Exploding Helicopter

“I don’t do westerns,” said legendary composer Miklos Rozsa when approached to write the soundtrack for The Green Berets (1968).

“It’s not a western,” came the disingenuous reply from the film‘s producer. “It’s an eastern.”

Such semantic sleights may have tricked Rozsa into taking the job, but nobody watching the finished product will be so easily deceived. While ostensibly a war film about the Vietnam conflict, this couldn’t look more like a Western if you stuck a stetson on its head and attached spurs to the opening credits.

But we should hardly be surprised. The film’s producer, director and star is none other than John Wayne, a man who spent so much time in the saddle that eventually he walked as if he was still in one.

It’s entirely possible that the Duke (or Marion, as he didn’t like to be known) set out to make a realistic and contemporary account of America’s most divisive conflict, rather than a terrible faux-Western. But hey, guess which we got?

The Big Guy obviously had enough sway in Hollywood to get this funded – put simply, his name sold movies – but even the least savvy studio exec must have known in advance it’d turn out to be a spaghetti-shambles. Here are two reasons why.

First, Wayne was so rabidly, over-the-top patriotic – allegedly hating commies, liberals, fags, and pretty much anything not wrapped in a star-spangled banner – that this was never going to be a nuanced affair.

And as someone who is reported to have once told Playboy magazine: “I believe in white supremacy…I don’t feel guilty that five or ten generations ago these people were slaves”, there was no chance he’d give a fair depiction of the Vietnamese War. In fact, he couldn’t even get any actual people from Vietnam to be in the film: the enemy combatants are actually Japanese.

Second reason: the only thing Wayne could do was Westerns, and he’d been uniformly terrible in all but a handful of them. His best Westerns tended to be made with director John Ford who, wisely, told him ‘act with your eyes’ and quickly learned to cut most of the lines that the big man routinely murdered.

So when you consider the premise of this film – a bad actor in simplistic Westerns takes on possibly the most morally complex war of the century and turns it into a simplistic Western – you begin to see how problems might emerge.

And boy, do they emerge. Using one of his old cavalry pictures as a template, the Duke simply swaps horses for helicopters and replaces the Apache with the Vietcong. The cast, following their director’s lead, strut around as if they’re still in a cowboy movie. The plot’s shakier than a saloon bar door. At any moment, you half-expect to see a wig-wam in the background or a comic scene with a redskin ‘native’ looking for ‘firewater’.

Still, there is one thrill in this film that no western ever provided: an exploding helicopter.

Flying back to base, ’Charlie’ opens fire on the helicopter Wayne’s riding in. There’s a small explosion that causes the pilot to lose control. After plunging through the night sky, it crashes into the ground where the burning fuselage rolls over dramatically.

Several passengers just manage to scramble out of the wreckage, before the shattered remains fully explode. Ye ha!

Artistic merit

This is a great exploding helicopter scene, especially when you consider the technical and special effects limitations everyone worked with way back in 1968.

When the chopper is hit by gunfire they’re clearly using a model, but as the scene takes place at night the trickery is cleverly hidden. After watching the whirlybird spin round trailing flames, we cut to a shot of a real helicopter (presumably attached to a crane) that swings across the screen before the flaming fuselage is dropped to the ground to complete the sequence.

While it does all look a bit, well, fake, you have to salute Wayne’s efforts to make the scene work with a clever combination of model and camera work.

Exploding helicopter innovation

There’s nothing new in the manner of destruction, but The Green Berets can lay claim to be the first Vietnam war movie related helicopter explosion.

Do passengers survive?

The Duke, naturally, survives. The only disappointment is he runs away from the burning wreckage rather than slouching away in his trademark grizzly-bear-with-haemorrhoids manner.

Positives

Janssen: resplendent in his safari suit

David Janssen is a delight as a journalist opposed to the war who’s been embedded with the Green Berets. He looks majestic as he swaggers through the film in an unbuttoned safari suit, firing off cynical barbs at John Wayne and his men.

However, given this is a John Wayne stars n’ stripes affair – and achingly pro-Vietnam War – it’s painfully clear from the outset that our resident cynic is being primed for a clunky Damascene moment, where he’ll finally realise the glory of freedom and the American way.

It occurs when the Gooks launch a big assault of the Green Beret’s base and appear in no mood to spare the life a bleeding heart liberal – even if he can flash a press pass and an editorial condemning the war.

Before you can say ‘unconvincing conversion’, a lifetime’s considered pacifist beliefs are tossed away and Janssen‘s happily off firing mortars at those damn, dirty Gooks. Gawd bless America!

Negatives

The Green Berets is a clunking piece of propaganda with an unequivocal ideology. It’s the sort of thing Dick Cheney probably used to masturbate to before medical concerns forced him to turn away from the joys of onanism. And while we may not all agree with its rabid right-wing world view we can surely all concur that this film is a stinker of the highest order. Certainly, nothing in the story justifies the torpid, almost two and a half hour running time, as the story trundles along like an overloaded prairie wagon.

Favourite quote

“What happened?”
“He bought the farm, but he took a lot of them with him.”

Interesting fact

Apparently, John Wayne turned down the role of Major Riesman (played by Lee Marvin) in The Dirty Dozen in favour of making The Green Berets. Another sound decision from the Big Man.

Review by: Jafo

All of us know important and famous films that, for one reason or another, we've never actually seen. You know, the kind of film that when you sheepishly admit to never having watched, is met with an incredulous, "What do you mean you haven't seen......?"

Well, Bubbawheat who runs the great Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights has decided to do something about it and start filling in the holes on his cinematic CV. Each fortnight he invites someone to introduce him to a famous film that's he's yet to see, recording the experience in his Filmwhys podcast.

Exploding Helicopter was recently a guest on Filmwhys and we took the opportunity to introduce Bubbawheat to the classic film noir Double Indemnity.

In return, Bubbawheat introduced us to The Pumaman, a low budget superhero movie considered by the esteemed users of IMDB to be the 29th worst movie ever made. Although it's not all bad, as The Pumaman does have an exploding helicopter in it. Listen to the Filmwhys episode and hear what we made of both movies.

War is hell, a wise General once wrote. Maybe he’d seen this movie.

Set during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, The Battle Of Sinai (1969) features a small patrol of Israeli soldiers who, after a skirmish with the enemy, become stranded in the desert. While walking back to their lines, they stumble upon an Egyptian missile base and – stirred by patriotic duty – resolve to launch a daring raid.

That summary makes the film sound like a rip-roaring tale of action, adventure and heroism, but there’s a huge hole at its centre. Put simply, this is a war movie with a conspicuous absence of…er, war.

That means no tank battles; no aerial dogfights; no bayonet charges; hardly even a cross word, in fact. Instead, there are interminable longeurs as our heroes drive peacefully through the desert.

One rare moment of action sees their jeep wrecked, but that’s just a prelude to more joyless scenes as the group trudge wearily across the featureless Sinai desert.

Remember that famous scene in Lawrence of Arabia, where a single shot shows Omar Sharif slowly riding a camel towards the camera for five minutes? Just imagine that scene lasting an hour and thirty minutes, and you’ll begin to get some sense of how it feels to watch this film.

If the director is trying to convey the desperation of being lost in a vast expanse of nothingness, then hats off to him. That’ll certainly be the sensation of anyone trying to sit through this nonsense.

Make no mistake: The Battle of Sinai is a grimly boring film; one you don’t so much watch as endure. The great irony is that a film about the Six Day War– one of the shortest conflicts in history – should feel so interminably long.

The only real moment of interest occurs following a skirmish with the enemy, when our heroes call in a helicopter to evacuate their wounded buddy. But wait! One of the Egyptians isn’t dead yet, and he unleashed a machine gun at the landed chopper which (and Exploding Helicopter wouldn’t be writing this if it didn’t) quickly becomes a casualty of war.

Artistic merit

Helicopters should ideally blow up mid-flight, so marks are deducted for exploding a stationary one. However, it is a very realistic-looking chopper and it produces a lovely, rich, consuming fireball.

The Israelis watch the smoke clear from the wreckage of the wrecked whirlybird in complete silence. Why? Are they reverently contemplating the sight of an exploding helicopter? Is it a bare-faced art house ‘moment’ manufactured to stir our emotions? Are they slowly nodding off because they’re bored too? Who knows? And really, by this point, who cares?

Exploding helicopter innovation

There’s no great innovation here, but in fairness helicopter explosion was a young art form in 1969 and filmmakers were still establishing the parameters of the genre. Director Maurizio Lucidi should be heralded for helping to lay the foundations on which later directors would ply their trade.

Do passengers survive?

Yes, but – typically for this film – in an utterly unexciting way. Two medical nurses manage to undramatically disembark from the chopper before it’s shot up by the Egyptian. Big wow.

Positives

In a film which rarely troubles the contented snoozing of its audience, the raid on the missile base is decently staged. It’s about the only moment where it’s actually clear what is happening to who and why.

Negatives

The film ends with a narrated epilogue which states that war never solves problems, and urges Jews and Arabs to bury their differences and fight their common enemy: the desert.

Exploding Helicopter doesn’t really follow world events, but does anyone know how that one’s going?

Favourite quote

Nothing sums up the experience of watching this film more pithily than when one character wearily exclaims: “Two hours...two hours have passed in this bloody war.”

Interesting fact

Guess who made this film about a bunch of impossibly tough soldiers who, hopelessly outnumbered, refuse to back down and snatch a victory against the odds within a week? A group of Italians.

No, that wasn’t a typo. This war movie was indeed made by people whose own national army are literally world famous as serial retreaters and champions of capitulation. (Remember the old school joke about the Italian tank with five gears: one forward and four reverse?) Most certainly, a case of art not imitating life.

Review by: Jafo

Pitching a movie these days is a bit like catching a fish: you have to hook them immediately, or it’s all over.

You’ve got to sell it in a sentence: Lethal Weapon with Chicks (The Heat); Die Hard in the White House (Olympus Has Fallen); Die Hard, except Really Tired and Shit (A Good Day to Die Hard).

Thirty years ago, things were very different. Those were the days when bonkers director Alberto De Martino told studio heads: “There’s a cat-flavoured superhero with the powers of an ancient Aztec god, and Donald Pleasance trying to control world leaders’ minds – while dressed in a bin bag.” And it got made.

Exploding Helicopter has seen some loopily strange films before, but when it comes to downright weird, The Pumaman (1980) takes the biscotti.

The film’s hero is Tony, an archaeologist who wiles away his days peacefully dusting off artefacts in a museum. But the mild-mannered chamois-botherer soon has to put down the Mr Sheen down when he’s visited by Valdinho, a mysterious shaman.

The lofty ancient informs Tony that he’s no ordinary cleaner of ancient pottery. Oh, no. He is in fact, the Pumaman: descendant of an Aztec god and inheritor of special powers.

After enjoying a quick saucer of milk – only kidding! – our feline trouper throws off the shackles of bookish academia. Why? Because the world is being threatened by a nefarious criminal mastermind named Kobras. (Donald Pleasance, clearly signalling his evil intent by the fat-man-in-fetishwear ensemble he racily sports.)

Donald Pleasance: Never trust a man in bondage gear

It transpires that Donald, in truth looking more Alf Garnet than Emperor Ming, has uncovered an ancient Aztec treasure that gives him the power of mind control. Only the Pumaman stands between him and total bin bag-accessorised world domination.

Luckily, Tony has an impressive array of Puma-like powers at his disposal. He can fall from a great height, like a puma. See in the dark, like a puma. Use his hands as powerful claws, like a puma. Fly, like a, erm, puma. Teleport, like a…oh, never mind.

It’s rare to see a film this honestly bad. Walter George Alton's attempts at emoting will have viewers everywhere coughing up a fur-ball, and Miguel Angel Fuentes's monotone turn as the semi-naked muscle man makes one yearn for Big Arnie’s superior range.

