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-

True Lies (1994)

I loved James Cameron’s “True Lies” when I saw it in a Philadelphia cinema 21 years ago with a friend. I cheered the openly tongue-in-cheek story and action as Arnold Schwarzenegger as a secret U.S. spy demolishes Middle Eastern terrorists in downtown Miami, the fanatics threatening to destroy the city with a stolen nuclear warhead. In a scene still spectacular Ahnuld flies a Harrier jet up against a skyscraper and kills a villain with a ride on a missile. But, damn, this is an ugly sexist film. See, I was a very naïve 20 year old in 1994. Now I cringe at the entire midsection which has Schwarzenegger’s Harry Tasker going rage as he suspects his dumb, hapless wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) of cheating on him; him, a guy who’s done nothing but lie to her for two decades. See, Cameron has our hero kidnap and then psychologically torture the woman until she admits in fact she has committed no sin against her husband. (If she had!?!) Cameron seems to know his writing is vile. Side characters offer admonishments, almost as sideline commentary. But it still smacks of, “Keep watching. Keep laughing!” Cameron’s worst film. _­C+

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

(EDITED 20 May 2015. A second viewing has me even more enthralled with this movie. But some a huge correction to the below: It is without doubt the same Max Rockatansky in this film as Mel Gibson played. That's clear up front, and elsewhere. Which makes the lead of Charlize Theron's road Warrior Trucker all the more amazing. And the first appearance of The Wives is one of the great rug pulls of modern cinema. The first shot seems contrived and sexist, wet ladies in the desert, wearing gauze, maybe. College guys next to me whistled. Within moments they cringed and winced at the rage these ladies held. That's powerful film-making. I never touched on the wild religious implications of the film, the sick promise of Immortan Joe to his followers that if they die for him, Valhalla (heaven) awaits. Massive part of the story. It hits current wars of this day. Just epic. I don't know George Miller, only a few months younger my father, pulled this off. He has just crushed every young filmmaker working today. Epic. That certain Jedi film coming out later this year has a huge mountain to climb. A sequel.reboot has just set a new standard for action films, and how woman are to be seen on screen. Forever. And the energy on screen -- the feeling that anything can happen -- i just have to applaud.)


Days on, I’m still pumped with awe. I don’t know where to begin or if I’ll ever get everything I feel right now. “Mad Max: Fury Road” is the most daring, subversive summer action film to hit cinemas in years. God love George Miller. 

This is THE film we need now. In its jaw-dropping spectacle. Its energy. Its anger.

From trailers and posters galore, we expect rising Hollywood star Tom Hardy (“The DarkKnight Rises”) to take on the iconic Australian role of ex-cop Max Rockatansky played frighteningly wild-eyed, fierece by Mel Gibson 40 odd years ago and run with it. 

Hero. Savior. Bad ass driver and gunslinger. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

During a frenzied pre-credits opening salvo, hero Max is taken hostage, bound and masked, and in drops the true lead of this film -- the new Road Warrior for our time -- Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa. One-armed, armed, and driving a steam-punk tractor trailer straight out of hell and into freedom. Or hope. Or any place, but from where she came. 

This is an action film with women at the core. Not since “Alien” have we seen such a display. Theron makes Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley seem tame. Here, strong, blood, divisive, kick-ass women in a near-future world take back control of their lives and their world -- killed by men -- with ferocious force. Max has to keep up. This could have been called “Mad Women.” (Unlike “Alien,” Miller uses scant clothing to again burn genre.)

And the action -– the entire film is one chase with so little dialogue, you begin to forget to question if anyone can talk – has no peer. In an age where whole hours of something like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is wall-to-wall CGI and impersonal robots and immortal heroes, Miller drops in real vehicles and teams of stuntmen and women and smashes everything together decadent glee. He smashes trucks through cars. Drops bikes off mountains. Throws tanks into a tornado, and lets them fall. He kills characters we have instantly fallen in love with minutes ago. 

Every frame of “Fury” is madness, glorious madness that feels as alive and pulsing as the first “Mad Max” in 1979, a film that plays like it had to be made or its director –- Miller –- might lose his f’n mind. 

