Change Your Image
FredRenard
Reviews
Mad Dog Coll (1961)
What a dog this movie was
The real Vincent Coll was probably turning in his grave. This movie is laughably bad. It was hard for me to actually sit and watch it keeping a straight face. Whenever I saw John Chandler on screen I couldn't stop laughing. John Chandler has to be the worst choice I've ever seen to play Mad Dog Coll. The whole time I'm watching the movie I'm saying to myself, "This guy's a gangster?" They had the nerve to cast a little wimp as Vincent Coll.
The real Vincent Coll was known to be tall and handsome. John Chandler is neither. I also have to agree with a critic above that mentioned Chandler's teeth. Chandler looked like Mister Ed with a gun. Every time he spoke I laughed. He has such a funny voice. Whenever he tried to act tough I just laughed.
As also mentioned above, this movie is not one bit accurate. If you're going to make a movie about a real person and change things this much, at least change the names. There was no way this movie could've been about Mad Dog Coll. They just got too many things wrong. This movie was so poorly made that they didn't even know how Coll died. They show the police kill him when in reality it was probably Dutch Schultz that had Coll killed. I never heard of giving the police credit when a mobster gets whacked. It's so stupid, it's funny. I turned this movie on one day with a couple friends. We love the gangster movies and we were all familiar with Mad Dog Coll from books and TV. We couldn't believe who was cast in the role. Having John Chandler play Vincent Coll is like having Gene Wilder play Al Capone. Yes, believe me, it's that bad. With such a horrible lead actor like this it's very hard to take the movie seriously. It plays like a comedy. The movie is cheap, poorly made, and a joke. I was trying to maybe see the movie as a spoof of Coll's life, but it strays so far from the real story and the real person that it can't even be related to Coll as a spoof. Maybe it can be seen as a spoof of gangster pictures. This guy Chandler is no James Cagney. He's not even gum on Cagney's shoe.
So the bottom line is, I don't recommend this movie at all. It's extremely inaccurate, poorly made, there's a dumb theme song that comes on in the beginning and in the end, it has a terrible script, cheap sets, bad directing, bad acting, and it has John Chandler. John Chandler can never be taken seriously in this movie or probably any movie. It's no surprise this was his first and last starring role. I feel sorry for Telly Savalas, Vincent Gardenia, Gene Hackman(who is on screen for a few seconds without ever speaking a line), and Jerry Orbach, for even appearing in such a bad movie. All are fine actors and all were wasted. What a dog this movie was.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Ruined a Movie, Ruined the Characters, Ruined the Series
You've heard from many different reviews how bad this movie is. But this is no ordinary bad movie. This was a Superman movie about one of the greatest superheroes of all time. This was the fourth in the series and expectations were high. Everyone involved in making this movie failed and let everyone down. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace had a lot of potential to be a good movie, but it was put in the wrong hands.
One thing that I must point out is how they ruined the film's villain. Nuclear Man could've been a great villain, but like I said, this movie was put into the wrong hands. What a lot of people don't know is that in the original cut, there were two Nuclear Men. The first was the inferior one that resembled Bizarro from the comics. Nuclear Man came from one of Superman's hairs. The deleted scenes of the first Nuclear Man were pretty good. The fight scene between Superman and the first Nuclear Man was very good. He gives Superman a rough time for a little while, but Superman is able to dispose of him quickly.
This forces Lex Luthor to go back to the drawing board and create a new Nuclear Man. But rather than create him in the lab, Luthor creates the new one in the sun. The special effects were pretty lame, but for me, one of their brightest moments has to be the birth of Nuclear Man from the sun. When we first see his face there is fire in his eyes and it looks pretty cool. This is the new and improved Nuclear Man played by Mark Pillow. This is a handsome Nuclear Man with blonde hair and blue eyes. He is big and strong and all he wants to do is "destroy Superman." Nobody will ever know how good an actor Mark Pillow could've been. Nuclear Man's voice is dubbed by Gene Hackman's. The first voice that Nuclear Man hears when he arrives on earth is the voice of Lex Luthor. He ends up taking Luthor's voice. I could understand them dubbing Pillow because if you've ever heard his voice, he sounds too nice to be a big mean villain. But I don't know why they had to dub his voice with Gene Hackman's. Giving him the stupid roar didn't help either. Sometimes Mark Pillow overacts with his facial expressions. I swear, I think this is the new man of a thousand faces. He has how many different faces throughout the movie. You would think it was all different actors playing the part. Mark Pillow has some good moments, but some of the best scenes of Superman chasing Nuclear Man around the world ended up on the cutting room floor. They also cut out good scenes involving Lacy and Nuclear Man. These deleted scenes in the original cut explained what "woman" Nuclear Man was after and why. Cutting out all of those scenes that they did, destroyed any last chance they ever had of this being a good movie. The Lacy and Nuclear Man scenes also added a lot more to the character of Nuclear Man.
