The Killing Zone (1991)

Back in February, I had the guys from Comeuppance Reviews on the podcast to discuss our favorite Evan Lurie and Deron McBee, aka Malibu, movies. Out of the three movies I chose for Malibu, this was the only one I hadn't reviewed, so it's time to fix that. In addition to us and Comeuppance, Bulletproof Action and RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema have covered this as well.

The Killing Zone has Malibu as a guy whose uncle is almost killed by a drug lord, and somehow, Malibu ends up in a prison in Arizona doing hard labor. When the drug lord comes back, a cop who used to work with Malibu's uncle decides the only one who can stop him is Malibu, so he pulls some strings and gets him out of prison. At the same time, the drug lord has a beef with Malibu's uncle, so he keeps attacking the bar his uncle owns. While trying to find the drug lord, Malibu mixes in some reps on the incline bench, and rips the collars off his shirts so they fit over his neck and too sweet pecs. Eventually, the baddie kidnaps the uncle and Malibu's love interest, Melissa Moore, leading to a big confrontation out in the desert somewhere. Will Malibu prevail? Will he prevail in time to get his reps in?

This is pure Malibu, and in that sense it works. If you ever wondered what a Malibu-led actioner would be, this is it, but it feels like this only works in the early 90s. His hair, outfits, sunglasses, and dangling earring only work in the early 90s. But the fact that we had an early 90s, and Malibu worked in that era, makes us all that much luckier that this movie exists as an artifact recording that moment in time. Beyond that, this isn't the greatest. The action is pretty good, but not great for the time it was made; and the story seems to make no sense. We're given Malibu and his uncle as these two great cops/DEA agents or whatever, yet, they keep going back to the uncle's bar, despite the fact that the baddies know they hang out there and keep attacking them there. Wouldn't that be the first place you'd avoid if you were the heroes? In that sense, this is good strictly for the Malibu factor.

But that factor is a strong enough one. In 90s action, we're used seeing Malibu in supporting roles, where his presence rounds out an overall great experience in classics like Skyscraper and T-Force, and while I think that's ultimately where he's at his best, the fact that he can lead a film like this is great too. The problem unfortunately is he didn't get a lot of great action lead scenes. We see him at the prison work yard in the beginning fighting a fellow inmate and taking him down, and we have a sense that that's what this is going to be every fifteen minutes or so, but we kind of lose that, and the film doesn't know how much to give action parts to Malibu, and how much to give them to the uncle; and then the end confrontation scene with the baddie, Malibu doesn't deliver the final shot, which was also a disappointment. So as much fun as it was to get Malibu in the lead, the film didn't do as much with him as they could have.

 

This was distributed by PM Entertainment, but wasn't produced by the PM team of Pepin and Merhi, and also the Tubi version didn't have the PM logo at the beginning. If you look up PM and sort their movies by release date, this is number 16, so very early in the process for them, and this kind of feels like that, like you can almost see the eventual Skyscraper, Sweeper, Recoil, etc. that they would eventually produce for us. I've talked about this before, but looking at the timeline, as the 80s are ending, the Cannon wave is cresting on the back of some bad investments like Masters of the Universe and Superman IV, but then the PM wave is starting, and while the two companies put out different styles of action movies, for us as fans, it led to this fantastic decade or so run from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, and what's great about a movie like this one, is we're seeing that PM wave building from off in the horizon.

Melissa Moore plays Malibu's love interest in this, and while I think she's known as a scream queen, we've seen her here in a good amount of action films, including one of her more famous turns in Samurai Cop, and as the female lead in Jerry Trimble's One Man Army. She doesn't have a lot of work in this though, she has a love scene with Malibu, hangs out at the uncle's bar with him, and then gets kidnapped. She stopped making movies in the early 2000s, and then came back for Samurai Cop 2--except her IMDb shows some porn movies after that. It looks like there's a Adult Cinema actress who is also named Melissa Moore, and the crowdsourced approach to IMDb titles has caused her and the scream queen Melissa Moore to be conflated on a few pictures. This is why William H. Macy isn't Bill Macy, because he didn't want to be confused with Maude's husband Arthur from Maude--and despite this was still confused for him at the 1997 Academy Awards. 

Finally, in the podcast episode I did with the guys from Comeuppance, we combined Malibu with Evan Lurie, in part because they exuded a great meathead quality in the 90s DTV actioners they were in. For some reason, and I can't tell why, the 90s meathead works much better than the 2010s/2020s meathead. Maybe it's the hair, the voice, the language they use, I don't know. Seeing Malibu here with his mullet, dangling earring, and shirts that he ripped the collars off of so they fit over his massive neck and pecs, it works. The modern version of him would be sleeves of tats, busy Affliction T, probably head with shaved back and sides with a hard part, and refers to attractive women as "smoke shows." The idea of putting Malibu or Lurie in that box makes me shudder. I think it's another reason why those 80s/90s actioners work so much better than their modern counterparts, elements like a Lurie or Malibu enhance the film in a way that makes it more fun, not more of an eye-roller.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this for free in the States on Tubi, and I think that's the best way to experience this. It's a solid early PM actioner with Malibu, who's usually a supporting cast member, as the lead. And for the podcast episode I did with Comeuppance on Malibu, it's episode 92 in the archives, "Malibu and Evan Lurie." It's a great conversation, and worth checking out if you haven't yet.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102214