(This also recalls the gonzo mad independent Australian films of the 1970s, such as “The Cars that Ate Paris,” where narrative coherence is slain by glorious visual chaos. And, yes, John Seale’s digital, handheld cinematography is Oscar worthy, inches from bloodied cheeks and oil-spewing motors. Also Oscar worthy: Nicholas Holt, breaking out from boring X-Men and childish movie star roles to play a crazed man riddled with tumors and a desire to die horrifically, so he can be reborn whole.) 

Before I get ahead of myself: We are back in the post-nuclear apocalypse desert of the “Road Warrior” and “Thunderdome,” although I don’t think “Fury” is exactly a sequel or a reboot from the previous films. It’s never specifically said that this Max is the same Max of the previous trilogy. His flashbacks -– violent, haunted acid trips of a man long past sanity -– match nothing told before. Miller has us work for info. He drops us in the middle of the action and makes us chase down the back stories, the detailed horrors of this world. 

One viewing is not enough. Furiosa’s task at the start of the film is to steal gasoline for her master, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played the villain in “Mad Max,” but a fully different character). Joe is an obese tumor-stricken old man wearing a plastic muscle suit that bulks him to Hulk-size, with a horrifying oxygen mask of plastic, rubber, and animal teeth for a face. He is the leader of a desert cult that worships him as a god, and as he controls all water, food, fuel, and the blood supply, he will not be questioned. 

He also keeps five young women as sex slaves to breed his children. It is they who are Furiosa’s cargo as the film opens, she defying the order to steal petro as she carries these women to the “green place” of her lost youth. Within Joe’s tower cave, his “wives” have scrawled defiant phrases: “We are not your property!” 

The chase is set when Joe decides otherwise and sets out to get his “women” back, no matter who he has to kill to do so. (Even his underlings question his sanity.) That the “wives” are introduced as one-note barely-dressed supermodels is a tantalizing FU from Miller and his writers. In the sands, away from men, finding more women warriors and mentors, these young “hotties” explode in murderous revolt. Max can barely keep up. 

Oscar winner Theron rules the film with quiet intensity. Our action star for 2015. Hardy is her acting equal as a man lost and in desperate need of saving by these women before he loses his last thread of humanity. Epic does not do “Fury” justice. It is vital viewing as action spectacle and comment on our sexist age. 

I can’t think of another Hollywood summer film that has so upended my expectations to glorious effect. Miller has just writ the end of our male-dominated Marvel and D.C. summer era. Those films are made by business. This was made by burning need. A+

Trance (2013)

Gotchya films that spin on corkscrew narratives –- “Manchurian Candidate” is my favorite -– succeed only if we care about the characters and only if we dig the deep pit the screenwriters have tossed them into. Danny Boyle’s “Trance” is all crazy turns, pulled rugs, blown loyalties, and bad guys still gabbing after their skull has been shot off. The shocks and surprises hit so often and so outlandishly OTT, it passes suspense and becomes a comedic parade of drunken one-uppers. Numbness sets in. James McAvoy works at an auction house that falls prey to a heist just as a Renoir goes to sale. The work is seemingly lost and our hero is cracked on the skull, leading to memory loss. The heist master (Seymor Cassell) won’t have that and when torture fails, he hires a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) to peer inside McAvoy’s brain. So to speak. The headachy flash edits are frantic and too hip. The flat characters don’t help. I really could have lived without ever hearing surround sound of vaginal hair being shaved. Boyle, it appears, could not. And if you can get past the firestorm finale without laughing to excess, I salute you. C

Sabotage (2014)

Watching bloodbath -– not in a good way -– “Sabotage” it makes one wince at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s post-political film career. The light seems sucked from his eyes. Here we follow personality-free ultra-A DEA thug cops who drink, drug, swear, and easily swipe $10M from a drug’s lord’s house. The loot goes missing and the team starts dying in gruesome ways only a screenwriter can imagine. Ugly. Writer/ director David Ayer (“End of Watch”) has that duty, killing one guy by nailing him to a ceiling. By the film’s exhaustive end, you’ll –- or I did -– laugh at the big shock reveal, and still have to muddle through one more shoot out. Terrence Howard, Sam Worthington, Mirelle Enos, and Josh Holloway comprise the team, all screaming “fuck” as if they’re in a contest to out cuss “Wolf of Wall Street.” They fail. Ahnuld has the role of thug leader haunted by the death of his family by drug cartel, watching a snuff film on loop in the dark. We never see his face. But so what? Botox and steroids have rendered Ahnuld inert. What’s he thinking? Is he thinking? Is he a robot? Do I care? No. D

