Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

While Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) debuted in 1984 with a sleeper hit independent comic book series by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, it didn’t truly become a global phenomenon until it was adapted into an animated series in 1987. With Turtle Mania going strong, the next logical step would be to adapt it into a live-action film (as was the style at the time), also named Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT I), in 1990. As a kid, I was vaguely aware of this film growing up, but I never watched it until the Turtle bug bit me much later. Although my first viewing was around the release of the 2014 film, I felt like giving it another shot after attending a pre-release for the Magic: The Gathering | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles expansion. Even without having any personal nostalgia for it, and it isn’t perfect, it’s easy to see why this film is so beloved and is easily the best of the original film trilogy.

Home Alone

Note: This review contains spoilers for Home Alone.

If there’s one film series that could be considered a staple of ‘90s pop culture, it’s Home Alone. The original 1990 film came out a couple years before I was born, however I vaguely recall watching it, as well as its first two sequels, at least once on home video when I was younger, at a time where I didn’t have much of an attention span. With the idea floating around that it’s a Christmas movie on the grounds that it’s set around Christmastime, as well as Disney+ releasing a sixth installment, I decided to revisit this movie to see what the fuss was about. While flawed, it’s not hard to see why some consider this a holiday classic.

Stubs - Kindergarten Cop - Controversial 30 Years Later?

Kindergarten Cop (1990) Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penelope Ann Miller, Pamela Reed, Linda Hunt, Richard Tyson, Carroll Baker. Directed by Ivan Reitman. Screenplay by Murray Salem, Herschel Weingrod, Timothy Harris. Produced by Ivan Reitman, Brian Grazer Run time: 111 minutes. United States. Color. Action, Comedy.

A thirty-year-old comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger might not seem like a controversial film, but Kindergarten Cop has recently been in the news because a recent planned screening was canceled.  Originally scheduled to open the NW Film Center’s Cinema Unbound, a summer-drive-in movie series in Portland, the film was pulled after local author Lois Leveen criticized the movie on Twitter.

According to her, “What’s so funny about School-to-Prison pipeline? Kindergarten Cop-Out: Tell @nwfilmcenter there’s nothing fun in cops traumatizing kids. National reckoning on overpolicing is a weird time to revive ‘Kindergarten Cop.’ IRL, we are trying to end the school-to-prison pipeline. There’s nothing entertaining about the presence of police in schools, which feeds the ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline in which African American, Latinx and other kids of color are criminalized rather than educated. Five- and 6-year-olds are handcuffed and hauled off to jail routinely in this country. And this criminalizing of children increases dramatically when cops are assigned to work in schools.”

She went further, stating “It’s true Kindergarten Cop is only a movie. So are ‘Birth of a Nation’ and ‘Gone With the Wind,’ but we recognize films like those are not ‘good family fun. They are relics of how pop culture feeds racist assumptions... Because despite what the movie shows, in reality, schools don’t transform cops. Cops transform schools, and in an extremely detrimental way.”

Having just recently seen the film again, I have to wonder how far up her own ass is Ms. Leveen’s head. The comparisons to Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind are over-the-top clap trap. Those films have been criticized, rightly so, for their depiction of Blacks during and after slavery. Birth of a Nation glorified the origins of the Klu-Klux-Klan for God’s sake. Invoking that film, in connection with criticizing this film, is a disservice to her own cause.

I would almost have to think that Ms. Leveen has never seen the film or hasn’t in 30 years and has somehow twisted the film’s story to fit in with her modern take on the world. Yes, police overstepping their boundaries, especially against children, is horrible. Yes, no one wants to see a “school-to-prison pipeline”. And yes, Black Lives Matter. But none of that has anything to do with Kindergarten Cop.

I’m not saying that Kindergarten Cop is high art and above reproach, but Leveen’s criticism seems misguided at best.

The film opens with a cat-and-mouse chase through a mall. LAPD detective John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is following Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson), an infamous drug dealer. Crisp is on his way to meet Danny (Tom Kurlander), a junkie who wants to sell him information about his estranged wife and child. Even though Danny was told to come alone, he has brought with him Cindy (Alix Koromzay), another junkie.

LAPD Detective John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) arrests Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson).

