Young Billy Young

Starting his movie directing career in the mid 1960s, Burt Kennedy found a home in the western genre and rarely left it in a 20-year span. None of the Kennedy westerns are classic, far from it, but they are about the equivalent of the hour-long serials from the 1930s. Nothing groundbreaking with good guys tangling with some ornery bad guys, but they are always entertaining if nothing else.

Kennedy worked with a wide variety of tough guy actors in these westerns, including John Wayne, Glenn Ford, Henry Fonda, Ben Johnson, Yul Brynner, Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum. Just like director Kennedy, many of these actors are remembered for their parts in westerns over the years. Mitchum especially never really left the western behind, joining with Kennedy for the 1969 oater Young Billy Young just two years removed from minor classic El Dorado.

Based loosely on a novel about Wyatt Earp's involvement with the Cowboy gang following the shootout at the O.K. Corral, Young Billy Young feels like a mash-up of several different stories all rolled into one. A great opening sequence has two young gunfighters, Billy Young (Robert Walker JR) and Jess Boone (David Carradine) sneaking onto a Mexican troop train and completing a hit on a Mexican general. In their escape, Jess abandons Billy when his horse throws up, and it's only by pure luck Billy escapes.

Billy makes it to the next town on the back of a burro, but it's not long before he guns down the town's sheriff for cheating in a card game. With some help from a gunfighter, Ben Kane (Mitchum), passing through town, Billy escapes a posse on his trail. He tags along with Ben who's on his way to a new job, working as a deputy in a roughshod town with no law and order run by slimy John Behan (Jack Kelly). The odds are against Ben, but he's got revenge on the mind as he looks for the man (John Anderson) who killed his son years ago in a jailbreak.

As if that wasn't enough, a saloon/dance hall girl, Lilly (Angie Dickinson), takes a shine to Kane, but Lilly is Behan's girl and doesn't take too nicely to Ben stepping in. There's more that is revealed in terms of plot twists that won't be spoiled here, but it's nothing too new that you won't have seen before. The only problem is that with all these different storylines about revenge and friendships and shootouts, the 89-minute running time is all sorts of convoluted. Maybe another 30 minutes could have served the movie better, but it's not a deal breaker.

Some characters get short-shrift, like Anderson's gunfighter who shows up in town, disappears for awhile, and then reappears with little warning for a final showdown with Mitchum (a disappointing end for that story). It would have been interesting to see two storylines, Billy and Jesse and then Ben's revenge dealt with exclusively, but what's there is entertaining nonetheless. It doesn't hurt that the movie was filmed in Old Tucson and looks great.

With the cast, Mitchum provides credibility just by being there. It's the type of part for the veteran star that he could do with no heavy lifting. He shows up, acts cool, shoots some baddies and gets the girl. Made the same year as he made Easy Rider, Walker JR gets a more mainstream role here as Billy who with Mitchum's older, more experienced gunfighter make a good old vs. young buddy pairing. Carradine's a good villain (when wasn't he?) while Kelly sneers as Behan, I guess loosely based on the real-life John Behan. In a role similar to her part 10 years earlier in Rio Bravo, Dickinson again plays a strong female character with a checkered past and even as little as she was height-wise is a good match with Mitchum.

So what's not to like with a western with a more than capable cast, some nice location shooting, plenty of gunfights, and Robert Mitchum singing the theme song? Maybe Burt Kennedy wasn't the best director around and one without much of a personal style, but he put together some exciting westerns during his career. Young Billy Young is certainly one of them, an oater that will keep you interested from start to finish.

Young Billy Young (1969): ** 1/2 / ****

Marnie

Alfred Hitchcock's fascination with ice princess blondes is well-documented over the course of his career from Grace Kelly to Eve Marie Saint to Kim Novak. The director said blondes showed up better on the screen, and that if he used brunettes, the audience would be instantly suspicious of them. Of the three mentioned above, I enjoyed the movie or movies they were in, but with one Hitchcock blonde, Tippi Hedren, I just don't understand her appeal.

Early in her career, Hedren didn't make that many movies, but two she made with Hitchcock rise above everything else she did, The Birds and Marnie. Her character was annoying in The Birds, but the movie as a whole made up for it so I was able to look past my initial dislike for the character. Not so easy with Marnie which rests almost solely on her performance.

