The Naked Gun and Ice Road: Vengeance

Liam Neeson to the rescue!

The Naked Gun (2025)

This comedic legacy sequel of the old 1994 Naked Gun movies has Liam Neeson in the main role as the son of the previous protagonist. It better pacing and more modern effects while keeping the same tone, silly plot and sense of humor as the previous ones. That last point is pretty important actually, because if you didn't like the jokes before you're not going to like the gags here either. The opening five minutes will be a pretty good indicator of if you'll be on board or not. I liked it, but it's not a great film. :P

Ice Road: Vengeance

This sequel to the Ice Road has Liam Neeson's protagonist from the first film head over to Nepal where  he is waylaid by bad guys and given an excuse to make this an action flick! Not sure about the timing and pacing in some parts but I do like that plot armor is weaker in this which makes it a more enjoyable watch than the first movie. He does do less driving here though, so if you preferred him behind the wheel instead of kicking ass then the first movie will be better for you.

The Marksman and Officer Black Belt

Dealing with criminals in their own way.

The Marksman

A veteran soldier and failing farmer (played by Liam Neeson) at the Mexican border comes across a mother and son illegally crossing the fence as they are pursued by a Mexican cartel who want them back. Our protagonist is torn between deporting them or helping them, and annoyingly this continues throughout the majority of the movie. Being on the fence so much is not a great quality, and with excess scenes and low on screen body count it doesn't really make for a great movie. Skip.

Officer Black Belt

A natural athlete and martial artist (played by Kim Woo-bin) is recruited into the South Korean probation officer task force where they must monitor and handle aggressive probation violators with non-lethal close quarter combat. It is a decent action comedy, with decidedly more action than comedy (especially with the bad guys, as they are freaking dark), and a pretty good story which only gets sloppy at the end. Better that I thought it would be. Recommended!

The Ice Road and All the Light We Cannot See

Two conditions you probably shouldn't be driving in? :P

The Ice Road

When an accident gets some people trapped in a mine, it is up to down to a few truckies including one played by Liam Neeson to sign up for a dangerous drive against time across a frozen lake while hauling a heavy load of equipment to save the trapped men before their air runs out. Since the writers figured that was too boring, they also decided to make it an action movie which results in some very poor brawling sequences, poor effects, and a questionable plot that is teeming with inconsistencies. It's not very good but it might still appeal for people that like watching big rigs doing things they shouldn't normally be doing.

All the Light We Cannot See

This four episode mini-series follows a blind French girl and a German soldier who have a shared passion for radios during World War II. While there are good sets, acting, effects and an interesting enough story, there's a heavy use of flashbacks (*bum-bummmm noise*) and in some parts you can actually feel the plot armor on some characters. Had this been told chronologically I think I would have liked it better. I mean, all the bits are filmed anyway for the audience but how they are revealed is mostly when someone asks a character about their past. Instead of having a plot that spans however many years, the entire story (the part that matters where all the "stakes" are) just takes place in a few days.

Only in occasions where someone is discovering the past through unrelated characters should flashbacks be considered, like in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Anyway, that's just my little nitpick. It's still enjoyable as it is.

Blacklight and Atlantic Rim: Resurrection

Movies with silly plots.

Blacklight

This action thriller follows an aging and paranoid FBI "fixer" (played by Liam Neeson) who isn't technically FBI but somehow is more skilled than FBI agents when it comes to saving them or killing them as he stumbles into a plot which involves a secret FBI branch murdering innocent US citizens which isn't in his moral compass. It's an ok premise I guess but seriously everyone passes around the stupid ball throughout the film to make idiotic decisions. Even with your brain turned off you might not enjoy this one but it is still leagues better than...

Atlantic Rim: Resurrection

Giant monsters from the deep are terrorizing the world so mankind sends giant robots to stop them... again - because apparently this is a sequel movie but not to the ones you might be thinking of. No, this is a terrible copy-pasta (the signature trademark of The Asylum studio) which involves very short, poor quality bursts of CGI interspersed between ridiculously long and pointless conversation pieces in bland rooms with non-functional stage equipment. A prime example where at least a third of the cast could have been done away with and it would have resulted in a better movie.

