What I remember most from John Wick: Chapter 2 is the sequence of so many assassins receiving and reacting to news of a fresh bounty on the hero’s well-coiffed head. Something tells me the screenwriters of Fight or Flight do, too — that “something” being the setup for their action pic. It’s one that never clears the creative tarmac, perhaps burdened by the weight of so many F-bombs as punchlines.

Continuing his comeback bid since fronting M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap last year, Josh Hartnett goes bleached-blond and boozy as Lucas Reyes, an ex-Secret Service agent living the low life in Bangkok. He’s unofficially reactivated by his former superior/lover (Katee Sackhoff, Oculus) to capture an enigmatic “black hat terrorist” named The Ghost, who’s tracked boarding a flight outta Bangkok and bound for San Francisco.

With word of The Ghost’s bounty spread like MAGAspiracies across the dark web, the double-decker jet is positively packed with killers eager for an easy payday. Plus — and isn’t this wacky — there’s a price on Lucas’ head, too! With that little wrinkle, Fight or Flight jams itself into your eyes and ears as a plane-set Bullet Train, but wit, thrills and invention apparently have been confiscated by TSA.

Hartnett does what he can, which is make the film at least watchable. His weary personality is the second-best thing the movie has going for it, just behind Marko Zaror (John Wick: Chapter 4), the martial-arts B-movie icon who delights in a too-brief bit as an opponent Hartnett tussles with in a too-large airplane bathroom. Zaror always gets to show his moves, but comedic chops? Fight or Flight could use more of his energy, rather than dispatching him quickly for prolonged retread nonsense. —Rod Lott

Opens in theaters Friday, May 9.

One year before he picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue in Airplane!, Lloyd Bridges played a Secret Service agent in Disaster on the Coastliner, exactly the type of movie the 1980 landmark comedy parodied. 

With the U.S. vice president’s wife aboard a commuter train from L.A. to San Francisco, Bridges’ Mitchell plants himself in the Amtrak dispatch office, much to the irritated-AF exasperation of Snyder (E.G. Marshall, Creepshow), its department head. As Snyder and staff monitor their blinking wall of lights, Mitchell scoffs, barks orders and complains about the dadgum computers. 

Turns out, Mitchell has a point. Those computers don’t mean diddly squat when the train is hijacked by a big galoot (Pieces’ Paul L. Smith) who happens to be a freshly fired employee. He retaliates in the way he knows will hurt the rail service the most: engineering a collision of two trains by sending one the wrong way down a one-way track.

The solution to avoid “the worst disaster in railroad history”? Easy: Just divert one train to another track … by adding 30 yards’ worth in 90 minutes. Suddenly, an entire crew is workin’ on the railroad all the live-long lickety-split to make that happen. That’s impressive considering I can’t even wake my teenage son in that amount of time. 

Disaster being a disaster movie, subplots abound. All aboard, William Shatner’s con man tries to get laid by romancing a fellow passenger — understandably since she’s played by Jackson County Jail’s Yvette Mimieux. In what counts as a twist, The Shat is not the guy who mansplains sushi to an Asian woman. Meanwhile, as the train company chairman, Raymond Burr (Godzilla 1985) sits at a desk and never stands. 

With Coastliner being made for television, call it The Taking of Pelham $1.23. One can see why ABC tapped Vanishing Point’s Richard C. Sarafian to direct. After all, a speeding car isn’t that different from a speeding train, right? Right?

While Sarafian doesn’t conduct this to the level of choo-choo jitters seen in big-screen blockbusters like The Fugitive or Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, it certainly surpasses Under Siege 2. And unlike the pilot pic for Supertrain that same prime-time season, it manages to deliver an actual derailment sequence. From its punch-card teletype titles, I was in. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

In the wake of Robert Rodriguez’s lo-fi sleeper El Mariachi and the bigger-budgeted hit Desperado, the Mexican movie industry was somewhat reinvigorated to make more films in a similar vein, with much cheaper effects, more exploitive set pieces and far bloodier product.

One of these forgotten flick is the mostly shoddy El Mariachi Narcotraficante (or The Drug-Trafficking Mariachi) in 1999. As to be expected, it’s really not that great, but better than a lot of straight-to-video dreck back in the day.

Over the pre-millennium Videonics title cards, a young man (the middle-aged Sebastian Ligarde) and his pretty pathetic mariachi band are trying to play for a shitty club owner who, in a fit of rage, unloads on him and makes a run for it.

The mariachi’s home life isn’t much better, as his wife is kind of a bitch and he dotes on his mom who, melodramatically, has heart problems as she cries on her bed. Man, does this guy need a change of scenery or what?