When Danny asks for money, Crisp tells him that he’ll take good care of him. But after learning that his wife and child are living in Astoria, Oregon, Crisp shoots and kills Danny. But Cindy is a witness to the murder from behind a box. Crisp dumps the gun in a trash bin and joins his mother, Eleanor Crisp (Carroll Baker), at a beauty salon. Finding Cindy kneeling over Danny’s body, Kimble handcuffs her to the body so she won’t run away. He then goes to the salon and arrests Crisp.

At headquarters, policewoman Phoebe O’Hara (Pamela Reed) interrogates Cindy, but she wants nothing to do with helping the police. After Cindy’s release, Kimble follows her to a drug den, chases everyone out, and promises to harass her until she helps him. Cindy relents and correctly identifies Crisp as the killer in a lineup and he is held over for trial without bail.

Crisp and Kimble talk when the former is in custody.

At the Los Angeles County Jail, Crisp boasts to Kimble that he will soon be free because a junkie’s testimony is worthless, but Kimble suggests that Crisp’s wife, who reportedly fled with $3 million of his drug money, will be happy to testify against him.

Later, Captain Salazar (Richard Portnow), over Kimble’s objections, sends him and Phoebe to Astoria to find Rachel Crisp and offer immunity in return for her testimony. It has been arranged that Phoebe will go undercover as a temporary kindergarten teacher at Astoria Elementary School, where Crisp’s son is a pupil. Since their only photograph of Rachel Crisp does not clearly show her face, they will have to uncover her new identity.

Once they land in Oregon, Phoebe gets stomach flu and is unable to appear at school the next morning as a result. Kimble decides to take her place and reports to the principal, Miss Schlowski (Linda Hunt), who was expecting Phoebe, not a huge, muscular man. Miss Schlowski warns that if she feels the children are in danger, she will alert the parents and they will take their kids out of school. When asked, Kimble tries to reassure Miss Schlowski that he has had teaching experience, but in reality the five-year-olds in his class drive him crazy.

Day One: Kimble loses his temper and makes the children cry.

His loud attempts to quiet them make most of the children cry, so Kimble runs to his rented car and brings back his pet ferret to calm them down. It becomes the class mascot. At the end of the school day, another teacher’s, Joyce’s (Penelope Ann Miller), little boy, Dominic Palmarie (Joseph Cousins and Christian Cousins), tells Kimble that he is the worst teacher ever, even worse than his stick ball coach. When Kimble asks if there is anyone he’s better than, Dominic informs him that he doesn’t know that many people.

Dominic Palmarie (Joseph Cousins or Christian Cousins), helps Kimble clean up after the first day. 

Exhausted, Kimble returns to his motel room and collapses after having cleaned up the mess the students have made.

The next day, young mothers linger at the school after bringing their children. Some are interested in Kimble, while others wonder what kind of man teaches kindergarten.

In class, Kimble pretends to play a game with the children by asking them what their father does and where are they now. The children give a variety of answers and Dominic says his father lives in France. Meanwhile, a child named Zach Sullivan (Justin Page) is withdrawn and resists saying anything despite Kimble’s attempts to draw him out.

After a fire alarm drill, Miss Schlowski chides Kimble for taking longer to evacuate his class than the other teachers.

That night, Phoebe feels better, and is hungry. She and Kimble go to a restaurant, where they run into Joyce and Dominic. Sensing romantic possibilities between Kimble and Joyce, Phoebe plays wingman for him, posing as his sister and speaks in Kimble’s Austrian accent. Over dinner, Kimble questions Joyce about other mothers, especially newcomers. Joyce believes many people come to small towns like Astoria to run away from something.

Phoebe (Pamela Reed) gives Kimble advice on how to handle the kids in his class.

Later that night, when Kimble complains to Phoebe that the children take advantage of him, she suggests that he show no fear.

The following day, Kimble gets “tough” and tells the kids he is the sheriff and they are “deputy trainees.” He orders them to march, leads them in physical exercise, and plays games that demand discipline. Thinking Zach is the boy he’s looking for, he places Zach in charge of the ferret. Miss Schlowski is impressed with the children’s improved behavior.

While the children take their afternoon naps, Kimble dozes off and dreams that Colin Crisp shoots him through the classroom window. He awakens as Joyce enters the room. She asks him over for dinner the next night at her house and he accepts.

