Check this out: it would be called Maximum Extreme 2, and be about Max Crawford, Extreme Ops Specialist. You see, Max is an ex-CIA man who gets hired by the government to stop some terrorists who want to blow up a major city for some reason. He's been brought in to deal with the problem because none of the CIA's other agents are tough enough for the job. Before Max was kicked out of the CIA, he was kicked out of the FBI...and before that, the Navy SEALS. Of course, THAT was after he'd already been thrown out of the Green Berets, the NYPD, the Ohio State Police, the Orange County Florida Sheriffs Department, The Mayberry Police, and the Mall of America Security Team.
Played by Vin Diesel, Max is a rebel, a loose cannon. He's is simply too EXTREME to follow the rules of legitimate security agencies. He's insanely violent, destructive, and quick to take action -- EXTREME action. Max always makes his entrance using some unusual form of transport, and shattering glass and fireballs shooting into the sky are his calling cards. "Where's that damn Crawford?" shouts Max's CIA contact (played by Carl Weathers) at a briefing. Then, on cue, Max crashes in through a window with a parachute, hang glider, jet ski, snowboard, rocket pack, or whatever else you can imagine. He's a well-oiled mechanical bull in a wussy china shop.
But Max also knows how to party. He makes the occasional wisecrack, and also gets the ladies...lots of them. Our hero's displays of destructive bad assery are separated by his steamy interactions with hot chicks of all varieties. And speaking of chicks, in Maximum Extreme 2, all women would constantly be wearing bikinis or lingerie for some reason. Even Max's sassy CIA partner, played by Scarlett Johansson, would have her badge pinned to the top of her "swimsuit".
This film would feature more explosions than any other movie ever made; it would have a higher body count than all four Rambo pictures combined; and the crunchy heavy metal guitars would never let up. The whole thing would end with a fistfight in the rain on the White House roof between Max and his terrorist enemy, Snakeface, who would be played by The Rock.
In a world where there were hot chicks, crazy terrorists, and all kinds of other awesome things going on, ONE MAN had the CAJONES to blow it all up. He's Max Crawford, and he's about to kick some butt!
Maximum Extreme 2! This movie is so cool, we skipped the original, and went right to the sequel.
Anyway, speaking of action movies, I have one for you today: Domino, starring the always enchanting British actress, Keira Knightley. It's almost as stupid as my idea, but MY picture has way more explosions. Enjoy.
Domino (2005)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421054/
"Tony Scott pilots an intriguing action thriller based on the life of Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley), the offspring of actor Laurence Harvey and model Pauline Stone. Blessed with her mother's beautiful face, Domino eschews a career in the fashion industry for a life as a bounty hunter. The film's all-star supporting cast includes Mena Suvari, Lucy Liu, Christopher Walken, Macy Gray, Dabney Coleman and Brian Austin Green."
OK, so Domino is about this rich girl who becomes a bounty hunter in Los Angeles. She goes on to get a reality show and take part in a huge drug deal that brings down a high rolling crime boss. As the film opens, we're told that Domino is "a true story...sort of." Nonsense. The character of Domino Harvey may have been real, but the rest of this movie is obviously pure fiction. And you don't need to dial up the boys at Wikipedia to figure that out, either -- the plot here gets far too ridiculous to be true. Casinos are blown up, 100 pound girls beat up muscle-bound gangsters, and Ian Ziering has work. In short, the whole story is way, waaaaaay over-the-top.
And so is the production. This movie can be hard to follow, with extremely fast cutting, shaky camera views with multiple filters, and trippy flashbacks and overdubs on a near constant basis. Domino was clearly intended to be a sort of experiment by director Tony Scott to find out just how far he could go with the genre (if you've seen Scott's Man on Fire, imagine that multiplied by ten). As I seem to recall someone else writing, this film feels like it was directed and edited by a schizophrenic on psychedelic mushrooms.
As the plot (and everything else) gets more ridiculous, we start to wonder if Domino is supposed to be an action film or a comedy. I mean, I love Ms. Knightley, but seeing such a dainty English rose acting like a street thug is a bit silly. She throws herself into the part, which is admirable, but it's all just too hard to swallow. Scott could have corrected this by cutting down on the voice-overs, and maybe throwing in just a little slapstickish humor, but he didn't. Instead, he seems determined to push this concept to its outermost limits with no compromises, and the whole thing is just...too darn extreme.
Still, this is undeniably a UNIQUE production -- a bright, near-brilliant, experiment in the next level of action filmmaking. Keira is hot, Mickey Rourke is cool, and there are some laughs. You'll walk away feeling a little drunk...but once the trauma wears off, you'll probably remember this one for a long time. Domino isn't good, but it's worth watching.
3 out of 5.
b.
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