Battledogs (2013)

I saw this was added recently to Netflix Instant, and I really wanted to give it a look.  It's an Asylum joint with a prodigious cast, and it's about werewolves.  All things I could go for.  The Asylum has had a pretty decent track record lately, and this looked like it had every chance to be another winner.  Let's see what happened.

Battledogs is about a woman who is bitten by a wolf in a forest outside of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and it's given her the werewolf virus, which she proceeds to give to a bunch of people in JFK airport after she lands there and turns.  Not cool.  President Bill Duke calls in the big guns: General Dennis Haysbert and contagious disease specialist Major Craig Sheffer.  Now they have all the werewolves from JFK in quarantine under armed guard while Sheffer races for a cure, the only problem is, Haysbert thinks a cure is a bad idea, and he wants werewolves to fight in the US Army.  I can't imagine that wouldn't end well.



I didn't care for this.  First off, we get some sweet werewolf action right away, and then it tapers off to a dull howl until we get to the end when it becomes that silly craziness we've come to expect from The Asylum.  In the middle, we're treated to two plot devices that I don't like: first, our hero is looking for case zero, our lady from Yellowknife, and he's talking to her, telling her how he needs to find case zero, and she falls asleep from the drugs before she can tell him, so we're given 15 minutes of our hero trying to figure out what we already know, which was very annoying, especially when it was in lieu of hot werewolf action; and second, Haysbert as our baddie was more like a heel with more power, which is always a bad baddie.  His main evilness was that he was too stupid to figure out what was going on, which isn't fun.  We need a calculating baddie who schemes much more effectively than the average heel.  This isn't the worst we've seen from The Asylum, but I think the bad outweighed the good, so overall it's a pass.

Craig Sheffer as the main hero was pretty great though.  He seemed like such a nice guy, but he had all those lantern-jawed 50s schlock scientist lead type qualities that worked so well.  What might have worked better, is if he and Haysbert had been on a team, as opposed to adversaries.  Like one of Haysbert's soldiers, playing the perfect heel, lets a werewolf out and then they all get out or something.  And then Haybert and Sheffer working together would've made for a fun crew, maybe leading different groups and coming together in the end to finish things off.  Then I think we would've had the movie we wanted.



As I mentioned above, this movie is full of name actors.  The Yellowknife woman was played by Ariana Richards, who you may remember from Jurassic Park.  She and I are about the same age, so I won't do the "it's crazy how much she's grown up since then", because I have too-- kinda.  The great Ernie Hudson pops in as the TSA head at the airport.  We always love to see him here, and he doesn't disappoint.  Veteran Canadian character actor Kate Vernon plays a doctor working with Sheffer, and like most Canadian character actors, she's solid and helps fill out the movie.  I can't forget Wes Studi, who plays a colonel working under Haysbert.  When you talk about character actors who take care of business, he's another one.

Oh, and I almost forgot, Bill Duke as the President.  I was trying to think if he was the best person cast for the President since we've been doing this at the DTVC.  We have Jerry Springer in the Dolph flick The Defender.  Rutger Hauer, who isn't even American, played him in Scorcher.  I gotta put Bill Duke up there though, if only for his iconic roles in The Predator and Commando.  No, he didn't buy a car and run over the salesman as he drove it through the showroom window, nor did he have his brains splattered on a rock, so that was disappointing, but you can't have everything.  It was an inspired casting decision, and it's too bad the rest of the film didn't live up to that.



Finally, Buffalo played the part of NYC in this, only with plenty of CGI filling out the rest of the skyline.  I remember one scene when Sheffer drove by the HSBC Center, which is where the Sabres play.  I see they've gone back to their old logo, which I love, it reminds me of their old Adams Division days playing against my Bruins.  I know a lot of the Rust Belt cities have been having a bad time of it since the recession-- or more accurately before the rest of us felt it--, so it's nice to see some movies shot there to help boost the economy.

So this is a pass for me, but it has some elements that I think some people might enjoy, especially those Asylum touches we're used to.  There are also some good inside jokes, like Sheffer finding the remains of a guy's face on the floor, a la Nightbreed, so someone might forgive the bad parts more than I did.  You can check it on Instant, or SyFy might show it from time to time too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2457138/

Shark Attack (1999)

This is yet another of the Stars Play 11. As you may or may not know, we did the third film in this series, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, complete with its famous line, and I've always wanted to go back and see where this saga begins. When I was notified that Netflix was dumping it from Watch Instantly in the Stars Play purge, I knew I needed to make it happen, especially for the Casper Van Dien factor.