Kimble finally manages to confront Mrs. Sullivan (Jayne Brook) the next day. She mistakenly believes he is asking about bruises on Zach’s legs, and confesses that her husband is in counseling and begs Kimble not to report him.

Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, Colin Crisp’s mother arranges for a dealer to sell Cindy a bag of pure heroin that is certain to kill her.

Dominic shows Kimble his backyard hideout.

The following evening, while Joyce prepares dinner, Dominic shows Kimble his backyard hideout, where he has a “laser” he hopes to place on a nearby antenna tower to protect him and his mother from “bad people.” After dinner, Kimble asks Joyce why she and Dominic move so often, and she admits her husband is not in France, but in Los Angeles. After he tried to kidnap Dominic, she assumed a new identity and went into hiding.

The following day, Phoebe investigates Joyce’s finances and can find only a checking account with less than $1000. Kimble is convinced Joyce is hiding $3 million somewhere, but Phoebe thinks he suspects her because his growing feelings toward her frighten him.

That morning, Zach arrives late to class, and Kimble finds a large bruise on his back. He chases Mrs. Sullivan back to her car, where Mr. Sullivan (John Hammil) is waiting. Kimble confronts him, and when Sullivan takes a swing, Kimble knocks him down.

Miss Schlowski calls Kimble into her office. He’s pretty sure that she’s going to fire him, but instead she approves of him punching Sullivan, even asking him what it felt like to hit him. She also, surprisingly, praises his teaching skills.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Captain Salazar identifies Cindy’s body at the morgue. Without Cindy’s testimony, he will have to release Crisp from jail, so he tells his assistant to inform Kimble and Phoebe that Crisp will soon be coming to Astoria. If Crisp’s wife wants police protection, she will have to reveal the whereabouts of the $3 million she supposedly has.

Eleanor Crisp picks up her son outside the jail, telling him, “We’re gonna be a family again”, and they drive to Astoria.

At the school fair, Phoebe and Kimble confesses to Joyce that they are police and can offer her protection from Colin, but she must turn over the stolen money. Joyce claims there is no money. Her husband spread a lie about her having $3 million to give others an incentive to locate her, enabling him to kidnap Dominic.

Fearing that she’ll flee, Kimble goes to see Joyce, who is hysterical because Dominic is missing. He remembers what Dominic had told him, and Kimble leads Joyce to the antenna tower, where they find the boy stranded on a ladder while trying to plant his lasers.

After Kimble rescues Dominic, he confesses that he lost his own son because his ex-wife wanted him out of her life, but he does not want to lose her and Dominic. They kiss.

Unbeknownst to her, Miss Schlowski (Linda Hunt) takes Crisp to where his son is.

The next day, in an effort to provide assistance, Phoebe comes to Kimble’s class to discuss strangers. Meanwhile, Colin visits Miss Schlowski’s office, posing as a father who wants to enroll his son in kindergarten. She allows him to look in on a classroom, and he recognizes his son. But when he sees Kimble, Crisp excuses himself and hurries outside to tell his mother.

Later, Crisp sneaks back into the school and sets fire in the library. The fire alarm prompts Kimble and Phoebe to lead their classes into the smoky hallway. Dominic stuffs Kimble’s pet ferret under his shirt, but when Kimble helps a girl who had been knocked down in the hall, he loses track of Dominic.

In the confusion, Crisp grabs his son and spirits the child into an empty classroom. He tells Dominic he is the boy’s father, but Dominic does not recognize him. Kimble searches the hallways for Dominic, while outside, Phoebe realizes that Dominic is missing and tries to return to the building. Stopped by local firemen at the front door, Phoebe hurries to a side door with her gun drawn.

Seeing her, Eleanor drives her car into Phoebe, knocking her down and, with Phoebe incapacitated, grabs her gun. Inside, Kimble finds Crisp in the boy’s locker room. But the drug dealer holds a pistol to his son’s head and makes Kimble put down his gun. He plans to shoot Kimble and Joyce, but the ferret, who never bites, suddenly goes after Crisp. Dominic manages to escape, and Kimble picks up his gun and shoots Crisp. Though fatally hit, Crisp fires off a last shot that wounds Kimble in the leg.

