Clever title-pun credit must go to my buddy Simon. I can’t take credit and it would feel dirty to do so…

Anyway, on with the news. This time the news is regarding REMAKES of 80s – three of them in fact.

Conan the Barbarian which is already released… weird…

Total Recall – wait a minute what??

and…

Judge Dredd – What the fuck?

Didn’t expect that did you? Hopefully these films will do justice to their previous counterparts but what’s going on?? Is it a symptom of the 80s fever that recently seems to have infected Hollywood? And if that’s the case – why the hell have these films been chosen? (Not that they aren’t all awesome, just… massively obscure…)

Anyway, in the Total Recall remake you can expect to see Colin Farrell in a remake that stays closer to the original book rather than a film (slightly less muscle mass then); and in the Judge Dredd film you can expect to see Karl Urban (you might remember him from NOTHING EVER) in a film just called ‘Dredd’ or ‘Dredd 3D’ – sounds like classy entertainment.

Of course the real question is why anyone would try and remake films that are ALREADY PERFECT. Though that said I think that Hollywood should literally just stick to Rambo sequels anyway…

Not enough good news for one day? Not enough films called ‘The Last Stand’? Well get this: Sly is bringing out a new Rambo! Yes – Rambo 5 is a reality again. And this time it is called ‘Rambo: Last Stand’. In case you missed it this is weird because Arnie’s new film is also going to be ‘The Last Stand’. Presumably one of them is going to change the name of their film as otherwise it’s just pretty much ridiculous.

It will also be interesting to see if this affects the new Rambo game that’s coming out – surely it would make sense for them to somehow tie that in with the release of a new film? The plot apparently is this time going to be closer to the plot of First Blood and will be set once again in a small town. Hopefully this doesn’t prevent him from topping his previous kill-count. The screenplay is by Conan writer Sean Hood and apparently Sly is on board despite being ’99% certain there wouldn’t be another Rambo’. No huge surprise as he was also pretty sure there wouldn’t be a Rocky 4.

We have yet to wait for Sly to finish both Bullet to the Head & Expendables 2 before Rambo 5 would be a possibility though (both of which look bitching) – which would make him about 700 years old. EPIC.

Greetings! The best news ever today:

Once again, Arnie is genuinely BACK and has announced his new film ‘The Last Stand’ directed by Ji-Woon Kim (oh him!) which awesomely will be a ‘gritty Western’. Arnie in a Western? Oh yes! I also love the fact that Arnie put his career on hold following his divorce… for roughly six weeks. This man has been ‘back’ more than anyone. He is better than a cat! (Because of the nine lives thing)

In it Arnie will play the ‘ageing but capable U.S. Sheriff’ bringing down a drug cartel before they make it to the Mexican border. That pretty much checks all the boxes! Originally it was going to have Liam Neeson in the lead role apparently, which bodes well also. Not enough for you? The director has explained it as a combination of ‘Die Hard and ‘High Noon’. I love this. This is the best day ever.

Here’s the official plot:

Schwarzenegger will be starring as Sheriff Owens, a man who has resigned himself to a life of fighting what little crime takes place in sleepy border town Sommerton Junction after leaving his LAPD post following a bungled operation that left him wracked with failure and defeat after his partner was crippled. After a spectacular escape from an FBI prisoner convoy, the most notorious, wanted drug kingpin in the hemisphere is hurtling toward the border at 200 mph in a specially outfitted car with a hostage and a fierce army of gang members. He is headed, it turns out, straight for Summerton Junction, where the whole of U.S. law enforcement will have their last opportunity to make a stand and intercept him before he slips across the border forever. At first reluctant to become involved, and then counted out because of the perceived ineptitude of his small town force, Owens ultimately accepts responsibility for one of the most daring face offs in cinema history.

