Annihilation: Like the director's previous Ex Machina, this is a sci-fi movie that is not extremely action-packed, but is tense, gorgeous, and hard to pin down. (And both feature Oscar Isaac--bonus!) Basically a meteor or something hits a part of the southern coast by a lighthouse and starts mutating all the life in the area: grass, trees, animals, and even people! Natalie Portman's husband Oscar Isaac (so yes, Star Wars nerds, Padme Amidala hooked up with Poe Dameron!) was part of an expedition to explore "the shimmer" and disappeared. Until he comes stumbling home with amnesia and then passes out. So she agrees to join 4 other women to explore the Shimmer. The place is just crazy with all the mutated stuff. And naturally the people are not immune either. Anyway, if you're more a fan of sci-fi like 2001 or Solaris than Star Wars or Transformers (Michael Bay version) then you'll probably like this. And I guess if you're a fan of women in movies who aren't taking off their tops or wearing skimpy costumes. (4/5)
Rememory: This is the same sort of movie as Annihilation. Only it involves a machine that can let you see your memories without the "rose-colored glasses" or shit-colored glasses with which we remember so many things. And it can also bring back repressed memories. Peter Dinklage becomes obsessed with the machine after his brother is killed in a drunk driving accident--caused by him. With the machine he hopes to hear his brother's dying words. On the night he's planning to see the machine's creator, that creator is murdered! So Peter Dinklage steals a copy of the machine from the creator's widow (after plying her with Scotch and telling her a sob story about her husband) he starts to investigate the prime suspects: the creator's mistress and one of his test subjects (the late Anton Yelchin). But the solution turns out to be something unexpected as is a revelation about the night Peter Dinklage's brother died. Like Annihilation it's a slower sci-fi movie but it ends with a lot of emotional depth. It's definitely worth watching. (4/5) (Fun Fact: Ironically for a movie about memory I forgot I had got a copy free from Google Play months ago until I saw a preview on another movie. And then I watched it on Amazon Prime anyway.)
Pacific Rim: Uprising: As far as sequels go, this was a Temple of Doom or Terminator 3 where it wasn't terrible, but it lacks the epic grandeur of the preceding film. T3 especially comes to mind as that largely involved a new cast, like this. The two scientists and the female pilot from the last film return, though the latter dies soon into the movie, which I always hate. John Boyega stars as Idris Elba's son we never heard anything about in the previous movie. He's thrust back into action as a rogue giant robot kills his adopted sister. They do a little switcheroo so the bitchy woman you think is the villain and a good guy from the last movie switch places. Still, overall there's just not the same epicness of the first one. Though they hint at a third one, I doubt it'll happen. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: It's funny at one point when John Boyega switches from his natural British accent to American to make fun of a guy because then he sounds like Finn from Star Wars.)
Tomb Raider: I've never played the video games and I only watched the Angelina Jolie movies once maybe. Like Pacific Rim, this was OK but didn't really feel all that epic or fun like the previous movies, Indiana Jones, or even National Treasure. I guess to pad the run time it starts out with a pointless kickboxing scene and then some extreme bike riding. Simon Pegg's frequent cohort Nick Frost shows up in a cameo as a pawn shop owner who gives Lara Croft money to go to Southeast Asia and get a boat to a mysterious island. It's funny how the boat captain she barely knows is like instantly ready to lay down his life for her. I guess she's attractive, but I wouldn't sacrifice myself for her in like ten minutes--at least not without getting some first. (Oink, oink.) Anyway, eventually she has to stop a bad guy from unleashing one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I'm not sure if there will be a sequel or not. Maybe they can put more effort into the script. (2.5/5)
The Commuter: A fairly predictable "thriller" with a convoluted plot. Liam Neeson is a former cop and now former insurance salesman who's on a commuter train when Vera Farmiga offers him $100K to find a Federal witness code named "Prynne." I figured out who this was about a half-hour into the movie. And I figured out who the bad guy was long ahead of time. I mean it was one of those things where they hadn't really used one somewhat well-known actor so they had to use him at some point. And really the whole thing seemed pretty dumb; if the people running this were so powerful, couldn't they have just killed the witness themselves? (2/5) (Fun Facts: Liam Neeson's had a movie where he's solving a mystery on a plane and a train, so now all he needs is to solve a mystery in an automobile. Also, the cop played by Patrick Wilson was named Alex Murphy--which was the name of the dead cop who was turned into Robocop in the original and shitty remake!)
