Movie Review: Smokin' Aces 2 Assassin's Ball

I realize that this film went straight to DVD. But this is only about the film and not any extras that might be on the DVD that might add to the value of buying this. And there would have to be a lot of extras of great quality.

Smokin' Aces 2 Assassin's Ball is hardly a worthy film. Given that it is a prequel and meant to suck up extra money based on it's original's success. It is also a given that sequels and prequels of mediocre films tend to be even less entertaining that the parent film. Aces 2 is no exception to these givens.



The films timeline seems to make this prequel close to the original, if you aren't paying attention you would never know. But it really doesn't matter. The goal is to get several assassins together to kill one man. In this case it's Walter Weed (Tom Berenger) that is the target, a meek FBI agent in his declining year of his career. The assassins are introduced, extermely slowly, and include:

Ariella Martinez (Martha Higareda) - a skinny killer that prefers a black widow kiss

Finbar McTeague (Vinnie Jones) - a "surgeon" that believes in medically precises torture

Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan) - the killer with a multitude of faces [in the first film]

Kaitlyn "AK-47" Tremor (Autumn Reeser) - Well named and the opposite of Ariella in most any comparison

Fritz Tremor (Michael Parks) - Father of the Tremor family

Lester Tremor (Maury Sterling) - One of the Tremor boys [in the first film]

Baby Boy Tremor (C. Ernst Harth) - the other and favored Tremor son

And of course we have a team of agents that are on the job to protect Weed from this group, Agent Baker (Clayne Crawford) and Malcolm Little (Christopher Michael Holley) are the only ones of note.

Earnie Hudson has a small role in the film at the end, slightly more than a cameo, to tie up the loose ends of the story - much like Andy Garcia's role in the first film - as Anthony Vejar.

Now the characters include 2 from the original film. Neither is really all that important. Nor does this film break any new ground. It's formula is almost exactly the same as the first, except it's pace is slower and he events even less logical or intersting.

Basically Weed is taken to a location that is supposed to be secret to everyone, a safehouse in Chicago that the FBI has disguised as a functioning Jazz bar. Of course every single bad guy knows exactly where this is, and the schematics of the safehouse bunker.

After more time getting to the location than needed, and various scenes foretelling the final climax of the film, and an extened time in the Jazz bar itself, the killing finally starts. This is supposed to be the big payoff for watching the film to this point, but it fails to really deliver. Then enters Vejar after all the shooting is done, informing Baker of vital information that would have prevented all this, and Baker ending the film much in the manner as did Ryan Reynold's character from the first film - though without the negative consequences to his career.

There are 3 things I liked in this film.

"Hip hop is the unwanted bastard son of superior musical forms like Jazz, Blues. The Kids today don't know about Miles Davis, Dizzy Guilespe." - Malcolm Little discussing why he does not like rap that he needs to be a fan of for an upcoming undercover assignment.

The introduction of AK-47 Tremor. A gratuitous sex scene with a climax that you don't expect. The big question being, where did she hide the AK-47.

The facts about the history of a deck of cards.

Oh forgot one more. Watching Little play the saxaphone.

Yes, those are the best parts of the film. The instant love affair between McTeague and Martinez is just unbelievable. The pace of the film is slower than listening to Soot talk. The Tremor family is more interesting in thier incest driven conversations than anything else. It strains belief that only after all this happens that Baker would be given all the details, that he had a crew of people investigating for throughout the film.

The worst of the film is likely the political statement that is set up in the first 5 minutes of the film and brought back for the last 15 minutes. It's America bashing, and useless. But it does connect all the dots in the plot.

Why Berenger, Jones, and Hudson did this film I don't understand. They all should deserve, and are capable of making, far more money and working in far better films.

Hollywood knew this film was so bad it couldn't make money in theaters. They went straight to DVD to cash in on the name of the first film, since there was nothing else worth paying for in this film. Hollywood was right. Don't buy this DVD.

Alien movie prequel: what will Hollywood deliver

In Hollywood these days there is nothing better than re-working something that someone else has already done. It cuts the cost of writing, set design, and often entertainment value. Examples of this are rampant in the last decade.

Sequels are the current big thing. Why tough out a new idea when you can ride the dead horse of something that already worked? Take the Transformers, X-Men, Terminator, Highlander, Hellboy and countless other film sequels. Some are worth the time. Most are rubbish.

But that is just not enough for Hollywood. You can only go so far forward in some long running series. And for that problem is the answer of a prequel. Taking a proven cash making concept and jumping back in time to before the films started. Examples include: Wolverine, Star Trek, and of course Star Wars (episodes 1,2,and 3).

The real fun with a prequel, by Hollywood standards, is that you generally don’t need the stars that created the initial story – saving huge bucks; and you can often redo the entire storyline. This happens because many of the original fans of whatever movie are older and thus not as valuable to Hollywood. Plus it allows a film to have the latest popular movie actor/actress in it. Besides the fact that Hollywood execs often don’t know the original storyline and/or assume that young movie-goers don’t either.

Thus we get crap like the revisioned timeline of Star Trek. Going forward dozens of new films can be made with a cast and characters that have nothing to do with what made the series popular and timeless in the first place.

So when I heard that Alien will be introduced to the prequel machine, you can imagine I was not very excited. There is a host of things that could be screwed up. The near prequel films of Alien vs. Preadator and that film’s sequel displayed the utter disrespect and lazy writing that passes for entertainment in Hollywood these days.

