Beverly Hills Cop 4 ?? (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Monce]

If they were smart they would hire Martin Brest back to direct it.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

I don't know. I was super impressed with Red Dragon.

Doug

 

[Brent M]

All you need to do is watch Rush Hour 3 and you'll see why he earns the "hack" moniker.

 

[Holadem]

I don't think I've seen RH 3, although to be honest, they all kinda run together in my mind -- can't tell which is which, mostly due to partial screenings of frequent TV broadcasts. To me they are the very definition of solid, disposable entertainment. But assuming RH 3 is as horrible has you implie, does one bad film truly make Ratner an "ultimate hack?"

No matter, I would have sworn the "hack" moniker predated RH3 (which is less than a year old.)

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H

 

[DavidPla]

Martin Brest hasn't done much of anything since the Gigli debacle.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Ratner is the epitome of a mediocre director to me. I don't have a problem with him until he's given material that deserves someone far more talented.

To me "Red Dragon" was the crowning example of how little he brings to a project. He had excellent source material and absolutely top of the line cast and crew and the film was still utterly boring.

He's not a bad director like Uwe Boll or anything but he brings so little to a project that I prefer he stay far away anything with real potential and just concentrate on pleasant banal filler like the Rush Hour series and After the Sunset.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Well, he is a hack, although I probably define that more kindly than most (a guy who does a lot of work-for-hire and doesn't put much of himself into his work). Rush Hour 3 was legitimately awful, and I suppose he deserves a certain amount of the blame for not getting Chris Tucker or Jackie Chan to give a damn (but who has been able to get that from Chan lately?), but it's not completely on him.

 

[KevinGress]

If this is the case, then I believe it will fail. Murphy can be very good if reined in- when he's allowed to run wild, it loses comedic value very quickly.

 

[DavidPla]

Then we'll get another Beverly Hills Cop III if we have a reined-in Eddie Murphy. Watch the original again where the excitement comes from what he's going to do next (and you can tell he was making half of it up as it went along).

 

[Jari K]

..and "part 3" was SO bad, that it´s not hard to imagine that what will happen to "part 4"..

Brett Ratner is at least close to "hack" in my book also. "X-Men: The Last Stand" was like a different movie (=very mediocre) after Ratner stepped in and I don´t want to even start with "Rush Hour"-movies..

"Red Dragon" was decent, though.

 

[John Dirk]

Agreed. You don't "reign in" a talent like Eddie Murphy. If that's what you want, just hire Charlie.

John

 

[Holadem]

Now that my curiosity about Ratner has been picked, I googled around the combination of his name and "hack." A pattern quickly started to emerge in the stuff I read. This link contains the perfect illustration of what I've been reading, whether expressed as openly, or just lurking between the lines:

Why the Web hates Ratner - Los Angeles Times


Hollywood is replete with bad directors. Few get as much bile as this one, and for once, I am truly starting to understand why.

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H

 

[Jason Seaver]

I don't know if that's actually the case. Jim Carrey, for instance, is another guy people talk about like that because he looks like a guy who is just going crazy on the set, but he actually obsesses over every little detail and comes in with a very specific plan.

Eddie Murphy comes from stand-up, and while there's a certain spontaneity to that, in reading and responding to the audience, those guys hone and test their material a lot before getting on the big stage.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Eh, I think there's more to it than that. While X-Men 3 is really the only property he's actually done that's important to the "geek/web" community (Red Dragon is arguable), I seem to recall that he's been attached to a lot of other "geek" properties at different times so there is a tendency for the web to go to red alert anytime it's announced that Rattner is attached to an X-Men, Wolverine, Superman, etc even if it never materializes most of the time. I don't think anyone really cares when he's making Rush Hour movies.

 

[Holadem]

People were already screaming foul when he signed on for X-Men 3. Looking at his filmography, the outrage could only have been based on Rush Hour 1 & 2, Red Dragon, and perhaps After the Sunset (which no one saw.) That would have been his background as well when his name got attached to Superman Return, among other projects. The web movie community had decided that this guy was to be nowhere near "genre" stuff.

I liked X-Men 3. And I am sure I would have had a lot more fun watching a shallow Ratner-helmed Superman Returns than oddly muted snoozefest we got instead.

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H

 

[Kevin Grey]

As I said, I think he was attached to a lot of projects before that. I, personally, did not like X-Men 3 in the slightest. Superman Returns may be a flawed movie but it was still likely more interesting to me than what I imagine we would have got from Rattner. I assure you that my opinion of Rattner as a hack has nothing to do with how often he gets laid (pretty sure that's not a problem for any Hollywood bigshot) and everything to do with the movies he's made.

FWIW, I saw and sort of enjoyed After the Sunset just as I did with the first two Rush Hour movies. He's probably a good fit for Beverly Hills Cop 4 but I would have zero desire to see him attached to anything that I actually give a crap about.

 

[John Dirk]

I agree, but the perpetual honing occurs off stage, which is exactly why they can be given free reign once on stage.

John

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well sure but the guy's not dead. And one bad films doesn't mean he is washed up. After all that film was kinda out of his hands.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

I agree with all of this. Never the less he managed to make Red Dragon, which is a pretty darn good movie. Yes he had a good script, but a good script doesn't make a good Director, and Ratner made lots of very good choices in that film that have nothing to do with the script.

Doug

 

[AndrewWickliffe]

Apparently, Ratner's gearing toward a PG, PG-13 release.

For the kids.