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Skyscraper (1996)

When I had Brett and Ty from Comeuppance Reviews on the podcast to discuss their favorite PM Entertainment movies, right after we stopped recording, one of them mentioned that we forgot this movie. I had never seen it before, but it was one they wanted with their honorable mentions. The fact that I hadn't covered this, and have a review site called "The DTV Connoisseur"--no matter how tongue and cheek the name--was definitely something I felt I needed to rectify as soon as possible, so now we're here. A whole slew of other sites have looked at this, including Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Will at Exploding Helicopter, and RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought about this as well.

Skyscraper has Anna Nicole Smith as a helicopter taxi pilot that gets a job from some baddies that are trying to get some top secret weaponry. When their deal goes bad, they need to take over the skyscraper they're in. The one thing they didn't count on: that the scrappy helicopter pilot that flew them there would be the fly in their ointment.

This is pure PM Entertainment goodness. In the opening 15 minutes, we have Malibu from American Gladiators wearing only the vest and pants of a three-piece suit while spraying a bunch of guys with an uzi, who then try to escape by backing their car out of the alley they're all in, leading to them crashing through a Bud Dry truck and causing an explosion. Re-read that run-on sentence again. Is that not the most amazing thing ever? Give me that all day. Now this is a bit more Skin-a-max than your usual PM flick, as they tried to take advantage of Anna Nicole Smith by giving her a couple sex scenes that show off her assets, and which I think makes this a bit harder of a sell for a bad movie night, depending on your audience; but if you're looking for a fun PM Entertainment actioner that you can stream on most services, this does the trick about as well as any of them.

While I was on hiatus Dolph, Seagal, and Van Damme had been very busy, not to mention Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White et al., so when I came back, I felt like I needed to catch up on all that stuff and get it reviewed, which meant movies like this were getting lost in the shuffle. After seeing Skyscraper, I realize what a mistake that was. They don't make movies like this anymore. They wish they did. They think they do. The fact that they made a movie with The Rock that has the same name as this tells me that they think they're better than this. They're not. What should have happened was, this should have been released in the theater, and instead of making Skyscraper, The Rock should have made another Fast and Furious spin-off, this one called Hobbs and Hartley, where Bob Newhart reprises his role from The Bob Newhart show, Dr. Bob Hartley, and he and The Rock have to save the world from a ruthless super criminal, played by Kelsey Grammer. That was a round-about long-winded way of saying I'm going to put more of a priority on these older movies.

You're probably waiting for me to go for the low-hanging fruit of making fun of Anna Nicole Smith's acting in this. It's not going to happen, in part because she's no longer with us, but also in part because no one cares about anyone's acting chops in a PM Entertainment flick! Part of what makes PM Entertainment so great is that they can do a film with Anna Nicole Smith in it and make it so great that we can love it unironically. I mean, if you want to look at models in action movies, this is definitely superior to Cindy Crawford's Fair Game with William Baldwin. And I don't think this is good in spite of Anna Nicole Smith either--in fact, I think the need to shoehorn in two gratuitous sex scenes to take advantage of Anna Nicole Smith's Playboy past wasn't necessary for this movie to work, but rather detracted a bit, because, again, it loses something in a bad movie screening if you can't show those scenes.

PM Entertainment is not the only DTVC Hall of Famer attached to this film. Art Camacho did stunt work in this, which makes this the 40th film on the DTVC that he's been involved with in some way--40 that we know of, because I often go back and find his name attached to something we've reviewed before that I missed. Either way, the 40 Club is very exclusive at the DTVC, as he's now only the fourth member, along with Dolph Lundgren, Gary Daniels, and Albert Pyun. The reality is, I thought this was only his 39th movie, and I had a film that he directed to be his real induction into the 40 Club, but before I wrote this review, I discovered that I hadn't tagged him for his fight choreography on T-Force, which bumped this up to number 40--and like I said, who knows if he hasn't been in the 40 Club long before this and I just haven't caught up to tagging it yet.

This movie brings up a real ethical issue surrounding the exploding helicopter trope in movies: how often are the helicopter pilots baddies themselves, and how often are they independent contractors like Anna Nicole Smith was here? How heroic does that make our hero then when he blows them up? I went back through some of the more famous ones, and more often than not they don't seem like contractors, but rather part of the gang, and I guess if you have the resources that some of these criminal enterprises have, finding a baddie pilot who can handle that part of the operation doesn't seem too far beyond the pale, so maybe it's Skyscraper that's the outlier. A gang that has guys dressed like Malibu here maybe look great, but probably don't cross all their Ts and dot all their Is, which leaves them in a situation where they need to contract out something that would have been better handled in-house.

