3 Musketeers (2011)

It's that time again, DTVC Hall of Fame inductions! And our first one is one we knew was going to be in as far back as March when we first decided to tag him, and discovered he had over 50 movies on the site! That's right, the one and only Cole S. McKay. This film is one of two he directed for The Asylum, the other being 200 M.P.H., and after hearing Will from Exploding Helicopter say good things about it, I figured it's be a great one for McKay's induction post.

3 Musketeers is about an elite US military special ops team of the same name (Xin Sarith Wuku, Keith Allen, and Michele Boyd) who get framed for blowing up a South Korean airliner while doing some special ops stuff in North Korea. Meanwhile back at the Pentagon, agent D'Artagnan (Heather Hemmens) is sent to talk to a crackpot named Planchet (the great Steven Williams), but when he's assassinated, she knows this goes way deeper, so she tracks down the Musketeers for help. Turns out their former boss, Treville the Cardinal (Alan Rachins) is planning to assassinate the President of the United States! Will our heroes be able to stop him?

This was a pretty fun time. It does have some lulls in it, and it has the cheap CGI we've come to expect from The Asylum, but beyond that this does what you need it to do. I think the best part is Heather Hemmens as the lead. She underpins the whole approach The Asylum is going for here where they're doing something different with the Three Musketeers story, and that's furthered with the Musketeers themselves, Xin Sarith Wuku, Keith Allen, and Michele Boyd. This is a fun team that I want to see succeed, which is the key to making something like this work. On the opposite end, Alan Rachins is a great baddie, with David Chokachi working well as his second-in-command. Unlike a lot of the PM films McKay worked on though, CGI replaces a lot of the stunts, shootouts, and explosions, and that keeps this from being an all-time classic that some of those are; but I think the fun cast and the work McKay and the stunt team does in the moments that aren't CGI elevates this beyond the usual Asylum fair, making it worth a watch.

63 tags before a Hall of Fame induction may be a record, unless we decide to put Millennium Films in, but at least it'll be a record for a person. As I've mentioned before, Cole S. McKay was first put on my radar when I had Chris the Brain Kacvinsky from Bulletproof Action on the pod to talk The Sweeper (episode 165 in the archives). We were talking about Spiro Razatos, and he mentioned McKay then as another great stunt guy. From there, doing the PM Entertainment Podcast with Jon Cross, McKay kept coming up, so after reviewing Victim of Desire back in March I decided to tag him, and he had over fifty movies that we'd reviewed on the site! Since then, we've now done an additional 7 movies (this one included), meaning at that rate he could pass Dolph to be the most tagged all time! What's interesting with this movie, is you see the moments where The Asylum skimps with CGI that PM allowed their stunt teams, led by talents like McKay, to get after it. For example, we get a moment where Hemmens's character swings on a large advertising banner to escape some baddies, and it's just bad-looking CGI. You know had this been PM fifteen years before, a stunt person would've been rigged-up and been swinging through that scene for real. As I mentioned above though, what McKay and his team can do is elevate the moments of practical stunts we do get, so we get something closer to that golden age from fifteen years before, even if it's not quite that. He has a ton of stuff left to cover, especially from that golden age of DTV action, so it'll be exciting to see what comes next, but for right now, it's about finally getting him into the Hall of Fame, which we're doing in this post.

Our other Hall of Famer here is The Asylum, they of the Asylum Rule which states that anyone with over 30 tags is an automatic Hall of Famer. In that sense The Asylum made us induct them into the Hall of Fame by the sheer volume of movies they've made like this who have other people in them. The other thing is, when I first started the site in the late 2000s, these Mockbusters they were doing were ubiquitous, and a fun inclusion to get people interested in what we were doing. We did our share of Transmorphers and Snakes on a Train, and one thing I've found with those films, or the myriad disaster movies and big monster movies, is they often used those films to give people opportunities they wouldn't ordinarily have had. In that sense I think they're working in the same tradition as PM Entertainment, and when it works, like it does here, it's a lot of fun. So, maybe they forced us to induct them into the Hall of Fame, but watching a movie like this one is a reminder that they were also deserving of the honor.

We're going to try to stuff everyone else into this sixth paragraph, so buckle up, because there are a lot of names to get to. We'll start with Heather Hemmens, who I discovered from her IMDb bio is a fellow Mainer! She was great here, but it looks like the only other thing she's done like this was another Asylum joint, Rise of the Zombies, so maybe we'll have to give that a try. Among the Musketeers, I didn't recognize any of them either, but Keith Allen I thought looked like a combination of Todd Newton and Ryan Seacrest, which was perfect for the role he played as the computer whiz in the group. Then we had Xin Sarith Wuku and Michele Boyd as more of the action Musketeers, and like Hemmens were great as action leads. It's unfortunate the The Three Musketeers that this was mockbustering was kind of a bust, because it would've been fun to see this crew come back for sequels--and really, is it a rule that The Asylum can't make their own sequels, even if the blockbuster they're mockbustering doesn't get a sequel? With our baddies we had the late Alan Rachins, who brings this West Wing guest story-arc element to the proceedings, which would've been enough, but we also get Rachins Fu, when he fights Xin Sarith Wuku, which was beyond what I could've asked for. And then with Chokachi as his second-in-command, what I liked there was he brought a poor man's Casper Van Dien vibe, but the real Casper Van Dien would've been too much for Rachins's second-in-command, so it's almost like Casper Van Dien light, or like a side-helping of Van Dien. I never considered it before, but Chokachi works great in that lane where you want Casper Van Dien energy, but the real Van Dien is too big for the role. The Steven Williams one-scene was great. We haven't had him too much on the site before, that's why he wasn't tagged, but always great to see him when we can. Finally, the person in this film with the third-most tags was the one and only James Lew, who has one scene in the beginning, but does most of his damage on the stunt team. That's 20 movies for him now. Could he be our next candidate for an Asylum Rule induction?

Finally, in high school we watched the 1993 version of the film, and my friends I loved the opening sword fight between Chris O'Donnell's D'Artagnan and Paul McGann's Girard, mostly for McGann, like when he screams "liar!" and then the faces he makes while he's dueling with O'Donnell. I remember our friend's mom got mad at us for rewinding it and replaying it over and over, telling us we were going to break the VCR. To this day, 30 years later, when I hear the name "D'Artagnan" I hear McGann yelling "will get you D'Artagnan" in his screechy McGann voice. I hadn't seen that scene in 30 years though, so I thought for this review I'd cue it up and watch it on Disney+, which fortunately they hadn't vaulted like they tend to do with their movies, and it still made me laugh all these years later. While that scene is the lasting legacy of the film for me, I think for most people it's the theme song, "All for Love," by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting. I don't know if that one was intended to be a franchise like the 2011 one, but had it made more at the box office, you have to imagine there would've at least been a sequel. It does make you wonder, why hasn't this concept not worked better? I think the period piece thing is always going to be an issue, but when I looked up adaptations, I didn't see any modern versions other than the one we're reviewing here. Could that be the key to the successful franchise? Maybe The Asylum was onto something.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States, which I think is a great deal. This is one of those Asylum movies where the formula works, so it's worth a watch if you're looking for a fun time. Also, here's to you Cole S. McKay, and your induction into the DTVC Hall of Fame. You're truly one of the greats, this is well-deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1977681

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Top Gunner (2020)

This is a film Ty from Comeuppance and I looked at on the pod when we did our Eric Roberts double feature back in April. That's episode 154 in the archives. As far as I can tell, no one else has touched this one. Maybe with good reason?