Hedren plays Margaret 'Marnie' Edgar, a woman in her late 20s who moves around to the bigger cities on the east coast, gets a job in an office, and after a few weeks on the job proceeds to rob the office safe. Getting away with several thousands dollars, she sends some to her mother (Louise Latham) and then moves on to another job. But after a handful of successful jobs, Marnie pushes her luck to far and is caught by her boss, Mark Rutland (Sean Connery).

Completely under his power as to what Mark can do, Marnie has no way to escape. Mark presents two options, one, go to the police and turn her in, or two, marry her because (GASP!) he's fallen in love with her and try to figure out why she's a compulsive thief. That's not all that's bothering Marnie though, she freaks out when she sees anything red, and she won't let any man touch her, not to mention all she wants is a hug from her mother.

The movie builds and builds to this big revelation but doesn't really offer anything to keep the audience excited or even interested in the meantime. At over 2 hours -- runtime of 131 minutes -- this is a dialogue-heavy movie as Connery's Mark tries to unravel the mystery that is his frigid wife Marnie. It just feels like a lazy effort from Hitchcock with Marnie's tendencies and phobias introduced early and just repeated over and over again until it's time to reveal the twist.

When the twist does come, it's not much of a surprise at all. SPOILERS It's basically a rehash of Psycho, and it's been hinted at the whole movie. If you haven't figured out that something traumatic happened to Marnie during her childhood about halfway through, you're probably not paying attention. Maybe it was shocking at the time, but watching it over 40 years later, it comes across as ho-hum. If nothing else, the flashback reveal does give a young Bruce Dern one of his first movie appearances.

On to my feelings on Hedren. Kelly, Saint, and Novak, among others, all had something that made them likable onscreen. Kelly is probably the most similar to Hedren with her prim and proper attitude, but there was something personable about the future Princess of Monaco. With Hedren, you just get this high and mighty holier than thou feeling. And because she's in basically every scene in the movie, it can be a bit of a drag with her overacting and wooden deliveries combining into one behemoth.

Looking at Hitchcock's career as a director, he made over 50 feature films and most of them are considered classics or at the least high-quality thriller and suspense movies. But with Marnie, I just didn't understand its appeal. It is slow-moving from the beginning, and the performances come across as too stagey. I'll stick with Psycho or North By Northwest until someone convinces me otherwise about this clunker.

Marnie <---trailer (1964): * 1/2 /****

The Golden Compass

Is there a harder task when it comes to making movies than turning a book, a respected and much-loved book, into a big screen movie? First, there's almost no way to appease all the fans because there's no way you can do everything right. Second, many books would be better presented as a miniseries with plenty of time to develop plotlines and characters. Unfortunately, 2007's The Golden Compass falls into the category of a less than successful translation from book to big screen.

Just last week I finished the first book of author Phillip Pullman's trilogy dubbed His Dark Materials on a recommendation from my aunt and cousin. I typically avoid series like this, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Twilight, but this one sounded interesting. It takes place in a universe similar to ours in a time that's hard to classify (Victorian England, early 1900s maybe?) that is full of great characters, an exciting story and a darkness to the proceedings that surprised me. Unfortunately, the movie struggled to deal with the story.

For one, director Chris Weitz says he shot enough footage for a 2.5-3 hour movie, but the final running time is a crisp 113 minutes. In other words, a lot of the story got left on the cutting room floor. There is a ton of potential in Weitz's movie, but it never lives up to what it could be. A 3-hour movie could have helped remedy this, but as is the story is muddled at best, characters go in and out for long stretches of time with little development, and the ending is changed pretty drastically from the book's ending which comes as a complete surprise and a perfect springboard for the rest of the series, which I am looking forward to reading. The plot description's going to be a doozy so brace yourself.

Living at Jordan College in England, Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) is an orphan, a young girl growing up without a care in the world as she explores the college and city with her friend, Roger (Ben Walker). One day her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) comes to visit her but to also ask the college for funds for a trip to the North Pole to explore a route to other worlds. Lyra desperately wants to go along, but Asriel refuses and leaves her behind. But strange things are happening, children are disappearing, including Roger, with no clues left behind as to what happened. For Lyra, a beautiful, polished woman of the world, Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) shows up asking if she'd like to be her assistant. Before she leaves, the president of the college pulls Lyra aside and gives her something, a Golden Compass, a device that can reads people's true intentions.

