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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Operation Rogue (2014)

In the spirit of getting more Dacascos on the site, I saw this on Tubi and thought I'd give it a shot. The idea is to eventually get all of Dacascos's stuff up on here, so to find a free one on Tubi it's like low-hanging fruit. Often we've found this can also lead to bad results, so I guess the question is what we'll get with this one. In addition to us, our good friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this too, so you can go there to see what they thought as well.

Operation Rogue takes place in the Philippines, where--wait for it--a local terrorist group is causing problems, so we need Americans to come in and fight them. Treat Williams is leading the American forces there, with Mark Dacascos as his number one guy. When Treat's daughter--who also happens to be Dacascos's girlfriend--is kidnapped, it goes from imperialist intervention to being personal. After a couple failed escape attempts on her part to pad the film, Dacascos and his men swoop in and save her--only to find him captured, leading to more padding. The question now is, how much torture does he endure before he turns the tables and takes these guys out?

 

This didn't work for me, and I know it probably should have, and maybe I'm being tough on it, especially considering how cynical my description was above. The thing is, the whole "Brown Menace" theme, whether it's in the Philippines, Vietnam, Africa, Latin America, or the Middle East, seems so tired and dated. Throw in the padding that itself was full of however many lazy devices--like the failed escape attempts, with the daughter's weaker friend getting his head chopped off after they get caught one time because he was too weak to wield a gun properly, that way we feel like he kind of deserved it, but also the baddies get to kill someone so they seem baddie enough. When the whole movie has a lot of fun elements, it can overcome those tired standards, but this didn't have enough good Dacascos action; plus the construct of him getting captured at the end also dragged the film out more. This could have been a fun Philippine actioner--and I think a lot of people could find fun in it, but unfortunately it didn't work for me.

Our man Mark Dacascos has a couple good fight scenes, the problem is, in a 90-minute film, he either needs more, or there need to be more people with him to have scenes too. I saw one of Scott Adkins's interview shows recently, the one where he talked to Michael Jai White, and they discussed how, if a movie doesn't work, they get the blame for it. I've never really seen it that way. Mark Dacascos in a movie like this makes it better than it would have been for me if he wasn't in it; and when he's in a movie that's great, it's usually great because of him. The other thing is, I think this movie did work for some people, so it would be even more inappropriate to blame him for a movie that I just didn't care for. I don't know, maybe Adkins and White were right, that people do blame them when the movie doesn't turn out well, and if that's the case, unless we know it's the star's fault, I don't agree with that. I do understand that they want their movies to have great things said about them no matter what, so I do get that no matter how much I say I like Dacascos, if I say I don't care for his movie, he still might take it personally.

 

The other name in this (other than Roger Corman) is Treat Williams. I looked, and while this is his fourth tag on the site, we haven't seen him since September 2007 when we did Gale Force. I know, I know, that's no way to treat Treat. Here he doesn't do much beyond tell Dacascos to bring his daughter back alive, no matter what it takes. I don't know what more I wanted to see from Treat at this stage, but I think what we got here adds to the overall unremarkability of everything. If this had been made in the late 80s/early 90s, Treat's character would have been played by Mike Monty, and it would have been tons of fun. Instead it's just Treat playing a one-note and making a paycheck. It's not Treat's fault, he can only work with what he's given.

And maybe therein lies the rub. If the goal is to pump out something paint-by-numbers on the cheap and on the quick, if it comes out relentlessly unremarkable, what are we supposed to make of it? Do we just accept it and say "it's not bad for what it is"? To a large extent, this film represents a lot of what was wrong with the 2010s. Pump out something unremarkable, splash a couple names on the cover, and call it good. There was no PM of the 2010s out there fighting the good fight; but I think the name Roger Corman still meant something, and I feel like seeing his name on the tin meant we'd get something more in line with the fun of the 90s and less in line with the cynicism of the 2010s. I guess it could be worse, it could've been a Bruce Willis Fake Shemp vehicle.

 

The main problem with a film this unremarkable is it's hard to fill the paragraphs I need to for a review. If it's horrible, I can complain more; if it's awesome, I can continue to extol its virtues; but here we have neither. I guess we could go with the old "Matt, what would you have done better?" There was this tangential chemical bomb plot that I think may have been something better to underpin the film. Just remove the rescuing the daughter thing, and instead maybe have it where she stows away on the transport Dacascos is taking to retrieve the bomb, so the two of them are working together, and the bomb is the thing they need to get. It can get a little jungle-sloggy there, so I think you need a lot of explosions and fight scenes. Also, to remove the "Brown Menace" angle, make Treat the baddie. This way you get more out of Treat, as we know baddies have more places an actor can go with them. He could be more of a scene-chewing baddie than the guy they had in this, and instead the guy they had as the baddie could be Dacascos's superior and father to the daughter character. I think we're getting somewhere now.