Some Fight for Money… Some Fight For Love… He’s Fighting for His Son’s Love

A film called ‘Over the Top’ you know is going to be great. Ironically though, the film isn’t actually that over the top. In that it’s not really an action film in quite the same sense that Die Hard or Tango and Cash are – there are certainly fewer explosions for instance. And while the tagline is normally something like ‘Justice and Death With Fucking Explosions’ on this one it’s ‘Some Fight for Money… Some Fight For Love… He’s Fighting for His Son’s Love.’. Which surely has to be the most bizarre tagline in the history of 80s action films. And it’s pretty much as disturbing as it sounds. It’s about Sly winning his son’s love via arm wrestling (granted this is the number 1 way to win love), except I have no idea why Sly is letting himself get pushed around by this little shit. He’s a queer little fellow in a sailors uniform the whole time (to appeal to the paedo market?) who basically looks down his nose at his Dad the whole time. Until his Dad forces him into an arm wrestling match with a random thug causing him to realise that he’s a weak piece of piss and is lucky his Dad hasn’t broken his legs. Then in some strange twist he ends up arm wrestling in a competition to win custody of the child. That’s not normal is it? Granted this doesn’t feel like a good film so far, but nevertheless it is undoubtedly a classic and has cult status. Let’s look at why… Firstly it has a truck that is just like Optimus Prime, but with a gym built into it. Amazing. Secondly it teaches you that there isn’t a situation that can’t be rectified with an arm wrestle – sterling advice. Then there’s that thing Sly does where he gets you to hate the bad guys and then smashes up their stuff. And the kid and the premise are just so ridiculous that it’s brilliant. And awesome workout fodder. B+

Rumors are annoying because they get me excited then often turn out to be LIES. This is why I’m being very careful not to get too excited at the rumor that CHUCK NORRIS WILL BE IN EXPENDABLES 2! That said if it turns out not to be true I will kill myself.

The other rumored addition to the cast? John Travolta. This one is a little more weird. I mean he’s 80s, but is he action? Lest us forget Grease where he had a weird quiff and grabbed his balls a lot. Interestingly this wouldn’t be his first collaboration with Stallone though giving a little more credence to this particular rumor – Sly directed Saturday Night Fever 2. No, I don’t know why either. I just know that Sly got Travolta into excellent shape and covered him in oil and reassured him that this was the formula for a successful film. I WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE SLY, but sadly the film was a bit of a flop. Sly forgot one vital ingredient that’s in his oily films – EXPLOSIONS. Never mind.

So hopefully this will be a bit better than that. Well blatantly it will be, it has CHUCK NORRIS in it. What else can I tell you? Well Sly decided again not to be behind the camera, reason being that he wants to focus on getting into insane shape. This is FANTASTIC NEWS. Hopefully though he doesn’t die doing that.

And also Arnie is rumored still to be in the cast and has apparently agreed to take some time off of his womanizing. Playa and a team player. I am psyched for this film.

I haven’t written regularly on this blog for a while (I’m back now though, don’t you worry) and in my absence Arnie seemed to get himself into a bit of a pickle. Or rather he got himself into his house maid… and they had a child who was born around ten years ago and who Arnold secretly funded for all that time.

If Maria Shriver looked like Sharon Stone we wouldn't have a problem... Hope he used the line: 'Consider 'dis a divorce!'

Everyone seemed to kick off at this and I’m not sure why. Perhaps the press are playa haters? Or maybe they’re outraged that Arnie would do it with his house maid who wasn’t very good looking? I think that’s probably it. I personally think that it’s nice that Arnie doesn’t discriminate against Uggos. Hopefully the press will realize this and it will strengthen his image in the long run.

In all seriousness it has actually had some rather devastating real-world impacts. For instance it has cast some doubt on Arnie’s future. He’s decided to ‘cool off’ from looking for film roles for a while until things calm down which is pretty upsetting – particularly in the light of his ‘secret discussions’ with James Cameron. I also wonder how well received his kid’s TV serious ‘The Governator’ will be seeing as it’s based around his image as a ‘family guy’. Maybe if they tweak the plot so he’s a sex addict by day instead then it has a better chance? If he ends up not starring in Expendables 2 then I’m going to cut my eyes out and force feed them to myself.

Many more women have now come out of the woodwork saying that Arnie cheated on Maria with them too. If these retards stop Arnie from fulfilling his film destiny then I’m going to roundhouse kick them in the face. Watch this space.

When I heard that Sly wasn’t making a 5^th Rambo AS PROMISED I spent the night hitting my head against a wall. Don’t worry – the wall was way more damaged that my head. Obviously though I was very distressed that there would be no more Rambo stories but the good news is that games developer Reef has bought the rights to the film to create what it says will be a triple A title for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC (fuck of ‘Wii’!). There are no screenshots yet and it is uncertain whether this will be a remake of the film, of the prequels, or a whole new story. I’m hoping for the latter.

What we do know is that they are gunning for a 2012 release to coincide with Expendables 2. What a year, let’s hope that the world doesn’t end before then. We also know that the developer has previously developed the titles ‘Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre’ and ‘Sniper Elite’. No, I don’t think anyone has heard of those games…

If you read this site regularly then chances are that you’re not doing a degree in film studies. You are a man of simple pleasures. You like explosions, cars and property damage. So what could be better than property damage caused by cars that result in explosions? You’re at the right place m’man – welcome to 80s Action. But where to start when it comes to cars driving into things? I understand your plight – to make life easier I’ve compiled a list of the top 5 ‘cars going through walls’ scene.

5 The A-Team

So the new A-Team isn’t an all time classic by any means, but it does have an all-time-classic ‘car through the wall scene’. In it they’re about to break Murdock out of an insane asylum. To do this they drive their infamous armored truck through the prison wall – but not before creating a scenario in which the prisoners are all watching a video projected on the wall of the same truck driving at them. Like the best 3D ever. I’m thinking though that the amount of planning that would have gone into this and timing would have been insane. Ironic…

4 Tango and Cash

Maybe I’m biased because I absolutely love this film. However what’s not to love about Stallone and Kurt Russel driving at complex in an armored tank-car that’s essentially the batmobile while firing machine guns out the side of it?

3 Over the Top

The reason I love the ‘drive into the building’ in this one is because it’s done in a truck that looks exactly like Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime but with a pulley machine rigged up by the chair (awesome). Further there is actually some emotional investment in the vehicle in this one because it’s Stallone’s livelihood in the film (you love the truck tonnes more than his shit kid). It also helps that you really hate the bad guy in this one and that Stallone is driving into his mansion and mashing it all up in the process. Take property damage dickhead!

2 Police Story 1

Jackie Chan is essentially an insane man child who has been given the finances to blow up tonnes of shit running through it. It also helps that he lives in China where the laws are somewhat more lax and where he is king. He has the best job in the world essentially. So in Police Story Chan doesn’t settle for ramming his vehicle into the wall of a building. Instead he decides to drive all the way through an entire shanty village ploughing through about 20 homes as he does. I’m pretty sure that people lived there. If you ever see Jackie Chan doing a location scout in your area – sell your property immediately. Absolutely epic.

1 Terminator 1

Three words: ‘I’ll be back’. One of the most immortal moments in film history. Every time I say ‘I’ll be back’ to anyone it’s hard not drive my car into their fucking house. That would lose me friends though. This is definitely where ‘BRB’ originated.

I end on an unrelated picture of Teri Hatcher from Tango and Cash. It’s my website so I can do what I like.

Duke Nukem Forever Review

There are two reasons I’m reviewing Duke Nukem Forever – a game released in 2011 – on a website about films from the 80s. The first is that Duke is the ultimate homage to 80s action and is a computerized send off of Stallone and Arnie back in the day. Big guns, big cigars and mental triceps. This is helped by the slew of quotes from films from these great men – ‘Killing you is as easy as breathing’, ‘If it bleeds, I can kill it’, ‘Did I promise to kill you last? I lied!’. Brilliant. And in fact this game pretty much almost was made in the 80s, or at least in the mid 90s – it’s been 14 years in production.

Then there’s the fact that everyone else who’s reviewed this game seems to be a complete PRICK. It’s had the worst reviews ever from what I can tell – hardly seems to matter as it went straight to the number 1 spot – but it’s really starting to piss me off! So I came out of my 80s action hiatus just to set the record straight. This way at least 5 people who read this site will know that Duke in actual fact ROCKS just as hard as he did the first time around.

The Pros

The reviews I’ve read seem to just be vindictive or written by girly men. I’m not just being biased here, but I genuinely don’t know what they’re whining about (QUIT WHINING!). They say that the shooting mechanics are clunky for instance and yet I’d argue this is the most fun you can have with your hands. Full stop (there was already a full stop there but now I’ve written it again to reiterate). You can strafe to avoid bullets just like you could in the hey-day of shooters which makes it feel cool and skilful. Everything explodes which makes you feel awesome and unstoppable (shooting explosive crates never gets old) and the boss battles (against HUGE bosses) feel tense and exciting. I’ve not been so into a gun fight in a computer game for a long time. And it’s HARD, but that’s a good thing. It takes actual skill and balls and that’s why it’s so tense. It’s like Ninja Gaiden – old school reactions killing.

So the shooting is awesome which is just as well as it’s the bulk of the game. If it was just for that I’d be as happy as a pig in shit, but what makes the game really awesome is how varied it is and how much effort has gone into it. Even Halo got boring from time to time after you’d emptied every room of bad guys, but Duke isn’t like that – every two minutes something completely different is happening. You’re being shrunk down and jumping across a roulette table, you’re climbing scaffolding, you’re controlling a wrecking ball, you’re looking for petrol in a desert, you’re climbing tentacles of some huge unseen monster, or you’re looking for a vibrator (genuinely). There’s so much variation that nothing ever gets dull and you’re constantly impressed and wanting to see what comes next.

