A former US Federal Agent must abandon the witness protection program and come out of hiding when his London home is invaded in error due to a wrong address. When the event ends with multiple homicides, the news triggers those hunting him to send Europe's most dangerous assassin to kill him. Now on the run with his daughter's life in jeopardy, a determined father must get her to safety before the people he's been hiding from track him down.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life may be an improvement on its 2001 predecessor, but its appeal is mostly aimed at fans of the video games that inspired both movies. That pretty much leaves you with some fun but familiar action sequences, and the ever-alluring sight of Angelina Jolie (reprising her title role) as she swims, swings, kicks, shoots, flies, jet-skis, motorcycles, and free-falls her way toward saving the world, this time by making sure that a grimacing villain (Ciaran Hinds) doesn't open Pandora's Box (yes, the actual mythological object) and unleash a deadly plague that will "weed out" the global population. Exotic locations add to Jolie's own coolly erotic appeal, but we're left wondering if this franchise has anywhere else to go. --Jeff Shannon
lock stock ...& four stolen hooves (pilot movie): Four mates Bacon Jamie Lee and Moon get on the wrong side of neighbourhood porn king 'Miami Vice' by getting their hands on his shipment of porn and a rare 'erotic timepiece' and then by accidentally stealing his prize racehorse 'Sherbet'. lock stock ...& 200 smoking kalashnikovs: The lads get stung by a scam known as the 'Limehouse Lag'. Meanwhile Miami is doning some problem solving of his own with the aid of
Angelina Jolie returns as archaeologist and explorer extraordinaire Lara Croft who has to journey to a sunken underwater temple that leads to a sphere containing the mythical Pandora's Box.
Exiled to a video-only release when its distributor balked after the flop of Jean-Claude Van Damme's previous film Knock Off, this lavish adventure deserved a chance at theatrical success. Action icon Van Damme recasts himself as a tragic romantic hero in this entertaining old-fashioned adventure with a modern sensibility. "The Muscles from Brussels" is no Brando, but he acquits himself nicely as a cocky boxer who double-crosses a Marseilles mobster and joins the French Foreign Legion when his half-baked plan backfires with tragic consequences. Surrounded by a better than usual cast (including Steven Berkoff as a Teutonic drill sergeant, Jim Carter as the ruthless ganglord, and Nicholas Farrell as a gentleman soldier with a taste for gambling and a dark past), Van Damme's dour performance sometimes gets lost in the colourful characters around him. But that's okay--there's adventure enough to go around and he's willing to share it. The Marseilles scenes evoke a quaint movie past with their smoky bars and shadowy streets, but the film is reborn as an ambitious, stoic platoon drama in the sands of French Morocco. Legionnaire alludes to classic films from Beau Geste to Casablanca to Lawrence of Arabia, but ultimately marches its own macho course, revelling in testosterone-driven heroics and bonding-under-fire while acknowledging the irony of its colonial mission ("We're the intruders", realises one soldier). It's a calculated risk for Van Damme (who also co-wrote and co-produced), but if Legionnaire never quite grasps the epic scope it's reaching for, it remains one of his best films, an handsome, exciting and surprisingly grim desert adventure. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
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