Rather than flesh out my entire rework, why don't we wrap this up. Unfortunately it appears that this has been dumped from Tubi, which is no good, because I think paying to rent it isn't the way to go. I think even for the people who enjoyed it, I don't know that it's enjoyable enough to pay for a rental, considering there are so many great ones out there free to stream or included in streaming packages.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560658

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

 

Saigon Commandos (1988)

I found this on YouTube when I was looking for more of Don "The Dragon" Wilson's earlier filmography. More on that later, because it looks like it's possible Don "The Dragon" isn't in some of these films, including this one. Anyway, in addition to us, our good friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have looked at this, so you can go there to see what they thought; but also, our friend Jack J at When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines, provided the VHS cover that I pulled the image for from IMDb. I always grab my covers from IMDb, and it never crossed my mind that they grabbed them from around the internet. If you're looking for more of this kind of film, Jack's site is the place to go to, because he has them all showcased, and it's a really fun site.

Saigon Commandos has Richard Young as an MP in Vietnam investigating a series of drug related murders. At the same time, there's a political leader riling up the locals. When Young gets in too deep, he gets framed for murdering his superior, so he needs to clear his name. At the same time, PJ Soles is a reporter in Saigon helping him out, and she gets kidnapped by the baddies, so on top of clearing his name, he now has to rescue her. We trust Richard Young can handle it though.

 

For a movie I was just watching because I thought Don "The Dragon" Wilson was in it, there isn't much here. Like if you were to ask it what kind of movie it was, it might say 'Namsploitation, or straight ahead actioner, or crime drama, so even it doesn't really know what it is. It wasn't as jungle slog-y as others in its genre, but it didn't have the spectacular elements that some in its genre have either. There's no screaming Reb Brown or shirtless Richard Norton; and the hut explode-age was minimal. It had its fun moments, and I enjoyed Richard Young and PJ Soles, but overall it's not as remarkable as it could've been.

This was produced by DTVC Hall of Famer Roger Corman. While his executive producer credits have slowed a bit, 1988 when this was made was a prime era for him, as he was really bringing the heat to fill video store shelves and cable TV line-ups; not to mention movies like this that were also more for markets outside the US like Japan and Germany. With the sheer volume of producer credits he has, we should be seeing him more on here, but this is only 29 films for him. I think the reason is he pumps out so many, and if they don't have a name in them--or a potential name in them like this one--they get lost in the shuffle. Just by statistical probability though, the more I review movies on here, the more likely I am to get more Corman, and eventually he'll slide into the 30, 40, and 50 Clubs... and beyond.

 

PJ Soles was an interesting inclusion here, but a welcomed one as well. When you look at her bio, in the 70s and early 80s, it's all TV and big screen stuff. Then this comes in 1988, and that's it, it's more DTV stuff. I think she could have either had a bigger part here, or been used a bit more. Reporter who becomes love interest who becomes damsel in distress is a trope we've seen too often, and I guess in her case if the parts were drying up and she had to take something, I think she did well to try to make her character more than just the wash, rinse, repeat I described above. I think that's one reason why having actresses like her in roles like this is important in a DTV film, because she can elevate the cliched above cliche, and when we're talking DTV, every bit counts.

Richard Young is solid as the lead. I haven't seen Final Mission yet, but I've heard that's the real Richard Young go to, and this one's not quite at that level. I can see how with the right material, Young could be great. According to IMDb, he hasn't done anything acting-wise since I was in high school. Maybe all he was getting were these kinds of roles, and he decided he'd had enough. I think it's interesting to consider which actors keep going in films like these once their career turns, and which actors hang it up and move onto other things. I'm sure money plays a part, but I wonder how many, when given an opportunity to transition into something else, stuck with acting because they love it, and would rather make money doing that no matter what the films are, than making the same money in another industry.

 

What do you think, could that be Don "The Dragon" Wilson? Probably not, right? But I think that was the closest I came to spotting him. Then when I looked him up on IMDb, I found that this, along with some other "Donald Wilson" credits were moved off his IMDb page and onto one specifically for a "Donald Wilson". When I was doing the site in the late 2000s/early 2010s, these films weren't on Don "The Dragon's" IMDb page, but then when I picked things back up in 2019, they were all added. Now they're gone again. This includes Siege of Firebase Gloria, which we reviewed and tagged Wilson in, and has also been moved off of the Dragon's page. The interesting thing is, "Donald Wilson's" career stops in 1990 with Delta Force 2, where he's actually credited as "Don Wilson," the same name Don "The Dragon" is listed under in IMDb, and that's around the same time Wilson is being credited exclusively as "Don 'The Dragon' Wilson." Is there a mysterious "Donald Wilson" who was acting in films shot in the Philippines at that time who isn't the same person as Don "The Dragon"? Wonders never cease, but until we get to the bottom of it, I'm keeping the tags for this film and Siege of Firebase Gloria.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Beyond being a possible Don "The Dragon" film, there isn't much here to latch onto. If you're a fan of 'Namsploitation, there is some here to like, but overall I think it's not remarkable enough. JCT has it uploaded onto his YouTube page, so that's the best place to see it I think.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093906

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

Droid Gunner aka Cyberzone (1995)

We continue our Hall of Fame month at the DTVC with our next inductee, the great DTV director Fred Olen Ray. There were a lot of options for a film of his to cover for this post, but I liked that this one had a lot of names in it, plus it was free to stream--can never go wrong there. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this in his "It came from the video store" series, so you can go there to see what he thought.