Game Night: A bunch of supposed thirty-somethings get together for a game night that's hijacked when Jason Bateman's rich brother Kyle Chandler stages a phony kidnapping of himself that turns out to be real. So at first everyone thinks they're playing a game but then it turns real. Meanwhile their weird cop neighbor (Todd from Breaking Bad) has a game of his own going on. Some funny bits but mostly not all that interesting. It was the free part of a rent one, get one free so I guess I got my money's worth anyway. (2.5/5)
Baywatch: As I said on Facebook, some movies sound bad but end up pretty good. This is not that. It's just a bunch of warmed-over cliches strung together into a lame movie about lifeguards trying to foil a drug smuggler. The Rock is fine as the head lifeguard, but there's not really much to work with. David Hasselhoff shows up for a cameo, as does Pam Anderson, though they wisely don't give her any lines. (2/5)
American Made: This one slipped under my radar as I never was going to watch it in the theater and just never got around to renting it on DVD. But now it's on HBO and so I finally watched it On Demand. Tom Cruise is an airline pilot who's recruited to work for the CIA taking pictures of communists in Central and South America. Eventually though he starts running drugs on the side with Pablo Escobar and that whole crew that so much has been made of the last few years. When the heat gets put on his home in Louisiana the CIA moves him to Arkansas and sets him up with a private airport where they start training Contras to fight against the communists in Nicaragua. Tom Cruise is still running drugs too and the problem becomes he has so much money that eventually people take notice. Though it's been almost 40 years since this shit started it's a good reminder of the stupid bullshit the US government often does. The ineffective strategy in Nicaragua was slightly more effective in Afghanistan--until of course bin Laden turned on us. Anyway, it's an OK movie but pretty standard stuff if you've seen Goodfellas or Scarface or whatever. His wife in the movie is pretty standard going from ignorance to turning a blind eye to actively participating in his schemes. Not essential viewing but not poor viewing either. (3/5) (Fun Fact: Tom Cruise reunites with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman for this but since it called for a brash, middle-aged Texan wasn't it an ideal part for Matthew McConaghuey?)
Office Uprising: What if you went into the office one day and everyone had turned into psychotic monsters? That's what happens in this Crackle original movie. Brandon (the guy playing Robin in the new
Death Wish (2017): This is a remake of the 1974 Charles Bronson movie that pretty much started the whole NRA revenge fetish porn industry. In that movie Bronson's character was an architect whose wife is followed home from the store by goofy punks led by a young Jeff Goldblum. In this version Bruce Willis is a doctor (lol) who goes out to dinner with his family one night. The valet gets the location of his house from his car's navigation system (good thing I'm too poor to valet) and gives the location to some crooks, who then break in when the family isn't supposed to be at home but the wife and daughter are. The wife is killed and the daughter put into a coma. So after the cops come up with zip, Bruce Willis gets a gun to play vigilante. Unlike the 1974 version he actually finds the right people to get revenge. Willis gives a B+ effort while Vincent D'Onofrio cashes a paycheck as the brother who never really contributes anything and Dean Norris basically reheats Hank from Breaking Bad. While this tries to be socially relevant by taking place in Chicago, which has had a lot of gun violence the last couple of years, The problem is since 1974 this formula has been used time and again in a variety of ways like Robocop, Darkman, The Crow, Chance of a Lifetime--oh wait that's just in my head. Anyway, so unlike 1974 this feels pretty generic. (2/5) (Fun Fact: Elizabeth Shue is Bruce Willis's wife in the movie, so her and Vincent D'Onofrio have an Adventures in Babysitting reunion. That movie took place in Toronto-as-Chicago about 30 years ago.)
