Maximum Conviction

When former black ops operative Cross (Seagal) and his partner Manning (Austin) are assigned to decommission an old prison, they must oversee the arrival of two mysterious female prisoners

You know whats great? Stone Cold Steve Austin.  You know whats amazing?  Steven Seagal.  You know what happens when you team them up?  Amazing greatness.

Austins and Seagal star as 2 former Special Forces solders, who with their team are decommissioning a federal Prison.  2 female prisoners arrive on its last night for transfer, and suddenly Michale Pare and his team of commandos launch an assault on the prison to grab the girls.

Its up to Austin and Seagal to single handily take down this whole team.  Austin once again does what hes best at.  Beating people up, blowing people up, and shooting things up.  Seagal is bad ass as always, slapping around anyone who gets in his way.  The action moves at a fast pace, which has become a trademark of the Austin straight to DVD films.

I recommend this film to fans of Seagal, and Austin, as well as action fans in general.  Nice action scenes, macho dialog, and two great leads make for a fun film.  My only complaint, Austin and Seagal share little to know screen time together during the action scenes.  I would have like to have seen them team up and fight back to back for at least a final battle.  Other than that, go check it out.

Overall 3 out of 5 stars!

Amazing Spiderman

Peter Parker finds a clue that might help him understand why his parents disappeared when he was young. His path puts him on a collision course with Dr. Curt Connors, his father's former partner

First off Sam Rami is a one trick pony, with little to no directing talent.  All his films look the same.  With that said I do not hold his Spiderman films in high regard like others do.  I like them, don't get me wrong but that is primarily because of the performance of Tobey Maguire.

Amazing Spiderman is the new franchise from Marvel stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker.  This films follows The Ultimate Spiderman comics a little closer.  Peter's parents are scientists who leave him with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May one night when they need to get out of town.  They never come back.

Peter is a typical high school outsider.  Quiet, smart, bullied you name it.  He finds out his parents used to work with a scientist named Curt Conner's who is working with reptile DNA to use in a regeneration processes.  See he's missing a hand.

When Peter goes to see him he gets bit by a radio active spider.  You know the rest.  Uncle gets killed he becomes spiderman and becomes the Wall Crawling Web Head who fights crime.  Or in this case The Lizard.  See Conner's uses the DNA treatment on his arm and mutates into a giant lizard who want to release lizard gas over NY.

Peter Parker is joined in his quest to save the city by Dennis Leary, who is just fantastic in everything he does in my opinion.  Leary is Capt Stacey of the NYPD.  TO complicate things Peter is seeing his daughter Gwen Stacy. 

The film is fun, looks amazing, and in my opinion is far superior the the Rami films.  I like how its slightly modernised.  Like when Peter gets his powers he smacks Flash Thompson around for picking on him.  Something I would do.  My only complaint however is Andrew Garfield.  He does a great job, but is way to pretty to be playing Peter Parker.  Toby Maguire will always be Peter Parker.  With that being my only complaint I cant put this over enough

Overall 4 out of 5 stars!

The Package

A courier for a local crime lord must deliver a mysterious package while being chased by a horde of unusual gangsters.

Stone Cold Steve Austin returns for another action packed film.  He plays Danny, a bouncer/muscles for a crime boss.  He works for this guy because his brother, who is in jail owes the guy a lot of money.  Austin gets an offer to deliver a package to Judge Smails, I mean the German played by the rapidly ageing Dolph Lundgren.  See if he delivers the package to the German, his brothers debt will be erased.  With that said you know its not good.

Once in route Austin is attacked by a hit squad who want the package.  The German, who is a bad dude as well wants it, as it technically is his.  Luckily for Austin he was a special forces guy, or something like that.  He used to be in a crew with the German, before he was double crossed.  And as he is a trained killer he has no problems, shooting, stabbing, fighting, and blowing the bad guys up.

Austin once again delivers the goods.  The film is action packed, has a nice 90min run time and flys right by.  Austin knows what he is good at, and he displays that skill well in this film, which I do recommend.

Overall 3 out of 5 Stars

Here Comes The Boom!

A high school biology teacher looks to become a successful mixed-martial arts fighter in an effort to raise money to prevent extra-curricular activities from being axed at his cash-strapped school.

