lord b
had potentail but became a clown show and two best characters wasted
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
10/20/23
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Audience Member
No where as good as the first but same thing: blood, guns and guts.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
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Audience Member
Shoulda left this one alone!
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
10/17/20
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Audience Member
As entertaining as this movie was, it just lacked the panache of the original. The story was well thought up and the characters were just as good. 3 out of 5 stars.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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Audience Member
Pretty loosely connected to the first movie. Also much much worse. I know the original Smokin' Aces isn't exactly Citizen Kane, but it's a good time as far as I'm concerned. Assassin's Ball is not so much. It spends so much of its time imitating things people liked about the first movie, which only makes it more obvious that it's worse. You wouldn't have to worry about being called a pale imitation if you did more than just imitate. What's more, poorly. I guess the quote unquote twist at the end was a little bit better in this one than the last, but it was revealed in so much poorer a way that you don't really notice. There's still the guns and whatnot that I guess are most vital, so it's not like it's worthless, it's just poorly made.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
Full Review
jesse o
I watched the original Smokin' Aces, I'm assuming, over a decade ago. Back at the time, being 19, I was probably far stupider than I am now. Not that I'm saying that everything I thought about certain movies at the age of 19 is wrong now that I'm 30. I'm just saying that as I get older, the perception of certain movies is gonna change. I might hate what I liked before. That's just the way life is. The most recent example of this I can think of is 300, which, at the time, I thought was great. As more time went on, however, I started to pick up on its flaws and, while I still enjoyed it, I no longer thought it was a great movie. Though, to be fair, I reached this point with 300 considerably sooner. Like, maybe, a few years afterwards. The reason I bring this up is because, at the time, I gave a favorable review to the original Smokin' Aces. That's not to suggest that I will instantly hate the movie now, it just means that I would definitely need to watch it again and see if my opinion of it has changed. Having said that, I don't know who, one thing I do remember about the original, if this makes sense, is the fact that it wasn't memorable enough to warrant a prequel. To me, at least. I'm certain there's some people who love the original Smokin' Aces and might even consider it one of their favorite movies. I, of course, am not one of those people. I may have enjoyed the original at the time, but I'm assuming my praise didn't go beyond just saying that it was pretty good. Joe Carnahan, writer and director of the original, developed the sequel's story and produced it. So, for some reason, he felt that there was a lot more mileage in his universe. As far as this sequel is concerned, however, eh, I've seen considerably better. I've also seen considerably worse, to be sure. But, and this might be something that the original movie could have gotten away with more due to it having a larger budget, this prequel is the very definition of style over substance. And, again, you can make the same claim for the original. But at least the film had enough clever tricks up its sleeves to disguise that, it also had the visual flare to, again, disguise the fact that it's as shallow as a puddle. This one, on the other hand, doesn't have any of that to rely on so, naturally, it all ends up feeling so much worse. Another thing is the fact that the characters leave a lot to be desired. Well, then again, I guess I just mean the Tremor family. The Tremor family, IN MY OPINION, is a complete and shameless ripoff of The Firefly Family from House of 1000 Corpses/Devil's Rejects. The only difference is that the Tremor family has an additional member. Baby Boy Tremor, I believe he's called, and he's this big, fat simpleton who, also, happens to be a murderous psychopath. Other than that, everything about the Tremor family is designed to make you think of the Fireflys and, honestly, say what you will about House of 1000 Corpses (which I didn't like) and The Devil's Rejects (which I did very much enjoy), at the very least, they feel like original creations. I'm certain that Zombie was inspired by characters in other films (like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family, for the most part) in his conception of the Fireflys, but there's still enough that Zombie contributed to them on his own that, again, they feel like truly original characters. The Tremors, on the other hand, don't have an original bone in their body. So I absolutely hated that and I like Michael Parks (he's the patriarch of the Tremors). Though I will admit that the Tremors are part of the funniest moment of the movie. They steal this circus cannon along with kidnapping two circus performers (both with dwarfism). When the shit hits the fan, the Tremors proceed to shoot both of these circus performers, wrapped in dynamite, out of the cannon and into the jazz club (where their assassination target is being kept safe by the CIA in an underground shelter) where they proceed to explode. There's one of them that you shoots out of the cannon and you follow his journey and, honestly, the effects don't look great, but it still made me laugh. Nobody else really stands out as a character in any way whatsoever to be worthy of mentioning. Vinnie Jones plays Vinnie Jones and Vinnie Jones has made his career out of playing Vinnie Jones. So one might say Vinnie Jones is good at being Vinnie Jones. I like the guy, but I feel that someone like him deserves better than this movie. But, again, no one else stands out in the slightest so I'm not even gonna bother. The narrative is a predictable mess. Hal Leuco, whose face is never seen, hires assassins to murder Walter Weed by a specific date and time. If it's any later or before that time, the contract is null and void for some reason. You know who Hal Leuco is almost immediately and that makes everything kind of a chore to sit through, because you know what the endgame is gonna be eventually. It's not an interesting story and it involves some real-life terrorist acts being performed by the assassins hired to kill Weed in order to create opposition to the Iraq War. There's this True Patriot right-wing group and, honestly, I don't really know or care how it all fits together, because the movie does a terrible job at connecting its own dots. I don't understand why Leuco, who ends up being Walter Weed, ends up going through the trouble that he did. Is it to erase his own guilt of hiring these assassins to carry out these acts? I don't know, I guess that seems to be the most logical explanation. But, again, the movie handles this as if it was a hot potato, except instead of juggling it, they let it drop to the floor every time. That's this movie's narrative in a nutshell and I guess I'm looking for narrative in a movie that wasn't meant to have one. But, at the same time, I'm just trying to find something to like. And I didn't like the story in the slightest, I can't see how anyone did. The action is fine, I guess, but it's nothing to write home about. The effects are practical and there's a lot of squib usage and quite a bit of blood, to the point that it's unbelievable, so I have to give them props for that. They didn't go the route that would be cheapest for them. At the same time, all of this is service of a movie that just isn't that good. This isn't a Tarantino movie like Django Unchained though, obviously, it's patterned after a Tarantino movie, a very cheaply produced one at that. I did like the ending, where you think the bad guy is eventually gonna escape and get away with it, but Baker steps in front of his car, immediately shoots him and walks away. That was pretty cool. Pretty cool in relation to everything else that sucked about this movie, sure, but pretty cool nonetheless. I'll take the positives where I can find them, ok? I suppose I don't have much else to say about this movie. This is quite a bad movie, but I'll get over it fairly quickly. It's not offensively terrible or anything. I still wouldn't recommend it, there's other movies on Netflix that are worthier of your time. Like Cargo, you should watch that instead. Yes, that will do nicely.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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