Ice (1994)

Recently Will from Exploding Helicopter mentioned his Lettrboxd list of films that have exploding helicopters in them (one of the best Letterboxd lists in my opinion) and I was sitting at a paltry 23% of them watched--of which 10% of those are Dolph and Daniels movies. In an effort to get some more of those films in, I'm doing one of the four PM flicks with exploding helicopters that I haven't watched yet. Also, this is a superfecta movie, because in addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action, Ty and Brett and Comeuppance, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this too.

Ice has Traci Lords as the wife in a husband and wife duo who rob ne'er-do-wells for insurance companies. They're hired to rob crime boss Vito Malta (Jorge Rivero), but then when her husband (Phillip Troy Linger) decides to keep the diamonds, all hell breaks loose. He gets the crazy grinchy idea of having Lords's estranged brother (Zach Galligan) fence them, but he's a mess and only gets them taken by a rival crime boss. When her husband is killed in a shootout, it looks like the only person Lords can trust is a local detective (Jaime Alba), who may or may not have a thing for her. Will she make it out alive?

This is a good ol' PM time. It starts with a robbery that was edited from the robbery in Ring of Fire II, which is why Evan Lurie is tagged--though not Ian Jacklin, even though I think he's in the scene too. Just tack on a little Michael Bailey Smith, and it's a totally different scene, right? From there, you have a great lead in Lords mixed with all the great PM moments you want, with exploding cars, that exploding helicopter I mentioned above, and a shootout at a semi-pro hockey game where multiple players are killed. Can you imagine, you grew up in the Northeast or Minnesota or Michigan or something like that, played some hockey in high school, move out to LA, and make it onto this semi-pro hockey team, only to be shot and killed by some mafiosos trying to get a bag of diamonds. Only in the world of PM, but it's such a sweet world, and we're happy to be living in it for 90 minutes.

We're now at 53 PM flicks on the site, which sounds like a lot, but I don't even think that's half-way through them all. It had been a while since we'd last done one, and in watching this I realized that was a mistake, I should be watching and reviewing at least one PM flick a month, because they're so good for the soul. We start with that opening robbery, which, as I mentioned above, was lifted from Ring of Fire II, but thinking about it from PM's standpoint, they'd think "how many people would've seen both of these movies, and then if they did, how would they be able to let everyone else know?" I mean, what was it in 1994, a BBS? Would there have even been a PM Entertainment BBS? I certainly wasn't looking for that kind of thing, I was asking my buddy to get all the moves to Mortal Kombat II--I remember how popular I was going to the arcade with the printout, complete with the sides of the paper that had the holes in it, showing everyone there the moves. So while I'm trying to do Mileena's Friendly, PM is laughing all the way to the bank after repurposing a robbery scene, and only thirty years later are we picking up on it, and we actually appreciate the ingenuity. It's all part of the PM charm, which is on full display in this one.

Art Camacho did fight choreography, making this his 57th film on the site, only three away from becoming the fourth member of the 60 Club. I think we have seven more of his PM collaborations left to do, but it's hard to know because he did so many different things for them, he might have other credits I didn't see when I scanned IMDb. And then for stunt coordinators, we had the team of Red Horton and "Broadway" Joe Murphy, one of the top PM teams along with Spiro Razatos and Cole S. McKay. I looked, and they should have 17 and 15 tags respectively, so I've taken care of that. That combination of Camacho with Horton and Murphy give us the action quotient we expect from PM, with some great shootouts, plus car flips and the helicopter explosion; and some great fight scenes, especially with Traci Lords. To complete the PM feel, we have Ken Blakey as DP/cinematographer. He makes sure the movie has the PM look we've come to know and love. We spoke above about how if you watch a lot of PM flicks, you notice things like them reusing scenes from previous movies, but also, this consistency with the look and the action creates this comfort food vibe, when you see that PM logo before the film starts, it's like smelling that burger on the grill at your favorite burger joint, and the first flipped car or person sent through a glass window is that first, juicy bite. Is that the best metaphor for PM? They're the Double-Double Animal Style of movie studios?

We're now at 5 movies for Traci Lords, three of which are PM flicks. Like the last one we talked about from her, A Time to Die, she's the star, and does a great job leading the film. Also like that film, it's kind of crazy to see her in her early 20s acting opposite these men who are ten and twenty years older than her, and not only holding her own, but in some cases making it look like these guys aren't in her league. There was a definite It Factor there that I guess never quite materialized, but in the early-to-mid 90s she had some great DTV stuff, much of which we still need to get to. Among the other names, I thought this was only our second Zach Galligan film, after Cyborg III: The Recycler, but I forgot he was also in Point Doom (directed by Art Camacho), and Storm Trooper (which if you haven't checked, has a great IMDb critics review page. Four reviews, ours, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and The Schlock Pit. Where are the guys from Comeuppance on that one?) He's great as the scam artist brother who's always getting into stuff. Michael Bailey Smith is here for his 8th time. Always great to see him, and it was also great that the new Fantastic Four movie gave him a cameo considering his great work as the Thing in the Corman version. Finally, Evan Lurie gets a 12th tag from his archive footage appearance in the Ring of Fire II robbery scene. It looks like we have one more movie for him, Death Game aka Mortal Challenge, and then we'll have his entire filmography covered.

