Virtual Combat aka Grid Runners (1995)

This is one of seven acting credits Don "The Dragon" Wilson had in 1995, one of which was a bit part in Batman Forever, but the rest of which were all starring roles, including two Bloodfist films, VI and VII, the the third Ring of Fire film, Cyber-Tracker 2, and Terminal Rush-- co-starring fellow Hall of Famer "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. That's a lot of premiers to go to. I wonder if he had to buy a second tux. You probably rock the Canadian Tux to premiers like that.

Virtual Combat takes place at an undefined point in the future. In it, virtual reality is the name of the game, until a scientist figures out how to take the computer generated characters, and make them into real people. He first creates a sex slave and a dominatrix, but somehow, unintended, Dante, the level ten fighter in the martial arts simulator, is made real too. Now it's a big old mess, because the virtual reality company wants to sell their new inventions, Dante wants to make a bunch of his friends, and then Dante also kills Wilson's partner-- I forgot to mention Wilson was a special cop, called a Grid Runner-- and Wilson wants revenge.



This one is hilarious. I don't know where to start. The helicopter hovering well above Wilson that he blows up with revolver fire? Yeah, that was great. What about the total devolution of the story at the end, where we just had no idea what the hell was happening? Even better. What about the cloned virtual reality people that turn into a pile of spilled Alka Seltzer after they die? Your guess is as good as mine. By the time you get to Wilson's end battle with Dante, played by Michael Bernardo, and Bernardo is able to make swords appear out of nowhere in his hands, it really doesn't matter. This is good for the pure silliness factor-- round up your buddies and see who can make the best jokes.

Film number 21 for Mr. Wilson is quite a doozey, and it makes me wonder what he thought while making it. I mean, a helicopter is above him, shooting laser beams at him and his girl, and he picks up a revolver, points, fires off a few rounds, and then we see an explosion. What is he thinking when he sees that in the script? The point is, no matter he's thinking, he completely sells it to us, which is all that counts. He does have some solid fights, choreographed by Art Camacho, but he also has a lot of "let's see how many roundhouse kick we can trade off on each other's faces" kind of fights. You know: wait, roundhouse, now your turn, wait, roundhouse, now my turn, uh oh, you ducked it! Between his fights with Bernardo and DTVC favorite Loren Avedon, I'd say the latter was the better-- is it any surprise? Also, we have 8 more Wilson movies after this one. Almost complete.



Bernardo never actually speaks his lines, Michael Dorn does it for him. Yes, that Michael Dorn. No offense to Michael Bernardo, but why didn't they just cast Dorn as the baddie anyway? Maybe he was busy doing Star Trek: The Next Generation. The voice is kind of distorted, so it's not as awesome as you'd want from seeing his name pop up in the opening credits, but it does in a pinch. As an aside, my nephew had this bear that recites The Night Before Christmas, and the voice is very Dorn-esque. Can you imagine if it was actually him? Like in his PJs and slippers, sitting in a rocking chair, maybe with a pair of spectacles, reading us The Night Before Christmas? How awesome would that be?

As I mentioned above, DTVC favorite Loren Avedon is in this. He plays the virtual reality corporation's hachetman, making him another baddie, but one that was also at odds with Bernardo. One thing you can tell right away is that his style of martial arts translates much better on-screen. I think Wilson could have managed with him, but they never really gave him that scene, it was more just Avedon going for it , and Wilson dodging and waiting and punching or kicking-- which looked clunky when combined with Avedon's quick style. I'm not that mad about it, because any Avedon is great Avedon, just don't go into this, seeing Avedon's name in the credits, and expecting The King of the Kickboxers.



I was trying to figure out where to go with this seventh paragraph. You have the Rip Taylor cameo, where a faint image of his head appears above some tourists in Las Vegas, which is pretty funny. It made me think of a line from a Bloodhound Gang song: "Rip Taylor, Rip Taylor, your girlfriend, we nailed her!" There's also Las Vegas itself, which is supposed to be futuristic, but looks suspiciously like Vegas circa 1995. Then there's the smartphone technology, which was good on some things, and notsomuch on some others. They don't look as stylish-- think cross between Tri-corder and Zack Morris Phone-- and they don't have great GPS; but they have tons of sweet apps, including a talking woman home screen, the ability to scramble neck-shocking collars, something that mimics FBI announcements, something that can replicate someone else's hand to get by security scans, and best of all, a self-destruct app. I have to think someone's working on that one right now for the iPhone.