The Great Escape (1963)

Watching World War II action/drama “The Great Escape” -– based on fact, highly dramatized, three hours long -- has a new, unshakable tinge of sadness that did not exist during my childhood viewings. The entire principal cast has now passed, with Richard Attenborough and James Garner dying earlier this year. The true story: In 1944, 250-plus Allied prisoners attempted the most brazen escape from a POW camp ever known, with hundreds of minds and hands and three tunnels dedicated to infuriating Hitler’s military machine. Director John Sturges has made a near classic, even if it whiffs far too sanitized even for 1963. Attenborough, Garner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, and Charles Brosnan play the master escapists. Two hours document the dirt and work, the final rousing hour focuses on border runs. Pleasence’s forger is still my favorite hero of the bunch. The motorcycle chase with McQueen is exciting as hell, all stunts, no CGI. This kind of epic -– gifting character development and attention to process -– exist no longer. In Michael Bay’s world, it’s all flash and bang. Another sad passing. A-

47 Ronin (2013)

Japan’s historical story of “47 Ronin” is as sacred there as George Washington crossing the Delaware is here: A samurai army who wait more than a year living in excommunication before taking revenge and the head of their enemy after their master is dishonored and forced to commit suicide. Hollywood? Not impressed. Reaction: Let’s Tolkeinize it with dragons and a witch with a snake fetish, and Keanu Reeves. Because Keanu knows kung fu. And everyone loves CGI dragons. Did I mention the magical Voldermort doppelganger? Yeah. They did it. While never dull, “47 Ronin” is a mess of pop culture hits reheated into a mess. Reeves’ heroic Kai -– mostly seen in cut/paste reaction shots -– is an American raised in Japan, having been found as a starved, wounded child by the same sensei who later will be dishonored. As Kai is central, that not only slides Japanese hero Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada) to the role of second fiddle, but racist asshole. See, Oishi constantly derides Kai as “half breed” until he needs Kai’s fighting skills, then it’s all, “We’re pals!” So, opportunistic second fiddle racist asshole. Imagine Washington treated like that. C-

Getaway (2013)

The 2013 “Getaway” is terrible. Horribly “Can You Believe This Shit!?!” bad. Do not confuse it with the 1970s Steve McQueen flick or its Alec Baldwin remake. This stiff has Ethan Hawke as Brent Magna, an ex-NASCAR driver living in Bulgaria (!?!) who steals a Mustang and causes havoc on Sofia streets as ordered by an unseen criminal mastermind who has kidnapped Magna’s wife as collateral. Brent’s task: Blow up the city’s power station –- protected with a key pad lock (!) -– so the mastermind can pull off a daring robbery in darkness. The howler: Brent destroys the power grid … and not a street light blinks or a McDonald’s arch darkens. Nothing. Nadda. But. BUT. The actors pretend it is pitch dark. Seriously. The leap of logic gymnastics is breathtaking. Director Courtney Solomon -– he made the incompetent “Dungeons & Dragons” -– shoots and edits every car chase -– it’s nothing but –- as split-second visual seizures, and repeats the same footage. Hawke must have been desperate for money. The final nail: Selena Gomez (!?!) plays a pistol-packing carjacker. GTFO. F

Art of the Steal (2013)

“Art of the Steal.” That’s the title of a great 2010 documentary about a raw deal between an art museum in rural Pennsylvania and the City of (Big) Brotherly Love, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It crackled with betrayal, and was all talking heads. Art geeks, even. Now, it’s the title of an “Oceans 11”-type caper with Kurt Russell playing ex-con Crunch Calhoun, out to steal a Gutenberg-printed book that could undo the story of Jesus. On Crash’s crew: His half-brother (Matt Dillon) who previously put our hero in prison for 5 years, and Jay Baruchel as a young crook who acts like Jay Baruchel and blurts out ad-libbed one-liners that scream ad-libbed one-liner. Kurt Russell is a great actor. So, I hate to say this, but “Art” is an ugly-dull bore. Director/writer Jonathan Sobol tosses in endless editing tricks to make his flick soar, but it’s dead at launch, topped by a woeful laughably predictable ending. One highlight: A brief, strange bit where we break from the regular plot to watch Russell play a man who steals the Mona Lisa 100 years ago. Russell’s eyes sparkle. He smiles. He scowls. Boom. Russell deserves a major comeback. C-

