Looking for a plot

Last night, while at my Monday 8-ball pool tournament, a discussion came up about movies. The differences between old classics and great films and modern films. This focused mostly on sci-fi films.

It all started with the horribly wrong movie Dragon Wars (please don’t see this, not on DVD or cable, its pitiful). It was part of a line up of ridiculous terrible sci-fi films from none other than the SyFy Channel on Sunday. Not that much more should be expected from that cable network.

But from there we discussed how movies these days, especially those in sci-fi, now rely on special effects as opposed to plot. This is most evident in the worst of sci-fi movies. Like the extremely low budget Raptor Island (starring Lorenzo Lamas – your first clue of how bad it was). It was a CGI rip off of Jurassic Park, with about 1/5th the budget and 1/10th the plot. Virtually every scene in the movie conflicted with some other part of the film. But there was plenty of bad CGI to try to keep you occupied.

Which is why it cannot compare to other films. In fact, those of us a bit older on the team, were recalling the first movies we ever saw. I had the original King Kong (1930’s), another teammate had Frankenstein, another was Nosferatu. Overall we could name several films from our formative years that we had seen and still remember. This was compared to our youngest teammate, who couldn’t recall any film older than Bladerunner, which he saw on television.

Because without a real plot, what is there to remember? Honestly, there is nothing to pay attention to. Movies these days are so dependant on CGI and explosions (which can be great things) that the concept of a plot goes out the window. Thus the increasing number of movies ripping off or revisioning older plot-driven movies. And each has almost completely been a failure.

Hell, even the remakes of slasher horror films have been complete let-downs. The budgets for films like Friday the 13th were exponentially larger than the original film, and the result was deplorable. Because acting, and plots, are substantially reduced in the new versions as opposed to the old – even in movies where little plot was involved.

Or the trend to have movies steal multiple ideas from successful movies, cobbled together in the hopes of making a passable movie. Like the latest John Cena movie, 12 Rounds. The pitch had to be something like ‘Take Cena, who is popular in wrestling, put him in a Die Hard situation with a bit of Speed and Terminator thrown in, and we have a great movie.’ Except movie-goers had the option of DVD’s and Tivo, both of which are superior to such efforts.

Why are there so few films that are compelling these days? Ultimately that was the question being asked last night. Simply because there is no plot in films anymore. And without that you have nothing more than a string of explosions and CGI graphics strung together in a hodge-podge that even a cartoon can do better.

[Oh, for those wondering. My 8-ball and 9-ball teams are leading our league, likely to win both with room to spare. My match last night took 15 minutes total; 4 games with each game taking one turn of me and my opponent. Essentially I ran to one ball or the 8 and then he ran the table and it was time to rack in each game. Talk about 2 players being on fire.]

Movie Preview: 12 Rounds

The question some may be asking is if a pro-wrestler has the ability to become a movie star. That is definitely the question that the WWE are betting on. 12 Rounds will likely put that question to rest.

Now I must start off with the revelation that I don’t watch wrestling. I don’t get the obsession. While I don’t doubt the wrestlers are all in good shape (many helped in that regard by steroids) I don’t find them to be athletes, just pumped up entertainers. Yet their acting in the ring is not what I would call acting in the traditional sense. Which is a problem when making movies around these celebrities.

Given that 12 Rounds is not classic theater, and the John Cena would never perform for the Bard, can it provide the spark that makes a good action film?

I’ll start with Cena. He is a WWE star. I believe his character is a popular good guy wrestler. He is the first of the WWE wrestlers to be branched out into movies (I believe. Again I don’t watch wrestling so I’m not sure on this). And his first film was a flop.

Now matter how low the budget was for The Marine, for all the hype surrounding Cena a gross of $18 million over 3 months is pitiful. While it has done better in DVD, it still is a bad film. That’s just what the numbers say.

So I take this film as the trend starter or breaker. Either action films will be filled with WWE and other wrestlers for the next decade, most of the same quality and style of rappers in movies, or there won’t be more than 1 or 2 more tries. Which is a lot of pressure for Cena and the WWE.

This film decided to take the safest root possible for a new action star. It copies every successful action film before it. With huge helpings of Speed and Die Hard, the film hopes to draw an audience with a character that is popular (to fans of wrestling), in a situation that has already proven to be well-received. Of course there are your problems.

John Cena is very popular I’m sure, in the world of wrestling. To everyone else (and there are a lot more of us than not) he is just a big guy. So that does not help boost his appeal. But it doesn’t hurt him either. It does mean that he either needs to act well, or like most Schwarzenegger films he needs to say as little as possible.

Still the fact that we have seen all of this before does bode badly. In the trailer you will see the fire engine racing down the street, so much like the bus in Speed. And the elevator scene is such a reminder of Die Hard. Plus how many films have copied the format of both those films by now? In essence we have seen this before, so the thrill just doesn’t come thru in the trailers.

Maybe Cena will pull this off. But the film is so predictable that at the bottom of the post I will tell you what I think the ending is. Anyone who sees the film can tell me if I got it right. I won’t see this film till it hits cable (so that means by the end of the year) thus I will rely on Cena fans to explain how wrong I am about his acting, and right about the film I expect.



***SPOILER ALERT ***

I expect that after running around a city causing havoc and being framed as the cause of it all, towards the middle of the film it will be found that he is a ploy of the bad guy. Eventually he will come to the last problem, and somehow end up on a helicopter with the bad guy and his wife. Once there, as it flies off, he will beat the pulp out of the bad guy – who will then activate (if not before) a bomb to kill the wife and himself since he misses his dead girlfriend. Cena will grab his wife and jump into a hotel roof top pool (lucky to just be hovering over that) just before the bomb goes off and the bad guy dies.