The DVD of this is out of print, meaning the VHS is the most affordable option. This is one of those it's so bad it's funny kind of deals, and I had a lot of fun with it. Definitely worth keeping your eye out for in bargain bins and whatnot, but I wouldn't go too far out of my way or spend too much money.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113220/

Beatdown (2010)

This is part two of the Punchfight Mountain Dew Challenge. For more of the details, you can check out my post on Circle of Death, which was part 1. By the time we got here, I was already close to two hours into an afternoon of nothing to eat but Doritos and Mountain Dew. I was feeling a little off, I was jittery, but I was excited to see what this film had in store for me.

Beatdown stars Apocalypto's Rudy Youngblood as a dude who makes a living in the underground fight circuit with his brother, who bets on him. His brother is into a loan shark, and after he's killed, the loan shark tells Rudy he needs to pony up the cash. He skips out and moves in with his father, DTVC favorite Danny Trejo, who lives in a small town. As luck would have it, the small town has their own underground fighting circuit, and he sees an opportunity with UFC faighter [sic] Michael "The Count" Bisping to make the money back his dead brother owes. His priorities change, though, when he meets a nice girl in town and falls in love. Now he's fighting to make enough so she and he can move away and start a new life together.



Before we get too far in, I should say that this was not the film to see when my stomach wasn't right after the food I put into it. This might be the most egregious offender of the gimmicky MTV camera effects and whatnot. It was all shaky and jumpy and blurry-- I thought I was going to be sick. Two big things happened that totally betrayed this film. First would be the aforementioned gimmicks; and second would be this device they used for the first two characters, Brandon (Youngblood), and the loan shark. They froze the film, then put their character names on the screen. Really, I needed that, especially with "Brandon", whose name is mentioned five or six times after that in an introductory capacity. See, if you don't think your script is written well enough for us to pick up on what the characters' names are organically, why should we? If you don't think your film is directed well enough, acted well enough, choreographed well enough, has a compelling enough story to keep us interested without these MTV-style gimmicks, why should we? Why should we even take it seriously, right?

And that's too bad, because the people making this should have trusted themselves. This was a pretty decent deal. Youngblood was good, Trejo was good, the story worked-- and was written plenty well enough for us to pick up on the character names without freezing the screen and posting it for us-- and I loved the use of Balfour as the heel. On top of that, the relationship between Youngblood and Susie Abromeit was such a great change of pace from the usual Punchfighting movie paradigm of just get the hottest chick possible, and get her naked as soon as possible. I mean, when I watched the featurette afterwards, I was disappointed that I missed how good a lot of the scenes could have been without those silly gimmicks. If you're going to go the gimmick route, why not go all the way? Have Youngblood's character be named Beatdown and take his girlfriend from a casting call of Hooters waitresses. Have Eric Balfour's character blow up Danny Trejo's house with him in it. Hell, don't even cast Youngblood, bring in Tony Schiena or Hector Echavarria instead. "My name's Beatdown, and I fight to survive." "Oh Beatdown, let me get naked and we can have sex to this bad Disturbed derivative's power ballad!"



The only DTVC tagged actor in this film is one of our faves, Danny Trejo. I'm waiting for Netflix to get me Machete in February so I can review it, so hopefully this will hold everyone over until that happens. Anyway, there's nothing as awesome in Beatdown as Trejo giving Van Damme a foot massage in Desert Heat, it's pretty much a Trejo fastball, and what you expect is what you get. I'm good with that, though. Like I mentioned with Vinnie Jones in Locked Down, Danny Trejo is a ready made character, you know exactly what you're going to get when you cast him, and as such, we as an audience don't need much set up to get into his role.

I know what you're thinking, "Eric Balfour as an MMA fighter?" Think it, by all means. That's not the issue here. He makes the perfect heel. Ten years ago he was giving girls rides home in teen dramas, then in the next scene telling his football buddies he slept with her. He was ganging up on geeks and smaller guys with his buddies, and kicking their asses and tossing them into trash cans. Hell, he even played the Devil in a car commercial. For me, I didn't need to buy him as an MMA fighter, because you already had me at heel. We were just talking about Trejo being ready-made, and Balfour is the same thing. The moment he turns his head to reveal his face, he's a jerk, and our hero has to deal with him and his jerkiness. (I should point out, this is in no way an indictment on Balfour the person-- I'm sure he's very nice and has never beat up any geeks before.)



