The Punisher (1989)

Comic book movies have been around for a long time, going all the way back to the Superman serials in the 1940s and 1950s. It seems like you can't go a few months nowadays without a high-profile movie based on a comic book being released. Most of them are awesome, but let's face it, there's been a lot of less-than-stellar comic book movies. Steel and Judge Dredd are prime examples. And the truth of the matter is that most bad comic movies have been based on Marvel properties. Before Blade and X-Men, Marvel had to deal with Captain America, a bad '70s TV-movie based on Doctor Strange, and a Fantastic Four movie produced by Roger Corman that has only seen the light of day through bootleggers at comic book conventions. And let's not forget the epic disaster that was Howard the Duck, which many consider one of the worst movies ever made. Another Marvel movie lost in the shuffle was The Punisher. While the Punisher movie released in 2004 was a modest hit, the one released in 1989 didn't get a theatrical release in America. Instead, it went directly to video, not stopping to pass "Go" or collect 200 dollars.

Frank Castle (Dolph Lundgren) was one of the finest police officers to ever wear a badge. Presumed dead after a Mafia-placed car bomb killed his wife and children, Castle has become a one-man army labeled "The Punisher." Living in the sewers as a shadowy vigilante, Castle is a killing machine responsible for the murder of 125 mobsters in the five years since the death of his family. With many of the families decimated by Castle, lead gangster Gianni Franco (Jeroen Krabbé) comes in to bring the separate families together as one unit. His plan soon attracts the attention of the Yakuza, Japan's most powerful crime syndicate, who decide to take over the interests of Franco's families. Yakuza boss Lady Tanaka (Kim Miyori) orders her troops to kidnap their children and gives the mobsters an ultimatum: let the Yakuza run the show, or the kids meet the business end of a Yakuza beating. Castle is informed of the mass kidnapping and stages a daring rescue that includes demolishing an underground casino, getting captured and tortured, and hopping on a bus and being chased by Yakuza thugs.

The rescue is successful, but Castle ends up getting caught and arrested. He's stuck in a maximum security prison, where he's interrogated by his former partner, Jake Burkowski (Louis Gossett Jr.). Jake's spent the better part of the past five years hunting for Castle, and isn't exactly happy that his friend is going to be convicted and sent to the electric chair. What's to stop his defense attorney from pleading not guilty via insanity? Ol' Frank watched the murder of his family, walks around naked in the sewers, suffers from extreme insomnia, and has morbid conversations with God about the morality of killing people. Throw in the fact that he's essentially a serial killer that targets mobsters, and the guy's got a big bucket of issues.

Luckily for Frank, he's intercepted by the Mafia while being transported to his arraignment hearing. Franco asks Castle to save his still-missing son from the Yakuza, but Frank not-so-subtly informs him that he's not interested in the business proposal. So Franco does what any good mobster does: he threatens to kill Jake if Castle doesn't play ball. Rather than let Jake die, Castle decides to kill two birds with one stone in a climax that settles the age-old debate of who would win in a fight: the Italian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, or the pissed-off Swede with the giant cache of machine guns?

The movie definitely has its ups and its downs. Dolph Lundgren is stellar as the Punisher, playing the role as a heartless psychopath that's completely detached from both society and reality. He had the look down, too. But in all honesty, I can't decide if he looked like a badass vigilante or a heroin junkie. (Or if he looks like a badass vigilante strung out on heroin.) Maybe if they'd given him a trenchcoat and let him wear the trademark Punisher skull, I could tell. But anyway, Dolph fits the role really well, and it's a shame the movie didn't hit American theaters. If he had, he'd have more than one role that he was known for. I thought Rocky IV was awesome, but I'm willing to bet that Dolph would want a little fame outside of one role. Then again, what would you rather have stuck on your résumé for the rest of eternity: Rocky IV or the Masters of the Universe movie?

Anyway, the supporting cast is also commendable, with the notable ones being Louis Gossett Jr. as the stereotypical "ex-partner who's the only one who knows what's going on" and Nancy Everhard as Jake's sidekick Sam. Kim Miyori plays her role as well as could be expected, but she wishes she were only half as cool as Lucy Liu in Kill Bill. Wait a second, an idea's forming. The Punisher: A Quentin Tarantino Film. Somebody call QT and see if he'd direct a Punisher movie, because I'd see it a zillion times.

