Leon, a.k.a., The Professional (1994) and The Fifth Element (1997)

Director Luc Besson was ambitious during the 1990s, hot off his French hit “La Femme Nikita,” about a troubled woman trained to become an assassin back when such ideas were, “Whoa, who woulda thunk?” (Recall, this was long before the silly “Lucy.”

“Leon” –- known in the U.S. as “The Professional” –- offers a spin on that as a 12-year-old NYC girl (Natalie Portma, in her debut) is taken in by a hitman (Jean Reno) after her uncaring, vile family is murdered by DEA thugs. She mourns only her toddler brother. Gary Oldman is the head DEA agent, an evil freak who pops Quaaludes like chocolate. Young Matoilda wants to learn the assassin trade to kill Oldman and his badged thugs. Leon reluctantly agrees. But Matilda is troubled as she mistakes adoration for a fatherly figure for sexual attraction. In a huge misstep, Besson introduces this dynamic and then runs away from it. He opts for massive, very artsy gunplay instead, and it is wildly entertaining, the entire long climax involving Leon and every cop in the city. My college pals all loved the film, but I still find it a bit too loose for its own good. Oldman’s cop is far more amusing than dangerous. Put this guy up against any Joe Pesci character from the era, he’d fold like pancake batter. Reno has never been better. And I knew back then Portman was something to behold: Tragic, funny, confused, angry; she amazes. B

 “Fifth Element” gleefully torches any set standard. Oldman returns as the villain, doing a twisted take on -– I gather -– Marvin the Martian as an arms dealer out to steal precious alien stones that could save Earth from annihilation. Oldman’s Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (awesome name!) insists he’ll make money off the ensuing chaos. A Republican? No matter. He’s up against Bruce Willis as Korben Dallas, ex-soldier turned cab driver in 23rd century Brooklyn. By winking coincidence, Korben has stumbled on Earth’s new savior, a fiery ginger head named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). Part action/comedy, “Firth” is a love letter to “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner” -– both made when Besson was a teen. He spills references -- Leia hair buns, a familiar brown robe, and Brion James (RIP) – so fast, they fly by. “Fifth” also is a must for oddball film score buffs, thank you, Eric Serra. The best joke: Willis’ hero and Oldman’s villain never meet, separated by the most (purposefully) contrived circumstances. VIP is Chris Tucker as an androgynous DJ who ends up narrating the action. Some found his Ruby Rhod a disaster, I love the WTF attitude of him (her?). A-

The Expendables 3 (2014)

“The Expendables” brings back Sylvester Stallone and his action pals (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Jason Statham) for more grinding mayhem, this time against Mel Gibson as an arms dealer. After the improved sequel, “3” ought to be aces. It’s garbage. The film gets cut to a bloodless PG-13 to get the kids in, but it’s still far too violent for children, with hundreds of onscreen deaths. (Yet, “Boyhood” got an R!?!) But that’s nitpicking. The plot is shambles, bending backward to intro younger heroes, all of them a snore – especially Kellan Lutz from “Legend of Hercules.” The young lot get captured, forcing the older lot to stage a rescue mission. Why bother? Gibson proves again he’s wildcard actor, brimming with madness, but his role is a bust. Buying bad art for $3M is evil? Harrison Ford plays a spook subbing for Bruce Willis, who played “Agent Church” in parts 1 and 2, but quit this entry over pay. So Ford delivers the line, “Church is out of the picture,” and winks directly into the camera. I saw a tear in his eye. C-

Red 2 (2013)

The comic-book inspired “Red” from 2010 was an OK blast of time-waster fun, nothing special outside of the delicious sight of seeing classy senior citizens such as Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren blast off guns and canons alongside Action Man himself Bruce Willis. And it had an Ernest Borgnine cameo. “Red 2” is very much all the same, minus Freeman and (RIP) Borgnine, as a pack of retired CIA killers -– led by John Malkovich -– again run after some McGuffin device as a tarted-up, evil, faceless Big Brother agency chases after them, bouncing bullets and plane tickets for foreign lands back and forth. The sought-after item here is an untraceable bomb developed by the USA lost decades ago and now likely to fall into the hands of terrorists. Anthony Hopkins pops by, making for at least one delicious scene where he and Brian Cox face off. That’s movie geek glory as each man played Hannibal Lector. But that’s it. The rest is paint by numbers and stale jokes. Here’s one: Have you seen the gag about the once cool bad-ass macho man reduced to shopping at Costco just like any consumer? No?!? Well, here’s your chance. C+