Meanwhile, a slick “narco” character makes an official drop, presumably over large quantities of drugs. Making a deal, they are ambushed by the husky, plainclothes cop (the husky, plainclothes Jorge Rey) over oil barrels with his .357, squibs-a-popping.

Eventually, the Narco and the Mariachi cross paths — apparently, they are old friends — and, in a torrent of bullets, they go on the run and combine forces. Initially, they are successful. But after the Narco is gunned down and his mom is kidnapped, the Mariachi goes on a mission with, of all weapons, simulated swordplay.

After all parties are summarily executed, the surviving Mariachi has a good time with laughs and love with his mom as a freeze frame ends the whole movie.

With these narco-set 1990-something crime films taking the place of the sexy comedies of the 1980s, the macho façade that most of the protagonists project are here — and more than erect, with their steel guns (and flaccid dialogue) taking up most of the screen.

Sure, the direction is more “push a button” than anything else, with the film’s moneymaking intentions right there on its mariachi-ed sleeve. To be fair, it tries to be something different than a typical narco film, even if it doesn’t work much of the time.

In other words, unlike like Rodriguez’s flicks, El Mariachi Narcotraficante was a bad action movie with entertainingly good intentions. So, that’s something, right? —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Unlike the umpteen matinee-style pulp adventures whipped into production by Raiders of the Lost Ark’s runaway success, Jane and the Lost City had genuine pulp origins: as a newspaper comic. Norman Pett’s strip ran for more than 25 years in the UK’s Daily Mirror; Terry Marcel’s feature adaptation ran for, oh, 93 minutes on precious few theater screens.

Although built with a World War II plot, this cheeky British film’s first order of business is staying true to its source material: the accidental undressing of its plucky, pulchritudinous heroine, Jane (Kirsten Hughes). Half a dozen times in oft-ridiculous ways (one via capuchin monkey), Jane’s clothes are torn from her body, leaving her near-starkers, if not for the same pair of silk knickers and bra to match — somewhat remarkable for a PG-rated picture. It’s a childish sight gag and yet, goo-goo gaga. When I first saw it at age 16, I confess a lot of fast-forwarding involved.

On orders from Churchill (Richard Huggett, Slipstream), Jane accompanies a military colonel (Robin Bailey, Screamtime) and his derby-hatted servant (Graham Stark, Bloodbath at the House of Death) to beat the Nazis to locate the titular African jungle, riddled with diamonds and double entendres. Aiding them is toothy good guy Jungle Jack Buck (Flash Gordon himself, Sam J. Jones). Attempting to kill them are SS ballbuster Lola Pagola (Octopussy herself, Maud Adams) and her leopard beret-wearing henchman (comedian Jasper Carrott, The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball). Replete with Perils of Pauline energy, none of it is to be taken seriously.

Jane and the Lost City boasts the same production team as Hawk the Slayer, not that you’d notice. That 1980 fantasy is hardly gold, but it has action, whereas the frothy Jane is all reaction. Here, our heroes survive a plane crash, roaring rapids and an erupting volcano — just don’t expect to see any of that onscreen. Marcel appears to be working with a bottom line as thrifty as the threading of his leading lady’s dress. In that racy spirit, however, the sexy Hughes is her own special effect.

The mediocre New World Pictures affair is a study of contrasts: deliberately old-fashioned yet hopelessly out of touch; at once charmingly innocent and undeniably horny. You won’t love it, but you might not mind it. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Thanks to the People’s Republic of China, Kingkong Is Coming Back! And copyright lawyers are nowhere in sight! 

That’s right: Kingkong, one word, as if that qualifies as ethical and saves the keisters of all involved parties from the threat of litigation. Still, this so-called “giant” gorilla isn’t large enough to hold anyone in the palm of his hand. Imagine a primate the size of Harambe after going without Mounjaro shots for six months, including year-end holidays. Also, his face gives “durrrrrr.”

Story? I mean, I guess. A mineral exploration team in the mountains is ordered by their bald, bad benefactor to stop searching for mines and capture the ape. Or else their families will pay … in blood. (This movie should pay … in steep tariffs.)

You might predict ’kong (not Kong) will save our scientists. You will not predict the movie’s other freak of nature: a veritable Tarzan Boy raised in the wild. Clad in long hair and short loincloth, he moves and flies and flits and spins and scales like he’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Encino Man. The kid also punches and kicks CGI wolves that cast highly unnatural shadows. 

From Youku, China’s equivalent of The Asylum, Kingkong Is Coming Back is cheaper than cheaply made, with poorly layered effects that scream “rush job” (or “加急工作!” per the Google machine). Although sitting at 63 minutes, they are a punishing 63 minutes, capped by an anti-ending that’s written like a transition into an actual ending. Take the title’s passive voice as a sign of the action’s quality. —Rod Lott