Divergent (2014)

Dystopian future youth dramas are getting as much cinema attention as comic book movies, so watching “Divergent” will give you nothing no one has not seen in “Hunger Games” -– good films -– and “Host” –- terrible, awful flick. “Divergent” takes place in a post-war Chicago where humanity has been divided up into factions according to dominant virtue -– smart, giving, war-like, servant, you get the idea. To have multiple virtues, being divergent, is a mark of death under the city’s queen bee (Kate Winslet, all cold). Our heroine is Beatrice (Shailene Woodley, star of near every movie this year), who is from a servant family, but cops multiple traits, mostly warrior. This makes her No. 1 target, assuming she can survive the hand-to-hand and gun/knife combat training of her new war tribe. Does she? Of course, she does. This is film 1 in a series. Woodley is great in the role, going from young and unsure to a survivor of tragedy, so she more than makes up for the ehh side-characters and an odd lack of true horror. I might be playing unfair as no one here carries the menace of Donald Sutherland leering at Jennifer Lawrence. B

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Age of Extinction” is a 170-minute endurance test thud thud thuding loud as slick CGI and slo-mo explosions litter the screen with buildings, trains, and cars crashing and people running about, always at magic hour. In Bay’s world, every day has five sunsets. The original cast is out, replaced by Mark Wahlberg as a Texas inventor/redneck/father with a Boston accent who happens upon wounded alien robot hero Optimus Prime -– stoic Autobot leader -– and ends up chased by Uncle Sam thugs led by Kelsey Grammer. Our heroes bolt to Utah then Chicago and then Hong Kong, because in China everyone knows kung fu. And Asia means box office coin. Thousands of people die as robots fight and Wahlbeg’s dad saves his pretty teen girl (Nicola Peltz) whose ass Bay glares at, endlessly. The script talks the death of original cinema early on, but “T4” unironically regurgitates films 1-3 and stacks bewildering logic lapses one upon the other. Greatest jaw-dropper: Beijing and Hong Kong within a short drive. Even by the greatest allowance for “dumb” fun and the occasional jolt of a cool image (all those sunsets), Bay’s films are cinema’s death. Soulless, brainless empty robots. D

Three Days to Kill (2014)

Kevin Costner goes a long way in selling “Three Days to Kill,” a Luc Besson-produced action/“comedy” about a dying CIA assassin named Ethan who goes home to Paris to see his estranged family – Connie Nielsen as wife, and Hailee Steinfeld as teen daughter – before he kicks. As it happens, the CIA has one last job for Ethan: Kill two bad guys known as The Albino and The Wolf, who are neither an albino nor a wolf. Golden carrot: Way-too young CIA handler Vivi (Amber Heard) has a magic cure that can keep our man alive. Costner acts aces, truly. But “Kill” made my skin crawl. I’ll say it: Besson shines a creep perv voyeur for teen girls here and with “Taken” and his so-long-ago “Leon.” He fixates on girls who cannot walk outside without falling victim to rape, not without “daddy” to save them. Steinfeld’s teen gets the treatment here. Besson’s fantasy? The take on grad-school-age Vivi as some 1980s Euro-fantasy dominatrix smells of a gross dream of middle-aged men with script approval. Nielsen’s wife has nothing to do but forgive her man, repeatedly. Blame director McG? No. This hangs on Besson. Dickless. D+

