Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) - Rodriguez goes digital and blows up his trilogy

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Three long-haired stars with sultry looks adorn this earthy-red poster for Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Guitar-playing hit-man El Mariachi becomes involved in a Mexican state coup, drug villains and lots - LOTS - of weapons.

 

Once Upon a Time in Mexico is written, co-produced, directed, photographed, edited and scored by great Texan filmmaker Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi (1992)). It is the final film in his Mariachi trilogy that also comprises El Mariachi and Desperado (1995).

The plot is confused and hard to recount, as the masculine, action-packed trilogy ends disappointingly here. Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a film that isn't much fun, isn't ever exciting, but instead reeks of indifference and superficiality; it is also a raining of stars over a specific country (Mexico) that was already going apart at the seams with homicidal violence when the film was made and released due to the criminal drug cartels, which the film tries to milk some pulpy entertainment out of - making it even less fun.

Rodriguez had impressed to the point of getting a star parade of Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2 (2010)), Antonio Banderas (The Body (2001)) and Willem Dafoe (A Woman (2010)) and many more to fall into this wretched action soup here. The film nevertheless has incredibly sexy turns from Johnny Depp (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)), Salma Hayek (Americano (2011)) and Enrique Iglesias (How I Met Your Mother (2007, TV-series)), as well as some photography, stunts and special effects tricks that work. Rodriguez had become a technically superior filmmaker at this point in his career, - but he forgot (or perhaps ignored) with Once Upon a Time in Mexico that all the work still comes down to making a good film.

 

Related posts:

Robert Rodriguez:  The Faculty (1998) or, Teacher Encounters of the Third Kind

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
From Dusk till Dawn (1996) - Tarantino, Rodriguez and chums' enjoyable Mexico vampire extravaganza
Desperado (1995) - Rodriguez' second Mexico actioner is a sexy, latino fireball 

Four Rooms (1995) - Rodriguez, Tarantino & Co. fail with LA hotel anthology comedy (segment) 

 

 

Watch 3 minutes from the beginning of the film here

 

Cost: 29 mil. $

Box office: 98.7 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.40 times its cost)

[Once Upon a Time in Mexico premiered 27 August (Venice Film Festival) and runs 102 minutes. Rodriguez reportedly wrote the script in 6 days. Shooting took place from May - June 2001 in Texas and Mexico. It was allegedly the first big budget film to shoot in be shot in HD digital video, a change that Rodriguez since championed and stuck with in subsequent films. The film opened #1 to a 23.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#4), grossing 56.3 mil. $ (57 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 7.1 mil. $ (7.2 %) and the UK with 4.4 mil. $ (4.5 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. Rodriguez returned with 5 shorts prior to his theatrical return with The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D (2004). Banderas returned in And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself (2003, TV movie) and theatrically in Imagining Argentina (2003); Hayek in After the Sunset (2004); and Depp in Secret Window (2004). Once Upon a Time in Mexico is fresh at 66 % with a 6.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Once Upon a Time in Mexico? 

Iron Man 2 (2010) - Favreau and Theroux's boisterous, entertaining sequel

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1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Sound (lost to Insidious) 

+ Best Superhero Movie of the Year

The very professionally crafted poster for Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2

Iron Man is under pressure: The Iron Man suit makes him sick, the US military wants his technology and a bitter Russian by the name of Vanko is joining forces with his competitor Justin Hammer to eradicate him...

Unlike many other critics, I feel that the second chapter in the Iron Man trilogy is a vast improvement over the first film. It contains the rather bizarre parring of Robert Downey Jr. (The Shaggy Dog (2006)) and Mickey Rourke (Point Blank (1998)). - Few if any would have believed 15 years ago that these two troublemakers would be heading a major superhero movie, commanding the world box office in 2010.
Rourke plays the villainous Whiplash, who comprises the film's excellent heel duo together with Sam Rockwell (Moon (2009)). Everything sparkles here; the dialog is smart and snappy, and although Stark's narcissism gets the best of him in the second half of the film, he gets much better counter-balance in this sequel than in the first film; from smolderingly sexy Scarlett Johansson (The Jungle Book (2016)), pal Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda (2004)) and Garry Shandling (Trust the Man (2005)), who is very funny as a senator that tries to oppose Tony Stark aka. Iron Man.
None of the action is revolutionary, but it's done with a sense of joy. This is a tall tale of Hollywood nonsense, glittering and ridiculous, but enjoyable nonetheless because it is well-made and thoroughly dedicated in all of its well-sounding formula affection.
Iron Man 2 is solid good fun throughout. It is written by Justin Theroux (Rock of Ages (2012)) and directed by Jon Favreau (Elf (2003)), who left the director's chair on the franchise after doing these two first films.