Finally, I want to discuss the casting decisions for the male and female leads. First, Rudy Youngblood, who is listed on imdb as 5'11'', but looks like he's probably more in the 5'7"-5'9" range-- I mean, Abromeit is listed as 5'7", and does she look four inches shorter in that picture? I like though, from the short guy's stand point (I'm 5'7" myself), that they went with Youngblood. He just went in there like a pit bull and jumped on these dude's throats before they knew what hit them. Then you pair him with Susie Abromeit, who is very pretty, but never gets naked-- I don't even know if she wears a skirt to be honest-- and isn't there simply to be Youngblood's eye candy. I'm not saying I don't love a good Maxim model who can't act and is only there to get buck wild, but it's nice to have a little change of pace every once in a while.

But therein lies the rub. Underneath all the potential depth and changes of pace that would have made this is a fun-- and more importantly semi-decent-- movie, there's all the bad gimmicks of edits and angles and effects that betray everything they talked about wanting to accomplish in the featurette. Plain and simple, if you don't think your movie is good enough without all of those bells and whistles, then why should we? I wasn't too high on Mountain Dew to not see that one.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568323/

Circle of Pain (2010)

About a month ago I reviewed a film called Locked Down. In the comments section of that post, two things happened. First, our friend Ty at comeuppance reviews, gave us the term "punchfighting movie" when describing this UFC/TapOut sub-genre of low-budget martial arts films, complete with the tatted bruisers, songs performed by Disturbed derivatives, and sea-sickness inducing MTV film edits. Second, our friend Jason over at elementarybeatboxoperator,storylike made the joke that he might handle these films better while under the influence of Mountain Dew. And thus the Punchfighting Movie Mountain Dew Doritos Experiment was born.

I decided to go back to my movie watching roots for this one. On a recent free day, after my morning walk and a quick shower, I planted myself on the couch and had Mountain Dew and Doritos for lunch-- that's it-- while I watched two recent Punchfighting movie efforts, Circle of Pain and Beatdown. Below is a picture of what I put into my system:



And no, Mr. Anonymous from Unrivaled, it wasn't this:



Before I get into the review, let me just say that I was ill equipped physically to deal with the ramifications of what a lunch of Mountain Dew and Doritos meant. I was lightheaded, felt some tingling in my left arm, and thought on numerous occasions that I might have what the competitive eaters call a "reversal of fortune". As late as midnight-- twelve hours later!-- I was still feeling these effects. I know as a blogger the idea is that junk food is considered an average meal for us in our parents' basements; but in the real world, as an actual person, I'm too far removed from my college days when I used to pull this kind of shit and get away with it. My body just doesn't find it funny anymore.

Anyway, so here we are, onto Circle of Pain. It stars rising Punchfighting guy Tony Schiena (Locked Down) as a former fighter who broke his buddy Dean Cain's back with a spin kick (believe me, it was hilarious). Five years later, Bai Ling, who runs the MMA outfit Schiena used to fight for, decides that he needs to fight again against her champ, Heath Herring. She twists his arm by evicting Schiena's baby mama and daughter out of the house Ling provided for them, somehow circumventing any landlord/tenant laws in the process. Now Schiena must overcome his regrets for what he did to his buddy and climb back into that ring triumphant.



I don't know if it was the Mountain Dew or what, but this wasn't too bad. Yes, the scene where Schiena breaks Cain's back is hilarious, and the flashbacks after are even better-- "I play that moment back in my mind, just thinking 'why didn't I kick him a little higher!'" The fight scenes outside of the ring were pretty clunky, like the one with Kimbo Slice, pretty much just wait, punch punch, wait, punch punch, wait, kick, block, throw, repeat; but the final fight inside the ring was great, one of the best MMA dramatizations we've seen in this sub-genre. Also, it was refreshingly light on the MTV gimmicky camera effects. Schiena in the featurette called it the "Rocky of MMA", which is what Unrivaled technically was too, but this was much better. The plot didn't stray too far and get weird on us, and Bai Ling as the MMA organization president was too perfect for words in my opinion. I would say it's more Rocky V than Rocky, but it was a good Rocky V.