Eleanor Crisp (Carroll Baker) wants her grandchild back.

Soon after, Eleanor Crisp arrives and shoots Kimble. She follows his blood trail into the shower and fires a couple of shots near him to get him to tell her where her grandson is. When Kimble won’t tell her, she’s about to shoot him when Phoebe knocks her out with a baseball bat.

Kimble and Joyce (Penelope Ann Miller) are reunited upon his return from the hospital.

After a few days in the hospital, Kimble returns to school and Miss Schlowski offers him a permanent teaching job. The kids are overjoyed to see him. Kimble and Joyce embrace and kiss to everyone’s delight.

Made on a budget of $26 million, Kindergarten Cop made about $202 million when it was first released, making it a hit by the standards of the day.

Thirty years later, the film holds up pretty well. There are still a lot of laughs in the film and you do find yourself worrying about Dominic, even if you have seen the film before, like me. This is not to say that the film is perfect. There are a couple of holes that have to exist for the film to work.

We’re told that Kimble has been following Crisp for years, so it seems odd that he wouldn’t have more intel on him, like who is wife is and what she looks like. There are such things as marriage certificates and even without the internet, people still found out what other people looked like. But if Kimble knew what she looked like then the whole plot of the movie has to be thrown out the window.

I’m also a little surprised that Kimble and Phoebe, knowing Crisp was in town, would let Joyce and Dominic return to school the next day. However, if that didn’t happen we wouldn’t have the final shootout at the school. You would expect that they would put her and Dominic in protective custody rather than use them as bait.

While the happy ending and the kiss between Joyce and Kimble promises a future for them together, did she not go visit him in the hospital? Wouldn't this big mushy kiss have happened there?

And there is Kimble’s pet ferret, who is the one that causes Crisp to misfire his gun. A real important plot point in the story and he’s apparently necessary to the film. However, he’s not discovered until Kimble and Phoebe have already flown from Los Angeles to Portland. I know comfort animals were a thing a few years ago but not 30. I’m not sure how a live animal would have gone undetected for that long on a plane.

So, while I think the writing has issues, there are still some pretty funny lines, including this exchange between Kimble and one of the students.

Detective John Kimble: I have a headache.

Lowell: It might be a tumor.

Detective John Kimble: It's not a tumor! It's not a tumor. At all!

That line is made funny by Schwarzenegger’s delivery, making it sound like too-mah, as in “It’s not a too-mah”, a line which was repeated in practically every story about the film’s recent controversy. Schwarzenegger has shown that he is surprisingly adept at playing comedy and his performance here is more nuanced than that in Twins, his breakthrough comedy hit.

The rest of the cast is good, though it wouldn’t be hard to imagine others playing in the supporting roles, including Penelope Ann Miller, Pamela Reed, Linda Hunt, Richard Tyson, and Carroll Baker. One of the film’s more memorable roles was that of Crisp as played by Richard Tyson; he has evil written all over him from the start.

Richard Tyson's Crisp is evil throughout the film.

So, let’s take a look at Leveen’s complaints about the movie. School to jail pipeline: no children get arrested. If anything, Kimble’s tactics are more in line with the scared straight program. The children receive discipline in the form of rules and behaviors to follow. Is he strict? Sort of, but there is no corporal punishment and in the end the children seem to love him as they learn to work with him while he learns to work with them.

African Americans, Latinx, and other kids of color are criminalized rather than educated: That’s not present in this film. This is mostly a white classroom but there are one or two black children and at least one Latinx depicted. There is no sense that they are treated any differently than the other children in the class and everyone seems to be depicted accepting of everyone else.

Cops traumatizing kids: If someone yelling at them was a new experience then perhaps, yes, the children might be traumatized by Kimble. But there is no indication of that happening. He gets their attention and they go from there. The real traumatization would come from the school burning down, which is not played for comedic effect in the film. And the one who sets the school on fire is the bad guy.

What about the shooting at the school, wouldn’t that traumatize the children? Perhaps if they’d seen it. The gunfight takes place while the children are outside because of the fire. They don’t see it nor do they hear it over the other noises. The only child in the room, and I’m not even sure he’s shown as being there, is Dominic. I believe he escapes out of the boy’s locker room before the shooting takes place. The only kids that might be traumatized are the two older students who are making out during the fire and are surprised by Kimble, who does have his weapon drawn when he bursts into the room they’re in.