On the flip side - we get the hilarious scenes where the military runs out of pilots (a grand total of three of them) to fly the mechs, and characters hiding behind a locked door, which is simply opened with no problem when they are rescued. Said characters have no bearing on the story. Not recommended unless you are in the mood for this sort of thing!

Decluttering Day 18: Old and shredded/disintegrating pillow case. Not sure how this got to the disintegration stage as it was just in its own plastic container but there you go.

Hunters in the Snow: Hold the Dark Grey Wind River

A trio of movie mysteries involving hunters and canines.

Let's shoot some stuff!

Hold the Dark

A hunter (Jeffrey Wright) is called into a remote Alaskan village to track and kill a canine that took a child but soon learns he's actually stepped in the shit once he finds what he is looking for. Now this action mystery is pretty decent at holding my attention, especially since there is a surprisingly high body count.

My biggest complaint is the cinematographer took the title too literally though, as most shots have poor (or in some occasions ZERO) lighting. Other than that the acting is ok, the plot actually puts enough hints so that you can see the ending by the time you get there, and the action pieces - though few and far between - are quite good. Can't recommend it as it's not your standard type of movie, but I enjoyed it and would probably watch it again. Two duct taped rifles out of five.

The Grey

When a plane goes down in some remote and snowy mountains it is up to the resident hunter (Liam Neeson) to try keep the survivors alive against both the elements and a pack of vicious wolves.

While this survival film does a decent job at giving each survivor a personality and nice sets, the CGI wolves are very large, mean and script driven which is only found in the mutant Hollywood breed. :P Still an entertaining watch, but one I wish didn't end so abruptly. Two and a half boom sticks out of five.

Wind River

When hunter (Jeremy Renner) working on the titular Indian Reservation finds a human corpse, he quickly gets recruited to aid the authorities (who are severely low on man power) to assist.

Apart from one segment early on with way too many cuts and some whispered poems this murder mystery is a pretty decent one that keeps a good pace and has decent action pieces. Also, it really does feel like it could be a Longmire episode at times so if you like that show you will probably enjoy this (and vice versa). I give it three lions out of five.

Double Neeson: Run all Night and Non Stop

Run all Night

An estranged father has one night to mend bridges with his kid. And kill all the bad guys.

Liam Neeson is an aging and retired hit man who happens to be best friends with mob boss Ed Harris. Unfortunately the sons of these two guys get into dispute and ultimately force them to fight each other because, hey - it's more entertaining that way, and way more violent. Liam is back in his "Taken" level of skill which is fantastic as he tries to protect his unappreciative kid. It's a simple enough story backed by good actors and good camera shots.

Get off my lawn.

Is it too simple a story though? I literally summarized the entire film in those few sentences, so maybe. You can also expect the mandatory car chase sequence and bad guys with terrible aim as per usual. Still worth a watch for Liam fans or action buffs though. I give it three people in the wrong place at the wrong time out of five and wouldn't mind watching it again.

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Non-Stop

Every 20 minutes, someone dies. And 20 minutes goes fast with editing! :P

Liam Neeson finds himself on a plane that is being hijacked by a very sneaky bastard. Can he find the bad guy in time before something bad happens!? The story is pretty simple and surprisingly clean in this one, despite how tricky the "who is the bad guy" aspect tries to be - and there are quite a few people to keep the audience guessing for the majority of the flick. I also quite like that almost the entire movie takes place on a plane, and that the actors all around fit their parts well. Also good to see Corey Stoll in something outside the Strain (a series I quite enjoy).

Dr. Goodweather taking a break from strigoi...

I do have to raise a point about the questionable physics towards the end, but since most of the science breaking stuff is bundled up in a small pile towards the end and goes by pretty fast I can almost look past it. Almost. Unfortunately due to the thriller aspect I can't really say more than that without giving anything away so I'll wrap up here. I quite enjoyed this film and would definitely watch it again. For any action fans, or Neeson fans, or Taken fans you will probably enjoy this film too. All up I give it three airplanes out of five.

