The Expendables 3

It had to happen eventually: the Frankenstein of Hollywood has gone and made a big lurching Franken-movie.

Little Sylvester Stallone has always looked a bit cartoonish, and in recent years it’s become increasingly hard to tell him apart from his own Spitting Image puppet.

That sloping, strokey mouth. Those freakish, pumped-to-the-point-of-bursting muscles. (Thanks, human growth hormone!) The surgically smooth, semi-melted-waxwork face. Whatever’s going on with that tar-black blanket on his head we’re supposed to think is his hair. The platform shoes so stacked they’d make Bono blush. He’s an absolute riot.

And with The Expendables 3 (2014), he’s finally made a film that is as odd, over-stuffed and unlikely looking as himself.

Bursting at the seams with a parade of famous faces in a mind-frazzling array of cameos, this bloated sequel to a sequel becomes swollen to the point where it no longer resembles a normal film. The movie’s poster alone features 17 – yes, 17 – stars. That’s not so much a movie poster as a committee meeting. Or, given the result is such total wank, a bukkake party.

At heart, the first two Expendables movies worked because they followed a simple formula – build an ensemble cast, then add a carefully chosen smattering of guest stars.

But one gets the sense that ‘less is more’ possibly isn’t a dictum by which Sly leads his life. Thinking mathematically (and counting on his fingers), the old boy probably really did think that having literally twice as many characters in the new movie would make it twice as good. As opposed to shit.

The plot

Sly and his gang are getting old. At a certain point, all the hair dye and face lifts in the world can’t hide the fact that half this doddering lot are older than the cast of Last of the Summer Wine. So, after sacking the original Expendables crew, our ageing action star recruits a bunch of young, fresh-faced whippersnappers to take their place. (Cue a crazed, carousel-like introduction of new ‘characters’).

The first mission for the new team is to kidnap a notorious arms dealer (Mel Gibson) who also happens to be Stallone’s arch nemesis. Naturally, the assignment goes tits-up: the Italian Stallion barely escapes with his life and all his eager pups are captured.

With no time to introduce yet more characters, Stallone is forced to reunite with his old buddies (Statham, Lundgren, et al) in order to rescue the newbies who made such a Horlicks of their very first mission.

Will Sly save his kindergarten comrades? Can he settle his grudge with Gibson? Have all the elder Expendables taken their daily aspirin? Oh, the tension…

Who’s in this?

Frankly, with a cast this size, it’d be quicker to tell you who isn’t in this film. But here goes. First, the usual gang of Expendables are all in attendance: Stallone, Statham, Lundgren, Crews, Li, Schwarzenegger and Couture. Tick.

Wesley Snipes: Keeping the receipts this time

They’re joined on this outing by Nineties action also-ran Wesley Snipes, for whom this movie was something of a comeback effort following an unfortunate two-year spell in Sing-Sing for tax evasion. In the hi-larious opening scene, our Wes is – nudge-nudge, wink-wink – sprung from a top security prison by our jowly heroes. Ho, ho. See what they did there? Snipes really was in prison in real life, and now they’re showing him locked up in the movie and…oh, you did get it. Sorry.

Also relishing the opportunity of a little light career rehabilitation is Mel Gibson. Work has understandably been a tad scarce for Mad Mel in recent years, due to him being so busy with his alcoholic, wife-beating, anti-semitic and homophobic commitments. (Incidentally, if we’ve left anything out, forgive us; it’s hard to keep up with Mel’s misdemeanours).

And the additions don’t end there. There are walk-on roles for a clearly bored Harrison Ford, a mugging Antonio Banderas, a redundant Kelsey Grammer and walking Clearasil advert Robert Davi as the uber-villain. Phew!

Mercifully, there is one noticeable absentee: Bruce Willis. Despite appearing in the previous two entries, the chrome-domed diva was promptly dropped after demanding $1m dollars a day to work on the movie.

“Where’s Church?” asks Stallone in a pointed reference to Bolshie Bruce’s character. “He’s out the picture,” replies Harrison Ford, winking at the camera. It says a lot that this is not even close to being the crassest line of dialogue in the movie.

Excess all areas

While that outline of the cast may have been exhausting, it wasn’t exhaustive.

Human punching bag Rhonda Rousey

As brighter readers will have noticed, Exploding Helicopter hasn’t yet mentioned the baby Expendables – which includes Twilight heart-throb Kellan Lutz and MMA badass Rhonda Rousey (these were the days before too much lounging around movie sets transformed her from an undefeated cage marauder into a human punch bag).

As you may have guessed by now, there are a lot of ‘main’ characters. And therein lies the film’s problem. There are simply too many people on screen, waiting around to deliver their one line of unconvincing dialogue. There’s no plot to speak of, just a succession of scenes crowbarring another actor into the action.

At times The Expendables 3 feels like watching a Royal Variety show. A succession of famous faces take centre stage for a couple of minutes, perform a potted version of their most famous act, then gladly disappear off into the wings. Had Bruce Forsyth suddenly come tap-dancing across the screen, it wouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. And he’s probably younger than half of them.

Exploding helicopter action

Given the film’s whole-hearted commitment to excess, you won’t be fazed to learn there are no fewer than three exploding helicopters to report.

One chopper bites the dust early in the film, always a cheering sign for aerial conflagration groupies. Having completed the daring Snipes rescue raid, and with no further use for the whirlybird, Stallone gives the viewer a cheap thrill by triggering an explosive charge and blowing it up.

The next chopper fireball scene, which takes place during the climatic action sequence, admittedly comes as quite a surprise. When two enemy choppers close in to take out our heroes, who should suddenly appear expertly piloting a helicopter but, er, Harrison Ford. Before you ask: Yes, that is the same Harrison Ford who, in real life, crashed a plane onto a golf course two years ago and, earlier this month, almost hit a commercial airliner carrying more than 100 people. Was this really the best casting decision? Maybe in the next instalment, Mel will be playing a gay rabbi who volunteers at a women’s shelter.

Step away from the controls Mr Ford

Luckily, contrary to popular rumour, fiction is way, way stranger than the truth. Because once the cameras are whirring, it turns out our Harrison is an excellent pilot. First, he effortlessly shoots down one whirlybird using his machineguns.

Then, pursued by the second baddie, old Han Solo deftly weaves in-between the giant chimney stacks of an old industrial factory – going perilously close to certain death – until his opponent loses control and crashes explosively into one of the vents.

And at no point during this scene does Harrison crash onto a large open green space nor almost fly into a crowded Boeing 737. Aren’t movies wonderful?

Artistic merit

A definite case of quantity over quality. The chopper fireballs are done with embarrassingly poor CGI. In a film with a near $100m budget, it’s inexcusable. Having said that, chopper fireball cliché fans will enjoy the classic hero shot of the Expendables coolly walking away from an exploding whirlybird.

(Note: The movie’s final conflagration once more brings up a perennial bugbear of this website: why are movie chopper pilots incapable of avoiding entirely observable buildings?)

Favourite line

When Schwarzenegger turns up in a helicopter to evacuate our heroes, he gets to rather predictably yell: “Let's get to the CHOPPA!”

It’s a groaner, but you can’t help but enjoy it.

Review by: Jafo

The Cat From Outer Space

You probably won’t remember this, but in the late Seventies Disney coughed up a huge, cinematic fur ball.

Cineastes like to portray the Disney story as one long, unspooling reel of movie success. And certainly, for generations now – from Fantasia to Jungle Book to Toy Story and right up to Frozen – the studio has served up many cast-iron hits that will endure.

But study their back catalogue carefully and you’ll soon find that not every movie is a hidden gem. The Seventies, in particular, was a very tough time. After creepy old Walt died (and, according to legend, was stuffed in a cryogenic chamber, like a billionaire deep-frozen pizza) the wheels rather came off the Disney bus for quite a few years.

Bad decisions were made, and bad movies were the result.

Suddenly, the studio that had always been associated with a singular mouse became famous for a multitude of turkeys. And for a prime example of the kind of hokum Mickey’s men served up, look no further than The Cat From Outer Space (1978).

The plot

When his spaceship malfunctions an extra-terrestrial, with the appearance of a domestic cat, crash lands on Earth.

In order to repair his craft, the interstellar feline – who happens to have telekinetic powers - enlists the help of a friendly earthling.

But the Martian moggy’s task is complicated by the US army who seize his spacecraft and begin a hunt for the alien invader.

So, can the cosmonautic cat return safely to space? Or will it be captured, forcibly interrogated and subjected to horrific, vivisectional experiments by a secretive military intelligence unit?

Of course, Exploding Helicopter would never dream of spoiling the ending for you. But given this is a Disney kids’ film, one can be reasonably confident that the movie doesn’t close on a shot of the puss’ surgically-opened ribcage.

Who’s in this?

The cast provides an early indication that this film is made by a studio executives not entirely at the top of their game. Without an encyclopaedic knowledge of American television in the Seventies you’d be hard pushed to recognise the main actors. But there are a few more famous names among the players.

Harry Morgan plays General Stilton, the gruff, order-barking army man tasked with hunting down the titular cat. Best known as the avuncular Colonel Potter in the legendary and long-running comedy MASH, Morgan appears to relish the opportunity to play against type.

The mellifluous voiced Roddy McDowell (Planet of the Apes and its many sequels) also turns up as a saboteur seeking to snag the alien’s technology for his evil boss. Now, our Roderick was always an entertaining and playful performer, and it takes a special talent to drag a bad performance out of him – but this movie manages it.

The poor lad is utterly wasted in a small and woefully underwritten role. (It’s worth noting that he managed to convey much more emotion in the Apes movies, and that was with two pounds of monkey-plastic hanging off his face.)

There’s also a part for James Hampton. While the name may not be familiar, his perennially genial face certainly will be. Seemingly born into the world as a middle-aged suburban dad, he enjoyed a long career in family-friendly television programmes. Though he is perhaps best known to film fans as Michael J Fox’s father, and fellow lupine, in Eighties favourite Teen Wolf.

From Walt Disney to Walt Dismal

So, how did Disney become so dismal?

After old Walt shuffled off to that great Iceland freezer in the sky (well, Los Angeles) in 1966, the company became gripped by a terrifying artistic malaise. Robbed of their creative catalyst, the studio’s output increasingly came to lack the spark with which it had made its name. (Who remembers, or for that matter has ever heard of, Napoleon and Samantha, Run Cougar Run, or Ride A Wild Pony?)

There’s an overwhelming sense of safe choices and pulled punches. And those traits are on painful display here.

Consider the film’s premise: stranded alien befriends human. It’s loaded with possibilities. Just look at what Steven Spielberg did with it in E.T a few year later.

