Half Past Dead

Sly's big Expendables fail: No Steven Seagal or Shannon Tweed

female star from bad '80s movies, whether its' Cynthia Rothrock (pictured) orShannon Tweed.
The Expendables is missing something, several somethings, including ...
Steven Seagal and a ...

During the opening minutes of Half Past Dead, we're introduced to Steven Seagal as a character who claims to be a Russian mobster. (Mercifully, we're spared any attempt at an appropriate accent.) Then we're told the other people on screen actually believe he's a Russian mobster.

And then the movie gets really preposterous.

It’s practically impossible to get through this frankly fantastical 2002 by-the-numbers B-flick with just a suspension of disbelief. Rather, you have to wrestle disbelief to the ground, and then apply a chloroform-soaked handkerchief. And yet, if you do somehow manage to restrain your skepticism — or, perhaps better, you just throw up your hands and go with the flow — you can have a down-and-dirty, rock-the-house good time with it. Seriously.

Well, OK, not so seriously. But really and truly.

Indeed, it’s particularly pertinent this weekend, as Sylvester Stallone unleashes The Expendables, an ‘80s-style high-testosterone action-adventure that some critics and movie buffs believe would have been even better had Sly somehow managed to fit Seagal (and, for that matter, Jean-Claude Van Damme) into the mix alongside Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren and the rest of the Over the Hill Gang.

Fortuitously, H-Town’s KTBU Ch. 55 has scheduled not just one but two weekend airings of Half Past Dead — 9 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday — to illustrate just how much Seagal could have contributed to the carnage in Sly’s extravaganza. Take my advice: Pop some popcorn, crack open a beer — and savor the cheese.

Seagal plays Sasha Petrosevitch, a burly hardass who worms his way into an international carjacking ring by earning the trust of bantamweight Nick Frazier (rapper-actor Ja Rule), a pistol-packing thief with an itchy trigger finger. Unfortunately, Nick decides to draw his guns when the FBI raids the crime ring's chop shop. Even more unfortunately, Sasha takes a few bullets during the melee, and very nearly gets embraced by the light — hence, the title — before recovering sufficiently to finish his undercover work.

That's right: Sasha's really a deep-cover agent, assigned to use Nick as his stepping stone to the heavyweights who run the carjacking operation. (Naturally, it's not just a mater of law-and-order business; it's a personal crusade of vengeance for our hero.) Sasha is so determined to stick close to Nick that, when the latter is shipped off to a newly refurbished Alcatraz prison — played, in a bold stroke of casting, by a soundstage in Germany — Sasha gets himself sentenced to the same institution, for a reunion with his new best friend.

Which, of course, means that — in the grand tradition of Under Siege, Seagal's very best movie, and Die Hard, the masterwork that spawned Under Siege and dozens of other imitators — our hero is the right man in the wrong place at the right time when all hell breaks loose.

Sasha arrives at Alcatraz just in time for the execution of Lester (Bruce Weitz), a criminal mastermind who's determined to go to his grave without revealing where he hid $200 million in stolen gold bullion. But before Lester can meet his maker — which he's serenely prepared to do, having experienced a religious conversion that, surprisingly, the movie doesn't exploit for cheap laughs — Alcatraz is assaulted by a commando team led by Donny (Morris Chestnut), a disgruntled State Prison Bureau employee who wants a crack at “convincing” Lester to spill the beans about the bullion. (Damn those pesky bureaucrats.)

And just when you think things can't get any more contrived, a Supreme Court justice (Linda Thorson) shows up. She's on hand to witness the execution, which means she's conveniently available for use as a hostage when…

Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You're going to need some more chloroform!

No doubt about it: Half Past Dead is three-quarters past absurd. But the fight scenes (choreographed by Hong Kong master Xin Xin Xiong) are more than passably impressive, and the cat-and-rat games played by Sasha and the prison invaders make for totally predictable but reasonably exciting mayhem. Don Michael Paul, working from his own screenplay, directs like someone who has studied the entire oeuvre of John Woo, and actually leaned a few things about pacing and editing.

In fact, the movie bogs down only during a few painfully sincere scenes that are meant to provide, ahem, character development.

