Rating: 
Summary: 'Rundown' Possibly the Best Action Film in a Decade
Review: I am not blind to the fact that when I LIKE a movie, book, et cetera, I immediately claim that it is the best of its kind. It could be the worst movie ver made; if I liked it though, it would be one of the best movies ever made. But in this case, I am doing no such thing. I really do think that this is one of the best no-questions-asked action movies of all time.
The Story( whioch is pretty simple): Wunnabe chef (The Rock) is a collector, bounty hunter, whatever who wants out. His boss gives him one last job to seal the deal. So Beck's off to Brazil to retrieve the boss's son (Sean William Scott) the next day. But the little treasure seeker doesn't want to be taken, so he screws up the Rock's method of transit, stranding them in the jungle. All the while, the big bad guy (Walken) is attempting to track them down, because he believes Scott posseses a treasure of incalculable value...
It has glorious stuntwork, visual effects, choreography, and all that stuff combined with a somewhat nudge-nudge story line.
And it's set in the amazon. How about that? Most Hollywood action movies take place in-well-Hollywood. But this one defies the rules (a bit) and actually entertains.
All in all, completely worth the money to buy. You'll enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: The Rock & Seann: Kickin' major "B" in Brazil!
Review: Unlike the nearly disastrous pairing of Eddie Murphy & Owen Wilson in the 2001 'thriller' "I Spy", Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson & Seann William Scott make a dynamite duo and work together like a well-oiled machine here, thus being the opposite of Murphy & Wilson. In "I Spy", those two totally lacked any chemistry and spontaneity together, adding friction to a relatively boring plot, whereas in "The Rundown", The Rock's and Seann's opposing quips and dialogue work together very well, yielding surprising results in the process. Beck (The Rock) is given orders to go to Brazil and bring back the son of a moderately well-to-do businessman (Scott). Once he is found, Travis refuses to go with Beck, and an ongoing series of melees ensues. Travis unwillingly "agrees" to remain in Beck's custody, all the while getting involved in a mysterious caper, headed up by an unscrupuolus leader of a band of Amazonian natives (Christopher Walken) and an Amazonian beauty (Rosario Dawson). What they're after, is a priceless ancient "trinket" known as "The Gato" - an artifact that's worth it's weight in gold. Our two male heroes are out to thwart Hatcher's (Walken) and "The Amazon Queen"'s (Dawson) plan, that is, if Beck and Travis don't wind up killing each other first, to which they come extremely close to doing during parts of their tumultuous journey. Here's "The Rundown" of some brief facts concerning this movie: The locale of the Brazilian landscape is actually substituted for the beautiful scenery and majestic greenery of the Hawaiian island of Oahu (for obvious budgetary reasons, as well as any avoidance of paying foreign taxes), and the Brazilian "natives" are actually local extras, who would physically pass as Brazilian/Portugese, since Hawaii has traces of Portugese ("Portagee" in local slang) heritage etched into its proud immigrant past. With a hearty, man-sized plot on its bountiful plate, including a rich, semi-all-star cast topping off the thick, zesty gravy (not to mention the well-manuevered, fast-paced action-packed physical adventure contained within these delectable ingredients), "The Rundown" is sure to please even the most persnickety of "cuisinards" - including both gourmet and standard fares. So, if you want to catch this breathtaking cinematic gem, here's "The Rundown"; you can either A) view it at your local venue (which has pretty much passed, for the most part), B) or you can wait until it is released on DVD or VHS, or...there's option C), which means, should you decide not to view "The Rundown", "The Rock" and his WWE cronies will be sent personally to your home, thus "Layin' The Smack Down" on your "candy a**" (which is so not likely to happen, and BTW, I'm only kidding!!!). With all that said, all that remains to be asked is "Can ya smell what The Rock...is cookin?". In all sincerity, I think you can!
Rating:
Summary: "The Rundown" is the People's Movie
Review: There is no such thing as a nice action hero. Good thing The Rock learned early and beat up a bunch of football players who gave him troubles. He even gave one of them a Rock Bottom through the floor! "The Rundown" is about a bounty hunter (The Rock) who has to find that noisy "American Pie" guy in South America. There he meets an evil tycoon man who likes free labor. Throughout the movie, Beck falls off a cliff, gets thrown into the air buy some jungle warriors and his privates are smashed on tree branches. He even has to avoid these monkeys trying to seduce him. Then towards the end, Beck picked up two shotguns and started blowing up the village! The genius director even put Rosario Dawson in the movie to make it that much better! This is one of the best action movies of 2003 and it even has Arnold Schwarzenegger in it! Yes! Passing the torch has never been so monumental! Excellent!