But where the bearded boy wonder gave us a deft blend of drama, comedy and pathos, The Cat From Outer Space gives us feeble wordplay, lamentable slapstick, and shoddy spectacle. The whole enterprise is so lacking in inspiration it doubtless had Walt spinning in his grave (or cryogenic tube, assuming you believe the rumours).

Exploding helicopter action

Given the torpor that pervades the rest of the film, it’s not surprising to find that the exploding helicopter action is similarly underwhelming.

Late in the film, the real villains turn out to a group of industrial saboteurs who want to seize the alien’s technology. When their plan fails they take a female hostage and try to escape in a helicopter (a Sud Aviation SA 341G Gazelle for all you rotor-bladed geeks out there).

For unknown reasons, the chopper suffers a malfunction that will only let it fly straight line. Unable to steer the aircraft, the bad guys don parachutes and jump out, leaving the damsel in distress to her fate. It's then up to the psychic powered feline to save her.

Using an old biplane the whiskered world traveller effects a thrilling mid-air rescue where the woman has to climb down from the Gazelle into the biplane. The pilotless copter finally sputters, goes into a spiral and disappears behind a hilltop where it explodes off-screen.

It’s a damning moment. When a film can’t even be bothered to blow up a helicopter, you know you’re in trouble.

Artistic merit

While there’s some fun and novelty to be had from watching the fixed-wing and rotor-bladed aircraft carryout an airborne joust, this good work is undone by the explosion. Or rather the complete lack of one.

Having a helicopter disappear from view before blowing-up is a directorial cheat Exploding Helicopter is sadly all too familiar with. But here, we reach a new low.

Most embarrassed auteurs would have had the good grace to send a plume of smoke skyward or give us a shot of the wreckage as token indicator that the whirlybird has been destroyed. But whether through a lack of budget, imagination or both, the director leaves the work to the sound effects – dubbing a generic explosion noise onto the soundtrack. Pathetic.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The aerial duel between helicopter and biplane is quite good. There’s some genuinely impressive stunt work as a couple of professional daredevils clamber around the outside of the helicopter and biplane. But for a better example of a dogfight between these two craft you’d be much better off watching Capricorn One which oddly came out in the same year.

First know destruction of a helicopter involving a cat with telekinetic powers.

Tagline

Sadly, the film’s funniest joke is actually its tagline. The actually quite amusing: “Close encounters of the ‘furred’ kind.”

Review by: Jafo

Takers

In many respects, this is a very convincing film: it’s a heist movie that leaves the viewer feeling like they’ve actually been robbed.

That’s right. Just check your watch at the end, and you’ll realise that those canny criminals from Takers (2010) have shamelessly robbed two hours of your life without so much as a please or thank you.

But that’s not even this movie’s biggest crime.

Oh, no. Not content with pilfering your hard-earned downtime, the film-makers have also brazenly nicked the entire plot from Michael Mann’s classic movie, Heat.

Now, that wouldn’t be a problem if Takers was a sizzling hot thriller. (Some of Exploding Helicopter’s favourite movies have been, ahem, a touch derivative. Yes, we’re looking at you, Firebirds.) Unfortunately, this low budget knock-off is little more than a lukewarm rehash of the original. They should have called it Reheated.

The plot

The story follows a group of gentlemen thieves who, when they’re not helping the poor and dispossessed (as most criminals are famously wont to do), execute elaborately staged robberies against high-value targets.

But as they plot their biggest ever payday, our merry band of outlaws find themselves pursued by a dogged cop who’s determined to bring them to book.

As the clock to the big job ticks down, we’re left wondering: will the Takers escape with the take, or will the Takers become the Taken? (At which point, Liam Neeson might well start issuing gravelly-voiced ‘Oirish’ threats on his mobile phone again. You know what he’s like about showing off his ‘special set of skills’.)

The cast

Idris Elba: "Give me the lead in a big film or I will shoot."

Given that Takers is a cheap, second tier enterprise, it’s no surprise to find that the cast is a curiously eclectic hodge-podge of nearly men and has-beens.

The dubious honour of topping the bill goes to Idris Elba, an actor for whom A-lister status remains frustratingly elusive. After justifiably coming to fame in The Wire, old Stringer Bell’s desperate efforts to elbow his way into the elite premier club have become increasingly painful to watch. And there’s literally nothing he won’t do achieve it.

Puppyishly eager to please, the aspiring star has deftly chiselled away at his own credibility with a series of unwise choices. In particular, he seems to think that any role in a big budget blockbuster is a good idea.

So he’s been a glorified doormen with a silly hat in Thor, an expendable extra in Prometheus and a tedious, cliché-spouting soldier in the execrable Pacific Rim. And who could forget his unrecognisable ‘blue muppet’ in last year’s Star Trek Beyond? Answer: everyone. (Note to Idris: There’s little point being in a film if the prosthetics mean no-one can actually see you).

Not content with these big banner bad choices, our Idris is also something of a cameo machine – with a peculiar weakness for schlocky horror pics such as Prom Night, The Reaping and 28 Weeks Later. (Complete-ists should also definitely check out his five-minute turn as a gangsta exorcism priest in ‘scary’ yawnfest The Unborn, a self-harming career choice so marked it almost counts as a cry for professional help.) And let’s not even get started on his tiresome campaign to be the next 007…

Joining the wannabe Bond in this movie are two other perennial B-listers: Paul Walker (whose pre-crash career consisted of action flicks even less memorable than the Fast & Furious series). And, wait for it: Hayden Christensen. Yes, the human balsa wood block who, in a spectacular feat of reverse alchemy, transformed an almost unprecedented career break in the Star Wars prequels into two Razzie Awards. (As Yoda might croak: “Truly terrible as an actor he is.”)