And frankly, my dear, if Kindergarten Cop was half the movie Gone with the Wind was, that would be great. Instead, it is a fun film. Now it was and still is for that matter, rated PG-13, which means it wasn’t made for small children. If parents were to take them in to see it, any traumatizing would be on them.

The NW Film Center should be ashamed of itself for capitulating to Leveen’s misplaced complaints. While John Lewis was a great man and a worthy subject, and I’m not complaining about the documentary, I don’t think it evokes the same fun time at the drive-in. Leveen’s complaints are the type that ruined Saturday Mornings by complaining about the cartoons not being educational. Now, drive-ins can’t be fun places to go, either, I guess.

Kindergarten Cop is light fare and would be worth seeing, especially if you were wondering what the fuss was about. You know a good place to see it? A drive-in.

Stubs – Die Hard 2

Die Hard 2 (1990) Starring: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, Reginald VelJohnson. Directed by Renny Harlin. Screenplay by Steve E. de Souza and Doug Richardson. Based on the novel. 58 minutes by Walter Wager. Characters by Roderick Thorp. Produced by Charles Gordon, Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver. Run Time: 124 minutes. U.S.  Color.  Action.

Our Bruce Willis Christmas celebration continues with the follow up to Die Hard, the aptly named Die Hard 2, sometimes referred to as Die Hard 2: Die Harder.

You can just imagine the conundrum Fox must have found itself in after the success of the original Die Hard in 1988. What to do next? Well apparently, you can take any story and find its internal John McClane. Hence, producers took an unrelated story, the novel 58 Minutes and repurposed it as a McClane adventure. As it turns out, it’s fortunate that they set this film around Christmas, because the plot is less believable than Santa Claus.

Colonel Stuart (William Sadler), a former Special Forces officer, takes over Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. to aide in the escape of General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero), who is being extricated to the U.S. to stand trial on charges of distributing cocaine. Our hero, John McClane now with the LAPD, just happens to be at Dulles waiting for his wife Holly’s (Bonnie Bedelia) plane to arrive from Los Angeles. When Stuart shuts down the airport, her flight is one of those endangered.

McClane has to fight with airport police Captain Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis Franz) for action when he becomes aware of a mischievous plot. While Trudeau (Fred Dalton Thompson), Chief of Dulles’ operations, is concerned, he still treats McClane like an outsider, a civilian. The only people McClane can get to help him are Marvin (Tom Bower), the battle scared janitor, and Leslie Barnes (Art Evans), Dulles’ director of communications.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon sends one platoon of Special Forces under the command of Major Grant (John Amos) to put an end to the terror. Grant is supposed to know Stuart since he trained him. However, Grant and his platoon do a lot of sitting at the airport, while McClane seems to do all the work.

While the airport tries to keep a lid on the press, reporter Dick Thornburg (William Atherton) just happens to be on the same flight as Holly. You remember Thornburg from Die Hard, he’s the annoying reporter who outed McClane to Hans via TV news and the one whom Holly punched at the end. Well, in Die Hard 2 Thornburg’s sound man happens to be on the same flight and detects that the outer marker is not beeping, but broadcasting a message from Dulles to the planes in route about the terrorism going on. Thornburg gets on the news, via telephone hookup and of course, the story is broadcast over TV and causes panic not only on the ground, but on the plane, which is watching local TV to pass the time. Thornburg is only stopped when Holly uses a fellow passenger’s taser gun to knock him out. I guess they couldn’t simply disconnect the call or change channels on the plane.

Turns out that Grant and Stuart are in cahoots and all gather at the hangar where a converted 747 is waiting to whisk them all away to some tropical island. But John can’t let them get away. He convinces news reporter Samantha Coleman (Sheila McCarthy), who has been hanging around the airport all night sensing a story even before word broke about the terrorism, to use the station’s helicopter to land him on the wing of the plane that is taking its sweet time taxiing down the runway.

Once on the wing of the plane, McClane manages to stuff his jacket into one of the flaps preventing take off. And rather than pull over and check it out, Esperanza keeps taxiing the plane while first Grant and then Stuart go out on the wing to stop McClane. Grant gets turned into shredded general when he goes through the business end of one of the jet engines. Stuart manages to knock McClane off the wing, but not before John pulls the plug on one of the fuel tanks.