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

“G.I. Joe: Retaliation” outpaces the first installment of the toy-inspired franchise about an elite force of American soldiers dedicated to fighting uber-terrorist group Cobra, the latter obsessed with snake puns and world domination. Mind you, “G.I. Joe:Rise of Cobra” was an awful take on the 1980s comics/cartoon, mangling characters, adding ugly Iron Man suits, and putting (shudder) lips on the mask of a black-clad ninja. Here, director Jon Chu (“Step-Up”) ups the action -– dig the mountain-side battle of sword-playing ninjas -– and ditches much of the “Rise” low marks, reworking characters to give fan boys their due. The plot kicks off as Cobra has created an imposter U.S. Prez (Jonathan Pryce) and plans to take the world via nuclear disarmament. Satirical politics? No. This is child’s play. Speaking of, in action figure trading glory, most of the “Rise” cast has fled, but we get Dwayne Johnson as heavy-gunner Roadblock and Bruce Willis as the original Joe named Joe. (Channing Tatum briefly returns as Joe leader Duke.) Johnson carries all, while Willis yawns and the rest of the newcomers, including Adrianne Palicki in a painfully sexist “hottie soldier” role, strike poses more plastic than human. B-

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

“Olympus Has Fallen” is a ridiculous “Die Hard” knock-off that pits a lone hero (Gerard Butler of “300”) against a pack of terrorists at the White House, but -- ironically, maybe – is far better than the POS “Die Hard 6” ever hoped to be. That’s a lukewarm compliment. This is the kind of flick one watches in silent awe because of the riotous onscreen tug-of-war between “blow ’em up” fist-pump carnage and “can you believe this?” brain-killer stupidity. Case in point: After North Korean terrorists attack the White House, killing hundreds of people, taking hostage the president (Aaron Eckhart), and grabbing control of all U.S. nukes, the speaker of the house (Morgan Freeman) appears on TV and dumbly declares, “Our government is 100 percent functional.” Seriously! Not even Mr. Freeman can sell that crap. He tries. I laughed. Director Antoine Fugu (“Training Day”) has built a beat-for-beat rip-off of the 1988 classic, down to the Army helicopter crash, minus the Twinkie. At least “Olympus" never pretends to be anything but a B-grade shadow of a knock-off, and that goes a long way for slack. Butler is no Bruce Willis, though, and his wisecrack attempts ring hollow. How’s “White House Down”? C+

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

“A Good Day to Die Hard” is not a “Die Hard” movie. It’s an ugly, tired, dull action flick that regurgitates everything grand from the 1988 classic. It has no soul or point. It's an abomination. A cash grab by tired people who do not care anymore. Five minutes in I hated it. A tired Bruce Willis is “John McClane” -– quotes needed -– who bolts to Moscow to save his grown CIA agent son (Jai Courtney) stuck with a murder rap. The short of it: John and John go Roy Rogers on a pack of terrorists, one of whom eats carrots. Really. It all ends in Chernobyl in a swimming pool. Not joking. Actually, nothing here is funny. What’s worse: The Tea Party way director John Moore treats all foreigners as stupid trolls, or the way he turns McClane -– long ago scared, bleeding, but desperate to do right -– into some Stallone blockhead that the first film so beautifully refused? There is not even a delicious villain to root for. Twinkies were the food choice in 1988. This is a shit served cold. Yippee-ki-yay mother F.

Looper (2012)

In “Looper,” director/writer Rian Johnson (“Brick”) takes the worn idea of time travel and renews it, not just with vigor, wit, and head-turning suspense, but strong characters that act in ways never touched on before -– suicide. Well, not exactly suicide as we know it.

Joseph Gordon Levitt (“Inception” and also “Brick”) plays Joe, a hit man who kills mafia castoffs delivered from 30 years in the future where time travel is possible but illegal. Crazy? Don’t mind it. Joe is known as a Looper because, literally, one day he must execute himself, his older late-50s self. Close the loop. Get it?

