It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost three decades since John Travolta and Bruce Willis have worked together, actually together, on a movie set. They did collaborate in the Look Who’s Talking movies, but they were never on screen together. In this upcoming movie that almost sounds like another Punisher, Travolta will play a crime boss while Willis will play a bounty hunter that’s looking to take down the boss for having his father killed, or killing his father. Seriously, the fact that Willis has been so busy over the past few years knocking out less than stellar movies that have gone immediately to video is kind of odd for someone that used to be a blockbuster star, but it’s not exactly appalling. Travolta has had plenty of ups and downs over the years as well since he’s taken on several projects that didn’t really go anywhere and a few that were good enough to be deemed successful but weren’t the kind of fare that he was seen to nail down so many years ago. Both men used to be huge draws at the box office when they were younger, and even now their names are enough to excite people since they’re both talented individuals that can act and can help to create characters that people can believe in. Their time in Pulp Fiction was great since it pits them against each other in a manner that wasn’t the main thrust of the story, but came to a head very quickly when Vincent Vega, played by Travolta, was sent to kill Butch Coolidge, played by Willis. Apart from that and the Look Who’s Talking movies they haven’t really done anything together, so bringing them both in for Paradise City is bound to be something that fans will appreciate if only because it will test their on-screen chemistry once again.
The only concern about the movie, well, one of them at least, is that it does sound like something that’s been done a number of times and therefore is kind of easy to predict. Any story featuring a bounty hunter, a crime boss, and various other elements that are bound to be familiar, is going to suffer almost immediately from the idea that it will be a play-by-play type of movie that people will be able to call from scene to scene. Some are likening it to Miami Vice already but with bounty hunters instead of cops, which is all well and good, but not entirely uplifting since again, these types of stories get told all the time and it’s very fair to say that the formula that they tend to follow isn’t much of a surprise. Those that are able to enjoy them are usually those that either don’t pay attention to said formula, don’t care about it, or are new enough to the genre that they don’t know what to expect. Those of us that have seen such stories throughout the years and can remember various movies and series that might be evident in various parts of the movie are harder to impress simply because we’ve seen it multiple times and are willing to watch, but want to see something that’s somehow different and can really knock us on our heels. There are those of us that simply enjoy the story and won’t judge since watching a good action flick can make time fly by and allow a person to have fun while it does. And to be fair, Travolta and Willis are both great when it comes to action flicks, as they’ve shown in the past. So there is the idea that this movie might be too much like many others that have come before it, but there’s also the feeling that just sitting down to enjoy it would be a good idea. If nothing else, just seeing what it’s all about would be interesting.
Plus, seeing Travolta and Willis pitted against one another again in a much more grandiose manner would be kind of intriguing given that both men are getting up there in years and it’s fair to think that their action days are starting to become numbered. Like it or not, both men are getting older and it’s easy to think that one of these days that action movies aren’t going to be near as possible, so it’s best to enjoy them while they can still partake of the genre and do their best to entertain the fans that still want to see them. There are plenty of reasons to be leery of this idea simply because it might come off as an amalgam of a number of different action movies, but simply the fact that it’s an action movie makes it possible to say that it’s worth a look. If nothing else, it might be a fun movie just to enjoy for what it is.
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