The Dead Pool

Now we get to the finale of "Dirty Harry Month" with the last installment, "The Dead Pool," released in 1988. 

Apparently, a small remote controlled car is irritating "Dirty" Harry Callahan. Steve Rhodes noted in his review, "A remote controlled toy, the jet black Corvette must have a souped-up engine since it can chase Harry's squad car with ease." However, it's not how fast that aggravates Inspector Callahan, it's the deadly weapon that is inside the children's toy car. Once it goes under a police car, it will incinerate Harry and his partner. 

Rhodes noted, "THE DEAD POOL, the last of the five Dirty Harry movies, is being re-released on DVD with a new digital transfer in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the start of the series." In this film, Harry is trying to stop a roulette game, called the dead pool, where people are betting on how different San Francisco celebrities, including Harry, will die. 

Out of all the movies in this franchise, this one has the best supporting cast, which has Patricia Clarkson as an annoying reporter, Liam Neeson as an avant-garde director and one of the betters in the game and Jim Carrey as one of the names to be crossed off the list rock star and drug addict. Carrey has tremendous energy and inhuman in one of his first films. Remember how I said that this film was released in 1988? It wouldn't be until 1994 when "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "The Mask," both which starred Carrey, would skyrocket his name. Rhodes noted, "Carrey fans, of course, will remember one other well known film before THE DEAD POOL in which Carrey had a minor role -- 1986's PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED." 

What's lacking of this differently enjoyable film from beginning to end is that there aren't any classic Dirty Harry quotes. Still there are a few that you can choose from – the best one being a line that's unwritten about a fortune cookie. Another is about his boss's lack of children. "Do you have any kids, lieutenant?," Harry asks. "No," Lt. Ackerman, played by Michael Goodwin, replies. "Lucky for them," Harry responds in his usual serious look. 

Also, Harry's partner in here is played by Evan C. Kim. 

In the end, go see this film for crying out loud. It's a "Dirty Harry" film, and I think all of you will enjoy it, if you enjoyed the previous ones in the series. I know I did, as I don't think any film in this franchise is worse than the other. All of them are good in their own way and all are worth checking out. 

Now we have come to the end of "Dirty Harry Month." I hope all of you enjoyed these reviews. Stay tuned next Tuesday for my yearly "Independence Day" reviews.

Transformers: The Last Knight

Guess what everyone? I came back today from seeing the new Transformers movie, which came out last week, "Transformers: The Last Knight." Do you want to know how it is? Well, here it goes: 

Alan Jones started his review out by saying, "Phew, I think I need to lie down! It begins in the Dark Ages with hints of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and ends up at the Stonehenge monument in an "Oh, so that’s why it was built there?" flash of enlightenment." 

Jones goes on to say, "In between, Michael Bay, helming his fifth and supposedly final Transformers movie (who shouted "hooray"?), takes you into outer space, back in time to Nazi Germany, outside 10 Downing Street, into every far-flung corner of the globe for another super-sized slice of incomprehensible action and deep down into an ocean abyss to solve the convoluted mystery that lies at the heart of this quite overwhelming spectacle. Nothing seems to have changed in that mind-numbing aspect endemic to this franchise." 

Bay leaves no stone unturned as he finishes the franchise (unless he decides to return to direct another Transformers movie) basically crushing the viewer into dizzying submission. 

I guess it's debatable whether this or "Age of Extinction" is the worst in the series, but the first is still the best, but it definitely has the plot that has so much jammed into it that it's hard to keep track of. 

You will thank Anthony Hopkins who comes in at just the right time to explain everything – somewhat – so the audience can relax into another stretched out finale of mindless robotic action that is complete and total pandemonium. 

The basic jest (which the scriptwriters failed at) Optimus Prime, reprised by Peter Cullen, has gone back to Cybertron, the Transformers home planet. He gets manipulated into becoming Nemesis Prime by Quintessa (Gemma Chan) and ordered to go back to Earth and retrieve Merlin's staff that was buried by Merlin himself (Stanley Tucci). 