The scratch in this time trick: Old Joe turns out to be a vengeance-seeking raging pissed-off man-of-action embodied by Bruce Willis in full “Die Hard” mode, ready to hunt and kill a mysterious young boy who decades later will become an evil Keyzor Soze-like crime boss that will ruin Joe’s — both Joes — life. (A day without referencing “The Usual Suspects” is a day wasted.)

This is trippy, shocking story-telling, and Johnson dares play his hand wide open by admitting onscreen that time travel is pure bunk, a mind screw that is best left unraveled, and then he stomps the gas hard for go, non-stop. He also goes “meta” by having Young Joe’s mafia boss (Jeff Daniels) sulk around as the world’s laziest mobster, opting for PJs over clothes, but able to pop off dark and violent when his underlings fail.

Best bits: Daniels as this mob boss denounces Young Joe’s motives as a hit man who has watched too many movies about hit men, and then Johnson goes onto practically film and his cast act out a full-on worship sequence of mafia hit man classic “Goodfellas.” Time is not just twisted here, but the world of movies, inside and out, is tweaked and turned on its head. Also up for debate grabs: The effects of child abuse, loveless parenting, and how we change — and in many ways remain stunted — as we age. Heavy, wonderful stuff all around.

Johnson scores a knockout, too, because his cast, writing, emotion, and the action are all stellar. Levitt -– under makeup -– makes a believable Willis. All the junk on his face is off-putting at first, but Levitt moves beyond it, and the story is so strong, such complaints fall by the way side. I’ll take occasional makeup mishaps any day over a plot-empty, CGI-drunk stinker such as “Battleship.” I thought “Brick” far too clever for its own good, setting a film noir mystery in a high school. It never earned the raves. This does, easily so.

Also, check out Paul Dano of “There Will be Blood,” playing a fellow hit man who meets a horrifying fate right out of the nastiest episode of “Twilight Zone” ever imagined, but never filmed. More so than even Levitt, Dano is an actor we’ll be talking about decades from now as the best of his generation, his and our time. A-

The Expendables 2 (2012)

“The Expendables 2” is what the first outing from 2010 -– a surprisingly dull film recreating and saluting the 1980s action flicks of my over-stimulated youth that had its head stuck up the butt of the long-gone decade –- should have been. Teeth-rattling fun, mainly.

In that film, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis -– the Holy Trinity of the Action Film Genre -– stood around and made blowjob jokes. The talky give and take was so awkward, it sounded like an investors meeting at Planet Hollywood, and the scene had zero impact. Here, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis come together and blast apart an army of faceless villains, machine guns popping off endless amounts of bullets. They are joined by Chuck Norris. They’re all after Jean Claude Van Damme. Now, that’s star power beyond my 16-year-old dreams. (Chuck Norris!!!)

Let’s get it out of the way now: “Expendables 2” is ridiculous, from its opening scene to the last frame. It’s a joke. Everyone on screen has a goofy character name, but who are we fooling? Our heroes, joined by “Expendables 1” hold-overs Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, and Randy Couture are basically playing themselves, or at least, our collective perception of the myriad characters they have played on screen since the time of VCR as a common household item and Ronald Reagan as president. When Big Names mattered over the title on the poster, not just the name of the superhero that the film is about. Hell, these guys were superheroes, flat out.

Schwarzenegger drops his “I’ll be back” lines from “The Terminator,” Stallone is called “the Italian,” even though his Barney Frank bears seemingly no relation to a Philly boxer. Willis gets a “Yippe-ki-yay” in there, for “Die Hard” lore. Lundgren’s real-life background as a chemical engineer gets picked up for a series of laughs, right before a tip to the original “Total Recall.” Hilariously, Chuck Norris tells a Chuck Norris joke, and can barely keep a straight face when he dishes it out. 