The movie is severely lacking in the character development department, but with this style of movie, it doesn't matter. The movie is just a vehicle for Lundgren to be a big brooding tough guy that rarely speaks while he wreaks havoc on a major scale. Sure, the movie might be based on a comic book, but it's just the same as any other action movie from the 80s. Just take Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone out and replace them with Dolph Lundgren, and that's what you've got here. Everything from Mark Goldblatt's direction and Ian Baker's cinematography to Dennis Dreith's score are very typical for genre movies at the time. What separates The Punisher from movies like Commando and the Rambo trilogy is how cheap some of the sets look. The movie supposedly had a $10,000,000 budget, but I guess most of it went into buying guns and setting up the pyrotechnic effects, because the sets near the end of the movie look like they were made for fifty bucks to use on a public access TV show. But what can you expect? It's all getting blown up in the end, so who cares what it looks like?

Boaz Yakin's script also has some weird political commentary on the Japanese. We're supposed admire them because ninjas are cool, but we should hate them because they're coming in and usurping everything. The Yakuza come in and start displacing the mobsters, sort of like how everything in the 80s had that little "Made In Japan" sticker on them instead of "Made In The USA." Maybe this Boaz Yakin dude has something against Japan, or maybe it's just a weird coincidence. But it's an 80s action movie, so it doesn't have to be nice or make sense or anything like that. Besides, the Japanese goons in the movie aren't exactly physically intimidating, so Dolph has an extremely easy time killing them until they die.

Yes, folks, there is much havoc to be wreaked, bullets to be shot, stuff to be exploded, and bad guys to be killed. If you like that, this movie's for you. If not, you're not missing out on much. If you're looking for the definitive Punisher movie, go with the one from 2004. Two stars for this one.

Final Rating: **

Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004)

You've all heard my "horror movie sequel" spiel, probably enough times to make you sick. But horror movies and sequels are like peanut butter and jelly; they just go together naturally. Unfortunately, a great number of sequels don't advance the story, instead opting to recycle and rehash the previous movies in the series until it descends into self-parody. But the Ginger Snaps films are different, very different. The original, a modern day cult classic, is in my opinion one of the best werewolf films ever made. The sequel that followed, while not as good as its predecessor, was a respectable effort that advanced the previous film's story nicely. However, the producers of Ginger Snaps 3 decided not to follow up on the very intriguing ending of the second film, instead choosing to go in a completely different direction... a prequel?

Our story takes place in the snowy wilderness of western Canada, circa 1815. On the verge of starvation and freezing to death, orphaned siblings Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte Fitzgerald (Emily Perkins) are searching for shelter when they come across a decimated Indian village. Nobody's around, save for one old woman (Edna Rain), who cryptically tells them, "kill the boy, or one sister kills the other." The woman gives them a pair of distinctive necklaces and they leave the village, but Brigitte stumbles into a bear trap soon thereafter.

It isn't long before they're found and seemingly rescued by a mysterious Indian hunter (Nathaniel Arcand), who leads them to a nearly-empty trading fort exclusively populated by men. Under constant attack by wild beasts outside their walls and with their supplies dwindling, the men inside the camp are starting to go a wee bit stir crazy. Some have turned to drinking, others are insanely optimistic, and others follow the twisted view of God held by the misogynist/racist preacher Reverend Gilbert (Hugh Dillon).

Despite the protests of the fort's residents, the sisters are welcomed into the camp by their leader, Wallace Rowlands (Tom McCamus). Unfortunately for the girls, Wallace has a dark secret. His dark secret soon comes back with a (most literal) bite, and as in the first movie, Ginger gets infected with lycanthropy. The gang inside the fort soon start getting all cabin fever-y and begin staging a mutiny, and the Fitzgeralds leave the fort to seek help from the hunter and the old Indian woman. What happens there leads to a fiery climax that sees Brigitte forced to make a decision between her love for Ginger, and her own fear of death.

Seemingly taking inspiration from the Canadian Indian legends of the Wendigo, the film is quite different from its two predecessors. While the original Ginger Snaps is a clever allegory for the terrors of adolescence, and Ginger Snaps 2 is a werewolf-ized tale about drug addiction, Ginger Snaps Back is a gothic fairy tale. Its as if a Brothers Grimm story came to life. There are also some odd spots as well. Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins play the Fitzgerald sisters, as they do in the previous movies, yet they aren't the same. The Ginger and Brigitte seen here are familiar, yet new. It's a case of "The Fitzgeralds of Two Worlds."