You heard right: Merlin was real, as was King Arthur – his round table was an extraterrestrial metal plate – and the Transformers have did their role in every huge and epic disaster in human history. 

Why? Because Earth is actually the evil space enemy Unicron in disguise, ready to kill humans and turn the planet into the Transformers' peaceful slumber when Cybertron eventually dies off. 

That is currently going on, and the Transformers' new ally, inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Whalberg), is chosen to be the Last Knight needed to help Oxford University Professor Vivian Webley (Laura Haddock), Merlin's descendant, find Merlin's staff before evil Transformer Megatron (Frank Welker) and his team of Decepticons do. 

Hopkins' character, Sir Edmund Burton, is the watcher of the Transformers family tree and the one who brings Cade and Vivian together and gives them the task on how to save Earth from becoming Unicron. 

This is exactly what returning Agent Simmons (John Turturro) is doing in Cuba or homeless teen Izabella (Isabela Moner) and her robot sidekick Sqweeks (Reno Wilson) have to do with all of this catastrophe is beyond what you can say. 

The right answer is that what is needed is unnecessary but with all of these different plot threads – you'll easily miss Mitch Pileggi from "X-Files" as a Transformers Reaction Force group leader – you can't focus on one little detail for a second as this "The Fast and the Furious" action goes by quickly. 

When he's on screen and evidently has a fun time – with lines like "What a rockin' car she is!" - Hopkins also brings, as Jones says, "a much-needed aristocratic gravitas to the scattershot logic." 

Jones goes on to say, "And while the pairing of Whalberg’s rough-and-ready hero with posh fish-out-of-water English Rose Haddock must have looked good on paper, they generate zero chemistry together, and the much hinted at post-credits romance feels a non-starter." 

Hands down the most amusing and funny character in the head-banging mess is Sir Edmund's robot butler, Cogman, voiced by Jim Carter. Jones describes him as a "C3PO’d "headmaster" (a Transformer fused with organic life, do keep up!) with anger-management issues is virtually the actor’s Carson character from Downtown Abbey in sleek Aston Martin disguise." 

Someone somewhere knows how to loosen things up, and Cogman playing background music at a church scene is the one joke that works in the repetition of comic reliefs that don't work – like Cade's friend Jimmy, played by Jerrod Carmichael. 

Seeing how no one goes to see a Transformers movie thinking there will be a story must have been the main problem this entire time. 

The technically overwhelming, grandiose set-piece ramble continues in Bay's overdrive style where he doesn't look like he's directing as much as assembling cinematic maneuvers. 

Jones said, "A pyrotechnic display from Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl) kicks off the action in high style and the frenetic hyperkinesis continues relentlessly through junkyard wipe-outs, frantic driverless car chases, drone-hopping acrobatics, titanic underwater odysseys, extravagant Autobot face-offs and abstract, Escher-type dimensional battles." 

Jones goes on to say, "Add bodies exploding everywhere in artful slow-motion and the painterly sight of horn-shaped intergalactic spacecraft jutting through the Namibian and Jordanian deserts and you still won’t have a clue about how completely over-the-top this movie is." 

"The Last Knight" is way too much, yet not anywhere close to enough to say it's fun entertainment in anyone's blockbuster wordlist. It may not be easy to watch, but the awesome visual looks will keep you in your seat. 

As I have stated before, it's better than "Age of Extinction," since it's nearly not as long, but it may be worst in the sense that there isn't much focus on Optimus or Megatron, the action goes on way too long, there are boring scenes in here, and the human characters just aren't that interesting. However, I thought it wasn't really that bad. I might have liked this over "Age of Extinction," but I still don't think it's a good movie in any way. None of the "Transformers" movies are good, but I still enjoy the action for some time before I start getting bored by it. Hopefully this is the last movie that Michael Bay directs, but if he comes back, I won't be surprised. I would say wait for this to come out on Blu-Ray to rent, but if you want to go to the theater, then that's fine. 

