American Gangster

American Gangster

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ruby Dee, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Hawkes, Carla Gugino, Idris Elba

Released: November 2, 2007

Viewed in theaters: November 7, 2007

Oscar nomination:

Best Supporting Actress - Ruby Dee (lost to Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton)

Best Achievement in Art Direction (lost to Sweeney Todd)

So after being nominated for Oscars in the same category (Best Actor) in two years (almost consecutive years; 1999 and 2001) and one being an extremely CLOSE race (I'm guessing!), Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe star in a movie together in 2007, this one. But wait! There's a couple of caveats! (That might not be the right word...) First of all, this was NOT their first movie together. No, film nerds (or Denzel and Crowe fans) know that they starred in the 1995 (and truly terrible) film Virtuosity. I caught the last five minutes of it on TV once and even watching that, I could tell it was a terrible movie. This was before anyone knew who Russell Crowe was in the States. I'm not sure how much screen time they share in that movie, but I'm guessing it's more than the screen time they share in American Gangster! That's my second caveat. Are they really in the movie together if all of their scenes (except one at the end) are separate? You have one story with Denzel's character and one story with Crowe's character. It's kind of like when Pacino and De Niro were in Heat together and only had one scene together in the middle. (Well, I guess technically they had a scene together at the end, but there was't much conversing as they were trying to run away from/kill each other!) I would say the ratio for screen time is 60/40 in favor of Denzel, which makes sense, as the story is really about his character. He plays Frank Lucas, a real-life man who smuggled heroin from Southeast Asia into New York and made a butt load of money. He was the bodyguard, driver, and collector for Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson for fifteen years and after he died in the late '60s, Frank took over. He gets the idea for smuggling drugs when he's watching a news report about American troops becoming addicted to opium and heroin, which are "easily available and relatively cheap", that they get from Bangkok and Saigon. He learns that a "high purity of heroin is leading to an epidemic of heroin addiction among U.S. soldiers" and his eyes become dollar signs. He calls his cousin's husband who is in Bangkok and visits him there. He wants to take 100 kilos of heroin in the U.S. and wants to smuggle it in via helicopters. It's 100% pure heroin and Frank calls it Blue Magic (see, when I think of a drug with "blue" in the name, I think of meth! But maybe any drug that is of high quality appears blue? I really don't know anything about drugs or selling them!). Needless to say, business starts booming for Frank and he becomes even more powerful than he was before. One of the most well-known scenes in the movie is when he flat-out shoots Idris Elba in the head in broad daylight. Well, it was a dealer played by Idris Elba who owed Frank money, and Frank was sending a message to others when they don't give Frank what they owe.

Frank makes so much bank he is able to buy his mother (Ruby Dee) a mansion where they celebrate many holidays. Everything I learned about money laundering, I learned from Saul Goodman and Frank Lucas does not do a good job of laundering his money if he's flaunting it like this! He could probably take his own advice, which is what he tells his brother, Huey (Chiwetel Ejiofor) when he wears a super gaudy suit at a club: "The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room." There's a very Godfather Part II moment when he kisses him on the mouth and says, "If you weren't my brother, I'd kill you, you know that?" Oh, and if you happen to get blood all over his $25,000 alpaca rug, make sure you "blot that sh*t, don't rub it!"

At one of his clubs, he meets and falls in love with Eva, a young (much younger than him!) woman from Puerto Rico who won a beauty contest. When she meets Frank's mother, she calls Eva "an angel come down from heaven". Now that's a great mother-in-law to have. (Though of course they meet before she marries Frank.)

On the day of his wedding, right after the ceremony, corrupt cop Trupo (Josh Brolin) confronts Frank and his new bride to "congratulate" him. He tells them he wants "his share" of ten grand at the first of each month and threatens him that he's "special" because he's with the Special Investigation Unit. As you may have guessed, this does not make Frank happy and he responds by leaving him a live turkey at his front door on Thanksgiving, then blowing up his prized car.

In a later scene of the same day, Trupo pulls over Frank and Huey, who tells Frank they have drugs in the trunk. Not surprisingly, Trupo checks the trunks and takes the drugs. The whole interaction between them is great. He asks Frank, "What are we going to do about this?' To which Frank replies, "We don't do s**t about it. We close it up, throw it back in the trunk, everybody goes home, have some pumpkin pie, warm apple cider." Trupo tells him, "I got a better idea. Or would you rather me throw you and your brother in the f***ing  river?" Of course Frank gets the last word in when he says, "Or would you rather your house blows up next time?" Ooh, snap. Since Huey is the one who stupidly left the drugs in the trunk and since they lost a lot of money when Trupo took them, Frank smashes Huey's head against the car window after they both get back inside and breaks the window. Frank may not kill his brother, but he will beat the crap out of him. He has quite the violent streak and if I were his wife, I would be a little scared. 

Speaking of his wife, the most Denzeliest line is when he exclaims, "They tried to kill my wife!" to mafia boss, Dominic Catanno, who had guaranteed him "peace of mind", but he replies, "I don't feel so peaceful" after he and his wife go out one night to get some takeout and when she stays in the car when he goes to get it, he sees someone driving by really fast and realizes what they're going to do and is able to run to his car and grab Eva before she can get shot. He doesn't know who tried to kill her. Was it the mob or was it fellow mobster Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.)?  Understandably, his wife wants to leave (preferably the country), but Frank refuses. 

Russell Crowe plays Richie Roberts, the detective who is on the case to track down where the drugs are coming from. His story doesn't really become interesting until he figures out Frank Lucas is behind all of this. For instance, there's an ongoing story line where he and his wife (Carla Gugino) are going through a divorce, and, eh, I don't care. Every time he spoke, I could still hear a trace of his Australian accent, but when he was yelling his New York accent was quite good.

When we first meet him, he is a cop, but he's taking night classes because he wants to be a prosecutor even though he has a fear of public speaking. He and his parter find a million dollars in a trunk of an abandoned car which they got a tip about from a bookie. His partner doesn't want to turn the money in because they'll be pariahs and that, "Cops kill cops they can't trust." However, Richie does the right thing and turns in the money and is called a "f***ing Boy Scout (which is hilarious since it's Russell Crowe) and this becomes an ongoing storyline for him, how people can't believe he turned in the money. I have to wonder, would it be any better if he and his partner had kept the money?

When he is assigned to head the investigation of where the new drug is coming from, he meets his ragtag team which includes John Hawkes, who always seems to be chain-smoking (I think there's one scene where he isn't smoking!), and RZA from Wu-Tang Clan. He tells them their mandate is to make major arrests; they are looking for the suppliers and distributors, not just random "street guys." They discover the new drug called Blue Magic is twice the potency as the  regular stuff for only ten bucks on every street corner. Richie muses, "Who can afford to sell s**t twice as good for half as much?" Be patient, Richie. You'll meet this man soon. As Frank himself will say, he sells a product that's "better than the competition at a price that's lower than the competition."

