Action Movies I've seen lately

I looked forward to this movie for months!  I was counting down the days until it came out, I'm not even kidding.  Lucky for me, J completely indulges my mild obsession with Jason Statham and ridiculous action movies, because he was probably the only one I ever could've talked into going to see this with me at all, let alone on the night it came out.  But, alas, I was a little disappointed.  It was a pretty typical Stallone movie, so as you would expect, the plot was sort of thin, the dialogue was a little weak, and the violence was pretty heavy.  All of that was to be expected, but what let me down was that the character development just wasn't there.  I feel like they could've done A LOT more with this band of mercenaries/friends who go way back.  I liked it, but there were definitely some eye-roll moments.  It took itself a little too seriously, which is always an issue for me with action movies.   Mickey Rourke was, once again, the perfect casting job for his role.  There was one scene where it's all surreal and close up and Mickey's talking about life and regret and being all deep - and honestly, the scene was sort of laughable, but no one else could've pulled it off in quite the way that he did.  My bottom line here is that I honestly want to see it again.  I think I was too excited and too googley-eyed over seeing JS on the big screen for the first time in a couple of years to really appreciate the film for all of its merits. I have to have missed something, because it was number one at the box office for a couple of weeks in a row.  Clearly, people are into it.  meanwhile, in my Jason Statham-loving world, I only have to wait until January for the next opportunity to see the man back on the big screen, reviving Charles Bronson's bad-ass role as The Mechanic.

And speaking of movies that don't take themselves too seriously - Machete was effing awesome.  Robert Rodriguez knows what the hell he's doing behind a camera.  The cast for this one goes on and on and on, too: Danny Trejo (and I'm not sure they could've made this film without him as Machete), Bobby DiNero, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan . . . it goes on and on.  There were so many ridiculous, laugh-out-loud scenes that you know it's not taking itself too seriously.  The plot is just as deep as it needs to be, the dialogue is great, and the film is sort of satirical at times, which made it that much better.  It's obviously not for everyone, but if you have ever seen and enjoyed a movie by Rodriguez, you will love this one.