Thank you for joining in on my review, stay tuned Friday for the finale of "Dirty Harry Month."

Sudden Impact

"Dirty Harry" meets his match in a woman whose look at justice is much larger than his in "Sudden Impact," the 1983 film that is fourth in the franchise and the only one Clint Eastwood directed. TV Guide noted in their review, "One of the seamiest and most brutal of the lot, it's brimming with over-the-top gore, blistering action, and some hilariously foul-mouthed dialogue and one-liners, including the now-legendary "Go ahead...make my day," a threat that was quickly adopted by then-President Reagan." 

Jennifer Spencer, played by Sondra Locke, an artist who comes from the small seaside town of San Paulo, is trying to find and kill a group of men (Michael Maurer, Jack Thibeau, Paul Drake) and one lesbian (Audrie Neenan) who raped her and her sister (Lisa Britt) a few years before, leaving her sister completely comatose. When the body of a man from San Paulo is found in San Francisco with bullet holes in his groin and head, Frisco homicide detective Harry Callahan goes to San Paulo to investigate. Harry isn't welcomed by the local police chief Jannings, played by Pat Hingle, who specifically tries to keep him away from the case, but Harry is fearless. He meets up with Jennifer and falls in love with her, not knowing she's the murderer. Jennifer continues to murder the members of the gang one at a time, but when she gets to one of the last members, who turns out to be Jannings's son, she's attacked by Mick, played by Paul Drake, the most dangerous of the group. Mick kills Jannings and takes Jennifer to the beach to rape her again, but Harry shows up and kills Mick. Harry then puts Jennifer's gun on Mick, making it look like he had been the one killing the gang all this time, and lets Jennifer go. 

TV Guide noted, "SUDDEN IMPACT is a hard-hitting actioner in which Eastwood examines the darker aspects of Dirty Harry and comes up with a brooding, grim drama that probably comes the closest to the nihilistic tone which was set by director Don Siegel in the original. Like most of the films Eastwood has directed, the story deals with transference of guilt and twisted sexuality (not to mention the symbolism of Harry's new longer-barrelled Magnum .44 in a plot dealing with castration), and there is also the rather bizarre recurrence of having a character played by Sondra Locke--who was Eastwood's lover at the time--being brutalized and gang raped, something she was also subjected to in Eastwood's THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES (1976) and THE GAUNTLET (1977) (perhaps he was subconsciously trying to tell her something). Eastwood also throws in some unmistakable Hitchcock references, as the first murder takes place under the Golden Gate Bridge, which recalls VERTIGO (1958), and Jennifer sometimes bears an uncanny likeness to Tippi Hedren's cool blonde character in MARNIE (1964), while the finale takes place on a runaway carousel, a la STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951)." 

TV Guide went on to say, "Aided by ace cinematographer Bruce Surtees (nicknamed "The Prince of Darkness" for his ultra-noirish lighting, or lack thereof), Eastwood handles the visuals in a lean and dynamic manner that would make Siegel proud, but his control of the narrative is less successful and the plot is disjointed and overlong." Looking firm on giving non-stop excitement, the film make one high-speed, set piece after another in the first 45 minutes, which basically doesn't further the actual plot. However, they are engaging as Harry kills some criminals robbing a diner, crashes the wedding of a mob boss' daughter and causes the man to have a heart attack, is chased by some rookies who try to kill him by throwing molotov cocktails in his car, and breaks up a bank robbery the moment he arrives in San Paulo. TV Guide mentioned, "The cartoonish script boasts the usual outraged sentiments about revolving door justice and how criminals have more rights than victims, as well as a full quota of the kind of outrageously politically incorrect stereotypes that one could never get away with anymore. There's a bad-tempered female judge who lectures Harry about his tactics, a slew of criminal, jive talking blacks ("Whatcha doing--you pighead sucka"), and pasta-eating Mafiosi, and for good measure, a sadistic, ultra-butch lesbian who talks like a sailor and cackles with glee while Jennifer is being raped." However, Eastwood keeps his audience engaged at a fast pace and the series' formula of having an old man like Harry removing the warning tape and killing the criminals of the city remains irresistible. 