I guess that's as good a note as any to wrap this up on. You can currently stream this on Prime and Tubi. If you haven't seen this before--like I hadn't--there's no excuse to not get it taken care of. This is pure PM Entertainment gold, and well worth your time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114467/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

T-Force (1994)

This was the feature film on a recent episode of the Exploding Helicopter podcast (which if you haven't checked it out yet, you should!), and my first thought was "let me check out my review on it."  Turned out I didn't have a review for it yet, because it was one I had watched and planned to review before the unplanned hiatus.  I guess now is as good a time as any to take care of that.  In addition to being featured on the Exploding Helicopter podcast, our friends Ty and Brett reviewed this over at their site, Comeuppancereviews.net.

T-Force takes place in the near future, and in that time robots are prevalent.  The newest creation: robot cops.  After terrorists led by Vernon Wells take over a building, and the robot cops swoop in and take out a bunch of innocent bystanders at the same time they take out Wells and his men, a decision is made to scrap them altogether.  The problem is, they have a sense of self, and don't wanna die.  Jack Scalia and one of the robot cops who didn't join his robot friends are all that stand in their way.  The robots' way I mean, not Scalia and the other robot...

This is the real deal PM Entertainment.  That Vernon Wells building takeover happens right away, so they don't waste any time with the good action--I think they blow up a helicopter in the first 15-20 minutes.  It's classic PM in the sense that, just when you think the plot may get in the way of the action, they hit us with a too-sweet action sequence to keep us happy.  The only complaint, and I don't know if you call this a complaint, is I felt it suffered from the Destro Effect, in that for me, Evan Lurie as the head robot baddie was way cooler and more likable than our "hero" Jack Scalia.  That's because Scalia's character was essentially a racist.  Between the fact that Lurie is already cooler than Scalia, and then Scalia's character is hard to root for because he's a racist, you end up needing Lurie to kill so many innocent people to make him more unlikable than Scalia, and I don't know if the movie quite gets there.  But Destro Effect aside, this is good PM Entertainment doing its job for you.

Out of all the great DTV action stars, I think I missed Evan Lurie the most during my hiatus.  Unlike people like Dolph, who I might encounter in a non-DTV context, I'm only seeing Evan Lurie in flicks like this.  The reality with this movie is, he shouldn't have been the baddie, he and his partners Malibu and Jennifer MacDonald should have been the heroes, roaming the LA area, blowing up stuff and making cool faces.  I mean, that's essentially what PM gave us with this, it was just, knowing they were the baddies, we understood it all would have to come to a bad end Lurie and his crew eventually.  Here's to you Evan Lurie, you're one of the great ones.

I think this is the first Jack Scalia film we've done here at the DTVC, which is surprising considering he's been in a lot of PM Entertainment flicks.  As I mentioned above, his character was a tough one to root for.  Again, he's already working uphill because he's not as cool as Lurie; but then they make his character a racist against robots.  He changes his tune after he works with the robot in Lurie's crew who doesn't go rogue, but why did he need that to not be a racist?  It's like when there's an incident of violence against women in the spotlight, and some guy will say "I have two daughters, so I think this is horrible."  Why do you need to have a daughter to think violence against women is bad?  And why do you need to be partnered with a robot to think not all robots are bad?

This movie had two messages that it was trying to convey.  One, the nature of self, what makes us human, and furthermore, what gives us the right to stake our claim to life on this planet.  If we create robots, can we just shut them down when we want, or do the robots have a say?  You could also say this about animals we slaughter for food, right?  We breed the pig, but the pig doesn't want to die when it's time any more than Evan Lurie did.  The difference of course, is that the pig can't blow us up.  The second message had to do with immigration and the idea of immigrants coming to America and taking jobs away from blue collar workers.  The problem with that is, they never quite resolved Scalia's mindset on that, rather just had him forget it when he befriended his robot partner.  What's interesting about both of these debates is how they've evolved 25 years later.  In terms of the nature of self and who has the right to live, the plant-based protein market is huge now, but not because people think pigs are sentient creatures, but rather because environmentally factory farming is killing us.  As far as the immigration issue, that has blown up worse than we could have imagined in 1994, with the way Trump revived it as a boogie man and rode that hysteria among white, working class voters to the 2016 election.  That might be why Scalia's character is so hard to root for today: we can see him in his MAGA hat now, and that makes him all the more gross.

Usually that previous paragraph is the one I use for the seventh one, but I couldn't end a PM Entertainment post on that note.  Seeing this again after seeing so many newer DTV flicks for the blog recently, I'm reminded of why I got into this in the first place.  PM Entertainment got it right more often than they got it wrong, and this is a prime example.  How easily could they have gotten too bogged down in the two themes I mentioned above?  But not only did they not let that happen, they had some real kick-ass scenes.  When we see that logo at the beginning of a movie, we know we're going to be in pretty good shape.  Just a smooth-talking Evan Lurie robot in a ponytail blowing up helicopters.  What more can you want?

This is the PM Entertainment you came for.  Sweet action, fun baddies with Lurie and Malibu, and plenty of schlock to go around.  As of right now, this is available to screen on YouTube, so I would check it out if you haven't already.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111345/

Instinct to Kill (2001)

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but I liked that it had Mark Dacascos, and I liked that he was reunited with Kadeem Hardison, whom he was great with in Drive. If this ends up being half the movie Drive was, we'll be in pretty good shape.