It’s silly, bloody camp, a throwback film that winks back at the 1980s/90s, and knows AARP men of that era have no business starring in a modern action film, but doesn’t care. Yet, that is the kick. I saw this because of the cast, thinking back to the day when we saw a movie because it was Stallone or Willis or Schwarzenegger. Those days are gone, mostly. Now, we see the Spider-Man movie, not caring who stars, but only because it is Spider-Man. Schwarzenegger says, “We belong in a museum,” ribbing himself before the haters can write the same dismissive remark in a snide review at IMDB. It’s not as gloriously over-the-top singularly enjoyable as, say, “Flash Gordon,” but awful close, and as fully aware of its heightened life as a instant guilty pleasure, without the guilt. Chuck Norris!!!

The improvements are fast, and in the credits: Stallone starred, wrote, and directed the first film, and looked exhausted the entire time onscreen. Simon West, who directed “Con-Air,” takes over the reins here, and Stallone also had help on the screenplay. And the man looks looser here, focused on the subject at hand: Kicking bad guy ass. He’s having more fun, really.

The plot is easy, and -– to my surprise -– throws in what the first film sorely needed, a female protagonist. Yu Nan, new to my eyes, plays an operative of Willis’ shady CIA spook named Church. The mission: The Expendables take Nan’s Maggie to a downed airplane in Albania to extract a McGuffin disk locked inside a safe. What’s on the disc? Not important. A group of vaguely European creeps want it, and get it, and fight is on. It’s that easy.

Starring as the lead villain, Vilain -– yes, go on and laugh or roll your eyes, Vilain! –- is Van Damme, looking mean and scarred after years of drug abuse and a reported heart attack. As with Lundgren in the first film, Van Damme looks hungry for stardom on screen and he dives so fully in to his maniacal, over-the-top (I really cannot say that enough) bad guy, one can’t help but cheer on the actor, I swear.

As with “The Avengers” and its thin plot, the set-up of “Expendables 2” is a means to get to the final battle. Unlike “Expendables 1,” this delivers. No spoiler alert needed, if you have not seen this film yet, these words will make you jump: Stallone fights Van Damme, hand-to-hand combat. It is freaking awesome. Yes, Stallone versus Schwarzenegger might be better, but this is just too good not to witness. Rocky/Rambo versus the Muscles from Brussels is what define high-octane summer films, even purposefully goofy violent.

It’s not rock solid by far. Clearly Jet Li had better things to do, and drops out quickly. As well, Schwarzenegger may not have the big-screen chops anymore, his line readings are awkward, as if he’s pushing too hard to pull off the one-liners of two decades ago. Liam Hemsworth (“The Hunger Games,” and younger brother of  Chris from “Thor”) plays a young Expendable who gives this long spiel of an Army mission gone wrong and an adopted pet dog being slain. It may be the dialogue, it may be Hemsworth’s newness as an actor, but it falls flat. That aside is a rare turn here compared to the overly morose tone that dragged “Expendables 1” down.

A Part 3 is promised, and although the cast may grow even larger and even more starry, I’m happy with this outing. This is a self-aware and knowing go-for-broke blast of fun, a joke that works, by the muscle-bound actors who, for better and worse, defined a decade-plus of action genre filmmaking. This is all perfectly the right amount of too much, and there’s a difference between nostalgic road trip and a tired cash grab. P.S., Chuck Norris!!! B+

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Ten minutes into “Moonrise Kingdom,” I realized I had my fill of Wes Anderson, the Gen X darling filmmaker who tells tales of quirky hipsters and outsiders using ironic air quotes peppered with hip art deco sets and hip costumes. I’m sick of all of Anderson’s hipness. The guy aims and fails for some aura of New Wave French film with a story about pre-teen love birds (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) on the run from parents, police, and Khaki Scout Troop leaders in 1960s New England. To woo youngsters, Anderson tosses in fires, floods, storms, impaled dogs, and so much forced acting from famous actors (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, and Edward Norton among them), that it all feels like the over-the-top high school play that closed out “Rushmore,” a damn fine film. Yes, Jason Schwartzman appears. So does Bob Balaban as a narrator who changes camera lights. The obnoxious music score almost drowns out the realization that the central arc of Hayward as a beauty hip (again!) to Euro culture falling for a sad nerd is bullshit. Anderson’s kingdom of cool -– I loved “Fantastic Mr. Fox” -- has gone tepid. I’m out. C-

Death Becomes Her (1992)