Richie decides that the Narcotics Squad needs to start from scratch because they aren't getting anywhere. He "borrows" $20,000 from his boss where he pays someone at a Newark car wash to buy Blue Magic and he tells them it will be there tomorrow. When he and John Hawkes see the guy leave with the money, they follow him to see where he will take them. He's headed towards the city and John Hawkes isn't sure if they should follow him because the city is not in their jurisdiction, but Richie tells him to follow him because he wants to stay with the money that he's responsible for. Richie sees the guy enter some kind of fast food joint and just waits outside while he watches a group of men led by our corrupt cop, Trupo, take the bag with the money. He follows the men and stops them to tell them the money is registered and he needs it back. Trupo gives it back and says he can have the money "this time" and threatens him to never come into the city unannounced again.

Both Frank and Richie are at the Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier fight on March 8, 1971 at Madison Square Garden. It was called the Fight of the Century so Richie figures anybody who's Anybody will be there. He notices Frank shaking Joe Frazier's hand and wearing a fur coat and sitting even closer than Dominic Cattano, the mafia boss, and takes picture of him, knowing that he's someone important. His team gets the plates of the limo he rode in. Frank is not only wearing a fur coat (a gift from his wife), but he's always wearing a fur cap that he doesn't take off. His wife was also wearing a fur coat, but at least she takes it off. Not only is this coat just the ugliest thing and makes him look ridiculous and stick out (maybe he should take his own advice that he told his brother!), but I don't know how he can stand being in a crowded arena with that thing on! Gah! The flashy coat is how Trupo found out about Frank and started exhorting him, so he angrily throws it into the fire with his wife watching him right there. I mean, honestly, I hope he would have thrown that hideous thing in the fire regardless, but it was a little rude to do it in front of the person who gave it to him!

Richie's group gathers intel about Frank. They learn about his connection to Bumpy Johnson and that he has his brothers and cousins working for him. They check out his brothers at their jobs which are spread out across Jersey and the five boroughs - one works at a dry cleaners, one makes custom furniture, one works at a hardware store, and one works at body shop (Frank has a lot of brothers!). All of those businesses are distribution and collection points for Frank's drugs and money. They track Frank's moves and note that he gets up at five every morning, has breakfast at a diner in Harlem by himself, takes a meeting with the accountant of his lawyer, usually stays home in the evenings, and if he does go out, it's to one of his two clubs or to a handful of restaurants with his wife. He takes his mother to church every Sunday. He is never seen hanging out with any organized crime guys. As Richie notes, "Everything about Frank's life seems unpretentious, orderly, and legitimate." He doesn't think they're going to get informants inside the family.

They are able to obtain one of Frank's cousins, Jimmy, when they see him attempt to kill his girlfriend when they're having a fight outside their home and he shoots her, but doesn't kill her. They bring him in and tell him they have him for attempted murder which could be fifteen years in jail unless he helps them bring down Frank. They tell him he can avoid that if he straps a tape recorder to his body under his shirt (and remember, this is the early '70s, so this is a bulky piece of equipment...I'm surprise nobody even noticed!). He ends up recording a conversation when he's nearby Huey who's at a payphone, calling Frank, who is in Bangkok at the time to set up more drug shipments. The only thing the Narcotics team hear Frank say is, "Newark, short term, parking lot three" and a plate number. They know whatever it is, it's where the drugs will be coming in. 

While all that is going on, Trupo and his men barge into the mansion where Frank's wife and mother are and while they watch helplessly, tear apart the house to look for his secret stash of money. Not only does he find and take the money, but he shoots Frank's German Shepard since the money was buried under the dog house and the dog (who was on a leash) was guarding it. 

So as I was watching this, I really didn't understand why Ruby Dee was nominated for an Oscar other than it was a career nomination, but there is a scene between her and Denzel when Frank comes home and finds out what has happened and is ready to go get revenge, and this is when I realized it was this scene that got her the nomination. She tells Frank to not kill any cops and that his brothers look up to him and that "Even they know you don't shoot cops." She tells him, "I never asked you where all this came from because I didn't want to hear you lie." She then proceeds to slap Frank (the only person in the world who could get away with slapping Frank Lucas across the face is his own mother!) and yells, "Don't lie to me!" She tells him that his wife will leave, and that "I will leave you." This is really the moment where she gets to shine. 

So Frank has a nephew named Steve (played by T.I.) who has a great arm for baseball and Frank knows the Yankees' manager or coach (of course he does) and sets up a meeting for Steve to meet with him, but Steve skips it and tells his uncle he would rather do what Frank does. Really, Steve? You'd rather be a drug dealer than a world-class athlete? I mean, sadly, he probably does get paid better as the drug dealer. Unfortunately, it also cuts his life short. You could say he did not live his life. 

With the information they have, Richie and the Narcotics Squad is able to find the apartment complex where the drugs are being made and there's a lot of shooting and running and chasing. Definitely the most action-packed and tense scene of the film. Richie chases and apprehends Huey. While this is going on, Frank was at church, so when he comes out with his mother, Richie and the others are waiting for him. More than two hours into the movie, this is the first scene we get with Denzel and Crowe.

There must have been some kind of time jump in the movie because one minute Richie Roberts is the detective who captured Frank Lucas and the next minute he's the prosecutor in Frank's case. It feels like there's a conflict of interest there, but I'm not a lawyer, so what do I know? Literally, everything I know about law I learned from The Practice or Legally Blonde and I'm dead serious. Oh, and maybe that one season of Law & Order (thud, thud) I watched.

This is when we get the first scene (and only) of dialogue between our two main actors. Frank tries to bribe Richie, but it doesn't work on him. In the end, they come to an agreement with Frank giving the names of the cops that took the bribes and there are a lot of names. As more and more cops are being arrested, Trupo shoots himself in the head.

At the end of the movie Richie asks Frank if he wants a drink for his "good work" to celebrate and Frank asks him, "You got any holy water?" and they both laugh like they're best friends now. Yeah, that was a little weird. The tone just seemed off for them to be buddies. We get some information about their characters written in text on the screen such as Frank Lucas was convicted of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and sentenced to 70 years, but for his cooperation his sentence was reduced to fifteen years and he was released in 1991. Now that is a good deal; he shaved 55 years off his sentence! Frank and Richie's collaboration led to the convictions of 3/4 of New York City's DEA and Richie quit being a prosecutor to become a defense attorney and his first client was Lucas. So first he was this guy's prosecutor, and now he's his defense lawyer? There's gotta be a conflict of interest with that! 