Instinct to Kill has Tim Abell as a psychopathic police detective, who splits time away from the force between being a serial killer and an abusive husband. It's his battered wife that finds out about the serial killing and turns him in, and when he escapes from prison, he wants revenge on her. She decides she's had it with being a victim, so she goes to Dacascos to learn to defend herself. Problem: she's not through with the training before Abell comes after her. Now Dacascos and her and Abell's old police partner, Kadeem Hardison, need to work together to take him down.



This one wasn't bad. It was mostly carried by Tim Abell, who was an exceptional baddie, but from there, Dacascos was great as the hero, and Melissa Crider solid as the woman fighting back. It had a few good fight scenes too, especially a couple between Dacascos and Abell. The problem was that I think it initially was supposed to be more about Crider taking down Abell-- hence the original title of The Perfect Husband-- and that left us with some inconsistencies, as Dacascos felt shoe-horned in in parts, or his role felt beefed up as opposed to naturally centered on him. That's a difficult thing to mitigate, because Dacascos is so good, it would be hard not to have him and Abell go at it. Overall, not bad though.

Let's start with Dacascos. This is not the kind of role where he's going to get a ton of fight scenes, meaning it's not in the ballpark of something like Drive, but he's still pretty solid. His fight scenes were choreographed by James Lew, and I think Lew wanted to go with more realism and less flash, which worked within the framework of the film, but left something to be desired as an action fan. The other thing that worked against him, was the wife's revenge/redemption aspect, because that undermined him as the hero. He had to be defeated by Abell so she could finally deliver the final shot and confront her demons.



As I said above, Tim Abell was absolutely chilling as the baddie. Every time he was in a scene, there was a sense bad things were going to happen-- and when I say bad, I mean evil. Think along the lines of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. That really made this movie for me. Everything centered on how horrible he was, and how badly people needed to stop him. He's been a baddie in films we've seen before at the DTVC, including Storm Trooper where he also played an abusive husband (though nowhere near what he was here), and The Base, where he was also a baddie opposite Dacascos. It's this role, though, that earns him his DTVC tag. Great stuff.

This was executively produced by Mark L. Lester. Yes, that Mark L. Lester. This did not feel like a Mark L. Lester film though, except for one scene where Abell disguises himself as an old lady pushing a stroller, which he rolls into the back of an unmarked police car with two detectives inside staking out his old house. The cops look at him, not knowing what to think, then they see the bomb in the stroller, but it's too late, the whole thing blows up. There's also a pretty big shoot out in a hospital that was Lester-ish. But, alas, he was only the executive producer, so this was not as awesome as Showdown in Little Tokyo, et al.



Abell's character was something of a master of disguise, though it seemed like he always looked kind of like himself-- it was like people who worked with Clark Kent not knowing he's Superman because he's wearing glasses. Anyway, in this one scene, it looks like he's disguised as Chris Meloni. My favorite Chris Meloni role is as the cook in Wet Hot American Summer. I think a lot of people are used to seeing him as Stabler in Law and Order: SVU, but he's one of the better comedic actors working today, and hopefully we'll see more of that now that he's left that show.

I give this a somewhat cautious recommendation, just because, while it has some action, action isn't the main focus. Dacascos is good, and Abell is even better, so there's something there to hang your hat on. Still, this isn't the exceptional action flick we're looking for from Dacascos, especially with Drive on his resume.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291265/

Out for Blood (1992)

Usually I have a great introductory paragraph, maybe where I tell you how I came across the film, or when I first had a chance to view it. Simply put, this was a Don "The Dragon" Wilson PM Entertainment actioner I hadn't gotten to yet, and now I am. Need I say more? Also of note, our good friend Ty at Comeuppance Reviews covered this as well, so you can check out his post and compare.

Out for Blood is PM Entertainment and Don "The Dragon" Wilson's answer to Death Wish, with Wilson as a lawyer whose wife and kid are killed after they stumble upon a drug deal, and Wilson is severely wounded. Afterwards, he suffers from amnesia and doesn't exactly remember who did it, only that they were drug dealers, and he's going to kill as many of them as he can until he finds the right ones. Throw in the detective from all the Ring of Fire flicks, Robert Miano, the villain from Chain of Command, and a special appearance from an old friend.

This one does the trick. It's vintage PM Entertainment/Don "The Dragon" Wilson, from the fight scenes that almost come out of everywhere, to the shootouts that seem to go nowhere until a stuntman falls to his death, to the explosions that really make no sense--except in our action-loving hearts. "Hey, we paid for the fire experts, and we're gonna use 'em. I want two stuntmen ablaze in the next scene." "Hey, we paid for the pneumatic catapult, and by God, we're going to use it, I don't care if the stuntman looks nothing like Mr. Wilson." This is why we love PM Entertainment, and why it seems like they get the best out of Wilson.