Top Gunner has Eric Roberts as an officer in the Air Force who has a training base for pilots in a remote location. When some of them cause trouble, he forces them to stay during the holiday weekend while everyone else is on leave. After a special forces team grabs a Russian bioweapon with the intent of getting it to scientists in Washington so they can reverse engineer a cure, they need to make a pit stop at Roberts's base. The problem is, the Russians are hot on their tail, and have waylaid them there. Will Roberts's rag tag group trouble-making trainees be able to fend off the Russians?

This isn't horrible, but there is a sense of, what am I doing here? They set up some corrugated iron shacks near an old abandoned highway, CGI'd in some planes, then tossed in a dash of Eric Roberts. Is that it for The Asylum now? This is their Top Gun: Maverick mockbuster? But then there's also a sense of "what did you want this to be, Matt?" which I also get, and I think if pressed, this is probably about what I expected, and the fact that I can at least say it isn't horrible is saying something--even if it's not saying much. The Asylum is like getting the generic Doritos, and I think there's always that first bite where I go in expecting real Doritos, and end up a little disappointed, when I only have myself to blame for not ponying up the extra couple bucks to just get Doritos.

There are three of these films, and I believe that's because this was supposed to be released to coincide with Top Gun: Maverick, but that film was delayed so much that they had to put out another movie in order to capitalize, and then once they did that they figured they might as well do a third. The second one doesn't have Roberts, but the third one does, and none of the three have anything to do with each other. This is now 36 films for The Asylum, which means they're close to one of the more exalted clubs at the DTVC, the 40 Club. On the one hand, it seems wrong to have them in a club like that--wrong enough that they're in the Hall of Fame even--but on the other, they've been doing this Mockbuster thing a couple years longer than we've been doing the DTVC, and they're still going strong...(ish). I think that has to count for something, and for that I applaud them.

Eric Roberts, who is known for his vast CV, is only at 16 films now on the site, which doesn't sound right, but when you look at the films he does and who's--or rather who isn't--in them, you get a better sense of why he's only where he's at. Is there anyone who's better at ranting with the wall of a corrugated iron shed behind him? Like were they borrowing a trailer on a construction site to do his scenes? When his wife called him about this, he was probably like "how many locations and how many wardrobe changes?" and she said "one location, no wardrobe changes, you're wearing an Air Force pilot jumpsuit the whole time." "So I gotta unzip my shirt to go to the bathroom?" "It's just one day of shooting." And like the trooper he is, he delivered.

One thing The Asylum got right was the fact that fighter jet dogfights can only get you so far, so they were smart to pad things out with this other plot about the bioweapon. The problem is, the other plot was kind of a dud too. What the movie should've been was 80 minutes of Eric Roberts in a corrugated iron shed yelling at young trainees. But then the problem there is, you can't get that much footage out of Roberts with the limited time you have to shoot with him. Could you loop it then? Like the same rant, over and over, maybe set to a Vaporwave soundtrack, and the trainees, when they're not flying CGI planes, they're struggling to get AOL and Windows 95 to work. I'm just throwing ideas out here, but I do kinda feel like my idea would be the best Asylum film ever.

 
Finally, even The Asylum isn't immune to the trend of not using numbers for sequels. Can we blame them though, when they're Mockbustering Hollywood, and that's what Hollywood's doing? I would love to see them full-on Mockbuster that. Like make the movie I described above, but call it "Herring: A Top Gunner Saga." If you're wondering, they did do their own Mockbusters for Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, called Road Wars and Road Wars: Max Fury, which is okay, but I feel like it's a bit of a mail-in from The Asylum. Why not go with Max Fury: A Road Wars Saga? Come on guys, you're slipping.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This is almost exactly what you'd expect from an Asylum Mockbuster on Top Gun: Maverick--maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but almost exactly. If you need a little Eric Roberts on a free streamer to pass the time, you could do worse than this. You could do better too, but you could do worse.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12226808

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

American Warships (2012)

With the unfortunate passing of the great Carl Weathers, a post in his honor was required. He's someone who has only been on the site twice, but his influence is so massive, especially to me as an action movie fan, that finding something to review for him as soon as possible was absolutely necessary. In addition to us, Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

American Warships is about an EMP attack on warships in the Pacific by a mysterious actor. Could it be the North Koreans? The Chinese? Either way, General Hugh McCracken (Weathers) and the Secretary of Defense need to get to the bottom of it before World War III breaks out. Fortunately the USS Iowa, a World War II warship, has been restored to its WWII glory in anticipation of it becoming a living museum in California, which means it survived the EMP burst and is still functional. Led by Captain Mario Van Peebles, it's our only hope against an all out war. But when he sends a group of Navy SEALs onboard the enemy ship, what they find will change everything. The problem is, will everyone believe them?

This is pretty standard Asylum fare. Lots of CGI, to the point you kind of can't always make out what you're seeing; a story that's uneven and probably could've used a few more rewrites, but no one had the time; and some big names who are giving you as much as they can, but also possibly imagining how they're going to be reading their agents the riot act when this is all done. On the other hand it feels like it's trying to mimic the 50s sci-fi slogs you'd get on an MST3K, or that might be on TV on a weekend afternoon growing up. The thing I'd say about that, is the film techniques those movies used actually looked nicer. There are scenes where raiding parties are trying to board the stealth enemy ship, and there's fake water splashing everywhere, to the point that I couldn't make out anything that was going on. No 50s sci-fi flick would do that. There are ways though that The Asylum improves on the 50s model though. You wouldn't see a person of color in a command role back then, but here we have two in Van Peebles and Weathers; plus we have women in prominent roles, and more than one. Ultimately, I think like those 50s sci-fi flicks that you might see on a weekend afternoon to kill time, this film fills the same niche, whether you're watching alone or with friends, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Where do we even start with Carl Weathers? For me, like most movie watchers, Apollo Creed was where I first saw him, and that would've been in Rocky III on The Movie Loft, which would've been followed up soon after with Rocky IV and The Predator. From there, it would've been Street Justice in the early 90s. Friday nights on WNDS in Derry, NH, we had Renegade and Street Justice--a much better line-up than ABC's TGIF shows. Weathers and Genesse were a great pair, and it was one of my favorite shows at that time. Then I saw Action Jackson, where not only was he amazing, but the fact that we had Coach as a baddie was great too. And I think that really cemented Weathers as an all-time great for me, so whenever I saw him in anything else after that, like Happy Gilmore or Friday Foster, or heard his voice in a Regular Show episode or saw him in The Mandalorian, there was a sense of "this is awesome just because it has Weathers in it," he had attained that level. Even though he's not in this as much, I do think you can say that about this, or at least that it's better just by virtue of the fact that he's in it. And I think that's what we'll miss the most about Weathers leaving us, the fact that we'll no longer have anything new coming out that's awesome just because it has him in it. Here's to you Mr. Weathers, you truly were one of the greatest to ever do it, and you'll be greatly missed.