Everything is not so rosy as it seems with Mrs. Coulter, and it's not long before Lyra and her daemon (soul in animal form) Pantalaimon (voice of Freddie Highmore) must escape and head to the north in search of Roger and the other lost children. Along the way, she meets a variety of characters including John Faa (Jim Carter), Farder Coram (Tom Courtenay) and the Gyptian people, Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), a Texan aeronaut, Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green), a helpful witch, and Iorek Byrnison (voice of Ian McKellen), an armoured bear exiled from Svalbard, home of the bear kingdom.

Overwhelmed much? I read the book, and I'm a little overwhelmed at the amount of information thrown out there in the story. The obvious difference is that Pullman's book has a lot more time and space to introduce these many characters whereas the movie has about 2 hours to get this all accomplished. It's a shame because the casting is strong across the board. As Lyra, 13-year old Richards was a perfect choice. Craig makes the most of a small appearance as Asriel, and Kidman as Coulter is a nice twist on the typical character she plays. McKellen's voice didn't work for me as Iorek, but an armoured polar bear? Still cool. Sam Elliott is as always, very cool, as Scoresby.

Reviewing this movie is tough because there is A LOT going on, and a lot I could complain about from the overuse of CGI to the alterations to the story and the order it is dealt with to the different ending. Big picture is this, the movie as is in its 2-hour form is not very good. I don't know how much better a 2.5 or 3 hour movie could be, but it certainly couldn't hurt. I'd say give Pullman's book a try and then give the movie a try, not the other way around.

And I feel like I have to mention the Catholic Church's objection to this movie which I think is ridiculous. The Catholic Church is that paranoid guy who thinks everyone is always talking about him regardless of whether they actually are. In this case, a thinly veiled dig at the Church has a "Magisterium" trying to make its believers follow blindly with no thought. Like I said with the objections to the Da Vinci Code, if anyone takes their beliefs from a movie or a book, basically a work of fiction, the Church has bigger issues to worry about. End of rant.

The Golden Compass <----trailer (2007): **/****

Buck and the Preacher

Just more proof that studios don't have to rely solely on remakes and rehashes? 1972's Buck And the Preacher, a western documenting the story of former slaves moving west in the years following the Civil War. It's a unique story that I can't even think of a similar movie to compare it to. But no, we get remakes of remakes or high quality movies like 'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' which I haven't seen but feel safe saying it's not an instant classic. The stories are out there, studios just have to find them.

In his directorial debut, star Sidney Poitier presents a story unique in both its presentation and characters. But before I get long-winded, it all boils down to this; the story of African American families moving west for a new, better life following the Civil War. Westerns so often focus on the gunfighters and the Indian wars that stories like this get lost in the shuffle. Black characters are often supporting characters or in the background but not here. The main characters are all black, and to be honest I can't think of another western even remotely like it.

Trail guide Buck (Poitier) makes his money guiding wagon trains of black families west with hopes of establishing them with new lives in their new found freedom. The memories of the Civil War are still fresh in people's minds and maybe more importantly, the prejudices and racism still exist. Group of riders called 'Nightriders' harass and terrorize these wagon trains, shooting them up and scaring them into heading back east. One particular group, led by a man named Deshay (Cameron Mitchell), attacks one of Buck's trains leaving them with no money and little food to last out the coming winter.

Forced to work together with a con man preacher (Harry Belafonte) he keeps crossing trails with, Buck must think of some way to not only get money for the stranded wagon train but also avoid Deshay and his men. The unlikely duo is forced to take drastic measures, enlisting the help of Buck's wife Ruth (Ruby Dee) along the way as Deshay's murdering posse closes in to finish them off.

A buddy movie rolled together with a story that actually has to say something worthwhile, Buck and the Preacher was a pleasant surprise for me. Reading about it in advance, I got the sense it was a comedy, and while there are several funny moments, it's much more of a serious drama. Poitier as Buck is the typical western hero, resolute in his plans and a man who's word is as good as gold. He will stop at nothing to help the people he's promised to lead. Belafonte gets the scenery-chewing role as the Preacher, a man always ready with a Bible verse but who will also pull a gun on you if need be. Their uneasy friendship/alliance is a pleasure to watch from beginning to end, and in some ways reminded me of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with their bickering.