I always talk about how the charm in Wilson is his "awe shucks" demeanor, but he sheds it very effectively to don his Bronson persona. This is the kind of Wilson we want though, kicking ass and taking names--and when he's not kicking ass, he's making great sarcastic comments about kicking ass. Line up the beefy guys with mullets, and let Wilson have at it. Yes, we want that. Five guys on a rooftop getting beat up? Yes! Cruising around on the hood of a car? Give me more. When it's done right, Wilson DTV action is a thing to behold, and when it's done poorly, it hurts. This certainly didn't hurt.

This had some major boom-mic-age. And I'm not talking for a second either. It seems like that at first, because right away we see the thing bob up and out of the shot. But then we go back to Wilson, and it's there again, just chillin' over his head. And then we go back, and it's there again, and this time a little lower, if that's possible. It's one thing when it's for a split second, but this was major, and it was awesome.

One of the best mullets ever was sported by Todd Curtis, who you may remember as the main baddie in Chain of Command. He was dressed like a cowboy here too, which I didn't get, but I figured I'd just go with it and not ask any questions. He didn't have a fight with Wilson though, which was unfortunate. They thought a fight with Ken McLeod would be better. Who knows?...

Recognize that face? Yep, that's DTVC favorite Don Niam, from Undefeatable. That's the only close-up in the film, and it happens in like one second. According to IMDb, it's his first ever role, so not bad. Right after that close-up, he's decked by Wilson and knocked out, and then we see him from a distance lying on the ground, or being dragged out of a van. Gotta love Don Niam.

And you gotta love Out for Blood. A vintage PM Entertainment/Don "The Dragon" Wilson collaboration. As far as I know, it's out-of-print on DVD, but can be bought at Amazon, plus they have it on Video-on-Demand; the problem is, when you click on the IMDb Amazon link, it's mixed in with a bunch of similarly titled vampire flicks and whatnot. Anyway, if you can spot this cheap, either on VHS or DVD, go for it, because it's worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107762/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Batman and Robin (1997)

I first saw this in the theater when it came out, and was definitely under-whelmed. I think by then I'd tired of the big budget Bat-sequels with myriad Hollywood actors, product tie-ins, and ubiquitous soundtrack songs. I haven't seen it since then, but was intrigued when it was number on on Empire.com's 50 Worst Films Ever. I mean, I remembered it being bad, but worse than say, Catwoman?

Batman and Robin is the fourth in the Caped Crusader series started by Tim Burton. This time George Clooney takes the helm, with Chris O'Donnell as Robin and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl there at his side. As far as villains menacing Gotham City, Arnold Schwarzenegger steps up as Mr. Freeze, and Uma Thurman plays the ever sexy Poison Ivy. No one famous played Bane as far as I could tell. Anyway, does the plot matter? I didn't think so.

In the first ten minutes, there's a goofy fight between Batman and Robin and Mr. Freeze and all his henchmen. They're ice skating and playing hockey with a large diamond. It was reminiscent of the old TV show, and I thought maybe I just didn't get it when I watched it the first time. But then, back at the Batcave, O'Donnell and Clooney have this stilted, poorly written argument about Clooney holding O'Donnell back, and I understood better why this was panned. It had its positives: Uma Thurman was great as this kind of Bette Midler send-up of Poison Ivy; the sets, when not covered in fluorescent green, were really cool, especially Arkham Asylum and the observatory; and Alicia Silverston was really hot and George Clooney looked great in a tux.

But neither Clooney nor Silverstone worked as superheroes. Clooney is probably one of the coolest men alive, which you think would work in his favor, but it turned out he was too cool to play Batman. I'd even say he's too cool to play James Bond. I say this because he's more sophisticated than that type of material. Watch a film like Leatherheads, and you'll see what I mean. Silverstone was hot as all get out in that Batgirl costume, but she had this air head quality in her performance that made her role as a superheroine totally unbelievable. As far as O'Donnell, if I was him I'd have fired my agent after this. They made his Robin like Rob Schneider in Judge Dredd, yet then tried to make it serious, so all we were left with was being annoyed with him. Finally, Arnold was the worst. His accent works great in a one line capacity--see "Let off some steam, Bennett"--but in the world of superhero/supervillain banter, he was way off and sounded overly rehearsed. Jim Carey, Danny DeVito, Tommy Lee Jones? Yes. Schwarzenegger? No.

Let's address Empire.com's claim that this was the worst film ever. Yes, I can't argue with the Bat-nipples, and the script was all over the place, not knowing if it wanted to be tongue-in-cheek or serious; but worse than Catwoman? Worse than Highlander 2: The Quickening? Part of the reason why I think it won was because the list was put to a vote by readers. How many people do you know have seen Catwoman? Now how many do you know have seen Batman and Robin? Exactly. Yes, it wasn't great, but worst ever is a heavy indictment, and this film didn't deserve it.

I loved Uma Thurman's take on Poison Ivy. On Empire.com's blurb about the film, they quoted critic Anthony Lane's comment that all the stars put in "their worst imaginable performances." Again, that's very harsh, but in Thurman's case, incorrect as well. It's a damn comic book movie, and she was having fun with it. Unlike Schwarzenegger who was out of his league, Thurman stole every scene she was in. Yes, it was very 1970s Sonny and Cher guest appearance-y, but it worked for me. Silverstone, though nowhere near as good, was just so hot I'm not sure it mattered. One thing I didn't like, and it wasn't her fault, but the writers', was how instead of being Commissioner Gordon's daughter, she was Alfred's niece. Had they gone with the comic book version of her origin, it would've made for at least a more believable character. Supergirl with Helen Slater suddenly emerging from the water in her Supergirl outfit thinks the way this film turned Silverstone into Batgirl was contrived and nonsensical.