Matt Dillon: from Eighties nearly man to Noughties nobody

This unlikely trio are pitted against a resolute cop played by Eighties has-been Matt Dillon. With his immaculately chiselled cheekbones and soulful eyes, Matty oozed charisma in some of the decade’s touchstone films (Rumblefish, The Outsiders and Drugstore Cowboy). He was once even hailed as the best actor of his generation by no lesser figure than uber-film critic, Roger Ebert.

But perhaps, like the sensitive-type characters he typically played, the quiff-coiffured star didn’t quite have the mettle for the cut-throat world of a Hollywood career (where success is mostly enjoyed by robotically-driven sociopaths with the personality traits of an apex predator. Hi, Tom!). By the Noughties, Droopy-eyes Dillon’s slow descent into run-of-the-mill fare like Takers was well and truly under way. Still, it beats queuing at the job centre.

A lukewarm Heat

As Exploding Helicopter has already mentioned, Takers ransacks the plot of Heat – focussing on the ‘cat and mouse’ between the cops and robbers.

But while Heat gave us stunningly filmed LA cityscapes, a noir-tinged script, and superlatively staged action sequences, Takers instead splutters up epilepsy-inducing shakey-cam, cliché littered dialogue (“Just like old times!”) and derivate set pieces.

Such uninspired aping is bad enough, but it’s when Takers tries to be different that the problems really start.

Unlike Michael Mann’s deliberately chill portrayal of ruthless professionals, Takers desperately wants us to like the criminals. Cue awkward attempts at creating empathy.

Big Idris is given an entirely pointless sub-plot where he dutifully tries to help his drug-addicted sister. And there’s a hugely unconvincing scene where the gang divvy up the swag from their last robbery, only for Paul Walker to suddenly ask: “Ten per cent to the usual charities?” (See kids, they’re not all bad!)

The cast of Takers. Or possibly a crap Nineties boyband. 

But it’s during the central heist that the film’s bloody-minded determination to preserve the villains’ ‘good guy’ status reaches absurd levels. As their plan goes awry, our heroes find themselves locked in a gun battle with heavily armed security guards.

Despite standing just a few feet apart and spraying automatic weapons fire at each other, not one bullet hits a human form. It’s ridiculous. Star Wars’ famously target-shy Stormtroopers look like crack shots in comparison.

Exploding helicopter action

While the film blanches at depicting flesh and blood casualties, it’s fortunately not so squeamish when it comes to showing the fiery end of one of our favourite rotor-bladed friends.

Takers opens with our criminal brothers-in-arms robbing a jewellery store located on the upper floor of a skyscraper. To make their escape, Elba and his gang flee to the roof and commandeer a helicopter that, with credulity stretching convenience, just happens to have landed there.

After making their aerial getaway, our plucky anti-heroes abandon the chopper in a deserted car park. As they stroll away, one of the thieves triggers an explosive killing off the helicopter. Rest in pieces, whirlybird.

Artistic merit

Pretty good. The fuselage of a very realistic looking helicopter is blown-up without the need for any obvious digital effects. The explosion is nice and juicy with a soupcon of dramatic slow-motion. Nice.

Exploding helicopter innovation

As everyone knows, cool guys don’t look at explosions. So naturally, Elba and his gang studiously ignore the chopper fireball that erupts behind them as they slowly saunter towards camera.

We’ve seen this action movie cliché countless times before – the earliest one Exploding Helicopter has discovered is in Blue Thunder (1983). And more recently, The Expendables 3 kicked off with Sly, Stath and the rest walking away from a digital chopper explosion so terrible you almost expected to see an ‘Atari’ logo in the corner of the screen.

While we don’t object seeing this trope trotted out yet again, it would have been nice if director John Luessenhop given the scene an original twist somewhere.

Tagline

Exploding Helicopter loves a good tagline (“In space no-one can hear you scream”; “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water” etc). So it’s genuinely painful to encounter piss-poor examples of the marketing art. And Takers has some of the worst ever written.

There’s the meaningless: “Money doesn’t count.”

The feeble: “Taking theatres soon.”

And the unutterably mundane: “Everybody’s after something.”

One gets a very clear sense that, having watched the movie, the marketing team must have decided: Well, if even they couldn’t be arsed to put in any effort…

Review by: Jafo

Alone In The Dark

Given that notorious schlockmeister Uwe Boll recently announced his retirement from filmmaking, now seems an apt time to look back at what may be his most infamous film.

Adapted from a popular computer game series, Alone In The Dark (2005) was – like the rest of his unheralded cinematic canon - released to universal critical derision. Reviewers panned the terrible direction, incomprehensible story, shoddy special effects and awful acting.

Unsurprisingly, the film received a brutal thumping at the box office. And poignantly, the film’s title accurately described the audience experience for those few unhappy souls daft enough to actually traipse to a cinema and sit through this impenetrable merde.

Today, Alone In The Dark languishes in IMDB’s 100 worst movies list and has just a 1 per cent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But does it deserve its reputation as a bona fide stinker?

For reasons solely related to cataloguing an invented micro-genre of film, Exploding Helicopter sought to find out.

The plot

A paranormal investigator, Edward Carnby, hunts down artefacts belonging to a fictional Native American culture called the Abkani.