Pop Quiz, Hotshot!

Speed

Director: Jan De Bont

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, Joe Morton, Jeff Daniels

Released: June 10, 1994

Oscar nominations:

Best Sound (won)
Best Sound Effects Editing (won)

Best Editing (lost to Forrest Gump)

Speed is one of those movies I wished I had been able to see in the theaters. It's probably been a good ten years since I last saw it and I was getting very into the movie; screaming and shrieking at my TV and holding my breath at certain times and I can only imagine what it would have been like to see it in a theater full of enthusiastic movie goers. This has to be one of those movies that is a great movie theater going experiences. The most recent one I had of those is last year when I saw Jurassic World and you could just feel a palpable excitement in the air and someone was even humming the theme song before the movie started. 

This movie, simply put, is AMAZING! I love it so much! If you haven't seen this movie for whatever reason, what are you waiting for?? Go see it now! Everyone knows this movie as the "Bomb on the bus movie." There are three acts to this movie and the "bomb on the bus" part is the second act, and of course, the longest. But before we get to that, we need a little backstory first.

"I AM AN FBI AGENT!"

Keanu Reeves and Jeff Daniels play L.A. SWAT team members Jack Traven and Harry Temple who are called to an office building where a mad man named Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper) has rigged an elevator full of 13 people with explosions and is threatening to detonate it unless he gets three million dollars. Everyone is rescued and nobody dies, but there are some close calls and when the last person is rescued from the elevator, seconds later it comes crashing down to the ground and smashes into smithereens. Jack and Harry find Payne, but he escapes and detonates his bomb and everyone 

thinks he's dead....OR IS HE???

The next scene is the medal ceremony of Jack and Harry accepting their medals for rescuing the 13 people in the elevator. I have no idea how much time has elapsed since the actual accident. One day? One week? One month? Hell if I know! But we are getting closer to the second act of the movie and this is when things start to get good. A bus explodes after Jack has gotten some coffee and exchanged some friendly words with the bus driver who he seemed to know. Luckily, no one else was on the bus. I had totally forgotten about the exploding bus and it kinda startled me when it happened! As he's running towards the bus to see if the bus driver made it (does he really think anyone could survive that??), he hears a pay phone nearby ringing. Haha, a pay phone! Well, it WAS 1994! He answers the phone and surprise, surprise, it's Howard Payne, the mad man. I should mention that the ceremony was televised and we see a scene of a man with a thumb missing clapping when Jack gets his medal and it is revealed to be Payne. He tells Jack that he's very upset that he messed up his elevator job because he had taken three years to plan this and now he has planted a bomb on a bus! Um, so it took three years to plan the elevator bomb, but a bus bomb only takes a month to plan? I want to know how much time elapsed!! I'm so confused. He tells Jack, "Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?" He got the "pop quiz" part from Harry who said that to Jack in the first act when they were trying to figure out what to do. Jack tells him he'd want to know what bus it is and Payne tells him it's the bus numbered 2525. He obviously wanted Jack to find the bus because he easily and readily gives him not only the bus number, but also the location of where the bus left from so Jack races to catch the bus which is now getting on the freeway....and for eight a.m. in Los Angeles, it doesn't look THAT busy. It's busy enough that the bus is still below 50 (we see close ups of the speedometer every few minutes and it does get a bit higher each time). Oh, remember the bus that just exploded? Well, several minutes has passed and there are NO police cars or firetrucks that have come to investigate it or put out the fire. You think someone would have called 911 when they saw an exploding bus, no?

Jack really needs to find this bus and soon because Payne said he will turn off the bomb if he gets his 3.7 million dollars by eleven a.m. and it's eight right now. He races around the other cars as much as he can. The traffic is slowing down because of construction and he gets caught in the roadwork and decides to get out his car and run to the bus and screams at the bus driver to open his doors. Well, of course the driver isn't going to open the doors if they see some random dude running and screaming to be allowed to get on the bus. And he also hits the door with his fist and breaks the glass...would you let somebody like that on a bus? No, I don't think so! And like Sam (the bus driver) said, "This ain't no bus stop!" I don't understand why he didn't just flash his badge and then I can see him being able to get on the bus. The traffic starts to let up and the bus gains some speed. Jack stops a black man in a convertible with a license plate that says TUNEMAN and flashes his badge at him and the guy exclaims, "This is my car! It's not stolen!" and Jack replies, "It is now!" At least he let the guy sit in the passenger seat instead of making him get out like so many other movies do when the main character needs a car and just steals it from some poor soul and makes them get out, probably to never see their car again.

He catches up to the bus and motions for the driver to roll his window down so he can yell, "There's a bomb on your bus!" Because of the wind, the driver can't hear him, so Jack's passenger has to relay the message and after he says, "There's a bomb on your bus!", he realizes what's he saying and turns to Jack and says, "WHAT?!" By this time the bomb has activated because the bus has now reached 50 mph. Jack wants his passenger to write "BOMB ON BUS!" on a piece of paper and hold it up so the driver can see it. He pulls in front of the bus and the guy holds up the sign, but it blows out of his hands and right into the windshield of the bus where the driver sees it before it blows away. Naturally, he lifts his foot off the gas pedal as anyone would do in that situation. Your first inclination would be to stop a vehicle that has a bomb on it and evacuate it! Realizing the bus is starting to slowly down, Jack drives next to the bus and tells him to open the door and tells him to make sure he keeps the bus over 50 mph. He asks his passenger if his car is insured and when he learns that it is, he speeds up ahead of the bus, opens the door, then slams on the brakes so the bus comes by and rips the door off. He tells the man to take the wheel so he can jump on the bus and while he's doing that, a passenger (played by Alan Ruck), who is visiting L.A., takes a photo of him. Now, if this movie were made today, the guy would be taking a video of him and uploading it to social media!

As far as the passengers go, we only really get to know a handful of them. Including the driver and Jack, there are 19 people on the bus. Being that the movie takes place in Los Angeles, there is a diverse group of people on the bus. The driver is African-American; there is an elderly African-American couple and a couple African-American women on the bus; there's an elderly Asian woman; there's a couple of Latino guys; and there are some white people. Obviously the passenger that has the most screen time is the one played by Sandra Bullock, Annie. Even though Bullock had been in a handful of movies before this, Speed was really the movie that catapulted her career. She has been taking the bus lately because her license was revoked for speeding. When she first gets on the bus, she's talking to a passenger named Helen who tells her she likes taking the bus so she can relax all the way to work without worrying about traffic. Oh, haha, movie, how funny! When Jack jumps on the bus, Annie asks him if he's crazy and demands to know what's going on. A young Hispanic guy charges at him with a gun, thinking the police is there for him. I wonder what he did? You know, we never do find out. Jack takes out his gun and points it at him and tells him he doesn't care about what he did and explains about the bomb. A big guy that Jacks nicknames "Gigantor" attacks the guy with the gun and the gun ends up going off and shoots the bus driver in the shoulder. Annie takes over driving the bus and Jack knows she'll be good for the job when she admits to him that her license was revoked for speeding.