Films like these are usually chick full of celebrity cameos, and this was no exception. You had Vivica A. Fox in one brief scene as a throwback to the chicks that used to hangout with the villains on the old TV show, for instance. Probably best for me was Jesse "The Body" Ventura and Rolf Moeller as Arkham guards. That means that, in addition to Predator and Running Man, this film has the distinction of producing two US governors. Who's with me on starting the campaign for Moeller as governor of Maine?

Worst movie ever? No, not even close. Great movie? No, not even close. It has it moments, both good and bad, but I think more than anything, it signaled to its audience just how spent we were with the whole Batman franchise started by Tim Burton. It'll be interesting to see what the new series of films does for its third and fourth installments. The third one will sell well no matter what, just based on the first two, but if it sucks, it'll be up to the fourth one to revive it. If they fall into the trap this one did, of just throwing as many Hollywood celebs at it as possible, we could see a similar result.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000235/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Revamped (2007)

This one caught my eye because it had Martin Kove and Fred Williamson. Of course, I mistook it for another film in my queue, Kiss of the Vampire, which has Martin Kove and Gary Daniels. Sometimes there are just too many movies for even the self-professed connoisseur to keep them straight. Of course, I now want to do Kiss of the Vampire, but I also have another Gary Daniels film in Riot I want to cover, and the Kove classic To Be the Best... so many choices, so little time.

Revamped has Jeff Rector (who has done his share of vampire flicks) as a rich dude who finds out his wife is cheating on him with Kato Kaelin (I'm not kidding). So he hatches this brilliant scheme to become a vampire-- which he can do through a commercial service offered by vampires to turn any mortal looking to join up-- and fake his death, return to life, and get his revenge. Things don't work out when he forgets she'd need his estate to pay for the funeral, so being cut out of the will, she can only afford to cremate him. His ashes are brought back to life five years later, and the world is different: vampires and humans are at war. Now it gets convoluted, and we have half-breeds, government slayers, etc. all vying for power, and Rector is the only one that save everyone and take out all the baddies.



This started out like a comedy, and on that level it worked. But then there were all these layers that were tough to follow and seemed extraneous. Not to mention it made the film boring in parts, and even the action that was there was kind of lame. So if the comedy and action are lame, then we need either the horror/gore or the sexiness to step up, and neither really did that either. That's too bad, because the initial idea of a company that sells as a service vampires turning humans into vampires, plus the some of the other comedic elements that they went away from, worked. Sometimes less is more.

And that's a shame, because Rector, Kove, and Williamson were all great when their roles demanded they be off-beat. Kove and Williamson especially are two guys that have been around for a while for a reason-- because they're good. The problem is, they're only as good as the material they have to work with, and this material was too all over the place. I think maybe the comedy was where they should've focused, because that was where they did their best stuff, and as such, it was where Williamson and Kove were able to do their best work too.



This is actually the most recent film available with Fred Williamson in it, and he's not in it much. I'm waiting for Spaced Out, a film he did with Robert Z'Dar, to come from Netflix, but I think if I'm going to really showcase what Fred Williamson is all about, I need to go further back in time, to the 80s and 90s. One that I have in my instant queue is The Big Score, which also has John Saxon and Richard Roundtree, so maybe I'll do that one in a couple weeks.

I would've liked more Martin Kove as well. He is someone, along with Richard Lynch and Robert Z'Dar, that I'm looking to feature more this year, so it's unfortunate that the first one out of the gate in 2010 has him in it in a limited capacity. Still, when he was there, he was good, and he also played a good guy, which was a different turn for him. We'll see if we can't improve upon this, whatever the next Kove film is.



One of the harder parts about doing the DTVC is getting images for the films I review, especially off DVDs. I should probably buckle down and pay for a good movie player for my computer, like say register my version of WinDVD, which worked well in the trial phase. As it is, I'm using a Beta version of BSPlayer, and often it won't open the part of the film I need for the picture I want; and with this film it wouldn't open anything at all. I was able to go to the film's official website, and though they weren't the exact pics I wanted, they did in a pinch. I'm not sure how they or any of the other people who make the movies I review feel about me putting images of their films on here. Albert Pyun didn't seem to mind when he commented about liking what we do, so I take that as a good sign. At the very least, I'm getting the name out there for all of these films, even if I'm giving them poor recommendations.