McClane lights the trail of gasoline which leads to the plane already in the sky and blows it up. The fire provides landing lights for the other jets which all land safely. And John and Holly are reunited on the frozen tarmac. 

While the original Die Hard had a somewhat complicated robbery plot, the sequel’s is rather pointless. If one airport gets shut down, planes just go somewhere else to land. They don’t fly around until they run out of fuel and fall from the sky. And there are plenty of airports in and around Washington D.C. and the east coast. The movie makes a reference to National (now Reagan) being iced over, but there are plenty of other choices, including Andrews Air Force base. It is never made clear why the other planes wouldn’t have diverted themselves to another airfield.

Also, the movie shows that Esperanza is easily able to commandeer the plane taking him to Dulles. Why not just fly to your final destination? Why involve U.S. Special Forces and mercenaries in your escape? And what a meager unit provided to escort Esperanza; one guard and two pilots and no U.S. personnel.

And while we all cheer McClane blowing up the plane in mid-flight, couldn’t the, I don’t know, Air Force let’s say, scramble a couple of jets to take it down? Oddly, involving more than one platoon of Special Forces is never really discussed. The film wants us to believe that if John doesn’t blow up the plane the bad guys will get away.

There is a high body count in the film, which includes the assassination of a church caretaker, two painters, a squad of airport SWAT personnel, dozens of terrorists and a planeload of British innocent passengers which is purposefully crashed by Stuart to let everyone know he’s serious. Somehow though McClane is bloodied but never shot throughout the gunfire.

The film is blatantly built around a series of high concept mindless action sequences. The first is the fight between McClane and two of Stuart’s men in an otherwise deserted luggage sorting area. (Are all the baggage claim workers on break? And I never realized there was so much steam involved with luggage.)  John kills one and the other gets away. John sends the fingerprints off the dead man to Sergeant Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson), the Twinkie eating patrolman from Die Hard (we had to have a cameo to remind us of this film’s origin story), back in LA to run them. Turns out the man John killed had already been reported dead two years ago.

Next, when Barnes decides he can use an antenna array in the new terminal to signal the planes, he sets out with the airport’s SWAT team. And lo and behold this is an ambush. The painters working late into the night at an airport in lockdown happen to be members of Stuart’s squad (surprise, surprise). The SWAT team must have never heard of retreating and regrouping because they pretty much just stand there and get killed. McClane, who comes through another ventilation shaft (remember when he did that in Die Hard?), saves Barnes and singlehandedly kills the remaining terrorists. But before Barnes can get to the antenna array, it is blown up remotely by Stuart. Why didn’t he just do that to start with? The film tells you that it was his way of getting rid of the SWAT team, which must be the only one around since no other one is called to the airport. And I guess the loss of eight or so of Stuart’s troops is a small price to pay for taking on an inept foe.

When Esperanza lands his plane, McClane is the first one to meet him. But Stuart and his men close in and John takes shelter in the cockpit. When Stuart’s men throw in all of their grenades, John has time to get into the pilot’s seat and eject it before the grenades explode. How come the grenades don’t explode on impact or why no one shoots at the parachuting McClane, I’m not really sure.

And there is the big fake shootout at the church Stuart has taken over to run his operation out of. When Grant’s men attack, there is a ferocious firefight in which nothing gets damaged and no one gets shot. The movie, which neatly broadcasts that the blue cartridges are blanks and the red ones real, doesn’t even have to do that for us to know this is fake. Stuart and his ever-diminishing squadron escape on snowmobiles and live to fight, and die, another day.

The final action scene, which I think I’ve already discussed in detail is, of course, the best one as all the bad men get their come-uppance all at once. And we get to hear, once again, John McClane’s catchphrase, “Yippee Ki-yay Motherf®™©er”.

More than any other sequel I can remember, there is a real sense of doing things again with Die Hard 2. Even the dialogue makes reference several times to this is how McClane spent last Christmas and Holly remarks at the end “why does this keep happening to us?” And even though this is a mindless actioneer, the audience is also left with a feeling of “why did I let myself get taken in by this?”