Droid Gunner (or Cyberzone as you'll see it on the streaming services), has Beastmaster Marc Singer as "Jack Ford," director of such great films as The Grapes of Wrath and Stagecoach--or rather a guy who hunts down androids for a living in the future. When four pleasure droids turn up missing--stolen by one Matthias Hues--, the corporation missing them turns to Singer to find them. Tagging along is a droid specialist from the company, Rochelle Swanson, someone who can deactivate them without damaging them, which is very important when it comes to pleasure droids. Will our hero be able to make all this happen and save the day?

 

This is pure late-night 90s schlock, and I loved it for that. It had your classic Ray Skin-a-max elements, plenty of T n' A, but also great performances from a whole host of names, including, beyond Singer, Hues, and Swanson, Ross Hagen, Peter Spellos, Brinke Stevens, and Kin Shriner (which for someone whose mom watched General Hospital when I was growing up, he was a fun sight). Sure, this is done on a budget, and it bites on all kinds of popular films, like Star Wars, Blade Runner, and For a Few Dollars More, but for the midnight insomnia theater fare that I'm watching it for, it more than delivers.

Ray marks the third director in the Hall of Fame strictly for being a director, the other two being Albert Pyun and Cirio H. Santiago, which, for the DTV fans that we are, is fantastic company. Like those two, he's had some that I really didn't like, some that I loved, and a lot like this where I just enjoyed the ride. I think what I love most about his films, especially from this 90s period, is that he shoehorns a lot of sex and violence into them, but then there are a lot of these other touches like calling the main hero "Jack Ford" or how the plot becomes a take on For a Few Dollars More, which makes it more than just a late-nite 90s schlock exploitation fest. The funny thing is, recently my wife Jen and I were watching a Hallmark Christmas movie that Ray directed, and she was noticing similar touches, like the boy in the orphanage who looked straight out of 50s TV central casting. Like Dacascos, Ray's induction is probably one that's long overdue, but great to finally make happen.

 

The same way we needed to bring up Byron Mann in Dacascos's induction post, we'd be remiss if we didn't continue our efforts to spotlight Matthias Hues as well. He plays a bit of a roguish baddie in this, but also has a lot of fun with it, which is great to see. His playfulness underpins the tone Ray was going for, despite some of the dark future nature of the movie overall. As I've said in previous posts, we generally think of the stars as the people who carry these low-budget films, but when you look at the number of supporting people in this, many of whom do a lot of Ray films, you can see how important it is to have people like Hues who can show up and do their thing to round out the film and make it fun despite the time and budgetary constraints. Here's to you Matthias Hues, you're one of the great ones.

It's strange that we aren't getting to Marc Singer until the sixth paragraph, but with the DTVC, it's hard when you're in a Fred Olen Ray film that has Matthias Hues in it. Anyway, I really liked Singer here as the hero. He seemed to get what Ray was going for with the gunslinger-Western type, and he leaned into it well. Looking at his bio, it does surprise me that we don't have more of his stuff on here. I think other than this, we just have Savate with Olivier Gruner and Ian Ziering. He didn't even have a tag yet, which is crazy for someone of his stature. Well, we've at least taken care of that now. I'll need to at least cover the Beastmaster films in the future, so I imagine this won't be the last of him we see here.

 

Finally, among the other costars, I wanted to mention Kin Shriner, who is best known (though probably not known at all to most reading this) for his role on General Hospital. I bring this up, because my mother used to watch the ABC Soaps when I was growing up: All My Children, One Life to Live, and of course General Hospital. At that time, all of the three major broadcast channels had at least two, if not three or four daytime Soaps on--many people were up in arms in the late 80s during the Oliver North hearings, which preempted them a lot if I remember correctly. Anyway, my wife and I decided to check the other day, and on ABC, only General Hospital remains, and then Days is still on NBC, and CBS has Young and the Restless and Bold and the Beautiful. That's it of a once proud TV genre. Who knows exactly what did it, maybe fewer housewives staying home--though in college my bodybuilding buddy couldn't go to class before Days was over--; or my hunch, that the proliferation of talk shows and court shows, which don't require paying writers and actors, made Soap Operas less cost effective; and unlike scripted prime time TV, which saw a revival in the 2010s after being decimated by reality shows and true crime shows in the 2000s, it looks like the Soaps didn't have the same recovery. I want to say it's too bad, but obviously I wasn't watching them to know how many of them had been cancelled already, but it is still too bad for the people out there who did watch them for so long. Maybe saving the Soaps that are left is a good cause for me to take up...