But it’s all good fun. Exploding Helicopter often gripes about ‘ironically’ bad films, which tip a postmodern wink at the audience about their own shitness and presume that makes everything okay. (Note to film-makers: it doesn’t.) The Pumaman, however, is one of that rare breed: so bad it’s genuinely good.

The Pumaman: doing his 'special powers' pose

But let’s teleport, in, er, puma-like fashion, to the crucial scene. Realising the game is up, Bin-Bag Donald flees in every decent villain’s getaway vehicle of choice: the helicopter.

The Pumaman ‘flies’ after him (with his costume clearly indicating where the wires are attached) and an aerial duel breaks out, which is every bit as shoddy as the other action sequences in the film.

There’s much unconvincing ‘blue screen’ work as a clearly superimposed Tony evades Pleasance’s attempts to shoot him down. Finally, the Pumaman gets close enough to open the chopper door and climb in. At this point, Donald – despite his pensionable age and restrictive kitchen accessory clothing – gamely starts wrestling with him.

Without anyone at the controls, the helicopter plunges towards the ground. Realising the vehicle is out of control, Tony bails out and leaves Kobras to his fate. The copter smashes into the ground and explodes, leaving Donald’s charred body handily already wrapped up in plastic wrap for disposal.

Artistic merit

Risible. In keeping with the z-grade special effects used elsewhere, the helicopter that crashes into the ground couldn’t look more like a toy model if Fisher Price were printed on the side. In fact, if you look closely, it might well be.

Exploding helicopter innovation

This is the only known destruction of a helicopter by a man with superpowers of a puma, a distinction this film is likely to hold for all eternity.

Interestingly, it’s very nearly the first known superhero-related exploding helicopter. However, Superman II– which came out in the same year – features a chopper that’s destroyed by General Zod and his henchman. So, an honourable tie for both films.

Positives

The mentor is a familiar trope of the superhero film. Such flicks generally feature a grey-haired, avuncular type who dispenses profound-sounding pseudo-bollocks to help young charges understand their new gifts and responsibilities. (Think Uncle Ben in Spiderman, or Pa Kent in Superman.)

In many respects, Vadinho the shaman plays just this role. But of course, director Alberto De Martino isn’t a one to play things too safe. So instead of stay-press slacks and a woolly jumper, this movie’s mentor opts for the less conventional naked-bodybuilder-with-a-mullet look. He is perhaps the first superhero father-figure to look like a bouncer at a Tijuana whorehouse.

Negatives

The soundtrack is an abomination. Dogging Tony, and the viewer, throughout the entire film is the Pumaman ‘theme’, an insufferably jaunty synth-melody. It crops up, welcome as a fart in an airplane, seemingly every five minutes. If they’d played this through loudspeakers at Guantanamo, the whole interrogation enterprise would have been done n a week.

Still, even worse horrors are in store. For reasons known only to the (admittedly bonkers) director, most action sequences are scored with the kind of saccharine euro-disco last heard accompanying a Ceefax page. Just awful.

Favourite quote

“I’ve never seen anyone make love in the air.”
“But that’s how you make little pumamen.”

Interesting fact

Donald Pleasance once cited this as the worst film he’s ever made. That certainly seems to be the august view of users of IMDB, who have ranked this the 19th worst film in cinematic history.

If you're still not convinced that The Pumaman is a 'so good it's bad classic' then have a listen to Exploding Helicopter talk about the film on Flight, Tights, And Movie Nights podcast.

Review by: Jafo

Wesley Snipes is unstoppable.

Which won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s watched him hurtle from acclaimed Spike Lee dramas in the 80s, to B-list 90s action star, to noughties DTV also-ran. Nothing, it seems, could halt the downwards trajectory of his career.

But then the unstoppable force of Wezzer’s career slide finally met an immovable object: the US tax authorities. After government bean counters discovered that the former Blade star hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about his earnings, Snipes was given a 3 years jail sentence for fraud in 2010.

All of which is a shame because - whatever the declining merits of the project - our Wes is a charismatic screen presence and a stylish martial artist. Someone who could execute classy karate kills and deliver a page of dialogue without sounding like he was attempting to read a Korean telephone directory (although, given the lengthy careers of serial dialogue manglers Schwarzenegger, Van Damme and Stallone have enjoyed, it’s a skill Hollywood curiously doesn’t value).

So, before watching Unstoppable (2004), the hope was this would be a vehicle for Snipes to display his undoubted talents. Unfortunately, if it were a car, this film would be a rusty old banger - one incapable of getting out of second gear and prone to frequent stalling.

Snipes plays an ex-special forces badass who - through a case of mistaken identity - finds himself at the centre of a plot to steal an experimental and lethal hallucinogenic. After he’s accidentally injected with the fatal and mind-bending drug, Wesley has just six hours to locate the antidote and clear his name whilst eluding the villains and CIA.

Sadly, these quickly prove the least of Wes’ problems. More deadly threats swiftly emerge in the form a lacklustre script, bland direction, and anonymous co-stars. As the main baddie, Stuart Wilson (who you’ll dimly remember as the villain in The Mask Of Zorro) exudes all the Machiavellian skulduggery of a photocopier salesman.

Meanwhile Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje - who memorably oozed raw visceral menace as prison kingpin Adebisi in the TV series Oz - is straight-jacketed in the role of a dull CIA officer. Exploding Helicopter spent half the film wishing they were playing each other’s roles. Perhaps someone just muddled their scripts.

Snipes: on an unstoppable career slide

Still, such casting aberrations could easily have been forgiven if Snipes had been given ample opportunities to pulp the faces of his no-mark co-stars. Disappointingly, bar a brief early scene, Snipes’ superlative martial arts abilities are pitifully under-employed with the story requiring him to do little more than run away from different protagonists. That Wesley would have been better served doing a runner from this tepid thriller is an irony not lost on the viewer.

Perhaps, as he sat in his cell in sing-sing, Snipes reflected on how such feeble fare as Unstoppable (not to mention his lax accounting) had helped bring his career to a standstill. Released from prison last year, Wesley will shortly be trying to regain momentum with a role in the third Expendables movie. Let’s just hope he keeps all his receipts this time.

But Exploding Helicopter digresses. We’re less concerned with actors destroying their own careers than we are with whether they blow-up helicopters during them. And chopper conflagration enthusiasts have one to savour near the end of this film.

After tracking the villain to a private airport, Snipes attempts to steal the antidote he needs but fails. A gun battle breaks out and Wesley looks doomed when he finds himself pinned down by the villains who are in a heavily armed helicopter.

But wait! Wasn’t there a seemingly redundant expository scene earlier in the film which revealed that our boy was a crack shot? And isn’t that a high-powered sniper rifle Wezzer’s just snatched off a dead goon? Before you can say, “That’s a mightily convenient series of coincidences especially as one well-placed shot to the fuel tank would blow this chopper to smithereens,“ Snipes has, well, you can guess the rest.

Artistic merit

We like our helicopter explosions served like a good steak: juicy, bloody and rare.

What’s dished up is certainly meaty and juicy as the fireball is spectacularly big. And there can be no complaints about it being bloody as everyone onboard is incinerated. However……

Exploding helicopter innovation

…….juicy and bloody this chopper fireball may be, but it’s certainly not rare. The method of destruction, indeed the whole scenario was rather mundane and everyday. More frying steak than filet mignon.

Positives

Kim Coates: enlivens a dull film

Amidst a sea of unmemorable performances one actor does manage to distinguish themselves: Kim Coates.

Specialising in sleaze balls and petty thugs, Coates has briefly illuminated a lot of very average films (and no small number of complete duds) during a 20 year career.

With striking pale grey eyes he always commands attention onscreen and is blessed with the ability to appear simultaneously menacing and vulnerable. Unfortunately, whilst Coates gamely tries to add some spark to the film, the script acts as a giant fire blanket and smothers his efforts.

Negatives

A dispiriting ennui pervades this film. It’s as if everyone involved knew this film was never going to amount to anything.

Unable or unwilling to rouse themselves, everybody apart from Coates listlessly goes through the motions. It ends up being the worst of all possible worlds. Neither good nor bad, it is the dictionary definition of average (I know, I‘ve checked).

Interesting fact

I wish there was one. Unsurprisingly though there isn’t.

Tagline

“You can’t stop the man who will stop at nothing.”

Review by: Jafo

If you want to read more check out DTV Connoisseur's review of Unstoppable.

Impervious to criticism, immune to public opinion, and seemingly impossible to stop, the Resident Evil franchise lumbers relentlessly onwards in a manner uncannily similar to the zombies which populate its films.

Staggering into cinemas in 2002, the first instalment was met by near universal indifference. Since then, each successive film has received the kind of critical clobbering that would normally kill off anything living and breathing. Yet, like the undead, sequels have continued to rise from the grave with chilling regularity.

So, why won’t this series just lie down and die? Hard as it is to believe, the Resident Evil films have raked in a mind-boggling $1bn in global box office. No wonder instalment number six is set to lurch into cinemas later this year.

Here, we’re interested in outing number five, Resident Evil: Retribution (2012). The story picks up from the end of ResEvil: Afterlife, with Alice (Milla Jovovich) a prisoner of the evil Umbrella Corporation - the rogue bio-weapons company responsible for the zombie plague. Held in a secret underground facility, Jovovich must escape from the complex if she‘s to defeat Umbrella, save the human race, and star in the upcoming sixth film.

Given there’s no mystery in whether Jovovich will succeed in her task, the only puzzle worth pondering is how to explain the franchise’s continuing appeal? Well, Exploding Helicopter has thought long and hard on these matters and can explain in just two words: Milla Jovovich.

Yup, there’s really only one reason to watch these films and it’s to see the reigning Queen of kick-butt. Action cinema is seriously short of ass-kicking heroines and Milla’s films are about the only place you can watch a scantily-clad former supermodel wreak havoc with John Woo gunplay and Matrix-inspired martial arts.

As a screen presence, she rather reminds me of Clint Eastwood. They both confront danger with the same intense impassivity, and Jovovich’s low, husky, croak is reminiscent of squinty-eyed Clint’s gravelly whisper in Dirty Harry. We’re just waiting of MJ to announce a ‘hilarious’ comedy with a pet orang-utan to complete the impression.

Now, one of the undisputed pleasures of franchise films is seeing how characters from previous films will be incorporated into the story. You only need look at the casting in the Fast & Furious series which operates like a greatest hits album with the most popular actors from previous entries packaged together for another money-spinning outing. However, ResEvil: Retribution takes this getting-the-gang-back together ethos to a new mind-mangling level.

Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), Rain (Michelle Rodriguez), Shade (Colin Salmon) and Carlos (Oded Fahr) - who all appeared in previous films as good guys - are confusingly resurrected as villains. Meanwhile Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) the villain of Resident Evil: Afterlife is - in a barely explained plot twist - now a goodie. For an idea of how ridiculous that all is, imagine sitting down to watch a new Avengers movie only to find Iron Man battling the Hulk, Captain America and Hawkeye for no discernible reason.

Jill Valentine: Can you remind me what side you're on?

Even for a hardened ResEvil veteran it’s hard not to feel anything other than utterly lost. And it’s a feeling that isn’t helped by the fact nothing resembling an actual plot occurs until half an hour into the film. Still, while we wait for the story proper to begin, there is at least an exploding helicopter to keep us entertained.

In a flashback to the events which led to her imprisonment, Milla is aboard a freighter which comes under attack from a fleet of Umbrella helicopters. Returning fire with her machine guns, Milla shoots the pilot of one chopper as it heads straight towards her. With the pilot dead, the helicopter careens towards the deck of the ship, crashes and explodes.

Artistic merit

No complaints about the actual helicopter explosions. The Resident Evil films always have a decent budget so the special effects are up to scratch.

What I will grumble about is that we only get to see one chopper explode. During this sequence the sky is thick with Umbrella whirlybirds and an excellent opportunity for a record breaking display of chopper conflagrations is lamentably missed.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Given this is sci-fi, the helicopters in Resident Evil universe are suitably futuristic with two distinctive rotor blades on the end of short wings. However, whilst you get to see a unique looking helicopter blow-up the method and style is yawn-inducingly familiar.

Positives

Milla Jovovich memorably announced herself in film by falling butt naked into Bruce Willis’ taxi in The Fifth Element. Since then she’s made frequent costume-less appearances in her films. It’s no different here, where in one scene she appears to be wearing a small tea-towel with no visible means of support.

Negatives

The first 30 minutes are - in hindsight - entirely pointless. Essentially a drug induced dream experienced by Milla Jovovich’s character, they have absolutely no relationship to the rest of the film. Bizarre.

Favourite quote

Milla summarises the plot for this, and perhaps every zombie movie ever made: “A lot of people died. Trouble was they didn’t stay dead.”

Interesting fact

Apparently this is the first film in the series to not feature zombie dogs. I know, I was disappointed too.

Review by: Jafo

The one thing that really strikes you when watching A View To A Kill (1985) is just how old Roger Moore looks.

Whatever your thoughts on the relative merits (or otherwise) of Sir Roger’s portrayal of the world’s leading upper-class psycho-thug, you can’t deny that he made the role his own, and to a generation or two, he was Bond. But here, his craggy features and greying hair almost overshadow his 'double 0' swansong. Not that there’s a great deal to overshadow.

That's because A View To A Kill encapsulates most of what was wrong with ‘classic’ era Bond: dull storyline, terrible humour, whiney, screaming Bond girls and good actors wasted in villainous roles.

The plot, such as it is, sees Bond uncover a scheme by the usual, foreign sounding bad-guy, Max Zorin. For reasons the film never bothers to explain, he plans to do some unspecified skulduggery having just designed a microchip capable of withstanding an electromagnetic pulse (a plot point the writers liked so much they revived it for Goldeneye). Quite why MI6 consider this a problem is unclear; surely the government would want to cut a deal with the guy for some fat juicy military contracts?

So, Bond is sent to Paris, because he’s never been there before. After mingling with some French stereotypes, he has lunch up the Eiffel Tower (not a euphemism) before watching Grace Jones skydive off the spindly iron landmark and smash up a Renault 5 (the least sexy Bond car ever).

Later Bond pays his obligatory visit to the villain's mansion and stud farm (fnarr!) and new characters are introduced to advance the plot. Events continue to happen for no other reason than this is a Bond movie.

Now, I can accept the 007 films have a successful formula, but this is so by-the-numbers it could be a kids TV show: Bond meets a woman, Bond snoops around, Bond fights a henchman, Bond escapes death because someone decides to engineer an elaborate demise rather than simply shooting him, and so on.

Moore looking every one of his 57 years

But to make matters worse, having exhausted the Gallic scenery the action moves to San Francisco where the whole French section gets effectively replayed: Bond meets a woman, Bond snoops around.... It's like Groundhog Day remade as a spy film.

Which is a shame, because interesting ideas are cruelly dangled in front of us before being quickly whisked away (like the lovely Fiona Fullerton). There’s a mildly diverting interlude where Zorin torches an entire building to kill Bond, but it’s not long before we have another derivative and pointless car chase. Still at least this one gets everyone to the finale, where Bond discovers that Zorin is going to destroy Silicon Valley to corner the market in microchips… seriously. The whole sorry mess ends with Bond and Zorin having a pretty novel fight atop the Golden Gate Bridge (complete with exploding blimp!).

All told, A View To A Kill just doesn’t work. We are firmly in deus ex machina territory here, so rather than anticipating events or investigating them Bond just finds himself in the right place at the right time, over and over again.

The whole film is basically an eighties retread of Goldfinger, even down to the ‘hoods convention’ scene complete with rotating diorama, but with none of the charm, innovation and pizzazz of the earlier film. There’s a fair bit of action, but it’s all marred by the inclusion of schoolboy humour: the use of a Beach Boys sound-a-like playing California Girls as Bond snow-surfs away from some baddies is a series low.

The Golden Gate climax features some fantastic stunt work, as two stuntmen really do fight on top of the bridge (but were forbidden to actually throw punches), but once again the good work is undone by the accompanying dodgy back projection. And the less said about shagger Roge's shower scene with Tanya Roberts the better.

Still, it's not all bad. Christopher Walken is rather brilliant as Zorin, clearly enjoying, nay relishing, the opportunity to have fun with a character who is so poorly written. He also produces one of the most truly shocking moments I’ve ever seen in a PG rated movie, as he and a lackey mow down hundreds of mine workers with Uzis.

Grace Jones: best henchperson of the Moore tenure

Stacey, too, is dreadfully written, but as Roberts is not an Oscar-winning actor, she just resorts to channeling the spirit of Britt Ekland and screaming “James!” whenever the dialogue runs out (which is frequently). The surprise casting highlight is Grace Jones as Zorin’s henchperson Mayday. Easily the most compelling physical nemesis of the Moore tenure (yes, even Jaws) Jones belies her lack of acting depth by producing a genuine character performance, and one which actually progresses throughout the story.

It’s a sad fact that Moore, like Connery before him, and Brosnan would after, went out on a low. It's easy to think A View to a Kill would have been better with another - crucially younger - actor playing Bond. However, given the campy tone, Moore is actually the perfect Bond for the movie. The real problem is this is just an awful movie, and it's tragic that Moore's finale in the role saw him forced to creak his way through so many sub-Benny Hill gags.

But, whatever the flaws there's still an exploding helicopter to enjoy, and this one's right up front in the film, finishing off the pre-credits sequence. Before Bond can have his first shag of the day he has to escape some goons who are pursuing him through snowy wastes.

We're treated to a ski-chase which have been a feature of Bond films from as far back as On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Having shaken off most of his pursuers, a circling helicopter causes our hero some bother. Finding himself without a weapon Roge improvises and fires a flare gun at the whirlybird. As it cockpit fills with smoke, the pilot loses control and crashes into an icy cliff wall.

Artistic merit

It’s a nice combination of miniatures, full-size and composites, with the explosion itself towering over a Siberian (actually Icelandic) vista.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The Bond producers like to boast about they always try to give the audience the familiar, but in a way they’ve never seen before. It’s fair to say that in 1985 using a flare gun to blind the helicopter pilots was pretty original. Bond also discovers a new element: bulletproof snow.

Do passengers survive?

Not a chance, even though they had a couple of opportunities to jump out, as the helicopter bounced around the ground a few times. Maybe they were taking tips from Bond himself, who failed to leap from the Blofeld-controlled chopper at the start of For Your Eyes Only when he had the chance.

Positives

The whole snow bound sequence, despite not being anywhere near the best in the series, is the highlight of the movie, comedy musical accompaniment aside. John Barry also effectively recycles his theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, creating a brilliant, exciting recurring theme for the movie.

Negatives

I never had a problem with Bond mowing down hordes of faceless boiler-suited goons, but when he’s murdering people who are just doing their job in their own country (Bond kills a couple of Russian soldiers) it leaves a sour taste.

Given the diplomatic brouhaha he caused by storming an embassy in Casino Royale, I would imagine killing troops in their own country would get him something more than a slap on the wrist. It’s also not the most secret way for a secret agent to behave.

Favourite line

“You amuse me, Mr Bond”. Not so much the line, but Walken’s delivery is exemplary. You can tell he’s waited his whole life to say dialogue like that.

Interesting fact

The producers’ first choice for Max Zorin… David Bowie. That could have been brilliant, but it means we would never have had Walken.

Review by: Joe Scaramanga

You can read more of Joe's work on his own website Now, That's What I Call A Music Blog as he journeys through 30 years of Now compilations.

Of all the places you'd expect to find an exploding helicopter, The Lego Movie (2014) is perhaps not the most obvious - a surprise moment in a surprisingly enjoyable film. This is despite, on the face of it, looking like it's a recipe for disaster.

Littered with cameo appearances, parodies of much-loved film characters, and a repeatedly-played annoying sounding song, this looked like it was going to be a gruelling 100 minutes.

Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt) is just an everyday generic Lego construction worker. He lives in a world where every day is the same and everything operates like clockwork. Everyone follows the instructions of their overly-chirpy leader, President Business, watches the latest episode of a repetitive sitcom and joins in a daily singalong of 'Everything Is Awesome'.

But all is not as it seems. President Business is actually the evil Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell), who has grown tired of a rogue band of rebels (led, sort of, by Vituvius, voiced by the Almighty Morgan Freeman) that like to construct Lego in their own more interesting way.

Business plots to end the plastic brick universe as we know it by unleashing an ancient relic - the Kragle - to cement all the Lego blocks in place - permanently. The only thing that can stop this evil OCD plan is The Piece of Resistance (a seemingly plain bit of red plastic) that a prophesied special one will pick up. That someone turns out to be Emmet.

With the help of Vitruvius, Wyldstyle (voiced by Elizabeth Banks), Batman (voiced by Will Arnett) and other Lego characters from the last few decades, Emmet must escape capture by Business's two-faced cop (voiced by Liam Neeson) and save the universe.

The plot is so utterly bonkers it's like a child wrote it, but it actually holds together extremely well. The screenplay and direction come courtesy of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the minds behind the similarly mad Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.

It's easy to dismiss the film just as a cynical money generating exercise to get kids' to mass-purchase Lego (which they certainly will), but the film is full of heart and subtle comedy. And frankly it was a great film for nostalgia too. As someone that grew up with Lego (pirate ship and governor's fort, Robin Hood set, random spaceman set etc), the appearance of past Lego characters were a nice addition.

Crazy plot, a world made of Lego, engaging characters, and an exploding helicopter to boot? Yes indeed, everything is awesome. The helicopter explosion occurs when Emmet is pursued by Bad Cop's police squadron. Making for what appears to be the edge of their world (a big wall) it seems there's nowhere to escape to. But wait! A gateway appears just at the right time for the escapees to speed into. This promptly closes - with the pursuant cars smashing into the wall. A moment later, the police helicopter follows them into the wall, before falling on top of the cars - causing a smattering of flaming wreckage.

Artistic merit

This fireball marked the end of a decent chase scene, where Lego pieces fly everywhere. The explosion is pleasingly understated - just a simple crash and fall into some other Lego pieces, with a dash of flames.

Exploding helicopter innovation

This is undoubtedly the inaugural cinematic Lego chopper explosion.

Do passengers survive?

Inconclusive. For starters, there didn't seem to be any resultant melting, which from my childhood experience usually happens with the addition of fire to Lego. There is death in the film though, with one character returning as the classic ghost Lego Man, however there were no other ghosts visible on screen.

Positives

Chris McKay, who is best known for his work on Robot Chicken, was also involved in the film which might help to explain why I found it so hilarious. There are some particularly good scenes where Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill voice Superman and the overly attentive/annoying Green Lantern, notoriously one of the lamest of superheroes. Superman' discomfort is a pleasure to watch. But really Batman steals the show - Will Arnett is straight in above Kilmer & Clooney on the Best Batman list.

Negatives

One of the random highlights features a scene where the Millennium Falcon pops up. It's a really small scene, with a really small number of lines. Anthony Daniels voices C3P0, and Billy Dee Williams voices Lando. Han Solo is disappointingly not voiced by Harrison Ford, who the directors described as "too busy" to record one or two lines for that scene. Sadly, Ford wasn't too busy to appear in last year's woeful Ender's Game.

Favourite quote

Batman: "I only work in black...and sometimes very, very dark grey."

Interesting fact

It's Morgan Freeman's very first appearance in an animated film. Which given he seems to add his voice to virtually everything is rather surprising to find out.

Review by: Joseph Clift

It’s ironic that, having made his name playing Iceman in Top Gun, Hollywood quickly went very cold on Val Kilmer.