Carnby believes these objects hold the key to stopping sinister supernatural forces that are threatening the world. Not only that, the ancient artefacts could also unlock the secrets of his own mysterious childhood.

To achieve this goal, the psychic private eye must confront forces from another dimension, a shadowy government agency and most terrifyingly of all (at least in Exploding Helicopter’s experience of dating) his former girlfriend.

The cast

Christian Slater: karaoke Jack Nicholson

Our ghost-hunting hero is played by Eighties teen icon Christian Slater. Once upon a time, Young Cheeky Eyebrows was the mainstream star of cult favourites such as Heathers and True Romance.

However, he always was a one-trick pony, and his cloying karaoke-version-of-Jack-Nicholson routine inevitably started to wear on audiences. His ability to land plum roles also wasn’t helped by a string of drug, alcohol and assault convictions.

Still, one man’s misfortune is another man’s gain, and Junior Jack’s non-ringing phone meant he was available to lend the tarnished lustre of his talent to ‘paying gigs’ like Alone In The Dark. And while this won’t ever rank among the boy’s finest work, his smirking charm and mischievous air do admittedly give the often flaccid proceedings some much needed ‘watchability’.

The same cannot be said for his co-star, LA party girl turned actress, Tara Reid. Having made her name playing vacuous blondes (i.e herself) in teen comedies like American Pie and Van Wilder, the air-headed fembot was perhaps not the obvious casting choice as a brainy archaeological expert.

Those who manage to sit through the movie may not be entirely surprised to hear that young Tara’s turn resulted in a Razzie nomination. Flatly intoning her lines like a first-grader in French class, the Sharknado star proves singularly incapable of reacting to any of the events taking place around her.

Tara Reid trying to read her cue card

Whether she’s confronting life-threatening peril, learning the secrets of an ancient civilisation, or enjoying a bit of ‘how’s your father’ with Christian Slater, the blonde moppet maintains the same blank ‘where’s my cue card?’ expression throughout.

Elsewhere, Stephen Dorff (Blade, Immortals) gives a performance of workman-like competence. You get the sense that, among those used to grander roles, there was an on-set calculation that the sooner everyone did their job, the sooner everyone would be able to go home again and forget they ever appeared in this guff.

How bad is this?

Ah, we must all tread carefully here, friends. In the past, reviewing Uwe Boll’s work has proven to be dangerous business.

A few years ago, angered by so many negative reviews of his films, the prickly German challenged his worst critics to a boxing match, threatening them to either “put-up or shut-up”. (In a telling comment on the strength of their critical feeling, four journalists took up the challenge and fought the cranky kraut in a televised contest).

But even in the face of a pugilistic pummelling, this blog promises never to pull its critical punches. Exploding Helicopter will always give you a straight verdict straight (before quickly hiding behind a big lad and threatening to tell teacher).

Anyway, everything the critics say is true. The story really is a convoluted mess of impenetrable mumbo-jumbo. (Even Dan Brown - the patron saint of highfalutin nonsense – would be rolling his eyes at some of the unlikely japes on display here.)

The ‘special’ effects are anything but, and somehow worse than the graphics from the computer game which inspired the film. Many scenes are directed with staggering ineptitude (one supposed action scene sees Slater and Reid blaze away on machineguns at an enemy you never actually see).

Yet, for all those lamentable failings, Alone In The Dark just isn’t as bad as its reputation would have you believe. Exploding Helicopter has witnessed, and had the misfortune to review, far worse films. (Yes, we’re looking at you, Deadly Prey).

Never shy of self-publicity (self-released videos of the temperamental Teuton slagging off Michael Bay and Eli Roth went viral), Boll is really just a victim of his own inflated public profile. He may be the worst filmmaker you’ve heard of, but he’s not the worst filmmaker.

Hard though it may be to believe, many other film-makers are even worse – they’re just wise enough to stay in the shadows.

Exploding helicopter action

During the film’s climatic battle, Carnby and a team of soldiers have to fight a horde of otherworldly creatures. Luckily, a couple of helicopters are on hand to give aerial support to the embattled troops.

So that’s alright, then. But wait, what’s this? In an all too familiar mistake, the pilot - when will they ever learn? - flies too close to one of the supernatural animals. The beastie leaps into the air and grabs on to the tail of the chopper. The aircraft spins round clipping the second whirlybird, which then falls from the sky and explodes.

The first out-of-control whirlybird continues to spiral dangerously towards the ground. Finally, it crashes into the earth in front of the camera. But just before we get a chance to see a second explosion, the action cuts away.

Artistic merit

In a word, dismal. Boll completes fluffs the staging of this sequence, depriving us of the action we want to see.

In a directorial cheat, the helicopter that explodes drops out of the frame before a mushroom cloud of flame erupts back into shot.

It’s quite cool watching the second helicopter spin to its doom and crash right in front of the camera. It seemed a prime opportunity to deliver a close-up chopper fireball, but the special effects department must have considered if too much work. So in a huge anti-climax the action just cuts away. Outrageous.

Exploding helicopter innovation

That’s a negative.

Interesting fact

In 2015, Boll opened a restaurant in Canada called Bauhaus. The eatery has subsequently been awarded a Michelin star, making it the best reviewed project he’s ever been involved with.

Review by: Jafo

Active Stealth

It’s a film buff’s favourite game: name that Baldwin.

