What more needs to be said about a state-of-the-art actioner like Bullet Train? It's everything (young and old) action fans hope for, probably by fiat. A little something for everyone: a little girl like the one from Kick-Ass, one of the stars of aforementioned Kick-Ass... and apparently losing a chunk of his hand was ultimately totally worth it. (sue anyway!) We've got people improbably surviving a train crash ... sorry, SPOILER ALERT. We got people getting back on the moving train.. sorry, MORE SPOILER ALERTS. I mean, that one dates all the way back to Under Siege 2, maybe even earlier. I suppose the only two things that aren't worn-out old clichés at this point... okay, three, is 1) a headache-inducing back story, 2) this one sequence where the "twin" assassins look in the camera and count off the dead bodies from an earlier episode, and 3) Brad Pitt finding himself in the midst of all this huge, huge mess. But hey, a #1 hit is a #1 hit. You got a few of those left yet, my friend! As Roger Ebert used to complain about as a young man and film critic, there are no small details. I guess it was more glaring in his heyday or something. No small details here, but surprisingly, we do get the occasional spot for a deep breath! And of course, family. It's all about family in this headache-inducing, extremely layered story of revenge. And maybe I'm just a jaded old coot, but when I found out who the arch villain was... really? Him? Well, he is the new General Zod, I'll give him that.
So once again I'll have to defer to other experts as to the extent and completeness of Bullet Train's Kitchen Sink approach. It does feature a Japanese smart-toilet, after all. But here's one detail I'd like to hammer away at, since this is my own special space in the world to do it: this Herbrand Universe includes a poisonous snake. Not just any poisonous snake, of course, but one called a "Boomslang." A single species of the Dispholidus genus, found only in tropical and southern Africa, is the most dangerous member of the Colubridae family. The name probably comes from one of those misunderstandings, like how the word "kangaroo" is apparently the Aboriginal phrase for "What did he say?" Now... forgive me... Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Please forgive me. I do just hate to make mistakes like that. Also, there's apparently been some activity in the Dispholidus genus since the time of the publishing of the book I'm working from. Well, first of all... there's no trivia information about the snake yet, of course. Hollywood has a very long history indeed of exploiting poisonous snakes... okay, this one's pretty good. Now, I don't know what kind of primadonna stunt snake they used in lieu of a Boomslang, but from what little I do know of the Boomslang... it's green, right? I mean, look at this thing! It's... I SAID, LOOK UPON IT. Sorry, sorry... room for growth. Kinda looks like if a snake had a frog's eyes or something! Okay, now here's a still from the movie... a little bit different, right? Now, they don't have a still of it, but at one point, the snake bares it fangs for all to see... the movie moves so fast, but I'm sure it happened at exactly the right moment. Now, I defer again to my text. It's from the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and it's called "Poisonous Snakes of the World"...
Maxillary teeth: A series of 7-8 small subequal teeth followed, after a short interspace, by 3 very long grooved fangs.
In other words, if it did the same pose, it wouldn't look like Bugs Bunny as a poisonous snake. But what do you expect from Hollywood? The snake in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is supposed to be a black mamba... okay, pretty close. Alas, no trivia information is available to the general public on that one. Looks more grey to me, really! And the one in the briefcase looked a little green, but... hey, you know how hard it is to de-fang one of these things? And they can still be a menace! Then of course, you've got something like one of my childhood favorites, the 1972 classic Frogs. They actually used to show this one on TV! No kidding! And even though the film takes place in Florida, South American lizards and toads, probably amongst others, were brought in as extras, so to speak. Alas, a film like this one will probably never be made again. The closest we'll get is Evan Almighty. For more information, be sure to visit the IMDb key word "Poisonous Snake." The only ones on that list I've seen are Mud... totally forgot there was a snake in it. And of course, the 1981 classic Venom, but that was just on VHS. You won't find Kill Bill: Vol. 2 on that list because, as of this writing, there's a world of difference between "poisonous snake" and key words like "bitten by snake," "death by snakebite" and "murdered by snakebite." Who knew? But in the end, there's just something special about the poison of the "boomslang"... um, better watch the movie to hear about that. I mean, any fool could go with taipan poison, or any of the six hundred snakes on this Wikipedia list. Spoiler alert: NO BOOMSLANG!!! Oh, damn it, just remembered. Michael Douglas kills a bushmaster in Romancing the Stone. And so, Hollywood's romance with poisonous snakes goes on with Bullet Train. What poisonous reptile will be next? Maybe the Gila Monster will make a comeback! It's very overdue as far as I'm concerned. It's been a long time since The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The Sundance Kid also shot one in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Whelp, that's about all the damage I can do at this point. Three stars out of four.
***
-so sayeth The Reptile Hooligan
.jpg){kind=link}
No comments:
Post a Comment