Audiences haven’t gotten a lot of Sylvester Stallone in an ensemble cast. Sure, there was a fairly large gathering of stars in the Expendables flicks, but Sly was the star of those films, full stop. Cop Land came after a string of mild box office successes and a couple of flops. Sly’s stock in Hollywood was on the downswing, and when this movie came out, it was touted as a comeback, of sorts. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Cop Land”
Author: capcom
Stallone Month: Daylight
Daylight, the 1996 film from screenwriter Leslie Bohem and director Rob Cohen, should not be this bad of a movie. It’s the perfect vehicle for its star, and does absolutely nothing wrong in following the Irwin Allen disaster movie playbook. It’s swift and action-packed, and there’s enough tension that it should be able to keep a viewer’s attention. But, the characters. My God, the characters. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Daylight”
Stallone Month: Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd, the comic sprung from the minds of writers John Wagner and Alan Grant, has perhaps the most fully realized fictional universe in all of human storytelling. Every week since the late 1970s, with only a single exception, an issue of 2000 AD has been published with a Judge Dredd story inside. Since that time, the titular Judge Dredd and supporting characters have aged along with the rest of us, and the universe has retained the same continuity. Meanwhile, Judge Dredd’s superhero competitors retcon their universes ever time their sales need a punch up. DC recently carried out its 2nd reboot in five years. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Judge Dredd”
Stallone Month: The Specialist
When one thinks of Sylvester Stallone, the first things that come to mind might be Rocky and Rambo. Boxing and explosions. The underdog and the vengeful. There was very much a narrow lane where Sly felt comfortable both as an actor and as a filmmaker. The Specialist, from 1994, at first feels like it fits neatly into the narrative of Sly’s career. In it, he plays an ex-CIA explosives expert turned hitman. That short description brings to mind visions of fiery explosions, gunfights, and maybe even a final fight with a main bad guy. In other words, there is little reason to suspect this film is anything other than an action flick. But it’s not. It’s modern noir, something Sly hadn’t been part of in his career since, maybe, Nighthawks. Continue reading “Stallone Month: The Specialist”
Stallone Month: Demolition Man
I didn’t think I was going to like this silly movie. If not for this month of reviews, I doubt I would have seen it again, ever. Demolition Man feels like a pure expression of movie by committee. The action genre had had much of its life polished out of it by the time this flick came around in 1993. The effect on this film is that, bizarrely, it feels as much like a stage play at times as it does a movie. There is no possibility for suspension of disbelief, nor does the movie require it for the viewer to be entertained. The ideas behind the film are outlandish, something of which the filmmakers were aware. Therefore they wisely shied away from heavy-handed seriousness in favor of the absurd. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Demolition Man”
Stallone Month: Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
Seriously, this is a trailer for an actual movie.
What a putrid movie. I was going to skip this movie for Stallone Month in favor of one of Sly’s straight action flicks. But, after I saw the trailer, I decided this movie had to be included. Missile Test has a jones for shitty movies, after all. And this might be the shittiest movie Sylvester Stallone has ever appeared in, including Death Race 2000. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot”
Stallone Month: Rocky V
If Rocky IV is peak Rocky, then Rocky V is the story’s nadir. Whereas Rocky II was but pale imitation of the first film, Rocky V is caricature, its characters in many ways reduced to cartoon versions of those with which we have grown familiar. Mostly this is down to Sylvester Stallone. He was the one who ditched Rocky’s lovable lunkhead persona in the previous two films. But now he’s back, and poor. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Rocky V”
Stallone Month: Tango & Cash
Tango & Cash is somewhat of a watershed moment for the excessive 1980s style of action flick. It’s so ridiculous and over-the-top that a viewer could be forgiven if they thought this film was a spoof. It is not. However, it is an excellent example of what can go right and wrong in an action film, and in film productions in general. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Tango & Cash”
Stallone Month: Lock Up
“Lock Up is a strange lesson in how Hollywood movies are made…[W]e have a star, a theme, a shooting date, a budget, a studio, but…no script.” — John Flynn, director of Lock Up
I don’t know how often films are made on the fly, but in putting together Stallone Month, it seems that it was common for projects Sly worked on to barely make it to completion. Another commonality in these films is that Sly worked very hard to keep the projects together. Whether it’s Eye See You (later this month), or Tango & Cash (tomorrow), or today’s film, the people who worked with Sly are effusive in praising him for the efforts he made to make sure a movie came off. Still, production troubles rarely bode well for a film. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Lock Up”
Stallone Month: Rambo III
In the review for Rambo: First Blood Part II, I lamented that the film marked the end of a budding First Blood franchise, and the start of the Rambo franchise. Indeed, demoting, and then finally excising, the First Blood string from the title is as much a sign of the creative direction in these films as it was a marketing decision to promote the character of John Rambo, and the man who played him. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Rambo III”