In addition to Weathers, we had Mario Van Peebles as the ship's captain. I had just seen him a little while back in a rewatch of Highlander: The Final Dimension, so obviously this role was a departure from that. I joked above that he was probably mentally dressing down his agent for getting him this part, but I will say too that Van Peebles may have also considered that 50-60 years earlier his part wouldn't have been available to him due to his ethnicity, and that may have factored into him signing on. This is where representation matters, because for him growing up in the 60s, when these old sci-fi movies would've been on TV or showing in local theaters, he would've only seen white guys, especially in leadership roles, but now a kid flipping through the channels or browsing Tubi on a Saturday afternoon could stumble upon this and him leading everyone into battle against the baddies--and not just African American kids either. Compare that to the blockbuster this was ripping off, Battleship, where Van Peebles's part was played by Alexander Skarsgard and Weathers's part was played by Liam Neeson. With that in mind, maybe Van Peebles saw more in this than a paycheck.

Speaking of Battleship, I'd totally forgotten that movie even existed. As with many Asylum Mockbusters, I try to find the movie they were mimicking if it's not obvious, and I only found it when I read in the trivia that they originally wanted to call this "American Battleships," but Universal threatened to sue if they did. It's easy to understand why I would've forgotten that Battleship even existed, because 2012 was full of big movies that all pulled in a ton of money. That early 2010s period, where everyone was scrambling to find the next big franchise, Marvel Studios was totally changing the game with The Avengers, but at that time, no one, including The Asylum, knew that was going to happen, so when they saw Battleship was being made they scrambled to get their own Mockbuster version out there, which has now becomes like an inside joke that people would only get if they remembered the moment it was referring to. The thing about the Asylum is they can never quite get a movie like this all the way right, which seems odd, because these movies feel like they make themselves. Like we have a scene where a Navy SEAL comes back from the enemy ship and he's all charred, and they find a roll of film he stuck inside himself by carving a hole in his abdomen. Why did we need that? I guess because The Asylum is always gonna Asylum. Anyway, this is now 35 films for them, meaning they're closing in on the 40 Club. I don't know if they're make it this year, but they'll definitely get there eventually. You almost have to admire their stick-to-it-iveness.

Finally, one aspect of The Asylum film I enjoy, is that one supporting character we get that I want to root for. In this case it's Nikki McCauley's Dr. Julia Flynn, a quirky WWII expert who's leading the overhaul of the ship to make it a living WWII museum. When the EMP first strikes and knocks out all of the ship's electronics, she points out all of the retro-fitted elements that still work. Van Peebles isn't sure he can trust her, but with only 90 minutes, they can't mess around with that too much, so she ends up playing an integral part in their success against the baddies. Unfortunately, in true Asylum fashion, her character is severely injured and we see her at the end, forced to walk with a cane and with a scar on her face--again, Asylum gonna Asylum. I think the Asylum goes into things expecting all of the characters to be like Dr. Flynn, that we want to root for everyone on the side of good, but usually due to how the script falls, the editing, and the performances, we're lucky if we get one like that, and fortunately we did here. Here's to all the Nikki McCauley's out there, making Asylum films more palatable. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing, you can get this on Tubi here in the States. I don't know that it's one you want to go out of your way for, and if you're looking for a film to watch in tribute of Carl Weathers, all of the Rocky films are on Max, and The Predator is on Hulu; but for a weekend afternoon time killer, this will do the trick. As far as Weathers, one of the true legends of the film world, he will be missed, and I think he's worthy of a second toast, so here's to you again Mr. Weathers, you were one of the greatest.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2175927/

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Super Cyclone (2012)

With this being Women's History Month, and knowing that one of my favorite films directed by a woman is the Asylum Mega Shark vs Gatoroid directed by Mary Lambert, I thought I'd go back to the Asylum well and found this potential gem written and directed by Liz Adams, and starring one of my favorite actors, Ming-Na Wen. Let's see how it did.

Super Cyclone is about an oil rig off the coast of LA that digs a little too deep and taps into an active volcano--or something like that. Engineer Nick Turturro realizes they're in trouble, and it only gets worse as a storm forms out of the super-heated volcano ocean water. When expert meteorologist Ming-Na and her partner are called in to help, the manager of the oil rig thinks it's best if Turturro goes with them back to the mainland, as a Super Cyclone is forming, and it's headed straight for LA. Now it's a race against time, as our crew needs to out-maneuver all manner of shaky cams and CGI obstacles to get to the local military base, where they can liaise with some stern upper military types, and come up with an off-the-wall solution that just may work.

And where does that leave us? With this pre-Sharknado era of The Asylum disaster film, who knows? We're looking for something special in this sea of CGI monsters and natural disasters complete with shaky cams and actors looking for a quick buck while waiting for their agents to come to them with something better, and despite the presence of Ming-Na, I don't know if this movie has it. Also, the guys working on the oil rig who were thrown into the ocean were essentially being boiled alive, and while "boiled alive" consisted of thrashing around in the water and yelling, the idea of it was still less fun and more grotesque--I mean, I turn the hot water up too much in the shower and the pain is pretty rough, I don't want to imagine anyone going through that. And therein lies the rub, for one of these movies to work, it needs to be fun, and I think this one, while it had its fun moments, overall didn't have as much fun in it for what I'd want.

When we look at Ming-Na's career at the time this film was made, this was just before Agents of SHIELD, and you can see that she doesn't do anymore Asylum flicks after that. As I mentioned above, I've always been a fan of hers, and think it's great that she's had this career resurgence through Agents of SHIELD, and now the Boba Fett series on Disney+. I think in this film we can at least see why she's been so successful on these other shows, because she brings a little extra to what is otherwise a pumped out paint-by-number jawn that The Asylum could sell to Sy-Fy so they could fill another time slot and rake in the ad revenue. At the very least, it seemed like she was having fun with it--but I imagine she's having much more fun with the work she's doing now.