You get thrown the name of a film and then have to guess which of the brothers Alec, William, Daniel and junior frère Stephen, it features.

It’s simple to play, but devilishly hard to get right. Not least because apart from senior sibling Alec, the rest of the Baldwin clan are as indistinguishable as their work is unmemorable.

Still, fear not, for Exploding Helicopter has a secret formula to help you win this quiz every time.

Don’t believe us? Well, let’s play a round in this review and use it to find out which Baldwin is the star of Active Stealth.

The plot

A drug cartel in the invented Central American country of San Sedros (presumably close to such other fictional creations as Commando’s Val Verde or Delta Force 2’s San Carlos) is flooding America with cheap cocaine.

Officially, the United States is powerless to act. But the niceties of international law have long been an optional extra for Uncle Sam, so instead they cook-up an off-the-books ‘black op’ to put the drug lords out of business.

Using a new, highly sophisticated fighter plane that’s invisible to radar, an elite team of Army Rangers are sent in to shut-down the narcotics operation.

Following the immutable laws of the action movie, the plan quickly goes tits up. All of which (if we may temporarily be permitted to use the vernacular of rap music) leaves our heroes ‘fightin’ to preserve their health, stop the drug barons buildin’ wealth, an’ tryna escape using Active Stealth’. Word.

The cast

Of course, none of this tomfoolery answers the pressing question of the day: which Baldwin is the star of Active Stealth? Not quite sure? Don’t have a monkey’s idea? Let Exploding Helicopter help you.

Daniel Baldwin and Fred Williamson

Whenever you’re faced with such a sticky conundrum, just ask yourself the following questions:

Have I seen it, and was it any good?

If the answer is yes, it's Alec.

Have I seen it, and was it mostly terrible?

If the answer is yes, it's Billy.

Have I heard of it, not seen it, but instinctively know it's bad?

That would be Stephen.

Does this look like something that couldn't afford a Baldwin, but tried anyway?

That's Daniel. The notional ‘star’ of this risible, direct-to-DVD action flick.

It’s true. Unquestionably, Danny is the dullest constellation in the Baldwin firmament.

While Alec (when he’s not stropping-off at photographers, airline stewardesses or indeed his own daughter) can exude a charismatic authority; Billy a wonky seductiveness; and Stephen a roguish danger, the only quality Daniel brings to his roles is confusion as the poor viewer tries to remember which Baldwin he is.

(Note for Baldwin completists: The which-brother recognition task is made even harder by the existence of Adam Baldwin, who despite possessing the sort of instantly forgettable CV that is the hallmark of the family, is not actually a Baldwin brother).

In Active Stealth, Danny Boy is cast as the leader of an elite squad of Army rangers. But his performance is betrayed by a generous paunch that suggests his military training involves more time with the dessert course than the assault course.

Filling out the cast, former American footballer turned thespian Fred ‘the Hammer’ Williamson (Black Caesar, From Dusk Til Dawn) does a turn as Baldwin’s grizzled, cigar-chomping commander. And one-time wrestling champion Terry Funk appears as a villainous muscle-bound henchman.

Daniel Baldwin: "I don't know if I can do this anymore,
jumping out of helicopters for Uncle Sam."

While the name may not be recognisable, the permed mullet will be familiar to all fans of cult Eighties classic Road House, in which the spandex-clad warrior had a memorable showdown with Patrick Swayze.

Haven’t I seen this all before?

As the action unfolds, viewers of Active Stealth will be forgiven for experiencing a strong sense of déjà vu.

In part, that’s due to the utterly formulaic nature of the ‘men on a mission’ plot. But it will also be as a result of the fact many viewers will literally have already seen this film – or at least parts of it.

That’s because owing to its low budget status much of the action has been lifted from other movies. Shots of a stealth fighter plane are lifted from another, equally terrible, DVD actioner: Black Thunder. A helicopter attack towards the end is nicked from Eighties cop movie Bulletproof.

And that explosion of an all-important military base? Stolen from Harrison Ford thriller Clear And Present Danger. Or in this case: Clear And Present Duplication.

Exploding helicopter action

After completing their mission, our escaping heroes are pursued by some of the drug lord’s goons who are aboard a Mil Mi-24 type attack helicopter. Things look very bad for a moment – after all, the chopper is bristling with heavy duty weaponry.

But in much the same way that any respectable gun-toting baddie, faced with a prone hero defenceless on the floor before them, will always find an implausible reason to let them get up again and ultimately kick their face in, so too do the helicopter goons have a sudden lapse of judgement.

Despite being equipped with enough devastating weaponry to wipe out a small town, the henchmen instead opt to fire a pea shooter-looking machinegun from the open door on the fuselage.

Which handily gives one of Baldwin's commando hombres, a pint-sized Mexican sidekick, plenty of opportunity to whip out a rocket launcher and blast it at the whirlybird. The missile streaks towards the aircraft which, inevitably, erupts in a gloriously huge explosion.

Confusingly, our Hispanic friend then delivers the puzzlingly Italian flavoured pay-off line: “Arrivederci, you bastard!”

All of which makes about as much sense as giving a steroid-inflated Austrian a bit of Spanish doggerel as a catchphrase. Hasta la vista, indeed.

Artistic merit

There’s a juicy aerial fireball when the missile first hits the chopper, and we get a second detonation when the flaming fuselage crashes to the ground.

But even before all that, there’s a nice shot of the gun-toting henchman flinching as he watches the incoming rocket and realises his fate.

