman Begins was a return to the darkness started with the 1989 Michael Keaton Batman movie, which unfortunately got lost with the following Batman Returns despite writing input from Bob Kane himself. We won't even go into (or link to) the awful Batman Forever or Batman & Robin.

Long live the Christian Bale/Michael Caine Batman & Alfred partnership.

Rambo IV

The first few stills from the forthcoming John Rambo movie have been released. The premise behind this movie is that Rambo has been recruited by a group of Christian human rights missionaries to protect them against pirates. After some of the missionaries are taken prisoner by sadistic Burmese soldiers, Rambo gets a second impossible job: to assemble a team of mercenaries to rescue the surviving relief workers. Hell yeah. See the pics and the site that I stole most of this post from here.

In a Dark Underworld, Ruled by Fear...

Vaguely remeniscent of John Woo's 'The Killer' is this fiesta of ridiculous kung fu and explosions starring Jet Li, Jason Statham and the lovely Devon Aoki, this is War. Jet Li plays an assassin bent on starting the aforementioned war, presumably between two lots of bad guys, or one lot of bad guys and the cops (not that it matters) and Statham is a renegade FBI agent bent on getting revenge.

If you're not hooked by the time the first line of intro is done, then you must be gay.

Trailerama...

Rob Zombie Vs The SS She-Wolves

Whilst reading the Wikipedia entry for Rob Zombie I discovered the following reference:

Also in the song "Living Dead Girl", Zombie sings "Operation Filth they love to love the wealth of an SS whore making scary sounds." This is possibly a reference to the notorious 1974 film Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS,

I can only assume that this is where the inspiration came for the 'Werewolf Women of the SS' trailer he directed for Grindhouse (I'd be very surprised if it came from another source, there can't be many SS Were-Women movies out there.

Must get me a copy.

Grindhouse

As many ActionClub posts are becoming, this is not a review of an 80s Action movie, but 'Grindhouse' is so remeniscent of the era that it must have a mention.

This is the new Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movie. Now, as you may or may not know, this movie is a two-part double feature with three trailers separating. First off is Rodriguez 'Planet Terror'.

PT is essentially a zombie movie centering around go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) and her dark loner ex-boyfriend, El Wray (Freddie Rodriguez - usually, I would put links to all the cast mentioned, but these two movies are so heavily populated that it will take far too long - you'll just have to go the the IMDB 'Grindhouse' page yourself and check out the incredible cast). Without giving anything away, Cherry loses her leg and has an assault rifle fitted by Wray for zombie killing action. There is loads of silly gore, a sex scene interrupted by a 'missing reel' apology card, incredible performances by Bruce Willis (as Lt. Muldoon), Naveen Andrews (as a ridiculous criminal genetic engineer) and Tarantino himself (who comes to a suitably sticky end). All in all, it's great fun and accurately represents loads of terrible movies I remember renting out during the 80's.

As mentioned before, the two movies were split by three spoof trailers: 'Werewolf Women of the SS' directed by Rob Zombie (which can be seen below); 'Don't' directed by Edgar Wright (which came as a nice surprise, featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) and 'Thanksgiving' directed by Eli Roth (who cameos in 'Deathproof'). Probably the best bit of the movie, but I won't spoil them by talking about them here. Needless to say, they are genius and complement the rest of the feature beautifully. The following is the whole of Rob Zombie's Werewolf Women trailer (spoiler alert).



After the interval comes Tarantino's 'Death Proof'. Kurt Russell plays the character of 'Stuntman Mike (who could almost be a pastiche of 'Snake' from 'The Simpsons'). DP is firmly split into two acts, both of which feature long scenes of characteristic Tarantino dialogue - by this I mean waffling that has little to do with plot and everything to do with character establishment. Sometimes taking a bit longer than they possibly should, contributing to making this the weaker of the two halves. Again, without giving anything away, Mike is a bad guy who gets his come-uppance just before the movie abruptly ends.

Rumour has it that Grindhouse is going to be split into two movies when released in the UK due to it's long running time of over 3 hours. Not sure why anyone would want do this as it is perfectly set up to have an interval in the middle, unlike some other freakishly long movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, JFK or the god-awful King Kong. If you do decide to see just one, I would recommend 'Planet Terror' but both are very entertaining and worth seeing.

Check out the official Grindhouse website and the trailer below.

Lost Boys 2: Loster Boys

Looks like filming is about to start on a long-anticipated sequel to the 1987 ActionClub favourite, The Lost Boys.

According to Moviehole.net and MovieWeb, Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangmans Daughter director P J Pesce is down to direct with an entirely new cast. Nothing to be found on IMDB yet though.

According MovieWeb:

'Titled The Lost Boys: The Tribe, this sequel will be one of Warner Brothers direct to DVD efforts. Shooting starts June 11th.'

Straight to DVD eh ? This sounds like it could go to either the 'utter dogshit' or 'cult classic' end of the ActionClub swingometer. Another love-it-or-hate-it in the making.

Be great if this one is the Lost Boys/24 crossover with an undead, blood-sucking Jack Bauer in the hunt for werewolves intent on destroying America. That would be cool.

Resident Evil in the Desert

I'm sorry that so many of these posts are non-80's based. This is the trailer for the next installment of the Resident Evil movie franchise, Resident Evil: Extinction. This time directed by Highlander director and pop video supremo, Russell Mulcahy (there's the 80s action connection for you) but still with original director Paul W S Anderson writing. Hopefully it'll be more Resident Evil than Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

It's all gone a bit Mad Max 2 by the looks of it, here s the official site and the trailer.