Before he got lost in stop-motion animated films, Robert Zemeckis made live-action movies that used jaw-dropper special effects to tell wildly fun stories. On the darker side was “Death Becomes Her,” a “Twilight Zone”-like satire about a beauty-obsessed actress (Meryl Streep), her former high-school rival (Goldie Hawn) and the sad-sack plastic surgeon (Bruce Willis) who comes between them. A creepily beautiful Isabella Rossellini plays a sorceress who gets between everyone, with a potion that promises eternal youth, with all its hiccups (take care of your body, she warns). I will say no more for those who have not seen this wicked tale, except to say Zemeckis has a ball showing how many times a person who cannot die can die. The script is barely skin deep, but the three leads are in top comedic form. Willis lampoons his “Die Hard” persona, sporting ugly sweaters and nerd glasses, and Hawn is gloriously Hawn, with a streak of evil. Steep opens the film with a hilariously bad musical number. B+

Red (2010)

“Red” is actually, apparently, “R.E.D.” – as in Retired Extremely Dangerous. Or something like that. It’s a comic book movie without the tights and powers, but with plenty of over-the-top action that makes “The A-Team” seem as tame as “Jane Eyre.” The catch – the raison d’etre -- is the casting. Not Bruce Willis in the lead. We’ve all seen him mow down 106 bad guys and blow-up office skyscrapers. Yawn. But Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle? John Malkovich with a grenade launcher? Morgan Freeman slapping people? Wee! It’s The AARP Team. Plot: Mirren, Freeman and Malkovich help Willis’ newly retired CIA killer avoid being hunted by his former employer (led by Karl Urban of “Star Trek.”) over a massive government whoops. The flick is a goofy blast when the guns are blazing and fireballs booming. It’s a snore when anyone opens their mouth to talk. The director, whoever that is, enjoys throwing up juvenile CGI postcards to help the pace. Dumb idea. Bonus points: Ernest Borgnine plays word games as a vault keeper, and is a blast of fresh air. At age 93. All hail McHale! B-

The Expendables (2010)

If you have not seen “The Expendables,” stop reading now. I’m about to throw a snit fit about the ending to this rehashed 1980s brainless action flick that goes further retro with a 1960s “Dirty Dozen” suicide mission homage. But not a single one of Expendables is … expendable. None. This is a G.I. Joe cartoon, AARP style. A suicide mission flick without a suicide. Like porn without skin, useless. WTF!?!

Director/co-writer/star Sylvester Stallone is Barney Ross, leader of the Expendables, a pack of tough-as-leather American mercenary soldiers out to save a woman and topple an evil Latin dictator. Which they do. Quite easily. Like I said, they all live to clink beers, throw knives and assure each other that none of them is gay, despite the fact that none of them can live with a (eww, girls!) woman. And they constantly talk about each other’s bodies without end, cause all guys do that, right? We are talking “Top Gun” territory here, without the volley balls.

I just sat dumb struck as Stallone missed the entire freakin’ absolute point of the iron-clad, Suicide Mission genre. Heroes die. I remember watching “Dozen” and “Bridge on River Kwai” plus “Predator” as a teen, gripped, thinking … Who will die next? (Alec Guinness! Noooooo! Run Carl Weathers! Run!) There are zero surprises. Zero reasons to pay attention. Zero reasons to call this “The Expendables.”

This is a dullsville. That’s wild to say, with Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Eric Roberts and Randy Couture among the beefed-up mother farmers, good and bad. (Steven Seagal, where art thou?) Look, it’s not a terrible film. The carnage is over-the-top 1980s bad. Meaning good and bloody. Of the cast, Lundgren has the most spark. A better word: hunger. The former “Rocky IV” boxer looks hungry for new stardom. Mickey Rourke wonders in as an ex-Expendable turned artist, and then wonders out, quickly. Why?

Teeth grinding abounds. We get the villain’s obligatory and endless half-mile run to the escape helicopter, helpless woman in tow, and, by God, did any one – CIA included – get a memo that it’s 2010, not 1984? No one even has a Word Processor. Motion sensors? Oh, wait, what, David Lee Roth quit “Van Halen”? Damn! You don’t say. See what I’m sayin’? And can we get a Linda Hamilton/Sigourney Weaver shout out? No. This film is Rush Limbaugh approved. Women are near mute with submission.