Battleship

Where "communicate with aliens" actually means lure them here so we can massacre those f*ckers.

Scientists have found another Earth like planet far, far away and (possibly because they are morons) decide to try communicate with it. The aliens respond with an invasion. Thanks moronic scientists! Fortunately for us, the aliens have really, really slow ships that move like frogs which means the first third of the movie is spent making the main hero look like a douche bag asshole and does the job brilliantly. So well in fact, that you hope he dies slowly and miserably when the aliens do come, which involves some very nice CGI. It also turns into a somewhat decent action flick that tries to pay homage to both the navy and the battleship board game with an extended Liam Neeson cameo.

Given the ratio of water to land on this planet, that's not hard to imagine.

Unfortunately the aliens are stupid. They clearly have flaws in their technology which lets the modern standard of warships be on equal footing. For some reason they also can't decide if they want to kill people or not. That's a pretty big problem I would think? All the stuff with the scientists and ground based story line could have been compressed to just the army guy, and that whole opening part should have been removed because even after the movie is done - the hero is still a douche bag. All up I give this film two chicken burritos out of five, and don't have any desire to see it again.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

The boring version of Taken.

Liam Neeson is back as a private investigator trying with an alcohol troubled past who is convinced to help some criminals catch other criminals who are hacking up their loved ones. There's a fair bit of sleuthing around and talking and not a lot of fighting / gun play which makes the story move a little slowly. Also, the body count again is quite low (for me) and Liam spends most of the time talking his way out of fights (which would make more sense).

So... I literally just walk around for most of this film? Screw that.

(My version of what should have happened: Walking Away from the Stupid Movie)

My problems with the film are Liam's filler "sidekick" who is quite irritating, that there are lots of stupid people who fail their observation checks (except for Liam), and the fact that the "victim" criminals don't want to call the police for assistance. That just shows to me the "victims" care more about themselves than the actual "victims" and aren't worth helping in my book. Anywho its a "meh" story, not one I want to see again, and I give it one shot glass out of five.

You should give this a skip and instead watch Unknown or even better, the Taken series which I believe are much better movies of a similar type.

Unknown

A case of stolen identity.

Liam Neeson arrives in Berlin with his wife to attend a conference but due to a pretty bad plot device of forgetting a bag at the airport, he gets into an accident and subsequently finds out that his identity has been taken by someone else AND to make things worse is no longer recognized by his wife! It's pretty tough to be in a foreign country without an ID and it only gets worse for him from there.

Apart from that first silliness with the bag, the rest of the plot is actually fantastic and the CGI effects are again at a low, relying on the more risky stunt people and cars routine which is much better for the realism factor of the tale. It's a good mix of action and suspense which I can easily recommend to everyone, and while he's not as murderous as his Taken counterpart, Liam here is still fun to watch. I give this movie three and a half forgotten bags out of five and wouldn't mind watching it a second time.

Today I Smiled: Video Update Temple

A video-link heavy post today, mostly thanks to my late viewing of the Superbowl related stuff! Apart from Katy Perry's halftime show (yeah, I'm a fan), my favorite ads were the ones for Clash of Clans, Snickers, and Esurance's Say my Name. I quite liked the Toyota Camry one too but for different reasons. Guess I'm a sucker for "dad" ads now.

Seen all of that? Maybe you'll enjoy Penn and Teller's anti-anti vaccination vid, or these Japanese commercial featuring sizzling maids or this ... other weird one. Tired of vids? Maybe this article on Iceland building a new temple to the Norse gods is what you need.

I've also revisited Forced recently and found that in now has coop save points, making it much more playable than it was before. Also updated is the link to the Neverwinter Nights module by my brother, Dragonlord, which had moved to the NWNVaults awhile back. In bigger update news Feng Lee's Attack on Titan game has gotten some awesome upgrades. If you are a fan of Shingeki no Kyojin I suggest you give it a try, though be warned - the steep learning curve hasn't changed one bit!

