Hola all. Massawyrm here.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been getting the same question over and over again: What happened to this summer? It’s easy to see why. This summer has a definite lack of “summeriness” to its films – even the good ones. Until now. Today, summer begins (for some of you) with the release of two awesome remakes that are going to delight audiences by doing everything right. Both are respectful of their original source material, both deliver everything you want from them without ever stooping to cheap fan service and most importantly, both kick 7 different kinds of ass.
THE A-TEAM
Holy shit. Smokin’ Joe Carnahan really sank his teeth into this one and tore it up. Of the two films I saw back to back today, this one was my favorite, and may well prove to be the film I see most often this summer. I’ve already planned on taking my wife to see this with me this weekend, and truth be told, if I weren’t up all night writing this, I’d have been at a midnight screening seeing it again. It is just fun. Not dumb fun. FUN. GI JOE was dumb fun. This is the A-TEAM. Carnahan got exactly what that meant and delivers everything you want out of an A-TEAM movie.
The most important thing to understand about the original series is that it wasn’t an action show. It was a comedy. When the writers sat down to write each episode, they were mostly interested in things like “How are we going to get Murdock out of the asylum this week?” and “How are we going to get B.A. onto a plane?” The show was about a group of *characters* and all the crazy shit they got themselves into. That the crazy shit happened to be a weekly rendition of THE SEVEN SAMURAI, in which they come to the rescue of innocent townspeople, only to set up elaborate booby traps and get into a huge fight only served to make the show AWESOME. And the reason this A-TEAM movie works so well is that this is how Carnahan approached the material.
For the first 45 minutes of this film, you could not wipe the smile off my face with a band saw and the ending to THE IRON GIANT. There they were; four characters of legend, brought perfectly to life with all the charm and care than you could hope for in this kind of situation. Each character is hilarious while simultaneously pushing all the right badass buttons to make you understand why, despite all of their glaring flaws, they are a member of such an elite squad. Which leads to one of the other solid choices of this film – the point at which they chose to pick it up. While I’m ordinarily not a fan of origin stories, they make a great choice here, introducing us to the characters as they each join the unit – leading us into the future on the fateful mission that makes them fugitives. The progression is natural, and the film flows into a wonderful retelling of the first 15 seconds of each episode.
This is the type of film we simply do not get enough of these days: a character driven action movie. Everyone is perfectly cast here and is given all the requisite character traits to nail everything that was great about the show, without ever feeling the need to crowbar in the type of fan service that usually ruins these things. Their trademark machine gun shows up, but it isn’t in your face. B.A. Baracas has a tattoo on his fists of the words PITY and FOOL, but never needs to say it. Important trademarks, on the other hand, are made the center of the film rather organically – B.A.s aversion to flying, Murdock’s insanity, Face’s love of the ladies, and “I love it when a plan comes together” all find themselves central to the film. And each works to incredible effect.
We also once again get to see Carnahan play around with silly, but effective, action. I know a lot of you out there are hungry for Carnahan to return to NARC style filmmaking and the promise he showed as a gritty, serious crime director, but I for one am doing backflips that we have another director, who so understands character and story, directing tentpole action flicks. This is the type of film I want Smokin’ Joe to keep making. He gets it. All of his action beats work – and when the film does get silly, it gets delightfully silly in all the ways you want the A-TEAM to be silly.
The film’s one flaw is that for about two or three minutes towards the end, it ceases to be an A-Team movie and becomes something of a Tom Cruise movie, going so far over the top that it departs from reality and dabbles in the realm of green screen implausibility. Fortunately, Caranhan reels it all back in before the very end of the sequence and the climax finishes off with a perfect, classic A-Team ending.
I absolutely love this film. It’s the first film this year that I am desperate to turn right back around and see. There’s a good chance that by summers end, I’ll have seen it two or three more times. Suffice it to say, I’m dying for them to greenlight a sequel to this immediately. As respectful and effective a remake as last year’s STAR TREK, this will tickle the fans that are eager to embrace it and make new ones out of those who have never had the opportunity to enjoy an episode. Highly Recommended.
THE KARATE KID
Many have asked the obvious question: why the hell is this called the KARATE kid? It’s KUNG FU! Well, yes. And no. While the film centers on Kung Fu, it mentions (literally) early on that it is NOT Karate that he’s learning. But this *is* THE KARATE KID. Note for note, beat for beat, this remake loves the hell out of the original and takes everything great about it and weaves a new tale with it. Had they called it THE KUNG FU KID, people would think it a shameless rip-off rather than a loving reimagining, complete with rights ownership.
Set in China, the film centers once again on a boy taken out of his element, who runs afoul of a goon squad of bullies who all happen to train under the local master. But by changing the age of the protagonist to 12 (from being high school aged), the movie becomes tonally different in a much more profound way. The romantic angle becomes one more about friendship; the bullies about honor and the father/son relationship feels deeper here than in the original. I haven’t a harsh word for the original; I just happen to think that Harald Zwart and writer Christopher Murphey really got the original and found ways to explore many of the themes in slightly different fashions. In fact, the only major changes to the story at all come in during the last 2 minutes as the film offers something very different to say about conflict resolution and honor.
But while the story is almost identical, many of the flourishes that made the original what it is find themselves stripped - Crane style, the Halloween beatdown, wax on/wax off, bonsai, fly catching, “fear does not exist in this dojo” and “sweep the leg, Johnny!” all are left to make the original what it is – while making sure to hit every last story beat in its own, perfectly original way. That said, there are few things that this version doesn’t do better than the original. It really is a very strong narrative that improves upon the original – especially thematically. This is the version your kids will fall in love with – and *should* fall in love with. It has a lot of very positive messages about martial arts, character, honor, determination and dealing with bullies.
The film runs almost 2 hours and 20 minutes (only 13 minutes longer than the original). This isn’t a fast paced Kung Fu movie – it’s the story about an immature boy with no father learning how to become a man. That’s not a story you tell quickly - but it really does fly by. Here they take their time and get it right. Jaden Smith is great here – even at one point emulating one of his father’s classic expressions – and proves to be a likable protagonist that holds his own opposite Jackie Chan, who is acting his ass off. Chan has never been better than he is as Mr. Han (the Kung Fu Miyagi), including one very powerful moment in which the father/son bond is really strong (this film’s version of the drunken sensei scene.)
Of course all this build up leads to an incredible climax that had my audience burst into applause on five separate occasions. On the way to the parking lot I heard three different sets of kids ask for the movie on DVD. The families universally loved it – as did the geeks who watched it with me. I have a strong feeling this one is going to defy the expectations. Too many people are hung up on Jackie Chan’s other American films and their tendency to suck. When we talked about remaking this in the 90’s, many of us daydreamed about what a Jackie Chan Miyagi would be like. Guess what? It was freaking awesome.
The film is great fun and easily one of the best family films of the year. If you have kids, take them to this film this weekend. They will love you for it. If they need more, then introduce them to the original that you grew up with. Recommended.
Take your pick – either way you’re going to end up seeing 80’s goodness treated extraordinarily well. Or even better, do what I did and watch them back to back in a double feature that will reaffirm your faith in this summer’s quality. I am so happy I saw these together. It radically changed the nature of my week. I can’t wait to see THE A-TEAM again this weekend and will no doubt check out THE KARATE KID again a little later down the line.
Until next time friends,
Massawyrm
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