On the plus side, the revamped Fitzgeralds and the new setting make things fresh and interesting. The script, written by Christina Ray and Stephen Massicotte, is intriguing, yet certain parts hold it back. I did enjoy the new take on the sisters's "together forever" pact from the first movie, and the fact that the sisters wear the same necklaces they did in the first Ginger Snaps. Unfortunately, while the various modern colloquialisms and profanities are funny, they pull the viewer out of the well-crafted environment. Yeah, I really doubt they dropped F-bombs in 19th-century Canada.

The script also suffers from having several very forgettable moments, but all in all, it makes for a very fun film, which is elevated by the fantastic acting. Just like in the previous movies, Isabelle and Perkins are the shining stars of Ginger Snaps Back, the two biggest highlights of the movie. The supporting cast is strong as well, but none of the characters are very likable. The woman-hating priest is the biggest victim of this, but just about every character (with the exception of the two Indians) had qualities that just made me not like them.

However, the movie benefits from wonderful direction and beautiful cinematography by director Grant Harvey and director of photography Michael Marshall. The costuming is also great (if all girls in 19th-century Canada are this cute, somebody point me in the direction of the Wayback Machine), and the gore effects by KNB EFX are outstanding. However, Alex Khaskin's score was almost non-existent. It's not a minimalist score... it just isn't there. That's a shame, because the first two movies had absolutely gorgeous scores that reveled in the melancholy nature of the series, yet this one is lacking that feel.

While I thought the movie was entertaining, it just wasn't the same as the prior two. That's not to say it wasn't good, but it didn't strike the same chord with me as the first two movies in the series did. Perhaps my problem is that I was wanting more of the same when I should have been expecting something different, I don't know. But all in all, even though it wasn't what I anticipated, I can't really complain. I'm a big fan of the Ginger Snaps saga, and the third part is no exception. Taking its flaws into consideration, I'll give Ginger Snaps Back three stars. It's a fun movie, but you might want to check out the original first.

Final Rating: ***

The Crow (1994)

Movies based on comic books are nothing new. Most of the time, the source material is well-known and cherished among comic readers. When you see Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, or X-Men, you automatically connect them to comics. But occasionally, a movie comes along that's based on a comic so underground, you probably didn't even know that the comic existed. Such was the case with The Crow.

Created by James O'Barr in 1989 as a way to cope with the death of his girlfriend, The Crow is a tale of sorrow, revenge, and ultimately, a love that transcends death. An underground success in the comic world, the film adaptation became not only a cult classic among the Goth subculture, but also as a farewell to a promising young actor cut down before his prime.

We begin with some brief narration to set up the world we are about to enter. People believed that when someone dies, a crow would carry their soul to the afterlife. But sometimes, the soul carries a great sadness that refuses to let it be at peace. And in some rare instances, the crow will give the soul a new life, so that it may right a wrong.

With the exposition out of the way, we open in what looks like Detroit on October 30, known as "Devil's Night" because of the annual wanton acts of violence and arson that plague the city every Halloween Eve. Would-be rock star Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and his fiancée Shelly Webster (Sofia Shinas) plan to get married the next day, but four gang members break into their apartment and attack them. Eric is shot and thrown from a sixth-story window, while Shelly is brutally raped and beaten to death. Because of the senselessness of their deaths and the strength of their love, a mysterious crow resurrects Eric exactly one year later. With the crow as his guide, he exists as a shadowy avenger, refusing to rest in peace until he makes the four gang members and their leader (Michael Wincott) pay for their sins.

The Crow is the kind of movie you'd think would appeal solely to disillusioned teenagers that spend all day listening to Nine Inch Nails and looking like Robert Smith from The Cure, but many of the movie's underlying themes are universal. Love, death, and revenge are all things we can relate to in some form. While the "guy gets revenge for a loved one's murder" thing has been done in more movies than one can count, this one is a little bit different. For one thing, the hero is already dead. That's a pretty big deal, wouldn't you say?