Jack has Doug, the tourist, call Harry (he took the car phone from the car he hijacked) so he can tell him about the bomb. He is able to lift a floor panel on the bus so he can look underneath the bus at the bomb. There's a funny moment when Jack says "F**k me!" and Doug hesitates for a moment and translates it as "Oh, darn." The reason Jack had such a reaction is because there was "enough C4 o put a hole in the world." Annie sees that traffic is starting to back up again and wants to know where they should go and Jack tells her to get on the shoulder at the next exit to get off and she does and she is just ramming into poles and signs and other cars. It is such a hot mess! She is now off the freeway and has to run through red lights and has a scary close call when a lady with a baby carriage is crossing the street and she hits the carriage and it goes flying through the air. Naturally, she is freaking out because she just thinks she killed a baby, but then it is revealed - thank God - that the carriage was only full of cans and they go everywhere when the carriage lands.

They now have a police escort which Jack's boss, Mac (Joe Morton) has arranged for them. The police cars go past a teacher with a group of kids waiting to cross the street and after they pass, the teacher thinks it's okay for them to cross now. Apparently they didn't see the huge bus that comes whizzing by and jump back just in time. Mac has also arranged for the bus to be escorted to the 105 Freeway which hasn't been open to the public yet, so they will be able to cruise on that for awhile without worrying about obstacles while they think of a way to safely get the people off of the bus. Mac wants to transfer the passengers from the bus to a flatbed truck that the police are driving next to them, but Jack tells him they can't do that because Payne told him if any passengers get off the bus, then he will detonate the bomb. Jack knows that Payne will know because there are news helicopters above them so he knows they are being shown on TV. He gets a call from Payne (he called the police and asked to speak to Jack) who tells him he better be careful. Jack asks him if he can at least unload the bus driver who's been shot as a show of good faith and tells him it might help him get his money faster. Payne agrees to this arrangement but says he better not let anyone else off. After Sam has safely been transferred, Helen decides to go for it and as a police officer is reaching out to help her, Payne detonates a smaller bomb that he has placed on the first step and she falls and slips under the bus. This is when all the passengers realize that this whole ordeal is real now and they're all very shaken up by the death of one of their fellow passengers. Even though I know the movie would have ended right here if it had happened, I do wonder why Payne didn't detonate the entire bus like he told Jack he would if any passengers got off the bus and he could clearly see that was what Helen was doing. Guess he just wanted to give him a scare before he decided to kill EVERYONE.

As if losing one passenger wasn't bad enough, they soon get more bad news when Mac informs them that a section of an overpass on the highway up ahead is missing....about fifty feet! Jack tells everyone to put their stuff under their seats and cover their heads. OMG....if I were on this bus, I would be so scared! I mean, I would already be scared in the first place because of the, you know, BOMB, but if I were informed that the bus I was riding on was about to jump a 50 foot gap in the freeway, I'd be thinking, Oh, HELL NO! He tells Annie to speed up and just seconds before they reach the gap, he grabs her and covers her head and the bus makes its leap and lands on the other side. It's a little (okay, A LOT!) bumpy, but everyone is okay and they all cheer. I'm sorry, but I call BS on this. There's no way that bus would have been able to jump that! But I loved it!

Jack tells Annie to get off at the next exit which takes them to the airport. This way they can just cruise around the runway in circles. He is granted permission by Payne to get off the bus (he tells them if he is able to get off, his money will more likely be delivered to him). He goes under the bus on a wooden plank with wheel to see if he can diffuse the bomb while talking to Harry, but while that is going on, the bus hits some debris on the runway (uh....I would hope they cleared that debris before any planes took off on that runway!) and Jack gets caught up and he almost goes under the back wheel, but manages to stab the oil tank with his screwdriver and lets go of the wheely device and it goes under the wheel and Annie starts freaking out, thinking they have run over Jack. Ortiz, the passenger Jack nicknamed "Gigantor", looks under the panel and sees Jack hanging onto the bottom of the bus and pulls him up through the panel door. Doug asks him, "Did you have any luck with the bomb?" and Jack replies with, "Yeah, it didn't go off!" Jack is safe, but the bus is now leaking gas and they are about to have an empty tank. Jack realizes that Payne is able to see them because he has hooked up the bus's camera to a TV in his home. He tells Mac this and he gets a TV news crew person to record the bus and then play it so Payne thinks he's watching a live stream of the bus, but it's actually just a tape and this way they are able to transport everyone from the bomb bus to a safe bus. Payne only notices this when everyone is off the bus and it has run into a plane and exploded.

We now get into the third act of the movie and while still exciting and full of suspense, this is where it sort of drops off for me. The reason why I watch this movie is for the bomb on the bus! And not only do we not have a bus with a bomb on it anymore, we no longer even have a bus! The SWAT team has found out that Howard Payne is a former police officer who feels he deserves a lot more than what he got when he retired. Harry and a team go to his home, only to find a huge bomb (of course) that goes off and kills them all. Payne poses as a police officer and tells Annie that she needs to come with him. (Remember, he knows what she looks like from the camera on the bus). When Payne doesn't show up to collect his money where he instructed the police to put it, Jack knows something is up. Now instead of a bus, the movie is taking place on a subway! Jack finds Payne with Annie who has a bomb strapped to her. Payne takes her on a subway. He is holding a controller and if he lets go of the button, the bomb will explode. See, I would rather have a controller where I pushed the button rather than have to hold it down. I would be so worried that my finger would slip! Whenever I'm in a really long line at a drive-thru, I'm always worried my foot is going to come off my brake so if I know I'll be there for awhile, I'll just put my car in park. That's weird, I know. Jack gets on the subway and climbs on top of the car that Annie and Payne are in and Payne gives the remote to Annie to hold (after killing the subway conductor) and gets into a fight with Jack. They are really close to the ceiling and there are these low hanging lights which Payne gets decapitated with and Jack makes this odd comments about being taller which makes no sense.

They manage to stop the bomb, but Annie can't get off the subway because she is handcuffed to a pole so they cling to each other as the subway crashes, but they survive and kiss. However, three years later they are no longer together because that's when Speed 2 came out and Annie is now dating the guy played by Jason Patric who replaces Keanu Reeves in this film. I guess he was smart when he decided not to be in that movie! I saw Speed 2 but I don't remember anything about it except that it takes place on a cruise ship and it was bad. Even Sandra Bullock has said it was a pretty bad movie! I don't remember if they explain why Annie and Jack are no longer together. Watch Speed, but skip its sequel! 

