Predator (1987)

What more could you ask from a jungle-based action sci-fi movie? Schwarzenegger, guns, explosions, blood, guts, booby traps, testosterone overload, quotable dialogue and one-liners, a beautiful woman, magic mud, bombastic score, Jesse Ventura packing a minigun, an alien with a weird crabface and luminous blood. Perfect!

Minus half a star for killing Jesse way too early.

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Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

Steve G was right, this was really good!

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Fatal Deviation (1998)

A low-budget, Irish, martial arts movie?

If the best actor on set is Mikey from Boyzone then you really need to visit the local Drama groups and rustle up a few performers other than multiple Catweazle lookalikes and thick-eared farmer's boys.

Still, it's really not as bad as it sounds. It has structure, the shots are relatively well chosen, all the martial-arts and action tropes are present and correct, from training montages (including Van Damme's trademark splits), tournament fighting, gun-play, bar fights, car and bike chases, one-liners. It's a lot more professional and effective than Samurai Cop!

The film ends with a series of Jackie Chan style out-takes.

Good fun and nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be.

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The Accountant (2016)

Well, they shoehorned as many traits as possible and it does nothing to dispel the idea that Aspies are emotionless, would-be killers (even if in a good cause) but it was still good fun, if a little flabby in the second act.

Still, as they say, if you've met one killer with autism, you've met one killer with autism :)

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Doctor Strange (2016)

Benedict is rather good as a wizardly ego-maniacal otter surgeon with a god complex.

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Iron Man 3 (2013)

Loved Ben Kingsley as Trevor the drug-addled Mandarin.

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Lucy (2014)

The Fifth Element, Part 2: Packed with pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo but a fun ride, nonetheless. I liked the homage to The Time Machine and book-ending the story with Australopithecus Lucy.

Anyway, who cares as Denis Villeneuve is set to direct the new Dune adaptation. Nothing at all to do with Lucy, but yay!

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Criminal (2016)

It passed the time. I can see they really wanted a franchise out of this and it has a decent premise to work with but the execution ultimately failed. It would have worked quite nicely as a TV show.

WARNING: Piers Twatface makes a brief appearance :(

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The Equalizer (2014)

There's one thing missing, and that's the mythology; the Equaliser appearing out of the shadows like a trench-coated angel of vengeance (a bloody Michael Landon, if you will), only to disappear again afterwards. This is played more like a by-the-numbers revenge thriller with a bit of an origin story tacked on. Not as bad as I thought it would be.

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Spectre (2015)

James Bond's year zero, which started in Skyfall and ends in Spectre, is a beautiful, post-Bourne restart of the franchise that removes the silliness (that bloody invisible car and that stupid inflatable jacket, which would have suited Jeremy Clarkson more than Bond), adds a large dose of grit and brings back the cool. Bond is Bond again rather than someone's smarmy Dad. I can seriously see them heading back to the books and maybe the next film will be 'Live and Let Die', apparently the first Bond story chronologically after 'Casino Royale'. Not quite up there with Skyfall, but damned close. Good stuff.

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London Has Fallen (2016)

They've only gone and bloody blown London up, ain't they!

Really, really, really stupid but just what I needed on a Friday afternoon. Oh, and Charlotte Riley's in it.

At the end, did I really hear that right? Prime Minister Clarkson? I think I'd rather be blown up!

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Rolling Thunder (1977)

A hard Rane's gonna fall.. boom-tish!

William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones, Luke Askew, Dabney Coleman and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. What more do you want?

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Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Marvel's answer to the collateral damage of DC's 'Man of Steel' and 'Batman v. Superman'.

That airport fight scene was so much fun!

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Star Trek Beyond (2016)

"But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you." -- Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince [Chapter XX]

I used 'Star Trek Beyond' to test my new Sony Bravia 4K 55" TV, Denon 7.2 amp (still using 5.1 speakers) and Yamaha subwoofer. I can now consign my extremely old Pioneer 5.1 system to the dusty attic of forgotten gizmos as the film looked and sounded great!

Death by Rock? Really? Ridiculous fun!

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Suicide Squad (2016)

The cons: For a film with such a paper-thin plot it sure was messy. The same could be said about the action sequences - messy. The new Joker was cheap, low-rent and more pimp than arch-villain. Surely they could have found a better character incentive than stealing the old "bomb in the neck" ploy from Escape From New York? The villain and villainess were weak, silly and underused. Far too long.

The pros: A killer soundtrack. Assorted anti-heroes spouting just the right amount of wise-assery (unlike Deadpool). Fun in the places where it didn't take itself too seriously.

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The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

More chopsocky than you can shake a Qi Mei Gun at!

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Shaft (1971)

That intro with John Shaft just casually walking across a busy street and expecting cars to just stop for him, builds his character perfectly. No exposition or flashbacks needed; just a bloke walking across a road. Shaft is indeed a bad mother-fucker and he owns his city.

Great dialogue, terrific NYC locations, full of great fleshed-out characters, THAT score by Chef and The Bar-Kays, the final rescue, Richard "I'm a handsome fucker" Roundtree.

Cool as fuck.

The "Soul in Cinema: Filming 'Shaft' on Location" extra on my DVD was pretty damned fine as well and includes Isaac Hayes and The Bar-Kays recording the score.

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Green Room (2015)

As soon as the band opened to a crowd of boneheads with Nazi Punks Fuck Off (been in that situation) I knew this was going to be fun.

Righteous!

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The Raid (2011)

BRUTAL!

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Deadbeat at Dawn (1988)

With Deadbeat at Dawn, One-man-army (writer, director, actor, editor, makeup, stuntman) Jim VanBebber created one of the finest ultra-low budget films ever made.

A brutal, crank-fuelled, nihilistic, nightmare of an action film. Even better than you think it's going to be.

Just remember kids, crime does not pay!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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