But seriously, the most important difference is the movie's tone. Movies like The Punisher and Kill Bill: Volume 1 were all about the action. Stuff goes boom, people get killed, that's pretty much it. What separates The Crow from movies like that is the giant melancholy cloud that hangs over the movie. The movie is so sad, like someone made a movie about having their heart crapped on. It looks like it's just another slick action movie, but appearances can be deceiving. There's a lot of emotion under the surface: Sadness and heartache, anger, and an intense love that refuses to let the confines of death stand in its way.

The film's visual style is a testament to the hard work of director Alex Proyas and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski. The movie looks much like a mutant cross between comic books, rock videos, and 1940s film noir. With odd architecture and effective lighting, it's as if the work of Edgar Allen Poe jumped onto celluloid. And they've apparently done homework from other genres, because the shootout that concludes the second act looks like something from a John Woo movie. The soundtrack is also great, almost becoming a character of its own. The use of various songs enhances a lot of scenes, as does the score by Graeme Revell. Holy crap, is Revell's score awesome. It's just absolutely beautiful in its gloominess.

The script, written by David Schow and John Shirley, could have used a few touch-ups. The film is most effective when there's little to no dialogue, when it just lets the music and imagery tell the story. A lot can be communicated through just the soundtrack and an actor's expressions and movements, folks. It's also like they tried to lighten the movie a little bit with some comic relief, much of which just seemed forced and unnatural. Fortunately, that's barely a minor complaint, so it's no big deal.

Meanwhile, the acting is awesome. The late Brandon Lee is very obviously the highlight of the cast, conveying his character's varying emotions excellently. The part was extremely well written, and he makes it better. Lee shows a potential that makes his death much more sad, as he could have had an absolutely brilliant career had the accident that claimed his life not happened. Despite having a minor role in retrospect, Michael Wincott was fun as Top Dollar, the crime kingpin that ordered the deaths that set up the movie. Tony Todd (who appears as Top Dollar's sidekick Grange) is also fun to watch, but he's awesome in everything he's in. Also getting a thumbs-up from me are the actors who play the four thugs: David Patrick Kelly ("T-Bird"), Angel David ("Skank"), Laurence Mason ("Tin-Tin") and Michael Massee ("Funboy"). Each of them take the obviously one-dimensional characters and give them more depth than was scripted. Good job, guys.

My biggest complaint about the acting is the performances of Ernie Hudson (as Eric's police officer buddy Albrecht) and Rochelle Davis (as Eric's perpetually-bummed friend Sarah). I like Ernie Hudson, but not even he could save this stinker of a role. I don't have a problem with the character existing, but it's just so horribly written that Ernie can't help. And Rochelle Davis gives a wooden, stilted performance, but I can forgive that because she had no prior acting experience prior to The Crow.

As has been said in a few other reviews, The Crow could be called the comic book movie's answer to Hamlet. It's a grim, action-filled tragedy, and if you haven't seen it, you're missing out. The movie is astounding, and any flaws stumbled upon are forgivable. Sadly, there's also an unfortunately ironic subtext to the movie. For those of you who don't know, Brandon Lee was accidentally shot and killed by a malfunctioning prop gun while filming a scene with Michael Massee near the end of production. Lee's death was so profound, Rochelle Davis left acting permanently, and Crow creator James O'Barr gave every cent he earned from the movie to charities.

And in his death, he had many similarities with his character. Like his character, Lee was only days away from his own wedding when he died. And like his character, he seemingly returned from the grave a year later upon The Crow's release to score a hit movie. And like his legendary father Bruce, his life was cut short before his full potential could be realized. Brandon had "star in the making" written all over him. But if he had to go, fate couldn't have picked a better film to let him say goodbye. Five stars, for sure.

Final Rating: *****

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Zombie movies have always been one of horror's most popular sub-genres. George Romero's zombie movies are classics, and in recent years, DVD releases of those movies have been widely successful. The films of legendary Italian directors Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento are regarded with great esteem among diehard genre fans, and zombies have seen success in video games, with Resident Evil, House of the Dead, and Timesplitters being popular game franchises. When Fox Searchlight brought the British pseudo-zombie movie 28 Days Later to America in 2003, it was greeted with wide critical acclaim. Universal Pictures imported another zombie movie from England a year later, only this one was a little more lighthearted than 28 Days Later. Made by cast and crew members of the popular British TV show Spaced, Shaun of the Dead is a comedic homage to the zombie movies that preceded it, greeted with high praise from reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a 29-year-old loser, living a rather mundane existence as an unmotivated electronics store clerk. He isn't helped any when his fed-up girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), with a little nudging from her roommates Dianne (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran), dumps him for not changing his slacker ways. After a night of drowning his sorrows in Queen songs and several pints of alcohol with his slob of a best friend/roommate Ed (Nick Frost) at the Winchester, the local pub, Shaun wakes up the next morning and walks to a nearby convenience store, discovering that the normally busy streets outside his house are a wee less busy.