Background information is slowly filtered out about Belafonte's character, but even then it is a hard character to read. He is clearly out to help himself, others be damned, but when backed into a corner he fights as hard as anyone else. The finale is a good one as Buck and the Preacher seem to be cornered on a rocky summit with a posse quickly surrounding them. As Buck's wife Ruth, Dee is a strong presence with Poitier. It's a small role, but just like her husband, Ruth is willing to stand up for what's right when the time comes. As the villain, Mitchell isn't given much to do other than look menacing, which he pulls off well.

Other important supporting parts include Enrique Lucero and Julie Robinson (Belafonte's wife in real life) as an Indian chief and wife who is a somewhat unwilling ally of Buck. While the movie's focus is on the black families moving west, it's interesting to see the interaction with the Indians. It's two different groups of people, but in many ways they are very similar in the way they were treated by other cultures, especially whites. It's just one more aspect of a unique, interesting western with a message. Definitely give this one a shot.

Buck and the Preacher <----trailer (1972): ***/****

Some Magnificent Seven recapping

Some movie fans have the Star Wars series or others the Lord of the Rings epics. Me, I go in a different direction from the sci-fi epic. Westerns have always appealed to me ever since I started watching John Wayne movies or reading Lous L'Amour stories. So I'll pass on those science fiction series and stick with the Magnificent Seven series instead.

Looking at all four movies, made between 1960 and 1972 with Elmer Bernstein's musical score the only common link among the four, it's easy to rank them. There's the original, 1960's The Magnificent Seven, which is a classic and consistently ranks among the top 10 westerns ever made and for good reason. The cast is full of up and coming actors like Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn and is anchored by the always steady Yul Brynner.

It's sort of a mix between the old school westerns of the 1940s and 1950s and a preview of what was to come in the 1960s when there was more of a middle ground with westerns. There weren't always good guys vs. bad guys. The original doesn't show these gunfighters as romantic characters, instead portraying them as men drifting through a life that is empty with little to hold them in one place.

To be fair, the three sequels all explore those ideas, some more successfully than others, but the trio of movies goes through quite a transformation. Brynner leaves after one more movie, 1966's Return of the Magnificent Seven, only to be replaced by George Kennedy and Lee Van Cleef, both leaving their own personal imprint on the Chris Adams character. Each movie puts together a new group of seven gunfighters and ultimately ends up killing off about half of them, but more on that later.

What I like so much about these movies is they try hard to get the idea of the wild west across. Maybe it's a romantic ideal of what the wild west could or should have been in my head, but it's something I like to look for in westerns. In each group of seven, the less than perfect gunfighters join up for any number of reasons, but usually come around to one thing. They're doing something right after years of doing what they wanted to or needed to do. The odds are always against them, but they have a chance to do something on principle, something they can believe in. The cost is a pricey one for these gunfighters with many of them getting killed in the process, but they chose to stay and see things out until the end.

All other things with story and action aside, I like these movies so much because of the casting. The original speaks for itself in terms of the stars it produced, but the genre formula of a team of specialists/experts allowed some pretty cool groups of actors to work together. They weren't all big stars, some were just really solid western character actors, but in most cases they made the most of the parts. Where else could you see a list of performers like Brynner, McQueen, Coburn, Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter and then Eli Wallach as the villain? And that's just the original. Onto the sequels, you get Warren Oates, Claude Akins, James Whitmore, Kennedy, Monte Markham, Reni Santoni, Bernie Casey, Joe Don Baker, Luke Askew, Pedro Armendariz JR, and Van Cleef.

Now with all that seriousness out of the way, I do have to bring something up about the Chris Adams character over the course of the 4 movies. Let's go with the assumption that he's the same character even if he's played by 3 different actors. So he assembles 4 groups of seven for a total of 23 different men. When all is said and done, 15 of the 23 are dead (I won't spoil who). You'd think sooner or later word would get around that maybe these jobs this Chris fellow is selling aren't worth it. "Yeah, sure, here's $20, wanna go get shot up in a suicide mission?" Ah, just me rambling with something I've always wondered about, I still love 'em.

