Corrective Measures is based off of a graphic novel, where an electromagnetic pulse has gone off and given some people superpowers. As with most cases where people have superpowers, some are heroes, and some are villains, and for the villains, they get dumped in a maximum security prison run by the corrupt warden, Michael Rooker. The most dangerous criminal housed there is powerful telepath "The Lobe" (Bruce Willis). Rooker decides to blackmail Willis into giving him some of his wealth so he can retire, which Willis sees as his opportunity to try to break out. At the same time, we follow Diaz, an empath who probably doesn't belong there, but now has to navigate this corrupt, violent situation, just as everything is about to hit the fan.
I don't want to say I didn't like this, but it felt like the second or third movie in a series of films about this superhero world, if that makes sense. Like people with superpowers stuck in prison doesn't feel like where I want to start, because all of them are trapped without the use of their powers for most of the film. On the other hand, we're in an actual world where the superhero genre is locked into this big tent/big budget blockbuster or streaming TV series event kind of thing, so to have something in a unique universe outside of Marvel or DC, have it be lower budget and on a smaller scale, is refreshing. I also like Willis as the baddie, and Rooker as the warden, their interplay really anchored things--but again, it would've been cool if there was a previous film where Willis's character is caught and sent to prison first, as such a big villain should have more of the film. I also liked Brendan Mejia as Diaz, the nicer character that we as the audience could focus on and follow, and his interactions with both prison doctor Haley Sales (who you may remember as Cable's wife in Deadpool 2) and fellow inmate Tom Cavanaugh (veteran of The Flash series). Overall, one thing you can say about this, is it's not a throwaway EFO Willis flick, this one was more earnest, and that helped it.
We're now at 14 Bruce Willis flicks on the site, which, when I started in 2007, I wouldn't have believed that there would ever be that many Willis DTV flicks that I could review, let alone another 20 or so after that that I could do (though to be fair, one of the Willis flicks I've reviewed is Die Hard, and two others are Expendables and Expendables 2, and those aren't DTV flicks). Watching Randall Scandal has put those later Willis DTV flicks in a new light, plus I'm not sure how many of the Willis ones Ty and I have covered that I'll review--if you're wondering, there 8 more that we've covered that I haven't reviewed yet. Those numbers definitely put Willis in the 30 Club if I were to do them all, which would mean automatic induction into the Hall of Fame, and that's something we'd have to think about--the point could be made that his contributions to DTV just with Die Hard alone should get him in, considering how many DTV flicks use the Die Hard paradigm. A movie like this though, where even in his limited capacity he's absolutely fantastic, is a reminder of the great movie star he was, and why he was that. It was nice to see it here, and unfortunate that we couldn't have had more.
Rooker's back on the DTVC, his last film being another Willis flick, White Elephant. He's as great as you'd want him to be as the corrupt warden with his straw hat and his Southern accent. He's more known for his role as Yondu in The Guardians of the Galaxy series, and I imagine those roles pay him out more than he got for this. Unlike Willis, who I didn't expect to see here as often, I figured Rooker would have a ton of roles like this in DTV flicks that would allow him to rack up the tags, but he went the other way, not just with Guardians of the Galaxy, but Suicide Squad and F9. Still, anytime we can get him, and he's chewing the scenery left and right, it's a good thing. Hopefully we'll see him some more on here in the future.
This was an interesting year for comic book movies, and blockbuster franchises in general. There was an overall sense of fatigue that led to many of them either not making their budget back, or not making enough to turn a profit. It's weird to think that 25 years or so ago, outside of Batman movies, comic book movies were more likely to be done like this than as $250 million events that expect to earn $1 billion in worldwide gross. I think that's why I didn't want to be tougher on this, because I like that it even exists at all. If you look at 2008, the first year of Marvel Studios producing their own films with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, we also had Punisher War Zone, a lower budget, limited release film under the Marvel Knights banner. At the time, when Marvel was experiencing so much success--in '08 we also had The Dark Knight, which dominated the year, but by '12, that had flipped and The Avengers outdid The Dark Knight Rises--they could be forgiven for not leaning into what Punisher War Zone brought, and forgiven even more in 2011 when another Marvel Knights film, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance pulled in $132 million on a budget of $57 million, considering they were about to pull in $1.5 billion the next year with The Avengers; but now that they've had a tough year, those films and what they meant might be worth revisiting. Instead of three movies that all need to pull in $1 billion, what if the focus is on one, and the others go limited release on a smaller budget? Either way, the point is, this film brought me back to a time when you could have lower budget comic book movies, and hopefully we'll get back there.
Finally, this is another Tubi Original. We've done like three so far on the site, and I do appreciate the space that they open up in the market, so I've decided to tag them. We'll see how many we get from here, if they end up getting into the exalted status of a PM or Cannon, or if we end up with only a few more. Based on what they have to offer, it could really go either way I think. One that I have teed up is Murder City with Mike Colter--another comic book adaptation connection, I loved him in Luke Cage. In this new world of streaming with seldom a physical release, it'll be interesting to see how Tubi is. Do they take things down and vault them, or do they leave things up in perpetuity so we can always get them--and will they ever, if a film is popular enough, consider a physical media release? The thing is, with how the streaming industry is in general, there isn't a space to give them the benefit of the doubt, but at least we can enjoy what they have for as long as they have it.
And with that, let's wrap this up. Not only can you get this on Tubi, but it's also listed as being on Amazon Prime, so perhaps outside the US this is available as well. I think I like the concept of it and the existence of it more than I like the film itself, but I think it could still be worth a watch. And you can go back to 116 in the pod archives to see what Ty and I had to say about this.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15391770
And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.
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