The Transporter Refueled

By: Robert Murphy

It's often hard to tell just what makes a movie work when it comes to the category of action since they can often be seen as nothing more than nonstop adrenaline fueled rampages, but for some reason they end up being great. When it comes to The Transporter series, I always felt that it was leading man Jason Statham that brought the certain charm that the films needed to be worth while. Now though a new leading man aims to take his place and continue forward without him at the helm of the classic Audi and introduce a fresh young face to the game with Ed Skrein (former Game of Thrones actor for Daario Naharis). But, whether or not he has the chops to knock the big guy off of the throne that started Statham's early action career was something I was determined to find out. 

The story starts off with a brief introduction to the main villains that you will be "hating" throughout the majority of the film. In a hail of bullets three men usurp themselves as the top dogs of the French Riviera by killing of their competition and replacing them with their very own call girls. Flash forward some fifteen odd years later and an odd plot for revenge begins to take place with one of the downtrodden girls from the beginning of the film. Where Frank Martin (Skrein) comes into play is with the first phase of the operation doing what he does best which is drive and drive really well. This along with the fighting scenes are the only true moments that continue to transfer over from Statham's day as the illustrious transporter. We see a fast paced chase scene through the streets of France with cops hot on Frank's tail but with some excellent maneuvers and a clever use of fire hydrants, he makes his escape with the former call girl and her two partners in the back seat.

This made for a wonderful turn of events as the first half hour of Refueled left little to no resemblance of the former series left to be enjoyed. Ed Skrein failed to pull off the same dead pan style of delivery that his counterpart had given in the earlier films but he did have what it took to make some enjoyable action sequences. The first and by far the best of which was during the night club scene where Frank took down three goons that were ten times his size with some rope and clever use of some drawers down a narrow corridor. Then it was outside to knock some guys out while the car enters some sort of auto pilot mode. When it came to revamping things, the car was what benefited the most from some fine tuning. The resident favorite Audi makes it's return with all new gadgets to show off such as self opening doors, interchangeable license plats and finger print recognition on the wheel to name a few. Not that The Transporter car ever needed these James Bond spy tools before or to such a degree but they were nonetheless an appealing on to be sure.  

In terms of overall appeal however these moments of action and excitement were short lived as things pushed forward. Outside of Ed Skrein, dialogue for the story moved along at a snails pace and was never worth the reward of not knowing what exactly our former call girls were up to. The ringleader of the four girls, Anna (Loan Chabanol), put together this payback scheme against her now former bosses for tormenting her for years and sentencing her to a life of prostitution. Her group oddly is modeled after some deranged version of The Three Musketeers (they even say, "All for one and one for all at," one point) and without Frank it would all fall apart. This leads to them kidnapping Frank's retired father Frank Sr. (Ray Stevenson) in order to make sure "Junior" stays with them to the end. 

Excluding the various junior jokes, Frank Senior was perhaps the most engaging among the cast and even made Ed Skrein shine for his role too. The two had great chemistry with one another as they both secretly know that there is more to the other than meets the eye. Frank Senior was supposedly a former retail salesman that just so happened to go to the most dangerous parts of the world for work. The fall of the Berlin wall and the Korean war to name just a few that were mentioned. His obvious history as some sort of spy though does not explain why he gets kidnapped not once but twice throughout the story. After Frank finally gets away with his father in one piece, the main bad guy finally shows some gumption and decides to kidnap Frank's father to get the money that Anna and her friends had stolen.

Arkady Karasov (Radivoje Bukvic) Arkady Karasovplays another lack luster cast member who never seems to have any real drive to catch the people responsible for stealing from his partners. Every portion of on screen time the actor had was spent silently brooding over each scene that Anna and her team left for him to find. There was a decent attempt to try and make his role more prominent as it turns out that Frank has some sort of history with Arkady but this to leads nowhere, even when the two meet face to face and confront one another, it amounts to them basically growling at one another. There was no build up at all to the films final concluding moment where the two battle on top of a rock with their fists like something out of Highlander where Frank is left standing victorious at the top saying "There can be only one!!"