Shark Attack takes place in South Africa, where a shark scientist colleague of Van Dien's is killed in a freak shark attack, prompting him to rush to the scene and see what he can do. Things go a little deeper than he expects though. The sharks are crazy, they're killing the local fishing trade--which helps local entrepreneur Ernie Hudson, who is buying up all the local businesses--but the shark's behavior is very un-shark-like. Van Dien's old shark studying buddy Bentley Mitchum, who has his own lab in the town, is suspiciously coy about all this, while Van Dien's dead buddy's sister looks like she'll make for a good love interest. Will CVD manage to solve this shark mystery and get the girl before the credits role at the 88 minute mark?

You know it. I liked this movie. I don't know how to describe it, because it isn't exactly a shark attack movie, despite its name. It has sharks, and sometimes they attack, but there's more Scooby Doo style mystery going on, with some B-movie action elements thrown in, and then the occasional foot dangling in the water what's gonna happen to it that we want from a shark flick. I don't know what you make of that, but in a weird way, it worked for me. Also liked Van Dien, Hudson, and Mitchum; plus Jennifer McShane, she who the great line in part 3 is directed at, plays Van Dien's love interest, so that made things even more fun. I guess that's how best to describe this, just a fun flick.

If I were the Made for TV Connoisseur, Casper Van Dien would be an inaugural member of our Hall of Fame. Looking at his IMDb bio, he has tons of TV movie credits--even this one is listed as a TV movie, but I made an exception because I can do that. You gotta like Van Dien in a role like this. He's like a combination of Fred from Scooby Doo, the hunky scientist type from the 50s monster movies, and your more common 90s action star, the third one being what you probably most expect from him after Starship Troopers, but the others working well too. Van Dien's usually pretty solid in whatever he's in, it's more a matter of how good he material is he has to work with, and I think here it was a lot of fun, and he was able to make it more fun.

Ernie Hudson, something of a villain in this. I know, you'd think in a movie called Shark Attack, it'd be the sharks, but no, it's him. He has this South African accent that he affects here and there rather inconsistently, which is good. If you're going to affect an accent, I always say do it halfway. I believe this is the first time we've seen Hudson as a villain here at the DTVC, which was a good change of pace from the supporting role as the hero's buddy that's more common. Also, I didn't know this, but he was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan. All Mitchell MST3K fans will get that reference.

Talk about your awkward situations--or maybe not--Casper Van Dien's ex wife's brother is Bentley Mitchum. According to IMDb, Van Dien and Mitchum's sister filed for divorce in 1997, and this was released in 1999, so you do the math. Were they shooting during the break-up? Was the on-screen tension between their characters the result of some real life tension? It's interesting, because I see these facts in the IMDb listings, and they're so antiseptic and matter-of-fact, that it takes a second to go "hey, in Bentley Mitchum's bio, it said he's the ex-brother in-law of Casper Van Dien. That's kind of pertinent to this review." Or as I said above, maybe it isn't.

Is that CVD hitting the climbing wall? Even though the scene is barely a second long, any climbing I see I have to get on here. I have to confess, I'm still very much a novice, and I don't have very much experience. But the way they were climbing, just going for any foot and hand-holds as opposed to hitting a fixed route and difficulty, that's something I could definitely do. It's always good to see some climbing in a movie, even it's only a small cameo.

If you can get this used on DVD or VHS, or if it airs on TV, I say go for it. It will satisfy your B-movie cravings, definitely a fun watch. Sometimes you see a movie like Shark Attack on the shelves or on your TV guide, and it looks like a good time, but then you watch it and it doesn't deliver. Well, this one delivers.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161970/

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/

Game of Death (2010)

I've been waiting for this one to come out for a while now. Wesley Snipes and DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, plus Robert Davi and Ernie Hudson? Sounds great to me. I knew, though, that I couldn't get my hopes up too high, because we've seen how these things that sound so great to start with, can be total duds. Let's cross our fingers.

