The World’s End (2013)

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The World’s End (2013)

Halfway through this acerbic Britcom from the makers of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, there is a discernible twist in the narrative when a gang of hooded youths are revealed to be kung fu fighting cybermen spouting blue blood and smashable ceramic heads, like something out of Doctor Who.

Up to this point the film plays like a spirited bromance reuniting a bunch of forty-something school friends who agree to a pub crawl in Newton Haven. The bizarre space invasion story spirals as the characters become more inebriated, and like all bouts of binge drinking it soon descends into …

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The Grandmaster (2013)

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The Grandmaster (2013)

Yet another Ip Man biopic – perhaps the best one so far at communicating the minutia of southern Chinese kung fu systems despite being overbearingly worthy and self indulgent.

Art-house director Wong Kar-wai introduces his woozy neon romance into a wire fu setting, jostling for position over Yuen Woo-ping‘s hyper-stylised action sequences. It may have worked wonders for Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) but here the contrasting sections jar uncomfortably. The film eventually settles into a typically Wong Kar-wai vision of lost love in fifties Hong Kong which embraces the director’s trademark touchstones of European and silent cinema.

This is when the …

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On Deadly Ground (1994)

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On Deadly Ground (1994)

A studio sanctioned thought-piece from Steven Seagal (surely an oxymoron if ever there was one) which pushes his politics more than his muscle, producing a head-scratching environmentally-conscious takedown of Big Oil and their exploitation of indigenous communities and the environment. The message is about as subtle as one of Seagal’s trademark aikido chops, but nonetheless a remarkably bold statement for a huge studio like Warner Brothers to endorse, who openly throw their dollars behind the chef from Under Siege to work as director, producer, star and chief activist.

That’s one argument. Another would be this is confused sanctimonious twaddle, and questions should probably be …

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Sudden Death (1995)

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Sudden Death (1995)

Timecop director Peter Hyams tackles a second big budget Van Damme vehicle with a similarly light touch, setting Die Hard at an ice hockey stadium and putting the action star through his paces as an indestructible firefighter. A secret service nut-job (Boothe, channeling Alan Rickman) and his team of terrorists hijack the Stanley Cup final, strapping bombs to the building and holding the Vice President and his entourage hostage. Van Damme’s a divorced fire warden with tickets to the big game, taking his kids along only for his daughter to be nabbed by the crooks. Van Damme goes rogue and …

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Under Siege (1992)

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Under Siege (1992)

Seagal’s most popular film is a stocky, ham fisted, cliché ridden macho fest of the highest order, and probably the pinnacle of his bone-busting career, which speaks volumes. As great action movies go, this is up there with the likes of Commando and Die Hard, but that may be because this is essentially just Die Hard on a boat.

Not just any boat, mind. We’re on board the iconic USS Missouri battleship, location for the Japanese surrender which ultimately ended the Second World War. On its final voyage, the entertainment – a country band led by Tommy Lee Jones on full lunatic mode …

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Profile: Steven Seagal

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Profile: Steven Seagal

Date of birth: April 10, 1952 (Lansing, Michigan, US)

Full name: Steven Frederic Seagal

Occupation: Actor, producer, musician, writer, fight choreographer, aikido instructor, Deputy Sheriff

Style: Aikido, kendo, karate, judo

Biography: Steven Seagal was born the second oldest of four children in Lansing, Michigan – the son of a medical technician and a maths teacher. At the age of five, the Seagal family moved to California where he was enrolled at the Buena Park High School. Seagal originally trained in karate before learning aikido under Master Harry Kiyoshi Ishisaka in 1964. As a teenager, Seagal relocated to Japan where he obtained a 7th dan …

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Warrior (2011)

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Warrior (2011)

Supercharged, highly emotive sports movie which makes the logical transition from Darren Aronofsky’s reflective downbeat sucker-punch portrayal of wrestling in The Wrestler (2008), via David O. Russell’s boxing drama The Fighter (2010) to the brutal ground and pound of mixed martial arts. But to cast Warrior as merely following a trend does the film an immeasurable disservice. Sure, every sporting cliche is here, from Rocky‘s small town ambition to Raging Bull‘s complicated family ties, before the film reaches a contrived and predictable conclusion. But the film rests on superb performances and a core of convincing characters each battling with a divisive balance of …

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Three the Hard Way (1974)

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Three the Hard Way (1974)

A good premise for blaxploitation fans: not one, not two, but three action heroes all in the same picture, which is fantastic news, but it does suggest a rather desperate ploy for the short-lived sub-genre. A white supremacy group kidnap Jim Brown’s woman and plan to spike the nation’s water supply with a red liquid that will kill all the black folk (white people will somehow be spared). That bizarre storyline is supported by loads of gratuitous gunfights, car chases, explosions and the odd bit of kung fu from Jim Kelly.

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One Down, Two to Go (1982)

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One Down, Two to Go (1982)

Another weary blaxploitation reunion released long after the sub-genre’s heyday, this stars a quartet of overweight and underpaid former action heroes who get to shoot their big guns one last time at a slimy group of honkies who rig a karate tournament. Black Belt Jones is shot in the process, leaving it to Black Gunn and That Man Bolt to investigate with Shaft popping in occasionally for coffee. Jim Kelly’s Bruce Lee chops are criminally underused so it is left to Williamson and Brown to run the show. At least the aging actors appear to be having fun reviving their stereotypes …

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Parker (2013)

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Parker (2013)

Standard Statham head-cracker bolstered by a decent cast and a good pace. He plays Parker, a crim’ with a conscious who will shoot a guy in the kneecaps and then call for an ambulance. When a crack team of hastily assembled thieves double-cross him after a bank heist in Texas, he is shot and left for dead. He survives, jetting to Florida to seek revenge and thwarting the team’s next target: a jewellery auction worth several million. Parker’s morals extend to his long-suffering girlfriend, as he somehow resists the rather obvious charms of real estate agent Jennifer Lopez, who ends …

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