When you imagine the classic leading man, names like Paul Newman, Cary Grant, or Dirk Bogarde Spring to mind. These guys were intense, clean cut and dependable. Their thrusting chins and fast paced dialogue powering plenty of two fisted detective tales and epics with casts of thousands. If there is a deep down manly essence that sums up classic era Hollywood, then it probably smells like Clark Gable. If you look really closely though, you’ll notice a dissenter in the ranks; Errol Flynn. This borderline Nazi sheep’s bollock-biter (Honestly!-prairie oysters, wiki it!) from Queensland had one crucial advantage over his fellows that eventually gave rise to the phrase ‘In like Flynn’. What could it be? What was John Wayne missing that let our Errol slip between the sheets of a thousand starlets? Answer: The ‘tache.
The story itself is straightforward-ish. John Connor is hunting for Kyle Reese, so he can send him back in time to become his own dad (Hey, I said ‘Ish’ didn’t I?). Meanwhile, executed killer Marcus Wright comes back from the dead (maybe…) post judgement day, to find out he’s super human, or maybe not human at all-they team up, fight the machines and try to save Reese- with me so far?
There’s a lot of heavy (metal) metaphor going on here, with Sam Worthington pumped full of liquid metal making a particular impact. It seems at some point in a production process almost as convoluted as the Terminator series various timelines, somebody decided to give us a parable about mankind’s reliance on, and interaction with, technology. Unfortunately for the viewer, this probably doesn’t test too well, so McG replaces it with a bunch of judder-cam and explosions,while losing anything that made us actually care.
A little late on this one (Which I’m assuming accounts entirely for it’s disappointing opening weekend), but frankly, it was a bank holiday and I couldn’t be arsed to report on lack lustre budget sequels until now. Anyway, despite his rep for drama, Director Gavin Hood handles this pretty well, shooting lean action that often has a slightly 80s retro feel to it while avoiding the slide into MTV cutting that so often dooms these things. Fights have a raw and visceral feel to them, and while they may make for an exposition-heavy first half, the historical battle sequences manage to feel like they might have actual consequences for the characters-be they physical or mental.
Y’know what’s good about Crank 2? It really doesn’t give a fuck. Plot, character development, and any sense of restraint is told to fuck off loudly, before being shot at. By some strippers. And a gang of bike riding leather boys. While on fire.
Possibly fearing the full fury of fanboys everywhere, JJ Abrahms seems to have actually played it fairly safe with this latest reboot, keeping for the most part, the uniforms, designs, aliens (look out for the Tribble!) that spawned the massive media juggernaut Trek became over the years, and while the bridge does look very Mac (Which is ridiculous..Bill Gates will obviously own the military in the future…), the most important theme-the relationship between Kirk and Spock ( don’t panic, McCoy gets a look in too) emerges unscathed.