For a film that started out so well, it was disappointing to see it fall off as it did. It wasn't atrocious-- I mean, I've seen much worse here-- but it suffered too much from an identity crisis. It tried to cover too much ground in one story, and ended up covering very little and leaving more to be desired. Still, it was an interesting take on the vampire genre, so they should be given credit for the effort, even if the film itself fell short.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0918558/

The Cutter (2005)

I'm not a big Chuck Norris guy. I kind of liked watching Bruce Lee kick his ass, and Good Guys Wear Black wasn't so bad. Walker, on the other hand, was just a whole mess of Conservative propaganda served up in a dude in a pick-up who drove around and beat the crap out of stunt men. The only way I could handle that was on Conan with the classic Walker: Texas Ranger Lever.

The Cutter has Norris as a disgraced cop-turned-PI who's helping a woman find her uncle. Her uncle's an expert diamond cutter, and he's been kidnapped by none other than DTVC fave Daniel Bernhardt. Bernie needs him to cut some huge stones that he's stolen from some archaeologists. Norris chases him around, Bernie kicks his ass, an asshole FBI dude gets in the way, and finally for no good reason other than he's Norris, he bests Bernhardt and saves the day. Tracy Scoggins is in this as well.



Bernhardt was awesome in this. If he didn't murder seven innocent archaeologists in cold blood, he'd have been perfect. As it was, he was way more of a sympathetic figure than Norris was. This film had some religious undertones, which wasn't a surprise considering Norris' recent support of Huckabee as a presidential candidate. It was cute listening to Norris quote the Bible here and there. Otherwise, this is the same schlock fare of good guy with a good heart who triumphs over the bad guys, and its predictability is hard to cope with.

Norris is a pretty bad actor. I think I always knew it, but here it was worse than usual. He was like a Rudy Giuliani or Peyton Manning on SNL. The thing was, most of his fellow actors weren't that bad, which exacerbated his lack of ability, like a Will Farrell trying to work with Britney Spears in a sketch. I can accept this poor acting if the martial arts are there, like I do with Don "The Dragon" Wilson, but Norris was lacking there too. He got his ass kicked by Bernhardt for most of the film, and when he did best him it was because the plot demanded it, and it was really unrealistic.



Let's get back to Bernie. Here's a cat that's totally lobbying the panel for induction into next year's Direct to Video Connoisseur Hall of Fame. He was too sweet in this as an international professional criminal. The mustache was a great touch when he was sneaking into the country. His demeanor far surpassed Norris'. I know he was presented as the slick European juxtaposition to Norris' good ol' American values, but I can't lie, Bernie sells the former better. I love a beat up old Chevy truck as much as a fully loaded Mercedes, but if the beat up old Chevy ain't getting me from point A to point B, give me the fucking import and let's go balls to the wall all the way to Albuquerque. I wouldn't have minded it at all if Bernhardt succeeded in his plans and won the movie. I also know a Norris production could never be that creative to give as cool an ending as that.

Marshall Teague is in this as Norris' good buddy in the local police department. You may remember Teague as the guy from Road House who fucked guys like Dalton in prison, and had his throat summarily ripped out for making said declaration. After a role like that, I have trouble trusting those dudes. He needed to double cross Norris, and it never happened. He should've been on the take helping out Bernie, and Norris could've found out and ripped his throat out too. Had that happened, it would've been the coolest non-Bernhardt thing in the film.



Tracy Scoggins is in this. Many probably remember her from Babylon 5 and her great role as Cassandra in Highlander: The Series. That story arc with Methos and The Four Horseman might have been one of the best ever for a syndicated TV show. This also has Joanna Pacula, who was in the previously reviewed Warlock: Armageddon. I wonder how she felt acting with Norris after acting with Julian Sands.

This is not a movie to rent by yourself. You need about four or five like minded people to sit with you and help you make fun of this. Bernhardt's awesomeness is overshadowed by Norris' stupidness, and it'll take some work from you and your friends to withstand Norris by mocking every minute of this film. If you watch it alone you might stab your eyes out, and we here at the DTVC don't ever want to see anyone hurt by these films.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432267/

Immortal Combat (1994)

I actually picked this up thinking it was a Roddy Piper film I'd seen on TNT after Monday Night Nitro almost ten years ago. In turns out it wasn't, and I'm still not sure what that movie was. I need a bad movie journal like wine connoisseurs have to make notations on movies I've seen so I'll remember them in the future. It's funny, because I'm a big wine drinker too, and I often run into the same problem when I'm at a store trying to pick up a bottle. "Have I had this before? I think so... but was it that vintage...?" Then I buy it and it's not what I was looking for.

Immortal Combat has nothing to do with the classic arcade game Mortal Kombat, and was probably just an attempt to the boost sales of a bad DTV action film, because in 1994, Mortal Kombat was itas far as what kids 12-34 were doing. This movie is about two cops, DTVC Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper and famed action star Sonny Chiba, who try to bust some party or whatever. Their partner, some chick who was in the party undercover, is murdered by some psycho who may or may not have been shot to death, and Piper wants revenge. Chiba can't join him on the quest for revenge, because he hurt his arm in the bust. Anyway, Piper goes to a Pacific island in pursuit of the baddies at some dubious company's compound, and finds out they're making nearly immortal warriors out of deceased fighters, and plan on selling the technology to warring countries. It's up to Piper to take down the company, get revenge for his partner, save the girl reporter he's fallen in love with, and crack the case.