The graphics got better, but not quite as good as Tybee Diskin sitting in a tree. :P

Lastly I've added 12 new blogs on the Paths I Travel link to the right, mostly taken from Massively's farewell page. Always good to have more things to read. I'm also interested to see if  they can withstand my simple "rule".

Hope you all have a lovely day!

Taken 3

The Mills family continues its terrible run of luck forcing Liam Neeson to get violent once more.

I quite liked the previous Taken movies, unfortunately this one just doesn't seem up to par. Yes, we get to see the hero from the first two films do his thing again here against an unknown threat which makes an interesting premise. The enemies also seem to be higher level / last longer in this movie but the problem is that there is a shortage of them. Actually, more to the point is that there is a shortage of the hero doing his thing, and that he has mellowed out a little I think.

Still likes to feed the bad guys lead though. Literally.

I'd say maybe a third or a fourth of the movie focuses on the police as they try do their thing, ineptly. They could have easily been nameless characters to let the movie go faster. The hero's daughter is also more of a place holder for a plot device than in the first movie, yet possibly gets more screen time here where she doesn't really do much - that is a pretty impressive feat when you think about it.

Lesser problems for me would be switching Xander Berkley for Dougray Scott (probably unavoidable due to scheduling) and having a long credit opening that does nothing to advance the story other than fly around a city. Woo. I'm nitpicking on credits these days, I think I'll make a post on that in the future... for now though, I'll finish up by giving Taken 3 two and a half bullets out of five and recommend watching it only if you liked the first two movies a lot. Don't expect that level of quality here though.

Taken and Taken 2

[Post #24 of the Blaugust Challenge!]

I had the pleasure of watching these movies back to back so I thought I'd review them both in one hit. Taken tells the story of a stupid girl who manages to get herself kidnapped by some very bad Albanians. Unfortunately for them, a borderline obsessive and sadistically psychopatic Liam Neeson is quite attached to her and happens to be excellent at tracking down scum and making them suffer.

While my summary might be brief, it is an awesome to watch Liam's character on the hunt. There are a few intentionally annoying characters, but they all get their comeuppance during the course of the film. There are also very good action sequences and plausible enough gun play (though there's a bad guy at the end who must have been drunk to have missed someone of the protagonist's size with an automatic weapon).

He does benefit from some good luck too.

Taken 2 continues the story where the relatives of the Albanians killed in the first movie are out for revenge, so they do the logical thing and try to kidnap the protagonist and his entire family. Of course this doesn't quite go as planned as Liam's kill count just keeps going up. Fewer annoying characters this time around, replaced by a truck load of stunt men and women on narrow roads during chase scenes. The combat here is also pretty good, though the bad guys are hampered somewhat by occasionally not using lethal force (the perils of capture missions).

Both movies do have plot holes, mainly dealing with "how the hell do you kill so many people or throw grenades into public areas and not get arrested," sort of thing but they are easily overlooked with the enjoyment factor while watching. I give Taken four bullets out of five and Taken 2 three and a half bullets out of five - slightly less than the first movie because I felt the plot wasn't as tight, but still very enjoyable. 

Blaugust Bonus: I don't really have a strong urge to travel to see the world, so instead I might just talk about another of Belghast's writing prompts today -  "What is your favorite game biome? Games often have the same kinds of generic climates spread through the zones and levels. What is your favorite type of climate and why?"

An environment that's pretty is common place these days, which is why I'm picking a strange one - an environment that puts the player on edge is my current favorite. I am talking about the infested ships circling Eris in Warframe, especially the hive missions there where you (and your team if you have one) are sent to eradicate the infestation spawning pools on warped and partially broken space vessels. Ok, more than partially as you have sections where there is no atmosphere and you take constant damage while on your space walk. Of course, the endless swarm of aberrant creatures have no problem with it.

If you aren't outside running out of breath then you are in the claustrophobic, twisted maze of broken metal melding into the disgusting infestated biomass of growths and tumors. Bodies of the previous inhabitants can be found here too, and the blood curdling violin music helps set the scene nicely. No, it's not a pretty place. It's not even a nice place to visit, but it is one of the best "horror" setups I've run into which perfectly fit thematically to the game.