Hanging with the Coopers

Forever Young
Director: Steve Miner
Cast: Mel Gibson, Elijah Wood, Jamie Lee Curtis, Joe Morton, George Wendt
Released: December 16, 1992

OMG, you guys, eleven-year-old Elijah Wood is sooooo cute! Super cute! Someday I will tell you my Elijah Wood story, but that will go better with one of his other movies which I plan on reviewing soon. But before we get to eleven-year-old Elijah Wood in "modern day" 1992, we must first start with 36-year-old Mel Gibson in 1939 small town, California. Gibson plays Daniel McCormick, a U.S. Army test pilot. He has a best friend named Harry (George Wendt) who is a scientists and a longtime girlfriend named Helen who he plans on asking to marry, but keeps chickening out. I'm not really sure why because she seems to be just as into him as he is into her. But for some reason, he just can't get up the courage to ask her to marry him.

Right after his many (failed) attempts of getting up the nerve to ask the big question while they're at a diner, Helen tells him she has to go or she'll be late for work. While dashing across the street, she ends up getting hit by a car. She goes into a coma and six months pass without her waking up even though the doctors said she should have woken up two months ago. Because she hasn't woken up yet, the doctors are grim about her chances of recovery. A distraught Daniel stays at her bedside every night, not knowing what to do with himself.

Harry, his scientist friend, has told Daniel about his latest experiment: he plans to freeze somebody for a year in the chamber coffin he built to test cryonics on humans. His initial test subject has backed out and Daniel begs Harry to let him do it since he has no family and doesn't want to be around when Helen finally does die. A bit hesitant at first, Harry finally agrees since there isn't exactly anybody else volunteering for the job. Well, guess who dies in that year that Daniel is serving as a human popsicle? No, it's not Mel Gibson because then the movie would already be over. It's Harry. I guess he drank himself to death at the Cheers bar! And Harry was the only one who knew about the experiment...it's just like in Face/Off when the only people who knew John Travolta had his face switched with a mad man were the two FBI agents and the doctor...all of who were brutally murdered. The only difference is that in this movie, Harry isn't brutally murdered...he just died.

Fast forward 53 years later to the sumer of 1992 in the same small town in California. This is when we meet (super cute!) Nat Cooper (Elijah Wood) who lives with his single mom, Claire (Jamie Lee Curtis) and is spending the summer hanging out with his friend, Felix. (I guess he was named after a cat?) They're the ones who discover the frozen Daniel in his coffin chamber that is located in an old, abandoned warehouse. They accidentally open the chamber and think they've stumbled upon a frozen dead guy, only Daniel wakes up and grabs Nat's jacket. The kids run away, screaming, the jacket left behind.

When Nat gets home, he tells his mom the truth about how he lost his jacket, but she doesn't believe him. Where do you think this ranks in the "truths that nobody believes" Elijah Wood tells people in his movies? We have "a frozen guy in a chamber located in an abandoned warehouse took my jacket." There's "my cousin, who everyone thinks is a great kid, is actually a sociopath and is doing terrible, terrible things" and "the teachers at my school are being overtaken by aliens." Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. I feel compared to the other ones, this is fairly tame and can be laughed away by a kid with an active imagination. To her credit, Claire does seem amused by her son's story. She probably wouldn't be as amused if he told her his cousin was killing everyone or the teachers at his school were all aliens.

I don't know anything about cryonics, so maybe it's possible for a human to be frozen for 53 years and not die from, oh, I don't know, lack of food? But Daniel "wakes up" and is exactly how he looked in 1939. Good thing he has that jacket because he is nude so he can use it to cover himself until he steals some clothes that are hanging on a clothesline. He sees a sign advertising the 1992 Air Show and mutters, "Oh, brother." Okay, that has got to be a callback to Sam Beckett and all his "Oh, boy!" exclamations he utters in Quantum Leap, right?!? It would make perfect sense since this movie came out while that show was on. Maybe J. J. Abrams is a fan? Yes, he wrote the screenplay! He's credited as Jeffrey Abrams, though.

He tries to look up Harry in the phone book (does he really think he would still be alive after all these years? He was older than Daniel!), but since he has a common last name, the task proves to be a little difficult. He goes to the military headquarters where he demands to speak to whoever's in charge and proceeds to tell his story to a man who clearly thinks he's a lunatic. Conveniently, he still has Nat's windbreaker which has his name and address on the inside label so he goes to his house where Nat and Felix freak out and try to defend themselves with a hammer. After he calms them down, Nat lets him use his phone and Felix offers to steal clothes from his dad's closet for him. They take him to the library where Nat shows him how to use the microfiche machine so he can look up old newspaper articles. When they learn of Daniel's occupation, Nat exclaims, "Oh my God, Felix, we found a pilot!" like they found a puppy. He is very into aviation although the film could have done a little better job of portraying this.

Nat sees the redhead girl from his class who he has a crush on and attempts to talk to her (because who doesn't love redheads, haha!). "Hypothetically" speaking, if I were an 11-year-old redhead girl in the summer of '92 I would be all over this kid because he is soooooooooooooooooooooo cute! I mean, who else is she going to like? His little friend from Don't Tell Mom, the Baby-Sitter's Dead? No, I don't think so. He's not cute! Nat tells her he likes her dress and that it looks like wallpaper, which it does. It's funny because it's true! At one point, Daniel looks over and Nat smiles at him and gives him a "Yeah, I got this!" look. Cracks me up every time. Unfortunately, he does not have this because the girl only shows interest in him for a second, then ignores him. Crazy redhead! He is the cutest! But she comes to her senses in a later scene when she smiles at him after he sings to her (and after I died from the adorableness!).

Nat lets Daniel stay in his tree house and brings him food and a history book. He tells him he has to go (perhaps to a junior Council of Elrond meeting?), but first needs validation about his tree house. Once he has Daniel's approval that it's nice, he seems happy and leaves. While he's gone, an ex-boyfriend of Claire's has stopped by and is being aggressive with her. Daniel enters the house and punches the guy. After the guy leaves, Daniel is smart to tell Claire that he was just taking a walk when he passed her house and heard the commotion. Good call not telling her the truth that he was actually camping out in her son's tree house. Cuz that's not creepy!

To Nat's delight, Claire lets Daniel stay for a few days and makes up the couch for him. Yes, she just lets a total stranger stay with them! It's so weird! What kind of mother is she? All she knows about him is that he's a pilot. I don't even remember if they explain why, duh, he can't stay at his own house. Maybe he said he was out of town? But they have hotels! They just need him to stay at their house to fulfill some plot lines like have a five second romance between Daniel and Claire (both are already spoken for so of course it doesn't go anywhere...oh, and he's technically 50 years older than she is!) and being a father figure for Nat.