This is the inherent problem with sequels. Unless you’ve mapped out the five or eight sequels in advance (yes, I’m talking to you George Lucas), or you’re doing a series of related books or comic books, the sequel can be a tricky thing. The first movie sort of neatly wrapped up John McClane’s adventure in Los Angeles. The ending didn’t necessarily lead us into this one, though we may have wanted to see more of him, we didn’t have an obvious avenue to pursue the wish. That is until Die Hard 2.

The sequel needs to stand on its own and without the good vibes we got from John McClane from the original I don’t think I would have seen 2. The plot holes are so large that you could, well, fly a plane through them. 

But this is Christmas, right? We’re supposed to forgive and forget the trespasses others have done to us. I guess I can forgive Renny Harlin for this trite and Bruce Willis for going for the money he must have made on this film. So we’re not turning our backs on John McClane or Bruce Willis. The rest of the Die Hard franchise may be fodder for future posts, especially with Die Hard 5 aka A Good Day to Die Hard coming soon, but next week (unless the world ends of course), we’ll take a look at our final Bruce Willis Christmas movie, RED.

Here’s hoping the Mayans didn’t know what they were talking about.

To read reviews of other Christmas films, please see our Christmas Review Hub.

Stubs - Total Recall (1990)

TOTAL RECALL (1990) Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside and Ronny Cox. Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, Gary Goldman. Based on story by Philip K. Dick. Music by Jerry Goldsmith. Produced by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna. Run Time: 113. Color. U.S. Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Fantasy.

As with any Hollywood summer, 2012 has its fair share of remakes, sequels and reboots. The latest in this is a remake of Total Recall, starring Colin Farrell. While I’m not planning on seeing this remake, I did think it would be an opportunity to take a second look at the original.

Prior to being Governor of California and fathering kids with the family maid, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a body-builder turned actor. A savvy businessman, Schwarzenegger built his muscles into becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. By 1990, Schwarzenegger was big enough to demand and receive $10,000,000 and 15% of the gross, as well as approval over the production team, screenplay, cast and promotion for his part in Total Recall.

I remember at the time I saw this in a theater that I liked it and I was a little disappointed at how poorly it seemed to age in twenty-two years. To begin with this was one of the last major films to rely on miniatures for the special effects, something that is now predominately done with CGI; hence the long credits at the end of any big budget movie nowadays. There is also a lot of nightmare fuel in the film thanks to the makeup and prosthetics used for mutants. Again, some of these effects are frankly done better these days and again with CGI.

But what actually has held together better is the story. Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is a construction worker living in the year 2084. Things seem to be going well for Quaid. His job, though menial, lets him take advantage of his huge muscles and allows him to live comfortably with his hot wife, Lori (Sharon Stone). Things are good, too good. At night Quaid keeps thinking about Mars, a planet that he has never been to. Lori tries to get him to stop thinking about it, but Quaid can’t shake it.

On his way to work one day, he sees an ad for a service called Rekall, which will plant memories in your mind, so that you can remember vacations that you actually never take. Quaid is fascinated by the idea and discusses it with one of his friends at work, Harry (Robert Costanzo). Harry tries to dissuade Quaid from going to Rekall, but he is still curious. One day after work he goes and signs up for a trip to Mars with espionage bent to it. But while they are planting the memory in his brain, he becomes violent. Rekall manages to sedate him, wipe out his memory of coming there and sends him home in an automated cab, called a Johnny Cab in the movie.

But as soon as Douglas gets out of the cab, he is confronted by a gun toting Harry and a couple of goons, who plan on killing him. However, Douglas manages to turn the tables on them and kills them all. Back home, Lori also turns on him, telling him that their eight year marriage was only a memory implant. She tries and fails to kill him. He knocks her out and escapes just ahead of Richter (Michael Ironside) and other armed men. Richter turns out to be Lori’s real husband and is working for Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox), the governor of Mars. It is clear that Richter is able to track Quaid, but Quaid doesn’t know how.

He runs to a hotel, where he is almost immediately contacted by a mysterious man who advises him to wrap a wet towel around his head and who leaves a mysterious suitcase for him. Quaid picks up the suitcase, but is only steps ahead of Richter. Stealing a Johnny Cab, Quaid drives out of town to an apparently abandoned cement factory. There he goes through the contents of the suitcase, which contains money, food, gadgets and a video player.