They didn't know what they were doing. If you're going to create your own Superman foe, make sure you do it right. Nuclear Man's costume is all right. But they had to go and give him these stupid long nails to attack Superman with. The point of giving him the nails was to pierce Superman's skin and give him radiation sickness. But nobody wants a villain with long radioactive nails.
Another thing they really screwed up with were the fight scenes between Superman and Nuclear Man. The fights just came off looking gay. They have their final fight on the moon and you're expecting this titanic struggle. What a let down. I'll admit, the fight has a few good moments, but whoever did the choreography is an idiot.
The greatest sin of this movie is what they did to Superman. Superman was completely ruined. I blame the producers, the director, the writers, and I'm sorry to say, I blame Christopher Reeve. The last time we saw Christopher Reeve in Superman III he looked great. He looked more muscular and he was better than ever. In Superman IV he is skinny and doesn't even come close to the way he looked in Superman III. If you don't want to see them turn Superman into a big sissy then stay away from this movie. In the fights with Nuclear Man, Superman fights like a girl and looks like the biggest wimp when he's moaning and yelling while Nuclear Man's murdering him. It's painful to watch the Man of Steel act this way. It's especially painful to watch Nuclear Man end the moon fight by hammering Superman into the ground. Did anybody realize how stupid that looked? Didn't Christopher Reeve realize how stupid he looked? Someone once said that the saddest thing in life is wasted talent. A great score here by Alexander Courage is wasted. Every actor was wasted. In John Cryer's case, he had no business in this movie. He ruined it with his stupid annoying act. In the Mark Pillow case, I'd have to say that his good looks were wasted. Mark Pillow was a handsome strapping young actor. I could've seen him playing He-Man or even Flash Gordon. He definitely had the look. As far as his acting, we will never know. This movie destroyed his career before it even began. I wish people could've shut down this project before it even began. They ruined a promising movie, they ruined the characters, and they ruined the series.
Get Carter (2000)
Not Bad
After seeing this version of Get Carter and the original, I think they are both good in their own way. I don't think you can hate the new version and like the old version. They are both so similar that you can't hate the new one. You can prefer the old to the new though. Personally I like the new Get Carter more. I thought the original was good though. Michael Caine was good in his way. Sly Stallone was good in his own way.
The Stallone remake of Get Carter could've been a lot better. It is really the director's fault if it was weak. You can blame the writer too. Some lines were pretty lousy. I think it is safe to say that the directing and writing wasn't very good. You can blame them, but you can not blame Stallone. He did the best he could with what he got. I think he was perfect for this kind of Jack Carter. Not a dark one, but a good one. Stallone's Carter is one that is trying to do something right for once in his life. All his life he was a bad guy on the wrong side of the tracks, but now he's going home and he's trying to make things right. Like Caine's Carter, he's not leaving until he finds out who killed his brother. No matter what, he's going to make sure they pay.
Then when he finds out what happened to his niece that really sets him off and drives him even further. Everyone responsible for the murder of Richie and rape of Doreen is going to pay. I found that scene on the rooftop with Jack and his niece to be very touching. He was telling her how it wasn't her fault and Rachel Leigh Cook really did come off as a girl that was raped.
People have a problem with Jack living in the end of this one. But what they don't realize is, Get Carter is like a western. The stranger rides in to town, makes the bad guys pay and then rides off into the sunset when his work is done. It makes you feel a lot better knowing that Jack made all of the bad guys pay and finally found redemption in the end. I hated the ending to the original because of how it just came out of nowhere. It made no sense. It was almost like they put that in there because they were forced into it. Michael Caine's Jack Carter did wrong and he still had to pay for it. Michael Caine did show in one scene that his Jack did have a heart. When he sees Doreen being raped in that porn film, you can see him shedding tears. Stallone did not shed tears in the new version, but at that point he was angry and out for blood. He did get a little emotional on the rooftop with Doreen though. In the Caine version he never does see Doreen again. There was more of a relationship between Jack and Doreen and I liked that. In the new version you also got to see where Richie's wife and daughter were coming from when Jack shows up after years. I never did get that feeling in the original. I liked this movie and I think if people give it a chance they will like it too. The director and writer did almost ruin it. If not for the whole foundation of the story and for Sylvester Stallone, the movie wouldn't be good. Personally I like Sylvester Stallone. When you see his wonderful Rocky movies you can tell the guy's got some heart. I never will forget him for making those Rocky movies that I grew up watching and loving. Some day I would like to meet Sylvester Stallone.
By no means is this movie as good as Stallone's classics. But it is almost as good as his decent action movies that came out in the 90's. This movie isn't up there with Rambo IV. But if Sylvester Stallone had directed this movie and wrote it, it could've been a hell of a lot better. Stallone has been approached to star in and direct a Death Wish remake. You have no reason to worry if it happens. Stallone will be in the director's chair this time. Not Stephen Kay.