Tony Schiena worked better here as the hero than he did in Locked Down, though I have to say he didn't work in the latter more because of the convoluted plot that made him act in awkward scenes than it was him. I do love that he always speaks in these breathy tones, like he's an obscene caller or something. "Hey Dean Cain, do you know who this is? What're you wearing? Are you wearing corduroy? Ooh, I can hear you swish swishing around the house as we speak..." He's a great fighter though, so hopefully he'll get more and better work.



Speaking of the devil, Dean Cain plays a paraplegic. In the featurette, he said he wanted this role because he knew people who were paralyzed, and he saw how they lived very full lives in spite of their disabilities. That brings in an interesting question: is that good enough for you Dean Cain fans out there? What I mean is, is not seeing him fight that much enough for you, if you find out after the fact why he took the role he did? It's one of those things about the featurette, because it explains a lot, but do you except the explanations if you were looking for something else? I was fine with it, even before finding out about why, but that's just me.

One of my favorite MMAers, Frank Mir, has a small, clunky cameo where he gets his ass kicked by Heath Herring. Again, in the featurette, we find out he was just doing it to get his feet wet in the acting world. I'm good with him doing that, but by putting his name on the cover, it's a bait-and-switch. Also, his fight scene wasn't very good at all. Wait, punch punch, wait, knee knee, throw. If he's going to go the next level and get a bigger part, I'd say make him a cyborg or something that throws people a lot and breaks their arms with nasty jiu-jitsu holds. That would rule. As an aside, the background of his one scene is a sick Shelby Cobra-- at least I think it is, I don't know cars that well.



Bai Ling was awesome, and if you see her in the featurette, she's even more awesome. The first thing she says is "this movie is better than drugs, alcohol, or anything else you're taking." Umm, Bai, what exactly do you think I'm taking? Oh wait, that's right, Mountain Dew. Then she says the director was a genius for casting her, because she was playing a part made for a white man. Simply beautiful. I could have done with her in a better haircut, and the leopard print nail polish was a little bit much, but otherwise, she totally sold it. It was one of the elements that elevated this from the run-of-the-mill Punchfighting film.

All right, so final verdict, clunky fights, but a really amazing last one; a pretty funny storyline, especially when you see the actual kick to the back; a script that uses the word "fucking" as its go-to verb; yet also a great Bai Ling; and a hero who speaks in breathy tones but is a solid fighter and a guy worth rooting for. It's the Rocky V of MMA films, which isn't so bad a deal. Again, maybe it was the Mountain Dew that made me lighten up, but I didn't hate this.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1541664/

T.N.T. (1997)

I've had this in my Netflix queue for some time now, and I don't know what has taken me so long to get to it. Olivier Gruner seems to be the odd one out when it comes to priority here at the DTVC, and hopefully once we get some other Hall of Famers out of the way he'll move up the ladder.

T.N.T. has Gruner as a part of an elite mercenary force working for billionaire Eric Roberts. He gets wise to the operation, and finds out the organization isn't a force for good, but rather working to do Roberts's dirty work. He quits, runs off to a small town, where Roberts and the force track him down, kidnap Rebecca Staab, his girlfriend, and set up a final showdown in the Colorado wilderness.



This wasn't bad. About 76 minutes long before the credits, so it comes and goes before you know it. The plot was pretty standard once you boil it down-- good guy saves girl from bad guys-- but sometimes standard isn't done well at all, so it shouldn't be taken as too big of a slight in this case when it was decent. Gruner and Staab give solid performances, and then Randy Travis, playing the local sheriff, is really great. The action is pretty great too, especially when you consider, at 76 minutes, they don't have a lot of time to get right to it. This isn't the most amazing thing ever made, but we've seen a lot worse on here as well.

This was short and sweet Olivier Gruner as well. He's in most scenes, and we really get to see him kick some ass, so in that respect he's great. This is only his 12th tag, meaning we do need to make him a bigger priority. Gary Daniels was inducted the same year as him, and he has 20 tags. I think films like T.N.T. are indicative of why we don't do as much Gruner as we should, because a lot of them are neither good or bad. Still, we will look to bump up his post number in the near future.