Now the worst part. “The Expendables” delivers a scene featuring the Holy Trinity of 1980s Action Stars: Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis. It falls flat. Set inside a church, Willis is another CIA goon, pitching the suicide mission to the former Rambo and ex-Terminator. The scene took months to schedule and film, by all accounts. Yet, it plays slapped together, uneven and meanders to a crap ending. Schwarzenegger plays it awfully sarcastic. Stallone appears exhausted. Lastly, Mr. John McClane suggests oral sex all around. (Huh? Oh, yeah, homophobic jokes were funny 30 years ago, too.) No one does it. There’s a sequel coming, though. Maybe one of our heroes will get blown away. One way or another. C

Surrogates (2009)

It’s a two-for-one Bruce Willis in “Surrogates,” an action/sci-fi flick that giddily plays with the idea of the unkillable "Die Hard" hero … until the damn thing becomes another run-of-the-mill action/sci-fi flick with Willis as an unkillable "Die Hard" hero. The setup is cool: In the near future, shut-in humans live flawless Second Life existences via mass-produced “Cosmo”-worthy replicants. There is no pain. No spread of disease, sexual or otherwise. No crime. No need to work and then hit the grocery on the way home. Willis is Tom Greer, a grizzled FBI agent mourning a lost son, and also Tom’s superhuman FBI agent clone who’s like a blond Six Million Dollar Man. RoboTom get sucked into a conspiracy involving big business, bigger money, a hippie prophet (Ving Rhames ) and a new secret weapon that looks like a space-age Dustbuster. Of course, FlabbyTom must save the day. “Surrogates” at first plays like a welcome revisit of classic Ira Levine, but is sadly hijacked by Michael Bay Hollywood mentality. B-

Hudson Hawk (1991)

Bruce Willis just doesn’t star in the notorious action-comedy flop “Hudson Hawk,” he struts around like he’s the love-child of James Dean and John Belushi. He plays a cat thief who’s roped into (wait for it) one last job by the mobster Mario Brothers. Get it? Mario. Brothers. They’re Italian. (That’s the level of humor here.) One’s played by Frank Stallone. Sly was busy, I guess. Twenty or so minutes in, I thought the film was just somewhat awful. Then Willis and partner-in-crime Danny Aiello break into a museum to steal some Da Vinci art, and they … sing. Literally. Bruce Willis sings. And dances. As he robs a museum. It gets worse: Villain Richard E. Grant announces, “I’m the villain.” Sandra Bernhard is set off her chain. Andie McDowell is a nun who at one point impersonates a dolphin. Rome looks boring. (!) The whole film is one of those self-satisfied “ain’t we having fun?” toss-offs by actors too powerful to be told “No.” The last shot has Willis smirking into the camera. His face says, “Don’t like it? Fuck you.” Right back at you, Bruce. But I ain’t smirking. F

Die Hard (1988)

There’s nothing I can say about “Die Hard” that hasn’t been said before. It’s not only the action classic that set in motion an entire subgenre (remember when every 1990s action film was “Die Hard” on a …), it’s my favorite Christmas flick not involving a child’s air rifle. Or Jesus. Scratch that, it is my favorite Christmas flick. period. Don’t like that? Yippee-ki-yah ... You know the rest. I need not go into plot, if you don’t know how wonderfully Bruce Willis kicks ass in a L.A. skyscraper against a rogue group of terrorists-as-thieves, than you’re under age. Or ignorant. Alan Rickman, in his big screen debut, is hands down the coolest villain ever. His voice. The suit. The glint in his eye. Even as I root (every time) for Willis’ bleeding barefoot all-too-human scared-shitless cop John McClane, there’s never been a viewing where I don’t think, “If I were bad, I’d be Rickman’s Hans Gruber.” The dickering around to paint cops/feds as dicks is a unneeded crock, was in 1988, and still is the case. But the Everyman Hero, that elevator shaft, the helicopters, the C4, the way Michael Kamen turns Christmas tunes pitch dark, and the final confrontation and “Yippee-ki-yah” – drool. Best. Action. Film. Ever. A+