And everything is interactive too – by the way. You can bench press, pick up and throw shit (which causes Duke to start begging you to stop), you can sign autographs (and by sign autographs, of course I mean draw cocks), play basket ball, play snooker… the list goes on. Or you can do your own stuff and start throwing dumbbells through the basket ball hoop. And you actually get rewarded for these mini games too increasing your ‘ego’ (which is your health bar). It’s awesome that gunfire just hurts Duke’s ego. It’s like they uploaded Chuck Norris into the game.

Downsides

Of course I’m not blinded by love enough to not realise the couple of downsides and there are one or two. For instance Duke has to hide to let his ego recharge which is a bit frustrating – this is them trying to learn from modern shooters and taking away from some of the old school charm. But at the same time it annoys me that reviewers whine about this and then whine that the shooting isn’t modern enough – what do you want?

And the loading times are pretty shit I’ll give you that. But to be honest, just don’t be so shit at games and die so often and it won’t be a problem. This isn’t as bad as the recent Sonic the Hedgehog game or anything.

And apparently the graphics aren’t that good either. Apparently. I mean sure it’s not Crysis 2, but seeing as this game was dropped around 2009 it holds up pretty well. I’ve heard reports of bugs too but I’d actually say in this case that Crysis 2 is more buggy. It honestly just seems like critics are wankers and have it in for this game for some reason. Honestly try it before you take their criticisms too seriously – it’s brilliant fun.

There are a couple of reasons the reviews might be bad. One could be that they don’t love the 80s in which case – go home. Another could be that they’re let down after 14 years of development but honestly I couldn’t have expected that much more from the game. A game where you can interact with literally everything even 10 hours into the game (most shooters these days last a fraction of the time of Duke too) is justified in taking a little long – and the other problems were caused by 3D Realms going bust.

Then there’s the fact that Duke is pretty offensive. And it is pretty offensive. You have to shoot these women who are naked and being impregnated by aliens and crying, and you can slap boobies to which Duke says ‘Got Milk?’, and in the multi player there’s a game mode called ‘capture the babe’ where you have to capture a babe and then slap her to stop her kicking off about it. But the fact that it’s pissing people off and getting people talking is actually kind of brilliant. Surely that was kind of the point of Duke 3D (not so much the AWESOME Duke 1 and 2 which I think only I remember). And it’s pushing boundaries which is always a good thing. Come on guys, just lighten up…

Conclusion

So despite not being technically the most high-end game, this is still the most fun game out there until Ninja Gaiden 3. I genuinely can’t understand what all the wanker critics are moaning about (and since when did game critics start taking themselves so seriously anyway??). If the game wasn’t fun, then I could understand them reviewing it badly, but it is really fun. More fun than Halo and I really enjoyed that. And it’s not offensive – it’s hilarious and all the more so because people are finding it hilarious. To them I say: shut up! To you I say give it a go and I think you’ll genuinely have a blast. And if it sells out massively then that acts as a middle finger to the press and to the angry liberal groups and parents (tip: it says 18 on it).

A+

Arnie may be stepping down as Govenor, but his role it seems is to be immortalised forever in the pages of a new comic book as well as in a new cartoon both titled ‘The Governator’.

Arnie has already had a few stints in the cartoon world, but this time it will be far more inspired by the real Arnie. After retiring from Govenor he develops a secret base under his house and starts fighting crime – this stuff should be on the biography channel! Brilliantly he will be fighting a terrorist organisation called the ‘Gangsters, Imposters, Racketeers, Liars and Irredeemable Ex-cons’ AKA ‘The G.I.R.L.I.E. Men’. You couldn’t make this shit up…

Not cool enough yet? How about the fact that it’s produced than none other than Stan Lee – who brought us Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four. If there was ever a recipe for success then it was this (or my cottage pie recipe). And finally children will have someone who’s not a pansy to look up to (Ben Ten? Ben Twat more like!). Hopefully this results in a future generation all with the arms and philosophies of Arnie himself. This will be known as ‘the golden age’.

First Jackie Chan isn’t dead and then this! It’s been a good week. Of course check back to 80s Action for the latest on The Governator comic and cartoon. Including an inevitable review.