When I started the DTVC, The Asylum was bigger with their Mockbusters--Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, etc. At a certain point, they transitioned to these disaster movies, I think in part because they had a deal with Sy-Fy to air the movies on there. As The Asylum is wont to do, they pumped out tons of these, while at the same time pumping out Mockbusters. Here I think is where Liz Adams comes in. She gives them two scripts--this and another film, Air Collision, and I imagine they're saying "if you can direct them for X amount of money, go for it," and then that's it, Liz Adams hasn't directed anything since, and really hasn't done much else in the movie industry since. She also wrote Shark Week in 2012, but that was directed by Fred Olen Ray's son Christopher, who is still pumping out DTV flicks, his most recent being Assault on VA-33. I don't know if that's telling, if there's something about doing this Asylum stuff that can be difficult to the point it turns someone off from movie making altogether, and you have to be the son of one of the greatest schlock auteurs of all time to want to keep working in that ecosystem. Maybe there is a sense of "did I get into this industry to write and direct a movie where I'm telling Ming-Na Wen and Nicholas Turturro to thrash around and act like their SUV was picked up by a super cyclone?"

And that gets us back to The Asylum. It's almost like they made our Hall of Fame last fall through sheer force of will. This is now 34 of their movies we've covered, and as much as I want to deride them or hate them, the volume of their output means it's too much of a statistical probability that I'll need to review more of their movies in the future, meaning they're a certainty for the 40 Club and beyond. I looked them up on IMDb, and it's showing they released 14 movies in 2021, plus 8 episodes of their series Black Summer. Again, it's a mix of Mockbusters and disaster movies, but nothing is really remarkable. By the same token, Fast and Furious: Death Race from 2020 is one of the most read reviews I've done since I've come back from hiatus, so it does highlight the fact that with that volume of output, they can still get hits from time to time--by the same token, my Sharknado 3 review is the least-viewed of my reviews since I've come back, which shows they can also overdo it to the point of fatigue.

Speaking of that volume, when I was seeing what pictures IMDb had of this movie, I saw some from the film's red carpet premier. The what now? This movie had a red carpet premier? Do all Asylum releases have a red carpet premiers? I looked, and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid also did. When I looked up Fast and Furious: Death Race, I didn't see one, nor did I for some others I looked at, but I was just going off the pictures on the IMDb page. I can't imagine they do 14 red carpet premiers a year, I feel like that would be worth another movie and a half for them. Anyway, when I looked at the pics of the premier for this film, it seemed like two actors from the film posted all of them, Andy Clemence, who was third billed in this and has 10 IMDb credits to his name; and Mitch Lerner, who has more credits on IMDb, but a lot of them are for shorts. It's like "hey, look at me with Ming-Na and Nicholas Turturro!" and they have the "yes, I'll do this picture with you" smile. Don't get me wrong, I would definitely get my picture with them too, it's just by posting it on the photos section of the IMDb page, we now know there was a red carpet premier for this movie, and we know Ming-Na and Nicholas Turturro had to get pictures with Mitch Lerner while they were at it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. It seems like this is on all the major streamers for free, including Tubi here in the States. I think if you're a Ming-Na fan like me, the better bet is to watch her on Agents of SHIELD or the Boba Fett show--or the short lived sitcom The Single Guy from the 90s if you can find it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381317

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

 

 

 

 

Fast and Fierce: Death Race (2020)

Back in October The Asylum was inducted into the DTVC Hall of Fame, and I meant to do a post then to commemorate that. Unfortunately I ran into some issues and went on a mini-hiatus, and then had to go back and catch up on those Hall of Fame posts I didn't get a chance to do. On top of that, I needed to find a film I wanted to review of theirs for the occasion. There's a ton out there, but when I saw this was available on Showtime On Demand, I figured it was the right choice, especially after DMX's tragic passing recently. 

Fast and Fierce: Death Race is about a former professional racer named Jack Tyson (Michael DeVorzon) whose brother Nelson (Nelson Tyson?) (Jack Person) is in deep to a crime lord (DMX). His only way out of the debt? Jack needs to race in DMX's underground Mexico to LA competition and win. As always though, things aren't that simple. First, DMX's ex (Paulina Nguyen) has stolen two flash drives that have all the evidence of his criminal operation, and she's jumped into Jack's car; and second, the Mexican cartels have taken DMX, and his crew needs to rescue him. How will Jack maneuver his way out of this one?

 

Where do I go with this? It's not the Asylum's worst, but not their best either. I like DMX better here than Beyond the Law, but we still lose him for a good chunk of the middle of the movie. Michael DeVorzon was a solid enough lead, which helps, especially with DMX MIA. The problem is the problem most Asylum films have: they try to bang it out on the cheap, and often that means you get what you pay for. First off, Jack is only racing against two other people. What kind of race is that that only has two other cars? I grew up on Wacky Races, we need more than three contestants, but if you're doing it on the cheap, that's all you can afford. From there, when DMX goes MIA, he's replaced by his hench-person, played by Veronika Issa, who's good, but she's not DMX good. Part of me wonders why they even did that, because it's not like they couldn't have just shot a bunch of scenes of DMX reacting to things and looped them throughout the movie, especially since she was doing everything from one location too. Finally, with the short runtime (which I love!), they needed to make up for the areas where the plot dragged at points, so the end was one of those put on some eye protection as the loose ends fly together kind of deals. Just the same, it had its fun moments, and I think it gave us the Asylum mockumentary we were looking for.

In true Asylum fashion, you could say they forced us to put them in the Hall of Fame, because they were the only entity on the site--actor, director, studio, etc.--with 30 tags or more that wasn't in the Hall of Fame. I had two Sharknados in the can, parts 4 and 5, that I could have used for this post, but I decided against it, because when I did 3 during my Shark Week last summer, barely anyone read it. As much fun as Sharknado was, The Asylum couldn't get enough blood out of that stone, to the point people were sick of it. I think one could make a similar case for these Mockbusters, but when they have people like DMX in them, it's hard to say no; plus, Android Cop with Michael Jai White was one that I really liked. I think when these Mockbusters work, they're a lot of fun; and when they don't, there's almost a sense that The Asylum got one over on us, and I tell myself I won't be duped again, until I am. Here's to you Asylum, if anyone earned a spot in the Hall of Fame, it's you.

 

When I reviewed The Patriot, I included a comment on DMX after his passing, but when I saw that this Asylum film with him in it was available, I had to take the opportunity to give him a further spotlight. When you think of it, the same way Michael Jai White should have been RoboCop in the reboot as opposed to being in the Mockbuster, DMX should have been in the actual Fast and Furious movies too. Seeing him in this is a reminder of that, he would have been at home in scenes with Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, and the Rock. He was truly larger than life, and I think that comes across in this, to the point that when he's not onscreen, there's a void felt that lead Michael DeVorzon couldn't quite fill. The other thing was how this film and Beyond the Law felt like a pivot in his career, and had he not passed, I think he could have put up a Hall of Fame DTV career of his own. Really one of the all-time greats, and someone who will be missed.