Braven: Jason Momoa (Aquaman!) is a family guy who works at a logging company. His dad (Stephen Lang) has dementia. So he takes his dad to their remote cabin to talk about putting him in a home or something. But unbeknownst to him (but beknownst to us) a friend has stashed some drugs there. When the drug dealer and his henchmen go to retrieve it, it becomes like Die Hard around a cabin. Bad guys die from guns, axes, arrows, knives, and falling off cliffs. It's the kind of action movie that's fine as long as you don't think about it. (3/5) (Fun Fact: One fight between Jason Momoa and this one henchman it's hard to tell them apart and then in the credits I realized the guy he was fighting was one of his stunt doubles! I guess that explains it.)
Walking Tall (2004): A remake of the movie based on a true story. The Rock (and this was still when he used that name) returns home from the army to find a casino has taken over his small town home. A former school bully (Neal McDonaugh, whom you might remember from the CW superhero shows) runs the casino and the town. Until the Rock barges in with a 2x4 and is arrested. He convinces the jury to find him not guilty and then runs for sheriff. It's an OK action movie, though feels more "inspired by" than "based on" a true story. The movie itself is only about 75 minutes long with credits stretched to cover the last 12 minutes. I mean come on, some Marvel movies don't have credits that long! (2.5/5)
Acts of Violence: Another of the cheaply-made straight-to-Redbox (or Amazon Prime) Lionsgate features starring Bruce Willis. In these sometimes Willis is the bad guy. Sometimes the good guy. And sometimes (like Fire With Fire) he's just in a few scenes so they can put him on the cover. This is mostly the latter. It's kind of a low-energy mash-up of Taken and The Boondock Saints. After a bachelorette party, a bride-to-be is taken by sex traffickers. Her family, led by a brother who was in the army, take the law into their own hands. But they should have listened to Batman Begins and worn masks because the bad guys take revenge. And so it goes. Bruce Willis is a detective who lets a bad guy fall off a roof and later does a Mark Wahlberg at the end of The Departed. (2/5) (Fun Fact: Co-star Cole Hauser is the son of Rifftrax favorite Wings Hauser, who took his name from playing wingback in football. Thanks IMDB!)
Miss Sloane: Like Thank You for Smoking or Casino Jack, this is about a lobbyist. In this case a female lobbyist (Jessica Chastain) who goes to work for an anti-gun lobby for...reasons. After some twists and turns, she's brought to the Senate on some trumped-up charges on unrelated issues. And then she basically sacrifices herself for the greater good. Which would mean more if we knew who she was or anything about her. BTW, it's kind of weird that everyone calls her "Miss Sloane" like it's the 50s or something instead of Ms. Sloane. (2.5/5)
Hangman: A forgettable movie that probably went straight-to-Redbox starring Karl Urban and Al Pacino's corpse as detectives. Some dude is going around hanging people and carving letters in them. The actual Hangman game part didn't really matter as much as it probably should have; the detectives make almost no effort to actually solve it. But as a fan of Due South it was funny that Pacino's detective is named Ray and drives an early 70s Riviera just like Ray Vecchio on Due South--except his was green, not brown. Probably the most interesting thing about this. (2/5)
Favor: You know they say you shouldn't judge books by their covers. And movies either. The cover they use on the Amazon app made it look like a black comedy and the description seemed sorta like it too. But it's actually pretty straight-up suspense. A successful ad man with a pregnant wife accidentally kills his mistress at a motel. He goes to his old loser friend to ask for help moving the body. His buddy takes care of it and that's the end, right? No. First the buddy just wants to hang out. Then he wants money. Then he wants a date. Then he wants a job. A job he's so unqualified for he embarrasses the ad guy and this finally brings things to a head. A good indie picture, unlike the ones they show on Rifftrax. (3/5)
The Secret Lives of Dorks: I missed the first quarter or so of this, but the rest was a sorta funny indie teen comedy. A high school dork wants to win the heart of the girl who works at the comic book store he frequents. The head cheerleader gives him advice but things keep going wrong. It intersperses animation of his daydreaming with live action. Not exactly Napoleon Dynamite, but not terrible either. (2.5/5)