Nat wants Daniel to teach him how to fly, but the pilot tells him he cannot because he doesn't have a plane or a flight jacket so Nat comes home one day and gives Daniel a flight jacket he apparently bought for him. Uh...where did this kid get the money to buy that? Maybe Jamie Lee Curtis has a secret stash of money in a cookie jar like she did in My Girl? (Which were found by Elijah Wood's evil movie cousin! "Hey, where are all the cookies?") They use the tree house as the plane and there's a Lite Brite (!!) involved with the airspeed indicator (uh...maybe?) made on it. After the "lesson", Daniel, being in his 80s, starts to get sick and falls out of the tree and Nat finds someone to take him to the hospital. This entire scene has some horrible continuity. When Nat comes in to give Daniel the jacket, it was raining outside and Elijah Wood's clothes and hair are soaked and he looks like an adorable drowned rat. Then when they're in the treehouse, his hair is dry! But it's still raining because you can see it! Then when Daniel drops out of the tree house and Nat is running to find someone to help him, he gets soaked again. Then at the hospital when he's telling his mom about Daniel (she's there because she's a nurse), his hair is dry again! WTF?

Joe Morton is highly underused in this movie. Show the guy some respect; he's the (would be) creator of Skynet, for God's sake! He's only in a couple scenes at the end. He plays a government official who finds out about Daniel's story and is trying to get to him, but Nat and Claire sneak him out of the hospital with the help of Claire's doctor boyfriend. They find another lead and this time it's Harry's daughter who tells Daniel that her father died before she was born (oh, yeah, Harry announced his wife was pregnant at the beginning of the movie so this wasn't a big shock). It is revealed, however, that Helen is still alive (and was even married but her husband is now deceased, whew!) and she lives on some island off the coast. Good job, Mel Gibson, you just wasted the last 50 years of your life in a coffin chamber when you could have spent it with your paramour. Although, that's really Harry's fault for dying (and not telling anybody about his project!!). I'd be a little upset if I were him. However, he's happy that Helen is alive and wants to see her so they drive to an airfield where there's a B-25, the kind of plane that he flew in the '30s. Guess who sneaked on board? Nat claims he did it because Daniel "forgot his jacket". Please, kid. You just want to be on the plane because it's cool. It turns out to be a good thing he's there because Daniel is physically aging and all the health problems of the last 50 years have seem to caught up with him. If you haven't already guessed, the treehouse plane lesson scene was foreshadowing and Nat has to take the controls while Daniel tells him what to do. He screams, "Oh, crap, oh crap!" which I highly doubt is the word of choice anybody in that position would actually say! He also pleads to Daniel, "Don't die, okay!"

But of course everything is fine and he somehow manages to land without crashing and Daniel is reunited with Helen and and they adopt Nat as their grandson (well, they probably did!). There's a lot (A LOT) of plot holes in this movie, but I find it enjoyable to watch. Have I mentioned how adorable eleven-year-old Elijah Wood is?

Don't fly Oceanic!

Executive Deciscion
Director: Stuart Baird
Cast: Kurt Russell, Halle Berry, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt, Joe Morton, BD Wong, Steven Seagal
Released: March 15, 1996

As far as airplane hijack movies go, Executive Decision is not as good as Air Force One, but it is heaps better than Passenger 57 (which is a sorry excuse for an airplane hijack movie since it takes place on the ground for most of the movie!)

David Grant (Kurt Russell) is the world's leading expert on the world's most wanted terrorist. No, not Osama Bin Laden, but some other guy, Jaffa. He is captured and taken into custody, but he still has men out there working for him and these men, led by a man named Hassan, hijack a plane flying from Athens to D.C. and they have canisters of a poisonous gas. A single drop can kill a few men and the amount they have on the plane can wipe out the entire eastern seaboard.

The hijacked flight is Oceanic Flight 343....yes, Oceanic Airlines, as in the same airline on Lost. First this airline has a plane that's hijacked, then it has a plane that crashed into a mysterious island...yeah, I won't be flying that (fake) airline anytime in my lifetime! This is the third time I've seen this movie and the first time I realized the Oceanic airline connection, so obviously Lost wasn't around when I saw this the first two times....I know for a fact it wasn't around the first time since I saw it when it was released on video in late 1996. The second time I saw it was in December 2004, when the first season of Lost was on, but I binged watched the first season on DVD.

Obviously it had been quite a while since I saw this movie, so I had forgotten a few things (though I didn't forget that Steven Seagal is killed within the first half hour!) I remembered that Halle Berry plays a flight attendant on the hijacked plane, but I completely forgot what Kurt Russell's role was and thought he was the pilot of the hijacked plane. I probably should have realized he wasn't when he was taking flying lessons in a small plane. Duh. I don't think pilots who fly commercial airliners should still be taking lessons in small two-seater planes!

David Grant and Seagal's Lieutenant character are not on the plane when it it hijacked. They are safely on the ground in Washington D.C. Grant is at a fancy black-tie party when he is called in for consultation. They learn that Hassan has hijacked the plane because he wants Jaffa to be released. Grant thinks the terrorist has other intentions: as in using the airplane to explode the bomb that they somehow got onto the plane. This was 1996....back when people just didn't care what you brought on a plane!

Seagal's short-lived character comes up with the most ludicrous plan ever and knows a guy, Dennis (Oliver Platt), who can help them out with it. Together with Grant, Dennis, and his team (who would be completely at home on Survivor: Cook Islands as you have the black guy (Morton), the Hispanic guy (Leguizamo), the Asian guy (Wong), and the white guy (some actor I don't know). If you are a Survivor fan like me, you will understand the reference!)

They are all in a small fighter jet and the plan is for them to fly to Oceanic Flight 343, line up with the airliner's cargo holder or something....I don't know. I don't know anything about planes, but you've all seen the movie and you know what I'm talking about. Basically they're doing a mid-air transfer and they are able to do this by putting their jet on auto pilot so it will fly in synch with the airliner and Dennis lines up the planes together and makes sure the air pressure is okay so they can crawl up this tube that he attaches  between both planes. The whole thing is completely ridiculous! I don't know which is more ridiculous - this or when Denzel flew the 747 upside down in Flight. 

Grant was suppose to stay on the jet...the only reason he went with them was because...I really don't know why, to be honest. But Morton's character, Cappy, ends up getting hurt and Grant helps him and ends up on the plane. By that time, the Seagal character and the jet pilot are the only ones left on the jet and they are loosing air pressure and Dennis tells Grant to shut the door or both planes with explode and everyone will die and Grant, who never liked Seagal's character, has the decency to look mournful about what he's about to do and after he shuts the door, the jet explodes and Seagal is never to be seen again...thank goodness as he is not a good actor and we don't need him ruining this movie!