The Transporter Refueled should have stayed in the garage where Statham left it in the concluding trilogy to the original series. This new revamped story doesn't do much of anything in expanding upon the work of the original films and in many ways it is a step backwards when it comes to image of the gruff and fearless transporter that people have seen before. There were some excellent action sequences and fight scenes, seeing Frank drive his car through a boarding platform and through an airport was perhaps one of the best car scenes I've seen this year. But, outside of the sparingly placed action moments, Refueled is not the successor or the retooled film it should have been. 

Good:

- Ray Stevenson as Frank Senior

- Fighting sequences

- The Audi's new look and wonderful gadgets

Bad:

- Poor acting across the board

- A flimsy story that somehow realize on an unreliable lead actor

- Dialogue is flat and you can hardly believe this people act or behave as they do

Scully Rating: 3.0 out of 10

Spy

By: Robert Murphy

The world of being a super spy with a license to kill would definitely draw in anyone but we often forget that there are plenty of people working behind the scenes that make these spies the lethal players that they’re out in the field. This fact is exceedingly true for one Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) who joined the CIA to go on crazy adventures and get some excitement in her life only to end up in a vermin infested basement staring at a computer screen all day. She does however get to act as eyes and ears for one of the agencies top operatives Bradley Fine (Jude Law) and mostly does the brunt of the work while he spots out James Bond era one liners. This is until he gets taken out by the daughter of a notorious arms dealer Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) who knows the identities of all the CIA’s current agents working in the field. It is then up to Cooper to take up the task of taking out this new threat before she unleashes a small portable nuke and get revenge for her torrid romantic interest and former team member.

McCarthy is proving to be a comedic force to be reckoned in the past few years with movies and TV shows alike which happily continues forward in Spy. Her character Susan Cooper is a soft spoken woman who wishes more than anything for people to notice her especially Fine who treats her like a buddy/errand girl rather than someone he actually notices. This translates over well in a number of scenarios throughout the first half of the story where McCarthy’s not the standard spy appearance takes a bit of a hit. Her fellow agents in the field get glamorous cars and gadgets disguised as pens of regular items where Cooper gets a grab bag of items disguised as items a middle aged woman would have in her bag. Items like stool softeners and hemorrhoid wipes get thrown into the mix but what’s worse is probably her not so appealing alter egos who included an ageing cat mommy and a divorced mother of three from Iowa. There is definitely no fancy tuxedo suits here as Cooper suffers the indignity of a old lady wig and sweater with a cat on it but she takes it all in stride.   

The dynamic changes up for her though near the halfway mark for the film as she must improvise her way out of ridiculous situations that were mostly caused by the rogue Rick Ford (Jason Statham) but it helps her finally gain some back bone. Cooper’s new persona is more of the badass spy character that she always dreamed of and it was secretly locked away inside her all along. This is where the action scenes start to pick up and it is wonderfully balanced with the scripts many comedic aspects. Cooper gets involved in a high speed chase but it is less impressive on a scooter and also gets into an impressively choreographed scene in a kitchen where she wields a frying pan in a knife fight. She even gets her very own eyes and ears as her friend Nancy (Miranda Hart) tries to lend a hand through her spy situations but ends up acting like a giddy house wife over the glitz and glamour which leaves Cooper completely exasperated. It is however a nice twist to the situation and really adds to the rich comedy gold present throughout Spy.

McCarthy doesn’t take all the credit, while she truly brings to life all of the jokes at her expense and the ridiculous action scenes she is also accompanied by some great supporting characters. Statham who I mentioned earlier is a completely ridiculous character this time around. He would normally make the perfect spy and has certainly proven his worth as an action hero countless times before but now his character has more bark than bite. His character doesn’t think that Cooper is up to the task and will screw everything up but she ends up saving him on countless occasions as he makes a mess of every situation he is put in. We then have Aldo (Peter Serafinowicz) who is a fellow agent that is stationed in Europe to help Cooper out in her mission but ends up being a ridiculous womanizer. He is constantly going on about how attractive Cooper is, even in her old lady and divorced mother disguises. The two have hilarious go betweens including a scene where he attempts to free her from her hands from rope by biting at them and ending up in a bizarre position with Cooper.