The Magnificent Seven (1960): ****/****
Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) ***/****
Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966): ** 1/2 /****
The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972): * 1/2 / ****

And one more thing I have to point out, what movie fans have been clamoring for all these years. A remake of The Magnificent Seven done in...LEGOS! I'd say something about someone having too much time on their hands, but who am I kidding? I sat down and watched the whole thing. The scary part? It's pretty dead on. Enjoy.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

Attack Force Z

Can a movie having a cheap budget actually be a good thing? Maybe with less expectations heading in, moviegoers enjoy a movie more when a B-movie lives up to or exceeds the already low expectations. I know I look at big Hollywood blockbusters differently than I do a cheapie B-movie because it's unfair to compare the two. An Australian WWII movie, 1982's Attack Force Z, was clearly made on the cheap, and while not a classic, certainly provides some bang for your buck.

Relatively unknown in the U.S., 'Attack' has achieved a bit of a cult following since its release, not because of the quality of the movie, but because of the casting with Mel Gibson and Sam Neill having starring roles. Gibson had been in a handful of movies already but was not well known to audiences yet with and Mad Max not yet released in the U.S.. Neill similarly was an up and comer in the Australian movie industry. If you pick this movie up because you stumble upon these two names, like me, it's certainly interesting to see these two not-yet stars in an early role.

Based on an actual incident in WWII, 'Attack' tells one story of a Force Z, an Australian commando unit, stationed in the Pacific. It's late in the war in 1945 when a five-man commando team is dropped off by submarine at a Japanese held island. Their mission is simple; find a plane that crashed in the days before several miles inland. An important passenger that could quicken the end of the war was on board, and the commandos must either rescue him or make sure he's dead. With some help from the local resistance, the commandos start the search and rescue mission amidst Japanese patrols all around.

At a brisk 90 minutes or so, this is not a movie with a lot of back story about characters, plot, and the general context of the war. The objective of their mission isn't even revealed until almost an hour in. With little time to waste, a good share of war movie cliches are used to keep the story moving. From those cliches though, the movie doesn't pull any punches. Just minutes after the opening credits, one of the team is wounded and is killed by his own team so he won't fall into enemy hands. The message is clear...no one is safe and any one of the remaining four could be next.

Going to the cliches, we get a variety of characters in the team. Gibson is Capt. Kelly, an inexperienced officer leading his first mission and therefore trying to prove himself as a leader. John Phillip Law plays Lt. Jan Viech, a Dutch soldier joining the Australians who falls for a local girl, Chien Hua (Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang in a solid part) with Neill starring as Sgt. Danny Costello, an experienced commando who is starting to question the actual effect these missions have on the course of the war. Rounding out the team are Chris Haywood as Sparrer Bird, the radioman, and John Waters (no, not that John Waters) as Lt. King. Chun Hsiung Ko plays Lin, the local resistance leader helping out the team who is also more than capable of handling himself in a fight.

Even in a situation ripe with tension -- five men moving through a jungle crawling with Japanese soldiers -- the movie lacks a certain energy early on. The commando team gets split up, but there's never a sense of urgency on the mission, and when the twist is revealed as to who they're trying to save there's never any explanation as to how the man's going to end the war, he just will apparently. Shot on location in Taiwan, the locations feel authentic with a sense of claustrophobia as the jungle seemingly closes in, but something is missing that I can't quite put my finger on.

With the mission though, the action starts from the beginning. With a smallish budget, these aren't huge battle spectacles, instead they're small skirmishes with the team shooting it out against roaming Japanese patrols. The finale is exciting and well-shot by director Tim Burstall as the commandos team with the resistance to fight the Japanese in the cramped, winding roads and alleys of a village near their getaway. The ending delivers another twist, and the shootout isn't a glamorous one. The commandos aren't superheroes who are invincible in battle, like in war these men can be shot and killed. Too often movies forget that, and make the characters Rambo-like heroes, but not here as the commando team dwindles down late.

Not a movie I loved but one I'd recommend to war movie afficionados. It's interesting to see up and coming actors like Mel Gibson and Sam Neill in early starring roles, and there's enough small-scale action to keep you interested until the shootout in the finale. I couldn't find a trailer at Youtube, but here's a couple scenes for your viewing pleasure, one and two, no major SPOILERS to worry about.

