Sylvester Stallone

[7] Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas play rival assassins stealing each others’ contracts. When Stallone discovers the mysterious contractor has hired Banderas to take him out, he teams with a hacker and would-be target (Julianne Moore) to gain the upper hand. This cat-and-mouse thriller is surprisingly more subdued and character-oriented than you might expect from a mid-90s action movie. Stallone gives one of his best …

[6] It’s weird that we now live in a time when a studio is willing to make the same movie twice, only a few years apart and call it by the same title. But here’s DC’s The Suicide Squad… again. This time it’s written and directed by James Gunn, who brought Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy to life in a fun and heartfelt way. With …

[3] Sylvester Stallone tries to save a group of people trapped in a collapsed New York tunnel in this actioner from director Rob Cohen (Dragonheart, The Fast and the Furious). Daylight is a throwback to Irwin Allen disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, with the motley group of survivors battling shaky ground, rolling flames, and gushing water — not to mention …

[6] Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight) directs Sylvester Stallone in this serviceable, high altitude actioner about a mountain rescue team that gets embroiled with deadly thieves searching for money they’ve lost in the snow-topped Rockies during an airplane heist. Janine Turner (Northern Exposure) and Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) play Stallone’s estranged team members, both bitter at him …

[3] John Travolta returns under the curious direction of Sylvester Stallone for this sequel to the mega-hit Saturday Night Fever. But whereas Saturday Night Fever was a sincere story about a young man with big dreams and lessons to learn, Staying Alive is just a plodding procedural love-triangle that climaxes in an over-the-top music number of camp proportions. Travolta’s Tony Manero character seems to have …

[5] First Blood is a terrific action movie because, as absurd as it gets toward its conclusion, it’s rooted in solid drama and with great verisimilitude. This sequel, cowritten by Sylvester Stallone and James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar), and directed by George Cosmotos (Tombstone, Leviathan), lacks that sincerity or realism. It’s much more of a comic-book superhero movie, complete with a leading hero who looks more …

[7] Everyone in front of and behind the camera is back for another go-round in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, a fun time at the movies, even if it falls a tad short of the first film‘s humor and character engagement. This installment focuses around the sudden appearance and identification of Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) father, played by the always-welcome Kurt Russell. Dad reveals …

[8] Spoiler Review! Sylvester Stallone further cemented his action super-star status with this smart, character-driven thriller about a former Green Beret suffering from post-traumatic stress who gets bullied by a small mountain-town sheriff and his deputies. When the soldier finally defends himself, the police force him into an all-out war in the misty mountainside, where his special training helps him evade the law and stay …

[6] I know I’m being too kind to this over-produced piece of cheese, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it at least a little bit. It falls short of all previous installments primarily because the justification for fighting this time around is the weakest, and also because the drama is more forced. The Cold War very much influenced the American propaganda …

[7] Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) tries to slide into a normal life after the events of the first film, but Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) keeps insisting on a re-match. Rocky II follows closely enough to the narrative of the original movie to be annoying, and a pivotal moment where Adrian (Talia Shire) reverses an important opinion doesn’t sit well with me. But the characters are …

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