Things do start to become a grind though with all the stunts and exploits for the film. There are countless action throwbacks at nods to the audience that make a point to show that this is a spy film. Events like a private plane shoot out that leads to the plane spiraling out of control or a big club scene that features 50 Cent which aren't bad moments for the story but after awhile it bogs things down and there are plenty of scenes like it. I appreciated all of the moments that make Spy feel like the classic spy movies that I’ve scene over the years but one or two moments like that will do the trick not four or five.

Melissa McCarthy takes everything that is thrown at her and keeps on going in Spy. Her character Cooper plays a shy pencil pusher one minute and then completely transforms into a tough CIA operative with a mouth the next. McCarthy also is accompanied by some incredible supporting actors and actresses that add to this spy comedy experience. In the end, espionage has never looked quite so ridiculous but that’s certainly a good thing.

Good:

- Melissa McCarthy continues her comedic hot streak

- A great supporting cast

- Fast paced action mixed perfectly with quick witted comedy

Bad:

- A bit bogged down with the amount of spy references

Scully Rating: 8.0 out of 10  

Furious 7

By: Robert Murphy

When a series like Fast and the Furious gets to it's seventh movie title you would expect it to be over the top with it's stunts, style and action just to keep you coming back for more. Furious 7 certainly takes this piece of information to heart with its outrageous amount of explosions, car chases and so many other huge stunts that I couldn't help but be locked into what I was watching. I should feel bad for liking the movies stunts as much as I did and once again I found myself asking the question "aren't these guys just common street criminals?" to which Vin Diesel's Dominic Torreto explains "my guys are the best drivers in the world but they aren't killers." It was down right hilarious when even the movie realizes that it's going to the extreme and I loved the whole thing even more for it. 

For those of you who should but don't know, Furious 7's plot had been set up by a shocking reveal at the end of Fast 6 and that surprise was that Han (Sung Kang) wasn't killed by a random driver, it was deliberate and now that person is coming after Dom and the rest of his crew. Why? Well, it turns out that Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) isn't too happy that his little brother Owen (Luke Evans) is now a cripple laying in a hospital bed and wants revenge. If you thought Owen was bad, wait till you hear about his big bad brother, rather yet, wait until you see the amount of destruction he caused within the first five minutes of the film. After saying his farewells to his brother, Deckard zooms off to the states to hack into our favorite wrath of God FBI agents computer, Luke Hobbs (Dwayne "Rock" Johnson). After a grueling fight scene and a stunt that would leave most men dead, Hobbs ends up in the hospital and Dom receives his first taste of Shaw's vengeance when an unknown package from Tokyo blows up his family home.

This event sets in motion a huge around the world adventure for Dom and his friends, Brian (Paul Walker), Tej (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges), smart mouthed Roman (Tyrese Gibsen) and returning member Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). Dominic has always said that family is the most important thing to him and once you mess with it there is nowhere on Earth you can hide from him. But, Deckard is also seeking revenge for family and so the two come off as evenly matched rivals. Two times in the movie they appear before one another in amazing cars and charge head strong into one another and demolish each of their cars. They're both okay, of course, and they both stumble out of their cars and begin to square off with one another with fists, guns and broken shards of their vehicles. Deckard also has the nasty habit of appearing wherever in the world Dom and his team happen to be and throws a monkey wrench into each of their plans. I don't know how he keeps finding Dom, maybe he's got a tracking chip on him or has one of those apps that wives install on their husbands phones to check if they're cheating on them. I just watched each heists sequence though in anticipation of when he would come charging in to try and kill all of them.

On the subject of tracking chip technology, it turns out that there is a huge shadow game going on underneath the revenge and gun shoot outs. A mysterious technology that is something right out of Eagle Eye is wanted by a possible CIA or some sort of American boogie man character played by Kurt Russell. The technology can use any phone camera, surveillance equipment and basically any technological device with a camera to locate someone anywhere in the world. It's creator, Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), is currently in terrorist custody and will probably be tortured until she gives up the location of this technology to their leader Jackonde (Djimon Hounsou). Mister Spook hires Dom's team to find Ramsey and the device before that happens, with the promise that once they do they can use it to find and take down Deckard. All of which sets up the final showdown through the streets of L.A. where Dom and his team have the home team advantage but with a giant predator drone, attack helicopter and the lunatic Deckard around, who knows how things will go down. I know how it will go down but I like to add a bit of whimsy into this insane action thriller movie review. 