Rating: 
Summary: The Moose Hole - "Give Us the Rundown!"
Review: Do you smeeeeeelll what the Rock is cooking? Well The Rock has been cooking up a whole load of goodies ever since his less then stellar debut on the WWF circuit. Not only has his popularity in the wrestling ring improved greatly from the days of "Rocky Sucks!" but he has been able to do what few fellow wrestlers can: Break away with a successful acting career. After a largely hyped appearance in The Mummy Returns, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson starred in the Mummy spin-off film, The Scorpion King, which was able to gross $84 million in the summer of 2002 and have him labeled as the next action star. Universal Pictures, seeing the great investing potential of this former wrestling icon, quickly signed him up with his next project teaming The Rock up with Seann William Scott, who has already had success this year with American Wedding. Dwayne Johnson has been able to work well in the action area but can he bring comedy into the mix? The studio definitely hopes so after investing $75 million in The Rundown (aka "Helldorado" aka "Welcome to the Jungle") and releasing it in a time period that is not known to have too many top earners.The story centers on a hit-man who's out for one last job but this small assignment is more then he bargained for. Beck, an efficient man for hire, is not the normal kind of person in his line of profession. He gives people options, he would prefer cooking to fighting, and hates to use guns. After a brawl in a bar one night, Beck decides he wants out but his boss isn't going to let him off so easy. He sends him out on one more job: Travel to the Amazon, picking up his no-good son, and bring him back to the house. If he completes the job, he gets out of the hit-man profession and can open his own restaurant, the one thing he seems most passionate about. Beck believes this will just be another typical job but things change quickly. Not only does he have to deal with horny monkeys and quarrelsome natives, Beck knocks horns with Hatcher, the ruthless tyrant of Helldorado. Both men are after the same thing and both will do anything to get him but the question lies on who wants him more? The story for The Rundown is, quite surprisingly, fabulous. This is quite possibly one of the most original action/comedy films of the year with a wonderful blend of well choreographed fight scenes, hilarious comedy, and a balanced story to back it all up. Though the cast is small, most members perform beyond expectations while others achieve the normal acting level. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson flattens Stalone, Willis, and even Schwarzenegger becoming the next cultural action star. Every fight sequence is packed wall to wall with high testosterone action and The Rock proving he can kick some serious ass in a grand style. And who knew he could be so funny? Well, a good amount of people who saw him perform on Saturday Night Live last year, but outside of that group, not many. For those not lucky enough to catch that one of the few truly funny SNL episodes in recent years (And, yes, the show has been pretty bad for a couple of years now), he proves all the skeptics wrong in this film. Seann William Scott, who performed earlier this year in Bulletproof Monk and American Wedding (the latter being the much bigger success), sure proves he has the comedic idiot act down pat though not as hilarious as he was in the last American Pie film. Perhaps it was the absence of using the F-bomb so many times but maybe it was the fact that the movie-going public isn't use to seeing him as the idiotic yet nice guy in comedies. Christopher Walken, as usual, never fails to amaze us. Once again he is able to mix comedy and drama well together without balancing one or the other. There were several jokes made by the talented actor that took awhile to get the point of but when the punch-line came, the jokes really paid off. And Rosario Dawson, a not too well known performer, was moderate at best but the main problem was that, as semi-important as her character was, wasn't featured as much as she should have been. There weren't too many that showed off her acting chops, which is quite a shame since there could have been plenty of potential had they allowed her to showcase her talent. Overall, The Rundown smashes, blasts, and bombards the movie theater with everything its got and, quite surprisingly, the audience is left wanting more, which, for once, isn't a bad thing. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson proves he can live up to all the hype declaring him as this generation's action star and shows off some true acting chops that few from his former line of work can do. As good as the film was, it wasn't quite as funny as other comedies like American Wedding were. The problem lied in the fact that The Rundown took awhile to really get going by setting up a decent back story and stuff like that, which can be good on its own but when you're dealing with a buddy comedy such as this, it can come off as being a bit of a disappointment. The time length of the feature seemed a little too short but this is quite a minor squabble compared to all the praise one can say about this film. The Rundown is another valiant effort from The Rock and Universal Pictures that proves action flicks can be funny, intense and dramatic all in the same feature without outbalancing itself.
Rating:
Summary: The Rundown
Review: Likes:
Genuinely makes you laugh.
Fresh feel due to the jungle setting.
Good acting from all casts.
Plenty of exciting action. Dislikes:
Various scenes are predictable.
Storyline is a little far fetched. Conclusion:
A surprisingly good movie with great humour.
Rating:
Summary: one view fits all
Review: I really liked this movie because it was highly detailed with aggressive fighting scenes. No, it was not like one of those matrix wanna be's but it had it's own taste when the rock had his own fighting scene. I cant wait till this movie comes out on DvD the reason because of th rock himeself. he not just a character in the ring but also a character in movies, TV shoes, and even outside the ommunity. he is a great romodel so that's why i give him 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: I have to say The Rock is a pretty good actor. Never seeing one of his movies b4 I thought he was going to suck, but in fact, he did a descent job. There was a lot of action and humor. And damn Sean William Scott is HOT!!!! The rock ain't to shabby either!
Rating:
Summary: Fun action film
Review: I actually really liked this movie.. it's a fun action flick! The Rock is great as the lead character - Beck - who has been working with some low-life loan shark type guy as a retreiver of sorts when people don't pay back their loans. He wants to leave the business and run his own restaurant, but he gets stuck on one last assignment - bring the loan shark's son home because he went and got himself in trouble. So Beck heads down to South America to get the son, Travis (played by Sean William Scott, aka Stiffler from American Pie). It turns out to be a little harder than he thought because Travis is off searching for an artifact in the jungle and the local bad guy (Christopher Walken) wants to nab the artifact once Travis gets it. Rosario Dawson plays the eye candy bartender with a hidden agenda. The action scenes are great - especially the climactic scene at the end. They are especially fun because Beck hates guns, so he has to kick butt without using them. There are a few scenes that I felt the film would have been much better without - the main ones being the monkey scenes which I just felt were unnecessary, juvenile and NOT funny. Despite the minor issues, the film was overall pretty decent. It was fun to watch, but its never going to be the kind I want to buy on DVD and see again and again. It's worth renting or buying if you can get it cheap.
Rating:
Summary: The Rundown - a great action movie
Review: As I am not usually a fan of celebrity acting, I was reluctant to see this movie. Am i glad I went! A fast paced movie with a strong cast and plot is hard to find these days, especially one with decent dialog. While not the absolute best movie I've seen this year, that would be Finding Nemo for anyone interested, this is a movie that I will be going to again and taking anyone I can with me. I strongly recommend this movie to everyone, funny, fast, good plot, and strong actors, this is a must see for the year.
Rating: 
Summary: A generic action film
Review: THE RUNDOWN stars ex-wrestler and NFL wannabe Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) in a mishmash of just about every sort of action flick you've ever seen. It incorporates elements reminiscent (to me at least) of the Matrix, Indiana Jones, Jackie Chan, Romancing the Stone, Lethal Weapon, the Terminator, and Mad Max. Ok, ok - maybe I'm exaggerating. But you get my drift? John is Beck, a "retrieval specialist", sent by his boss to the Brazilian Amazon jungle to recover his errant son, Travis (Seann William Scott). Trouble is, Travis doesn't want to leave - he's too busy tracking down an artifact of native treasure, a solid gold statue hidden in the jungle. This trinket thrusts Beck and Travis between battling armed nationalists, led by bar-owner Mariana (Rosario Dawson), and the stereotypic Evil White Man, Hatcher (Christopher Walken), whose empire is an enormous open-pit gold mining operation worked by downtrodden locals kept in line by whip-wielding thugs. To my mind, THE RUNDOWN is saved by the likeable Beck and a strong performance by Walken. Otherwise, it's just a series of confrontations, mostly kung-fu action sequences, with a gun battle and a vehicle chase thrown in for variety. Mariana simply serves as eye-candy. Is The Rock destined to be the next generation Tough Guy action hero? Perhaps. In a blink-of-an-eye cameo at the beginning of the film, Arnold Schwarzenegger passes Beck on the way out of a nightclub and says" Have fun!' Arnie is off to be Governor of California, leaving the heavy lifting to his successor. This isn't a bad movie, and is an entertaining introduction to The Rock as a leading man of the genre. I just hope the plots of his future releases are a little more focused and, um (dare I say), intelligent. Also, THE RUNDOWN ends with the impression that Beck and Travis will continue on as a team. Oh, I hope not since the latter is one of the more clownish and irritating characters I've seen on the Big Screen lately. There's not the chemistry between the two as between Gibson and Glover (of the LETHAL WEAPON series), or Wilson and Chan (of the SHANGHAI series), or Smith and Jones (of the MEN IN BLACK series). Wait for release of the DVD. The theater version doesn't justify the cost of the tickets.
|
