When you think about the hundreds of ways you can kill a man with ordinary household objects, chances are that using a carrot is not high on your list, or at all. After all those orange vegetables loathed by kids and loved by rabbits on their way to Albuquerque could never be really used as a weapon, right? Leave it to the ambiguously named Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) to use a carrot more than a few times in the cartoonish gun-fight send up Shoot ‘Em Up to dispense his brand of justice, and you know what? It works out really well.

Make no mistake about it, Shoot ‘Em Up shouldn’t be a good movie in the sense of the way The Shawshank Redemption is a good movie. There’s no plot, no character development, the script is rife with one liners and the cobbled together narrative that just links gun fights together. It’s utterly absurd in most respects, it’s lacking in everything but pure popcorn value, but in the end, you leave the theater with a huge smile on your face and the images of gravity defying acrobatics and guns attached to strings running through your head.

Since the gun fights are the primary draw, it seems only reasonable that they would be out-of-this-world in style. The Matrix holds nothing up to Shoot ‘Em Up in this capacity as Mr. Smith unloads clip after clip while dodging bullets, eating his aforementioned favorite vegetable, and trying to save a baby born to harvest its bone marrow (yep, that’s the entire story). The highlight battle being in a gun factory, of all places, where Smith prepares a death trap of wood, string, and lead that would make Jigsaw proud.

And that’s basically it, the entire movie summed up three paragraphs. Even after it’s all said and done the brisk 87 minute runtime yields just enough action to be satisfying by not over staying its welcome. Owen shines once again as the quipping leading man with Paul Giamatti stepping into the villain’s role without any hesitation. Shoot ‘Em Up is a rare breed of film that shuns pretty much everything except balls-to-the-walls gun play and still manages to come out ahead, and encouraging children and adults alike to eat their vegetables.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith director Doug Liman knows his action, and after the amazing car chase scene in The Bourne Identity and the action here, the man certainly is the one to hire when it comes to pulling off some bitchin’ sequences. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, while being high on humor and explosions, fails a bit in the story department only to be reprieved by the sheer charismatic chemistry of the film’s two stars, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

Pitt stars as John Smith, and Jolie as Jane, two secret agent/mercenaries working for competing organizations. The key is, neither of them knows each other is such an agent until about mid-way through the film. That’s where things really start to pick up, with both trying to “1-up” each other in a series of failed attempts to kill each other. The trailers pretty much give away most of the film’s plot, and the “twist” that is suppose to make the audience really think about what is going on is poorly written, but when houses explode and hot women thrown knives, you can’t help but be entertained.

Joining the tabloid-two-some is Vince Vaughn as Eddie, John’s partner who still lives with his mother, and The OC‘s Adam Brody as a secret agent in training who serves as the film’s MacGuffin. There are other minor players, such as Jane’s faceless boss, whom we never get to see and an all-female secret agent crew who appear for about 15 seconds total before their forgotten. No, this film is about Jolie and Pitt’s characters and their battle with each other until they finally realize they do love each other and make-up.

It’s also best that the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, as it would be come somewhat of a chore to watch. From the very onset Liman and screenwriter Simon Kinberg aim for a action/comedy approach with the opening scenes taking place at a relational therapist who is interviewing John and Jane off-camera. Their answers right away spark laughs from the audience and encouraged me that this was going to be a good time, and a good time it was.

Nearly the first half of the film has the audience knowing who each of the main characters really, but not John and Jane. After a rendezvous goes bad in the desert both of the principles begin to suspect each other until their secret is finally revealed. As you’ve seen in the film’s advertising, and in the trailers, there’s lots of gun play, explosions, knives, elevator accidents, etc. Bring the girlfriend for the comedy and Brad Pitt, stay for Jolie and the guns.

Liman’s handling of the action scenes is superb in that you actually feel as though you are there. The shoot out in a minivan being chased by three bulletproof BMW’s is the highlight of the film as John and Jane squabble with each other while exchanging bullets with their pursuers. Mr. and Mrs. Smith‘s climax in a department store will also bring smiles to the audiences face with pure Bond-like escapes from barrages of bullets.