It's easy to crush The Asylum and their Mockbusters, but over time in watching a lot of them, I've grown to appreciate the earnestness with which a lot of the casts in their films approach their roles. I don't know what the mindset is when an actor is told by their agent that they're up for a part in Fast and Fierce: Death Race instead of Fast and Furious 9, but to not mail it in is statement in and of itself. For example, Nate Walker plays Mick, the heel. I think you really have to be a professional to not only take a role in a movie like this, but agree to be a character that's so unlikable. Or Paulina Nguyen and Becca Buckalew's parts, they could just be any female leads that look good in leather pants, which for this film would have been enough, but instead they, and a lot of the other actors in the cast, look at this as more of an opportunity to show what they can do. Maybe one day they'll all make it--whatever "making it" looks like to them--and while they're on a press junket for that "made it" project, they can have fun with the guy from Access Hollywood as they talk about that Asylum film they did.

 

Finally, when The Asylum first started making movies, they had what they called a "temporal refund disclaimer," saying that anyone who complains that they want the time back that they lost in watching an Asylum movie unfortunately is out of luck. In my mind, I thought that ended the whole "that's 90 minutes I'll never get back" commentary on The Asylum's movies, but when I browsed the IMDb user reviews, there they were, people giving one star and requesting temporal refunds. As someone who's done 30+ of these--and will probably do another 30 more before I'm done--I can safely say you're not getting that time back, so the best thing you can do is create a blog and try to make something creative out of it. Blogger and WordPress are free, and I'm happy to give any advice if you shoot me an email. Make lemonade out of lemons, that's what I always say--or in my case, lemon water, which is fine too.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, this is available on Showtime On Demand and Hoopla, so if you don't have Showtime as part of your cable package, in the US Hoopla is the way to go, because I think this is more of a free stream than it is something worth renting. Hopefully it'll join all of its Asylum siblings on Tubi soon too. Also, congratulations to The Asylum for their spot in the Hall of Fame. Next stop for you is the 40 Club and beyond--and we have plenty of Mockbusters out there to keep that tag count rising.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11765324

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

Mercenaries (2014)

Back when I did the podcast with Jamie, we covered this in an episode, and neither of us were big fans. Just the same, it's a Rothrock movie, and eventually I'm going to get all of them reviewed, so I figured why not give this one another try and see what happens. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance Reviews and The Video Vacuum have covered this as well, so you can see what they had to say.

Mercenaries looks like a female cast version of The Expendables, but is rather a remake of Mankillers, an AIP flick that was a female cast version of The Dirty Dozen. When Brigitte Nielsen kidnaps the president's daughter while she's on a philanthropic mission in an old Soviet Republic, Cynthia Rothrock needs to get a team to rescue her. The problem is, Nielsen doesn't trust any men (except her right-hand man Tim Abell? And most of her crew?), so it needs to be a team of women, but there aren't any women who are trained enough in the service, so they need to get them out of prison. The team, led by Zoe Bell, goes in to get her out. But will they be able to make it out alive?

I think the issue we had with this was it was a bit all over the place. Like why did it need to be a Dirty Dozen paradigm? Why wasn't Rothrock in it more? You have Abell as a great henchman to Nielsen's head baddie, but the movie couldn't tell if he was a comic baddie, or a vicious baddie, so one moment he's chewing scenery like the best Die Hard villain, and the next he's slitting a girl's throat--and the thing with Abell is he can do both equally well, which made the unevenness even more pronounced. The general idea of this is a great one, and I applaud them for that. I also really liked the cast they had. I think the overall execution though in how it was written and carried out did it all a disservice, which was unfortunate.

As always, we start with our Hall of Famer, and that's Rothrock. It's funny, because I think she plays the part she does in a sense to, not pass the torch, but almost more like opening the gates to let the stars in, in particular Zoe Bell, Kristanna Loken (still tagged as "Painkiller Jane" here on the site) and Mei-Lin Fong. What we see here though with Rothrock, is one, how the right project really matters. She needed the China O'Brien and Rage and Honor films, plus the great Godfrey Ho flicks she did, that really showcased her talents; but two, I think her time in Hong Kong sharpened her skills to be able to kill it on screen in a way few stars, man or woman, have ever done. I think the idea that there's ever going to be a "next Rothrock" is a fallacy, because Rothrock was a unique singular talent who brought it on a level we've seldom seen in the action world, and with that in mind, I can't say she's passing the torch in this film, because no one can fully take over that legacy.

All that being said, I liked Zoe Bell in this, and I feel like she's someone we could latch onto when we think of who out there will be part of the next wave of action stars. We should be able to put her with a Scott Adkins, and while she may not do the martial arts the way he does, her stunt work and overall badass action qualities give us that "it" factor we want in someone to lead an action film. Just the same, while I'm championing her here in this paragraph, she's been in two previous films we reviewed here on the site, Bitch Slap and Game of Death, and I gave her zero mentions in those write-ups. That's something I need to change going forward for sure; but can you imagine a Debt Collectors type film with her and Gina Carano in the leads instead of Adkins and Mandylor? How amazing would that be?

If you see this on Tubi right now, the cover features Vivica A. Fox. On Letterboxd, the cover features Kristanna Loken--which is what it looked like when I watched it for the podcast five years ago. When we did the pod, Jamie and I wondered what the story was with Fox's character. She didn't seem to fit, the part wasn't working for her, and we wondered where Fox's career was headed from there. If you look at the five years since, she's really made a name for herself in the David DeCoteau "Wrong" movies, not to mention she became the first black woman to play the president in a live action movie. I still think having her front and center on the cover does Bell a disservice, but it shows how far she's come in those five years that anyone selling the movie will think she's the one to sell it on.

Finally, Brigitte Nielsen plays the baddie in this, and I really enjoyed it. I think, like Abell, the character was written a little unevenly, but when she was supposed to be a fun, over the top (Stallone pun intended) baddie she played it as well as you'd want in a film like this. This isn't the first time she's played a great baddie either, she was great in Martial Law III too. In a way, I think Nielsen more than anyone shows us what this could have been if it were on a bigger budget and a bigger time scale than if it were an Asylum rush job. This is a good point here to mention as well that this was directed by Christopher Ray, Fred Olen Ray's son, and like his dad, he can get a movie in on time and under budget and make it look good despite the constraints involved, which makes me wonder what he could have done with this if he had more time and more money, and with this cast. Maybe we get something that rivals The Expendables.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. I think similar to when I watched this for the pod with Jamie, I was rooting for this to be great, but ultimately you end up with Mankillers with a better cast but not as much fun. As the French say, c'est dommage.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3598222

Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015)

We kick off our first annual Shark Week celebration with the third installment in The Asylum's Sharknado series. Though these are technically TV movies due to the deal The Asylum has with SyFy to release them, to me they've always been DTV in spirit, and the kind of film the site was made for, so worth us checking them out. In addition to us, our friend Fred the Wolf at Full Moon Reviews has covered this, so you can go to his site to see what he thought of it.