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Live. Die. Repeat. That’s the smart mantra behind “Edge of Tomorrow,” the unfortunately titled but damn entertaining Tom Cruise sci-fi actioner that marries “Groundhog Day” to “Starship Troopers.” The trailers promises action and explosions. Those we get. But it’s also a surprisingly funny romp about a pompous PR-hack-turned-soldier (Cruise) who resurrects every time he is killed in battle against alien creatures that mesh robotics and Red Lobster dinner fare. How so? Not important. What is of interest: Dozens of those deaths are comedy gold such as when Cruise -– let’s face it, the guy has ego to spare –- eats some tires getting run over while escaping push-up duty. But there’s a better reason to cheer: Emily Blunt plays the kick-ass hero who pummels Cruise’s worm into a deadly warrior. Blunt -– best known for comedy -– is damn good. Never weak per some script mandate. Cruise again gives his all, his eyes going from vacant to deadly smart. Director Doug Liman (“Bourne Identity”) wraps up with a popcorn friendly finale, but the ride is worth repeat views. Female hero. Pure send-up of macho action tropes. Bill Paxton satirizing “Aliens” bravado. Far better than its given title. B+

Pain & Gain (2013)

Even at $26 million and without a trucker robot or asteroid in sight, movie wrecker Michael Bay can take what ought to be a simple crime tale and turns into an ordeal that is so painfully loud and soaked in obnoxious nihilistic testosterone that no sign of life or wit remains by the time the credits finally (finally!) roll. That’s “Pain & Gain.” A character has his skull crushed by a 50-pound weight, I thought, “Lucky bastard.” Mark Wahlberg, Duane Johnson, and Anthony Mackie play three lug head Miami gym freaks who crack a plot to kidnap a local millionaire (Tony Shalhoub) to rob him of fortune, home, cars, and boat. The crime goes sickeningly wrong, and the trio cannot even properly kill the man. Bay is pretending to make a film that satirizes the sick lust of the teen boy American Dream: Hot strippers, constant sex, fast cars, big homes, drugs, and guns, and forgiveness for all, because, hey this is America. But the sick prank: Bay believes this shit is the American Dream, and the right of every red-blooded, gay-bashing man. Even worse, he makes the victims more worthy of death than the criminals. Cinematic diarrhea. F

Red Dawn (2012)

The Red Scare thrived back in 1985 and we knew any day the Russians would attack. Reagan told us. So “Red Dawn” with high school kids (Charlie Sheen!) against Russian soldiers on U.S. soil seemed real. Cold War’s done, remakes thrive, and so we have a new “Red Dawn,” with North Korea as the invaders. It was China -– making sense of the “red” in “Red” -– but Hollywood blinked. A four-year delay and a lot of CGI and edits, and we have American high school kids vs. North Koreans. Even if the villainous actors are still Chinese. And the NK flags/emblems are wrong. No matter, the target audience is NRA sleep-with-your-guns Republicans, the kind who know any foreigner is bad. Fuck the details. Pre-“Thor” Chris Hemswoth is the Marine on home leave who leads his little brother (Josh Peck) and pals into gun battles, moving them from whiners to hard-core SEALs in … days. None of it makes sense. The editing and voice dubs are ugly bad. Peck’s age jumps back and forth. But the action is serviceable, and the stunts strong enough to almost make one forget … really, North Korea? I’d rather believe Martians. C-

The Raid 2 (2014)

Gareth Evans’ “TheRaid” had a thin plot: A SWAT team invades a Jakarta apartment tower to snatch a drug lord. Leading the charge: Rookie cop and to-be pop Iko Uwais with master hand-to-hand combatant skills and razor instincts. The close-quarters bloody violence astounded. “The Raid 2” goes city-wide and huge as Uwais is sent to prison by his bosses, tasked with befriending the son (Arifin Putra) of a crime kingpin (Tio Pakusadewo) to bring both down post-release. The job drags for years as Uwais enters the mob and learns that the son is out to get dad’s top spot via betrayal. Evans spins a well-known “Infernal Affairs”-like plot with epic kinetic force: He kills off near anyone from film one and ups the action to shockingly good effect with a car chase that tops any in years and a prison riot/fight that is a death ballet. Ditto fights set at a nightclub and kitchen. Welsh-native Evans just keeps raising the bar like an unhinged Tarantino. In a plot that eerily picks on the restaurant scene from the “Godfather,” the director/writer really shines. Uwais is spectacular as the silent hero. The Part 3 insider set up is more than welcome. A

Riddick (2013)