Even with the film’s humor it’s hard to suspend your disbelief enough to accept the fact that anything in this two hour movie is plausible. The story itself almost takes a backseat for a good portion of the film as the second act seems to be a set of escapes by John and Jane from each other with even more stuff blowing up around them. There’s no characterization, no substance to anyone on screen other than “these two shouldn’t like each other, now they’ll fight to the death.”

As mentioned before, Jolie and Pitt click very, very well, even amidst tabloid reports of their romance and rumors of a very turbulent production cycle for the film (including the shooting of three endings). Luckily, none of the off-camera drama makes its way into the film, instead the audience is treated to two very capable actors who gel together very, very nicely. It’s a wonder why they hadn’t been teamed up before.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is an above average movie. While the dumbness of the plot and non-existent, lame-brain story may turn off a few, the promise of big guns, lots of fire, and Miss Jolie in a bra will pack the house full. A smart film? No. Fun? Hell, yes.

Homer’s epics of The Iliad and The Odyssey are two of the greatest literary works in the history of the world. They contain great battles, a great story, and everything that made Ancient Greece one of the most amazing civilizations still studied in school. Wolfgang Peterson’s Troy seriously bobbles the ball when it comes to adapting the source material for a new generation of movie fans and still staying true to the way the story is suppose to be told. While the ending credits note that the film is “inspired by” The Iliad, I seriously hope screenwriters can do better than this in adapting written epics to the big screen.

Truth be told, if this film had been released prior to The Lord of the Rings trilogy I might be singing a different story, but I believe fans are to the point where, after three years of “epic” battles, we have seen enough of massive computer generated armies facing off against one another. Yet, Troy was released nearly six months after the masterpiece that was Return of the King, and we are left with a been-there-done-that feel that may plague historical films for years to come. Add in the nauseating effects of an over-used shaky-cam that makes it almost impossible to discern what is going on during the battle sequences.

Troy tells the story of the mythical city surrounded by high walls and ruled over by King Priam (Peter O’Toole). Priam has sent his two sons, Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom), to make peace with Sparta ruled by King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), brother to Agamemnon (Brian Cox). While in Sparta, Paris falls in love with Helen (Diane Kruger), Menelaus’ wife, and beacons her to return to Troy with him. At this betrayal from the prince of Troy, Menelaus seeks the help of his brother to go to war with Troy. In order to win the war, Agamemnon enlists the help of Odysseus (Sean Bean) who, in turn, recruits the help of Achilles (Brad Pitt) to fight for his country.

Many aspects of the story are well known in pop-culture. The Trojan horse, now made infamous by the Internet viruses of the same name, the battle between Achilles and Hector, and the city of Troy itself. Yet, in adapting the story for the screen some creative “liberties” were taken in order to bring the story to a head much, much faster. Over the course of the 163 minute movie you seem to think the siege of Troy only lasted a few days when, in fact, it lasted many years. The acknowledgement of the existence of the Greek God’s is thrown out the window. IMDB quotes director Wolfgang Peterson as calling the God’s “silly” and “not relevant to the story.” They may not be relevant if they weren’t some of the biggest characters/plot devices in the original work. The existence of the God’s tells of origins of Achilles and the fall of the great warrior. Therefore, story never goes into the origins of Achilles and never even acknowledges that he is invincible except for a small portion of his heel. But he can dodge things pretty damn well.

Casting of the characters seems reasonably well done. Eric Bana’s Hector is exactly how I pictured the character when reading the original story and Brad Pitt’s Achilles is almost what you would expect. Brian Cox, as usual, over-acts his character of Agamemnon, but by the end of the film you will be ready to see his fate, except for the fact that it is never suppose to happen. The “liberties” that I spoke of before erase characters, create new ones, and change the fate of others who are suppose to survive to have further adventures in further books. The only casting choice that I found spot on was Sean Bean as Odysseus. The man has a way about him that makes him entirely likable even when playing the villain, but in this case, he gets to play one of the biggest heroes of all time.

