Shameless Self Expression

Detective and Forensic Psychologist Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) is back when a creepy criminal portraying himself as a genial teacher named Mr. Soneji (Michael Wincott) kidnaps one of his students (Mika Boorem). Said student happens to be the daughter of a U.S. Senator, I might add. Aiding Cross this time is the girl’s Secret Service bodyguard Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter) as they try to track down Soneji and rescue the little girl. Dylan Baker plays another law enforcement guy, Penelope Ann Miller plays the girl’s mother, and Jay O. Sanders reprises his FBI man role from “Kiss the Girls” . Only a slight improvement over its predecessor “Kiss the Girls” (though apparently in terms of the books, this one’s a prequel), this 2001 Lee Tamahori ( “Once Were Warriors” ) killer-thriller suffers from pretty much the same problems as the earlier James Patterson adaptation. There’s still a few things to like, but not quite enough to put it over the line I’m afraid. Things don

This time out, we’re mostly concerned with revenge. Ray Breslin (Sly Stallone) wants revenge against the villain, when a rescue mission goes horribly, and homicidally wrong. Said villain (played by Devon Sawa) has revenge against Breslin on his mind, too that is only slowly revealed. A couple of martial-arts guys (Jin Zhang and Harry Shum Jr.) have their own similar motives for getting involved in the overly cluttered plot concerning the kidnapping of the pretty daughter of a HK businessman (whom Sawa also has a personal grudge against). Jin Zhang is the girl’s ex-lover and former bodyguard, Shum Jr. is her ineffective current bodyguard, and they don’t especially like one another. Meanwhile, Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson, Jaime King, and Dave Bautista briefly reprise their roles from previous instalments as Breslin’s crew members. Daniel Bernhardt plays one of Sawa’s henchmen. Veteran Asian-American character actor Russell Wong is given the scant role of the HK businessman/father.

Christopher Lambert is Connor MacLeod, a Scottish highlander from 1536AD who discovers that he belongs to a race of immortals. Most of the film takes place in modern day New York, wherein MacLeod and the last of the immortals Kurgan (sadistic, hulking Clancy Brown) are to battle to the death. How can an immortal be killed? There’s only one way and let’s just say Henry VIII and the Queen of Hearts would approve of the method. Roxanne Hart is a befuddled modern-day forensics expert cop caught in the middle of a sword-wielding battle that spans centuries. Sean Connery (who shot all his scenes in about a week!) turns up in the 16 th Century Scotland scenes as Ramirez, an Egyptian-Spaniard (!) an immortal, who acts as MacLeod’s Obi-Wan Kenobi of sorts. I’ve always struggled with truly nutting out my overall feelings about this highly-stylised 1986 fantasy/action flick from Aussie music video director Russell Mulcahy ( “Razorback” , “Ricochet” ). It’s kind of a critic brain vs. mo