This wasn't too bad, but it wasn't too good either. Chiba's not in it too much, as they have him back in the States recuperating from injuries he got in the opening scenes. That's too bad, because he an Piper have some great on-screen chemistry when they're together. I could see going this route if this film was like movie three in a series of Piper/Chiba buddy pictures, but it isn't, this is a one-time deal, and it's a shame the film makers couldn't see the opportunity they had. One of Piper's best assets is his sense of humor, and Chiba's a great straight man. They'd've been Rush Hour before Rush Hour.

Speaking of Piper, he definitely delivers. The first scenes with him are he and another guy telling their superior about the bust-went-bad the night before. As he describes it, we see it first hand with his tongue-in-cheek voice-overs. It's classic Piper as he delivers beatings and is funny as he does it. Later, when he gets to the Island to pursue the baddies, he meets this cute yet spunky reporter who's on the same trail. In order to melt her cool exterior, he invites her to dance in the water with him. It's spontaneous from the standpoint of the film, and romantic in the sense of the commercial for the Hugh Grant movie, where that scene is shown to try and get us to see the movie, but just seems trite and cliched. It works way more in the Piper DTV action film than the Hugh Grant Romantic comedy. Piper's the man.



I dug Sonny Chiba in this bad boy, and as I said above, it was too bad he wasn't in it more. He's in the beginning, and does these great action scenes where he beats a bunch of guys with the flat side of a samurai sword. It's one of those things where you want more, but don't get it until the very end, when he dons some ninja gear and helps Piper invade the bad company's compound. I've always loved Sonny Chiba, from the time I saw him in the Street Fighter movies back when I was a kid. It was sweet seeing him recently in Tarentino's Kill Bill as Hattori Honzo. He's close to seventy now, putting him in that category with Billy Dee Williams and Fred Williamson as great actors who are getting up there a bit but still going strong. I hope more DTV guys, like maybe an Albert Pyun, get their hands on him and use him for good.

Tiny "Zeus" Lister is also in this, only instead of being a baddie he's a good guy. He wears this hilarious hat early on, and Piper spares no time in mocking it. Later, he's killed by the bad guys and turned into an immortal warrior, but the good in him won't allow him to kill Piper. I liked that. It's nice to see a guy like Lister shake his bad guy stripes for one film and let us like him for a ninety minutes or so. I wouldn't want it all the time, but once in a while is cool.



I couldn't figure out who the bad guy in this was. I first thought he was the henchman in Whatever It Takes or CIA Codename: Alexa. Then I thought he might be one of the guys Bernhardt beats the crap out of in Bloodsport III. In fact he's none of these, but rather, Malibu from the old hit American Gladiators. In this he's sweet, because for whatever reason, he's dubbed, and the person doing his voice bears no resemblance to what's going on in the film. He'll laugh when his character doesn't seem to be laughing, or yell when it doesn't call for it. Just another one of those great things that makes bad DTV so charming.

If you're a Piper fan, this is probably worth a go to rent or whatever. Don't spend too much on it. I spent $5 on mine because I thought it was another film, and I'm not disappointed per se, but I certainly wouldn't recommend everyone spending that much on it. Renting it's the best option.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110117/

Latin Dragon (2004)

I first saw this film late at night on Spike. If you see it at a store or your local video rental place, it'll come with the tagline: "Latin Dragon gives us our first mainstream Latino martial arts action hero!" Mainstream is a stretch here. What it should have as it's tagline is "Busey and Lamas in one movie!" That's right, we have two DTVC Hall of Famers in one picture.

The movie carries the classic storyline of the guy from a tough neighborhood who grows up, enters the service, is recruited into special forces, then comes home battle hardened. And, in all of these classic storylines, a sinister force has gripped the town, and it's up to the guy to save it.

The sinister force in this case is Gary Busey and his designs are to turn the neighborhood into some kind of rich development. Lorenzo Lamas plays his second in command/hatchet man. As you can imagine, the Latin Dragon vanquishes them, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Except me. I was rooting for Busey and Lamas. Lamas is great in everything he does--he brings that Lamas-ness. To quantify Busey's contribution, we always use the Abusive Factor. This movie was pretty Abusive. Compare that to Point Break, which was extremely Abusive. If he was in it more, it could've gotten there.

One thing I did like was how they disposed of Lamas. I knew as a bad guy the Latin Dragon was going to have to kick his ass, and I was dreading it. I don't know if Lamas negotiated the beating out (probably because he could take the Latin Dragon in real life), but the director set the scene up so Lamas was killed by a stray bullet while fighting the Latin Dragon, instead of being bested in a fair fight. I was satisfied.

I was not satisfied, however, by the lack of Busey and Lamas in this film. If it were my film, and I had Busey and Lamas, I would've scrapped the whole Latin Dragon thing, and made a cross between Renegade and Point Break. The tagline would've changed to "The first mainstream cross between Renegade and Point Break!"

Like I said in the open, I saw this late at night on Spike. That's probably the best bet for this thing. Maybe rent it or buy it cheap, like on a two-for-one night, but that's a big maybe, and only because it has Busey and Lamas. Otherwise pass this up.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343962/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/