Every bit of the action is incredible, if you thought the last movie had some great stuff, you will be amazed at what's in store for you this time. All the stunts feature over the top cars, fight scenes have kicks and punches going all over the place with the camera changing perspectives as people are slammed into the ground. You will sit in awe of the amount of crazy shit gets thrown at you and that is entirely the point of a movie like this. Like I said, at this point in a film series things are bound to be ridiculous and Furious 7 knows this but brings with it plenty of heart felt compliments that fans will love.

The thing I didn't expect to be so huge for the movie was the ending. A touching tribute to Paul Walker was bound to be included somewhere near the end but the film makers did a wonderful job of making it feel like a part of the actual film. Dom speeds off at the end of the story in his car without saying much to everyone and as he is stopped along a long highway, a car pulls up. In the drivers seat is a CGI Paul Walker (one of his own brothers was a stand in) and the two drive down the road with a narration given by Vin Diesel about Paul and how he still remains a part of his family and the rest of their lives. The road diverges and Paul's car drives off in another direction to symbolize his departure, it's a beautiful tribute that fans will undoubtedly love and enjoy.

Furious 7 is convoluted, filled with shadow government characters, giant explosions, ex-British mercenaries, beautiful cars and even more beautiful woman. And while Fast and the Furious may have come a long way from just a common criminal street racing movie series, I can't help but enjoy what it's turned into. Everything that was done may have been extremely out there but it was all done with care and great work by all it's actors. Every actor returns to their roles with strength and wonderful performances and if I didn't already suspect a sequel, I would call this movie a great send of for the series. 

Good:

- Kurt Russell and Jason Statham make wonderful additions

- Action, never ending, non stopping, heart pounding, action

- Paul Walker tribute

Bad:

- It probably won't be as easy for some to overlook the over the top craziness

Scully Rating: 8.0 out of 10

Safe

Luke Wright a former NYC detective played by Jason Statham who is in debt to the Russian mob for not throwing a fight, and is told that whoever he meets, whoever he talks to will die. The pressure of that leads him to live life as a homeless man going from shelter to shelter avoiding everyone that he can. He runs into his old partners that he turned in for being crooked cops. They beat him and tell him he might as well kill himself. He goes to the subway to jump in front of one of the trains where he discovers Mei, a child math prodigy who can memorize anything she sees. 

The Triads kidnap Mei on her way home from school and tell her if she does not help them they will kill her mother for “making such a stupid girl.” Mei now scared for her ill mother’s life she reluctantly agrees to help the Triads as a counter. Mr. Han or Uncle Han as Mei calls him gives her a long list of random numbers, and tells her that she is going to get a second set, and a list of instructions, but they are not the only ones interested in Mei; The Russians also want what is in her mind. Mei is able to escape and runs down to the subway which happened to have Luke standing at the edge. Luke’s eyes catch a frightened Mei worried he steps back to see if she is ok, after noticing that she is being followed by the people that made his life miserable he follows her and tries to save Mei. 

From this point on a series of nonstop action breaks out and both Luke and Mei are in a fight for their lives. Using his skills as both a fighter and a detective Luke tries to get Mei through the situation by fighting, shooting and outsmarting his opponents. Not only does he cripple both organizations by killing most of their men. He inquires the help of his former partners to steal what is in the safes that the girl has the numbers locked in her mind. In all “Safe” is one of Jason Statham’s best movies though not one of his fastest moving ones, it starts off a little slow but once in you will be in for the ride of your life hoping both Luke and Mei walk away without injury.                   

Good:

-Great action scenes

-Great selection of actors for roles

-An in-depth plot

-In-depth background explanation at beginning of the movie for both main characters 

Bad:

-A little slow at the beginning 

Scully Rating: 9 out of 10