Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins review by Jackass Jon
Ok sports fans, it's been far too long since I've done one of my famous one minute reviews on yet another flick from the 80's. And today's review is none other than Remo Williams, The Adventure Begins. I've been waiting for Remo Williams to hit the streets on DVD for a long long time. And what do my eyes see one day while browsing the bargain bin at Wal-Mart? Oh yes, a newly released DVD with the familiar face of Fred Ward AKA: Remo Williams on the cover complete with patriotic background and a band-aid on his finger... The story is simple, you take the almost average "good" cop, kill him off and turn him into a lean mean killing machine for the US government. Then you turn him loose on the bad guys...While this is a fairly old film, it had all the elements that gave us some of the original action adventure movies we've all come to expect and love. It showed us everything from how a regular cop could become a super hero overnight to giving us one of the first "formal" education's in the techniques of Korean martial arts (sorry I couldn't resist). And speaking of Korean, who better could they have picked for the part of Chiun (Remo's Korean martial arts master) but Joel Gray. Yep, you guessed it, the father of Jennifer Gray from Dirty Dancing. But while he's not Korean, he does offer some fantastic comedic relief in his "almost" perfect make-up. Some of the stunts and camera work are actually pretty good for the era as well but all in all this is just a fun for the family action movie... I mean come on, how many people can dodge bullets when they aren't in the Matrix anyway?
I loved this movie as a teenager and after all these years must say I still enjoyed all of it's campiness. I don't think my kids got as big a bang out of it as I did but what do you expect these days. They've been weaned on such films as the Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. At any rate it's a great old movie that's a bunch of fun. Be warned though, it's a whopping 121 minutes long! And for some of you old timer's like myself, you'll find a few familiar faces such as Wilford Brimley, George Coe and Kate Mulgrew.
DVD features
Even though I've been waiting a lifetime for this DVD I must admit I'm a little
disappointed with the release due to it's lack of anything extra. It's pretty much a
strait master of the original movie with no extra's whatsoever. The disc is in surround
and sports sub titling in English, French and Spanish. But that's it