But a ray of hope hit when Ridley Scott signed onto the production. He was the mastermind that created the vision of minimalist fear that blossomed into 3 additional films. It was his dark, mysterious and utterly disturbing direction that gave the film a quality few films match. It is why of the series, the first remains the best.

So I thought there was a chance that this could be more than a b-rate sci-fi horror film. More than the alien-as-slasher-killer that AVP presented. Far better than the drawn out and over the top visions seen in the subsequent films (though Aliens was done well).

Of course the next question is, what about Ripley – Sigourney Weaver? Will she have a role in this film? How could she have a role in the film?

That recently was answered by Weaver herself. She too found it illogical to be in the film. Which is a loss as she is the driving force of the films, but at the same time a confirmation that some thought might have to be introduced to the film.

Which still leaves the question of what they will do in this film. Will they ignore the series as AVP did to both the Alien and Predator series? How can the storyline be preserved and still be filled with the wanton explosions and cute girls that today’s audiences seem more than willing to pay for (ie. Transformers 2)?

Perhaps this is an idea. Have a small group of exploratory geologists, with one or 2 military scouts, working for Weyland-Yutani. They stumble on a barren planet, that is scarred from an ancient battle. They find skeletal remains of Aliens, and perhaps Predators?, in remnants of long ago cities. They conclude that a planet-wide war erupted with both sides being annihilated.

While searching, they fall through a floor of an old ruin, into a pit of Alien eggs. And thus begins their drama. All of this is being reported back regularly via android to the Company. In the end, after the last of the scouting crew dies in a suicidal blast destroying the Aliens and their egg cache, only portions of the Android survive long enough to state that there must be other eggs in the solar system, as a warning. But the Board of Directors at Weyland-Yutani have other ideas involving a deep-space mining vessel not too far from the now dead geologists.

Now that I would want to see.

They could even have the last scene where we see the Nostromo flying through space, go into the ship, and come upon the sleeping crew as a message beacon transmits orders to ship’s computer, and Ripley’s eyes open.

Perhaps Ridley Scott has a similar vision. Maybe we will get a coherent film with a plot, and scares, and things going bump in the night. Plus the occasional explosion. They can even put in a couple of gorgeous actresses just to ensure the hormonally challenged have something to drool about.

Then again, we might get a mix of Alien Vs. Preadator mixed with Transformers. Which I would need to get paid to see.

Prequels and Laura Croft: A combination worth seeing?

Ah the joy of prequels. Yes there is nothing quite like the ability of Hollywood to go back in time, on a movie set, and to generally screw up the history and persona of any character or storyline that can make an extra buck. As you might notice, I tend to dislike prequels. They tend to be as good as revisioned movies, and you know I hate that word.

I know that everyone, including me, loved The Dark Knight. That had a lot to do with the script, which kept the theme of the Dark Knight series of graphic novels, more than Christian Bale. Though Bale did a great job. And honestly there wasn't that much of the storyline that was changed.

Another prequel that worked out well was the restart of the James Bond series of films. Of course Bond restarts every time there is a new lead. So the public can accept every change without it being a major revision. Still there is something lost in the action first, thought nowhere, Bond that is Daniel Craig.

The Superman restart was pretty much what you would expect. Not a revisioning as much as it was an attempt to draw attention back on the movie franchise. I never was a big fan of Superman to start with - he's too much of a boyscout for me - so I'll leave that alone.

But then there are movies like Wolverine, which was horrible. Yes lot's of action, and Hugh Jackman without a shirt for the ladies. But it was disappointing. The storyline was basically missing. It was just action for the sake of action. Dare I say that the majority of the film was boring. And as for any attempt at logic, well they really stretched it even for a comic book to movie conversion film.

It gets worse when you think of films like Star Trek. Lot's of action (note the recurring theme in these prequels) and angst. Not much logic or plot. Most of the things that made Trek so enduring were thrown out. And I really disliked this new version of Spock.

So to summurize, when Hollywood wants a prequel these days they load up on action, throw out the plot, ignore all logical actions, and rewrite (or revision) everything to ensure that a youthful audience will show up for the flash of skin and lots of explosions.

Thus we are led to what got me thinking about this in the first place. Laura Croft and the Tomb Raider series. Which is set to get revisioned - excuse me, a prequel is planned. A prequel without Angelina Jolie.

To be exact, Jolie is not confirmed to be out of the film yet. But unless there is some Spock-like temporal vortex, she is too old to play herself young enough to satisfy Hollywood executives. Especially with the current emphasis on more action and more explosions vs. plot (which the Tomb Raider movies were short on to start with).

Will the prequel work for Tomb Raider? Well it's hard to imagine it being worse than Cradle of Life. That film sucked. So in regard to that, there is a huge upside potential since expectations at this point are limited to a pretty woman with big boobs (likely fake enhancements as with Jolie) in a tight shirt with explosions going off around her. Sad to say but it is honest.

Of the potential actresses being rumored to take the Croft role, Megan Fox is at the top of the list. This is likely due to her performance (if it can be called that) in Transformers. A film which the director insisted

"It seems that [Michael] Bay feels women should have curves and look like a person as opposed to the near-anorexic looks usually found in actresses these days. In fact he is making Megan Fox GAIN 10 lbs. for her next film Transformers 2."

A similar need for food, and exercise, will be needed if she is to be the new buxom adventuress.

The only 2 actresses I think fit the bill are Malin Akerman, of Silk Spectre II (Watchmen) fame. Though she is too old.



And Summer Glau, of Firerfly (Serendipity)



But we will see, once the director and screenwriter are picked, how this prequel will be geared. Don't expect much.