Finally, we have a classic Taco Bell logo sighting. It was across the street from the hockey rink Zach Galligan kept the missing diamonds in. Here in Philly it's one of the few fast food places still in Center City, so I enjoy grabbing something there while I'm running errands. When this movie came out though, we had a location in the Fox Run Mall in Newington, NH, and back then you could get hard shell tacos for $.49 a piece. With a $10 allowance, I could do 4 tacos, and still had over $7 left to play Mortal Kombat until my parents or my friends' parents came to pick me up. It still is a pretty good deal, for $6 I can get three hard shell tacos, and while I was comparing PM to In-N-Out Burger, I like that I can swap the ground beef for black beans and remove the cheese for one of the few vegan fast food options. Add in some fire sauce and it's a nice slice of all right. As far as the Fox Run Mall, it's slated for demolition early next year, but I was able to go in one last time and get some pictures.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Plex or the Roku Channel here in the States, which I think is a good way to go. A fun PM flick, plus you can check another film with an exploding helicopter off your list. What's not to love?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107182

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The Fantastic Four (1994)

This is one I'd been meaning to do for a long time, and once I saw it was on YouTube, I bumped it up in my queue. Then for the DTVC Extra I was looking at MCU Phase 2, and thought I'd watch the 2015 Fantastic Four debacle, and decided I finally needed to watch this as well for comparison's sake; and then for the review, I put it here, one day after producer Roger Corman's birthday.

The Fantastic Four is based off the Marvel comic of the same name. In this iteration, Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White) is in college with Ben Grimm (Michael Baily Smith) and Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp), when some intergalactic phenomenon is happening and Richards and Doom invent a device to tap into it. Things go wrong, and we think Doom dies. Years later, Richards thinks he has it right, so he and Bailey plan to go into space this time, and they decide to take Sue and Johnny Storm (Rebecca Staab and Jay Underwood) with them, despite them having no training or experience. It's okay though, no training would prepare them for what happened: they all get special powers! Turned out Doom didn't die though, and he wants their powers so he can use them for his evil ends. Will he succeed?

I didn't hate this. It had some flaws--like making Sue and Johnny Storm much younger, and then still having them fly on the ship; or the whole thing with the Jeweler kidnapping Alicia Masters, which felt rough considering she's blind--and was funny because they did a POV shot from her POV when she's blind!--but beyond those flaws, this is closest to the source material--and they wanted to be closer, because they wanted the Jeweler to be Mole Man, but they weren't allowed to use him--and the 90s TV movie feel took me back to movies like Trial of the Hulk, which was fun from a comfort food standpoint. As far as casting, I liked everyone they had, and other than Ioan Gruffudd, who I feel is the perfect Mr. Fantastic, I don't think anyone cast in these parts since have been better (which isn't to say I didn't like Alex Hyde-Smith here in that part, I definitely did). For someone who grew up in the modern world of comic book movies, this might hurt your sensibilities, and I get that; but that 2015 one had a $120 million budget, and it's an objectively inferior movie to this. Which means as you're watching this, you can't help but wonder how this would've been with a bigger budget. Could it have been an all-time great? Maybe not a top 10, but maybe one that gets onto those click-bait-y "Most Underrated Comic Book Movies" articles or "Top Non-MCU Marvel movies."

Thinking of my own experience with the Fantastic Four, my earliest memories are one of the cartoons, either the '67 one or the '78 one, and I feel like it was mixed in with things like Space Ghost, Birdman, and Thundarr the Barbarian on a Hanna-Barbera morning cartoon show--and when I say morning, I mean like really early, like 6:30a before my mom took us to nursery school. From there you'd see the Fantastic Four everywhere. Human Torch hung out with Spider-Man. Any kind of Marvel product, like a lunch box, would have them included. When I started collecting comics myself in the late 80s, Fantastic Four wasn't one I bought, but it was understood as one of the major cornerstone ones for Marvel, the one that started the modern age of comics at that time. From there though, Fox bought the rights to Fantastic Four and X-Men, and then Disney bought Marvel, and the focus became the MCU, of which Fantastic Four, because it was owned by Fox, wasn't a part of. Watching this movie from 1994 reminded me of how big a deal they were, and how much of a shame it is that they haven't been around for the growth of the MCU. The biggest omission has been Dr. Doom, who is Marvel's best baddie. We know now that there's an MCU adaptation in the works, so we'll see how it does, but at this stage, between the MCU's growth from 2009 and 2019, the only Fantastic Four we got was the sauteed in wrong sauce 2015 reboot; and now as things have waned a bit, they might be looking at the new Fantastic Four to be one of the ones to bring them back. Is it too late though? We'll see in 2025.

Out of everyone, I think Rebecca Staab was the most like her comic book character. It was weird that her character was a high schooler at the beginning--played by a younger actor--because I think if she'd been in college with Reed, Grimm, and Doom, it would've made more sense. When she brings out the iconic Fantastic Four uniforms, and she's already in hers, it was the big reveal moment we didn't get in the others because they weren't the same iconic ones we grew up with. It was interesting that Staab was the one wearing hers for most of the time, the idea almost like "young men watching this aren't watching it to see Jay Underwood or Alex Hyde-White in spandex," but it was also a reminder that she was one of the bigger female comic book heroes, and has been left on the shelf for a long time. In 1994 she would've been one of the first on the big screen, after Supergirl, as we were one year before Tank Girl, two before Barb Wire, and Batgirl doesn't appear in the Batman films until 1997's Batman and Robin--so on top of predating everyone but Supergirl, she also would've been the only one who's superhero moniker was "woman" instead of "girl." Instead, this was shelved, so Staab and her portrayal of Sue Storm/Invisible Woman didn't get to have that part in history. Another reason why Disney should clean this up and put it on Disney+.

Our film's one Hall of Famer is the great Roger Corman, whose production company Concorde-New Horizons has produced some of the greats from the late 80s/early 90s that we love, in particular the Bloodfist films. He was also instrumental in molding the action genre with his 70s exploitation films, especially the ones starring Pam Grier. One thing that's interesting when you look at the documentary on this film, Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's the Fantastic Four, which we've reviewed on the site, is Lloyd Kaufman said he was approached to make this film too, and turned it down because he wanted Troma to focus on their own characters. Corman on the other hand went for it. He swears that this was supposed to be released until Marvel killed it, which sounds closer to right when you watch the movie, but what it did was allow the rights holders to renew their option so they could work with Fox to make the bigger budget one ten years later and make more money. The comp is probably Cannon with Captain America and Superman IV, and what Corman did that they didn't, was he didn't pump too much money into this. He easily could've gambled, thinking this was his big opportunity, and put more money of his own upfront, which he would've lost and probably would've ended his production career. But that's why he's been in the business so long, he doesn't take gambles like that. This is only his 32nd tag on the site, but sometimes I find a film he produced that I forgot to tag, plus he has so much out there that we could review, that 40 and 50 Club and beyond isn't out of the question, it's just a matter of if I can review them all. Happy Birthday Mr. Corman, you truly are one of the best to ever do it.

Finally, for this last paragraph, I wanted to reflect on the evolution of comic book movies over the past 30 years since this was made. In 1994 we had the first two Superman movies and the first two Batman movies as the standard of quality for films, plus the '60s Batman, The Incredible Hulk, and Wonder Woman as the standard for TV shows. You could make the case that as successful as a lot of the comic book movies in the intervening 30 years have been, none of them are really better than those standards--that 30 years later they're still the standards--and I think the reason why is so many movies want to be Superman--Kevin Feige said he watches it for inspiration before starting any new MCU project--so how can you be better if you're trying to emulate it? And who wants to try being Tim Burton's Batman and take that gamble? The Joker was a gamble, and the fact that it paid off should be the thing studios are looking at, because it's not in either Donner or Burton's shadow. TV on the other hand has been a little better. While those three shows really stand up for me, you can look at Daredevil and Arrow as two that reach that standard, plus some of the Disney+ mini-series have been good too. On the other hand, have any of them really changed the zeitgeist the way those three have? If I say "you won't like me when I'm angry," or if a TV show shows a person spinning around to transform into a new outfit, or has a fight with flashes of "boom!" and "pow!" on the screen, we know instantly what that means and what it's referring to. Is there anything about Daredevil, Arrow, or those Disney+ shows that have had that kind of effect on our culture? At least the MCU films have had some of those kind of inroads--if I reference Wakanda everyone knows what I'm talking about, but even that is a remake of Superman--a fantastic one, done really well, but a kind of remake nonetheless. Deadpool is another one that hasn't exactly followed the standards, so maybe that's the one this summer that will change the game, but again, it is interesting to think that in the 30 years since this came out, Donner's Superman and Burton's Batman are still the standards. The special effects have gotten better, but the stories haven't kept pace.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently YouTube or a bootleg DVD is the best way to see this. Hopefully Disney+ will get a version on their site between now and when the 2025 MCU film is released. Yes, it has its shortcomings, but it's also the most faithful version of the comic to this point and deserves to be seen by the world--and the PR boon Disney could get by leaning into it is something the really need right now.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109770

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Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's the Fantastic Four (2015)

I don't remember where I first found out about this, I think it was recommended on Amazon Prime, but I knew it was something I had to see.  Recently I had Mitch from The Video Vacuum on the podcast to discuss this film, in addition to the other DTV Marvel movies, and what the genre is like now with all the blockbusters.  You can check out that podcast on our Talk Shoe site, or by searching for us on iTunes.

Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's the Fantastic Four is a documentary that takes us behind the scenes of a movie that was finished, but never officially released, and now lives on in bootlegged versions.  It takes us back to a time when Marvel was hard-up for cash and sold the rights of their films to lesser entities like Cannon.  In this case, a producer had the rights to the Fantastic Four, and wanted to get it made quickly and on the cheap.  That's where Roger Corman came in, and the movie did get made; but before it could be released, it died on the vine, and before we knew it, FOX had the rights and the film was made on the big screen, and the rest was history.

I really enjoyed this.  I think as a comic book fan growing up in the 80s and 90s, this may have captured the feeling of that time better than any of the dramatic adaptations of any of the comics.  The interviews were compelling, the sense of expectation and what this movie could mean for everyone's careers, coupled with the misgivings they had around things like the budget and timeline they were working with, really took us behind the scenes in a way that, at least for me, put a lot of how all this works into a new perspective.  The idea that maybe this low-budget film was being used by Marvel to leverage FOX into a deal, or that perhaps the person who had the rights was using Corman to leverage Marvel to buy him off, and that ultimately it's the actors and crew--and to some extent us as fans--who suffer when the film is shelved and buried.  To my mind, we needed this movie and to hear what the people involved had to say, almost as much as the people involved needed to get their story out.

I have to confess, I haven't seen any of the bootlegged copies of the finished product that are floating around, but I would like to.  From what I've seen, I think it would be a great accompaniment to The Punisher, Captain America, and Nick Fury.  The fact that Marvel, under Disney, is trying to bury these DTV installments is a shame--and shortsighted.  While no one is clamoring for a special edition of the 2015 Fantastic Four reboot that barely covered its budget at the gate, a Shout Factory blu-ray with all the extras for the 1994 version would definitely be a hit--and would also gin up interest in a new incarnation if they ever wanted to try it on the big screen again.  The thing is, I don't know if the Fantastic Four is the kind of thing that can pull in $4 billion worldwide.  Maybe now that Disney has it (I think, right?), a Disney+ series with all the characters they have at their disposal would be way to go.

I don't know if I'd say Roger Corman's reputation takes a hit in this movie, but I don't know that he looks good either, and it was a bit of a disappointment to see that.  I'm going to get into Lloyd Kaufman's small part in this later, but it's almost like he predicted what was going to happen here.  At the very least, Corman lost control of this picture, and I think that's what happens when you take on someone else's property.  For us, the idea of The Fantastic Four being shot on the Carnosaur set is too amazing for words, but it sounds like when Stan Lee saw it, he crapped himself.  Anyway, the way the documentary paints it--or at least the impression I got--is that Corman was substantially compensated for the trouble he went to in producing this and subsequently allowing it to be buried, but he wasn't exactly forthright with the cast and crew about that.  If that's the case, I don't know if it takes some of the shine off Corman as a low-budget producer, but it does give us a more realistic understanding of the business he's in and the decisions he has to make.

One of the things Mitch and I discussed on the podcast was if there was a place for the DTV comic book movie in the modern blockbuster environment, and I think there is.  I don't know if the Fantastic Four is it, but I think with the way DTV and straight to streaming has become bigger and includes bigger names, there are a lot of Marvel and DC properties that would work in the modern DTV world.  Moon Knight is one I've brought up before, with Dolph Lundgren at the helm--though Scott Adkins would work too.  With all the DTV work Nicolas Cage has been doing, Ghost Rider seems to be another obvious one.  She-Hulk is one that hasn't been done yet, and while I wouldn't see a big screen market for her, a DTV film using a WWE star the way WWE has taken over DTV properties like The Marine sequels would work.  Winter Soldier is another that could be done well, especially in an Eastern European setting, where a lot of DTV films are shot.  Finally, what about some of the X products?  Maybe a Domino DTV flick that slots in between Deadpool sequels?  One thing that may hurt us with possible new DTV comic book flicks though is the success of The Joker.  A $55 million budget that was turned into over $1 billion worldwide at the gate might have studios thinking with the right story and talent, they don't need to spend $500 million and have to make $4 billion to be a success. 

Finally, I wanted to talk about Lloyd Kaufman's small part at the beginning of the film.  We find out that Kaufman and Troma were also approached for the Fantastic Four adaptation, and Kaufman turned it down.  His reasoning was, what's in it for us?  We have our own brand, and our own characters, I don't see the benefit in us trying to make a film for someone else with someone else's characters.  As I mentioned above, I wonder if he foresaw the trouble that Corman ended up having--at the very least, he knew he would be beholden to someone else creatively, and he didn't want that.  As much as Corman and the 1994 Fantastic Four that never happened get to the heart of what DTV films are all about, there are very few who embody the spirit more than Kaufman, and this appearance and his explanation on why he declined to work on this project really showed why he's so great.  Here's to you Mr. Kaufman, you're one of the good ones.

I can't recommend this enough.  If you have Prime, I would check it out, or even rent it if you need to, it's really worth it.  In terms of the podcast, that was also a great episode worth checking out.  Mitch and I did almost 2 hours on the subject of comic book movies, so if you're traveling for the holidays, load it up have it on in the background while you're on the road/in the air/ridin' that train, high on cocaine, etc.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3113456

Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back (1995)

My friend at Movies in the Attic (a link to which you'll find in the section labeled "Other Great Sites") was not a fan of this movie, and he made no bones about telling me how he felt. As far as he was concerned, the film was racist for the sake of being racist, and it didn't go over well with him. I hadn't seen it in so long, and with my having reviewed the other Best of the Bests, I figured it was time to give it another spin.

Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back has Phillip Rhee back at it as Tommy Lee (not the well-endowed Crue drummer), this time visiting his sister in a small Southern town called Liberty. Her hubby is the sheriff, and the sheriff has his hands full with a group of well-armed Neo-Nazi terrorists. Obviously, he can't handle this on his own, so Rhee's gotta step up and take care of business. Throw in Gina Gershon as a prim but no less hot school teacher, and you got yourself a movie.



I must say I have to respectfully disagree with my friend here. The racism was depicted in this film as nothing short of evil. It may have been a little too visceral, but it was definitely plausible. One additional element I liked was how Dee Wallace Stone's son joined the Neo-Nazi gang because he was poor, jobless, and educationless. This is a formula that terrorist groups look to for recruitment all over the world, and it was a touch of realism I wasn't expecting in a DTV actioner. The film also did a great job discussing how separate but equal only reinforces the idea that one group of people is inferior, which is an important point in developing racial sensitivity in this country.

That being said, where this film was totally unrealistic was in how the sheriff wasn't in on it. What I mean is, had the local police been in cahoots with the skinheads, you could see them taking over the town; but with the sheriff actively opposing them, it makes no sense that he wouldn't call in the FBI. The federal government would love to know if a Neo-Nazi terrorist group was arming itself with stinger missiles and high-powered assault rifles, and in a few days they'd shoot down there and take them out. The common joke about the KKK is that they have more undercover FBI agents in their ranks now than actual members. It just would've made more sense if Rhee had to take down both the local cops and the skinheads.



Speaking of Rhee and the overall action, it was pretty stellar. Rhee is just amazing. I don't know how this guy ended up only being in so few films. According to imdb he's only 46, which, when compared to Seagal, makes him a baby. He just kicks so much ass, it's ridiculous that he has such a small filmography. He also directed this film, and the action was relentless. Once it kicked in, it didn't stop. Rhee understands what we want out of an action film: killer martial arts, major explosions, and extreme gunfire. This film delivered in spades.

Rhee's sheriff brother-in-law was played by Shooter McGavin from Billy Madison 2: Happy Gilmore. As far as the Billy Madison movies go, I think Happy Gilmore is probably the one I liked best, after the original, of course. By the time we hit Billy Madison VI: Little Nicky, I felt like maybe the series had run its course, but the film still made almost $40 mill, and who knows how much more after with rentals, DVD sales, and TV rights. I can't blame Sandler for still going to that well if the cash is there, even if the movies make me feel dumber for having watched them.



The bad guy was played by Mark Rolston, a pretty ubiquitous That Guy who you'd know if you saw him. He was in one film we've already reviewed, Scorcher, which had Rutger Hauer as the President. Anyway, who he is isn't important. What got me about him was how he wore these big black boots over his jeans. As I'm sure many people know this is a style that women rock quite a bit nowadays, and mentally I've kind of associated that look with femininity, so seeing him rock that look too made me him seem off. It was just weird. Maybe it's just me.

So I'm all in favor of this one. I say just take a night and watch all four, because even though I haven't reviewed it yet, I can tell you four's hot too. The racism in three is rough stuff, but it doesn't go unvanquished, and it's pretty well understood that it's a very bad thing that must be dealt with. Rhee's awesome, the action's awesome, how can you go wrong?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112483/

Cyborg 3: The Recycler (1994)

After seeing parts one and two, I knew I needed to see this one to complete the trilogy. The first one is really just timeless; the second one has two Oscar winners; but this third one lists the man, Evan Lurie. I was stoked to give it a look see.

Cyborg 3 takes place however long after part two, and now Angelina Jolie's character is played by Simone from Head of the Class. She's preggers, which is a big deal, considering she's a cyborg and all. The other issue is that humans and cyborgs aren't getting along, and there's these Recyclers who capture cyborgs, kill them, and sell the spare parts. A particularly bad one, Richard Lynch, gets wind of Simone from Head of the Class, and he chases her to Cy Town, the cyborg free town. Now the busted up cyborgs take a stand against Lynch and his baddies, fighting for their lives and a peaceful existence.

This was kind of a gross film. Like it was one of those gross futures, where everyone's gross. The cyborgs in Cy Town were all disfigured. The bar Lynch goes to is disgusting. I mean I guess the future was gross in the first Cyborg, but it wasn't that gross. This just seemed like it was gross for the sake of gross. I can never get behind that. Gross has to be done well.

The action was very sparse. Really it was an hour and ten minutes of nothing much, and twenty minutes of a decent shoot out at the end. Evan Lurie had some good fights, but really all that did was make me want to see more of him, and wished I was watching American Kickboxer 2. No movie should make me wish I was watching American Kickboxer 2. I think that's a rule all film makers should live by. I'm not saying I didn't like American Kickboxer 2 (on the contrary, read my review), I'm just saying a movie shouldn't make me want to watch that instead.

Evan Lurie, as I mentioned above, is in this. He's barely in it, but when he's there he's sweet. He shows off some samurai sword work. He also demonstrates his solid martial arts skills. I just can't understand having a talent like his in a movie like this and barely utilizing it. This was no Operation Cobra, I can say that for it.

Speaking of stars, this movie had quite a few. It had the guy from Gremlins, the aforementioned Simone from Head of the Class, Richard Lynch as the head baddie, William Katt and Michael Bailey Smith as cyborgs with Lurie; and then for good measure, Malcolm McDowell. And Malcolm McDowell seemed like he would be a baddie of some importance, but he's killed off in the first ten minutes. Why? Why would Malcolm McDowell do that? Why would the filmmakers only have him in it for such a short time? Was he pulling a Kinski, insisting on a role that would allow him some money in a short shooting schedule? Who was his agent? And most importantly, what was it like to have this released the same year as Star Trek Generations? Why didn't Conan O'Brian ask about Cyborg 3 when he had him on the show promoting the Star Trek film?

The Michael Bailey Smith tags on the blog have been wrong for a while, and I've been meaning to fix them. I didn't have him tagged for the Don "The Dragon" Wilson Fred Williamson flick Whatever it Takes, and I had him erroneously tagged for the Seagal flick Submerged, when in fact he had starred in another Submerged that was made in 2000, and which I haven't covered here. I'm sure there were many Michael Bailey Smith fans out there who were outraged that his tags weren't correct, but those same fans were probably too embarrassed to admit they were Michael Bailey Smith fans to complain to me about it.

Make sure you watch the first two Cyborgs first, and if you feel you must, you can give this a go. The first Cyborg is so good, I have trouble recommending this at all in any connection with it. If you can handle the grossness, maybe it won't be so bad, but I don't know. Let's just put it this way: don't say I didn't warn you.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112765/

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CIA Code Name: Alexa (1992)

It's always weird to see a movie post 1994 that has OJ Simpson in it. At least it is to me. I know you can't Lucas him out of the films, and I wouldn't want anyone to, but when I turn on USA and see Naked Gun 33 and a 1/3 with OJ goofing around, it reminds me of a time when he was considered a really great guy in the American public. Watching this film, for instance, I have to take my mind back there in order to understand what the film makers were doing when they cast him.

CIA Code Name: Alexa is the first of two films that puts DTVC Hall of Famer Lorenzo Lamas in the lead role of CIA agent Mark Graver. Here he needs to use the lethal eponymous Alexa, played by Kathleen Kinmont, after local police officer OJ Simpson catches her carrying out a mission for her bad guy boss Victor Mahler (played by Alex Cord). In an homage to Hitchcock's Notorious, Lamas wants Kinmont to use Mahler's feelings for her to get her into his lair and get whatever it is he has that's a threat to national security. OJ wants in on the investigation, because his cop partner was killed by some of her ex-crime partners. Things don't go exactly as planned, and it's up to Lamas and The Juice to improvise if they wanna take the bad guys down.



This was a pretty silly film, made sillier by the fact OJ's in it. It came out right around the trial, and it was big on cable at the time. The lack of anything resembling a budget puts the film in a weird context: it's hard to get past how cheap the CIA is and how little resources they have. Then you throw in that Lamas isn't all together that convincing as a top notch CIA agent, and the whole thing takes on an air of a bunch of grown up kids playing dress up. This is MST3K level stuff.

Lamas looks like he's playing a drug dealer from Miami Vice more than a CIA agent with his slick-backed ponytail and five o'clock shadow. I give him an A for effort, though. I'd say imagine a Renegade episode where the regular writers went on vacation, and Reno was in an alternate universe where he was in the CIA, and Cheyenne played a deadly assassin. Bobby Sixkiller I guess would've been replaced by OJ. If you watched Renegade because you thought it was funny, you'd dig Lamas in this. If you watched Renegade because you thought it was a solid TV show... well, then I'm sorry...