So Hassan is with the pilots and they notice a light go off indicating the hatch (hey, another Lost reference!) and they ask what that is and make one of the pilots go down and see what's going on. He sees Grant who signals to him to keep quiet and points out they are Americans there to help him and give him a burnt flashdrive to use as an excuse as to why that light went out. He relays this message to the hijacker who pokes his head in and looks around at the darkness but doesn't actually go down to investigate to see if anything is up. What a lazy terrorist! He just chooses to believe the pilot is telling him the truth. And if he didn't want to go down there, he had plenty of other terrorist friends around him. Why didn't he have one of them go down there and check to see what was going on?  So stupid. I can't believe I'm complaining how stupid the terrorists are!

Grant and his crew drill holes and set up camera along the plane to see if they can spy Hassan. Grant says he doesn't know what he looks like, but could recognize his voice anywhere. While hiding in an elevator, Grant sees that flight attendant Jean (Halle Berry) has noticed him and she blocks him when Hassan comes over to her so that he can't see Grant. This signals to Grant that he can trust her and later they call her on the airline phone, tell her they are watching her through a camera and ask for her help...there is a passenger on the plane that is working with the terrorists and has the device that will detonate the bomb. Jean agrees to do this even after Hassan catches her talking on the phone and slaps and threatens her.

Speaking of the bomb...Cappy, our injured guy who is laying flat on his back with a neck brace, is the only guy who knows how to dismantle a bomb, but unfortunately there is no way he can do that, so he has to walk Dennis through on what to do.

I should also mention that they had no way of contacting the White House and when the jet lost contact, they assumed that everyone probably thought they were dead. The White House gives order to have the plane shot down, but one of the guys uses morse code on the plane tail lights to signal to one of the jets that they are on the plane and the attack is aborted. Obviously there is a showdown between Grant and Hassan and one of the hijackers shoots the plane and a big piece is ripped away and there is a gaping hole in the plane. Both pilots, Hassan and the hijackers are dead, but Grant, Jean, the rest of our heroes, and passengers who were fortunate not to be sitting in the area where the guy was shooting are still on the plane and they need to land safely, somehow. Grant, if you remember, has been taking flying lessons, and takes control of the plane and Jean helps him out, reading from the pilot's handbook. He misses the runway at the airport, so instead he has to land at the place where he flies the small planes. The landing is a bit (okay, a lot) bumpy and the plane is on fire, but they manage to land without anymore fatalities. And while all this is going on, Dennis and Cappy have to make sure the bomb doesn't detonate!

A fun movie, but not one you would want to see on board a plane!

I survived August 29, 1997...and didn't even know it!

The Terminator
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield
Released: October 26, 1984
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, Edward Furlong, Joe Morton
Released: July 3, 1991

Oscar nominations:

Best Sound Effects (won)
Best Visual Effects (won)
Best Makeup (won)
Best Sound (won)
Best Cinematography (lost to JFK)
Best Editing (lost to JFK)

I'm sure most people have seen these movies, but there ARE spoilers, so just a warning!

So here's a quick background with my knowledge of the Terminator movies (at least the first two): I had never seen The Terminator until just recently and didn't know anything about it. I was way too young to even remember that movie when it came out, but I was ten when the second movie came out and do remember it being promoted and whatnot. I've only seen it in bits and pieces when my brother rented it and it was playing in the background at one of my friend's birthday sleepovers, but until now I had never seen either movie in full.

The first movie is set in present day, which of course means 1984. :::snicker:::: And, boy, is it 1984! The opening credits has synthesizers so if you somehow ever forget what decade this movie was made, you will most definitely remember it was indeed made in the '80s when you hear the score. Also, before all the names in the cast (which are written with an old-school '80s computer font), there's a blinking square. If you ever used a computer in the '80s, you probably remember a little blinking square each time you started a new paragraph.

The movie opens up with the Terminator (Schwarzenegger) and Kyle Reese (Biehn), both from the year 2029 (only 45 years in the future) who have come to '84 to find the same woman, but for very different reasons. The Terminator (or T-800) is a highly-advanced robot (excuse me, cyborg) who has come to, well, terminate Sarah Connor (Hamilton). It is so lifelike (has muscles and skin like a human, has human scents), that except for maybe it's robotic personality, nobody can tell that it's not human unless they shoot it in the face and see the wires underneath its realistic-looking flesh. Reese is a human soldier who has come to warn and protect Sarah. What Sarah doesn't know is that she needs to stay alive because in the near future she will be giving birth to her son who will eventually become the legendary John Connor, a leader and a voice of hope for the human race when artificial intelligence plan to wipe out humanity.

So I'm probably showing my stupidity here, but only having seen bits and pieces of T2, I thought despite his name, the Terminator was a good guy. So when we first see him and he walks over to those teenagers and demands they give him their clothes, I was quite shocked when he killed one of them by pulling an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and ripping out that guy's heart (or wait, maybe this movie did it first). I thought for sure he didn't realize what he had done was wrong and someone would tell him he just can't go around killing people. Well, he does get that speech, but not until the second movie. The Arnold cyborg in the first movie is most definitely a ruthless killing machine. Literally.

At first we don't know Kyle Reese is a good guy, because he arrives the same way as the T-800: totally naked (can't exactly pack a bag when you time travel!) and trying to find Sarah Connor. I thought he was looking to kill her too. When Sarah, a waitress, hears on the news that two other Sarah Connors in the area have been killed recently, she immediately knows she's in danger, but doesn't exactly know why.

'80s Sarah Connor

While not prissy or a damsel in distress, Sarah isn't exactly the bad-ass Ellen Ripley type until the second movie. I kept waiting for her to kick some ass, but, yeah, no, never happens in this movie. I thought it was a little silly that the Terminator kills all these people, but can't kill one lousy waitress. He can't even kill her even before Reese can warn her! Linda Hamilton and the woman who plays her (unluckily murdered) roommate have the most unfortunate '80s hair. Those bangs were teased to the heavens, I swear!

When Reese tells Sarah about how they need to protect her yet-to-be-born son because he's imperative to the future, I first thought that he might be her son from the future, but he looked to be in his thirties, so that means he wouldn't have been born until the late '90s if he was. And during the sex scene it was pretty obvious that he wasn't her grown son from the future because that would just be disturbing. It wasn't until the end of the movie when she's clearly pregnant that I realized, duh, he is the father. Hmmm, that makes me wonder. He knows John Connor in the future, but does he know he's his son? John was born in either '84 or '85 (not sure on the exact timelime of the movie) and by my calculations, Reese was probably born in 1999 - maybe a few years earlier, but the point is, he is YOUNGER than his son. That just blows my mind! My mind is blown! Also (spoiler alert!) Reese is killed in 1984, so does that mean he even existed in 2029? Hmmmm.... I think I love this movie because it has a time travel aspect to it and I love time travel!