Game of Death has Wesley Snipes as a CIA Agent sent to infiltrate Robert Davi's mercenary organization and, after getting as much incriminating evidence as possible, assassinate him. Fast forward six months, and Snipes is knee deep, driving Davi to a meeting with an unscrupulous businessman who's about to give Davi $100 million in order to bump off some dictator in Africa who's not playing ball. Gary Daniels and company are a part of Snipes's team, and they've decided they don't get paid enough to be CIA agents, so they want Davi's cash. That's when things go crazy, and Davi has a heart attack to boot. Snipes's goal is easy: take Daniels and the rest of his old team down.



Man, this is a tough one. Had some great action, and Simon Rhee choreographed some of the best fight scenes we've seen in recent DTV films; but there were those MTV film effects-- though not too many near the end, there were there quite a bit before that, and they were tawdry and unnecessary, as always-- and then there was an element of the plot that I couldn't get past. Daniels's character has a chance to kill Snipes about midway through. He's knocked out on the floor in front of him, but Daniels passes it up. It was pure plot convenience theater, writing oneself into a corner with nothing beyond the magic wand to escape it, and woosh, with one wave of the magic wand, Daniels magically decides he won't kill Snipes, his most dangerous adversary and the only one who could bring down his plan, but he'll kill everyone else he sees, because he's the kind of guy that doesn't like to leave loose ends. The great action and fight scenes save this somewhat, but not quite enough for a full-out, knock your socks off recommendation.

One thing we've brought up before is how lately Daniels has been taking lesser roles in films with bigger names in them, and when I saw that he was second to last listed in the opening credits, I was nervous. Fear not, he's the main baddie, and as such, gets plenty of screen time, and a great fight scene at the end with Snipes. According to imdb, he also did a film in 2010 called The Lazarus Papers, and he's second billed on that, after DTVC favorite Danny Trejo, so whenever that comes out, that should have a good deal of Daniels in it too. The guy is definitely keeping himself busy.



This is the first Wesley Snipes DTV film to come out in a while, the previous one being Art of War II: Betrayal, and in between he did the major Hollywood film Brooklyn's Finest. One thing I liked about this one, was fight choreographer Simon Rhee really let Snipes do his thing, and director Giorgio Serafini didn't fast edit it to death. (I did have some issues with the camera angles in the final fight between Snipes and Daniels, though, but I'm digressing...) A lot of the Snipes DTV efforts ignore or barely utilize that element in his arsenal, his martial arts skills, so that's one bonus in Game of Death. Next up is probably Gallowwalker, whenever that finally comes out, but I guess for right now, we should be happy that this one made it, and it was half-way decent.

Ho-Sung Pak has a small part in this. Is that name familiar? Did you ever play Mortal Kombat? Liu Kang baby. He also played Shang Tsung in part 1. I don't mean in the movies, I mean he was the guy they motion captured for the video games. I think we've discussed on here before that I love Mortal Kombat, at least as far as Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. I wonder if some of the other characters have made it in anything. Looks like they were in a film Pak made called Book of Swords, and then one called Press Start that didn't have Pak, but the Pesina brothers. None of them have had the career Pak has had, though, including one I've been meaning to get to, called Fist of the Warrior, which has some other big names, including one of my faves, Michael Dorn.



This film was not only shot on location in Detroit, but actually takes place there, which I think was a cool decision. In the featurette, the actors and crew talked about how it was like one big studio lot, with all the abandoned buildings, and even entire abandoned blocks. The economic downturn in this country has hit that area hardest, and if more films can be shot there, and the area businesses can provide services for these productions, and generate more revenue, that's a positive, and hopefully more films will be shot there, instead of places like Romania and Bulgaria-- we're looking at you Steven Seagal, Michigan native. Hey, if Snipes can do it, so can you. You and another Michigan native, Michael Moore, should get together and collaborate on something, like maybe you ride around and beat the crap out of health insurance company CEOs and various white collar criminals. I like it.

