16 Blocks (2006)

An American action thriller directed by Richard Donner, starring Bruce Willis, Mos Def and David Morse.
A detective has to escort a witness to trial, but stops and leaves the car on the way. A man with a gun approaches the witness in the car, but the detective shoots this man before he can kill the witness. The detective and witness hide in a bar and call for backup, but the crooked cops who arrive want to kill the witness. The detective disagrees and the chase starts.
How appropriate to watch after 13th (2016). Here is a film about that exact type of police brutality, black targeting and prison industrial complex, but a white cop breaks routine to expose corruption. The plot held my attention and the characters fit together well in it. I liked the team of Bruce Willis and Mos Def. I liked Mos Def's riddle:
"You're driving in a hurricane and you see three people at a bus stop. One is an old lady and she's sick. One is your best friend and he saved your life. And the third is the lady of your dreams. Now check it out, you only have room for one in your car, which one do you take?"
and Bruce Willis' answer:
"You give your car keys to your best friend, who takes your car and drives the old lady to a hospital. You stay behind with the love of your life."
Production was typical of modern action films. There was lots of moving camera and lots of fast editing. Audio was slightly better, with less whispering and mumbling than I expected from the year. I rate this o.k. because I could take it or leave it. You may want to consider watching it.

Timeline (2003)

An American science fiction directed by Richard Donner.
Archaeologists go back in time to rescue their professor who is stuck in the middle ages during a historic battle.
This exemplifies what I hate about new movies. The simple plot gets muddied by presentation, which I will go into detail about. The acting was half-ass to say the least. Fake accents dominate the dialogue and everyone is always angry at everyone else. The pacing was so fast that the viewer is unable to focus on the current scene because another one jumps right into it. This brings us to the editing being too fast and there being too much camera movement. I don't feel the need to dwell upon negativity, so I will conclude by saying that I turned this off. I rate it shit. DO NOT WATCH!!!!

Assassins (1995)

An action film directed by Richard Donner, starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas.
After killing a co-worker 15 years ago, an assassin finds that he has competition when he gets sent on jobs. The 2 competing assassins get sent on the same mission to get a disk and the one who killed the co-worker ends up befriending the woman with the disk.
I usually like Stallone films, but this was too "new action flick" for me. I think what puts me off is the overly excessive use of guns and the lack of style in the film as a whole. The plot was alright (I guess), but the pacing was just too quick. I'm rating this poor for being a new action flick.

Conspiracy Theory (1997)

A romantic comedy directed by Richard Donner, starring Mel Gibson.
An MK Ultra mind control slave falls in love with the woman who he is supposed to be guarding and forgets which side he's on.
The conspiracy theorist (Mel Gibson) didn't know the whole story, which is what Hollywood intended. One minute he's talking about a real event that the public was told a lie about, the next he's eating white bread or saying "coffee is our friend". The level of secrecy was downplayed as well. None of the upper level guys would EVER tell anyone the truth. If the REAL story was in this film, it would be 4-5 hours long and there would have been riots in the theaters. The burning apartment scene was exciting, but it takes more than that to make a good movie. Wikipedia bills this as an action thriller, but that's not what I saw. I don't like romantic comedies anyway, so I have no problem giving this a bad score.

The Omen series (1976 - 2006)

Psychological thrillers directed by Richard Donner, Don Taylor, Graham Baker, John Moore, Jorge Montesi and Dominique Othenin-Girard.
The antichrist is born and his father is led on a quest to destroy him with the help of individuals working in the religion industry.
The first few films in this series were really good, but the 90s one was uber-cheesy and the 2006 remake made me question why it was even made. In the film in which Damien is grown up, he is portrayed by Sam Neil (Dr. Grant of Jurassic Park fame). These films made me want to watch the Exorcist series, so if you're into that kind of thing, this might be up your alley. I'm rating it o.k. because I wasn't very excited about it.