"I'll be back!"

I laughed so hard when the T-800 is walking down the motel hallway with his gun in clear view and this black guy passes him and says, "Damn!" The scene where the Terminator is plucking out his human eye (because he had just been shot) didn't bother me because he's a robot and can't feel pain. Usually I HATE scenes when people are poking sharp items in eyes or messing with their eyes. :::shudder!::: But that scene didn't bother me at all. I also laughed when Sarah feels like she's being followed by somebody (she is: Reese) and goes into a club called "Techno-Noir" to hide form him. It looked like the early '80s had thrown up in that club! We need more Techno-Noirs! Because my Terminator pop culture knowledge didn't resonate until the second movie, I had always assumed that all the lines made famous by Arnold as this character were from that film, but he says "I'll be back" in the first movie when he goes into a police station, looking for Sarah and tells the guy at the desk that when he won't let him in and then drives a car into the building.

What I found interesting about this movie is that there's hardly any dialogue for a good portion of it. It's a lot of action and not very much dialogue. I read that Arnold only had about sixteen lines of dialogue! Where there's not much dialogue is the end of the movie when the T-800 is on the heels of Sarah and Reese. The cyborg is driving a semi and Reese causes the truck to explode into a great ball of fire. The terminator's human form melts, but then he becomes just a robot and moves in this really creepy, unnatural way. I don't think it was meant to be like that; I think it was thanks to crappy effects. Even after Reese sets off another explosion that destroys the robot terminator, the thing still comes back to "life" - this thing can't be stopped! This is when Reese is killed. The killer robot corners Sarah (they're in some kind of factory) against a wall and she tells him, "You're terminated &#**er!" and pushes a button that causes a weight to come down and crush the robot. I'm glad she knew what that button was for or otherwise she would have been f***ed! 

The final minutes of the film ends with a pregnant Sarah in Mexico at a gas station. I laughed so hard when she needed a freaking translation book to say, "Gasoline, por favor." REALLY, Sarah? REALLY? This young boy takes her picture with a Polaroid camera and in a flash forward we saw that photo in the year 2029 with Kyle, so that was cool that the photo was explained.

I wonder if people (the viewing audience) knew there would be a sequel because the movie just ends with Sarah heading down a highway with ominous clouds in the distance.

'90s Sarah Connor

Well seven years later, there was a sequel and it's not always the case where a sequel is better than its predecessor, but in this case it is. I was a little confused with what year T2 is suppose to be set in because I don't think we are ever told (if it was mentioned, I didn't catch it). The first movie clearly tells the audience the movie is set in 1984 (and a few flash forward scenes set in 2029). I knew it wasn't 1991 because Sarah's son would have been seven and he looked closer to 12. I knew it was before 1997 because we are told that six billion people are exterminated on August 29, 1997 by artificial intelligence and the entire point of the movie is to stop that from happening. According to Wikipedia, the film is set in 1995 and John (Furlong) is ten years old. He lives with foster parents because his mother has been locked away in an asylum because nobody believes her about the impending doom that involves homicidal machines. Hmm, I can't imagine why! She was caught trying to bomb a computer factory, another reason why she's been put away. We find out she's 29, which would have made her 18 in the first movie! Now obviously she is young, but there's no way she was still a teenager...I would have guessed earlier twenties. Linda Hamilton was 28 when the first movie was released, so that's probably why she doesn't look like a teenager. But whatever, just a small nitpick. 

Sarah has told John about his future but he doesn't believe her either. When we first see little John, my first thought was, This kid is the leader of the future resistance? Here's this little punk who disobeys his foster parents, spends his days riding his motor scooter and playing video games at the arcade with his red-headed friend from Salute Your Shorts ('90s kid here, whoo!), and has some gadget that allows him to steal money from an ATM (and comes in handy when he needs it to crack the code of a tightly secured facility). Don't ask me how it works because I have no idea.

Get ready to have a headache: to protect his younger self, 2029 John has reprogrammed the T-800 (uh, I thought it was smashed to bits in the first movie; perhaps he just built a new one?) and sent it back in time to protect his ten year old self. So this time Arnold S. reprises his role but plays a good guy, uh, cyborg, instead of a killing machine. The killing machine in this movie is the T-1000 (Patrick) who has the ability to change into any human form that it comes into contact with and can also camouflage itself within walls or floors. Very cool, but very scary. I really thought he was going to come back into the form of John's friend, who he touched when he was pretending to be a police officer and at the arcade bumped into Salute Your Shorts and showed him a photo of his friend. I also thought he was going to disguise himself as John's dog, who he kills (after he kills his foster parents), but that never happens. He does pretend to be John's foster mother and Sarah, but it was obvious when he was pretending to be his biological mother.

Just like in the first movie, it is very difficult to kill a cyborg programmed to kill. The Arnold robot shoots a fireball at the Robert Patrick robot and he's obliterated into smithereens. The three of them just stand there while the molecules of the T-1000 is quickly putting itself back together - I don't know why they just didn't run to at least get a head start - and they don't kill it until the T-800 flings it into a pool of lava.  

This movie does a great job of keeping the audience entertained and invested in the characters (which is something I can't say about The Dark Knight Rises). Despite the grim consequences, the movie still has a sense of fun and comedic moments (again, another thing I can't say about The Dark Knight Rises...don't worry, I will soon be revealing my feelings about that one!). If this movie had been directed  by, say, Michael Bay, it would have been explosion after explosion. Sure, you do get plenty of explosions, but you also get some pretty thought-provoking scenes. One of them involves the T-800, who has become a somewhat father figure to John, allowing Sarah and John to take the main computer chip from its brain to allow them to do a diagnosis. Even though the Arnold cyborg is clearly helping and protecting them, Sarah still doesn't trust it (or any cyborg) and wants to smash the computer chip with a hammer but John pleads for her not to. There's also a great and intense scene where Sarah plans to assassinate the computer programmer (Morton) who is in the process of creating artificial intelligence. (Obviously he has no idea the horrible thing that will become of his work). She can't go through with killing him, but with the help of the T-800, proves to him that his work is evil and must be stopped so there's an entire scene where they have to bomb the building where all his work is in and OMG, you guys, it is so cool! This movie is so cool! I am a fangirl for life!

I share an interesting tidbit about Terminator 2 and the MTV movie awards: