moar!

Rating: 6/10 (24 September 2010)

The upside:
A boys movie, with tough men being friends in a tough way, with lots of explosions, fighting, shooting, knife-throwing and more explosions. Yay! Plus seeing those great action heroes of the 80s and 90s again. I love the idea, and I got what I wanted - in fact, I ask for a second helping! Lots of names for additional cast are on my list... Kurt Russel, JCvD, Wesley Snipes, the Mayor are just the first that spring to mind.
The downside:
Most of the potential was wasted.
Yes, it's about action, not much else - but there is still room for rough sketches of motivations, situations, what is where and why, some basic plot that gives tension to the whole. But if you get just a torrent of action scenes that are blurry quick cuts where it gets hard to determine who is doing what to whom and how, it's not more fun, it's less. And I do want *more*!
The ending scenes and the song over the ending ("the boys are back in town") imply there may be a sequel. I'm looking forward to that, but PLEASE let somebody else do scriptwriting and directing! Stallone as producer and himself, err, Barney Ross - yes please. But to realize the potential, it needs some quality directing and script, which *this* instance did not have.
Even a "mindless action flick" can be well directed. Doesn't John Woo live in the USA now?