He returns home to find Ed staring out a window into the backyard. Ed informs Shaun of an apparently drunk woman standing in their garden, so they go outside to shoo her away. The woman tackles Shaun and tries to bite him, but when he pushes her off, she falls and gets spiked on a pole sticking up from the ground. That would usually hurt or even slightly annoy most normal people, but to the "drunk" lady, it's not a problem. She doesn't even notice. She just stands back up and starts shuffling in Shaun and Ed's direction.

They wisely retreat inside the house and try to call for help, but all of the phone lines are tied up. However, they soon discover the way to defend themselves when Ed kills a zombie that came in through the front door by bashing it in the head with an ashtray. Coupled with a news report moments later that says head wounds are the best way to dispose of the undead, our two zeros get a bright idea: Shaun and Ed grab their record collection and head outside, chucking records at the zombie lady and another one that's joined her in the backyard. Because when you think head wounds, you think vinyl records.

After some debate over which records should get broken and which ones shouldn't (do you throw the Purple Rain soundtrack or a Dire Straits album?), Shaun arms himself and Ed with a cricket bat and a shovel. Note to self: cricket bats are far more effective weapons than regular baseball bats. Shaun and Ed soon come up with a plan to get Liz and Shaun's mother (Penelope Wilton) away from the zombie horde. They put their plan into action, and with Shaun's mother, Liz, Dianne, and David in tow, they hole themselves up in the Winchester. Knowing that they can't survive in the Winchester forever, they soon try to find a way out without becoming food for the ever-growing number of undead or killing each other first.

You might be a little disappointed if you're expecting British horror along the lines of 28 Days Later or Dog Soldiers (an underrated British werewolf flick that was imported to American video store shelves and the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003). When a movie that comes right out and says it's a "Romantic Zombie Comedy," expecting anything else from it would be ill-advised. It's a romantic comedy in the midst of a zombie invasion, which is one of the most original cinematic concepts that I've heard in a while. The movie is both well-written and well-executed, and my only complaint is the humor. I didn't get some of the jokes in the movie, but most of the ones I didn't get were in-jokes for fans of Spaced to catch. Being an American that's never seen Spaced, I missed the humor behind those. But those were a minuscule part of the comedy, as all the jokes worked on some level.

That extremely minor complaint aside, the movie is great all the way through. I haven't seen a movie balance horror and comedy this well since the original Return of the Living Dead, and that's saying something. Return of the Living Dead is a really good movie, but Shaun of the Dead just may be better. The cast is enjoyable, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost being the definite standouts. Helping the cast is a hilarious script (co-written by Pegg and Edgar Wright), and for the horror moments of this horror/comedy, the score composed by Daniel Munford and Pete Woodhead is very engaging. Throw in the stellar use of songs by Queen and The Smiths, along with various techno songs and music from the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead, and the whole soundtrack is superb.

I'm just sad that Shaun of the Dead didn't get a wider theatrical release, because it could have gone from a surefire cult classic to a surefire blockbuster. It's a romantic comedy that horror fans can enjoy, and a horror movie fans of romantic comedies can enjoy, and that eclectic combination makes one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a long time. For that, Shaun of the Dead gets four and a half stars.

Final Rating: ****

Walking Tall (2004)

Back in the mid-1960s, one of the most crime-ridden places in the United States was McNairy County, Tennessee. It was overrun with corrupt police, violence, drugs, and organized crime rings. A former professional wrestler and football player named Buford Pusser was elected sheriff of McNairy County in 1964, and began to enforce and uphold the law. He took Theodore Roosevelt's quote "walk tall and carry a big stick" to heart, and with a large oak club as his weapon of choice, he cleaned up the county for six years before ending his term as sheriff in 1970.