On the video, Quaid, calling himself Hauser, instructs himself on how to remove the tracking device, which he pulls out of his skull through his nose. This is also the first visual effect that didn’t age well, as there is obviously a prosthetic make up being used, since the tracking device is obviously too big to be pulled out through a nostril. Hauser explains to Quaid that he used to work for Cohaagen, but has information about a Martian artifact that forced him to wipe his own memory to protect himself. Hauser’s advice for Quaid is to get to Mars and meet Kuato, the leader of the Mars resistance against Cohaagen.

Per Hauser’s instructions, Quaid checks into the Hilton hotel and follows clues left by Hauser to Venusville, a red light district filled with clairvoyant mutants and a three-breasted hooker (Lycia Naff), as well as a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. Quaid is taken by Benny, a cab driver with five children to support. At the bar, he meets Melina (Rachel Ticotin), the woman literally of his dreams. Melina was Hauser’s girlfriend, but she wants nothing to do with Quaid now.

Back at his hotel, Quaid is first approached by Dr. Edgemar (Roy Brocksmith), who claims to be the President of Rekall. He tells Quaid that he is not on Mars, but is living out the memory implant, even with the espionage side-story. He tries to use Lori, who is just outside the door to convince Quaid to take a red pill to get him out of the dream state he’s in. But Quaid notices that Dr. Edgemar is sweating, so he kills him. Richter arrives with more armed thugs and they manage to subdue Quaid. But Melina arrives and saves Quaid and kills Lori.

Benny takes Quaid and Melina back to Venusville just ahead of Richter’s men. They escape into the tunnels. When Richter can’t find Quaid, Cohaagen orders the ventilation be turned off in Venusville to force cooperation. Quaid, Melina and Benny are taken to a rebel complex and Quaid is taken to see Kuato. Kuato is, naturally, a mutant, attached to the stomach of his brother George (Marshall Bell). Kuato is also clairvoyant and reads Quaid’s mind. He tells Quaid that the artifact is a reactor that, if activated, will turn the turbinium in the mines into breathable air. Coohagen’s men, led by Benny, burst in and kill Kuato and most of the resistance.

Cohaagen takes Quaid and Melina under his control and shows them a video of Hauser revealing that this has all been part of the master plan to get close to and to kill Kuato to end the resistance. He orders that Hauser’s memory be reimplanted into Quaid, but before that happens, Quaid and Melina escape. They run and hide in the mines, where they fight off and kill Richter and his men. But Cohaagen is waiting for them in the control room of the reactor. There is a gunfight, which blows out one of the walls sucking Cohaagen, Quaid and Melina out into the vacuum of the Mars atmosphere. But on his way out, Quaid manages to set off the reactor. While Cohaagen dies of asphyxiation, Melina and Quaid last long enough to breath in the fresh air of Mars. And every one in Venusville is saved.

Not a bad story, really, though the science doesn’t really hold water or in this case air. While asphyxiation is shown as we expect it to look, this isn’t what would happen in the vacuum of space. But then again, what would you expect from a sci-fi movie.

There is a cheap feel to the movie, as if a $50 to 60 million budget didn’t go very far back then. Maybe it’s the aging of the movie itself, but the sets look flimsy and the mutant make up a tad overdone, as if more was better than good. The prosthetic make up doesn’t look believable, either. In the scene where Quaid goes to Mars dressed like a woman, when the fake mask malfunctions, the head underneath it looks like a prosthetic Schwarzenegger. And the cars of the future look poorly designed. Why would a car driven by the torso of a robot need a steering wheel and accelerator?

Some of the special effects are pointless, as when the electric Johnny Cab blows up and catches fire when it crashes. It doesn’t appear that anyone really tried too hard to think about what the world and Mars would look like in 2084, other than a slightly more advanced and cheaper looking present.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score doesn’t seem to be quite right, either. The prolific composer tries too hard to make you think this is an important movie and therefore the score is too over blown for this piece of sci-fi fluff. The acting’s not bad, but there isn’t really anything remotely approaching Shakespeare here, though there are a few good lines sprinkled throughout.

For the most part, the movie is like cotton candy; enjoyable while it melts away in your mouth, but when it’s over there was really not much to it.