But before we do that, it's time to wrap this up. You can stream Droid Gunner aka Cyberzone a lot of places for free, in particular Tubi, which has a good ad rate. I say, the next time you're up in the middle of the night and looking for something to watch, give this a spin. It'll take you back to the 90s in a good way.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112906

Firehawk (1993)

As we continue on in our October Hall of Fame month, I wanted to spotlight a film that featured two Hall of Famers that we don't get on the site enough, Martin Kove and Cirio H. Santiago; plus legend DTV producer Roger Corman--who usually produces Santiago's films. Seeing that this was on YouTube made it a no-brainer. In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered it too, so you can go to their site to see what they think. Now, without any further ado.

Firehawk has Kove as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam who takes his men on a mission into the jungle, only to have the helicopter malfunction, forcing it to make an emergency landing. It's the sloggiest of the jungle slogs when they're stranded, but the problem is, we also have Kove as the hero, which means he may be up to no good. As his men slog through the jungle, hoping to be rescued, fractures and fissures form, tensions brew, and there's a fear that a traitor may be in their midst. Or maybe they're just losing their minds at being stuck in this Philippine jungle slog. Either way, will someone figure out what the score is before too many people die?

 

For a 90-minute movie, this feels a bit longer than that, and I think that has to do with not only the slog aspect, but the fact that we've added the stranded element. Anyone who's been in a car far from home that has a flat tire or breaks down, or has been waiting at the airport for a plane that's been delayed indefinitely, knows the sense of dread, helplessness, and boredom that you feel, and that I couldn't help feeling when I watched this. There were plenty of shootouts and scenes of Kove chomping a cigar that attempted to mitigate that, but it just felt too flat tire-y. This isn't horrible by any stretch, there are a lot worse ways you could spend 90 minutes, but I think if you were looking for a bad movie night flick among friends, you may end up with people going to their phones if you choose this one.

With his addition to the second season of Cobra Kai, there's been a bit of a resurgence in interest in Martin Kove, which I think is fantastic. By the same token, this late 80s/early 90s incarnation of him is much more enjoyable for me. This is him as the DTVC Hall of Famer/pillar of the video store that he is, chewing cigars and scenery, vests with no shirts underneath, not sure if we can trust him and not sure if we care. Talking about the feeling you get when you're stranded due to a flat tire or something, Kove is both the person you'd love to be stranded with, and the person that you start to not trust because his decisions start to look bad, which makes the feeling of helplessness that much stronger. I think it may have even been what Santiago was going for, but the problem is, is it something we'd really enjoy experiencing?

 

Speaking of Santiago, we're finally hitting ten films for him, which for a Hall of Fame director is big. After Albert Pyun, he's currently the only director in the Hall of Fame strictly as a director, and Pyun is in the 40 Club, so we need more Santiago on the site for sure. Whether it's Vietnam in the Philippines, or post-apocalyptic actioner, Santiago has a slew of fun ones from the mid-80s to the mid-90s that I've barely scratched the surface on, it's just a matter of us getting there, so hopefully we'll start soon. One thing about this, is you can see how much in his element Santiago is in the jungle slog. There's a sense that he and Corman had an understanding that when Corman gave him a script and a budget, Santiago knew where he was headed. On the other hand, Santiago does these a bit differently from the Italian directors who handled them. He comes from a different tradition of film making, which makes these a unique addition to the usual Vietnam in the Philippines and post-apocalyptic films from this era, and something I enjoy as a change of pace.

Roger Corman is the third Hall of Famer involved in this, though he's uncredited as executive producer. He has over 400 production credits on IMDb, the most recent of which is 2019's Abduction, a Scott Adkins film I still haven't reviewed. When you think of DTV and B-movie producers, the conversation starts with him. You can look at Golan and Globus, Pepin and Mehri, and Lloyd Kaufman, but it's like if you add all of their stuff together it almost matches Corman's output. Beyond the great stuff that he had with Santiago, he's also responsible for the Bloodfist and Death Race films, plus was the subject of a great documentary on his failed Fantastic Four film, which we've covered here. We wouldn't have the DTV world we have now if it wasn't for him, so we owe him a lot. Here's to you Mr. Corman, you're one of the best.

 

Finally, Captain America himself, Matt Salinger is back, as the racist member of Kove's platoon. I was trying to remember if we'd seen Salinger play a heel before, and I couldn't think of it, maybe in one of the Seagal films he did. In the paragraph above we were discussing the Corman Fantastic Four that never was, but we have Salinger here who was in the Pyun Captain America that actually was. This was Salinger's follow-up to Cap, so it's interesting how he goes from the greatest American hero in one film to a racist wearing a Confederate flag bandana in the next; but also how he goes from one DTVC Hall of Fame director in Pyun to another in Santiago in the next. If you go to his IMDb page, he uses his Captain America still for his profile pic, which I think is fantastic. The way that Disney and Marvel have tried to act like those great earlier films never existed is an abomination, and I like that people are resisting that.

