The Getaway & Unleashed

The Getaway is the first film I've seen on my new fancy Blu-ray player (and video game system, I guess). Even on a standard def TV, it looks better than most DVDs. Or maybe I'm just an idiot, and it's all imaginary. Oh... man, I am confused. As for the movie... it's far better than the remake, but I was hoping for some good car chases, and they were not good. Lots of thing could have made me far more interested in it than I was, but the film didn't go there. Sorry, Steve McQueen, you continue to be a far better idea than an actor. Same thing with Ali MacGraw, but Steve's a much bigger idea than almost anyone else. Well, at least idea over talent, because James Dean is a huge idea, but he had the acting chops to back that up. How do I constantly get off the topic of the film? Probably due to wanting to put something together that wasn't just a short review.

Unleashed had a couple nice fights, and Jet Li can act, and Bob Hoskins is the prototypical London gangster, but Kerry Condon just felt wrong. Maybe it was that I've seen her naked, and she felt too old, even at 22. Maybe she wasn't supposed to be playing a young high-school girl. Either way, she felt off. The original title (or at least alternate one) is Danny the Dog, which, for this movie snob, actually doesn't work as well as the final one. Danny the Dog feels like a children's film about a Saint Bernard that solves crimes by puffing on a bubble pipe with a deerstalker and a bad heroin habit. Unleashed feels like a film about a guy who, when a leash is taken off, goes crazy with his martial arts and beats the crap out of people, but when he has the leash on, plays piano and checks melons for ripeness. Guess which one this movie is?