Attack Force Z (1982): ** 1/2 /****

The Magnificent Seven Ride!

Probably the darkest and most cynical of the four movies, 1972's The Magnificent Seven Ride! is undone by any number of things starting from the apparently very cheap budget which affects the sets, the story, and surprisingly enough, the musical score from composer Elmer Bernstein. Ah, who knows? Maybe the studio thought adding an exclamation point in the title would fix all those problems. Close, but no cigar United Artists.

A good place to start is with the story/script. It's basically two movies which if done separately might have been good, or at least two hour-long TV shows. But of course, that might be too easy to do. My main issue though is simple, the new Magnificent Seven aren't even introduced as a group until an hour into the movie. Say what you want about the first three Mag7 movies, but Chris in anyone of his forms was putting together each group of 7 within the first 15 minutes or so. Not so here which starts a completely different storyline before even getting to a new group of specialists.

Now with a badge on his shirt, Chris Adams (Lee Van Cleef) is a marshal in a small western town with a new bride, Arilla (Mariette Hartley). Chris has built himself up quite a reputation as a tough law officer, but his wife convinces him to let go of a young prisoner she believes made one bad mistake. He does, but the boy joins a gang and during a bank robbery, they kidnap Arilla and ride out. Chris, joined by a writer, Noah Forbes (Michael Callan) trying to document his heroics, head out after the gang, only to find Arilla raped and murdered and the trio of youngsters split up.

Out on the trail looking for them, Chris meets an old friend, also now a sheriff, who is trying to stop a bandit and his gang from attacking their town. Chris declines the invitation to help, and it's not long before the friend and his posse are shot down. Feeling guilt for what he chose not to do, Chris finds the town, sans men, now occupied by just the widows, including Stefanie Powers (with some big 70s hair too) with the gang's return seemingly imminent. With no other option, Chris and Noah recruit five prisoners from the Tucson Territorial Prison (think crappy Dirty Dozen story) to help them defend the town.

The Seven: Van Cleef is an interesting choice to replace Yul Brynner and George Kennedy as Chris. A huge star because of his success in Europe, Van Cleef brings an edge to the character we haven't seen before. For him after losing his wife, he plans the town's defense like a suicide mission fulling expecting to die in the process. An interesting twist on the character for sure. In the quasi-McQueen sidekick part, Callan plays Noah as a whiny, cheap writer who questions Chris' actions, only to...gasp...come around in the end. It could have been a cool character to add to the mix, but Callan comes across as just plain annoying.

Now for the Mag7: Convict Style which seems like an easy way to keep the story moving by taking an idea from a different movie. Making it worse, none of the five convicts are developed much at all. There's Skinner (Luke Askew) and Pepe (Pedro Armendariz Jr), two gunfighters who'd like nothing more than kill Chris, Walt (William Lucking), the strong, silent type good with a shotgun, Hayes (James Sikking), a former Confederate officer adept at planning battle strategy, and Elliott (Ed Lauter in his first movie), the explosives expert. The only ones making much of an impression are Askew and Armendariz, more so because they act cool than any sort of development they have.

The "Villain": In the original, Eli Wallach's Calvera is introduced, disappears for an hour and then returns with a vengeance late. In 'Ride!' the lead bandit has one line the whole movie (a classic delivery of 'Vamanos!' if you ask me) and is played by acting powerhouse Ron Stein, a stuntman known for his parts in the Planet of the Apes TV series as 'First Gorilla.' The villain is totally wasted here and not a presence at all.

Another test of how good/bad movies can be is the groan test. How many times watching the movie do you groan at some cheesy line, horrible special effect, or set falling apart in the background? This one has its fair share including my personal favorite, 'I, Chris, degrade your woman!' in a message to Stein's De Toro character. Also, the widows left in town were gang-raped by De Toro's men and just found out their husbands are all dead. They sure cozy up to these new men awful quick, including Chris (wife raped and killed) snuggling up with Stefanie Powers (gang-raped, husband murdered, has to care for children...) days after all the bad news hits. Now that's a good script.

