Big Trouble in Little China

The Movie Snob revisits a blast from the past.

Big Trouble in Little China (B). I recently revisited this excellent (relatively speaking) B movie from the 80s. Kurt Russell (Escape From New York) delivers a great performance as Jack Burton, a clueless but hugely self-impressed truck driver who accidentally gets drawn into a buddy’s quest to rescue his fiancée from a 2,000-year-old evil Chinese sorcerer named Lo Pan (James Hong, Blade Runner). It’s full of ridiculous fight scenes, great-for-the-time special effects, and a breathy performance by a young Kim Cattrall (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Oh, and also Sex and the City.) I loved it when it was released back in 1986, and I still get a kick out of it today. The DVD also contains a commentary track by Kurt Russell and director John Carpenter (Halloween), and although it’s mostly them just reminiscing about old times and people they knew, it was still kind of entertaining.

Escape from New York

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Escape from New York (D+). I had never seen this 1981 John Carpenter classic, and all I can say is, wow. It is a low-budget cheeseball spectacular. It grabbed me from the first seconds, with the zero-frills opening credits and the soundtrack composed on somebody’s Casio keyboard. In the near future (1997, I think it said), Manhattan is a completely walled-off maximum-security prison in which the prisoners are dumped and left to fend for themselves. Air Force One is hijacked, and the president (Donald Pleasence, The Pumaman) unluckily bails out right into the middle of the prison. The government brass decide to enlist Manhattan’s newest prisoner, Snake Plisskin (Kurt Russell, Big Trouble in Little China), to try to rescue the prez in time for some big summit with Russia and China. Snake has lots of absurd adventures in the prison, whose inhabitants include Ernest Borgnine (From Here to Eternity), Harry Dean Stanton (Alien), Adrienne Barbeau (The Cannonball Run), and Isaac Hayes (I’m Gonna Git You Sucka). It’s kind of fun in a cheesy way, but I’m not going to hurry out and find Escape from L.A.

The Thing; Taking Lives

New reviews from Nick at Nite:

The Thing

Has John Carpenter ever made a bad movie? Hello. They are all glorious. The Fog, Escape From New York, Escape From LA, VAMPIRES, and Ghosts on Mars – is there a better group of work? Hell, he even composes the soundtracks for these movies. Got caught watching The Thing again last night and felt it deserved a quick review. Basically, evil martian is awakened in icy grave by crazy Norwegian, not Swedish, scientists. Evil martian eats dogs, scientists, etc … Turns out when evil martian eats things it can take their form. As such, he hides among the American scientists living in the arctic wasteland and takes his time killing them. This is a great short science fiction story, was originally made into a movie in the 50s, and was carefully updated by Carpenter in this adaption. It has a high gore factor, for 80s type movies, no nudity, some gun play, and a very cool flame thrower. This is also probably Kurt Russell’s greatest movie. I give this movie an “A.”

Taking Lives

This movie sucked. It has Angelina Jolie (Wanted) in it and it still sucked. Not much plot, hard to follow, not much to look at. Ordinarily, I like violence, nudity, loud music, and gore, but in this movie it did not work. My favorite moment: in this very serious movie, Angelina Jolie gets in her car to chase the bad guy on an overcast day and apparently stops to put on her sunglasses because in one frame she does not have them on and then in the next frame she does. Please. There is also a very misplaced sex scene, not sure what it added to the plot, it might have been only added to the director’s cut. There is also an equally odd, disturbing twist at the end. I won’t give away, but when I saw it at first … I thought what kind of sick b*stard would write such a thing. Angelina Jolie needs to make another Tomb Raider to restore my faith in her. Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise), well what can I say, he obviously doesn’t have good judgment – he left Uma Thurman. I give this movie an “F.”