Safe House
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Starring Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepherd and Robert Patrick
Release Date: February 10, 2012

Corruption at the top of any organization is a touchy subject for a director to be curious about. When done right, a film depicting corruption, like Polanski’s Chinatown or The Ghost Writer, is an impressive and immersive experience. Navigating through the hypocrisy and crookedness is an act of a polished director at the top of his craft who wants to enlighten audiences about reality, not entertain them. Swedish director Daniel Espinosa is introducing himself to American audiences with a hesitating and not so sharp portrait of corruption. He wants to exploit the supposed corruption occurring in intelligence units across the world, such as CIA agents and M16 agents. Instead of having a firm and confident command on a narrative structure that would get his point across, all of his energy is directed toward articulating sensational action scenes that reek of implausibility. Espinosa has an interesting foundation to build upon thanks to David Guggenheim‘s script. Coherency and logic, though, are neglected, and an overwhelming amount of dynamism is relied on to entertain audiences, dismissing words and dialogue for guns and fists of fury.

Schwarzenegger Collector’s Set
Directors: Walter Hill, Paul Michael Glaser, James Cameron, Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi, Laurence Fishburne, Peter Boyle, Maria Conchita Alonso, Jim Brown, Jesse Ventura, Richard Dawson, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick
Lionsgate Home Video

You could make a case for Arnold Schwarzenegger as the greatest action movie superstars of all time. This is a case you would win every single time, because there is no one that tops this man when it comes to the genre. Regardless of what you think of him as a Governor, there is no arguing that his presence in movies has been missed for some years now; and thus, we retreat back to his best works to get our Schwarzenegger fix.

On the bright side, there’s sets like this one being released from time-to-time to help your binging needs. This particular set includes Red Heat, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Running Man, and Total Recall.

When I got the chance to review this new four-movie collector’s set of Schwarzenegger flicks, I jumped at the chance for a couple of reasons: One was because I shockingly had not seen two of them; and also because I even-more shockingly didn’t own any of them.

There’s obviously a good chance that you’ve seen all of the movies reviewed here and know whether you would jump all over this set or pass it by. For this, think of these reviews as more of a recap and my own personal opinion of these intense flicks that likely hold a great deal of nostalgia for many of us.

I’m going to assume that 99.9% of us have seen at least The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, if not Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines as well. If you have not, and you’re planning on seeing Terminator Salvation this week, then Geeks of Doom is your place to make sure you at least have some kind of an idea of what the hell is going on.

Keep in mind — I can absolutely promise you that Salvation and any others ever made will not be anywhere near as good as the first two, and I strongly urge you to see them first; but if you just don’t have time and have to get you some Christian Bale action now, hopefully this will help out a little.

Before you continue here, be sure to check out our own BAADASSSSS!’s in-depth and thoughtful retrospect of 1984’s The Terminator — A Look Back At James Cameron’s “˜The Terminator’. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

OK, now that you’ve read up on the first movie, here’s the promised quick recaps of both T2 and T3 so that you can complete the Zelda tri-force and be fully prepared to see Terminator Salvation!

After the Terminator Salvation panel at Wondercon, McG apparently stuck around to chat it up for a bit. One of the topics brought up, was the idea of Robert Patrick (who played the best evil Terminator of them all — the T-1000 — in T2) returning in Terminator 5 if, of course, Terminator Salvation succeeds and they decide to make another one, both of which are fully expected. Keep in mind, this is a planned trilogy, not just one at a time. Even star Christian Bale supposedly signed with the expectations of three films.

Surprisingly enough, McG responded with positive feelings about the idea. In fact, it appears that he has even been talking to Robert Patrick quite a bit (they’ve worked together twice in We Are Marshall and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle), and it’s no where near as far-fetched as you might think. Apparently McG has been busy with a lot of former cast and crew lately — Arnold Schwarzenegger saw the movie recently and they’re set to meet and discuss possible ways for Arnie to join the party; Linda Hamilton has been talking with him a lot about her possible voice over work, and McG is trying to get James Cameron to take a little peek at the movie as well, just for approval, of course.