Gruner's love interest is played by the very attractive Rebecca Staab. You may remember her from the Seinfeld episode about the PBS telethon. Due to the fast nature of the film, she transitions quickly from assertive love interest to damsel in distress. I think, because her character was a psych professor, they were trying to play some angle where she tries to psychoanalyze her captor, but again, because of the short running time, none of those aspects are allowed to develop. You know me, I'm always of the opinion that less is always preferable to more, so even if it was an element that might have given her character more depth, I'm okay with them just getting on with it. Also, on imdb, her main head shot cuts off her face. Someone should call her agent!

This is the third film of Randy Travis's we've done here (Black Dog and The Shooter being the other two), and I have to say, he's been great in all of them. Each character seems like the same, but they all have subtle differences, and he has a way of delivering those subtle differences. For a guy who's a singer first and actor second, he's better at the latter than most people who call themselves actors first.



I was trying to think of a subject for this seventh paragraph, but my brain isn't working so well right now. Earlier today, I did my Mountain Dew Punchfighting Experiment, where I tried to see if Beatdown and Circle of Pain would be better than similar films if I watched them on a lunch of Mountain Dew and Doritos. My head is still a mess from that-- 6 hours later! I was just taken to task on my Tumblr account for a post I made on Bette Davis' Dark Victory, because I said it came out 61 years ago instead of 71 ("and you call yourself a 'movie guy'?"). Anyway, I didn't mean for it to-- because I had no idea how much this would affect me-- affect my writing of this post, but in the end, I think it makes it more interesting in this context.

Okay, T.N.T. is available for rent at Netflix, meaning it's pretty easy to find anywhere else, Amazon, etc. Unless you're a huge Olivier Gruner fan, I wouldn't make this a priority. It's good, but not that good, and really nothing memorable. I should also mention, if you're an Eric Roberts guy, he's not in it much, so if you're looking for him, I'd look elsewhere.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131046/

Musketeers Forever (2000)

This is a bit of a rarity of a Michael Dudikoff flick, so when I came across it, I was pretty stoked. I mean, even if it sucked, it was one film closer to having all of Dudikoff's films up here, which is something we really want. It didn't hurt either that it also starred Lee Majors.

Musketeers Forever is about three older dudes, Majors among them, who used to work in the CIA and in military special forces, along with a fourth man, Dudikoff's dad. They called themselves the Musketeers. They became a threesome sometime back when Dudikoff's dad took a bullet to save Majors's life. Fast forward, and Majors gains a huge windfall in a poker game, and he buys a club in upstate New York for him, his two buddies, and their fallen buddy's son, Dudikoff (aptly named D'Artagnan), to run as a group. The town they picked has its own issues, as some rich criminal businessman owns the town and the police, and he wants to own the local Indian reservation as well, so he can put a casino on it. Our heroes don't like this dude and his goons, and they don't back down when he comes along pushing his weight around. Now it's up to the Musketeers to save this town from this businessman's tyranny.



I had fun with this one, but can I recommend it, I'm not so sure. It's not the most action packed, and a lot of the action is done in bar brawl style, though there is some solid martial arts by a few characters. I liked it because, despite not having tons of action, things moved rather quickly, and before I knew it we were closing in on the finale. It is a rather self-contained plot-- think a smaller-scale Road House-- so I don't know if it would have enough for everyone, but it had enough for me. Probably it's best attribute was how much it made the good guys likable, and the bad guys really suckey people. Sometimes that's all it takes in a film like this to keep one interested, but it's surprising how seldom something as simple as that is done in other movies.

This is tag 24 for Michael Dudikoff, putting him ahead of Lorenzo Lamas for second all time among actors here at the DTVC, behind, who else, Dolph Lundgren. I have to say, Musketeers Forever does that quintessential Dudikoff as well as I've seen it in any of his other pictures. You know the kind I mean-- kind of the ordinary guy that gets out of things as much with his wits as he does with his fists. His character does come off as a very accomplished martial artist, though, so I don't want to give the impression that he can't fight. I think if you look at some of the ones in the past, like Midnight Ride, that did this kind of thing ten kinds of wrong, Musketeers Forever is at least a refreshingly solid Dudikoff-ian effort.