Collateral Damage

My favourite bit from the movie Collateral. Not strictly an 80's movie, but it was directed by Michael Mann who has his roots firmly in the 80s action of Miami Vice and LA Takedown and features one of the gods of the 80s movie scene, Tom Cruise. Great pistol work too from 'The Cruiser'.

Tribute to the work of John McClane

Happy Star Wars Day

May the Fourth be with you.

Lethal Weapon on Paper

Whilst surfing the world wide t'internet, I came across the script for Lethal Weapon so I thought I'd share it.

Digital Communism

Seen the 80's mini-series Wild Palms ? Think William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson are a pretty cool authors ? Like the idea of Apocalypse Now crossed with The Matrix ? If so, Harsh Realm is probably right up your street. Don't be mistaken in thinking that this is a Matrix rip-off though. This Chris Carter series was written and produced before The Matrix, but not released until three months after in 1999.

This is not the best thing that Chris Carter has ever written though, far from it. The X-Files and Millennium are both infinitely superior (although I can't say the same for the limp X-Files spin-off, The Lone Gunmen). HR is far from original. Fans of the cyberpunk genre will get a kick out of it despite weak characters and a thin plot as the eponymous 'Harsh Realm' is a textbook dystopian virtual reality society with the privaleged living inside a clean, prosperous mega-city at the expense of the less fortunate on the outside of the fence in the almost post-apocalyptic wasteland. In this respect it has a lot of similarities to James Cameron's Dark Angel in many ways. A great opening sequence and interesting symbolism typical of Chris Carter should, however, keep you watching.

Lost's Terry O'Quinn plays the series bad guy and Colonel Kurz-a-like, General Omar Santiago, and Max Martini (yes fols, that's his real name, sometimes known as Maximillian) from The Unit is his right-hand man and one-time best friend to the protagonist/hero, Lt Thomas Hobbes (Scott Bairstow). Also worthy of note is the cool, misunderstood sidekick with the shady past (I did say it was far from original), Mike Pinnochio (DB Sweeney, who has the coolest leg holster for his H&K MP5K).

If you give it the benefit of the doubt and sit back to watch the decent effects and think of it as a comic (it was heavily influenced, and (proven in court to have been) plagiarised from the graphic novel of the same name), then it an enjoyable nine episodes of well shot cyberpunk drama.

B-, could try harder.

Here is a link to an interesting Harsh Realm fansite and below is a clip from the first episode...

Robots in Disguise

Do remakes of 80's movies or TV series qualify as being ActionClub worthy ? I think so. Snakes on a Plane and SWAT have already had mentions here as I feel they are spiritually, if not actually 80s action movies.

The next question that I've been pondering in my search for the true identity of the AC blog is, should I post the trailer for the new Transformers movie. It is, after all, a child of the 80's (Transformers: The Movie, 1986), and Michael Bay directs everything as though he were still living in the 80s (check out his hair and wardrobe, as well as his movies if you don't believe me)...what the hell, better late than never (you've probably all seen it already), here it is.



Also worth a look is this TransformersTheMovie.com sister site. It also has the trailers as well as some interviews, teasers and other assorted Transformers news.

The Rookie, tonight on Channel 5

Yet another average action movie on TV tonight (25th April, Channel 5, 9pm). this time it's a fading-fast, pre-comeback Clint Eastwood with Charlie Sheen as his sidekick (and the eponymous rookie)in The Rookie. The plot revolves around a hackneyed buddy-movie format that also involves a car theft ring. The fact that it has Clint and Navy Seal superstar Charlie Sheen in does little for its worth, but having the late Raul Julia in it playing a bad guy called 'Strom' does help.

Timecop BBC1 23:35 Friday 27th April 2007

Okay, so it's not Kickboxer or Bloodsport, and it's not strictly an 80's actioner (having been released in 1994), but it's definately worth a watch as Van Damme's character Max Walker must violate the code of the Time Enforcement Comission, for whom he works, and travel back in time to avert the murder of his wife.

Directed by Peter Hyams who also directed End of Days and Capricorn One.

And the award for worst accent ever goes to...

Brion James as Requin in Tango & Cash. In this movie, James plays and evil henchmen (as opposed to all the other super versatile roles that he's been cast with) with an English accent that makes Dick Van Dyke look like Edward Fox.

T&C was the choice for the last ActionClub evening. It's not as good as I remember it, which isn't saying a lot. The casting of Sylvester Stallone as Raymond 'Ray' Tango, supposedly the intellectual one, was a spectacular miscalculation. Kurt Russell, as Gabriel Cash, just seemed to be playing the same part as he always does, either that, or he saw Lethal Weapon and wished he'd been cast as Riggs.

Some great one-liners, some incredibly gay scenes (in the prison shower talking about the size of one anothers cocks !), and some spectacularly awful bad guys (even Jack Palance couldn't save them) all rolled up into a movie that I probably won't watch again for about another 15 years. If you haven't seen it in a while, give it a go though. It's worth a watch, especially as it seems to turn into Delta Force at the end, with a ridiculous car chase/battle around the end-of-level bad guys secret lair.

Next stop, the Die Hard trilogy. Yippee-Kay-Ay !

Live Free or Die Hard

First off, I must apologise for neglecting the old AC website. I'm turning over a new leaf, then shooting whatever is underneath it and promise to do a better job of posting action alerts.

Secondly, the time is almost upon us. Bruce is putting on the dirty vest (despite the trailer showing no evidence of this, you just know it's there somewhere) for a fourth outing in the guise of supercop John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard. Coming to a cinema near you on the 27th June.

Check out the trailer...