OJ's in this a fair amount. He's supposed to be a "maverick" cop, but really he's a nice guy who does crazy things for no reason just so he can live up to his "maverick" moniker. The first time we see him he's at a stakeout with his partner, and he's hurting after a long night of drinking. He mixes Alka Seltzer in with his coffee in a move that's second only to Seizmore's use of beer on his cereal in Point Break in terms of depraved food pairings. With OJ being in the news again after he held some people at gun point, these movies are even weirder to me now. Hearing him on a tape yelling "Where's my shit!" and some scared guy replying "Mike took it.", it's hard to marry the new Juice with the beloved pre-1994 one. I guess he was always the bad OJ, though.

The bad guy, Mahler, doesn't make any sense. He's supposed to be really smart, like some kind of criminal mastermind, but he does ridiculously dumb things. His brother botches a mission, and to punish him, he cuts out one of his eyes. Then he sends him out on another mission so he can redeem himself. Now I've never run an international crime syndicate before, but I have to imagine the last thing I'd want is a man I'm sending out on delicate, extremely dangerous missions-- ones requiring experts to make sure everything's carried out perfectly-- to be sans one eye. Not only that, but I'd definitely not willfully cripple any of my henchmen. But I guess I'm not running an international crime syndicate.



A dude named Michael Baily Smith plays the bad guy's top henchman. He was also Fred Williamson's top henchman in Whatever It Takes. You may remember him as Super Freddy in the fifth Nightmare on Elm Street, which marked the only time anyone other than Robert Englund played the classic horror mainstay. It also says that in 1994, right after this came out, he was in a bad Fantastic Four movie. I've never seen this thing before, and netflix and Amazon didn't have it. According to Amazon it's not out on DVD yet. It's definitely something I need to see, though.

This is the third Kathleen Kinmont film I've reviewed on here, the other two being Gangland and the Wings Hauser classic Art of Dying, where she had the nasty sex with food scene with the DTVC Hall of Famer. In the latter, as with Renegade (more so with Renegade), Kinmont's more off-beat than she is dead serious, which is how we find her in this film and Gangland. The off-beat plays much better from her. Maybe its because I first saw her in Renegade, but when she plays dead serious, it just seems forced, and when dead serious seems forced, it comes off silly and overbearing. As far as I can tell her best work was in Renegade, and I'm still waiting for her to shake me of that conception.

This is a solid rental for a bad movie night. It's silly enough on it's own that you won't need to be that good at mocking a bad film to enjoy this one, and the OJ factor gives it a wrinkle that other films of it's ilk that you might see at the video store won't have. This one's so dumb, it's can't disappoint.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103907/

Whatever It Takes (1999)

I learned about this film from a trailer I saw with Gangland. I believe the connection to the two films is producer David DeFalco. In Gangland he played the cut yet weird looking bad guy with the greasy ponytail. He casts himself in a smaller role in this as a biker tough, and he's a bit buffer than he was in the other film. What's odd is how he's wearing a whisper thin tank top, because in Gangland he wore no shirt, yet had a poorer physique. Who knows what goes through the minds of bad action movie producers that cast themselves in their own films?

Whatever It Takes is about two undercover cops, Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Andrew Dice Clay, who are sent by the DEA to investigate Fred Williamson and his trafficking in a designer steroid. As the case unfolds, Wilson falls in love with a really hot personal trainer in one of Williamson's gyms. Wilson now must mitigate his desire to put Williamson behind bars, with his desires of a more carnal nature.



It's crazy how ahead of it's time this film was. DeFalco must've known something, being the buff guy that he is, about designer steroids and high profile athletes' use of them. Of course, Fred Williamson is way cooler than Victor Conte and his BALCO people, unless Conte was whacking people in his private nightclub and we just didn't know about it. On the other hand, Williamson's steroid didn't have a name, which made it less cool than BALCO's The Cream and The Clear. For a really bad action movie (and this is bottom of the barrel kind of stuff), it's weird to see it out in front on something like this.

This was a rather poor outing martial arts wise for D "The D" Dubs. His moves seemed really telegraphed and not choreographed well. I'm not sure if he mailed this in, or was feeling a little under the weather, but it was obvious, and the film lacked some for it. There was this two second delay between when a guy left himself open for an attack, and when Donny hit him. Knowing what a top notch martial artist Wilson is made this even more disappointing.

Andrew Dice Clay was interesting. He went on a few trademark Diceman riffs, which brought me back to a simpler time when my friends and I were in grade school repeating his nursery rhymes at recess. When he tried to be serious, like when he discussed an on the job tragedy with Wilson, he fell flat, and it seemed way too contrived. When he was funny, though, his pairing with Wilson made for a very interesting buddy picture. DeFalco should work his magic and pair these two together again.