Wow, can you believe that we're somewhere near 570 posts, and this is the first film I've done with Lee Majors in it? The Fall Guy? The Six Million Dollar Man? Total icon, and a huge influence on the films we look at at the DTVC. At least for me, it was The Fall Guy and shows like it that first spawned my love of the action genre (and Erin Gray's guest spot as a Navy officer probably spawned my attraction for women in uniforms as well, but I digress). On top of that, Lee Majors has some great DTV work of his own that I should probably get to, among those The Protector, where he plays a baddie, and tells the heroine as he's abducting her "Tough Bitch? I looove that." How amazing is that?

Do you recognize this woman, Sabine Karsenti? You probably recognize her, right, but just can't place it. I'll help you out, Battlefield Earth. I wonder, resume-wise, which is the better item, Musketeers Forever or Battlefield Earth. I mean, on the surface, you say, with Travolta and all, it's gotta be the latter, but I don't know. At the very least, she was better here than she was in Battlefield Earth. The whole idea of putting Battlefield Earth on one's resume reminds me of a conversation a buddy and I had in Wendy's about ten years ago. They had a sign saying how you should apply there for a job to build your work history, and my buddy says, before taking a bite of his Triple Cheese Burger (my personal fast food fave) "of course, you can't put Wendy's on your resume, unless you want to look like an aaasshooole..." and as he said "aaasshoooole" he realized one of the employees was behind us cleaning a table off.



This film makes a statement about building casinos on Native American land, not from the angry residents who live in the surrounding towns, but rather from the residents who live on the reservation. In Maine we just voted to build a casino up north, about 2-3 hours away, and even though it's not on a reservation, a similar issue is there that they examined in Musketeers Forever, that being is it a quick fix for an area where jobs are sparse, but a quick fix with little potential for long term development? Of course, in action movies, the answers are always much easier to parse out, because there's usually a baddie behind the casino, and someone like Dudikoff can come in and kick his ass. That's why we love action films so much.

This is a tough find, but if you manage it, I think you might like it. If you live outside of Region 1, you'll probably have an easier time finding a copy of it than us in the States and Canada will (do I have any Canadian readers?). It's not as much a straight-ahead actioner as it is about a group of really good guys taking down a group of really bad guys, but in its own way it works.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190577/

Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel (1993)

When last we left off on the Ring of Fire series, part 1 ended with our hero, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, getting the girl, Maria Ford, and defeating her brother in a fight. I wasn't sure what to expect from a sequel, and to be honest, I didn't understand why there even was a sequel. I mean, part one wasn't screaming out for a follow up, was it? Was anyone saying "man, what happened to Vince Murdocco's character after the story ended?" or "does Ron Yuan continue to wear V-necks that go down to his bellybutton?" All these questions and more are answered here, in Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel.

Ring of Fire II takes place sometime after part 1 ended. We join our lovely couple in a jewelry store, picking out Maria Ford's engagement ring. But this is Wilson we're talking about, and "trouble seems to find him", and before you know it, a group of armed robbers bust in and shoot one of the clerks. They make a mistake in confronting Wilson, and he kicks a dude's ass. I'm not sure if it's that dude (who is also shot to death by the cops... I think), or the one who's blown up in a chase after, but one of them is Ian Jacklin's brother, and he ends up in the hospital, as does Ford when she's hit by a stray bullet in the robbery. Anyway, in an attempt to get their gang member back, they run into Wilson again, the brother dies in his hospital bed, and to get revenge, the kidnap Ford. Now Wilson has to brave the dangerous netherworldly Underground to find Jacklin, Evan Lurie, and the rest of the gang, so he can get Ford back.



I'm going to switch things up a bit here. Usually I start with what I liked, and then do what I didn't like. I think if I reverse it here, I can leave you with the impression that overall I had fun with this one. Anyway, here's what I didn't like. First and foremost, Maria Ford was totally wasted. In the opening scene she looks hot in her new red hair, and that's the last you see of her that hot. Whoever came up with the idea that "hey, let's get a hottie like Maria Ford, shoot her in the arm, have her look like crap after that, then have her kidnapped in that condition. Let's get tons of white make-up and have her look as pale as possible, and then barely put her on-screen."? Really dumb idea. Second, who decided it would be better to have Ian Jacklin as the number one baddie ahead of Evan Lurie? Seriously, you had both guys screen test, and that's the way you went? Another dumb idea. Finally, somehow in between parts 1 and 2, Ford's brother, who killed Wilson's brother in cold blood, is now friends with Wilson and his gang? And Murdocco too? We're supposed to buy total racist meatheads (and in the brother's case, a murderer) as good guys now? Wow, great idea.

Okay, so now that that's out of the way, let me get into the good. This was a lot of fun. It had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it, combined with a video game-style story, as Wilson moved from level to level, fighting tougher and tougher baddies. The music was great, the fights were solid, plus you had some amazing explosions. It is prevented from being perfect by the three main complaints I had above, but all in all it worked in that PM Entertainment kind of way. It had all the 1990 Bronx Warriors moments, from the guys on rollerblades, to the guys in silly outfits, all roaming underground for Wilson to contend with in some nice looking fights. The one-on-one showdown between Lurie and Wilson delivered, and the Jacklin one wasn't bad either, but not on that Lurie/Wilson level. Overall, this is good, just not as good as it could have been.



This was perfect Wilson though. Great fights, really nice guy forced to get tough with the bad guys who took his woman, and most importantly, hilariously acted dramatic scenes. This made up for the lack of Wilson fighting in part 1, and made up for it in a big way, giving us perhaps one of his best ever martial arts performances-- probably right behind Operation Cobra and Bloodfist IV. We're only ten films away now from getting all of Don's films up here at the DTVC, plus, this post marks his 20th tag, meaning when we're finally done reviewing his DTV movies, he'll have 30 total. Not a bad deal.

See how hot Maria Ford looks there? That's it for her after that. She still looks cute in the hospital bed, but when she's kidnapped, first she's shown with pale white skin, and then we barely see her for most of the rest of the film, until she's rescued by Wilson. Come on man, this is Maria Ford here. Why even cast her if this is what you're going to do? Here's what I would have done: first, she doesn't get shot at the jewelry store; when she's kidnapped, she's kidnapped at home; second, the baddies make her dress in the leather outfits the other women are wearing, maybe even really make-up her face too; finally, when she's forced to watch the fighting and is being menaced by the baddies, show it close up, don't give us these wide shots obscured by poor lighting and smoke. This is a DTV PM Entertainment movie starring Maria Ford, and as consumers, we expect her to be Maria Ford, and we expect to see Maria Ford. Otherwise, you're wasting our time.



DTVC favorite Evan Lurie plays the baddie's number two guy. I didn't realize this until midway through the movie, when Ian Jacklin is sitting on a throne, giving Lurie orders. I just naturally assumed Lurie would be the leader, right? Especially over Jacklin. Lurie is much better spoken, comes off as much more intelligent, and has more leadership potential, right? It takes a really sophisticated baddie, like John Sears from 90210 (see Martial Law II), to supplant Lurie as a head baddie. It looks like we have four DTV movies and a TV movie, and then that's it for Lurie, we'll have done all of his films. I don't know, it's a bittersweet thought. Of all the people we cover in all these posts, I think Lurie is the one I'd like to meet the most, the one I'd be the most starstruck in front of, the one I'd be most likely to buy a beer for. He's just that great.

Okay, so maybe that last paragraph let you in on why I was so upset that Jacklin was given head baddie status over Lurie, but the Ford complaint is a legitimate one, so if you're looking for her in this go somewhere else. As far as Wilson goes, this is some of his best. It's kind of Alice in Wonderland meets bad action, and on that score, it can be a lot of fun. Netflix doesn't have it, but you can get it used on DVD or VHS. How much you're willing to pay is up to you, but I'd say not too much.

PS
Ron Yuan does rock the V-neck that goes down to his bellybutton again.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107962/

Mega Piranha (2010)

I was initially hesitant to review this, because it's listed on imdb as a TV movie, and I seldom do those. The three examples that come to mind all involve Hall of Famers, Blackjack, Raptor Island, and Mercenary. When I looked into this one, though, I found that it was essentially an Asylum film, only in this case they were able to give SyFy first dibs, making it a DTV film on TV. Plus, the movie looked like a lot of fun, so why be such a stickler all the time, right?

Mega Piranha is about some genetically altered piranhas in Venezuela that attack a US diplomat and a Venezuelan politician and eat them. The US thinks it's a terrorist attack, and they send beefcake Paul Logan down to investigate. At the same time, a trio of scientists, Tiffany among them, know that these are genetically altered piranhas that are causing the deadly stink, they just can't convince anyone. Luckily, Logan goes under water and sees some himself, killing one and bringing the rubbery evidence back for everyone to see. From there it all devolves into people not doing what they should, getting in the way, and the piranhas growing to epic proportions, eating anything metal or human in their path.



This was pretty sweet. I mean, you had so many hilarious parts, especially with the CGI fish jumping out of the water and exploding into buildings, or our hero kicking them while lying on his back. The thing is, I guess, how much can you make a movie about that? The films of the 50s and 60s they're doing a send up of usually ran about an hour long, and this one was closer to 85 after the credits are taken out. There was a lot of stringing out scenes that weren't very suspenseful in a way that was more annoying than fun. A car chase that goes on longer than it should. Three or four too many scenes of the people chasing them getting closer. A couple extra gratuitous shots of a clock ticking before something is done just in time. It had that feeling that I find in a lot of Asylum's films, that I really endured something, as opposed to enjoyed a movie. Fun, but annoying at times.

Now, don't get me wrong, this had it's moments. No, it wasn't Titanic II, but at the very least, you could tell the people putting this together "got it", which is more than we can say for a lot of the Asylum's efforts. I wonder if because they put this on SyFy, that they had to deliver 90 minutes in order to fit their time slots, because then I could maybe give them more of a pass on the padding. As an aside, I should mention the term "padding", because it's often used as a catch all to describe shortcomings in films when people don't really know how else to explain why a film didn't work for them. That's not what I'm doing in this case. For instance, there was a constant repetition of the same or similar shots, like when a helicopter was leaking fuel, so we saw the fuel gauge numbers running down. It's funny to go back to the gauge once and see the number greater than it was before, but five times is too much, especially when we know what's going to happen. Once is funny, five times is padding-- and annoying. There was really no padding in the plot or superfluous segments of dialog though. I don't know, it felt like going to a party with someone else driving, and the night is over, and you're ready to leave, and the person who drove you there acts like he or she is ready to leave too, but stands in the doorway for fifteen minutes conversing with party host, when you're like in your head screaming "come dude, let's get moving for God's sake!"



80s pop princess (so described in her imdb bio) Tiffany is in this. I don't really know what the thinking was behind her outfit and hairdo, but it was very unflattering, making her look like a soccer mom. I mean, she is 39, and does have an 18-year-old son, but I imagine in real life, she doesn't look like a soccer mom, nor would she want to look like a soccer mom unless she was playing one for her role. And I'm not saying soccer moms can't be hot, I'm saying this was like an outfit and hairdo that a soccer mom who's ten years older than Tiffany would be rocking. It just didn't do her any favors, and I don't know whose decision that was, whether it was wardrobe or the director. She's slated to be in the upcoming Asylum effort, Mega Python vs. Gateroid, so hopefully someone will rectify this situation. It also stars Deborah Gibson, so if Tiffany looks like a 50-year-old soccer mom, and Gibson looks hot, I can't imagine Tiffany'll be very happy-- as well she shouldn't be, help her out damn it!

You a Brady Bunch fan? Greg Brady plays the Secretary of State. The show was on every afternoon when I'd get out of school growing up. There was something awesome about the whole thing, from the parents, to the kids, to Alice, to Sam the Butcher. It's probably why I'm so hard on TV programs today, and why I almost exclusively watch reality shows or anything to do with sports. I can count like five shows off the top of my head that I really liked that came out after the 70s, and really nothing since Seinfeld-- okay, I like The Office, but it's nothing like the sheer awesomeness that was The Brady Bunch.



Google has this thing it does with our blogs where it lets us look at the stats-- what posts are the most popular, what part of the world are the readers from, what sites are they going through to find it, all the usual suspects. I discovered some interesting trends, one of which is that it's movies like this, and not the Dolph Lundren films or bad actioners, that generate the most page views. The reason why I find that interesting, is that I get most of my comments and requests for future posts on the action films. So, here's my message to anyone that loves these crazy monster films that end up on SyFy or whatever, if you want me to cover more of them, drop me a line in the comments section.

All right, this is a lot of fun, but also a lot of annoying when they just don't get on with things. It can be a labor of love, but there's also some absolutely hilarious and memorable moments that make this worth checking out. One of the easiest ways to do that is through Netflix Watch Instantly, or on DVD through Netflix, or you can even check your TV listings to see when SyFy will show it again. I imagine in a large group this could be even more fun, so that's something to consider too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587807/