Sharknado 3 picks up where part 2 left off. In the aftermath of the last Sharknado, Ian Ziering is hailed as a hero and is honored in a ceremony at the White House with the Golden Chainsaw. As luck would have it, another Sharknado is building off the East Coast just in time to attack the White House and ruin the ceremony. This storm is headed to Florida, where his family is vacationing, so he needs to shoot down there and save them. In the process, he and his team discover that this is bigger than the other ones, perhaps becoming a Sharkicane! The only person who can help now is Ziering's estranged father, played by the Hoff.

The natural go to here is to say the franchise is jumping the shark, but I have a feeling that's exactly what The Asylum and everyone involved with making this want us to say when we see this, so I'm not taking the bait. (Though I guess I already did just by writing what I wrote...) When I looked it up, this one didn't do as well as part 2 did when it aired, so we could already see the wave cresting and the enthusiasm waning, yet they still did three more. It makes sense, because, with a $2.4 million budget, if over 2 million people watched it, those are a lot of eyes seeing advertisements, which necessitates at least a 4th to see how much further they can take it. And the next thing you know we've got six. For The Asylum as newly inducted members into the 30 Club--and the only non-Hall of Famer to be in--these Sharknadoes represent their biggest successes, and while there are others, like Android Cop, that I prefer, it's still nice to see The Asylum reach these heights, coming from where they did when we started this blog, covering films like Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. In that sense, I feel like it's worth celebrating their success overall, no matter how one feels about whether or not by part 3 they've jumped the shark--but I get it too if you don't have that soft spot in your heart and you're thinking "enough already" by part 3.

Still the most fascinating aspect of this for me is Ian Ziering. Loved Steve Sanders on 90210, despite the fact that I think I was supposed to like Dylan or Brandon more. There are still shades of Steve Sanders in Ziering's Fin here, which makes it that much more fun to watch--not to mention the added touch of the car he's driving in this having the same license plates that his Corvette on the show had. Seeing him do well in this franchise post-90210 is as good a reason as any for me to root for this series to succeed, it's just hard with the rinse-repeat nature of it to keep the novelty going. But, as you can imagine, I'll still be back here at some point for number 4, and will still be reminiscing about 90210.

We did have a Hall of Famer in our midst, 30 Club member Lorenzo Lamas has a short cameo--so short, he didn't even have a still frame of just his head in the shot for me to get a good screen. True to our rule though, except for the time we couldn't find Don "The Dragon" Wilson in Siege of Firebase Gloria, we always get the Hall of Famer's shot in the review, so here was the best I could do. If you follow Lamas on Instagram, you'll see that he's looking to become a pilot, so this cameo role was made for him. I also like that he played a character named Sergeant Rock, both in reference to the great comic book of the past, but also to Lamas's role as Chilly D (short for "Chilliam Davis" I believe) in the film Body Rock. For a short cameo, this was a fun one.

We can now add Mark Cuban to the list of names who have played the President of the United States in a film we've reviewed here on the site, joining Roy Scheider, Rutger Hauer, Vivica A. Fox, Mel Novak, Charlie Sheen, and Jerry Springer. I know of him mostly as the owner of the Mavericks, but recently he's receded a bit from being the more outspoken and controversial owner he was when he first bought the team. In 2011 his Mavericks won the NBA Championship, the biggest irony of that being, before 2011 he was the guy fans most loved to see fail; but in 2011 LeBron went to the Miami Heat to form a super team, which made them the schadenfreude darlings of the league, so by the time the Mavericks made the Finals against the Heat, sentiment had done a 180 and everyone was rooting for Cuban and his Mavs, and I don't think he ever lost that luster fully after. All of that made his appearance as the President here much more fun.

That was probably more basketball talk than anyone would have wanted, but when a film intentionally jumps the shark like this one did, sometimes you run out of things to discuss. The thing is, when I compare this to some other DTV franchises we've looked at on the site, is it really any worse? By Bloodfist VIII they had devolved into just actioners featuring Don "The Dragon" as a guy taking on the world--and not even the same guy in each film either! The Kickboxers featured Sasha Mitchell in 2-4, with two and four directed by Albert Pyun, and then 5 had Marc Dacascos. By the time you hit that fifth one, we have a baddie from Space Mutiny forming his own kickboxing league, and killing anyone who doesn't join. And with the Bloodsports, by Bloodsport 4 we had Daniel Bernhardt fighting in a Dark Kumite run by Benjamin Franklin. I think the big difference between those and the Sharknado franchise, is those other ones played it straight, where as these ones they're in on the joke. I get it, how can you play a tornado of sharks straight? It just means the shelf life may not be as long.

And with that, I think this is a good time to wrap this one up. Right now you can stream it, and the rest of the Sharknado films on Prime. I don't know if they're binge-worthy, but consumed as one-offs, they can be a fun time. As you can imagine, we'll be back here at some point in the future to cover part 4.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3899796

Android Cop (2014)

As I said in the Undercover Brother 2 post, my plan was to get more Michael Jai White on the site. Triple Threat was part of that, but I wanted more where he was the lead, so that's where this comes in. We also hadn't seen The Asylum in a while, and this marks their entrance to the 30 Club, which is also a plus. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has reviewed this, so you can see what he thought.

Android Cop has White as a detective in a futuristic LA recovering from a major earthquake. The result was the creation of a quarantine zone after radiation leaked out of a power plant. After a trip to the quarantine zone leads to the killing of a drug lord, White is teamed up with the android cop, Randy Wayne, that bailed he and his fellow officers out. He doesn't get along with him, but he has to when the two are sent back into the quarantine zone to get the mayor, Charles S. Dutton's, daughter out. Seems easy enough, except fellow cop Kadeem Hardison is up to no good--like worse than the Dwayne Wayne troublemaking days up to no good. It'll take everything White and his android partner have to get out alive.

Okay, so maybe the face I chose there is a bit harsh, because this wasn't that bad. It borrows from a lot of places, beyond the RoboCop reboot it was mockbusting. We have The Warriors, Escape from LA, Blade Runner, and some classic Italian produced Williamson flicks of the early 80s like 1990: Bronx Warriors. I can appreciate it that, I just need the action to be there, but the problem with The Asylum, is they can never quite do that. We have shoot-outs where people don't get hit. We have a Michael Jai White that we want to see unleashed, but who never completely gets the chance. By the same token, I did fun with this, and I think that's all you want.

You do wonder though, with White in the lead here, what this could have been if it wasn't an Asylum rush job, but rather a franchise they gave more attention to like Sharknado. Beyond being a top notch athlete and martial artist, White is also a great comedic actor, and you feel like if this script had been given more time you could have had a great buddy picture that could have possibly even had DTV sequels. Imagine a Kadeem Hardison as the baddie revenge flick after this. I think the thing is, we can't fault The Asylum that Michael Jai White brings so much to the table, because what if they can't get him for this part? Now they need something that works for someone who can't do the comedic part, or can't do the martial arts part. They don't have time to rework it for someone else. So that means we're left with something where White elevates the material beyond what it was, but then we wonder what could have been.

I had totally forgotten about the 2014 RoboCop reboot, so in that sense I didn't even consider that this would have been a mockbuster until I looked it up on IMDb. This might be the only Asylum mockbuster like this that actually outlived the film it was mockbusting. Part of that is having White on the cover; but another part is just how sauteed in wrong sauce the reboot was. Hollywood is looking for as many franchises as it can find to package and pull in billion-dollar grosses, and in that wake there are many of these failed reboots. The funny thing is, you wonder how that RoboCop reboot would have done if they'd cast White in the lead. It pulled in about $252 million worldwide, but only about $58 million of that came in the US. Do we think White could have pulled in more? And then where would the Asylum have been left? But that's the thing, while Hollywood does a paint-by-numbers RoboCop reboot, The Asylum does something different, and shows Hollywood what they missed out on by not casting White.

Speaking of The Asylum, they now join the 30 Club with this review. Maybe this paragraph should have come sooner, because that's a big moment. In terms of movie houses that I tag, they join Cannon and PM Entertainment with that distinction. It's amazing to think how far we've come with The Asylum, from the early days of Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers, to the non-mockbuster Mega [insert apex predator here] vs Giant [insert other apex predator here], which led to the success of the Sharknado franchise. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here, but since a lot of their stuff is DTV, wherever they go, we'll follow.

As I mentioned above, after White, we had Kadeem Hardison and Charles S. Dutton. I thought this was the first time we've had Hardison on in a non Mark Dacascos film, but I discovered that he was also in the Lambert/Mario Van Peebles flick Gunmen. Again, his character is one we could bring back for a revenge sequel if this were turned into a franchise, and I think it could be fun to see him get after it as a total baddie. This is the second time we've seen Dutton here, the other time being when we did Black Dog for our Swayze memorial posts. While he's good here, Dutton is also someone who would have been a cool choice for the Ronny Cox role of the RoboCop reboot.

Right now this is on Tubi, so the only thing you're investing here is time. I went to The Asylum's website, and it looks like they took down their disclaimer saying they can't offer temporal refunds, but I assume they still can't give you your 90 minutes back if you watch this and decide it didn't work for you. White shines here, and I think this is a fun take for an Asylum Mockbuster.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3393070

Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)

For our 25th DTVC Podcast, and our last one of 2014, Jamie and I decided to do Sharknado 2. Jamie had already seen it, but I hadn't, and its inclusion on Instant came at a perfect time for this last podcast before our two-week holiday hiatus. Among the many other blogs that have reviewed this film, we have ones from friends of the DTVC Fred the Ex-Ninja, TarsTarkas.net, and previous podcast guest Fred the Wolf at Full Moon Reviews, so check those out as well.

Sharknado 2: The Second One is an Asylum joint where Ian Ziering reprises his role from Sharknado, this time consolidating his empire as head of a Sharknado mob family. Meanwhile, the story of Ziering's father from the old county, played by Robert De Niro, is told simultaneously, and we learn how he first started fighting Sharknados from a young age. Okay, none of that happened, it was just a cameo-fest that was set in New York City with CGI sharks getting carved up all over the place.

As is often the case with Jamie and me, we agreed on this one: great first 45 minutes, blah second 45 minutes. Somehow the fun and campiness of that first 45 gives way to useless backstory and padding and less Sharknadoing. Among the egregious mistakes, some unresolved love story between Ziering and Vivica A. Fox that was useless and unnecessary. Not to mention, they try to use a slingshot to shoot homemade bombs into the Sharknado like Ziering did in the first one, and it takes 3 tries to figure out they need another plan. What? Two fewer tries with more Sharknadoing was what we needed. Also, while some of the celebrity cameos were great, by that 45-minute mark we'd reached our saturation point with them. Among the things I loved though: Ziering was great again; the use of the Today Show was fantastic, also Stephanie Abrams and the Weather Channel; and I loved some of the landmarks like the Mets stadium and the Staten Island Ferry. I watched the first 45 minutes of this film with my wife, and then she wasn't able to watch the second half. I think she may have played it perfectly.

Let's start with Ian Ziering as Fin, because it really is his film. While he definitely had fun with it, the whole backstory and building his history thing was a waste. All it did was pad the film. If they needed backstory with him, maybe play up the Steve Sanders thing. We never had any 90210 jokes, at least not any I can remember as I write this review. There was a reference to Ziering and Mark McGrath (who played his old buddy and brother in-law) being troublemakers in school. Why not have fun with that? "Fin, remember how you got that bottle of champagne for prom and our friend Donna got drunk and almost couldn't go to graduation?" "I do man, that was bad." "Yeah, only you fixed it by organizing that protest and convincing the school board to change their minds and let her graduate." [Sugar Ray puts hand on Fin's shoulder] "You know how to fix things when they're wrong Fin, you always have. Now we need you to fix this Sharknado thing."

This is the film of a thousand cameos, and if I put them all in here that's all the review would be, so I just included a few. As I mentioned above, I really liked the Today Show thing. They also did The Weather Channel and Stephanie Abrams, and Live with Kelly and Michael. What would've been great is if they did Hardball with Chris Matthews or something like that, and had a Democrat and Republican argue who was responsible for the Sharknado: Global Warming or Obama? I think if you need to pad the film, goofiness like that works over bad backstory every time. Among the others I liked: Judd Hirsch as the taxi driver, and Robert Hays as the plane captain.

Jamie and I discussed what we thought were the best sequels when we looked at the film for the podcast. In my mind it's The Godfather II, with maybe House Party 2 a close second. We also talked about best sequel names, and we agreed that Electric Boogaloo is far and away the top, with everyone else coming in a distant second. I think where this movie failed the Asylum, is that it rushed it out there, and maybe didn't proofread that second script enough. I think they also probably got a bump from the premier on SyFy with the Twitterati watching it well-sauced by that 45-minute mark (which is more like the hour mark on TV with the commercials), so they weren't going to pick up on the second-half short comings. I know Jamie talked about that, how she read all these great Twitter comments the night before, then watched it the next day and couldn't understand where that came from. We'll see what happens in part 3, maybe they'll get back after it. Jamie and I noted though that very few franchises get better with the third film, Nightmare on Elm Street 3 being one of the few exceptions. 

Finally, if you'll allow me, I need to exorcise some demons here. Let me take you back to 1986, a seven-year-old Direct to Video Connoisseur, excitedly following his Boston Red Sox as they made an impossible comeback in the ALCS against the California Angels, then getting all the way to Game 6 and 3 outs away from winning the World Series against the Mets. Then the wheels came off, culminating in the ball going through Buckner's legs. Even now, almost 30 years, three Sox World Series Titles, and the Mets playing in a new stadium in abject mediocrity later, I still had trouble when I saw the Mets. When I took Jen to the Fenway Park tour in November of 2013, I was able to exorcise some of those demons by looking at the display the Red Sox had up for it, but I needed Sharknado 2 to show me that I was truly over it. Thank you Asylum, I really appreciate it.

Like the ninth inning in Game 6, this review has truly gone off the rails, so let's wrap it up before the ball goes through Buckner's legs again. The best way to do this is with a good amount of booze, so that you're well-inebriated by the time the film loses steam at the 45-minute mark. The first 45 are a lot of fun, but the second 45 not-so-much. You can always check out the pod by subscribing on your favorite podcatchers, or checking out the links on the sidebar.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3062074/

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Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark (2014)

After doing the Drunk on VHS podcast a second time with Moe and Jon from the After Movie Diner, where we discussed the Rutger Hauer flick The Blood of Heroes-- among other things-- Moe offered me my own podcast slot in the 8-9pm hour on Wednesday nights.  I was excited for the opportunity, but for that first show, I didn't have much time to prepare or get a guest.  Fortunately, Moe connected me with Jamie Jenkins, of the podcasts Lycan In!, Devour the Podcast, Evil Episodes, and the Skeleton Crew, and she was willing to sit in with me for my inaugural episode-- a podcasting midwife, as she called it!  Anyway, because we had a short time to prepare, I figured we'd do a quickie Asylum flick on Netflix, and I chose this one because it starred one of my Asylum faves, Debbie "Deborah" Gibson.  Let's see how it turned out.

Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark stars Elizabeth Rohm of Law and Order fame and Christopher Judge of House Party 2 fame as two experts of some sort called into action when another prehistoric mega shark has been thawed and is threatening our seas.  Their solution: a submarine that's shaped like a shark and has a computer that sounds like KITT from Knight Rider.  Now the angry mega shark is in heat, looking get a piece worse than The Situation in an early episode of The Jersey Shore, but instead of being a dick to his roommates, he's destroying aircraft carriers.  Can our heroes and their shark shaped submarine save the day?



My girlfriend (soon to be wife) wanted to watch this one with me, thinking it was going to be a fun time, and about 7 minutes in she was browsing Tumblr on her phone.  That just about sums up Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark right there.  Of course, as your faithful DTV Connoisseur, I sat through the following 78 minutes of pain and ennui, trying to make sense of things.  One thing Jamie mentioned right away was that this should have been, and we both thought we were getting, a Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla shark extravaganza.  As Fred Willard said in Best in Show: "No-brainer right?  Turns out, not so."  Instead we got a shark-shaped submarine that made the penguin-shaped sub in the Batman movie look serious, and did nothing more than self-destruct at the end of the film and take the shark with it.  That's all ya got?  A series of perfunctory CGI sharks jumping out of the water and smashing things, a few overdone shark jokes (whoa, Christopher Judge just jumped the shark! wacka wacka wacka!), some slightly funnier Titanic jokes, and then all you do is self-destruct the submarine shark?  Why didn't you do that in minute 15 and save us the other 70 minutes!  This is a definite pass for me, as it was for Jamie.

Let's start with Debbie Gibson.  She's reprising her role from the Lorenzo Lamas Asylum flick Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, which, if I'm not mistaken, was one of the first of these Asylum large animal disaster flicks.  The problem here is that she's barley in two scenes.  What?  This movie should be all Debbie Gibson.  Piloting a submarine, saving stranded children, performing her songs in a musical interlude-- all of the things we needed and never got.  The 8-year-old me who thought Debbie Gibson was just "girl music" never could have imagined the 35-year-old him on a blog in 2014 saying a film needed more Gibson, and needed her performing those "girl songs", but he's doing it.  That's right 8-year-old me, I wasn't as cool as you thought I'd be-- we also didn't get flying cars.  (I let 8-year-old me down!)



As far as shark movies go, this is very low on the totem pole.  As far as I can tell, we've done about eight shark movies on here (this would be the ninth), though I haven't always been good at tagging shark movies, so I may be off.  Of those eight, this isn't exactly the worst, but it may be the most unremarkable.  It just seemed like such an afterthought, which I think is the most frustrating.  It's like they took all the second-unit footage from another movie to make this one.  I get that these are supposed to be silly and low-budget, and that's what I want from them, but I also want something from someone who tries.  It's like going to a restaurant and getting burnt food or under-cooked food.  I'm not looking for Bergman or Bocuse with every movie or meal, I just want a good effort, both from the food and the film.  Is that too much to ask?

Christopher Judge is only in this slightly more than Debbie Gibson, and while he looks cool, he also has this quality in his characters that is almost like "I'm going to go play D & D after we shoot this."  His best scene was of him almost lighting a thin cigar while wearing sunglasses.  For Judge, in my mind anyway, his pinnacle as an actor was in House Party 2, when he said "If you're not giving up the rhythm, you got to go."  That's movie gold right there.  If this movie just had that, or even a Pajama Jammy Jam, I would've been happier than what I got here.  Ain't gonna hurt nobody...



As I said above, this film had many Titanic references.  First off, Judge and Rohm, who play a married couple, are "Jack" and "Rosie".  Then, one of the carriers is split in half by the shark, and as it sinks we're treated to people sliding off the deck as they did in Titanic when the ship was sinking.  My experience with Titanic came in college.  We had a campus movie channel that would show four movies a week, each once a day, on a rotating basis, and Titanic came up a few times during my five years in school.  One of the times my neighbor came by at 12:30 to ask me if I wanted to get baked and watch the ship break apart, as Titanic was showing in the midnight slot.  I agreed.  He had this massive glass bong, one that sat on the floor and came up to my chin as I sat on the couch.  There were about five of us, and we got pretty stoned, and then the scene came, and I was in awe, mouth agape, watching the faux destruction happen on his 19" tube TV.  Eat your heart out Joe Friday, weed is good!

So the movie is a pass, but the podcast isn't, and you can check us out from 8-9pm EST, live, every Wednesday at www.mixlr.com/2nd-unit.  You can also check out the RSS feed here on the blog to download if you miss it live, or our archives at: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/134494. I say "we" and "our", because Jamie has since agreed to join me every week as my cohost, which has been great and the show's been a lot of fun.  So while the movie itself was a bust, the podcast worked out.

To download the episode for this movie, right click here and select "save link as".

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3152098/