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A somewhat bland poster for Renny Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning
Father Merrin is a priest who has fallen from his faith, as he gets hired to work as an archaeologist at a buried church in Africa, which shouldn't exist. SPOILER - It turns out the be a church of Lucifer!
Exorcist: The Beginning, written by Alexi Hawley (The Following (2014-15)), with Caleb Carr (Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)) and William Wisher Jr. (Judge Dredd (1995)) contributing story elements, and directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger (1993)), is a tolerably decent prequel to William Friedkin's original masterpiece The Exorcist (1973). Stellan Skarsgård (Beowuld & Grendel (2005)) is ideally cast as a younger version of Merrin, so memorably played by Max Von Sydow in the original. Exorcist: The Beginning is a totally different type of film, and its best moments are primarily in the devious, subterranean church. It is marred by an ugly CGI-rendered hyena attack and general overuse of closeups. Exorcist: The Beginning is an unobtrusive and forgettable horror.
Here's the first minute of the film from a VHS release
Cost: 50 mil. $ Box office: 78 mil. $ = Big flop [Exorcist: The Beginning premiered 18 August (Hollywood) and runs 114 minutes. The film came to be as a reaction to Paul Shrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005), the original prequel film, which Shrader had made too talky, slow and un-gory for the studios' (Morgan Creek Productions and distributor Warner Bros.) liking, and so he was fired, and a new prequel was produced: Skarsgård stars in both films, but Harlin is reportedly responsible for most of what is seen in Exorcist: The Beginning. Shooting took place from November 2003 - February 2004 in Casablanca, Morocco and Italy, including in Rome's Cinecittà Studios. The film isn't consistent with the facts stated in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) about the African setting and possessed boy there. It opened #1 with 18 mil. $ in North America, where it fell to #5 in its second week before leaving the top 5 and grossed 41.8 mil. $ (53.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Italy with 7.5 mil. $ (9.6 %) and Spain with 5.2 mil. $ (6.7 %). Shrader was subsequently allowed to release his 30 mil. $ movie, which grossed an even worse, catastrophic 251k $ domestically. Sometimes the Exorcist: The Beginning cost is erroneously listed as 80 mil. $, the combined budget of the two films. Friedkin has called Exorcist: The Beginning his "most humiliating professional experience." Exorcist: The Beginning is rotten at 11 % with a 3.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Saffron Burrows (Mozart in the Jungle (2014-15)) should have stayed out of the water on the poster for Renny Harlin's Deep Blue Sea
QUICK REVIEW: Sharks with enlarged brains haunt a marine station during a big storm. A group of people fight for survival. Deep Blue Sea has almost no scares, but it has enormous explosions and a strong primary star, sharks. The script, by Duncan Kennedy (Curse of the Talisman (2001)) and Donna Powers (The Italian Job (2003)), is pitiful, the dialog downright ridiculous. Thomas Jane (The Mist (2007)) and LL Cool J (Grudge Match (2013)) are both okay, everything considered, while Michael Rapaport (Pound Puppies (2010-13)) is highly unbelievable as a professor. Finlander director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger (1993)) adds yet another botch to his resume with Deep Blue Sea. Related reviews: Renny Harlin: Cleaner (2008) or, Suit-Wearing Papa Cleaner-Man!
Cost: 60 mil. $ Box office: 164.6 mil. $ = Box office success [It has been reported that the film was devised by Kennedy in an act of purging himself of having witnessed a victim of a shark attack by writing it. The film was shot entirely in Mexico, with a high level of awareness and references paid to of/to Steven Spielberg's killer shark masterpiece Jaws (1975). It opened #3 with 25.1 mil. $ (including Thursday screenings) in North America, where it grossed 73.6 mil. $ (44.7 % of the total gross). Deep Blue Sea is rotten at 56 % with a 5.6 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of Deep Blue Sea? Besides the obvious Jaws, what are some good shark movies in your opinion?
Bruce Willis needs to step up to a terrorist challenge once again, in Renny Harlin's Die Hard 2
QUICK REVIEW:
Two years after the explosive attack in Los Angeles, NYPD cop John McClane is going to Washington Dulles International Airport to pick up his wife Holly on Christmas Eve. But a band of mean terrorists have other plans!
Die Hard 2 is the effective sequel to the 1988 hit. It has a variegated story; we don't have the claustrophobia-inducing tower of the first film, but apart from this, not much has changed fundamentally. The script, by Doug Richardson (Bad Boys (1995)) and Steven E. de Souza (Die Hard (1988)), is based on the novel 58 Minutes (1987) by Walter Wager (Death Hits the Jackpot (1954)). William Sadler (Iron Man 3 (2013)) plays the villain, and he isn't quite as slithering and unpleasant as Alan Rickman in the original. The almost non-stop shooting spree also becomes a little much at some point. But apart from these minor inferences, Die Hard 2 is a neat action movie. - Bruce Willis (The Sixth Sense (1999)) is again enthusiastic and a good hero, and Dennis Franz (NYPD Blue (1993-05)) is good as the bureaucrat. The film is directed by the often dubious Finnish action director Renny Harlin (The Legend of Hercules (2014)).
William Sadler makes a good, stern-faced villain, if not quite a match to the previous film's Hans Gruber, in Renny Harlin's Die Hard 2
Watch the original trailer here
Cost: 70 mil. $ Box office: 240 mil. $ = Box office success [Die Hard 2 made 100 mil. $ more than its predecessor, but its budget was also more than doubled. It made 117 mil. $ in the US (49 % of the total gross).] What do you think of Die Hard 2? Thoughts on Harlin's movies?
One of the dark posters for Renny Harlin's Cleaner
QUICK REVIEW: An ex-cop runs a cleaning company, which specializes in cleaning after deaths. He now takes an assignment to clean up after a murder that makes him start his own private investigation. - But his own past isn't spotless either ... The excellent cast of Samuel L. Jackson (Django Unchained (2012)), Robert Forster (Jackie Brown (1997)), Ed Harris (A History of Violence (2005)), Eva Mendes (The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)) and Luis Guzmán (The Last Stand (2013)) make this mediocre story worth seeing. It is directed by Finnish Hollywood director Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea (1999)) and written by Matthew Aldrich (El Patron (2016), pre-production). Some of Harlin's flash-editing ploys hit home, and others seem ridiculous. Cleaner seems like commissioned work without any particular heart or engagement behind its storytelling, (which is a recurring problem for Harlin, whose career counts several films with similar issues.) The ending SPOILER has a forced narration with lots of heavy-duty value concepts overlain, which Cleaner as a film just can't hold. Harlin is premiering an ambitious new film later this year, Skiptrace with Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville, which I am sure it is hoped can become a cross-cultural (US-Chinese) smash.
Cost: Estimated 25 mil. $ Box office: 4 mil. $ (foreign) = Mega-flop [Cleaner was released straight-to-DVD in the US, where it sold 400k units, accruing 7.8 mil. $ to the financial shipwreck the movie became. Harlin's career has suffered, and he has had to get by doing b-movies and TV since. Skiptrace is the major movie that has to prove his worth in the new Hollywood order, or perhaps cast him out for good.] What do you think of Cleaner? Any thoughts on Harlin's career?