Kevin James stars as Scott Voss, a disillusioned teacher who is always late, doesn't really care, and constantly hits on the school nurse.  Hes friends with the school music teach, played wonderfully by Henry Winkler.  When he learns the music program will be cut, thus causing Winkler to lose his job he decides to do something about it.

He starts off teaching a citizenship class where he Meets Niko, who is played by MMA Superstar Bass Rutten.  They watch a UFC fight together and he learns you can make big cash fighting in MMA.  So as he was a former wrestler in college he decides to become a mixed martial artists in order to raise the $48 grand his school needs.

What follows is a very basic plot.  he fights, loses, begins winner, inspires his students, gets back the spark he once had for teaching, and yes, gets the girl.  Ohh yea he even makes it to the UFC for the big final fight.  Does he save the school?  What do you think?

This film succeeds on many levels.  James, as always is great as the shlubby do gooder.  The fight sequences are funny, yet at the same time wonderfully choreographed.  There are tons of real fighters in the film to add a sense of realism, and the humor works well.  However its Bass Rutten who steals ever scene he is in.  He has tons of charisma and screen presence.  And its always geat to see a tough guy give a silly performance.

Overall I like it.  It a funny feel good movie, that made me laugh, and made me feel good. And one other plus it's clean humor so its something the whole family can watch toghether.  I would highly recommend checking it out.

Overall 3 out of 5 Stars!

Safe

Mei, a young girl whose memory holds a priceless numerical code, finds herself pursued by the Triads, the Russian mob, and corrupt NYC cops. Coming to her aid is an ex-cage fighter whose life was destroyed by the gangsters on Mei's trail.

Safe aka Jason Statham kills 3/4 of New York.  Statham play a guy, who was supposed to take a dive in a MMA fight, unfortunately he puts his opponent in a coma.  So, as he was doing this for the Russian mob, they kill his pregnant wife and tell him that anyone he ever has contact with will die as well.  pretty cool set up.  So Statham basically just wanders the streets alone.

One day hes thinking about jumping in front of a train when he sees a little girl being chased by some of the Russians who killed his wife.  He follows them, then in true Statham fashion absolutely decimates them. 

Turns out this girl has been working for a Triad gang and has a code for a safe combination.  The Russians want this, as do every crooked cop in the city.  So its up to Statham to protect her, and boy does he.

Car chases, tons of martial arts sequences, shoot outs, double crosses, you name it.  This is an amazing action packed film.  The pacing is frantic, and it never slows down.  This is probably Statham's 2nd best film (Transporter 2 Rocks), and the best Action film of 2012.  Do not miss this.

Overall 5 out of 5 Stars!

Total Recall (2012)

 

A factory worker, Douglas Quaid, begins to suspect that he is a spy after visiting Rekall - a company that provides its clients with implanted fake memories of a life they would like to have led - goes wrong and he finds himself on the run

Ok, ok, I know its not the Arnold film, but its damn good.  In fact its not really even a remake, more of a re imagining.

In this version Collin Farrell steps up as Doug Quade, a factory worker who keeps having super spy flashback dreams.  he decides to go to Recall, when he can get a fantasy implanted in his brain.  He picks Secret Agent.  Turns out he already is one.  A group of soldiers show up and he takes them out in one long single camera shot.

His wife Lori, played by Kate Beckinsale is not happy this happened and she goes after him.  Luckily he is aided by his real girlfriend Melina.  See he used to work for Cohagen, played by Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad fame.  Cohagen wants to wipe out the Colony, a place where lower, to middle class live to make more room for the rich.  To do this he needs to lure out a rebel by the name of Matthias.  That's where Quade comes in, as he used to work for Cohagen, and now has a fake memory implanted so he can be a plant.

This film takes place on earth, not Mars, and for that matter has very few similarities.  It does however have amazing action scenes.  Hover Car chases, gun battles, hand to hand fights, the works.  Great special effects, great cast, and a nice pace keep this moving right along.  Once again its not the original, but its a hell of a ride.

Overall 4 out of 5 Stars!

In case you did not know!

In case you did not notice.  The Big Kahuna Movie Reviews has undergone a name change (Don't worry address is the same) to Vault of Mysterious Reviews.  This is due to the fact that myself, and T-Shirt Joe have a 3 day a week podcast now.  The Vault of Mysterious Information.  The main link is

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