Justice League Dark: This was one of DC's animated releases from last year. When people start seeing demons and going on killing sprees, Batman receives a message to contact John Constantine. He in turn goes to the magician Zatanna and Boston Brand (aka Deadman) tags along. Then they run into Jason Blood/Etrigan the demon. Together they have to track down the magical source of the problem. I think they're missing a couple of people from the team in the more recent comics but it was mostly a decent representation. Batman wasn't really necessary, but I suppose they figured more people would watch if Batman were involved. It's better than cramming Harley Quinn in there I guess. They also involve Swamp Thing; DC tries really hard to make Swamp Thing a thing in comics, movies, and now a new TV series, though people aren't really buying. (3/5) (Fun Fact: There were rumors of a live action movie but I guess this is the best we'll get for the immediate future.)
Justice League vs Teen Titans: The title is a bit of an overstatement. The Teen Titans fight a demon-possessed Justice League briefly before they team up to track down the demons and save the Teen Titan witch Raven from her father who's a devil or THE devil; I'm not really sure which. The generic superhero action is OK but it's better when it focuses on the alienation of Raven and Damian Wayne's Robin, who's sent to the Titans by his father--Batman--to try to get him to play nice with others. Which is somewhat successful. (3/5)
Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders: This was the first animated revival of the Batman 66 show from a few years ago. It was pretty odd. Since it's animated they could do a lot of stuff they couldn't in 1966: Batman and Robin in space! Batman clones taking over the city! Batman and Robin fighting on a blimp! Those original actors still alive at the time (Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar) reprise their roles but since it's almost 50 years later they don't sound quite right. Though it's just over an hour it feels kind of long. (2.5/5)
Lego DC Heroes Justice League vs Bizarro Justice League: After Superman dumps Bizarro on a barren, cube-shaped planet, Bizarro returns to make Bizarro versions of the Justice League. They go back to the cube planet to fight Darkseid, who's mining some weird rocks on the planet. Goofy superhero fun with Legos. (2.5/5)
Lego DC Heroes Justice League vs Legion of Doom: In this sequel, Lex Luthor unites some supervillains and goes to Area 52 ("the new 52" ha) to "rescue" an alien from Mars named J'onn J'onzz. The Martian helps Luthor frame the Justice League for a crime, getting them banished, but Cyborg helps J'onn see the error of his ways. More goofy Lego fun. (2.5/5)
Made: Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn reunite as wanna-be mob henchmen. They have to go to New York to make a deal with Puff Daddy, but Vince Vaughn's loud, annoying mouth keeps getting them in trouble. Which is especially bad for Jon Favreau as he vouched for his friend. Vince Vaughn is so annoying that it makes it hard to watch. (2/5)
Cyborg: One of Cannon Films' later films starring Jean-Claude van Damme as
Espionage Tonight: This sounded like an interesting concept: an espionage reality TV show, but the execution was so muddled and confusing it soon lost my interest. It was supposed to be an action comedy but there wasn't really anything funny about it. Besides Sean Astin the only other person I recognized was the guy in the fez in Wonder Woman; I forget what his name was in that was. I'd look it up on IMDB but I don't feel like it. Maybe if this was a bigger budget movie with some better talent on the writing and directing end it would have come together better. (1/5)
Teen Wolf Too: Did you see the first one? This is the same movie except it stars Jason Bateman instead of Michael J Fox, takes place on a college campus instead of high school, and features boxing instead of basketball. Otherwise pretty much the same plot: boy becomes werewolf, werewolf becomes popular, boy lets it go to his head, boy is snapped out of it, and boy competes in one final event without the werewolf as a crutch to prove himself. The End. (Though this time in the end no one has their dick out in the crowd.) (2/5)