This is worth a rental from Netflix, but I'd wait to watch it before you consider buying it. Daniels and Snipes are good, but it does have its flat spots, it does have it's bad music video moments, and there's a rough moment of plot convenience theater, so it's a bit of a mixed bag that might work for some, and not for others. At least it's got plenty of Daniels in it, so that's a plus over his recent work.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446072/

Interceptors aka Interceptor Force (1999)

I don't really know what's taken me so long to get this movie done. I've had it on Watch Instantly for over a year now, maybe close to 18 months. I think what happens is I throw a film on my Instant Queue, and then forget about it, with the idea that I can get to it whenever. Right now I don't just have DTV films in there, but tons of Criterion Collection movies. If you have Netflix, Criterion on Watch Instantly is one of the coolest things, because a lot of the great foreign classics you've maybe not gotten to yet but have always been meaning to are on there. Of course, if you're like me, there's so many I've been meaning to see, and I just never seem to be able to get to them.

Interceptor Force has Olivier Gruner with 80s teen sensation William Zabka and Showgirls alum Glenn Plummer as mercenary extractors that are called in by Brad Dourif to go to Mexico and pick up the debris of a crashed fighter jet. What they don't know is the debris is really extraterrestrial, and the alien that came with it is a dangerous killer. Not only that, the Mexican town is run by a drug cartel, and they want to kill Gruner and his crew too. And not only that, but Dourif made them take two extra people with them, Boa vs. Python's Angel Boris and a guy who looked like a young Adrian Monk, and these people are keeping things from them, only revealing them as the plot requires. Will Gruner make it out alive?



First 15 minutes, amazing film. Gruner kicking ass and taking names, then picked up by a plane and joking around with Zabka and Plummer. Who'd a thunk we'd only get one more great scene like that for the rest of the film. Everything else was bad Predator crossed with bad Terminator 2. The problem with all these alien invasion films is they get caught up in their crummy plots. They make these aliens that are impossible to stop, write themselves into corners, and then walk all over the paint and track it back into the house, making a bigger mess, instead of starting over and making a better overall story. The way to go would've been politician's daughter is kidnapped by the drug cartel, and Gruner's men are called in to get her back.

Gruner was awesome here, which made this all the more disappointing. At least they didn't completely waste him, but they didn't use him enough. Gruner's at his best when he's allowed to really get after it. He makes the one-on-ten fight believable, which in turn makes it awesome. This also puts Gruner in double figures for movies up here finally, which is kind of surprising. I looked back at my past Gruner posts, and a lot of them say the same thing-- why doesn't he have more reviews? I guess he's just one of those ones who gets lost in the shuffle. Next up for him will be T.N.T., which I'm shocked Netflix still has.



This is our second William Zabka film, the first being Gale Force, starring Michael Dudikoff and Treat Williams. Anyone who digs 80s movies like I do, has to love William Zabka. It's often hard to reconcile how he looks in these DTV films with the bully or heel from a lot of my faves. What I found interesting when going over his bio is how few films he actually did. He was such an icon of that era, in my brain I associate him with so many other movies that he didn't have anything to do with. I'm trying like a trooper to get my hands on the Shootfighter films, which are must haves. Cross your fingers.

There was a pretty sweet supporting cast, with Ernie Hudson jr., Brad Dourif, and Glenn Plummer. Also, we have Angel Boris, who is special because she starred in Boa vs. Python, the first film we ever reviewed here at the DTVC. Shows you how big of a deal it was to me, considering I was away for the weekend and forgot that Saturday marked the three year anniversary. I'm a moron, because I thought May 5th was our first day. Anyway, we've come a long way in that time, and I want to thank everyone for all their support. If it wasn't for you we wouldn't have even made it out of May 2007, let alone May 2010 and beyond.



Whenever I feel like a moron, I found a new way to raise my self-esteem: Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. Have you seen this show? All these crazy dudes with crazy hairdos try to explain everything in human history by saying aliens did it for us or taught us how to do it. I saw it late Saturday night, only to find out it's actually on in primetime! I can see 2AM to capture that crazy insomniac demographic, but primetime? There's enough of a market for that? I want to believe they're all just like me, and want to feel smarter, because the idea that that many people are watching that show and thinking everything humans ever accomplished was through the aid of fictitious aliens... that kinda scares me.

Interceptor Force is pretty pedestrian outside of two great Olivier Gruner fight scenes. Considering it's on Netflix Watch Instantly, if you have that you're only investing your time, which isn't so bad. I'm not even sure it's in the "so bad it's good" category, because the story is so lame and derivative. Again, other than the two great fight scenes, nothing to write home about.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167215/

Best of the Best: Without Warning (1998)

With the first three films already having been covered, I'm sure everyone knew quatro was only a matter of time. I actually saw this again recently when I got it from Netflix along with part three. They come together on one disc. A Phillip Rhee double-dip, if you like... and if you don't, well, then it's just two Phillip Rhee movies.