Related posts:

Jon Favreau: The Jungle Book (2016) - Favreau's great, widest appealing movie to date
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 200 mil. $
Box office: 623.9 mil. $
= Box office success
[Iron Man 2 premiered April 26 (El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood) and runs 125 minutes. One of the things that raises the film is that it replaced Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle, a decision that didn't go over silently, understandably. Filming lasted 71 days from April - July 2009 in Monaco, California and England. The film opened #1 to a 128.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed atop for one more week before getting the boot from Shrek Forever After and grossed 312.4 mil. $ (50.1 % of the total gross). It had the highest-grossing opening weekend in North America of 2010, where it was also the third highest-grossing film of the year after Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland. Internationally, it was the 7th highest grossing film of the year. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 30.4 mil. $ (4.9 %) and South Korea with 27 mil. $ (4.3 %). The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Effects, losing to Inception. Iron Man 2 is certified fresh at 72 % with a 6.5 critical average.]

What do you think of Iron Man 2?

The Expendables (2010) - Stallone's unification of action legends is great fun

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2 Film Excess nominations:

Best Director: Sylvester Stallone (lost to Sofia Coppola for Somewhere)
Best Practical Effects (lost to Inception)
 
+ Best Action Movie of the Year
+ Best Ensemble of the Year

The fierce, gun-crazed poster for Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables

The Expendables are a team of mercenaries, about four older guys and one Chinaman (Jet Li (War (2007)), and they get hired by a man named Mr. Church to take down a South-American dictator.

The Expendables, written by Dave Callaham (Doom (2005)) and co-writer-director-star Sylvester Stallone (Rocky II (1979)), is an event in and of itself. It brings together the heaviest artillery in the American action genre in a way that hasn't ever been seen before: Stallone, Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator (1984)), Bruce Willis (Die Hard (1988)), Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher (1989)), Mickey Rourke (Bullet (1996)), Jason Statham (The Transporter (2002)) and more. In a movie that - for a fan of the genre mind you - really works. Just about everything explodes, while the dialog is sharp and the rock rumbles on the soundtrack.
"Looking for wörk?", as Arnold asks at one point in the film. - And 'hell yeah', we might respond as grateful, action-loving audiences!

Related posts:

Sylvester Stallone:  The Expendables 3 (2014) - Unique, bizarre, largely entertaining third action fireball
The Expendables 2 (2012) - An over-packed action hot-air balloon
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Cop Land (1997) - Stallone faces corruption and turns in some good acting in fine crime drama 
Demolition Man (1993) - Romantic sci-fi popcorner from the good ol' action days of yore
Cobra (1986) - Stallone and Nielsen glitter in lowbrow action fare
Death Race 2000 (1975) - AIP's dystopic car smash

Here are the stars of the film at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con to promote it

Cost: 82 mil. $
Box office: 274.5 mil. $
= Box office success
[The Expendables premiered August 3 (Hollywood) and runs 103 minutes. The film is a reworking of a 2005 script by Callaham titled Barrow. Filming took place from April - July 2009 in Brazil, Louisiana and LA. The film opened #1 with a 34.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed on top for another week with about half as big a take, grossing 103 mil. $ (37.5 % of the total gross). The film's 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 31.7 mil. $ (11.5 %) and the UK with 15.9 mil. $ (5.8 %). The Expendables is rotten at 41 % with a 5.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Expendables?