All-in-all, the above-par helicopter explosion is a lot better than the rest of this uninspired film.

Favourite line

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, jumping out of helicopters for Uncle Sam.”

Interesting fact

Whilst Exploding Helicopter doesn’t want to trivialise drug addiction, we couldn’t help but be amused by this piece of trivia. In 1998, Daniel Baldwin was found running naked through the halls of New York's Plaza Hotel shouting "Baldwin!" and was arrested for possession of cocaine. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to three months in drug rehab.

Popular opinion holds that the 40-second CCTV clip of Danny flouncing down a hotel corridor, flaccid todger swinging, remains the most compelling work he’s committed to film. Like the Hoff’s sublime ‘eating burger off the floor while shit-faced’ clip, it suggests that some Hollywood D-listers can only truly ‘inhabit the character’ when their own character is inhabited by half a pound of coke and four bottles of hard liquor.

Review by: Jafo

Hickey & Boggs

It may be hard to imagine now, but there was a time when the idea of Bill Cosby as a repellent sleazebag with an enthusiasm for drugging then groping women would’ve been unthinkable.

He seemed as cuddly and harmless to US audiences as Rolf Harris was to Brits. No, wait. As trustingly avuncular as that weather chap off This Morning. Hang on. As chucklingly innocent as Dave Lee Travis. Oh, sod it. You know what we mean.

Things went badly south for ‘America’s Dad’ a couple of years ago when scores of ignored but persistent women with strikingly similar sexual assault allegations, like brave little Lilliputians, brought the celebrity giant crashing down.

All of which makes Hickey & Boggs (1972) a fascinating curio. Especially as you may be more than a little weirded out to learn that Cosby’s character in Walter Hill’s buddy cop movie has a singular hobby – illicitly spying on people when they’re asleep. Who knows: maybe this is the flick that first gave him those alleged ideas.

The plot

Hickey and Boggs (Bill Cosby and Robert Culp) are two down-at-heel private investigators who are hired to find a missing woman.

It seems a routine job. But when the people they interview start turning up dead, the pair realise they’re pawns in a much bigger game. One that involves rival criminal gangs and the search for the missing loot from a big bank robbery.

With our heroes caught in the crossfire between warring gangsters and with the police content to blame them for the escalating body count, their quest becomes less about solving the mystery than simply finding a way to stay alive and stay in business.

The cast

The stars of the film are Robert Culp and everyone’s favourite comedian-cum-allegded-pharmacist Bill Cosby.

Here Cosby plays a depressed private investigator who likes to sneak into the home of his estranged wife so he can stare at his children whilst they’re asleep. So definitely not creepy.

The duo had previous worked together on the ground-breaking Sixties espionage series, I Spy (it was the first TV drama to feature a black actor in a lead role).

Robert Culp

Much of the series’ popularity rested on the easy chemistry between Culp and Cosby, who famously ad-libbed much of their dialogue. That easy rapport can be seen in this film. Culp certainly looks relaxed. Perhaps Bill fixed him one of his special cocktails we’ve heard about.

As for the supporting cast, it’s a veritable who’s who of reliable character actors: Jack Colvin (the dogged Jack McGee in The Incredible Hulk), Michael Moriaty (The Last Detail, Law & Order) and Vincent Gardenia (Death Wish). Not to mention Ed Lauter who it seems was contractually obliged to appear in every TV series filmed during the Eighties (Magnum, The A Team, Murder She Wrote, Automan, and The Equalizer to name but a few).

Eagled-eyed film fans should also keep an eye out for a disturbingly fresh-faced James Woods in what was only his second big-screen role. At the time, ‘Woody’ must have only been in his early twenties – which coincidentally is also the age of most of his present day girlfriends.

Is this any good?

Assuming you can put aside some of the casting issues, Hickey and Boggs is a great neo-noir. The genre has always been concerned with the darker side of humanity. But few entries in the canon are as bleak, or so utterly lacking in the possibility of redemption.

Our under-gunned and under-manned heroes survive shoot-outs and police harassment to make it through to the end of the film. But it’s not by dint of their own resourcefulness. Ultimately, it’s their insignificance to the more powerful forces around them that saves them.

As the pair cynically observe at the end of the film,
“Nobody cares.”
“Nobody came.”
“It’s still about nothing.”

Exploding helicopter action

At the end of the film the two competing groups of gangsters look to cut a deal over the missing loot.
They arrange a meeting on a deserted beach but, natch, one of the gangs plans a double cross. (In fairness, they are gangsters.) Machine gun-wielding henchmen arrive in a helicopter to wipe out their rivals. A gun battle breaks out, bullets fly and the chopper is inevitably damaged.

It spins around out of control and crashes into the sand. A fire breaks out on board as some of the crash survivors try to escape. But before they can clamber out of the wreckage, oh no…the helicopter explodes! Fiery death for unnamed characters ensues.

Artistic merit

This is an unexciting helicopter explosion. The confusion on board the damaged whirlybird is decently done but the lack of exterior shots betray the film’s lack of budget.

This scene also features the cardinal sin of low budget action movies - the off-screen crash. What? No money for special effects? Don’t worry, just don’t show a crash at all. No-one will notice! (Note to film-makers: EVERYONE notices.)

What we get here are a few frenzied interior shots as the ‘bird’ goes down followed by an incredibly brief glimpse of something approximating a helicopter fuselage, then a big non-descript explosion. Poor. Very poor.