Besides the lack of a good story, the film has the look of a made-for-TV movie because it was filmed in the Hollywood backlots on a variety of generic looking sets straight out of Gunsmoke or Bonanza. The positive to take away is the final battle as De Toro and his men finally attack the town, but even then it's a measured positive. We know little to nothing about these men, but are supposed to feel something for them when they begin to drop like flies? Yeah, good luck with that. A disappointment all around and a sorry end to the four Magnificent Seven movies.

The Magnificent Seven Ride! <----trailer (1972): * 1/2 / ****

National Treasure

Following the huge mega enormous success of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, it wasn't long before any number of similar adventure stories with a historical edge were on the market, in books, on TV and of course at the movies. Some were clearly rush jobs to capitalize on the success, but others were done right and benefited from it, like 2004's National Treasure.

With a very similar style to Da Vinci Code, National Treasure is a never slow down, rocket paced adventure story with a historical background. When comparing movies, 'Treasure' is light years ahead of the movie version of Da Vinci Code which just took itself too seriously. The Disney-backed movie doesn't have to worry about that with over the top, ridiculous action and bad guys that never seem that scary.

Of course any movie with Nicolas Cage in the lead automatically gives a movie a bit of the tongue in cheek feel to the proceedings. How couldn't it with the actor's great delivery of cheesy one-liners and a constant need for Cage to run at some point during the movie? No two ways about it, these are the roles Cage is perfect for. He's not so much acting as playing himself, or at least what I like to think he's like in real life.

Cage plays Benjamin Franklin Gates who as a pre-teen is told by his grandfather (Christopher Plummer, perfect in a one-scene cameo) about a treasure dating back to ancient times that's been involved and moved through history over the last several thousand years. First, it was the Egyptians, then the Knights Templar in the Crusades and then the Freemasons once the treasure apparently reached the U.S. The Gates family has spent almost 200 years searching for this mythical treasure, and Benjamin, now an experienced treasure hunter, seems to be getting closer to it.

Following a clue to the Arctic Circle with millionaire and all-around questionably moral millionaire Ian Howe (Sean Bean), Ben finds another clue that says the map to the treasure is on the back of the Declaration of Independence. After a falling out with explosions of course, it's a race between Ben and his sidekick Riley (Justin Bartha) against Ian and his henchmen as to who can get steal the Declaration first. The movie from there on out is basically one big chase with elements of a heist movie thrown in for good measure.

The chase takes Ben and Riley to Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York and a couple hidden locations in those cities that I won't spoil here. Trying to steal the Declaration, they also pick up a 3rd member, Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), a fellow history geek working as a supervisor at the National Archives, and a 4th, Ben's dad (Jon Voight) That's part of the fun though, instead of just an exciting chase movie, you get an exciting chase movie with history which is fun to see even if it's not historically true.

Director Jon Turtletaub filmed in all those cities at locations like the Archives, the Lincoln Memorial, Independence Hall, and even a chase below New York City. Could I tell you half of what the clues were? Nope, I don't even remember them. The story moves so fast it's hard to keep up. Keep this in mind, Cage is the good guy and Bean is the bad guy. And dddddone.

Because it is a fun Disney action movie, you have to know there's a happy ending. Even the FBI agent, Sadusky (Harvey Keitel), tracking them down is a pretty amiable guy. Bean is good as the semi-menacing villain meant to look meaner than his character actually is. As I said before, Cage is pitch perfect, Bartha gets all the good one-liners as the smart ass sidekick, and Kruger looks good in a part that doesn't require her to do much more. Voight similarly looks to be having a ball with his fun supporting role.

Here's another review that might sound negative, and it definitely qualifies as a guilty pleasure, but it's a non-stop thrill ride that's a lot of fun. Shut the old brain off for 2 hours and enjoy. The actors seem to be having as much fun on-screen as we're supposed to be watching it, and that always helps. Good old-fashioned action/adventure with some cool historical elements added into the mix.

National Treasure <----trailer (2004): ***/****

Guns of the Magnificent Seven

Now this may just be me, but George Kennedy doesn't resemble Yul Brynner too much. After two Magnificent Seven movies with Brynner as the star, the third movie starred a new 'Chris' leading a new 7, Kennedy. Of course the posters over at IMDB have to nail this down. So is he the same character? A different man named Chris? Did he undergo extensive plastic surgery? Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea.