My displeasure for the film doesn’t mean I didn’t have a good time watching it, but knowing the original story, and seeing what was changed made me think entirely too hard on the negatives rather than the positives. Coming home and refreshing on the mythology and the original works through a bit of Internet research, made me realize just how much they had changed the source material. While I’m not against a little bit of creative freedom, when you change one of the most well known literary works of all time, you had better change it for the better. Screenwriter David Benioff should stay away from any more literary works and leave the transitions to people like Peter Jackson who are able to change things and still wow audiences world wide. One can only hope that if an update to The Odyssey is planned in the very near future, no one associated with this film will be allowed within 30ft with the intention to use an “inspired by” credit.

The Rock’s breakout performance was in the prequel to The Mummy, entitled The Scorpion King, where he reprised his role of the title character originally established in The Mummy Returns. Next up was last year’s The Rundown, and while the story was nothing to get excited about, it was the professional wrestler’s onscreen charisma with Seann William Scott that gave the film such an edge. Now the Rock is starring in MGM’s update to Walking Tall, a story of a man who returns home from the service to find his small, quaint town tainted with corruption, and just like the films before it, The Rock manages to save a film from mediocrity by simply appearing on screen.

The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson) is Chris Vaughn, an Army vet who returns home after leaving the service to get reacquainted with his old life, visit old friends, and resume the life he had before leaving. It seems as though things have changed, and the town he remembers has also changed quite a bit. The economy supporting mill has been replaced by a seedy casino, and small mom and pop shops have been forced out by adult bookstores and major chains. Even without the story itself, you can see the film as a notice that small time shops and businesses are being forced out by the powering hands of Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

Chris, after viewing most of these changes first hand, settles in with his parents, and meets up with his old friend Ray (Johnny Knoxville), who just spent a few years in lockdown, and Jay (Neal McDonough), who closed the mill and opened the town’s casino. Chris soon learns of some of the sordid dealings going down at the casino, and after calling foul, and beating a few guards down, he is finally subdued and “punished.” After his nephew overdoses on crystal meth, which he received from the guys at the casino, Chris goes to town with a big piece of wood and a lot of anger. Eventually, Chris will be elected as the new sheriff, much to the distress of Jay, and now his life, and that of his families is in danger.

The film itself has one glaring problem; it’s only 75 minutes long, which makes it feel much shorter than it actually is. The flow of the film never is broken up with either action or story keeping the narrative from drifting too far off course, but the film really lacks a second act. We go right from Chris coming back to town, almost immediately to him becoming sheriff, having one “battle,” and then the film ends, seemingly with the standard happy, Hollywood ending, even though it is based on true story.

As I stated before the film is carried mostly by The Rock, and in part by Johnny Knoxville’s comedic timing. As he did with Seann William Scott previously, The Rock shows the ability to be teamed up with just about anyone, and bring the film alive with the interaction between the characters. The characters themselves get about as much developing as they could in such a short film, and occasionally standard Hollywood clichés pop-up to keep you grounded, and from getting too much into the film.

Even if it only came up short by 15 minutes from being traditionally considered “feature film length,” Walking Tall seems almost like half the film is missing, but maybe director Kevin Bray kept us from having to sift through 15 minutes of filler material before we get to the ass-kicking. Sure the film has its problems, and even though it is based on a true story, you still get the Hollywood glazed-over feel from it, like maybe too much liberty was taken in adapting the film to the screen, again, but with get performances from The Rock and Johnny Knoxville you will still leave happy, and, hopefully, walking tall.

The Rock has arrived, pure and simple. The Rundown may be a simple movie, with a simple storyline that wouldn’t normally be considered a star-making film, but for the wrestler turned actor, the movie represents a coming of age and a succession to the throne.