Exploding helicopter innovation

None to report. The circumstances and method of destruction are very routine.

Favourite line

“I gotta get a bigger gun. I can’t hit anything.”

Suicide Squad

‘If all our goodies are so bad, then maybe our baddies might turn out to be good..?’

This, clearly, must have been the thinking at DC Towers when they green-lit this movie. After the massive, almost global-level, raspberries that were blown at its recent Superman and Superman vs Batman movies, something had to be done. So the bigwigs at Marvel’s ailing rival decided to get down and dirty.

And undoubtedly, on paper Suicide Squad (2016) sounds like a great idea. Simply inject mini-bombs into the necks of a group of super baddies, then send them out to covertly tackle the obscenely hazardous jobs that nobody else can do. Brilliant! But the question is: by this point, is there any idea so good that DC can’t make a complete Horlicks of it?

The plot

With Superman presumed dead, impressively nasty government mandarin Amanda Wheeler has assembled a motley collection of proper wrong ‘uns to tackle any emerging super-powered threats.

The star of her embryonic team is the Enchantress, a polite young lady possessed by an incredibly powerful sixteenth century witch. But it’s okay because Wheeler has the witch’s heart locked in a sealed box, and so can control her. Until the witch steals her heart back within the first ten minutes and starts building a device that will destroy the world. (Though she’d better get a move on if she wants to beat Trump to it.)

The Suicide Squad are unleashed to tackle the new threat, without anyone pausing to acknowledge that their enemy is simply one of their own members gone to pot, the super baddie equivalent of a sacked burger chain worker pissing in the French fries. The stark fact is, if Wheeler hadn’t tried to form the Suicide Squad, the whole mess literally wouldn’t have happened. At source, this is an HR problem dressed up as an action movie.

The cast

First, the good news: the ladies own this movie. Both the bonkers Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and cold-as-ice Amanda Wheeler (Viola Davis) are terrific.

Will Smith, being Will Smith, of course insisted on his Deadshot character having a schmaltzy backstory (he’s a great dad, doesn’t hurt women and kids, quite the gentleman etc) that jars horribly with the rest of the movie. It’s fascinating how the former Fresh Prince, who in real-life literally worships an alien race of giant lizards – Hello, Scientology! – always ensures he plays grounded characters.

Then there’s Joker. During filming, Jared Leto apparently got into his villainous role by sending live rats and dead pigs to fellow cast members, and watching footage of real gangland killings.

All of which sounds a lot more interesting than anything he manages on screen. Admittedly, Heath Ledger’s titanic Joker performance, crystalized by his early death, was always going to be a tough act to follow. But Leto’s turn here, hammy and mannered without the remotest sense of threat, is pure panto. (Perhaps he should have remembered Laurence Olivier’s advice to that other method junkie, Dustin Hoffman: “My dear boy, why not just try acting?”)

Unsurprisingly, given that the rest of the Squad are each given roughly one-and-a-half lines to establish their character, they remain cardboard cut-outs.

Is this movie any good?

Not according to Rotten Tomatoes, which gave the movie a measly 26 per cent. However, Exploding Helicopter suspects that, after the turgid Man of Steel and the unending torture of Batman vs Superman, critics had already decided that the next DC movie was due for a good kicking.

This seems a mite unfair. True, Suicide Squad is crass, simplistic and dangerously uneven, and nicks ingredients from better movies with grave abandon. But there are some good performances and it rollocks along at such an entertaining pace that there’s not time to consider how duff it all really is.

Exploding helicopter action

There are three helicopter crashes in Suicide Squad, though only the second one actually results in an explosion. It happens when a freshly rescued Harley Quinn is smooching Joker on the opened back ramp of a military chopper. Suddenly a missile hits the front of the craft and Harley, back-flipping out on to the roof of a building below, lands in time to momentarily see the flaming craft hurtling earthwards before it disappears behind another skyscraper. Oh, no! Will Joker survive? Yes.

Artistic merit

Precious little. A standard CGI explosion, at night (always a cop-out), followed by a quick shot of the flaming craft going out of sight. This is seriously middling stuff.

Exploding helicopter innovation.

Nada. Niet. Zero. None.

Non-exploding helicopter action

The sorry spectacle of the weak explosion is partially redeemed by the two non-exploding crashes, which once more prove right a pet theory of Exploding Helicopter – that it is technically impossible for a named character to be killed, or even seriously hurt, by a chopper smash, no matter how catastrophic it looks.

Early on, a chopper carrying the whole Suicide Squad is hit by gun-fire. Hurtling fifty feet towards the ground, it crashes onto a concrete city street then rolls over at high speed around seventeen times. There’s even an internal shot of our heroes bouncing around inside, like an old pair of trainers in a washing machine.

Of course, the actual result of such a crash would be smashed bones, cracked heads, massive internal hemorrhage and across the board deadness. But naturally, this being an action movie, everyone emerges without a scratch. Harley Quinn even gets to say: “That was fun!”

Later in the film, a helicopter containing Suicide Squad Svengali Amanda Wheeler (basically the Simon Cowell of super villain groups, only not so vindictive) is smashed out of the sky and totally wrecked. Naturally, everyone else aboard the craft is rendered either dead or unconscious, but our Mandy’s tip-top and strutting around the place again within minutes.

Favourite line

Spoken by a prison guard, as Deadshot holds a gun to his head: “Ames, If this man shoots me, I want you to kill him and I want you to go clear my browser history.”

Review by: Chopper