Friends Effing Friends Effing Friends: It delivers what it promises: 5 shitty young people in LA who fuck each other. Three are girls, two are guys. The guys are not nearly hot enough to have these girls fawning over them. I'm just saying. It reminds me of my entry about Superstore where I talked about trying to get me to root for shitty people; I really didn't want anything to work out for these shitbags because none of them deserved it. Not even all that great of effing scenes. (1/5)
LA to Vegas: This seemed like a limiting concept: a show focusing on a low-rent airline flying from LA to Vegas. As happens in shows like this, improbably you have the same recurring characters from week to week. The commercials made it seem like it focused on erratic pilot Captain Dave, but actually the central character is Ronnie, the stewardess. There are recurring passengers like a young stripper, a bookie/dentist (Peter Stormare of Fargo woodchipper fame), and a UCLA professor who was married to a magician's assistant. Unfortunately the latter and Ronnie have one of those boring sitcom "will they/won't they" relationships that's complicated when she meets a Vegas restaurateur. As always that just brings things down. Why do shows keep doing this? It's so annoying. Anyway, it was pretty decent when not rehashing Cheers romantic plots. It's kind of funny that Dylan McDermott's Captain Dave has a rival played by Dermot Mulroney; I always get their names mixed up. Captain Dave seemed to me like an airline pilot version of Sterling Archer. I'm just saying. (3/5)
Ghosted: I remember seeing ads for this but I never got around to watching it. I didn't miss much. The first nine episodes are about a former LAPD cop (Craig Robinson) and a crazy science professor (Adam Scott) enlisted by a secret government agency called the Bureau Underground to track down ghosts and monsters and stuff. It never really gelled. And it wasn't as funny as I thought it would be. In the first episode they mention Adam Scott's wife, whom he thought was abducted by aliens, is in a mental institution. It's not until the third episode he goes to see her, then she escapes, showing superhuman ability...and then is never seen until maybe the final episode. For the most part it was supposed to be a funny X-Files with the two main characters investigating a monster-of-the-week. That show I guess ran the first nine episodes from October to January. Then they decided to "retool" it. They brought in a writer from The Office to make it a workplace comedy, which was really jarring. And the problem is they hadn't really set up an ensemble cast. Besides the two main characters there was the woman in charge, an Indian scientist guy, and a black woman who in the pilot makes them awesome guns and after that just kind of fills whatever role they need to help them. Then all the sudden they start showing all these weird losers who work there and it's like, where'd they come from? They brought in Kevin Dunn (the dad in Transformers among other things) to be a new boss and then demoted the lady in charge so she had nothing to do but sit around being sad and alcoholic. (Hilarious!) She had a daughter in one episode but we never heard of her again. They switched the will they/won't they relationship with the black woman from Adam Scott to Craig Robinson. And it went to more of a serial story that just kind of limped along in the first four episodes. Then to add to the confusion the latest (final?) episode goes back to the original format and original pilot story without all the extraneous characters introduced in the last 6 episodes like it's a "lost episode" or something that still leaves a lot of threads hanging. I watched the first 13 on Hulu and figured that was it but then in June all the sudden they started showing more episodes; Fox basically just dumped the rest out in summer when no one would really give a shit. Retooling on the fly--or on a hiatus--never really works so it's no surprise Fox pulled the plug and I highly doubt any other network showed interest. In the original format with better writing it could have worked out, but it didn't. (1/5) (Awkward Fact: In the pilot episode the two guys are in a car and Craig Robinson asks about parallel universes. Then he asks, "Is there a Kevin Spacey in all the other universes? I think we have the best Kevin Spacey." That joke aired probably around the time Spacey's sexual harassment scandal came to light. And watching it now it's really awkward. Too bad they couldn't go back and replace his name with someone else.)