Domino (2005) - T. Scott's bounty-hunter biopic a complete misfire, mega-flop

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+ Worst Poster of the Year  

Keira Knightley, now obviously a shotgun-toting action heroine, on one of the lazily done and very uninspiring posters for Tony Scott's Domino

QUICK REVIEW:

A cool team of bounty hunters somehow become a reality TV series, but then get mixed up with a Vegas billionaire and a mob boss, SPOILER and everyone dies.

Domino is based on real-life model turned bounty hunter Domino Harvey, but how much of what happens in the film has any connection to reality is unclear. Unfortunately, by the end of the fatiguing, dull film, I didn't care at all.
Because what is Tony Scott's (The Hunger (1983)) Domino, written by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko (2001))? - An action movie? Nah... - A heist movie? Not really... - A thriller? Far from it... The film is like a failed mix of all these things.
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler (2008)) spits out his lines in the film, so that they glimmer of coolness, and the story does take some fun detours, like the bit about The First Ladies and Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green (Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990-00), both) playing themselves.
But mostly, Scott's 127 minutes long Domino is a stressful, flashing, music-video-like creation, sure to be counted among the late, English master filmmaker's worst.

Related review:
Tony Scott:  Stoker (2013) - Chan-wook Park's over-styled American debut revolts and bores in turns (producer) 

Déjà Vu (2006) - T. Scott cuts a helluva suspense-cake!

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch the horrible trailer for the film here

Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 22.9 mil. $
= Mega-flop
[Fox, who had a refusal deal with Scott, must count themselves lucky that they decided to forgo any involvement in Domino. The real Domino was paid a huge sum for the rights to her story, but as a drug addict, this obviously backfired: Before the film opened, she died from a drug overdose.  Scott has said that the film is among his favorites of his own. He also committed suicide, 7 years after the release, in 2012. Domino's release was delayed several times, and the film eventually opened to bad reviews and a dismal 4.6 mil. $ opening weekend in North America, where it only played for 4 weeks, grossing 10.1 mil. $ (44 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of Domino?

The Pledge (2001) - Maddening, realistic, unpleasant child-killer story

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Jack Nicholson as the restless cop on the poster for Sean Penn's The Pledge

The Pledge is Sean Penn's (Into the Wild (2007)) third foray into directing following The Indian Runner (1991) and The Crossing Guard (1995), which is also with Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt (2002)). Of the two, I definitely prefer The Crossing Guard, but it may be a matter of taste more than quality difference.
The Pledge is based on Swiss author/playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella Das Versprechen:Requiem for den Kriminalroman/The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel (1958), which has been adapted before in Germany and the UK.
It is a story of a retiring cop in a country county, who on the eve of his retirement party helps out at a crime scene, where a little girl has been found ravaged and murdered. He pledges to the girl's grieving mother (Patricia Clarkson (The East (2013)), who is strong in the part) that he will find the killer, and then watches at the station, as the accused, mentally disadvantaged Indian (Benicio Del Toro) is more or less coaxed into an ambiguous confession by a colleague with a hard-on for closing the case (Aaron Eckhart), before the Indian SPOILER steals a gun and blows his brains out. Jerry (Nicholson) is retired, but he can't let the case rest: What if the killer wasn't this Indian? What if the monster is still out there?
The story is told so that we have no problem understanding why this will not let Jerry's mind rest. An important decision in that regard is that we see crime scene photos of a similar crime a little while into the film, which is truly horrifying and aligns us with Jerry completely.
But then kicks in the Requiem for the Detective Novel-part in The Pledge, because Jerry's efforts are essentially SPOILER fruitless: His hunger for justice and peace of mind turns into an obsession and eventually crumbles his mind completely, as we see in the film's last shots of Nicholson spazzing out. Even more maddening is the fact that we see that he was close to the solution and salvation, - but just missed it. It bears reminiscence to the ending of Penn's later Northern tale, Into the Wild, in which the lead Christopher dies of sickness and hunger isolated in an abandoned bus in Alaska much closer to civilization than he thinks he is.