First there was the frosty reception for his lumpen turn in Batman Forever. And when his lame reboot of 60s spy caper The Saint met with an equally chilly response, Tinseltown promptly shoved Kilmer’s career into the deep freeze and forgot about him.

Since then, Val’s attempts to once more bask in the warm glow of cinematic success have resulted only in lukewarm DTV slush. So, could this low budget chiller be the one to finally bring Val Kilmer in from the cold? In a word: no.

The Thaw (2009) sees Kilmer play Dr Kruipen, a scientist investigating the global warming crisis. While working in the Arctic, he’s made a momentous discovery with global implications. So naturally, this being a schlock-horror movie, the first thing he does – before calling the World Health Organisation or the UN – is invite four nubile teen students along to, like, check it out.

And then, after a few early scenes, he pulls a Yeti-like vanishing trick and simply disappears for most of the film. At first you hardly notice. But after a while, as you stifle yet another yawn at the panto-horror antics of the teen-bots, you’ll start questioning whether you really saw Val Kilmer at all.

Was he even in this movie? Have you perhaps confused this with another movie? After all, the only evidence for his existence lies in a few brief, blurred sightings, uncertain third-hand accounts and opening credits that state ‘Starring Val Kilmer’. It’s all a mystery. Truly, Big Val has become the Abominable Actor of Hollywood.

After the brooding one’s exit, we’re left to follow the travails of the regulation issue movie teens (frigid nerd, horny jock, babe-alicious cheerleader, earnest ‘nice’ boy) as they slowly – and witlessly – begin to comprehend the danger they’re facing.

But what is the chilling terror that our young clichés are pitted against? The answer, dear reader, is flesh-eating bugs.

Photographic evidence of Val Kilmer's presence
in this film

Our weirdo doctor has discovered an ancient, deadly parasite while defrosting the remains of a prehistoric woolly mammoth. And once thawed, these pesky critters like nothing more than burrowing under human skin, where they quickly multiply and start feasting on the flesh.

And, horror of horrors, it turns out the doc isn’t quite as nice as he doesn’t seem. Oh, no. Our boffin’s view of humanity has soured after being ignored for years (perhaps this is where Kilmer identified with the role).

His dastardly plan is to deliberately infect the naïve teens and send them back to civilisation, thus unleashing the buggy threat on the world. Although given the sex-ploits of the teens, venereal disease might well kill everyone off long before the bugs get a chance to.

As a way of getting the world’s population to listen to his message about melting ice-caps, it’s unconventional to say the least. Let’s just hope Al Gore doesn’t catch on to this one.

Matters come to a head in the final act, when Big Val finally wanders in from the snow to find his cunning plan has been rumbled.

Not to be foiled, he infects himself with the dangerous parasite and hops into a helicopter to fly back and infect the world. With all the other teens rendered into bug-food, it falls to the frigid nerd (typically the last surviving genre type in cheesy horror films) to stop the deranged doctor.

Grabbing a rifle, she fires inexpertly at the helicopter and ‘luckily’ hits the pilot in the neck, killing him. The chopper spirals out of control and whirlybirds into the Arctic base station. Boom! Both building and helicopter blow up in a massive fireball. Someone get the marshmallows.

Artistic merit

Given this is a low budget film with few frills – or thrills, for that matter – this is a commendable chopper fireball. Having the helicopter crash into the building gives the pyrotechnics boys and girls a perfect excuse to create an impressively large fireball.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Little to report, sadly. Helicopters have been destroyed in similar circumstances countless times before. Perhaps surprisingly, even the polar location of the explosion is fairly common. For previous examples see: John Carpenter’s The Thing (and its remake), TV disaster movie 2012: Ice Age, and the lamentable creature-feature Arctic Predator.

Positives

A gory, improvised, amputation has long been a staple of the horror film, and dismemberment fans will are in for a treat with The Thaw.

After being bitten on the arm, one hapless teen agree to have their arm unceremoniously chopped off to stop the infection spreading. Fortunately, there’s a big meat cleaver handy.

Unfortunately, the wimpy teen wielding it is afraid of blood. They initially bungle the amputation necessitating repeated, gruesome, blows to finally sever the limb. Given a choice, they should probably have left his arm to the bugs. They’d have made a cleaner job.

Negatives

Talking of plot standbys, where would these films be without the scene where one character realises they’ve left something crucial behind? Sure enough, this hoary old plot device here is creaked into dishonourable service once again here.

After trapping the parasites in a laboratory, the gang realise they’ve left vital evidence of the conspiracy in the room. Cue a predictably frantic escapade into the room to retrieve said device.

Tag line

The somewhat meaningless: “Extinction will find you.”

Interesting fact

William B Davis, better known as the ‘smoking man’ from The X-Files, briefly pops up as a talking head in a TV clip.

The truth is out there, but the entertainment certainly isn’t in here.

Review by: Jafo

As a child of the eighties, Wesley Snipes has been an oddly curious presence in my life. He’s always been there, but only ever on the margin of things. In many ways, Snipes is like an estranged uncle, one who makes random appearances at birthdays and weddings, before vanishing for years without explanation.

Perhaps the reason for this peripheral existence is that despite a near 30-year career he’s never made an era-defining or life-changing film. Sure, there have been some very good ones (White Men Can’t Jump, Blade, Rising Sun), but never one for which he’ll always be famous. Today, sadly, Wee Wes is probably best known for his sudden bouts of amnesia when his tax bills were due, and for dire DTV fodder like The Marksman (2005).

The plot is straightforward. Snipes plays an out of work actor who has squandered his income and is now facing an upcoming tax bill that he cannot afford to pay. That’s not really the plot, but if it were it would be a darn sight more enjoyable than this tripe.

The actual story is thinner than wet Rizla. After Chechen terrorists take over a nuclear power station and threaten to blow it up, Snipes has to lead a team of special ops soldiers on a mission to infiltrate the complex and stop radioactive Armageddon. But before Wezzer can complete his mission, he must overcome a series of deadly action movie clichés.

First, there’s Snipes himself: a mysterious, but brilliant operative who is haunted by a mission that went tragically wrong. Then there’s the cardboard cut-out villain, a crazed Chechen warlord, who ruthlessly kills without compunction – except when he captures Snipes and his team (at which point he just ties them up so they can escape later and instigate his demise).

And finally there’s the obligatory double-cross. It turns out that the suspiciously helpful Russians are still bitter about losing the Cold War, and have been feeding the Americans false intelligence. It’s all a plot to trick Snipes and his men into blowing up the nuclear power plant. Oh! The Commie swines!

Psychic Snipes guesses the plot twist

Of course, our Wes is the only one who figures this out. Not through a deep understanding of post-Cold War geopolitics, but by repeatedly muttering, “This is too easy” whilst wandering through a forest.

Now, most films would be embarrassed about blatantly pilfering plot devices. Not so The Marksman which, having tired of copying other films, decides to dispense with the charade and just reuse bits from those actual films.

Yes, in one shameless sequence a complete section of DVD actioner Active Stealth is inserted into the film. Together with the liberal use of stock footage of jets, tanks and other heavy weaponry, The Marksman begins to resemble a badly stitched patchwork quilt. Something that roughly resembles a film, but one made of up pieces that clearly don’t go together.

And, so to the reason I endured this film for ninety, retina damaging, minutes: the exploding helicopter. Thinking they have completed the mission, our heroes head to their extraction point where they are to be choppered away to safety.

Snipes realises it’s a double cross, but too late. One of the evacuation team, who is secretly working for the Russians, drops a grenade into the waiting chopper. With only a few seconds to spare, the marines run for cover as the chopper behind them erupts into a dirty black and orange fireball.

A classic 'heroes illuminated by exploding helicopter shot'

Artistic merit

It’s a decent enough explosion. I guess it was a choice between a screenplay and a pyrotechnics expert.

Exploding helicopter innovation

None at all. We’ve seen helicopters destroyed by grenades as far back From Russia With Love in 1963.

Positives

There is one absolutely priceless moment in the film when the senior General tasked with leading the military response asks: “Do we have any guys with real combat experience?” which is followed by an awkward silence.

Now, you might think that the world’s only military superpower would have no shortage of such experienced veterans. Incredibly, it seems Uncle Sam’s armed forces are a straw man filled with pimply faced teens who’ve never fired a shot in anger and only Wesley Snipes is qualified for the job.

Negatives

Several sequences are shot in the jerky handheld style used so effectively in the Bourne films and NYPD Blue. Unfortunately, director Marcus Adams’ efforts resemble less an edgy, cinema verite than simply a drunk dad trying to film the family barbecue on a cheap camcorder.

Favourite line

“Always bet on black.” Okay, that’s actually a line from Passenger 57, but it’s still our favourite Snipes quip.

Review by: Jindy

You can read other reviews on this film by friends of this website DTV Connoisseur and Comeuppance Reviews.

Who would have guessed that, in a movie featuring 300-foot tall, fire-breathing monsters, the most unbelievable characters would all be human?

Oh, dear. When promising newcomer Gareth Edwards was handed a £160 million budget for only his second movie – on the strength of his lo-fi (and low budget) debut hit, Monsters – hopes were high. But sadly, the Wunderkind has produced a steaming great pile of dino-plop.

Still, there is at least some good news: the monsters themselves are fabulous. They look sinister, they move convincingly and their guttural, ear-bending shrieks send a shiver down the spine. Besides Big G himself, there’s a couple of black, spindly, bird-like giants (called Mutos) who entertainingly go on a monster-sized ASBO rampage across the globe.

As for the director’s much-criticised decision to do a very slow reveal of the beasts (for the first hour, all you get are snatched half-glimpses or blurred images on TV screens), it actually works a treat. The gradual build-up of tension makes for a spectacular visual treat when the monsters are finally revealed in their full glory.

Equally, much of the disaster-style footage is spot on. A succession of images – ruined, tottering skyscrapers; battleships tossed about like bath toys; wrecked urban landscapes – really stick in the brain.

But then the actors have to go and ruin it all by speaking.

It’s true. The monsters may be levelling entire cities, but the film itself is ultimately brought down by a hokey plot, terrible dialogue and ropey acting. No-one emerges unscathed.

Bryan Cranston, afforded almost demi-god status after his turn in Breaking Bad, looks like a man who’s just realised how terrible the film is. He croaks and whines ineffectually for a bit, then wisely decides to die half an hour in.

Leading buff-boy Aaron Taylor-Johnson utters not a single memorable line, and merely bounces around from one action scene to another.

But it’s in the ‘war room’ that things really take a tumble. David Strathairn joins a bevy of lantern-jawed military types to bark out the usual guff about ‘having a visual’ and ‘needing situational awareness’.

Such scenes are rarely inspiring, but in Godzilla they are comically poor. Even the basic walking-and-talking choreography is noticeably bad. You can actually see actors stepping three paces to the left to find their mark before delivering a line. It’s desperately hammy stuff.

Ken Watanabe praying for his bowels to move

And it gets worse. Ken Watanabe, brought in to be the ‘Japanese’ guy, is little more than a cartoon. Every line he utters is a wise proverb, delivered with a pained look suggestive of constipation worries. His performance makes Cato from the Pink Panther films look nuanced.

By the time he ponderously pulls out an old time-piece (‘It…was…my father’s’) that supposedly froze at the moment Hiroshima struck, you haven’t the heart to point out a wind-up watch wouldn’t actually have stopped.

But, in a crowded field, poor Sally Hawkins carries off the worst actor accolade. Constantly fretting, worrying and semi-sobbing, she’s resembles nothing more than a modern-day Stan Laurel.

The piss-awful weakness of the human story here is strange, because the strength of the central characters’ relationship in Edwards’ Monsters was its defining quality. It all strongly suggests the studio leaned heavily on the young director to make a bland and accessible piece of pap.