All right, since we're talking about another movie, it's time to wrap this up. You can currently stream this free on YouTube. I think that's the way to go, but be warned, even for free, it's pretty jungle sloggy. Still there's some fun Kove as well, so if you're pining for some while we're waiting for the next season of Cobra Kai, this might do the trick.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106914

Silk (1986)

In looking to get more Cirio H. Santiago on the site, I came across this when Ty from Comeuppance Reviews posted his VHS copy on his Instagram account, tyactionrocks. If you're not following that account on Instagram, you need to, it's fantastic! Anyway, without any further ado, let's see how this one did. This was also reviewed by Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Cool Target Action Reviews, and Mitch at The Video Vacuum, so you can see what they thought as well.

Silk has Cec Verrell as our eponymous hero, working as a detective on the Honolulu police department. She's as bad as they come, and criminals don't stand a chance. When an affluent English gentleman decides to set up his criminal empire shop in her backyard, there's going to be hell to pay.

When an action heroine has her own Pat Benatar-ish theme song, you know you're in for something great, and this only delivers from there. Cec Verrell is fantastic in the lead, the action is consistent, and when the action isn't there, we have other fun moments. This is the kind of movie the DTVC was made for, and the fact that we're almost 1000 posts and 13 years in and I'm just getting to it now is a travesty. Better late than never I guess, and we're here now making it happen. Cirio H. Santiago reaffirms his place in the DTVC Hall of Fame yet again.

This is back-to-back posts with Cec Verrell in them, with her having a part in Hollywood Vice Squad as well, and her third film overall, the other being Hell Comes to Frogtown. In looking at her imdb bio, there isn't much more that we could do of hers, which is too bad, because you feel like from a movie like this she could've had a bigger DTV action career, maybe not quite at Cynthia Rothrock's, but something in the 30 movie range--she wasn't even in Silk 2, which I can't believe after how great she was here. Alas, while the quantity of films was smaller, we're left with the quality, and there is a lot of quality in a film like this for us to celebrate.

I joke often that the biggest trope in movies is film review bloggers using the word trope, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe the damsel in distress trope than as a trope. Anyway, for whatever reason, Cec Verrell couldn't escape it, and despite being the eponymous heroine upon which the film is based, still finds herself captured by the baddies, tied up, and used for bait in the final scene. And the thing is, it felt grafted on, like the helicopter that's only there to be blown up and otherwise serves no other purpose. I'm all for paint-by-numbers, but I think if you're going to make a movie with a woman in the lead who's as badass as Verrell is here, why not skip that part, or have a different female character that you can use for that instead. When we look at some of the other movies we've done this month, Altitude with Denise Richards, Skyscraper with Anna Nicole Smith, Honor and Glory with Cynthia Rothrock and Donna Jason, and Hollywood Vice Squad with Verrell and Carrie Fisher, none of them needed to use the damsel in distress device--the closest I think was Anna Nicole Smith when the baddie in leather pants tries to rape her, and she stabs him with a letter opener and sends him out the window to his death--and all of those movies worked, just like Silk worked. We're okay skipping the damsel in distress, you can trust us to survive if it doesn't happen.

Down below is our good friend Vic Diaz. He, along with our other good friends Joe Mari Avellana and Mike Monty (credited first as Mike Monte, then later as Mike Monty) all make appearances in this. Seeing them in a Philippine action film, especially a Cirio H. Santiago flick, is like watching an old Johnny Carson rerun in bed, or smelling French fries cooking in a fast food joint as I walk by. There's a comfort in knowing they're there, like I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be watching exactly what I'm supposed to be watching at that moment. When we talk about Martin Scorsese's comments about how Marvel movies aren't cinema, maybe what he meant was, they had neither Diaz, Monty, or Avellana in them, and as such couldn't be cinema. I hope that's what he meant...

Cirio H. Santiago is the film's one Hall of Famer, so it's rare to have the Hall of Famer not discussed until this paragraph, but here we are. This is only Santiago's 9th film reviewed on the site, which I believe is the lowest of any Hall of Famer. This is, and has been, a major oversight on my part that I've been meaning to amend. I've mentioned this in other posts, but when I came back from hiatus, I focused too much on newer movies, especially in trying to catch up on all the new Dolph, Seagal, and Van Damme out there, plus the Gary Daniels, Scott Adkins, and Michael Jai White; the thing is though, how often does one of the newer movies hold a candle to something like this? Cirio H. Santiago is in the Hall of Fame for a reason, and one of his films is less of a roll of the dice than a lot of the newer stuff that's out there.

Right now you can stream this on Tubi, or if you have the Shout Factory subscription on Prime you can stream it there too. I think streaming is your best bet, and then you can make the decision after on whether or not you want to ante up for the blu-ray DVD version. However you slice it, this is what you came for, and what we at the DTVC are all about.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091957

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

Deathstalker (1983)

As you can imagine, this is a film that a review site like mine should have up, and now that it's on Instant, I have no excuses--not that I had any excuses before. It is something of a travesty that it's taken me this long to do it, but now that I am, it will be up on here for all of posterity. Also, our friends at The Video Vacuum, Bulletproof Action, and Trash Film Guru have hit this one too if you want to see what they thought about it.

Deathstalker features the all too sweet Rick Hill as our eponymous bad ass hero, who is tasked to take out some nasty sorcerer dude that has a magical chalice and amulet. The thing that can stop him? A kick ass sword that only a great hero and total dude like the Deathstalker can wield, so he takes it and enters the sorcerer's tournament to find the greatest warrior in the land. Is there any question who that is?

This film is 76 minutes of pure bad-assery. The moment Rick Hill pops on the screen until the end credits roll, it's a straight up awesomefest. As far as sword and sorcery films go, this is about as good as it gets. When I watch modern DTV attempts at this genre, and I'm very hard on them in my reviews, now you know why I'm so hard on them, because this is the standard that's been set. I think if you combine it with The Sword and the Sorcerer and The Beastmaster (another film I've been woefully deficient in not reviewing here yet), it makes for a great trilogy. Or you can just watch this three times in a row, it's that good.

And a major reason why it's so great and so iconic, is the hero, played by Rick Hill. He's the perfect charismatic lead, between the way he delivers his lines, the looks on his face, his way with the ladies, even the way he walks. Movies like this need actors like this, otherwise they fall flat. There were other things that made this great, like the writing, including that great scene where Deathstalker finds out his companion is working for the baddie, and he overhears the companion tell the baddie that he's going to take Deathstalker's sword away. When the companion meets Deathstalker in his room, Deathstalker stick the sword in the floor as if to say "it's right there, now all you have to do is pick it up," and then they fight. Totally bad ass. The thing is though, as great as that writing is, it falls flat if Hill doesn't sell it as well, and because he does, when we get to that scene, it's all the more awesome.

As I went through the rest of the cast, I saw Lana Clarkson listed as the woman warrior Deathstalker picks up on the way to the tournament. I didn't know this, but she was the woman Phil Spector murdered. What a crazy thing to read about. According to IMDb, she was barely 21 when this came out, which surprised me, because she seems much more mature. Her character, outside of Deathstalker, was the most interesting, and the lack of development for it was the only complaint I had with the short runtime--though Roger Corman made up for it by giving her the lead in Barbarian Queen.

This was the evil sorcerer, and I noticed he looked kind of like Quan Chi of Mortal Kombat fame. I know they found a lot of their inspiration for the characters from B-movies, so I wonder if this is where the idea of Quan Chi came from. If that's the case, then why wasn't there a Deathstalker character in the game? Maybe because it would've been too awesome. As a baddie went, Munkar, who was played by Bernard Erhard, was pretty sweet. I don't think it mattered though, he could've been running a nonprofit puppy rescue operation, and we still would've rooted for Rick Hill as the Deathstalker to kill him.

Finally, I want to touch on the degree to which this film features scenes of men forcing themselves on women. There are quite a few, which could be triggering to a survivor of sexual assault. It was done in the film to play up on the exploitation/women in prison and barbaric world setting aspects, and it also worked in making our hero stand apart, because he never needed to force himself on any woman, they came to him willingly. It was almost as if within that exploitation element there was the message that a real man like the Deathstalker doesn't need to force himself on a woman. Regardless, I thought I'd mention it because it could be problematic.

This is the sword and sorcery movie you came for. Rick Hill simply kills it, and everything else is great from there. And at 76 minutes, how can you beat that? Whenever I see another movie from the sword and sorcery genre listed at a 100-minute runtime, I'm suspicious, and Deathstalker is why. If Deathstalker can do it in 76, you should be able to do it in no more than 80. And while this is on Instant, I may just boycott all 100-minute sword and sorcery flicks and watch this instead.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087127/

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/

Capitol Conspiracy aka The Prophet (1999)

The tagline for this Don "The Dragon" Wilson actioner is "When they're in your head, how do you watch your back?" You know, that's an excellent point, how do you? It's definitely something to consider. I mean, I've always wondered how I watch my back period, right? But when they're in my head, of course, that would bring up a whole new set of difficulties. A lot to think about. In addition to us, the guys at Comeuppance and Mitch from the Video Vacuum have covered this as well.

Capitol Conspiracy has Wilson as a Company Man sent to take out five deadly terrorists spread out over LA. Turns out he's taking out five people who, like himself, were a part of a CIA experiment when they were kids that gave them ESP. Now The Company wants to retire him, and he doesn't know who he can trust--but Wilson is used to it being him against the world, so it's The Company that should be worried.

This had some lull moments and lost steam about midway through, but otherwise was a pretty serviceable Wilson actioner. It got a little too bogged down as the plot replaced the action, which we know is a no no, but Wilson made up with it with some solid fight scenes, and a couple good shootouts. Where Capitol Conspiracy makes its money though is in its mockability. Wilson makes some great faces, there's a hilarious love scene set to the same piano music you'd expect during a stalking scene in a Lifetime movie, and the bad guy looks like he's modeled his career on Frank Zagarino (more on him later). I don't know, so much of this was sauteed in wrong sauce, but it's also a lot of fun.

This is kind of rare for a Wilson flick, they're usually either pretty sweet, or they suck hardcore and we're wondering what the hell they were thinking. This one worked in spite of itself--though not through any lack of effort on the part of the filmmakers in trying to kill it with a bad plot. This also had deleted scenes on the DVD, which were very telling. None of them had any action, and in two of the three, Wilson was doing more acting, which we know is never a good thing, so it's nice to see that some positive editing was done. Can we thank director Fred Olen Ray for that?

This guy here looks, sounds, and smells like Charles Napier. How can that be? Who casts a poor man's Charles Napier? How does a poor man's Charles Napier get work? Napier is in like five-to-ten movies a year, how did Fred Olen Ray and Roger Cormen not lock him up for the three or four scenes that this guy was in? Wow, poor man's Charles Napier--I guess if you watch enough of these, you'll see everything, and I kind of feel like I've seen it all now. Time to just don that sombrero, hop on that mule, and ride off into the sunset.

A buddy was telling me about how a friend of ours called a salon about ten years ago to see if they could cut his hair so he'd look like David Bowie. This is what he said the phone call was like: "Hello, are you familiar with the artist Dav-id Bow-ie? Are you familiar with the Low era?" When I saw how much the bad guy in this looked like Frank Zagarino, I thought of my buddy. "Hello, are you familiar with the actor Frank Zag-ar-in-o? Are you familiar with his Project Shadowchaser films?"

The crux of this film was about CIA experimenting on children in order to give them ESP. Awhile back I saw a link on Tumblr to a Wikipedia article on unethical human experimentation in the US, and the section on government research during the Cold War was particularly chilling. A lot of psychological tortures in the attempt to make easily manipulated human zombies, done on innocent people off in secret hospitals and a horse stable in Montreal. The ESP aspect of this was far fetched, but the rest of it was pretty realistic. Okay, the majority of Capitol Conspiracy was not realistic, but the experimenting part was.

This is not available on Netflix for some reason or another, but you can actually buy it new at Amazon on DVD. I'd wait on this one though, until you've made your way through more of Wilson's other flicks, including the Bloodfists. Not his worst, but not his best either, so if you're going to commit $5.88 or whatever, make sure Wilson is someone you want to invest in.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155060/

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/

Bloodfist II (1990)

I've seen this one a few times, including on Spike in 2007, around the time I was starting the DTVC. They played all 8 over the course of a week or so. Somehow, this fell under the radar and I forgot to review it then, which I didn't realize until only a few months ago when I went to look for the post and it wasn't there. Oops. No one I knew had it, and Netflix doesn't carry it anymore, so I finally had to break down and buy it. This does mark the completion of the Don "The Dragon" Wilson Bloodfist Series for us here. Friends of the DTVC who have hit this one before us: Movies in the Attic, Cool Target Action Reviews, and most recently, Ty at Comeuppance Reviews.

Bloodfist II is the only actual sequel, so to speak, in that Wilson plays the same character he did in part 1. Long story short, we have an Enter the Dragon paradigm, with Wilson thinking he's going to save a friend in Manilla from a gambler he owes money to, only to find he's drugged, shackled, and on a boat to an island to fight. "Mr. Lu, I think I'd like to leave your island." After a scuffle, he escapes into the water, comes back to the gambler's compound to get his fighter friends, and ends up captured again and fighting the gambler's 'roid heads. Will he prevail?



This is something of a transitional picture in the Bloodfist series, because, on the one hand it has the Enter the Dragon paradigm, which makes it something of a tournament film like its predecessor, but really it's more like Bloodfists IV-VIII, in that it has that whole anywhere Wilson goes there's a potential ambush he needs to fight his way out of. Yes, Enter the Dragon is a classic, and as something of a remake, Bloodfist II doesn't do it justice; but as a low-budget Wilson martial arts actioner, it really delivers. This is a great time, something you and your friends can get a kick out of, and there aren't any dead spots or any plot to get in the way of your action.

This is one of Wilson's best. No training montages like the first one, nothing to get in the way of just a series of scenes of Wilson getting ambushed and having to kickass his way out of it. I don't know that there's another action star who plays more innocent guys that get ambushed by gangs so often. When you look at, say, Dolph or Seagal, they're usually cops or secret servicemen who go into dangerous places and fight their way out; but Wilson can't go to the corner store for a six-pack without someone trying to kick his ass. And every movie is like that too, it's just expected that the old man with the walker lurking in the background while Wilson is paying his mortgage at the bank knows karate and is waiting to try and kill him.



Rina Reyes played Wilson's love interest/woman on the inside helping him out. She looks like a mix of Kim Cattrall and Lisa Bonet, which means she's really hot. She even rocks silver spandex, which can be very dangerous and unflattering on the wrong figure, but looks great on her. As far as I can tell on imdb, she still works, but mostly in the Philippines. Perhaps the best scene came when she and Wilson had their "moment". It was very 6th grade, how their hands brushed up against each other's, then they looked, asked with their eyes if the other meant that touch, and kissed with smooth jazz playing in the background. I guess they cut out the scene later on when Wilson passed her a note with the question "Be my girlfriend?" and two boxes labeled "Yes" and "No" underneath.

I always try to get my hands on a movie to watch it before I review it, even if I've seen it before, because I almost always forget great moments-- not that I don't forget them when I'm writing the review after having just seen it too! In this one, I had totally forgotten about a scene with Tim Baker at a gym, where Baker tells Wilson "I only talk to fighters when I train", which leads Wilson to jumpkick his punching ball off it's chain and into a sparring ring, hitting one of the fighters in the back. That's a gem that if I don't watch the film again I miss out on, and I'm glad I didn't.



Baker was one of a few great members of the supporting cast, which also included Joe Mari Avellana-- not reprising his role as Kwong from part 1. One of the ones that was interesting was Richard Hill, pictured above, or Rick Hill for short. See where I'm going with this, Rick Hill same name as Deathstalker Rick Hill. In the biography section of the DVD, they actually make this mistake, showing the picture of the guy above-- the guy who was actually in the film-- but then running off the list of accomplishments that the other Rick Hill had had in the industry. How does that happen? Whose job is it to make sure they have the right Rick Hill? And does it really matter? Probably not, right? It kind of gives the DVD character.

For some reason Netflix doesn't have this, but you can buy it new or used on DVD from Amazon, so it doesn't really make any sense. Anyway, if you're into good ol' late 80s/early 90s bad action, this is right in your wheelhouse-- and if you're not, are you sure you have the right blog?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099155/

Moving Target (2000)

This film took quite a bit of work to get to me, spending a huge chunk of time in my Netflix queue under "Short Wait" status, yet constantly being passed over for other films further down the line. Then one day Netflix sent me an e-mail, essentially saying "Hey sweet-ums, we're going to ship it to you from somewhere else, and it'll get to you later." But after a week, I didn't see it, so I clicked on "report a problem," which means that's it, it's considered lost, and I wrote it off, only to have it pop up in my mailbox a few days after that, like a dirty dog that's been lost for a while, then shows up at your doorstep out of the blue, all wrinkled and messy. I should also point out that this film should not be confused with the 1997 Moving Target, starring Michael Dudikoff, or the 1998 Miles O'Keeffe flick Moving Targets.

Moving Target has Don "The Dragon" Wilson as an American kickboxer who comes to Ireland to meet the woman he'd been dating on the Internet. At the same time, a rogue off-shoot of the IRA is trying to sell a six-pack of Beamish stout, which has nuclear detonators in it, and somehow Wilson ends up in possession of it. Now everybody wants him, people are getting gunned down, his Internet woman has been kidnapped, and he has to kickbox his way out of all of it.

This film should be confused with Bloodfist IV, because it's a remake of it, only without the too sweet Gary Daniels. Another thing it could be confused with is a Marx Brothers picture, because the whole "who's got the Beamish?" felt like a goofy construct from one of their films. Wilson's fight scenes were so clunky they felt like acts of physical comedy as well. I don't know what that means for a recommendation though. You tell me what "remake of Bloodfist IV that devolves into bad Marx Brothers style comedy" means.

Looking at it though, I'm not sure another actor could make this as ludicrous as it was--and I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing either. Wilson has this combination of "awe-shucks" and kickass kickboxer that just makes the whole Marx Brothers element more... I don't want to say surreal... how about real?... He enhanced that side of it, made it feel more like it was a parody of action films, as opposed to an actual action film. The thing is, I know that's not what they were going for, which makes it that much harder to know how to take it. Maybe so bad it's good?...

I can point to one moment where the movie jumped the shark, that cemented its "I can't possibly be expected to take this seriously" status. Wilson, in escaping from the law enforcement net closing in on him, grabs a horse out of a stable and rides away. Really? And it's done with a total straight face. I ask you, what am I supposed to do with that?

This film brings to mind and interesting difference between the English spoken in America, and the English spoken in Ireland and the UK. C. U. Next. Tuesday. is like one of the worst things an American man can say to a woman, and the only situations where it wouldn't be is if the woman is someone who isn't easily offended, which means the word would probably not be used in malice. On the other side of the pond, however, it's really not that big of a deal, evidenced by this film where a dude calls another dude that after he's shot by him. I know people personally from England who also don't care about it, and it's through them that I've learned to love the word in less uptight company. It's very fascinating, and I'd like to know how the difference came about, because what we're looking at is a different definition for the same word, based on how the two cultures take it.

I've never been to Ireland before, but Galway, where this was shot, is the city where a couple of my friends went for two weeks during one of our college breaks. It was some kind of exchange program I guess. I don't remember anything they said in particular about the trip, other than one of the professors looked like Marty Stouffer of Wild America fame.

I think you can buy this rather cheaply at Amazon. I'm not so sure Netflix is a great route, considering what it took for me to get it from them, but you can try. Of course, all of that hinges on whether or not you want to see this at all. I'd say go through a much bigger chunk of Wilson's filmography first, especially Bloodfist IV, and see how you feel, before you tackle something like this.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213094/

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/