"New" Rifftrax Movies!
I know you won't like these because I like them, but what if I told you Alex Cavanaugh likes them? Now you have to like them, right? Anyway, whenever Amazon Prime adds some new titles I can watch for free, it's like the Ice Cream Bunny is bringing my XMas gifts early. Here are some of the latest additions:Hope & Glory: This answered something I was too lazy to look up on IMDB: was Cynthia Rothrock a real person? They used the name in a Robot Chicken sketch but I was never sure if she was a real person or someone they made up. Her name sounds like a Flintstones character. Anyway, she is a real person because she's the co-star in this early 90s movie about two sisters. Rothrock is an FBI agent and her sister is a TV reporter. They both know kung fu thanks to some Chinese guy who raised the reporter for...reasons. Their enemy is a bank president who is really buff and likes to go around shirtless and kill people. This was probably the most hilariously cheesy early 90s kung fu movie since Samurai Cop. You've probably never heard of that movie either but the recent sequels star Tommy Wisseau! (You know, the subject of The Disaster Artist played by James Franco?) So that's something.
Merlin: The Return: This 2000 movie stars Wayne's World and True Lies's Tia Carrere as an evil scientist who's trying to help Mordred escape another dimension Merlin trapped him in. And Merlin himself and Arthur and his knights. And somehow a couple of kids are involved. None of it made any sense at all. That's really all I can say about it.
Cyborg Cop 2: I've never seen the first one. I'm not sure if there was a Cyborg Cop or not. This one is 100% Cyborg Cop free! There are cyborgs and a cop who fights said cyborgs, but there are no cops who are cyborgs. So maybe they mean he's a cop who polices cyborgs? Too! This was a pretty cheesy 90s action movie overall. It borrows from the even shittier Robocop 2 as a scientist uses a convicted murderer for a cyborg and then guess what? The cyborg rebels! Only a cut-rate Lorenzo Lamas and his female sidekick can stop him! Which would be easier if they were cyborgs too. Just saying.
Superargo: A former Mexican wrestler who looks like he's wearing a red version of The Phantom's costume battles a mad scientist who's captured athletes and turned them into cyborgs. This was from the 60s and the cyborgs made me think of what Borg would have looked like if they had been part of the original series. The funniest part is earlier Superargo says his costume is bulletproof yet when he's climbing up the stairs with some escaped prisoners and the bad guy fires a gun, Superargo ducks and lets some poor schlub get killed. Our hero!
Ator the Fighting Eagle: Like Cyborg Cop 2 had no cyborg cops, there are no fighting eagles in this movie. It's your pretty standard 80s Conan ripoff. Except with a bit of Game of Thrones as Ator grows up wanting to marry his adopted sister. But before the wedding can happen (gross!) some bad guys make off with the bride. (Whew!) So the whole rest of the movie then is Ator battling to rescue his adopted sister so they can get married. (Yay?) Which involves all the standard chosen one cliches. Well I guess Luke Skywalker was trying to free his sister he fell in love with too, right? The perhaps good thing is the sequel called Cave Dwellers on MST3K in the early 90s features Ator but makes no mention of his sister.
Terror at Tenkiller: And like there are no fighting eagles in Ator and no cyborg cops in Cyborg Cop 2, there's no terror in Terror at Tenkiller. It's a pretty boring early 80s horror movie about two girls who stay at a cabin and are "terrorized" by a fisherman/boat mechanic/serial killer. Terror! If you're having trouble falling asleep, maybe watch this.