All of which begs the question: why does Hollywood keep on giving blockbuster movies to auteurs? Suppose, say, someone was really skilled at flying a model airplane; you wouldn’t sit them in the cockpit of a commercial airliner and tell them to hit the thruster. But Hollywood does this all the time.

The very skills that make Edwards a good small movie-maker – strong personal vision, an ability to improvise, skilful handling of a small cast – make him a terrible fit for a baggy, committee-led blockbuster.

This point was demonstrated last year when the hugely talented visionary Guillermo del Toro managed to make the $190million Pacific Rim one of the most unwatchable films in recent memory.

Godzilla ponders the absence of a heavyweight
acting co-star

The problem is simple. A blockbuster director is a particular kind of beast – usually a high-functioning sociopath – who’s generally mad enough to take on a studio, loudly threaten to resign, Fed-Ex their own doo-doo to the company president etc. Auteurs just can’t achieve such giddy heights.

Put it this way: you probably won’t see a lo-fi indie film about disenchanted shop clerks directed by Michael Bay coming to a cinema anywhere near you soon. So why are the sensitive types taking on such huge projects, especially when the results are so consistently dire?

And be assured, no cliché is left un-mined in this tosh. Cute kid noticing the monster first? Of course. (Twice.) Loved one trapped fatally behind glass door and sharing final moments with lover? Oh, yes. Hero improbably finding himself eye-to-massive-eye with the giant monster? Yes, about five times – it’s almost like they’re dating.

Ultimately, beset by demands to make a film anyone can like, Edwards has produced something that very likely no-one will give a toss about. Ironically, he is gobbled up by his own monster movie.

Artistic merit

It’ll be no surprise to learn the chopper scene is poorly handled. Facing a monster with a reach of around 400-feet, the chopper pilot goes in shooting and flies right under its left nipple. Unsurprisingly, said beastie immediately swats chopper. Duh. What did the pilot think was going to happen?

Exploding helicopter innovation

None. Godzilla has previously destroyed helicopters in Roland Emmerich's risible 1998 franchise offering.

Positives

This scene takes place at an airport, and there’s a nice shot of the nervy airport crowd watching from behind a huge glass wall as the chopper hits a few airplanes and triggers a series of explosions.

Negatives

The short-lived monster and helicopter encounter has zero tension, and makes even less sense. Expensive, pointless, confusing: it could be a metaphor for the film as a whole.

Favourite quote

Ken Watanabe is clearly in the movie purely for the moment when he stagily turns round, panto-style, and declaims: “They call him…GOR-ZIYYA!”

Interesting fact

Despite the galumphing bad reviews for Godzilla, Gareth Edwards has just been handed the reins for the next Star Wars movie. Given the previous Star Wars trilogy featured some of the wonkiest acting on record (Hayden Christensen’s love scene with Natalie Portman regularly tops Worst Scene of All Time lists), they’ve clearly got the right man for the job.

Review by: Chopper

Still want more? Then check out Jafo discussing Godzilla with a bunch of other cool folk on The Large Association of Movie Blogs podcast on the film.

Is there a more unlikely action hero than Danny Trejo?

At the coffin-dodging age of 70, the hopes of most actors run no further than a warm cocoa and a nicely paid ‘exposition cameo’. But not our Danny, who’s instead decided to spend his pensionable years carving out (literally in his machete wielding case) a new career in action cinema.

It’s an improbable development, with an incredible story behind it. The two Machete films – Machete (2010) and Machete Kills (2013) – which have catapulted Trejo from bit-part status to leading man fame actually had their as a spoof (yes, spoof) trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse project. It’s now a fully blown franchise.

The story begins with a gang of Mexican revolutionaries threatening to nuke the United States. With the fate of the nation at stake, American President Charlie Sheen (taking a rare day off from getting ‘crack’ed up to the eyeballs and going on TV to talk gibberish) calls in everyone’s favourite oversized-knife-wielding Mexican to save the day. Dangling the prize of a US green card before him (because what else would any Mexican want?), the Prez hires Trejo to infiltrate the gang and stop the plot. But as our crater-faced curmudgeon cuts a steel-edged swathe through the villains, he learns that the nuke threat is just a diversion from another, much more deadly, conspiracy. Yikes.

So, having just celebrated his seventieth birthday, how does Trejo – the only man who can consider Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone up-and-coming young pretenders - fare as an action movie hero? For the most part, commendably well. Trejo has an undeniable screen presence, even if it’s in large part due the fact he looks like a tattooed Easter Island statue (only with less emotional range).

Danny Trejo: Like an action movie Leslie Nielsen

Here, that stoicism (or inability to act, take your pick) becomes a useful trait. With an intentionally preposterous plot, and the violence played for laughs (the inventive use of intestines is a series trademark), it’s important that somebody appears to be taking matters seriously and Trejo provides a poker-faced calm at the eye of the storm.

In many ways he’s like an action movie version of Leslie Nielsen who successfully dead-panned his way through 20 years of genre spoof silliness. Just don’t expect Trejo to warn someone not to call him Shirley, when brutally disembowelling them is so much quicker.

Still, it’s not all good. Despite the muscly Mexican’s best endeavours, Machete Kills is an uneven watch, jack-knifing from moments of inspired gonzoid invention to self-indulgent onanism. And there’s only one culprit: Robert Rodriguez.

Not content with writing and directing the film, Rodriguez also edits, photographs, produces and writes the music. Between takes he probably shoved a broom up his arse and swept the floor as well.

While you can’t fault this hands-on enthusiasm, the absence of collaborators or critical voices means the film frequently stalls, as Rodriguez amuses himself with another redundant scene.

Exploding Helicopter couldn’t help thinking the film would’ve benefitted from the involvement of an old-school cigar-chomping Hollywood producer. The film badly needed the kind of artistic philistine who’d happily rip 20 pages out of the script without troubling himself about the integrity of the director’s artistic vision.

Still, there’s one happy by-product of Rodriguez giving full reign to his imagination: a truly inspired and unique exploding helicopter.

After kidnapping Mendes – the Mexican revolutionary holding the USA to ransom – Trejo tries to make his escape in a chopper, but is pursued by machine-gun-firing goons in a speedboat. Simply flying away would be much too straightforward for this film, so Trejo leaps from the helicopter into the speedboat and starts doffing up the henchmen. Having dispatched two of the goons in double-quick fashion, Danny Boy deals with the final baddie in virtuoso fashion.

With the pilot-less chopper still weaving about in the sky, Our pock-marked pensioner grabs hold of a fishing rod that’s handily lying around. He casts the line and hooks the helicopter on the end like it was a prize marlin. Attaching the rod to the troublesome villain, he triggers the spring-loaded reel causing him to be violently wrenched out of the boat. Whizzed towards the chopper, the hapless henchman smashes into the whirlybird which, of course, explodes.

Artistic merit

Creative, inventive, entertaining, this is the very best kind of exploding helicopter. Watching this scene, celebrating it, it’s why we run this website.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Only known use of a fishing rod to destroy a helicopter.

Do passengers survive?

Yes, Trejo and Mendes survive having made a highly improbable leap from the helicopter.

Positives

Rodriguez provides one of Exploding Helicopter’s favourite supporting artists, William Sadler (Die Hard 2, The Shawshank Redemption), with a juicy little part as a redneck Sheriff out to lynch Machete.

Always a classy presence, Sadler has largely spent his career in middling films and TV work. If you were to draw up a list of actors who deserves to be better used then Sadler would surely have to be on there.

Negatives

Unfortunately, not every casting decision is as good. Lady Gaga appears briefly as ‘La Chameleon’, an assassin whose nickname comes from her mastery of disguise. The character actually serves little purpose in the film, other than to chew up screen time and provide Rodriguez with the opportunity to crowbar in pointless cameos from all his Hollywood chums, such as Cuba Gooding Jr, Walton Goggins and Antonio Banderas. (Though in fairness, this is probably the biggest acting gig Cuba Gooding Jr has had in about a decade.)

Favourite line

Danny Trejo strikes a blow for Luddites everywhere: “Machete don’t tweet.”

Interesting fact

Apparently this is the eleventh time Danny Trejo has appeared in a Robert Rodriguez film. And with the film dangling the prospect of a further sequel - Machete Kills Again – it looks like the partnership isn’t going to end here.

Review by: Jafo

Want more of Exploding Helicopter's thoughts on Machete Kills? Then have a listen to me discussing the film with a few other cool people on the Large Association of Movie Blogs podcast.

…or World War Werewolf, as this film - for very important legal reasons – is assiduously not called.

That’s because Battledogs (2013) is a ‘mockbuster’, one of those not-so-thinly veiled (but just veiled enough) rip-offs of a mega-budget blockbuster.

So, after zombie extravaganza World War Z staggered into cinemas in the summer of 2013, those masters of the cheap knock-off at The Asylum quickly bashed out Battledogs.

The basic plot of the two films is uncannily similar, with both featuring a world imperilled by a mystery virus that turns people into murderous savages. But to ensure there’s no payday for the copyright lawyers, Battledogs cheekily swaps World War Z’s human-chewing zombies for werewolves. A sort of werewolf in zombie clothing, if you will.

However, there’s always an inherent problem with ripping off a squillion dollar budget movie – namely, the lack of a squillion dollar budget.

So while World War Z saw A-list Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt literally scour the world (and bizarrely Wales) looking for a zombie cure, the made-for-cable Battledogs has acting no-mark Craig Sheffer (who he?) skulking round the inside of a few deserted buildings. Jerusalem, Korea and packed USA city centres are notable by their absence.

Where World War Z gave us Grand Guignol horror as hundreds of innocents were brutally chewed to death, Battledogs’ more modestly staged scenes involve little more than a solitary victim being gently nibbled to death by a wonky CGI dog. There’s more genuine nail-biting suspense in a good episode of Lassie.

Bill Duke: contemplates the fate of mankind, or
possibly just his shopping list

The low grade vibe also extends to the supporting cast, a random assortment of semi-familiar faces who are clearly as bored by the film as the viewer. A near-comatose Bill Duke (Predator, Commando) briefly appears as the President of the United States. All good leaders should display a quiet stoicism, but this performance borders on catatonic depression.

Elsewhere, Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) can barely contain the sense of ennui as he ticks off the minutes before his character is gnawed to death. And Ariana Richards (who you’ll dimly remember as the teenage girl terrorised by dinosaurs in Jurassic Park) offers a stark reminder of why it’s been six years since she last appeared in TV or film.

Alone among the cast, Dennis Haysbert (24, Heat) valiantly tries to add a touch of class. Fighting against the ropey dialogue, he delivers his lines with all the pained seriousness of a Shakespearean soliloquy, but the poor lad shouldn’t have bothered. This film is Much Ado About Nothing.

Battledogs is like the suspiciously cheap Gucci bag you bought on holiday, which fell apart the moment the plane landed back home. You knew all along it was a cheap knock-off that would quickly disappoint, but went ahead anyway on the off-chance it might actually pass for the real thing. You really should have known better.

The titular "Battledog" in all its wonky CGI glory

Luckily for this blog, the one authentic pleasure in this film is the helicopter explosion. It occurs when the military are sent in to ‘reclaim the streets’ of New York from the fuzzy (and not at all zombie-like, lawyers!) fiends. A squadron of helicopter gunships flies in to pursue the rampaging werewolves down the streets.

As one whirlybird hovers next to a skyscraper, a werewolf suddenly smashes through one of the building’s upper windows and straight at it. Stunned by the assault, the pilot loses control of the chopper and crashes into the side of the building. Ba-doom!

Artistic merit

The werewolf’s daring assault on the helicopter is filmed in slow motion so we can fully enjoy the improbability of what we’re witnessing. Gloriously, the pilot gets to perform an obligatory “What the...” line, before losing control of his chopper and crashing it.

The classic “What the…” exclamation in films is an interesting phenomena. No matter what the scenario, any expendable extra will always have just enough time to utter those fabled two words, yet never sufficient time to actually complete their sentence.

