The Last Stand v The Purge

On Tuesday an old friend invited me over for dinner. She cooked me chicken wrapped in Parmaham and we drank a bottle of Australian Hardys. A Reserve no less. To my surprise she was an Arnie fan so we stuck on his latest 'The Last Stand' on the Box Office.

Plot Summary

Arnie is a local sheriff that has morals. He does some running, jumping, then complains about his hip. 

I didn't think there were too many girls out there that fancied Arnie. If so, maybe an Arnie of twenty years ago. Not an Arnie in his 60's. But my friend was insistent that Arnie still has it, that she would like to be thrown around and have her vagina 'Terminated' by Arnie.

Schwarzenneger films were a massive part of my upbringing. Back in the day, when my older brother and his friends hired out the latest Arnie film, I would sneak out of bed at night and without them knowing, watch it from under the pool table in the games room. I'd then scamper back to my room and have horrible intense nightmares about killer cyborgs sent from the future, or aliens that could turn invisible and kill poor Apollo from the Rocky films.

Now why is there a mass resurgence for these gerry-action films? Why is Bruce Willis shitting out a 5th Die Hard movie at the age of 58, and Stallone at 67, now prepping a 3rd Expendables movie with rumoured cast additions Jackie Chan, Wesley Snipes, Nicholas Cage.

I have listed 3 solid theories.

1. We are currently immersed in a comic hero genre where typically it's the turn of the geek turned avenger/caped crusader to be the one that saves the day. No muscles required when you have super powers. So there is an audience that decries this genre and misses old fashioned meatheads smacking the shit out of each other.

2. The intelligent Blockbusters are just few and far between. The likes of Inception are the exception and not the rule. So dumb action still has its place in modern cinema.

3. G.I Joe was dumb action, every Fast & Furious flick is dumb action, Statham does nothing but dumb action, all these are terrible movies. Maybe there is a case to be made that the gerry-action genre exists because the steroid-shaped hole that the likes of Arnie and Stallone left, has yet to be filled by anyone decent. At least you're trying Dwayne, I'll give you that. Just try harder please.

I personally entertain these movies, knowing they'll be average at best, because that warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling that caresses my innards like an indian head massage is a rare beast these days, and they may not be around for too much longer so lets embrace them shall we.


Tomato Meter - 60% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 58% (audience)
Peter Meter - 72%

Last night I took my buddy Paul to see The Purge 

Plot summary 

Ethan Hawke gets locked in his own house with a black man. 

First off it is set in the near future 2022. They are saying that crime is down to 1% because of this new law, the right to Purge for one night of the year. Which is just impossible. They could have gotten away with throwing out that statistic set in the far future, but then they'd have to deal with flying cars and then the budget for a small movie idea like this goes out the window.

This is another flick where halfway through the film, someone has to kill the power so you don't get to see shit except whatever direction the guy is holding the flashlight in. It also falls between 2 stalls of wanting to be a scary movie slasher flick with people dancing creepily down corridors with wearing masks and torn wedding dresses, and a psychological thriller in the vain of Straw Dogs meets Panic Room. But it's very predictable and you have to dig the concept to dig the movie. Unfortunately I didn't, I just wanted to dig my own grave like that guy in Saving Private Ryan (I like American!!!)
It fell short of any low expectation I had going in. Which was zero.

Bullshit Siren - The ten year old kid knows the code to disable the house alarm that keeps all the murderers out.

Tomato Meter - 54% (critics)
Tomato Meter - 61% (audience)
Peter Meter - 40%

The verdict


Also this week I caught Man on Fire. This is a film that the critics rate 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the audience 89%. Film critics on the whole, know very little about entertainment. James King (film critic for the BBC) gave The Purge film of the week on the radio. Case closed.
This is meaty, raw, intelligent and kicks ass man.
If anything it is slightly over produced, and Dakato Fanning screaming CREAASSSSSYYY can get a tad grating. But thankfully she gets kidnapped early on so you only have to tolerate that for a short while.

But as this is Arnie week, I think everyone should take my advices and revisit Pumping Iron. Below is a short clip from the film, enjoy.

So WATCH Pumping Iron and NOT The Last Stand OR The Purge.

@thepeterbrooker