Three years removed from Return of the Magnificent Seven comes director Paul Wendkos' take on the popular series, 1969's Guns of the Magnificent Seven. It's a departure from the first two movies with Kennedy, a year removed from his Oscar from Cool Hand Luke, stepping into the saddle. But where 'Return' was basically a rehash of the original classic, 'Guns' gets points for originality both in story and casting. Also, having Elmer Bernstein's score doesn't hurt, especially with some new notes in the music.

Deep in Mexico, a revolutionary leader, Quintero (Fernando Rey) is captured by a sadistic Mexican colonel, Diego (Michael Ansara), who runs a prison that resembles a fortress more than anything else. One of Quintero's most loyal followers, Maximilliano (Reni Santoni) heads north to look for help in getting Quintero out of prison before it's too late. In a border town, Max finds a man named Chris (Kennedy) who's in the process of saving another man, Keno (Monte Markham), from a lynch mob. Chris agrees to help out and assembles a group of specialists to help him in the prison break. They seek help from a local bandit Lobero (Frank Silvera) and his gang -- quite a change of pace since the 1st one, huh? -- but the odds still seem impossible.

The Seven: Kennedy is more than capable of handling the lead role, and while he doesn't look like Brynner at all, he brings the same characteristics to the part; loyal, honest, and always willing to stand up for the downtrodden. As for the other six, this is by far the most unique group when comparing the three sequels. Markham as Keno, the Steve McQueen right hand man role, isn't given a ton to do after his introduction, but as a right hand man, he does what he's supposed to; look cool while helping the leader. Santoni's Max is a youngster with little fighting experience but who wants nothing more than to join the fight.

In adding a black character, Bernie Casey's Cassie, a dynamite expert, the dimension of race is added and even more so with another member of the seven, Slater (Joe Don Baker), a one-armed Confederate gunslinger. Cassie and Slater would seem to have nothing in common, but a friendship develops when they realize how similar they really are. James Whitmore, as solid as ever, plays Levi, an aging knife fighter who's settled down with a family but takes the job for the $. Adding some depth to the character, Levi bonds with Emil (Tony Davis), a young Mexican boy looking for his father. Unfortunately, the 7th member, P.J. (Scott Thomas) receives little development which is a shame because a expert gunfighter/rope thrower dying of tuberculosis has some potential.

The Villain: A definite step up here after Emilio Fernandez's part in 'Return.' Michael Ansara plays Diego to a T. He's a sadistic commandant trying to snuff out the revolution in his district no matter what the cost, especially when it comes to torturing his prisoners. One torture scene midway through the movie shows a creative way to take care of prisoners, bury them in sand up to their throats and then trample and suffocate them with horses walking all around them. Ansara's Diego isn't as developed as much as Calvera or Lorca, but he's just a straight bad guy and sometimes that's all you need.

Some critics said this movie is too slow-going and to be fair, there isn't a ton of action. But really, none of these movies are action-packed. Characters are introduced, we get to know them, and then throw in the action so that when some of the 7 do eventually die, their deaths mean something emotionally. The finale in 'Guns' is on par with the shootout at the end of the original. Finally ready for their assault, Chris leads the 7 and a small group of farmers in an attack on Diego's prison, dubbed the 'Cave of the Rats,' and his 200-man garrison.

It's loud, chaotic and violent, and completely different from the rest of the series. For one, the 7 go on the attack instead of waiting to be attacked against larger numbers. Second, two characters are killed almost at the outset of the battle, and for awhile it looks like the plan might actually fail. Semi-SPOILER I'm convinced Max was supposed to die, he gets absolutely riddled by at least 3 Mexican soldiers, but he's there at the end, apparently just wounded. This would have been the first Mag7 movie to kill 5 of the 7 END OF SPOILER. The attack is a great action sequence from start to finish, and the prison set looks pretty cool too, and even with some other surprises as to who survives and who doesn't to keep you guessing.

A worthy sequel to the original for sure. It does justice in every way while still putting its own spin on a familiar story. Good casting and a strong script that really fleshes out the new members of the Magnificent Seven with a great, action-packed finale. Next up...the finale, The Magnificent Seven Ride!

Guns of the Magnificent Seven <----trailer (1969): ***/**** (Best tagline ever: 7 Against 700; They Just Couldn't Lose!) MASSIVE SPOILERS: Cool fan-made video breaking movie down