I can't say enough about Fred "The Hammer" Williamson. As a baddie or a hero, he brings it every time. He was absolutely amazing in this as the drug lord. He had a love affair with the chick from Cleopatra 2525 that wasn't Cleopatra or the chick that went on and did Firefly. She got naked in front of him in his bedroom, and he asked her if her high heels were uncomfortable. She answered in the affirmative, and his reply was: "then leave them on... then you'll have to work that much harder to forget how much they hurt." That's 40 to 50 times cooler than anything Van Damme's done in any movie with any chick. Van Damme wishes he was as cool as Williamson.

SPOILER ALERT
Wilson's love interest in this was really hot. In order to gain her affections, he goes to the gym she volunteers at, and loses on purpose in basketball to her little brother. Anyway, so their love affair ensues, he gets some, naturally, and then all hell breaks loose. Williamson gets wind from the chick he's doing that Wilson'll be divulging some secrets to his woman, and this leads The Hammer to get proactive on Donny's ass. What he does shocked the hell out of me, though. After a night of love making, Wilson's woman takes his car to the store to buy milk or whatever. Unfortunately the car's rigged with a bomb, and she blows up. It was so sudden, my mouth fell open. I felt like I needed to mention it in the blog, but I felt like if someone read this and it ruined the surprise I had, I'd feel bad. I've always felt the classic damsel-in-distress situation where the hero's love interest is kidnapped by the baddies is a little cliched; but now, seeing the alternative, I'd say go back to the perfunctory kidnapping.



One other thing got me in this. Williamson employed some white Italian guy that was supposed to be his nephew. Whenever he did something wrong, Williamson would cut off a small appendage, like a pinky finger. It was supposed to be funny, but it was just gross to me. Who comes up with shit like this? I'm blaming you, DeFalco.

I think this film might be too much for a lot of people. You have to be a real bad movie honk to get any kind of enjoyment out of it. I'm that guy, so this hit the spot for me. Also, I dug the sports implications, and I know not everyone out there's a huge sports fan like me. I'd say only rent it if it's a rent on get one free kind of deal. Otherwise, proceed with caution.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161084/

In Hell (2003)

I got wind of this film when I looked up Jean-Claude Van Damme on imdb. Even though it was going over the same territory as Death Warrant, I considered it when I saw it had Lawrence Taylor, the greatest linebacker in NFL history. He was great in his Wrestlemania appearance, and I was stoked about this one. There was also a great cast of That Guys, which usually makes a film like this entertaining.

In Hell has DTVC Hall of Famer Van Damme as a dude whose wife is murdered in Russia, where he was sent to work from their home in Louisiana. The killer is set free by a crooked judge, and Van Damme kills him for retribution. Van Damme is sent to prison, where he's forced into fighting and becoming a nut case. He makes his usual group of misfit friends and puts up with his usual group of detestable baddies and prison guards. He fights, then he and the philosopher psycho played by Taylor plan Van Damme's escape.



This film was not a bad action movie, but rather an attempt at a serious drama. As you might expect, when film makers try to veer from the bad action genre without legitimate film making abilities, we're left with a product that's stupid and depraved. I knew it was going to be bad when a young American boy is taken into another cell and raped by one of the Russian baddies. We know that kind of thing would happen in real life, and maybe in the properly done indie film it would work, but in this sack of ass crack it's just dumb and disturbing.

Van Damme plays a dude who doesn't know martial arts. I didn't know that going in, and it killed the film for me. He roundly gets his ass kicked for the first hour of the film. It was annoying as all hell. When he finally does kick ass, he bites a guy's neck. This is again something that, when I see it in a Troma film, it works, but when I see it in this, it's just weird and ridiculous. Van Damme doesn't act, he does martial arts. He needs to be kicking these guys' asses, not the other way around.

Lawrence Taylor was a waste in this. He did these voice over narrations that were stupid. He played a philosopher psycho with a bad past that just didn't work. We have no idea why he's in a Russian prison. We also have no idea why he's killed all his former cell mates except Van Damme. Just dumb, and a waste of Taylor. If he was in my film, I'd have him with his cross earring, a flat top haircut with a fade, and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. I'd probably give him a massive gun and have him shoot the shit out of everything, and then use his patented fumble producing tomahawk chop to disarm a baddie. That would've ruled.



This film was just a complete waste. Death Warrant was way better. In that one, when the Sandman is thrown by Van Damme into the furnace, and he comes out on fire, then stops, drops, and rolls to put himself out, it's purely amazing. That one two-minute scene aced this entire film in my mind.

Don't go near this. If you're a Van Damme fan, you'll be disappointed. It's not worth the 90 minutes of your life. This movie is so depraved, it'll make you sick. It's not even worth watching to mock. I'd say skip this, and have a Van Damme nostalgia night with Death Warrant.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339135/