Vin Diesel’s night-vision bad ass hero returns in the aptly named “Riddick,” a sequel to the overstuffed “Dune”-wannabe “Chronicles of Riddick,” a boring, wrongly safe PG-13 pitched sequel to the lean “Pitch Black,” a bloody R-rated flick. Life is restored. Mostly. Think of Riddick as akin to the Man With No Name films set in space, but here we know the man’s name. A man of few words, Riddick is a just killer hunted by criminals and lawmen alike. (If only he smoked, but even that is too un-P.C.) Minutes from the start he is stranded on a blighted planet and becomes the prey of bounty hunters (among them is Katee Sackhoff of TV’s “Battlestar Galactica”). Mayhem ensues before hunters and hunted must join forces to battle freakish worms that thrive at night. So the plot is “Pitch Black” throwback, but the worms slurping out of the mud and eating people had me thinking of the Kevin Bacon comedy “Tremors.” And laughing. Oops. I liked the Sergio Leone feel; hated the unneeded female nudity and the tired “Chronicles” follow-ups best left forgotten. Vin Diesel makes a great hero with a growl. Put this man in a Western already. B-

2 Guns (2013)

“2 Guns” has Denzel Washington doing that cool swagger that he does and Mark Whalberg pelting out words like a machine gun, with Edward James Olmos and Bill Paxton as villains, one quiet and the other all show and tell. The quartet sell “Guns” well, because its plot is a mess that blows itself apart -– with a literal bang -- when our antiheroes storm a Navy base and firebomb an office building, and the act is never mentioned again. Post-9/11 that gag falls flat dead, no matter who’s selling. Washington and Wahlberg play undercover agents (DEA and Naval Intel) who are unaware of each other’s identity as they try to nab a drug lord (Olmos). When the duo pulls off a questionable bank robbery to take EJO’s $3 million fortune, they wind up taking $43 million. Why? Just because. Thusly, all hell (with Paxton as Satan) breaks loose. I like an overblown buddy flick, but “Guns” has its leads brag, “Bet you didn’t see that coming!,” on repeat before doing something I did see coming, because I saw “Lethal Weapon” and “ButchCassidy.” Two guns? Give us two new ideas. B-

Escape Plan (2013)

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger headline “Escape Plan,” a prison thriller with the 1980s action stars stuck behind bars and wanting out, but I don’t mean that kind of “out,” I mean escape. See, there’s half the potential nasty fun gone. That would take guts. No sex here. This is bargain bin DVD fare with laughs galore for all the wrong reasons. Stallone is Ray Breslin, a guy who spends his career inside prisons, breaking out to teach wardens of their faults. So when the CIA tasks Ray with testing a black-ops prison for terrorists, he jumps at the chance. Sucker. The prison is run by Jesus –- Jim Caviezel -– and has the Terminator himself as an inmate eyeing freedom. Machine guns blast, explosions boom, threats made, and helicopters go low, but nothing can save the story’s eye-roll fake-outs from ridicule. Rocky and Terminator try, but no dice. The cliché where the nonwhite guy gladly sacrifices himself so our Euro-heroes can live … I wish it would just die. Just. Fuckin’. Die. And the guy is Muslim? Ouch. Long before credits rolled, I wanted escape. Dumb. C

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Marvel superhero flick “Thor: The Dark World” picks up where 2012’s “Avengers” left off: New York in ruin and villain/god/jealous brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) facing prison, with hero/god/older brother/ GQ heartthrob Thor (Chris Hensworth) brooding like never before. And of all his powers, Thor broods best. But brooding does not a comic book yarn make, and so arrive the Dark Elves, alien villains set on snuffing the light on all life. Back on Earth, Thor gal pal/scientist Jane (Natalie Portman) finds some red E.T.-floating goo that the Dark Elves need to do their Rule the Universe thing. She gets infected. Of course. The Dark Elves want her ass. Thor gets angry. Set action and play. Cue post-credits hint to next Marvel film. Nothing is wrong with “Dark World.” Yet nothing hits. The Dark Elves are murky dull. It’s all clockwork down to the “shock” ender that means “Thor 3.” Wait. Can I have “Loki: Ruler of All” instead? Hiddleston’s twisted sicko is infinitely more fascinating than Hemsworth as Thor. No offense to Mr. Hemsworth, so good in “Rush.” But Marvel would do well to tip the truth: Loki is the best thing going in its massive franchise. Put him center, please. B-