Sheriff Pusser faced numerous death threats and assassination attempts, one of which led to the murder of his wife, before he died in a car accident in 1974. While it was ruled that Pusser simply veered off the road and crashed, it's believed by many that his accident was intentional, that he was ran off the road on purpose by someone holding a grudge against him. Regardless of the circumstances of his death, Pusser's story became so well-known that it inspired Joe Don Baker's 1973 film Walking Tall, a movie that itself inspired an extremely shortlived television show and two sequels starring Bo Svenson. The story of Buford Pusser has become a modern tall tale, and twenty-one years after the original film's release, the story was retold starring another former football player and professional wrestler.

Chris Vaughn (The Rock) is a retired Army Special Forces member returning home to rural Kitsap County, Washington. However, he soon discovers that the town is not as he left it. The local lumber mill has been shut down and replaced with a casino, Chris's little brother Pete (Khleo Thomas) has started doing drugs, his high school sweetheart Deni (Ashley Scott) is a stripper, and the crooked police are controlled by the casino's owner and one-time friend of Chris's, Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough). Chris reunites with some old friends to celebrate his homecoming at the casino, but after raising a stink when he discovers the craps table is using loaded dice, he ends up catching a beatdown from some of Hamilton's goons. Instead of the regular beatdown where a guy gets roughed up and thrown into the street, the goons zap him with a stun gun and carve up his chest with a box cutter before dumping him in the middle of nowhere and leaving him for dead.

Chris eventually recovers, but gets some bad news when he learns Pete has been hospitalized, thanks to a near-overdose on crystal meth. Chris finds out Pete bought the meth at the casino, and he turns from mild-mannered Bill Bixby to giant green guy Lou Ferrigno. Okay, so he didn't turn into the Incredible Hulk, but he does gets mad as hell and he isn't gonna take it anymore. Armed with a cedar two-by-four, Chris clears out the casino and lays waste to the gang that attacked him. He gets arrested for and acquitted of assault charges, and promises to clean up the city. He successfully runs for sheriff, and fires the entire police squad before hiring his longtime friend, convicted felon Ray Templeton (Johnny Knoxville), as the one-and-only deputy. Because when you think of hard-working law enforcement, you think of the Jackass ringleader. Keeping the cedar two-by-four on his truck's gun rack as an "equalizer," Chris essentially becomes a vigilante with a badge as he and Ray begin to bring down Hamilton's drug/crime ring, no matter how unorthodox the means.

Walking Tall is an all-out action movie, and it carries that label as a badge of honor. It really serves no other purpose than as a way to spend 85 minutes watching The Rock crack some skulls with a big tree branch while Johnny Knoxville serves as comic relief. The film is anemic on plot and heavy on action. I haven't seen Joe Don Baker's Walking Tall movies, so I can't compare them to Rock's Walking Tall, but the remake is essentially "Rock no like, Rock smash!" The Chris Vaughn character is already a man's man the second the movie starts. He obviously doesn't take any crap from anybody, instead of being a regular guy like the real Buford Pusser. The movie basically shows us that The Rock can easily transition from the choreographed fighting of professional wrestling to the choreographed fighting of Hollywood action movies. While Walking Tall hits all of the necessary plot points, the characters have no real backgrounds or development. The movie should have been at least 30 minutes longer to fill out those necessary plot points. At a very short 85 minutes (or just about 75 minutes if you don't count the end credits), the movie feels like it had to be cut and squeezed into its PG-13 rating, and that didn't help it at all.

With the exception of The Rock and Johnny Knoxville, the bulk of movie's cast is very forgettable. The producers could have cast any random person that walked into an audition, and it wouldn't have mattered. None of the characters are very interesting. I didn't care about any of them or really feel anything for them. I'm quicker to lay blame on the lacking script than the acting, since most of the cast tried hard but couldn't really do anything here. I must say, though, that The Rock and Knoxville are both good here. With this being his third major film role, Rock's acting skills have drastically improved, and Knoxville proved to me that there's more to him than Jackass. The fight scenes here are more realistic than other action movies, which is a definite plus, and I applaud the film's stunt crew.

But other than The Rock, Knoxville, and the stunts, there's really nothing I can say about Walking Tall other than despite bring another brainless action movie, it's still fun and engaging. I don't know how proud Buford Pusser would be of the new Walking Tall, but if he liked movies with non-stop action and not much else, he'd approve. Myself, I give it two and a half stars. That sounds about right to me.

Final Rating: **½