Film: Cradle 2 the Grave
Apr. 23rd, 2013 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI recorded Cradle 2 the Grave off the TV and it ended up in two chunks with a bit of the end missing. I totally need to buy a copy of this now.
See cast list: mostly black and Asian. A white guy dies first. Black people survive the movie. ... it's vastly depressing how seldom that happens. In this film I realised in the first 15 minutes I felt like I had seen more black people in more varied roles than I had in the last month. I didn't sit down and count all month, but there were many different people, talking to each other, being criminals and cops and security guards and train drivers and basically any kind of people that turn up in this film. I think I need to go looking for more films where this is true, because I seem to be stuck on noticing this point. Plural black people.
There's random people with disabilities. Dude in a wheelchair doesn't get to talk, pretty much gets shoved around, just one more evil dude in the crowd. Person of restricted growth announcing contestants at the cage fight? Ninja. Got to fight Jet Li. ... got to get picked up and used as a blunt instrument by Jet Li. But he was only as useless as every other guy in that cage. That was a fight with a lot of crunching. (Jet Li vs half the world seems about even odds, so he does that a lot. I likes.)
There were also more than two named women. The two main adult women I don't think count as talking to each other, they were busy fighting. It did that thing where the women go fight each other off to one side while the men resolve the plot. That wasn't so great. Also, one of the women first turns up in a low cut top to be sexy to distract the guard, and does it again later with even less clothing. But the guard is not distracted, so she swaps out with a guy on her team, who does the being sexy to distract the guard. So we've got some equality going on here, almost, even though he was being comedy and she was being eye candy. It was fun anyway.
There was also a girl child, 9 years old. She got kidnapped to motivate the plot. *sigh* But, unlike most movies aimed at adults, she did not just sit there being tied up. Princess rescued herself. Repeatedly, actually, because it didn't work the first try, but she was smart, she had a plan, she made a new plan after that, and when she called for help it worked, it wasn't just that scream then die thing that happens sometimes. Also when the help arrived she used the distraction to break free again. And she's 9, so the thing where it doesn't work is perfectly reasonable, but she's also a small person with her own brain who gets to do fighting and driving cars and helping save the world. Not in a Mary Sue way, she isn't ultra perfect at it, she just keeps trying.
The saving the world was somewhat implausible. There were magic rocks that would be ultra horrible weapons. Except with technobabble on top. Whatever, they're just the thing everyone's chasing around, I ignore that part.
It also skipped straight past Chekhov's Gun and went straight for Chekhov's huge great tank. Driven by the comedy sidekicks. Blowing up helicopters. And once the film gets to the blowing things up phase it does not do things by halves. Also, one of them crashes in such a way it forms one of those martial arts circle of fire arenas for Jet Li and Mark Dacascos, so that rocked.
Basically whenever someone sat down and thought 'how could this be more awesome?' they came up with answers I was cheering on.
I don't know if it's a good movie. You'd have to decide your standards first. But it gave Jet Li lots of opportunities to kick stuff and didn't ask him to make too many sentences in English, there were a couple of chase sequences that interacted with the city and cops in fun ways, it did the martial arts movie thing where guns are of very limited use but it did it a few different ways in a row and made it look plausible, there was a fun bit of crime at the start and a lot of explosions at the end, and for what it is I had a lot of fun.
I'm :-D right now. My face is making expressions and everything.
So I'm probably going to buy it on DVD for later.
... some time after I reduce my unwatched DVD pile to less than a foot in height...
See cast list: mostly black and Asian. A white guy dies first. Black people survive the movie. ... it's vastly depressing how seldom that happens. In this film I realised in the first 15 minutes I felt like I had seen more black people in more varied roles than I had in the last month. I didn't sit down and count all month, but there were many different people, talking to each other, being criminals and cops and security guards and train drivers and basically any kind of people that turn up in this film. I think I need to go looking for more films where this is true, because I seem to be stuck on noticing this point. Plural black people.
There's random people with disabilities. Dude in a wheelchair doesn't get to talk, pretty much gets shoved around, just one more evil dude in the crowd. Person of restricted growth announcing contestants at the cage fight? Ninja. Got to fight Jet Li. ... got to get picked up and used as a blunt instrument by Jet Li. But he was only as useless as every other guy in that cage. That was a fight with a lot of crunching. (Jet Li vs half the world seems about even odds, so he does that a lot. I likes.)
There were also more than two named women. The two main adult women I don't think count as talking to each other, they were busy fighting. It did that thing where the women go fight each other off to one side while the men resolve the plot. That wasn't so great. Also, one of the women first turns up in a low cut top to be sexy to distract the guard, and does it again later with even less clothing. But the guard is not distracted, so she swaps out with a guy on her team, who does the being sexy to distract the guard. So we've got some equality going on here, almost, even though he was being comedy and she was being eye candy. It was fun anyway.
There was also a girl child, 9 years old. She got kidnapped to motivate the plot. *sigh* But, unlike most movies aimed at adults, she did not just sit there being tied up. Princess rescued herself. Repeatedly, actually, because it didn't work the first try, but she was smart, she had a plan, she made a new plan after that, and when she called for help it worked, it wasn't just that scream then die thing that happens sometimes. Also when the help arrived she used the distraction to break free again. And she's 9, so the thing where it doesn't work is perfectly reasonable, but she's also a small person with her own brain who gets to do fighting and driving cars and helping save the world. Not in a Mary Sue way, she isn't ultra perfect at it, she just keeps trying.
The saving the world was somewhat implausible. There were magic rocks that would be ultra horrible weapons. Except with technobabble on top. Whatever, they're just the thing everyone's chasing around, I ignore that part.
It also skipped straight past Chekhov's Gun and went straight for Chekhov's huge great tank. Driven by the comedy sidekicks. Blowing up helicopters. And once the film gets to the blowing things up phase it does not do things by halves. Also, one of them crashes in such a way it forms one of those martial arts circle of fire arenas for Jet Li and Mark Dacascos, so that rocked.
Basically whenever someone sat down and thought 'how could this be more awesome?' they came up with answers I was cheering on.
I don't know if it's a good movie. You'd have to decide your standards first. But it gave Jet Li lots of opportunities to kick stuff and didn't ask him to make too many sentences in English, there were a couple of chase sequences that interacted with the city and cops in fun ways, it did the martial arts movie thing where guns are of very limited use but it did it a few different ways in a row and made it look plausible, there was a fun bit of crime at the start and a lot of explosions at the end, and for what it is I had a lot of fun.
I'm :-D right now. My face is making expressions and everything.
So I'm probably going to buy it on DVD for later.
... some time after I reduce my unwatched DVD pile to less than a foot in height...