Omega Cop takes place 11 years ago in 1999, after global warming has destroyed the ozone layer to the point that we're hip-deep in the apocalypse. Post-apocalypse, Marchini works for a police force run by West from a bunker--which works well if you want him to have scenes by himself in one location. Anyway, on a mission to stop an unruly bunch who are holding a white slavery auction, all of Marchini's men are killed, leaving him alone with one of the women from the auction. West says they can't come back to the compound, so Marchini collects two more women along the way, and they have a final showdown with the head baddie who ran the auction. If we're only going to have one cop left, it might as well be Marchini.
This movie is a lot of fun. I mean, look at that gang there! After I captured this image, I read Ty and Brett's review, and they had the same one, and I considered getting something different, but it just captures the fun of this movie so well. Marchini is great in the lead, West is great in a role that allows him to stay in one room for all his scenes, and you've got baddies who look like this. What more do you want in a movie? Exactly.
This was the first of seven Marchini movies I watched for their podcast episode, and as we'll see as I eventually review all seven, they're all fun like this. Seven movies in a row without a dud is a feat no one in the DTV world has pulled off before as far as I know, which makes it that much more egregious that it took me over a thousand posts to finally get one of his movies up here. His martial arts are fantastic, and it looks like he produces all of his own movies--other than one AIP flick, he didn't work with any of the big names like Cannon and PM--which on the one hand makes me say "I wish he had done that," but on the other I think "seven good ones in a row, why mess with that." It's going to be a lot of fun as we go through the rest of Marchini's films.
This came out in 1990, which is only 9 years before the period when this takes place, meaning the world went down the toilet quick. It's always fun to see a movie set in the future that's now the past, but man, 1999 over 20 years ago, it's almost the Retro Channel past, that was once the future. I never really understood why things were set so close in the future. If this was 2040 and made in 1990, would it have made any difference? I mean there are parts where he's talking about things he remembered from when the world wasn't like it is now, and he's telling women who are at least in their 20s, which means they would have been at least 10, if not older at that time--if the world went to shit in 1990, if it went later, they would have been older. I just did a paragraph trying to hold the film accountable for it's timeline, when they had guys like the two in the first screen. I'm sorry, I'll move on.
Look at West there, he's slouching. How amazing is that? He can't even be bothered to sit up to do his lines. As I write this, there's another film incarnation of Batman on the horizon, this one starring Twilight's Robert Pattinson. We can add him to Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck. And West was the best of all of them for me. As a result, whenever I see him in anything, I love it. Funny, other than when I did the original Batman, I haven't done another West film as far as I know. We'll have to fix that.
Soapbox time. As far as I can tell, this is only available as a used DVD or VHS, or you can stream the Rifftrax version, and that's it. How do Marchini's films not have blu-ray releases? Crazy Six has a blu-ray, and no offense to Albert Pyun, but if Crazy Six has a blu-ray, so should this. We need a company like Arrow to release a box set of all seven Marchini films from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. I mean, Mankillers has a blu-ray, but this doesn't? And if Arrow or MVD wants to make these blu-rays, call me or the guys from Comeuppance, we'd love to record some commentary tracks.
Off the soapbox, and time to wrap this up. This, like most Marchini films, is available on YouTube. Until someone takes the initiative to make the blu-ray box set, that's the best that you can do--actually according to Christopher Cross, the best that you can do is fall in love--but at least the movies are available for everyone to see. And if you haven't been checking out Brett and Ty's Comeuppance Review Podcast, what are you doing? Subscribe and check out the episode I joined them with on Marchini, plus all their other great episodes.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100291
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