Deep down, all of us must surely long to meet our maker in a similarly poetic way.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The first lupine-related exploding helicopter.

Positives

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh. Hopeless as the stuff of nightmares, the crap werewolves are capable of raising the odd titter.

Negatives

As the film’s hero, Craig Sheffer is blandly anonymous. Cutting it neither as an action figure nor a top boffin, he has zero screen presence. In his scenes with the Atari-style CGI werewolves, you start to admire their method.

A better actor (and it’s hard at this point to think of a worse one) could perhaps have built an interesting conflict with Dennis Haysbert, the only decent actor in the movie.

Interesting fact

This isn’t the first time Sheffer has come up against werewolves. In the late Eighties, he was involved in a cartoon series spin-off from Teen Wolf.

Review by: Jafo

“The first casualty of war is truth,” reads the sombre quotation at the start of this ridiculous movie.

Well, they said it. In 5 Days Of War (2011), truth isn’t just a casualty – it’s punched in the nuts, water-boarded then blasted by a firing-squad before the opening credits have even finished.

Supposedly ‘based on real events’, this war drama tells the tale of plucky Georgia’s heroic resistance in 2008 against a Russian invasion. Most independent commentators reckon the blame for this messy conflict needs to be shared – but you’ll find no such namby-pamby even-handedness here.

The reason why is simple: the film was part-financed by the Georgian government. (Bizarrely, one of its ministers is even listed as a producer.)

The result, unsurprisingly enough, is a gallumphing piece of pro-Georgian propaganda. Swivel-eyed and angry, the movie ramps up the anti-Russian rhetoric so much it’d bring a blush to the cheek of a Fox News presenter.

The ‘story’ centres on Thomas Anders (Rupert Friend), an American journalist in Georgia to report on the war. While helping a Georgian family flee the fighting, he films Russian soldiers cold-bloodedly executing civilians – then has to daringly escape through the frontlines with this damning evidence of evil Russkie war crimes.

Will he make it? Could the truth finally be revealed to the world? Does anyone remotely care? No.

Rupert Friend the star of 5 Days Of Snore

There’s another odd, even schizophrenic, aspect to this movie. Clearly, the Georgian tourist ministry – fearful that two hours of watching the country being reduced to rubble might discourage potential holidaymakers – has insisted on the inclusion of lots of idyllic ‘travelogue’ imagery showing off the region’s beautiful old towns and balmy countryside. In some scenes, you half-expect Judith Chalmers to wander into shot and start extolling the virtues of the unspoilt beaches.

But then the action will suddenly lurch back to a graphic depiction of war-time horror (a wedding celebration ending in a bombed bloodbath, for example). Back and forth it goes, between sunny vistas and blasted buildings, cute pavement cafes and corpse-littered streets. It’s like watching Machete Kills and Wish You Were Here having noisy, confused sex. And not in a good way.

Misfortune seems to be heaped onto this movie. Already staggering under the weight of Georgian governmental expectation, its credibility is further lumbered by two titanically over-the-top performances from a couple of has-been stars: Andy Garcia and Val Kilmer (of which, more later). And then there’s the ultimate death-knell for any film: Renny Harlin.

Ah, Renny. Over the years, the scarecrow-coiffured Finn – a favourite bete noire of this website – has been accused of many things, but subtlety and sophistication are not among them.

The dead hand behind such clunking high-concept fare as Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea and Cliffhanger, our Renny deals pretty much exclusively in explosions, car chases and gunfights. Indeed, his Nordic disposition seems almost offended by such quaint cinematic conventions as plot and character development.

Renny Harlin directs 5 Days Of Bore

Harlin’s stylistic peccadilloes are most readily apparent here during a scene in which senior government figures anxiously discuss the country’s fate. Confronted with people doing nothing more than actually speaking to each other, Harlin’s unease is palpable. You can almost sense his panic: ‘What is this? Two people, in a room, talking? Oh my god – there’s pages of this stuff’.

Realising the potential for cinematic catastrophe (ie. three straight minutes without an explosion) Renny solves the problem with admirable simplicity: he just presses the directorial fast-forward button. Suddenly the actors – who’d previously been speaking in measured and actorly tones – start rattling through their dialogue at machine-gun pace. It’s like they’re taking on bets at Ascot.

Complex plot points – whole swathes of story – are hurled back and forth like hand-grenades, just so the Renny-nator can get back to blowing some shit up.

Still, such pyromaniacal intent was always going to pay dividends for readers of this blog. And when a big Russkie Mil-Hind 24 hooves into view, shooting up heroic Georgian soldiers, you can be sure Renny isn’t about to cut away to a quiet scene of contemplative dialogue. Oh, no. It’s chopper fire-ball time.

With his comrades under fire, one of the Georgian grunts whips out a rocket launcher and blasts the helicopter. Damaged, the whirlybird spins into the top of a building, before tumbling to the ground and providing our exploding helicopter ‘money shot’.

Artistic merit

As already mentioned, if there’s one thing old Renny knows about (and we’ve checked: there is only ‘one thing’ he does know about) it’s how to blow things up. Thus, the audience gets to really relish the ailing chopper’s death throes before seeing its final demise – all in lustrous, fiery, CGI.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Nothing to report, sadly. This is a little disappointing, as the Nordic numpty has provided plenty of quirky helicopter explosions in previous films – see Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea, or 12 Rounds for examples.

Positives

Andy Garcia's 5 Accents Of War

For schadenfreude enthusiasts, the undoubted highlights of the film are the eccentric cameos from Andy Garcia and Val Kilmer.

Garcia has the juicier role as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Cast because of his physical resemblance to the great man (and, let’s be frank, because he’s generally ‘available’ these days), his performance comes crashing to the ground as soon he opens his mouth.

Try as he might, our perma-brylcreemed smoothie is simply unable to maintain a Russian growl, and his weird Cuban lilt keeps leaking through. No true film buff has really lived till they’ve witnessed his ‘Nyet! Nyet! What-a are ya doin-a, senor comgrim rade?’ schtick for themselves.

Along with Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and Ray Winstone’s catastrophic ‘American’ in Fool’s Gold, this is one of the worst accents committed to film.

Val Kilmer has a smaller role as a maverick, slightly unhinged journalist: though, in fairness, his role is the only thing about him that is small. The striking, blonde hunk of Top Gun has long since been subsumed into layers of celebrity blubber. Big Val’s famously hearty appetite for drink, drugs and however many burgers are on offer is, in a sense, now literally written all over him in rubbery bands of flesh.

Val Kilmer's 5 Bellies Of War

His entrance to the film is spectacular. With little warning, the shocked viewer is confronted with a paunchy, long-haired Val, luxuriating naked in a bubble bath. It’s like Jabba the Hutt’s bigger brother has slithered into the wrong film. It’s a truly magnificent sight.

In his (successful) day, Val was famous for on-set strops, minion-bullying and ridiculous ‘remove all the red M&Ms’-style diva behaviour, so there’s a certain grim satisfaction in watching the old fool get his gut out for a few paltry shekls. It can comfortably be assumed that the Big Man is these days administering to his own M&M compartmentalisation needs.

Negatives

The movie spends 15 minutes establishing a traumatic back-story for Anders, involving a friend and fellow reporter dying in his arms while in Iraq. Throughout the film, various characters tell Anders he needs to move on from this trauma in a manner that strongly suggests a looming moment of dramatic catharsis. However, nothing ever happens.

One can only guess that Harlin, petrified by the prospect of shooting scenes featuring actual emotions, quietly ripped those pages out of everyone’s script.

Favourite line

“Everything is easy when you wear a mini-skirt.” Thankfully, this line is not uttered by Val Kilmer.

Review by: Jafo

"Smart, exciting, and unexpected" screams the quote emblazoned across the film's poster in a manner suggesting the producers were as surprised as anyone to find themselves with such effusive praise for a new Tom Cruise movie. 

Such astonishment is easy to understand. Since the Scientology bothering superstar's sofa jumping meltdown, the Cruiser's career has been on a steady downwards slide of franchise sequels and middling genre efforts.

At first glance, the Edge Of Tomorrow (2014) appears to be another unappetising entry in the recent Cruise canon, with familiar ingredients from Groundhog Day, Source Code, Starship Troopers and War of the Worlds reheated as a cinematic casserole. But what should have been an indigestible dogs’ breakfast, turns out to be a surprisingly tasty sci-fi action thriller.

Tiny Tom plays Major William Cage, a media spokes-officer for the military who are fighting a war against alien invaders who have taken over much of Europe (true to form, perennial surrender-monkeys France are one of the first nations to fall). Leading the fight-back are General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) - who is planning to defeat the aliens by launching a D-Day style landing on the continent - and Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) a super-soldier whose battlefield heroics have made her the war’s poster-girl.

But this isn't the battle-comfy Cruise character we've seen in the past. The smooth-tongued media man prefers to enjoy a war - as any sensible General does - as far away from actual combat as possible.

Unfortunately for him, Gleeson has other ideas and sends the cowardly Cruise kicking-and-screaming to the front line on the eve of invasion (for an idea think Blackadder’s General Melchett sunnily despatching Captain Darling to the trenches). Cruise is quickly fried alive in the Somme-esque disaster, but gains the ability to replay the same day with each subsequent death - a skill he must use to save the world. 

The Cruiser: as surprised as anyone
that critics liked his new movie

It's in one of these failed attempts that Cruise and Blunt arrive at an abandoned house in the French countryside, which like all Gallic retreats happens to have a small helicopter in the back garden.

Cruise suggests to Blunt that it would be a great idea for them to kick back, enjoy some wine, and see where the evening takes them, rather than flying the chopper to the certain death he's seen on past attempts. Blunt weighs this up, and then considers certain death by chopper crash preferable to a sweaty triste with our perma-grinning friend.

The chopper has barely lifted off the ground before it swoops into the garage. The only thing missing is a smug Cruise standing over the wreckage, arms crossed, head shaking, uttering the line 'what did I just tell you?'

Artistic merit

In truth, it's a pathetic crash. Cruise's character knows it's coming, we know it's coming, and when it does arrive we are denied a large explosion in favour of several small fires. Mercifully we only see this sequence once in the film, despite Cruise's character telling us he's experienced it multiple times. 

Do passengers survive?

Emily Blunt chooses death by exploding helicopter
over sex with Tom Cruise

No. Blunt's character survives long enough for some dialogue, before predetermined death. 

Positives

For anyone that's been annoyed by the recent crop of Cruise films, or for anyone that just wants to slap the perennially perky Cruise in the face, the Edge Of Tomorrow provides a rare treat. Large sections of the film resemble Sean Bean's legendary 'death reel' allowing schadenfreude fans to revel in the sight of Cruise being sliced, crushed, shot, squashed and toasted innumerable times.

There's also one marvellous moment where after tiring of another failed attempt at saving the world Top Gun Tom decides 'oh fuck it, I'm off to the pub' where he boozes it up with the locals.

For a film that's stolen elements from so many different films, Director Doug Liman (of Bourne Identity fame) does an admirable job in making the end result surprisingly intelligent and enjoyable. Cruise's transformation from battle-shy weasel to inadvertent soldier just about works, while Blunt is at her best when coldly opting to take the option to reset the day into her own hands.

Negatives

However, the ending does seem somewhat implausible. Cruise is able to use his knowledge of the future to convince a group of soldiers that don't know him to go on a suicide mission to Paris, yet at no point can convince anyone in the military command that they need to change their battle plans. The Deus Ex Machina at the end unravels the minute you prod at it. 

Favourite line

Major William Cage, on hearing his assignment into the battlefield: "While it is an honour General, I am afraid I'm going to have to decline. I can't stand the sight of blood, not so much as a papercut."

Interesting fact

The film was released during the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War 2.

Review by: Joe

You don’t normally associate sex, drugs and violence with a Keira Knightley film. Nor, indeed, entertainment.