Best of the Best: Without Warning takes place in LA and has Rhee as a dude helping the LAPD learn to fight. He's caught up in a whole bunch of crap when he goes to the grocery store to buy stuff to make a cake, and the grocer's daughter just happens to be involved in a counterfeiting ring, and she just happens to want out, and she just happens to be trying to escape with incriminating evidence, and she just happens to have run to her father's store with said evidence while Rhee is in there and while the baddies have chased her there, and she just happens to give him the evidence just before she dies. Now he doesn't know who he can trust as the baddies want their evidence, the cops think he killed a cop, and the woman the girl told him to go to isn't who she seems. Luckily Rhee can kick massive amounts of ass.



This was another good one. As you can imagine, once you hit numero quatro, things get a little blah, and this was no exception. But they amped up the action as Rhee kicked some major ass amid a hail of gunfire and myriad explosions. There was one ridiculous car crash in a tunnel with an explosion so huge it blew up a helicopter hovering around outside. They start the film by blowing up Union Station. I think they felt like they had to do something spectacular to justify making a fourth Best of the Best, but I'm not so sure that's true. I could've gone with more Rhee kicking ass instead of a superfluous blowing up of Union Station that did absolutely nothing to the rest of the story.

As I said above, Rhee again was awesome. I really do wonder why he hasn't made another film since this one, ten years ago. He wrote, directed, and produced it, so maybe he feels like he's done it all. I totally disagree. Bolo Yeung was 50 when he made Bloodsport, which is two years older than Rhee is now. Until Rhee has swam from China to Hong Kong to escape Communism, he can't fully say he's done it all. So I guess that settles it Rhee, you either swim or make another movie.



This has Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters movies. Maybe that's why Rhee stopped making movies. Maybe Hudson was his favorite actor, and now that he's worked with him, that's enough. Or maybe Hudson told stories about working with Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd, and he didn't like what he heard. Man, I don't know how I'd feel if Ernie Hudson was the reason Phillip Rhee stopped making movies. If so, I'm going to make a special plea right now to Mr. Hudson on behalf of the DTVC and action movie fans everywhere: convince Rhee to get out of retirement. We will all be eternally grateful.

This also has that dude from all the Saw movies. I imagine Saw 263 is in post-production as we speak. Could this be the reason Rhee stopped making movies? Did this Saw guy tell Rhee about his plans to act in a series of 100-plus bad horror films in an attempt to destroy the genre? Maybe Rhee was afraid someone could usurp the Best of the Best series and make it into the Saw of bad action. Well, Rhee, if that's the case, your intentions, no matter how noble, were extremely misguided. Despite your absence, Matt Damon and The Bourne Identity movies with their overdone headache inducing quick edits have hurt the genre in ways that another ten Best of the Bests could never do. DTV action directors everywhere are using the Bourne model to shortcut great chase scenes and awesome fights by replacing them with convoluted jumpcuts so our minds can't get around the fact that the action isn't really happening.



I was in LA recently, and I went to Union Station. We took the commuter rail to the Angels/Sox game. Now, in Boston, I've taken the commuter rail in rush hour, and it's packed to the gills. North Station is a mess. Union Station was a whole other ball game. People don't take the train there like they do on the East Coast. Is that what made Rhee stop making films? LA? Was his blowing up of Union Station a symbolic middle finger to Tinsel Town? This would make sense, when you consider Union Station is blown up, and yet there are no repercussions felt later in the film, as far as traffic and whatnot. Is he saying it wouldn't matter if the train station in LA was blown up because LA people are too tied to their cars? If that's true, then Rhee, you need to talk to Seagal and Dolph about making your films in Romania like everyone else is. You don't need LA.

This film offers many clues as to why Phillip Rhee stopped making movies, but little in the way of answers. As a movie unto itself, it's pretty sweet. I probably wouldn't watch it by itself, but paired with other Best of the Bests just so you can multiply the Rhee effect. Finding the version on DVD that's packaged with Best of the Best 3 is the optimum option.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130370/