Bovie Movie

Quentin Tarantino marshals a bewildering amount of multi-genre references into a hypnotically entertaining whole in this violent martial arts revenge drama. The former video-shop worker’s love of everything from Brian De Palma split screens and Eurotrash horror to Hong Kong exploitation and Ennio Morricone music finds its way into this guilt-by-association cinematic celebration. Giving a searing performance, Uma Thurman plays one of the Deadly Vipers, a crack assassination squad led by the Bill of the title (David Carradine). Left for dead on her wedding day, she falls into a coma, only to awaken four years later swearing revenge on her traitorous co-workers. Vol 1 deals with two members on her Death List Five: Vernita Green (Vivica A Fox) and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). Dripping with bloody ultra-violence and using startling flashbacks, knowingly fake dubbing and a quite brilliant animé section, Kill Bill is both a daring experiment in sampled cinematic language and scrounged style, and a gloriously enchanting work of neo-art in itself. 

Waylon and Buddy decide to join the army as it appears to be their best option. But when they realize that they are part of a group that have been thrown into a medical experiment facility with a doctor who plans on turning them into ultimate killing machines, they must fight to destroy his other creations and save themselves.

The TV prints of this entertaining melange whittled down the film’s original self-serving title (Motown king Berry Gordy was the producer), and settled on merely The Last Dragon. Taimak stars as an African American martial-arts whiz, so devoted to his hobby that he dresses and behaves in what he thinks is true Chinese fashion. Taimak falls in love with sexy veejay Vanity. Gangsters intrude on both their lives when crook Julius J. Carry III tries to promote his talentless protegee into rock stardom.

In eighteenth century Romania, Rayne, a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), prone to fits of blind blood rage but saddled with a compunction for humans, strives to avenge her mother’s rape by her father, Kagan, King of Vampires. Two vampire hunters, Sebastian and Vladimir, from the Brimstone Society persuade her to join their cause.

The tired format limps on here with Scary Movie 3 director David Zucker returning — but now well past his Airplane! prime. The intersecting parodies include the Saw films, The Grudge, War of the Worlds and The Village with nods to Million Dollar Baby and Brokeback Mountain thrown in for good measure alongside pop culture references to Oprah and Michael Jackson. Anna Faris gamely plays the naive, accident-prone Cindy Campbell for the fourth time, in a fatigued franchise that is still recycling the most ancient slapstick and toilet gags. Witless, obvious and completely devoid of anything remotely funny, even the most undemanding audience will find little to laugh at in this practically unwatchable dud aimed (presumably) at the post-pub DVD rental market. 

In creating the characters Thelma and Louise for this hugely entertaining and controversial road movie, Oscar-winning scriptwriter Callie Khourie put women in the driving seat for the first time. Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon star as the two friends whose weekend spree to escape the boredom of their small-town routines is curtailed when Louise (Sarandon) kills a man who’s trying to rape Thelma (Davis). They flee, and thus begins their voyage of self-discovery. Ridley Scott’s film sparked a row at the time over whether the sight of gals with guns was a symbol of liberated equality or depressing defeminisation. Whatever your viewpoint, films have a duty to provoke as well as entertain, and it’s impossible to watch the plight of Thelma and Louise without feeling indignation. 

In this 1970s-set crime drama, Al Pacino stars as a sleazeball who inducts young Brasco (played by Johnny Depp) into the codes and “family” values of organised crime. In fact, Brasco is an FBI undercover agent whose job threatens his marriage to Anne Heche as well as his life. In a way, it’s a curious reversal of Pacino’s earlier role in Serpico, in which his character went undercover. Directed by Mike Newell — a change of pace from Four Weddings and a Funeral — it’s pitched midway between the epic Godfather and the flash GoodFellas, and develops nicely as Depp finds himself becoming rather fond of his monstrous mentor. The period setting — a world of tacky shirts, fur collars and plastic lawns — is also beautifully evoked. 

Long-winded, overly self-indulgent and talky, director Quentin Tarantino’s bloated wrap-up of his bloody revenge saga is something of an anticlimax. Detailing how the Bride (Uma Thurman) tracks down Deadly Viper assassins Budd (Michael Madsen) and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), before facing Bill (David Carradine) and an unexpected “adversary”, it’s the same mix as before except less visually dynamic and with a lot more unnecessary exposition. Yet, the borrowed style (chiefly from Sergio Leone), music (from Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti westerns), characters (kung fu master Pai Mei from the Shaw Brothers’ movies), props (Carradine dusts off the instrument he played in The Silent Flute), plus all the usual obscure genre references, still make this compressed exploitation-cinema history lesson into a buff treat. The martial arts action may pack a less gory punch than Vol 1, but there’s still plenty here to shock. One single condensed movie would doubtless have sufficed, but then we wouldn’t have had the earlier gem to this minor companion piece. 

David Zucker has fallen a long way since his Airplane! heyday. This clunker of a comedy is utterly devoid of wit, despite the fact that great pains are taken to prepare us for every potential gag. Publishing researcher Ashton Kutcher finds himself housesitting for his boss (Terence Stamp), who also happens to be the scrupulous father of his heart’s desire, Tara Reid. But none of the misfortunes that befall Stamp’s prized home are the remotest bit amusing — least of all thug Michael Madsen’s antics. It’s hard to see how a cast this stellar could be attracted to a project this dire.