Typically, the straitlaced star is found in more genteel fare, giddily swooning in wholesome romantic comedies or staid period dramas. But after making her name with a slew of such sappy entertainments (Pride and Prejudice, King Arthur, Love Actually), our Keira had fallen foul of a fate more terrible than missing the debutants ball: typecasting.

Given her unblemished ‘English rose’ appearance and RADA-honed diction, Hollywood merely wanted to truss her up in a corset and have her coquettishly flirt with a succession of floppy fringed twerps. Understandably, Knightley didn’t want to spend her career playing toff totty so deliberately blasted her chaste persona with a canny act of career sabotage: Domino (2005)

The film is loosely based on the life of Hollywood l’enfant terrible Domino Harvey. The daughter of actor Laurence Harvey (The Manchurian Candidate), Domino ditched her dull Hollywood existence for the hedonistic thrill of life as a bounty hunter.

This exaggerated account of her unorthodox career sees our privileged moppet getting out of her depth in LA’s seedy underworld. After becoming unwittingly embroiled in the theft of $10m, she finds herself pursued by the Mafia and the FBI. Can she cut a deal with the mob? Can she escape arrest? Would you like more tea, Vicar?

As the tattooed, chain-smoking, nunchuck-wielding bounty hunter, our Keira wastes no time in gleefully trashing her choir girl reputation. Facing down a gang of heavily armed drug dealers, she defuses the situation by performing a semi-naked lap dance. Later she coolly orders the amputation of a man’s arm before indulging in a mescaline fuelled sex romp in the Nevada desert. At no point during these scenes does she perform an adagio on the pianoforte or suggest taking a turn round the garden.

There’s a guilty pleasure in watching the normally ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ Keira getting down and dirty. And you certainly can’t fault her ‘commitment’ to the part (producers preferred euphemism for actresses getting their nellies out). Unfortunately, the plausibility of her character is punctured every time she opens her mouth.

With her cut-glass English accent and 18-carat pronunciation, La Knightley can’t quite deliver her lines with the throaty menace you’d expect of someone who tracks down violent criminals for a living. Ray Winstone, this is not. Her posh brogue renders threats like, “Listen bitch, we’ve got your fucking son. Give us the money or we’ll whack his arse” unintentionally comic. Rather than exuding fearful menace, she sounds like a crabby old Duchess, irritably complaining that the staff haven’t cut the crusts off the cucumber sandwiches again.

Unfortunately, other problems start stacking up. The chaotic storyline which is incapable of going five minutes without introducing a new sub-plot is as unsure as Madame Knightley’s performance. The film seems unable to decide whether it wants to be a biopic, action film or a critique of celebrity culture.

Story overload is compounded by sensory overload courtesy of director Tony Scott. Directing with his trademark ADHD style, the viewer is assaulted with a dizzying kaleidoscope of fidgety camerawork, fast cuts, flashbacks, and freeze-frames. And if that isn’t enough to induce a migraine, everyone’s second favourite Scott brother punctuates the action with a pointless voiceover. Adding to the confusion, said voiceover is also plastered all over the screen in caption form. By the time the exhausted viewer makes it to the end credits they’re left longing for some nice, quiet, soothing entertainment: like a Michael Bay film.

Still, this everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to filmmaking pays dividend for the viewer when Scott throws in an exploding helicopter.

During the film’s climax, Keira and her group of bounty hunters attempt to cut a deal with the Mob. The negotiations, which take place on the top floor of a hotel, turn sour and a three-way gun battle breaks out between the bounty hunters, the mafia and the FBI who keeping tabs on the situation from helicopters circling the building.

During the ensuing melee, one of the mafia henchman opens fire at the helicopter, killing the pilot. Without anyone controlling the chopper, it swiftly crashes to the ground and explodes.

Artistic merit

Given the extravagance with which Scott directs the rest of the film, the helicopter explosion is a most disappointing affair. The chopper simply disappears from view, after which we hear a crash and see a big flash indicating that it’s been blown-up.

One would have thought that Tony Scott would have grasped this opportunity to create an explosive scene of operatic intensity. Instead, there’s no wreckage, no drama, no nothing.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Sadly, none to report.

Positives

Every film is improved by the presence of Christopher Walken, and Domino proves no exception.

Cast as a fast-talking TV producer, Walken gives a performance that can only be described as Walken-esque. His idiosyncratic approach to pronunciation – where words are emphasised seemingly at random – make listening to his line readings an unalloyed joy.

Other actors can speak non-stop for half an hour without leaving an impression. Whereas Walken, in one brief interlude here, simply says “Wow” in his own peculiar syntax and steals the whole scene.

Negatives

Throughout the film there’s a curious motif of a dying goldfish. Indeed, a flashback to Domino’s childhood shows her witness the unfortunate death of her fishy friend, and the adult version wears a goldfish tattoo on her neck. While hardly up there with Sophie’s Choice we’re presumably meant to ascribe some deep emotional significance to this loss of what is essentially a middling fairground prize.

Here’s another theory: many animal behaviourists believe that domestic goldfish are driven start, staring mad by going round in circles without ever getting anywhere. Having sat through this film, I may be beginning to see the significance of the motif.

Favourite quote

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going? These people paid for a seminar.”

Interesting fact

Look closely amid the welter of tattoos that Keira sports in the film and you’ll notice a curious reference to Blade Runner, which was directed by Tony Scott’s brother Ridley. Inked across the back of her neck is ‘Tears in the rain’ a nod to Rutger Hauer’s famous speech at the end of that film. Again, the tattoo seems to have no significance to the film, so it appears to be nothing more than an ‘in-joke’ between the two brothers. Hilarious stuff.

Review by: Jafo

Cliff Gaylor (Oliver Tobias) is a football player with an attitude. When his daughter Susan (Melissa Palmisano in her only screen credit) is framed and imprisoned for possessing illegal drugs while on vacation (in either a Caribbean or South American country, it’s never really made clear), Gaylor tries all the traditional channels to free her.

First he goes to see the American Consul (Charles Napier, here credited as “American Consul”) but he’s useless. He then goes to see a local lawyer (Martin Balsam, credited as “Lawyer”), who is just as incapable. So Gaylor does the next natural thing: he calls his football coach (Ernest Borgnine, here credited as “Coach”. Sensing a pattern here?).

Fired by can-do attitude, Borgnine promptly volunteers his entire football team to stage a commando raid on the prison. Of course, the whole team agrees and Coach “coaches” the mission by arming and training them in the usage of machine guns. All the team now need to do is get past sadistic prison warden Yashin (Henry Silva) and his underling prison guard. Will the team be able to punt, spike, blitz, sack, snap, and tackle their way towards reaching their (field) goal? Find out today!

The Last Match (1991) had a lot going for it: a strong cast, an amazing concept, and visually the sight of uniformed football players brandishing machine guns and grenade launchers looks awesome. Unfortunately, the movie only really kicks into high gear in the final third.

Most of the movie is a staid and bland “my daughter’s in prison” drama with echoes of Midnight Express (1978). One thing Midnight Express did not have - unless we blinked and missed that part - is a bunch of crazed footballers on the rampage shooting machine guns at Henry Silva while Ernest Borgnine happily gives instructions through a headset.

Ernest Borgnine calls the plays for the football
commandos final assault

Sadly, because of the rarity of this movie, most people haven’t gotten to see the cast of Borgnine, Balsam, Silva, Napier, and the footballers do their thing. Had this been released on VHS during the golden age of video stores, it might have had a shot at being a well-known cult movie. Instead, it’s just a not-so-well-known cult movie, which is only really justified by the last third.

That said there are some other noteworthy moments. There’s the strange “whosh-whosh” sound effects like someone’s waving a piece of cardboard in the air and a bizarre scene where Borgnine jovially recalls his wartime experiences. Other oddities include an evil drug dealer who has a shirt that simply says “NEWS”, and a subplot about saving an Elian-like kid from the third-world hellhole that is the unnamed country they’re trying to escape from. Also there’s a guy in the cast named Jim Kelly who’s a White guy and not the Jim Kelly we all know and love.

So to recap, we’ve got unnamed characters, who are part of a football team that’s never named, running around an unidentified country. It really shouldn’t work. Yet somehow the silliness is pretty funny.

Another good thing about the movie is that the whole “football commandos” idea is played completely straight. Where some filmmakers may have thought this a wacky or ironic idea – everyone here seems to think it was a perfectly sane concept for an action movie. And thank goodness for that. We get more than enough irony these days as it is.

Fourth down and close quarters machine gun action

Just look at the training sequence where fully suited-up football players shoot machine guns at targets. That’s why we keep going back to these Italian productions. They always seem to deliver in some way, shape or form. But the fact that a quality idea like this didn’t really take off to its full potential shows that by 1991 things were starting to run out of gas.

Much like Martin Balsam, who gives a bizarre, stuttering performance. Seated throughout he seems utterly confused as he reads his lines off a piece of paper. Compare that to Borgnine, who injects the movie with some much-needed energy during the interminable first and second portions.

In the end, The Last Match has a killer concept, but ultimately doesn’t hit the mark. Or score a touchdown, if you will.

Still, there is one moment in the film where its bonkers premise fuses happily with the conventions of the action movie: the exploding helicopter scene.

Our favourite moment occurs during the football team’s big assault on the baddies. A huge gun battle breaks out between the football commandos and the villains, who call in some rotor-bladed air support.

Our heroes look like they might be in a sticky spot, but one of the team has a moment of inspiration. Splitting open a football, he packs a grenade inside, before punting it at the chopper. It’s a perfect kick and the football arrives at the helicopter just at the moment the grenade explodes, whereupon the leather ball and the whirlybird disappear in fiery oblivion.

Artistic merit

What can we say? This is a classic chopper fireball. Sure the effects are extremely ropey, but when we’ve just seen a man blow up a helicopter by volleying a grenade filled football at it, we’re not going to complain. We’re just going to sit back and enjoy the creativity, the imagination, not to mention the sheer lunacy of it.

Exploding helicopter innovation

First use of an American football to blow-up a chopper. The trick has subsequently been repeated in Three Kings (1999) where Ice Cube attaches an explosive to a football before throwing it at a helicopter.

Positives

You have to love the makers of this film for running with the concept and giving us appropriately football-themed chopper fireball.

Negatives

It might have been nice to see the wreckage fall to the ground or the pilot doing a classic “What the….” double-take. But like we said before, this no moment for petty grumbles.

Interesting fact

Director Fabrizio De Angelis has previous exploding helicopter form, having blown one up personally in Cobra Mission and overseen the destruction of another as producer on Cobra Mission 2.

This review is a guest post by our friends Brett and Ty from the great website Comeuppance Reviews. They're dedicated to celebrating action movies from the eighties VHS era. Check out their website and discover some forgotten gems.

Sometimes the title spells out exactly what you’re going to get.

101 Dalmatians gave us spotted dogs, and lots of them. Three Men and a Baby gave us, well, three men and a baby. And certainly, as far as Exploding Helicopter was concerned, Nude Nuns With Big Guns delivered on every aspect of its promise.

So, when a military rocket containing top secret nanotechnology crash lands in a zoo, we’re just one implausible plot twist away from the creation of a homicidal, robotic crocodile. Namely, Robocroc (2013)

What follows is, broadly speaking, about as imaginative as the title. The newly spawned cyber reptile quickly goes on the rampage, chewing up hapless extras and chomping an army unit into mincemeat.

It then falls to two zookeepers to save the world from this pointy-toothed terror. But for all their best efforts, the hapless duo is powerless to save the audience from the crushing boredom of the plot.

Given this is a low budget creature feature, Exploding Helicopter always expected Robocroc to be a cheap and shoddy affair. However, even for a hardened viewer of genre cliche, this was a whole new order of bad.

The whole film is beset by a depressing lethargy. In scene after endless scene, it half-heartedly trudges through the usual genre tropes with all the enthusiasm of a sulky teenager press-ganged into a family holiday.