Julie and Jack: Unlike those other movies this actually has someone named Julie and someone named Jack. Well done, James Nguyen, director of the all-time cheesy classic Birdemic. This first film by the director has all the hallmarks we'd come to love in Birdemic: wooden acting, pointless driving/parking scenes, and stock options! Instead of pathetic CGI birds, the plot revolves around VR technology. Long before Inception or Her, James Nguyen was freaking people's minds with this movie where a tool falls in love with a woman who it turns out lives inside a computer after she died. What a twist! It's the love story only James Nguyen could tell in the way only he could--because no one else is so stupid and incompetent.
The Dark Power: In the "southeastern United States" an old Native American guy dies. His son rents out his house to some college students who are then terrorized by "Native American" spirits---or most likely white guys in terrible rubber masks. But even in our outrage culture it's hard to be mad about that; rather I think any Native American actors dodged a bullet by not appearing in what is the lamest and most boring slumber party ruined by a killer(s) since The Last Slumber Party. Lash Larue stars as an old forest ranger with a whip who proves a whip is a completely useless weapon. Early on he scares away some wild dogs with about twenty cracks of the whip when one gunshot in the air probably would have done the trick. And then later he spends ten minutes whipping a bad guy into submission while a black girl has already killed two of the bad guys with ceremonial knives. I mean come on, Lash, even Indiana Jones carried a gun; even he knew a whip wasn't a good choice for a primary weapon .
Kiss of the Tarantulas: This 70s "horror" movie makes Night of the Lepus (Lepus=Bunnies) seem brutal and edgy. A girl who's like a female Willard--only with tarantulas--kills some mean "college" boys who broke into her dad's funeral home wanting a casket for...reasons. Mostly it seems people in this movie kill themselves when she puts tarantulas near them. Oh and she has a creepy uncle who routinely fondles her who also happens to be chief of police. Gross. There was a moment of synchronicity when this one guy comes onto the screen and I say, "He looks like a fat Hitler" and then the Riffers said the same thing! Great minds think alike. Or I've just watched too many of these. Probably that.
City of the Dead: Like there were no...whatevers in those other movies there was no CITY of the dead. It was a village and most of the people were still alive. They were just Satanists leftover from witch burnings in 1692. In 1960-ish, a young-er Christopher Lee (who looks like mid-career James Woods) sends a student to the village where she's sacrificed to Satan. And then her brother and boyfriend go to look for her. Low-key mayhem ensues. It was pretty boring. It was shot in England but the sets looked like something you'd see on The Twilight Zone. Which either means the latter had good production values or the former had poor ones. Take your pick.
Deadly Prey: For...reasons some...guy is paying mercenaries to do...something. To train these mercenaries in the jungles of suburban San Diego, they kidnap a shirtless guy in tiny jean shorts so they can hunt him. But the joke's on them as he's an awesome special forces guy who then runs around killing them--still shirtless, barefoot, and wearing tiny jean shorts despite that he has ample opportunities to steal some clothes from his victims. I mean, at least take some boots, right? All their feet can't be too small. Anyway, like Cyborg above most of the "dialog" is grunting and screaming. In fact it ends with the shirtless guy screaming in triumph.
Firehead: This 1990 action movie is filled with head-scratching questions. Like, why do they call him "Firehead" when he shoots lasers or whatever from his eyes? What the hell does "bigger than a hog's dick on Sunday" mean? And how did they get legendary actors Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau to appear in it? The plot is that "Firehead" defects from the USSR to America and starts blowing up factories working on some secret government project. Chris Lemmon (son of Jack) is brought in to investigate and with some female agent they track Firehead down and join with him to overthrow Christopher Plummer and a bunch of guys who dress like extras of The Prisoner. It's a pretty corny movie with a cornier theme song. Besides the hog's dick line there was also another animal-themed goody: cleaner than a wolves' tooth--that's their wording. I don't know what either of those expressions is supposed to mean.
Deadly Invasion: A 90s movie about a college that's overrun with an alien. Mayhem ensues. With a lot of bad effects and bad acting.
1 comment:
Wow, what a long post. I've seen only two of these movies. You're kind of like Bill Kennedy at the Movies. Even if the movie was bad, he would still play it.
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