If you are a fan of the franchise after seeing the previous installments, you will not want to miss this one. Especially with the line, "Go ahead, make my day" said at the beginning of the film. Little known fact: people tend to mix up that quote for being in the first movie, when it was never said there. This film gets another recommendation from me, and I say definitely check this one out because you will love it a lot. 

Now look out next week for the finale of "Dirty Harry Month."

The Enforcer

The third installment in "Dirty Harry Month" is quite a game changer here folks, which is none other than the 1976 underrated classic, "The Enforcer." 

Another day, another dead partner. By now, Harry Callahan has learned that any partner he is assigned he shouldn't even think of becoming friends with because they will end up being murdered in the most painful ways. Callahan is not a man who is worried with self-pity and guilt as he spends a lot of the movie plotting on how to stop an environmental terrorist group than mourning over his latest partner (John Mitchum) getting stabbed when he was arresting one of the terrorists (DeVeren Bookwalter). The villains in this movie aren't as threatening as Scorpio or the vigilante cops in the first two films, and they just come across as mostly forgettable. What is fascinating is seeing Callahan trying to find out who is in charge of the secret base of these terrorists. When they kidnap the mayor of the city (John Crawford) and hold him for a price, Callahan says that he needs to up his game. 

Continuing with this pattern, Callahan is not given a male partner this time around and is instead assigned a female partner. Transferred to personnel, he agrees to interview the new team of rookies, and ends up being interested in Kate Moore, played by Tyne Daly. Daly is the real scene stealer in here, who spends most of the movie trying to keep up with Callahan and putting her life on the line to crack the terrorist group despite Callahan trying his best to keep a distance from her. Kate Moore is a very complex and interesting partner to Callahan's methods and she plays the officer effortlessly. Her deeds are what's the most interesting parts of the film, and she does well in handling Callahan's silly methods when handling criminals. Mostly Callahan comes off as a satire of the character from the first two films. His first time on the case has him dealing with a fake heart attack person in a restaurant and completely destroying a grocery store so he can catch a couple of thieves. Felix Vasquez stated in his review, "Why he isn’t in jail or in a mental ward is beyond me, at this point."

Vasquez goes on to say, "But Harry gets the job done and by the luck of knowing everyone on the force and raking in his share of fans, he lives to see another day of duty on the job. “The Enforcer” focuses on Harry implementing his classic interrogation methods and fist pounding skills to get answers from local thugs to locate a prostitute who may know where the ring leader of the terrorist group is hiding." As the film goes on, Harry ends up respecting Kate as they get close during the case, and he learns that the new era of police aren't all that soft as he thought they would be. Daly plays Kate very sensitively and it's engaging to watch and the way she shows heroism is just intense and worth seeing alone. Even though "The Enforcer" is not the finale in the "Dirty Harry" franchise, it's still a worth watchable sequel in the series.  Vasquez ended his review by saying, "While Harry gradually transforms in to a caricature, “The Enforcer” is a strong if flawed entry in the film series with the added benefit of a memorable and dazzling supporting performance by Tyne Daly and some raucous shoot outs." 

Like I stated already, this is an underrated entry in the "Dirty Harry" franchise and definitely is not one to be missed out on. If you saw the last two movies and liked them, you should continue watching them and give this one a chance. If you end up liking this one the least, that's fine, but I didn't. I thought every single entry was just as good, but that's just my opinion. This one gets a recommendation. 

Tune in next week when I talk about another amazing entry in "Dirty Harry Month."