Worse, in a film about a murderous 20 foot-long crocodile, all the truly terrifying butchery appears to have taken place in the editing suite. Clearly embarrassed by the shonky CGI appearance of its notional star - presumably generated on a ZX Spectrum - the movie-makers limit Robocroc's appearance to just a few fleeting glimpses.

Robocroc in all his low budget CGI glory

Which leaves a terrible monster movie without even the virtue of a monster. Several promising scenes - for example, the death of a swimming pool filled with nubile teens - are rendered utterly toothless, as all the limb-tearing carnage takes place off-screen. When a splatter movie refuses to show either the villain or the victims, you have to wonder what the point is.

(In fairness, Jaws was famously 'the shark movie without a shark' for the first two acts. But it had a cracking script, visionary director, top acting chops and an unforgettable score to take up the slack. Here it looks like the cameraman's got pissed and fallen into the camera at the vital moment.)

The cumulative effect of all this inaction soon becomes mind-numbing. For long stretches nothing happens. Then finally, something does happen, but it's all off-screen. Then nothing happens again. Few creature-features can lay claim to having a Beckettian quality, but this is such a film. It should have been called Waiting for Robocroc.

Still few films are without any reward and Robocroc does at least serve up one unlikely treat: Keith from Boyzone. Oh, yes. Cast as a Steve Irwin-style croc hunter, the former chart topping lip-syncer is called in to help stop the beast. (If only he'd crooned out a couple of his lamentable ballads at the monster, the movie might well have been over a lot sooner.)

After watching Robocroc turn a bunch of heavily armed elite soldiers into hamburger, the Irish lunk bizarrely decides to get all Tarzan on the techno-reptile's ass and wrestle it into submission like Johnny Weissmuller did all those years ago.

(In perhaps a movie first, the CGI wrestling on display here is actually less convincing than Weissmuller's famously histrionic thrashings about with a large piece of reptile-shaped rubber.)

Follow the example of these teens and
run away from Robocroc

Sadly, such giddy novelty is in scarce supply elsewhere - and particularly with the exploding helicopter scene.

Following a possible sighting, the military predictably bring in a helicopter to search for the murderous croc by swooping very, very low over the water. You'll never guess what happens next. Oh, you already have.

Yup, registering 9.9 on the cliche-ometer, our dependable monster leaps 'suddenly' from the water and smashes into the whirlybird, causing it to explode. Call it a chopper croc-flagration.

Artistic merit

Dismal. The helicopter explosion is only briefly glimpsed. Presumably the special effects budget couldn’t stretch to showing anything more.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Better. This is the first known destruction of a helicopter by a robotic crocodile.

Positives

It was a struggle to find any, but the least-worst aspect of the point of view photography which allows us to see the world through Robocroc's eyes. This means we get Robocop or Terminator style computer graphics overlaid on the real world with flashing “target locked” messages popping up onscreen. Conveniently, it also means the director doesn't have to show us the dreadful computer croc.

Negatives

We're pretty much stuck for choice here, but perhaps the most galling thing is that there never seems to be enough of anything.

The military don’t have enough soldiers, the zoo doesn't have enough animals, the splatter scenes don't have nearly enough splatter. However, what's really missing is drama, tension and entertainment.

Interesting fact

Dee Wallace (who you may remember from E.T: the Extra Terrestrial) faced a similar threat in the equally low budget Alligator 2: The Mutation.

Review by: Jafo

Widowed psychic Andy (David Keith) and his pyro-kinetic daughter Charlie (Drew Barrymore) are on the run. They’re fleeing a shadowy Government organisation known simply as "The Shop" who want to capture the pair and harness their spooky powers for their own nefarious ends.

When initial attempts fail, The Shop’s head honcho Hollister (Martin Sheen) hires crazed one-eyed goon John Rainbird (George C. Scott) to hunt the pair down. After Rainbird snares his prey, our heroes are locked-up in a top secret laboratory where Sheen subjects them to a barrage of sinister experiments. Will Andy and Charlie have to live out their days as human guinea pigs, or can they use their psychic powers to escape? Well, you won’t need the power of extra-sensory perception to guess what happens.

Now, when you call your film Firestarter (1984), you really need to serve up a sizzling hot entertainment. Unfortunately, this lukewarm offering is rather undercooked.

Much of the blame has to go to director Mark L Lester who allows the plot to gently simmer for far too long. So, instead of watching Charlie wreak pyro-manic carnage, the film gets bogged down in endless scenes of domestic drudgery as Dad tries to council his young psychic padawan about her deadly powers. It's like watching an X Men sequel played out as Ken Loach-style misery-porn.

Still, the film is not devoid of fun. Patient viewers are eventually rewarded in the final act when Lester finally turns up the gas and gives our heroes the chance to unleash their powers with unrestrained abandon.

Drew Barrymore channeling her inner Bonnie Tyler

As the title helpfully suggests, Charlie’s special skill allows her to set objects ablaze while her father can manipulate people by implanting suggestions into their minds. So as a legion of Government agents move in for the kill, our heroes are given bountiful opportunity to creatively use their abilities.

More entertaining though is how David and Barrymore demonstrate their freaky mental powers with their thespian skills. To convey the effort of using his Jedi-like mind tricks, David clutches his head whilst adopting a particularly pained and earnest expression. No doubt aiming for an air of Svengali-like mystery, he simply looks like someone trying stoically to deal with a bad case of piles. No wonder he was - according to Stephen King, on whose book this film is based - fourteenth choice for the role.

Meanwhile Barrymore looks no less ridiculous. Presumably unable to coax ‘psychic’ from his young E.T star, Lester just uses an off-screen fan to wildly blow her long tresses about. I’d not seen so much hair portentously billowing about since Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding out for a hairbrush’ pomp.

Unsurprisingly, given Firestarter’s slow-burning approach, it’s not until the film’s denouement that we’re treated to the exploding helicopter – and there’s no prizes for guessing its source.

David Keith: psychic and piles sufferer

During her escape bid, Charlie starts torching everything in sight. Pursuing agents and their vehicles are spectacularly turned to toast as the enraged brat becomes a human flamethrower.

Into this nightmare swoops a lone helicopter. Via a megaphone a passenger optimistically orders Charlie to "stay right where you are". Ever the obedient child, Charlie duly stands stock still, but only so that she can take careful aim at the chopper and blast it out of the sky with a fireball. Perhaps that instruction to stand still should have included an order not to torch aerial vehicles either.

Artistic merit

The chopper conflagration is fitting addition to the numerous acts of destruction at the end of the film. The explosion is nice and clean and engulfs the chopper entirely. Extra marks for Charlie's pinpoint pyro-kinetic accuracy.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The first and only known exploding helicopter caused by pyro-kinesis.

Although it’s not necessarily the earliest use of psychic powers to destroy a chopper. Tanya Roberts used psychically controlled flamingos to crash a whirlybird in Sheena: Queen of the Jungle which was also made in 1984.

Do passengers survive?

Not a chance. The pilot, and potentially an additional passenger that decided to man the loud speaker, were undoubtedly cremated in the explosion.

Positives

Barrymore, in her first post E.T. outing, is excellent as the kid trying to handle a set of powers that are ruining her life. Mr Sheen also puts in a typically well-polished performance.

Negatives

The soundtrack, courtesy of new age synth warblers Tangerine Dream, has not aged well. For anyone who grew up in the eighties the ethereal plinking and plonking conjures painful memories of French mime artists and pretentious stage magicians. Awful.

Favourite quote

Charlie McGee: "Get out of here, you bastard! I'll burn you up! I'll fry you!"

Interesting fact

The book has had a few additional adaptations. 18 years after Firestarter, the direct-to-TV 'Firestarter 2: Rekindled' was produced - featuring Dennis Hopper and Malcolm McDowell. A series, set 20 years after the events of Firestarter, is also apparently in development.

Review by: Joe

Jacob Harper (Don the Dragon) is a deputy sheriff in a small town near the Hoover Dam. As if having to fend off rednecks who harangue him because of his Indian (i.e. Native American) ancestry wasn’t enough to deal with, a team of heavily-armed baddies has taken over the dam. They threaten to blow it up unless they get twenty-five million dollars in ransom. (They’re holding the dam hostage, so that makes sense, right? Eh, never mind...)

Raising the stakes are the fact that Harper’s wife is pregnant and his beloved father, Nate is trapped in the dam. Can Harper’s use his wits and martial arts skills to save the dam and his family? Or has he met his match – as the VHS box art suggests - in the villainous Bartel (Roddy Piper)? Will Harper’s mission be dam successful or dam impossible? And you thought we wouldn’t do a ‘dam’ pun in our introduction...

Terminal Rush (1996) is a scraggly straggler in the unending parade of nineties ‘Die Hard-in-a’ movies, and this ranks towards the back of the pack. While the opening of the movie is funny and completely ridiculous, with government officials spitting out random non sequiturs between credit titles, things quickly take a turn for the mediocre.

The film rapidly descends into a mindless shoot-em-up between no-one-knows-who. Incomprehension is compounded by the drab, washed-out look that director Damian Lee gives the film. It’s less Terminal Rush than Interminable Rush.

So why do we keep watching these things? Because we think our cinematic heroes, Don The Dragon
and Roddy Piper will save us. Granted, Roddy plays a rare baddie role here, but you get the point.

In classic fashion, Don’s character, Harper, is the ex-Special Forces, ‘if anyone can save us, he can’ type that’s regularly found in these films, but his character is rather a disappointment. Don’s martial arts skills are underemployed as he largely sticks to handgun action. The potential of his Indian ethnicity is similarly frittered away with dreadful one-liners like, “That’s a dreamcatcher,” after beating-up a baddie. If you didn’t just groan, feel free to do so now. Warning: it doesn’t get any better from here on out.

Bad guys wear black.......eye-liner?

Bizarrely Roddy wears black eye-liner throughout. Just why he wears it - and he wears it for the entire the movie - is never explained. Equally entertaining is a black guy named Snookie (Warren). Truly he’s the original Snookie. The Jersey Shore cast members must be huge Terminal Rush fans. And what could be more apt than naming a little orange moppet after a strapping black gentleman? Plus his voice sounds exactly like Samuel L. Jackson’s. If you ever wished Jackson appeared in Terminal Rush, just close your eyes during Snookie’s scenes. You’re not missing much anyway.

Still, amid the sill beat-em-up scenes there is an exploding helicopter scene to punctuate the boredom.

In an attempt to re-take the dam heavily armed soldiers and a helicopter are called in. Unfortunately, Roddy Piper is well prepared for such an eventuality. Hauling out a missile launcher he takes aim at the whirlybird and removes it from the sky.

Artistic merit

It’s a decent fireball. It’s big and orange and blossoms nicely on the screen. Roddy’s ridiculous Adam & the Ants inspired make-up only adds to the enjoyment.

Exploding helicopter innovation

First helicopter to be destroyed by a man wearing black eye-liner.

Positives

Terminal Rush might be a Terminal Bore but it does have one of our favourite items: repeated footage. Apparently some goons walking down steps while shooting machine guns was deemed so amazing, we have to see it multiple times.

Negatives

Featuring the word ‘Terminal’ in the title of the film was a curious nineties phenomena. We go more deeply into this phenomenon in a review of Terminal Justice.

Favourite line

“It’s classic stupid if you ask me.” - Snookie

Tag line

“A national monument held hostage. A forgotten hero rises with a vengeance.

The Green Berets

Why haven't you seen.....?

The Battle Of Sinai

The Pumaman

Unstoppable

Resident Evil: Retribution

A View To A Kill

The LEGO Movie

The Thaw

The Marksman

Godzilla

Machete Kills

Battledogs

5 Days Of War

Edge Of Tomorrow

Domino

The Last Match

Robocroc

Firestarter

Terminal Rush