Please note, The Rundown would be nothing without the performances of the main actors, in fact I’m betting that they were specifically written, for the most part, for the thespians that step into their shoes. The film starts off in a night club where Beck (The Rock) confronts a football player on some past bets he placed, and his lack of payment. After a hilariously awkward first confrontation, and a one-liner from The Terminator himself, Beck returns to collect what he came for and opens the film with a very well choreographed, entertaining fight sequence. The film has style and this is evident in the way the director approaches the fighting in the film, as well as the dialog. It sounds simple and trivial, but the added ESPN-like character introductions in the beginning were very, very cool and never overused.

After Beck gets the short end of the stick from his bookie employer he is sent on one last job to Brazil where Travis (Seann William Scott), his boss’ son, is hiding out from some people he shouldn’t have crossed. Once Beck meets up with Travis the movie really begins. But where would a movie be without a quirky, twisted antagonist in the form of Christopher Walken’s Hatcher? Walken brings to the screen the hilarity we usually only get to see on his guest stints on SNL. Scott, brining himself away from the peanut-brained Stifler from American Wedding also delivers his usual charismatic performance as a novice-archeologist hunting for a rare find in the jungle.

The film is just one of those movies that comes along, usually out of no where, and broadsides you as a fun, witty, enjoyable piece of filmmaking that isn’t fishing for an Oscar, but isn’t settling for the lowest common denominator either. What you get is a cleverly put together buddy/action comedy (sans the buddy part) that features two of the hottest stars in Hollywood trekking through the Brazilian jungle. Being strung up in trees and violated by monkeys just adds to the fun.

The action scenes are what you pay for, and action is what you get. Beck, in the beginning, refuses to use guns, opting to only punish his victims with his fists, but in a hairy situation two shotguns make their appearance and the crowd went nuts. As I explained in my review of Underworld, it is rare that you see an audience get so involved in a movie that they cheer along with every gun blast, but it happened here.

The best reason I can determine for this interaction is The Rundown is an extremely fun movie. It won’t win any awards, it won’t even be nominated for them, but anyone who makes it to the movies this weekend, or next, to see this film will be pleasantly surprised they ever doubted the acting abilities and uber-coolness of Dwayne Johnson after his no-line portrayal of The Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns and his staring role in the film named after that character.

Truth be told The Rock makes this film enjoyable, and even if you aren’t one to watch wrestling (which I am not) you will still have fun with such a pop-culture icon as The Rock. The Rundown is one of the best reasons to go to the movies this fall.

Sony is really starting to show some muscle as the big provider of popcorn-summer-movie-fun. First we get the laugh-a-minute Bad Boys II which games us new reasons to buy a Hummer, now we have S.W.A.T. a film ripped from reality, stripped of believability, and delivered to the audience with the action running constantly.

S.W.A.T., based off a little known TV show, which only ran for a paltry 18 months, features a young group of police officers taking on the task of joining the S.W.A.T. team for the first time and escorting an international terrorist to a federal penitentiary while legions of goons, inspired by a cool hundred million dollars, try to bust our friend Alex Montel (Oliver Martinez). The team is composed of tough girl Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez), tough guy Deke Kay (LL Cool J), tough guy number two Michael Boxer (Brian Van Holt), tough guy number three T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles), and shamed cop Jim Street (Colin Farrell). This rag-tag group is led by Sgt. Hondo Harrelson who is brought back to the precinct, to the dismay of the captain, to train these new recruits.

The first half of the movie, referred to as the montage, introduces us to Jim and partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) as they try to infiltrate a bank during a robbery attempt. Gamble chooses to gamble with a hostage’s life (excuse the pun) and solves the situation in an unorthodox method that gets him thrown off the force. Street is accused of turning on his partner and sent to work in the gun cage shinning boats and cleaning weapons. All in all the film features every bit from the “Disgraced Cop Gets His Man” cliché book employed by the writing staff, if there was one. From there we are introduced to the characters and given numerous shots of people working out. Maybe Sony is trying to tell us something?

