The Movie that Cannot be Unmade

Rating: 3/10 (20 August 2010)

I have to give fair warning, I didn't like this movie and I am officially sending up the flag of SPOILER ALERT. If anyone holds me responsible for giving away key elements to the movie plot I am legally not liable. On second thought, if you hold me responsible for ruining this film because I am giving away pieces of the plot have no fear, the movie would have ruined itself for you had you simply seen the movie with no idea of what to expect. Please trust me, the book is no better than the film.
I will start my more rant with Mickey Rourke. I like Mickey, truly I do. I think Barfly was great, and so was the Wrestler, and Sin Cityand I respect his undefeated boxing record. I will argue that he was the only redeemable quality in Iron Man 2 and he was even good in this movie. I think that's why I wish he would have stayed out. Rourke's appearance was an exact duplication of his appearance in Iron Man 2. He had the unusual white streaks in his hair and gold teeth. It led me believe that he preformed his parts in between shooting on his other movie. Rourke played the steady hand and I got the feeling that he had to descend to the skill set of a much weaker cast. Just because he was dressed like a post apocalyptic cowboy doesn't mean he didn't carry every scene he was in.
My next victim is a Three Stooges style double slap to Steve Austin and Randy Couture. I am beginning to think that these two actors are kisses of death for any movie. Case in point, Scorpion King 2 and the Longest Yard. Perhaps I am giving these two individuals too much credit for breaking something that was never fixed. They were clearly added for one reason, to cross over in their main occupation's demographic. I know I am not being prophetic here, but there is something truly Rotten in Denmark when two stars of a movie have nicknames (the Natural and Stone Cold) in the movie moniker. Did they bring a level of intensity and action to the movie? Well perhaps to the trailer, but the movie suffered from their inability to articulate the strong emotional responses they were feeling. It would have been more reasonable to see them just replace all their lines with 'smash' and 'break'.
Couture was given the artistic liberty to have a scene where he explains his cauliflower ears. I have to say that this scene got chuckles from the audience and I had to look away as the thought of one hundred strangers laughing at a man is too ugly for me to bear. There were other scenes where the camera was perhaps a little too close to Couture and the bulbs and lumps covering his face and head were magnified. He is a hideous looking individual when not in the context of MMA.
Lundgren, at some point in this jigsaw puzzle of a plot, was to be believed to have a heroin problem. Or was it a heroine problem? If Hunter Thompson has taught me anything it's that you can trust a man but not a drug, especially if that drug is armed to the teeth. I have a very difficult time believing that the 6' 13'', 297-pound blonde was any sort of opiate junkie and that the drug would make him more violent. I am not a licensed drug councilor though so I will defer my judgment to those that know the ins and outs of addiction.
I knew the action and movement would be fast paced but I had no idea that the vertigo would be magnified due to the unusual camera movement thought any action scene. In any scene where there was violence, tension, speed or blinking the camera was shaking as if in a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. I have been told that it was to give the feeling of movement and chaos, but it only gave me the feeling that there was too much pressure in my brain and that I shouldn't take the floor for granted. Please be advised, if you are planning on taking anyone to this film with a medical condition that has symptoms of vertigo or nausea they may need to leave.
As the movie progressed I got he feeling more and more that the plot was revised along the way and that the glaring inconsistencies were simply swatted away by the director. Perhaps he thought that the Neanderthal that planned on seeing the film wouldn't notice or care to notice. Perhaps there is no such thing as the super charged testosterone driven question mark (?).
When my son comes and asks me who was great in the action film genre in the 20th century I'll explain that Stallone was a great goon, and Arnold was a Robot, and Statham was a transporter, and that Couture was this great Greco-Roman wrestler. I know my heart will absolutely bottom out when he informs me that, 'If all these action stars were so great, why were the all in such a bad movie?' I tear up when I think about how this film has tarnished the catalog of so many great action heroes. Will I ever be able to say 'Yippie-ki-yea mother f@#$er' again? Will I ever notice the great Wu Shu in Fearless? Will Old Spice no longer smell as sweet?
Van Dam turned this movie down. Yeah, Bloodsport didn't think it had any substance. Why was this so difficult to see by everyone else? This reminds me of the Jones/Hopkins fight from April of this year. It was a fight everyone was itching to see a decade ago. We all still watched the highly criticized bout, but it was well past it's prime. Unfortunately this film did not age well, and what has been made can't be unmade.