Kevin B. Lee Rates and Ranks Movie Explosions

Posted on May 7, 2014 at 8:00 am

Take a look at this exploration of movie explosions from Kevin B. Lee. I remember Sylvester Stallone on the “Expendables” panel at Comic-Con saying that they had to film in South America to evade US restictions on firepower. I like the way Lee looks at factors like who caused the explosion as well as quantity and quality.

Perhaps this is the explosion that had the greatest impact on me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOFgFAcGHQc

Related Tags:

For Your Netflix Queue Lists

The Expendables

Posted on November 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Five minutes into this movie, which means five minutes into its first action sequence, one of its stars explains to his colleagues he is about to fire off a warning shot. He then blows a guy’s torso into what another character will later refer to as “red sauce and jello.” And then we have a lot of shooting and a lot of stuff blowing up and hand-to-hand combat, and thousand yard stares and boy, do we have a lot of red sauce and jello.

“The Expendables,” is a mash-up of action stars and action movies. It would take less time to explain who is not in this movie (Stephen Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme, who both declined) than who is: Sylvester Stallone (who co-wrote and directed), his “Rocky IV” nemesis, Dolph Lundgren, WWE superstar Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ultimate Fighting Champion Randy Couture, martial arts master Jet Li, former NFL player Terry Crews, “Iron Man 2’s” Mickey Rourke, and “Transporter’s” Jason Statham — plus brief appearances by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Here is the plot: there are some bad guys. The good guys go after them. It doesn’t go so well at first. Bros before hos. Chases and explosions. Very big guns (the muscle kind and the weapon kind) and very big knives. Airplanes, trucks, motorcycles, and various other symbols of manliness. And a lot of red sauce and jello. It’s Tarantino without the irony.

The chases and explosions and shoot-outs are well-filmed, as are the big fight scenes, especially a brutal battle in a tunnel and the opening sequence where Somali pirates suddenly find the thin red beams of automatic weapons touching many parts of their bodies. But the most satisfying moments come from seeing these guys do what they do best, one on one. Couture takes on Austin. The very compact Li takes on the giant Lundgren. “Bring it, Happy Feet,” the big man tells Li. Statham takes on a bully. And then his pals.

Stallone as co-writer, director, and star manages to keep the tone light and affectionate for the genre and its fans without getting meta or condescending. These action heroes take their fun seriously without taking themselves seriously. They have time for some commiseration about the faithlessness of females and some manly banter as they load their weapons. One explains how he got his cauliflower ear and another tells the story of when he lost his capacity to care about anything or anyone. But mostly it’s just red sauce and jello, macho bonding, and silly character names: Hale Ceasar, Toll Road, Lee Christmas.

Following the Somali pirate hostage rescue, our heroes are up for three jobs. “Two are a walk in the park and one is to Hell and Back.” Guess which one they take? Option 3 is a country called Vilena, with an evil Gringo and a puppet general who has a mercenary army. There’s also a brave and beautiful young woman. Various characters are chased, captured, and rescued and a lot of stuff gets blown up. Which, after all, is what we came for.

Related Tags:

Not specified

Contest: The Losers

Posted on August 6, 2010 at 1:44 pm

I very much enjoyed The Losers and am looking forward to seeing it again on DVD. Warners has been generous enough to allow me to give away copies to the first five people who send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Losers” in the subject line. Be sure to include your mailing address. USA addresses only. Good luck!

The Losers

Posted on July 20, 2010 at 8:55 am

The weather is getting warmer, which means it must be time for some movies about BLOWING STUFF UP!

And so we have “The Losers,” based on a comic book originally set in WWII but updated by Andy Diggle. The name originally signified that they were all officers who had lost men in the war, but now it means they’re the usual motley crew of lovable rag-tag tough guys as quick with a quip as they are with the various mechanisms they have for creating mayhem, and almost as quick as they are to come to each other’s aid or defy authority. These guys are the fists and fury equivalent of a boy band, each member with his own adorable quirks, awesome proficiency, and cool call sign name that makes them sound like extras from “Top Gun.” And there’s just enough variation among them that you can pick your own favorite. There’s the sharpshooter who’s silent, but deadly (Ã“scar Jaenada as Cougar). There’s the scary-looking guy with the scar who seems to have a rather short fuse (Idris Elba as Roque). There’s the cute computer whiz with a taste for whimsical t-shirts (Chris Evans as Jensen). There’s the sweetheart family man who can master any known vehicle on land, sea, or air (Columbus Short as Pooch). And big daddy, the mastermind (Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay).

It’s sort of “Mission Impossible” and “The Three Musketeers” crossed with “The A-Team.” There’s the sniper, the weapons expert, the techie, the transportation guy, and the leader. They got mad skillz so they are only brought in on the blackest of black ops, so secret it’s amazing even they know who they are.

We meet them in Bolivia, where they are on a mission to tag the hideout of a drug dealer so that it can be air-bombed, under the direction of a Charlie of Charlie’s Angels mysterioso they’ve never seen named Max. But when they see that the dealer is using children as mules to transport the drugs it turns out the big old tough guys are also big old softies. Can our hardy little team fight off a zillion Bolivian bad guys with AK-47s and rescue 25 cute little kids, one with a teddy bear (presumably not being used as a place to hide cocaine)? As a former Vice Presidential candidate might say, “You betcha!”

But it’s a set-up. Things go terribly wrong and The Losers are framed and believed killed. When a mysterious woman named Aisha (“Avatar’s” Zoe Saldana) offers to get them back to the US if they will help her go after Max, they agree.

The Losers have brash, raffish charm, the action scenes are well-staged, the explosions are really big, the bad guy (Jason Patric) is entertainingly twisted, and nobody takes themselves too seriously. Pass the popcorn!

Independence Day

Posted on July 4, 2008 at 8:00 am

In this heart-thumping, slam-bang action extravaganza, aliens arrive and blow up the world’s major cities. The president (Bill Pullman) and fighter pilots (led by Will Smith) must find a way to fight back. Some kids will find this too intense and scary, but others will want to see it over and over (and over) again. Themes to discuss include behavior in a crisis, honesty, the dilemma faced by the president in making the choice to use nuclear weapons, and, for film fanatics, finding all of the references to other classic films, from Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb to 2001 – A Space Odyssey.

Parents should know that the movie was justifiably accused of being sexist. One of the female leads is a stripper. We see her perform, though she remains covered. Her lover resists marrying her because it would hurt his career. Another couple divorced because she was too committed to her career. In addition, parents may be concerned about an unmarried couple that is clearly intiÂ¬mate, and by the tension as the characters are in peril, as well as a massive number of deaths, including two of the main characters.