With the help of some quick cutting and crafty camera angles, the middle-aging Seagal appears here to be just as fleet-footed and two-fisted as ever. (But perhaps this explains why, eight years later, Sly didn’t convince him to join The Expendables — maybe it requires too much post-production effort to disguise any decrepitude these days? His acting is, as usual, best described as minimalist, though he does have an undeniable screen presence.

Throughout long stretches of the movie, though, he's content to recede into the background while more animated co-stars take over.

Much of the movie is pilfered by Ja Rule, who obviously was hired to enhance Seagal's appeal to younger, more racially diverse audiences. Claudia Christian has a few choice moments as a hard-bitten FBI agent who looks great in a bulletproof vest. And Nia Peeples struts through the movie like she's in love with her own bad self as Donny's second-in-command, a leather-clad vixen who obviously took lessons in slo-mo hair tossing and coat swinging from the character Lucy Liu essayed in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.

Which reminds me: Hey, Sly, couldn’t you have hired some badass female action stars for The Expendables? What’s the matter? Were Cynthia Rothrock and Shannon Tweed asking for too much money? Huh?

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Movie Review

28 Years Later revives zombie franchise for new generation

Photo by Miya Mizuno

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later.

The 2000s brought two of the best zombie movies ever made in 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Both films, despite being made by different filmmakers, featured intense action with fast-moving zombies, harrowing sequences, and real emotional connections with their main characters. Now the original director and writer — Danny Boyle and Alex Garland — have returned with the first of a possible three sequels, 28 Years Later.

The rage virus from the first two films that turns humans into insatiable monsters has successfully been contained to the United Kingdom, and one group of survivors has managed to band together on a small island off the coast of England. We’re introduced to the group through Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife, Isla (Jodie Comer), and his son, Spike (Alfie Williams).

Isla is sick with an unknown illness, while Jamie is set to take the 12-year-old Spike on his first trip to the mainland to hunt zombies. That trip not only gives Spike an education as to the different types of feral zombies that now populate England, but also a clue that other people have survived there. When he discovers that one of them may be a doctor, he makes plans to take his mother there in hopes of finding a cure for whatever ails her.

While the first two films were notable for their brisk pace that kept the potency of the stories high, Boyle and Garland almost go in the opposite direction for much of this film. The first 90 minutes are relatively slow, with only a couple of sequences that raise the blood pressure. The final half hour or so go a long way toward filling that void, so it’s clear that the filmmakers were biding their time for the story to come in the sequel. A bit more balance in this film would have served them well, though.

What they do show involves some weird, wild stuff that is objectively upsetting, even for fans of the genre. The zombies have evolved in strange ways, giving them a variety of body shapes and abilities to suit the environment in which they live. These storytelling choices may thrill some and have others scratching their heads. Another human character living on his own (played by Ralph Fiennes), appears to have gone the way of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, with a revelation that is bone-chilling.

Boyle, who’s directed everything from Trainspotting to Slumdog Millionaire, doesn’t have a signature style, and he makes some choices in this film that test your patience. He occasionally employs an odd technique in which the film stutters, for a lack of better term. It’s a bit jarring, especially since it doesn’t seem to improve the storytelling. He also inserts scenes from older films involving medieval warfare that emulate the bow-and-arrow weaponry used by characters in this film, but the exact connection he’s trying to make is unclear.

The young Williams has a lot put on his shoulders in the film, and he proves to be up to the task of carrying the story. He isn’t precocious or annoying, instead reacting almost exactly like you’d expect a boy of his age to do when faced with extreme situations. Taylor-Johnson and Comer are good complements for him, drawing him out with their polar opposite characters. Fiennes makes a huge impression in the final act of the film, while Jack O’Connell makes a very brief appearance, teasing a bigger role to come.

It’s difficult to fully judge 28 Years Later because it’s designed to only give you part of the story; part 2, The Bone Temple, is due in 2026, while a third film will follow if the first two do well. This film has its moments and winds up on the positive side of the ledger, but it’s also a frustrating experience that could have used a more stand-alone story.

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28 Years Later is now playing in theaters.

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