action heroes

It was the year that Pixar Studios opened, Amber Heard was born and Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa won a Best Picture at the 58th Academy Awards – it was also the year screen legend James Cagney died and Mike Tyson became the youngest Heavyweight World Champion in the history of Boxing – it was also the year two of my movie heroes starred opposite each other for the last time – Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster first appeared together in 1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and in 1986 they would star in their seventh & final movie together Tough Guys….

My Definitive Action Movies of 1986 : at Number 1 is James Cameron’s epic scifi movie ALIENS that sees Ripley alongside a group of kick-ass Colonial Marines trying to stay alive down on LV-426 – at Number 2 Maverick & Goose fly into Top Gun coming up against the best Fighter Pilots the navy has to offer – and at Number 3 Sylvester Stallone plays Marion Cobretti a cop and part of the “Zombie Squad” who loves nothing better than Telling it to the Judge and putting the bad guys down in Cobra – at Number 4 is John Carpenter’s superb Big Trouble in Little China that sees Burton played by Kurt Russell battling a sorcerer named Lo Pan down in Chinatown – and finally there can be only one at Number 5 and that’s Russell Mulcahy’s Highlander don’t you just love that Queen soundtrack, that amazing Scottish backdrop and Clancy Brown’s villainous Kruger? – as you can see 1986 was an incredible feast of action movies, I was only 15 years of age at the time and my love affair with the movies was only just beginning….

Escape Plan (2013) – Movie Review ★★★★

“You hit like a vegetarian”

Cast Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Vinnie Jones, Amy Ryan, 50 Cent & Sam Neill – Ray Breslin (Stallone) is a former prosecutor and now owns a security firm specializing in testing how reliable maximum security prisons are in the country – Breslin takes the unusual steps by getting put away in these prisons and then attempting to break-out, in the process testing the prisons design, it’s security and how escape-proof that particular prison is – during a board meeting at his firm a CIA agent offers Breslin 5 Million Dollars for his services in breaking out of a top-secret prison, the prisons location must remain secret – Breslin agrees to the terms, gets himself captured and the next thing he knows is when he wakes up in his cell, a room that is part of a complex of cells with no outside windows, so Breslin is none the wiser to where he has placed and that’s when the fun really begins VERDICT this is what the movies are all about – popcorn flicks get no bigger than a feature film starring the best two action stars in the business – Swedish director Mikael Håfström known for his work on 1408 and The Rite handles this action flick superbly well, it’s got everything a cinematic ride should have – a delicious villain played by Jim Caviezel, an evil henchman Vinnie Jones, a quick tempo with some fun fight scenes and fabulous cheesy one liner’s that only Arnie and Sly could deliver – overall Escape Plan is brilliant entertainment and I just hope that these two action heroes don’t leave it too long before teaming up in a feature movie one more time….