Up Next: Eragon

eragon.jpgSlipping out this evening to view Eragon, which I’m hoping I’ll enjoy more than the last three action movies I’ve watched. The Avengers, Starship Troopers 2, and Catwoman all scored less than 50 points, and I could use a pick up. Eragon has a dragon in it and dragons rock, so how bad could it possibly be?

The Eragon review should go up this weekend, maybe sooner.

Review: The Avengers

avengers_cover.jpgYear: 1998
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery
Kaboom Review Action Movie Rating: 14

Plot
Two British agents attempt to stop the head of a weather controlling company from destroying the world with his weather altering machines.

Quick Review
Simply put: annoyingly awful, and our current leader for Worst Action Movie of Alltime.

Full Review
The Avengers was originally created as a two-and-a-half hour movie, but it bombed in test screenings. Subsequently, an hour was chopped out of the movie prior to release. In this way, the making of the The Avengers is similar to the Mercy Rule in Little League baseball, which states that if a team is hopelessly losing by 10 runs or more at the end of an inning, the other team is declared the winners and everyone can go home early. In the Avengers, avengers_uma_thurman.jpgthe producers must have looked at an irreparable 150-minute mess of a movie, and figured the best thing to do was just to lop off 40% of it so at least everyone would suffer a lot less.

Why stop there, I wonder? The producers could have made The Avengers substantially better by cutting out another 80 minutes or so. Then you would have only wasted 10 minutes of your life in viewing it. Simply put, this movie is awful, and my opinion isn’t influenced by comparisons to the television series of the same name.

I’m going to skimp on describing the negatives, but take my word for it, for every one I mention there are another dozen or so. First, the story limps, stumbles, and plods along like a drunken grandma. There are so many plot holes and confusing scenes that it almost seems as if an hour of the movie is missing. Oh, wait, that’s right, there is an hour of the movie missing!

But even filling in that missing hour would not have helped, because the existing content is so boring. Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes play the roles of the Avengers, and they try to recapture the spirit of the original show. However, the script lacks energy and they lack both chemistry and delivery; the resultant dialog is painful to endure and totally fails to recapture any of the wit that made the television series popular. You’d think that Sean Connery could help the movie in this regard, but his character is poorly directed and inconsistently delivered.

avengers2.jpgIn action movies, if you have crappy acting and a mind-numbing plot, at least you can dazzle us with some special effects and great action, but The Avengers fails here as well. There is one good scene where massive mechanical bees chase the Avengers fleeing by car, and the final confrontation will at least not put you sleep. You might not make it that far, however: I watched this movie with a friend, and he was fast asleep by the 30-minute mark, snoring at the 60-minute mark, and fell into a coma before the ending. He’s still on an intravenous support on our sofa. You can see in the nearby screen shot that the same thing happened to Uma Thurman while she was making the movie. Viewers beware.

Having failed with story, acting, and action, the only hope for The Avengers would have been to add lots of buxom women and dashing men, but all they give us is Uma Thurman in leather, a mumbling Ralph Fiennes, and a waning Sean Connery. Put a bag on Uma’s head and you might have something, but barring that, this movie fails on all counts.

Simply put: annoyingly awful, and our current leader for Worst Action Movie of Alltime.

Fun Fact
Uma is the Japanese word for “horse”.

Score
Pace: 14
Plot: 8
Action: 26
Consistent Premise: 11
Script/Quotes: 23
Characters: 18
Acting: 19
Villain: 26
Body Count: 17
Time to First Dead Body: unsure
Babes: 21
Hunks: 27
Explosions: 33
Special Effects: 29
Stunts: 20
Ending: 34

Overall: 14 (Give it to Someone you Hate)

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The Anti-Quest: The Worst Action Movie of All-Time

toilet.gifIn addition to searching for the best action movie of all-time, we’ll also be looking for the worst. Which movie is the lamest, most boring action movie ever to grace the screen? As we build up our database of movies, we’ll rank the ten worst action movies in their own Hall of Ugly. At the Bottom of this heap will be the Worst Action Movie of All-Time. We’ll think of a more demeaning title as we move forward.

We’ll take suggestions for movies to review, so if you’ve got one, drop me an email or post a comment here.

Up Next: The Avengers

Next up, we’ll take a look at The Avengers, with Sean Connery and Uma Thurman. I don’t remember the buzz on this movie being all that strong. The movie was on sale at Walmart for a measly $5, though, so I picked it up. I should have this review up sometime later in the week, probably Thursday or Friday.

With only four movies in the review bank at the moment, it should be pretty easy for new reviews to grab either the top spot or the bottom spot. Could this one unseat Predator for Best Action Movie of Alltime, or will it go the other way and claim the spot Catwoman has taken as the Worst Action Movie of Alltime? Tune in later this week to find out! What drama!

The Quest for the Best Action Movie

trophy_mod.gifOne of the goals of Kaboom Review is to rank the best action movies of all time. Along these lines, as we build up a library of reviews, we’ll be creating a top-ten list of what we feel are the best action movies.

The movie that tops the list will be called—for the lack of a better term at the moment—the Best Action Movie of All-Time. At this point, with only four movies in the review bank, Predator (1987) sits atop the pack. It has fended off challenges from Casino Royale, Catwoman, and Starship Troopers 2, but outside of beating Casino Royale that’s not saying much. We’ll see how it fares against stiffer competition as the site grows in size.

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