The second half of the film is where the movie picks up with a cool hour of unadulterated action all focused on transporting Montel to federal prison and the trials and tribulations of accomplishing that task. On particularly cool scene, a general throwback to Executive Decision, has the team infiltrating a training plane in order to be allowed on the street. The tactics used employ a sense of guilty pleasure from the audience and cheers erupted when they succeeded. Just as the Michael Bay directed Bad Boys II before it, S.W.A.T. then relies on a highly improbable ending that has four members of the team attacking and armed group of bad guys in a small plane, while they attempt to lift off a bridge/runway. While I don’t go to movies to see highly realistic material, the thought of this made me laugh out loud, almost as much as the pre-movie ad telling me that piracy destroys the jobs of the little people.

S.W.A.T. is an okay film with lots of action, really loud special effects (the theater I witnessed it in had the audio system cranked to the max), and cool characters. Michelle Rodriguez is ripped directly out of Resident Evil, LL Cool J just uses his chef character from Deep Blue Sea and adds a gun, while Colin Farrell is a likable anti-hero and Samuel L. Jackson presents himself as a cool, calm, and collected individual when referring back to previous roles including personal favorite Pulp Fiction.

Mindless action is a new emerging genre that has been present for years. Sure they may try to shoe-in a story in the mix, but if they just gave a group of guys guns and had them parade around town in explicit action sequences I would still drop $6.50 every now and then to see lots of stuff blown up, until then a brain-dead romp from time to time can’t hurt too much, right?

XXX (Triple X, man the search engines are going to love this page) does just what is promises, but fails to live up to what some of the critics made it out to be, in my opinion of course. The movie is a high-adrenaline rush full of extreme sports stunts, high-octane driving, one seriously cool Pontiac, and Vin Diesel as the coolest spy this side of Bond. But better than Bond? No way, no how, and any critic that says so is lying through his teeth to please Sony.

Where James Bond, and the 18 movies under his belt, deliver a more cerebral type of spy movie, it is nice to see someone give the standard spy-work a nice kick in the ass to get it into a different gear, but Bond has grown over the years since the disastrous times of Timothy Dalton, and the movies have been getting more and more in touch with high tech gadgets and big explosions, while keeping the thinking man’s spy action alive.

Vin Diesel is Xander Cage, or X as his friends like to call him (stupid nickname, by the way). Xander is well known for video taping his death-defying stunts and making money off of them, a la Jackass. He is so famous that professionals like Tony Hawk (who must have sold his soul to Sony) and Mat Hoffman both appear in the movie to show Xander how much they look up to him. Yeah right…

Which brings up this movies biggest problem, it isn’t believable in any way, shape, or form. At no time during the movie do you believe there is any real danger to any of the characters, and with the cliché “cop switching sides” and “bad guy finds out who you are” plot points inputted between avalanches and a race through Prague in a GTO (sweeeet) you never feel a real connection to the characters because you know they will be okay.

Even before the movie was released in theatres this past weekend, Sony already made it a point to tell everyone that a sequel was on the way. So we know the main character doesn’t die, and all of the satellite characters are meaningless, because if Bond movies prove anything, aside from M, Moneypenny, and Q no one makes the cut to be in a second, third, fourth, or even 19th movie.

The stunts are unreal, but very fun to watch, and while I mentioned they are completely impossible, you still get a kick wondering how they did such a feat. While I don’t think a motocross bike can base jump over a 20 foot fence, or that it can fly over a huge warehouse with a jump off of a trailer, they are still cool things to see. The biggest disappointment was the drastic under use of the spy car. Most of the trailers hyped the card to include tons of weapons and gadgets (wait till you see the dash), but when the time comes the only thing they use are two rockets and a harpoon gun. Yippee! Exciting to say the least.

The movie is the mindless fun we came to expected from Rob Cohen, director of The Fast and the Furious, it has no real plot, events that happen don’t make much sense, but it sure is a cool movie to watch, and watch it you will.