The details:

The Pledge is well-played, although I think there was a single mis-tune to Nicholson's performance, when he has to make us and some colleagues understand why this case is so obsessively important, and I could see the actor taking the leap to up the stakes for his character, but a little too late. - He's good in the film, granted, but it's not among his greatest performances. Also the character seems somewhat lean: When asked about why he isn't married at one point, he replies that he's a "two-time loser". - Which could mean at least two and really several things, but we never learn. - Never learn much about Jerry besides his obsession. In that sense, The Pledge remains strictly a detective movie and stays clear of drama-elements about the character's past, but since it is a detective story about not finding a solution, (although we as audiences do see the solution), it is an almost maddeningly frustrating time.
- Also because of the subject matter, child abduction, -rape and -murder, which made me uncomfortable before the film was also about the killer being an elusive son of a *****, AND Jack Nicholson losing his mind. Thiscombined weight of this whole stack of unpleasant things is too much for me to still basically enjoy the film, which I must say that I didn''t. Also because it is fiercely realistic and very well-made, photography-wise (Chris Menges (The Reader (2008)) and acting-wise: Vanessa Redgrave also gives a great performance in a single scene as the murdered girl's grandmother. And the ensemble cast is very impressive with additional stars Sam Shepard, Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Mickey Rourke (who is also moving as a father of a missing daughter) and Harry Dean Stanton.
Penn is in pre-production with another film right now which he will direct called The Last Face.

Related reviews:

Sean Penn as actor:  Gangster Squad (2013) or, Good Men vs. Bad Men! 
The Tree of Life (2011) or, Mother, Father, Sharks, Dinosaurs, My Brothers, Sunflowers, the Desert, the Wind and Me 
21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life 

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 35 mil. $
Box office: 29.4 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of The Pledge?

Angel Heart (1987) - Parker's stylish devil-lurking holds limited punch

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Robert De Niro in ominous, omnipresent black surrounds Mickey Rourke's desperate protagonist on this dark poster for Alan Parker's Angel Heart

In 1955's New York, detective Angel takes an assignment from a man with long nails called Louis Cypher: He is to track down a lost crooner by the name Johnny Favorite. It leads Angel to New Orleans, where corpses start to get in the way in a case that entails a sombre relation to black magic.

Angel Heart is written and directed by great English filmmaker Alan Parker (Bugsy Malone (1976)), adapting William Hjortsberg's (Gray Matters (1971)) novel Falling Angel (1978). It combines an erotic detective thriller with mystery and religious elements.
The depiction of the 1950s milieu in New York and New Orleans is brimming with atmosphere, - especially the film's dirty South half.
Unfortunately, Parker's script doesn't keep up with the pleasures of the film's visual side: The copious yet sudden ending doesn't get the necessary clout to really stick. The film remains interesting but not truly successful. Mickey Rourke (The Crawl (2001)) is auspicious in another colorful detective movie, (though Michael Cimino's great Year of the Dragon (1985) is better), SPOILER and Robert De Niro (Ronin (1998)) is memorable as the devil in disguise.


Related post:

Alan Parker: The Commitments (1991) - 90's hole-in-the-wall Ireland gives birth to ... - A soul sensation! 
 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 18 mil. $
Box office: 17.1 mil. $ (North America only)
= Some uncertainty - but almost certainly a big flop (returned 0.95 times its cost domestically)
[Angel Heart was released 6 March (USA) and runs 113 minutes. Hjortsberg adapted his novel and wanted it adapted after its publication, but studios were wary of the dark property, until Parker became involved and secured financing through indie company Carolco International. Bill Cosby helped cast Lisa Bonet (Biker Boyz (2003)), star of his The Cosby Show (1984-91), - and panned the film as racist when it was released. Shooting took place in New Jersey, New York and in Louisiana, including New Orleans, from March - July 1986. The MPAA initially gave the film an X-rating, forcing Parker to edit out ten seconds of Rourke's buttocks from a sex scene to receive the R-rating. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release Lethal Weapon and holdover hits A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Platoon, to a 3.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America. The foreign grosses are regrettably unreported online: A likely final gross of 20-25 mil. $ would put the film in the big flop category. Roger Ebert gave it a 3½/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. Parker returned with Mississippi Burning (1988). Rourke returned in A Prayer for the Dying (1987); De Niro in The Untouchables (1987). Angel Heart is fresh at 77 % with a 7.16/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Angel Heart?