5/25/2023 0 Comments The long kiss goodnightIn fact, despite significantly underperforming at the box office and being largely omitted from the canon, much of Renny Harlin’s 1996 film epitomises what was so great about this golden era of action cinema. But The Long Kiss Goodnight is a 90s action movie, and inane premises are par for the course. And wouldn't you know that when the truck explodes, Jacksonand Davis get to outrun another fireball, this time in a car, although thatcan't be done, either.It’s an inane premise: an amnesiac schoolteacher discovers she used to be an assassin, and must use her newly remembered skills to stop a terrorist plot in order to save her daughter. The climax involves atruck bomb that is supposed to blow up the bridge at Niagara Falls, and at onepoint Samantha/Charly actually uses a dead body as a counterweight to lift herinto the sky so she can shoot it out with a helicopter under the “Welcome toCanada” arch. (It also cannotbe done on a motorcycle, although Keanu Reeves does it in “ Chain Reaction,” orin the Chunnel, although Tom Cruise does it in “ Mission: Impossible.”) Themovie is Hitchcockian in its use of famous locations. ![]() I've seen that done in a lotof movies lately, and I've got news for them: It can't be done. Davis and Jackson actually outrun aflaming fireball that chases them down a corridor. Theexplosion scene allowed me to enjoy one more example of the latest way in whichaction movies suspend the laws of physics. I looked really closely as you were blown out thewindow, and it all happened so fast that I couldn't even be sure it was you-sowhy not let a stunt woman do it? That's what they're paid for. My message is: Geena,give yourself a break. For example, that's really herbeing blown out of a window and flying through the air. GeenaDavis has gone on the talk shows to explain that she personally performed all,or most, or many, of her stunts in the movie. Leave outthose three words, and the movie's central human dilemma would be misplaced. ![]() Sooner or laterthey're actually going to advertise one of these movies with the line, “lesstalk and more action!” It's the kind of film where when the mother undergoes apersonality change and decides she does love her little daughter after all, sheshouts that information-”I LOVE HER!”-over the noise of battle. Thedialogue serves only to separate and set up the action scenes. Themovie is put together like a Top 40 radio station, in which you get 10 minutesof hits and then have to listen to somebody talking for 90 seconds. Without giving away too much of the plot (as if, heh, heh, therewas much of a plot), I'll say that bad guys think she was dead and now want tokill her, and she has to defend herself while having flashbacks to violentepisodes in her past life. Jackson) to track down her past,and he turns up clues that lead to a full-scale war with the U.S. Shehires a fly-by-night private eye ( Samuel L. “Chefs dothat,” she explains to her stunned daughter and boyfriend. ![]() And how about the kitchen scene when Samantha chops a carrot asif she'd never seen a knife before, and suddenly Charly takes over like a humanVeg-O-Matic, pulverizing vegetables and then for her encore throwing a tomatoin the air and skewering it to the wall with a deftly-thrown knife. Certainlyit's a clue to her past life when she kills a deer by breaking its neck withher bare hands.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |