BRICK MANSIONS

THE JUDGE SAYS: This movie really crashed and burned, just like… well, just as you likely expected.

Hollywood is so sort on original films that they’re remaking mid-00’s French parkour movies. The second lead, “Kermit the Gymnast,” actually made this exact same movie six years ago, called D13:U. Oh, and in case you didn’t know, I call him Kermit, because he is French. The only English he knows is fully comprised within his seven lines through the entire movie. I know this because I actually watched the extra features. They’re all subtitles. Anyway, there is one notable difference in this film, they thoroughly expanded on the narrative that “ducking” is the most effective technique when fighting dozens of bad guys with guns.  Now, if you’re thinking that concept is absurd, oh boy will you feel stupid after watching this movie. They prove, over a dozen times, that in order to avoid imminent death when facing a small army of armed gangsters, all one needs to do is, share an assuring glance with their partner, duck, and run away. It’s an amazing technique. My only guess as to why films haven’t emphasized this move before is probably because it’s utterly ridiculous. 

But let’s go big picture. What are we saving the world from today? Now, say it in a scary voice: Predatory Condo Developers! AHHHHH!... No, but seriously, the bad buys want to take over the projects and put up beautiful apartments, parks, and high-end stores. So, how would you say one might go about this endeavor? If your first guess was the secret bad guys are the mayor and a lowly detective, and they would advertently place an activated neutron bomb in the hands of the projects’ drug kingpin, then, ding, ding, ding. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! That is what we are working with here. Even though their objective is rather bland, I do have to give them points for the preposterous manner in which they plan to achieve it.

Moving forward, in a way, what initially was beyond peculiar, somewhat makes sense. The bad guys actually want the ticking bomb to go off, so they only send in one-single-solitary-lone-cop, a parkoury Paul Walker, to stop a neutron bomb from going off in a major metropolitan city. You as the viewer, whom are still lead to believe that the drug kingpin is the real bad guy (probably due to seeing him callously murder several underlings), may be sitting there saying, “No fucking way! A neutron bomb is about to be go off in an American city and they don’t even as much pick up the phone to call the F.B.I.? A bomb squad? No one?” Well, once that happens, you can officially check out from any rational thought. From this point forward, any predictions you may try to make are based off multiple wholly implausible premises.

Ok, I’ll back up for a second; harping on logic in action movies might seem a bit unnecessary.  You know what else was unnecessary? Kermit the Frog’s shirt. Kermit, the second lead, the more parkourish of the two, rarely, if ever wears a shirt. They never really dignified it with a reason. Dude just never wore a shirt. You know what else they never acknowledged? Kermit’s girlfriend worked at the local mom and pop diner wearing a tiny catholic school girl’s outfit. A grown-ass-woman waitress at a mom and pop diner wears a Britney Spears costume to work? I’ll let it slide because of the chick fight later, but seriously, were we just supposed to go, “Sure, that makes sense.” The bad girl who she inevitably rolls around on the floor with in a sweaty mess, wasn’t any better. The bad girl was wearing a bra, underwear, and sporadic fishnets. My guess is Emma Watson turned down the role.

So, back to the bomb. It takes about 20 minutes of Paul Walker and Kermit literally butting heads and getting in car chases before they realize they should be on the same team. Now that they are buddy’s, and we the viewer have watched about seven fight scenes and four chase scenes, guess what their awesome plan is to infiltrate the kingpins lair and disarm the bomb? You guessed it, they walk through the front door, unarmed, and try to ask him nicely. Whats that you say? That is incomprehensible? Well you would be right. There wasn’t even an elaborate “ducking and running” scene. Even though the kingpin has been furious with these two, and has ordered their death on several occasions, now he simply tells one thoroughly mentally challenged goon to take them to the basement. He didn’t even tie them up. This actually happened. Fortunately after this wise decision, we get what we wanted, another elaborate unarmed “ducking and running” scene.

While all of this ducking and running is going on, our kingpin, oh my God, I forgot to tell you, the kingpin is RZA. Yeah, that RZA, from Wu-Tang. Holy shit, at one point, while espousing to his henchmen he even says, “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.”… Sadness overtakes you. The Old Dirty Bastard must have rolled over in his grave. Now that we understand the levels of depravity they were willing to sink to in this movie, let’s continue with what the kingpin was doing while Walker and Kermit were doing their ducking thing. So, the RZA was demanding $30 million from the mayor (remember, the mayor is a bad guy). The mayor says, oh sure, no problem, I’ll send the money to your Hawaii accounts. What? Hawaii accounts? Holy shit, they don’t understand the concept of an off shore account.

This is where it gets super foggy. RZA and the bad girl eventually threaten to strap the bomb to a missile and shoot it over to the nice part of town, because, well, fuck those rich people. This is actually a legitimate threat. Good job Rza. Oh my, the ending of this is such a mess, this is going to be a daunting task to break down practically.  Ok, RZA makes his threat expecting to get paid. He agrees to turn off the bomb once his “Hawaiian Accounts” show that the money has been transferred. Fast forward, the money never transfers, the mayor actually just stole all of the money that was in RZA’s accounts. Understandably, RZA is none too pleased, but now, this man who sells hundreds of kilos of drugs, and has coldheartedly kills several of his own henchmen, he now becomes the moral compass of the film. He tells the bad girl, the one wearing a bra, underwear, and fishnets, that he is going to disarm the bomb because he doesn’t need people to die for no reason. He just wanted to get paid, because, “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.” Just when I lose faith in him, he goes and completely redeems himself.

The bad girl loses her shit over this new revelation and decides to take matters in her own hands. She goes to launch this missile/bomb to Nicetown.  But meanwhile, Walker and Kermit have just finished ducking passed the last goon and finally got ahold of a riffle. They shoot out the navigation/signal, or some type of box next to the missile, just in time before fishnets presses send.

Well, there’s a chick fight mixed in there too, and somehow RZA gets to the bomb, which was located on the adjacent rooftop before Walker & Kermit, just in time to humbly explain to Kermit’s girlfriend, who just won the chick fight, that he doesn’t want to send the bomb. She instantly understands this new, caring RZA. When Walker & Kermit show up to dismantle it, they are all instant friends. Now, just a little refresher. This bomb was on a timer which has been ticking practically the whole movie. Walker’s goal this whole time was to defy glaring odds to get to the bomb, then put in a code to dismantle it. Now that everyone is here on the roof, all on the same page, they look at the code, and guess what? The code is the zip code for the projects that they are currently in. What kind of stupid fucking coincidence is that? Kermit stops Walker and says in so many words, “that is extremely peculiar that the disarming code is the zip code for the very place we and the bomb currently are.” Kermit doesn’t want Walker to put the code in. They begin to fight over this.

Let’s take a time out right here. The logic is so awful from every standpoint that it is difficult to pick a perspective, but being as the ultimate bad guys, the mayor and the detective, made the worst decisions in the whole matter, I think its best we focus on them. Now there is one key piece of information that pulls all of the stupidity all together. KERMIT WAS RIGHT! the zip code was peculiar. The countdown was fake, only punching in the zip code would have set it off.

That being said, if the mayor and the detective wanted the bomb to go off, why didn’t they activate the fucking bomb like we all assumed it was in the first place? So, the mayor knew it wasn’t actually active, and in order to make it active, someone had to punch in this secret code that only he had. So after that fuck up, what did he do? He sent one fucking dude with the code against an entire army of gangsters. How fucking realistic was that? Did he really think Walker was going to make it all the way to the bomb in order to put in the code to set it off? He had access to the entire Police force. He could have sent as many people as he wanted. Oh, and the code! Let’s say Walker does make it. Why choose a number that in any way raises suspicion about your evil plan? They could have picked 12345. Why pick the fucking zip code of the projects you’re trying to blow up. And no, the answer is not a GPS missile locator. The code went into the briefcase bomb which just so happened to be strapped later to a missile. UUUGGGGHHHH. Absolutely none of this whatsoever was necessary! He could have just activated it in the first place like every other fucking bomb in the history of time. Done. Movie over. Beautiful Condos. Enjoy your penthouse.

Now that we understand this entire movie was pointless, I do want to point out one redeeming facet. Kermit, for as ridiculous as he is, he really murdered the shit out of a guy. He gets put in jail at one point by a crooked cop. This cop also let the bad guys take his girlfriend who we could only assume at that point was going to be raped and murdered. Well, Kermit wasn’t too happy about this. He calls the cop over while he’s behind bars to talk shit. The cop is more than obliged to walk over to the cell and rub it in. Wrong move! The cop gets too close. Kermit punches him in the stomach through the bars. While the cop is keeled over in pain, Kermit grabs his head, pulls it through the horizontal food slot, climbs the bars to the ceiling, then does a knee drop through the cops head. Holy shit it was absolutely brutal. Oh, and this movie was rated PG-13. I hope that leaves you on a happy note. Well, thank you for reading, and until next time, GB².