L.A.P.D.: "To Protect and Serve" (2001)

I was looking for a fourth DTV Dennis Hopper film to round out the Hopper Tribute Week, and thought this one had potential. It starred Michael Madsen and Marc Singer, plus Hopper was nominated for a best supporting actor at the DVD Exclusive Awards-- I guess the DTV version of the Oscars or something-- I'd never heard of them.

L.A.P.D.: "To Protect and Serve" has Marc Singer as reckless cop, the son of a retired cop, working for the LAPD because he gets off on the action. After a big bank robbery gone wrong shootout where Singer and his partner are lauded as heroes, they're invited by Michael Madsen and some fellow officers to a party, and not long after they're initiated into these cops' dirty ways. Singer's partner isn't happy about doing this, and wants out. At the same time, a few mistakes by the cops are drawing attention, and the net is closing in. Before we know it, people are killed off left and right, and when the smoke clears, we're left with... actually, I don't know what we're left with.



This film felt like 90-100 minutes of purgatory. I was trapped in some liminal space, where nothing made sense, other than that it was boring. I don't know if you've ever gotten really drunk or really baked or something else, and got into that state where things don't quite make sense, and you're not sure if they'll ever make sense again, but that's what this movie was like. From the beginning, with the bank robbery, where I'm wondering why cops are just parking their cars and hopping out haphazardly, allowing themselves to be shot by the perps very easily to Hopper yelling at Singer for going in without back up, when there were like 10 other squad cars that did the same thing, I knew I was in trouble, and it only got worse. By the time we get to the end, where people are just getting killed off indiscriminately, and what may have existed for a plot has devolved into blah, I'm just trying to get out in one piece with my sanity intact-- no such luck, because we're given the ridiculous post script, telling us what happened to the characters after we left them, as if we cared. "...[N]o one was brought to justice for these crimes..." No shit Sherlock, because none of these people existed! They were fictional!

Hopper's not in this much, but when he is, he is pretty sweet. I couldn't figure out what the DVD Exclusive Awards were, because the link on imdb takes me to the Wilmington, Delaware Independant Film Awards (Wilmington being the birthplace of DTVC Hall of Famer Cynthia Rothrock), and after that I didn't have the energy to follow up. I'd say the award he should have gotten was for even making it through this thing. The only thing I can think is, his character's scenes make sense by themselves, they just dont't exactly make sense when combined with happened before them, in particular that scene at the beginning where he's reading Singer the riot act for something that didn't really happen the way Hopper was excoriating him for. Also, because he's front and center on the cover, yet he's barely in the film for five scenes or so, this clearly qualifies for a Hopper bait-and-switch, which I was totally taken in by, and that's kind of a low moment to end the week on.



Michael Madsen was very interesting here. I mean, he was very good, and he sold this mess of a plot as if it made complete sense. The thing that I think is very cool about Madsen is how authentic he seems. He's the guy who can rock a bowler shirt, shiny black shoes, and a cherry apple red '68 Corvette drop-top, and not come off as some kind of hipster doofus. I was looking at him on imdb, and he has 200+ acting credits, including like 20 or so that are in some form of development. I'm more familiar with his voice and feature film work, but I see his DTV films pop up all the time when I'm searching for new material to review. Maybe I'll start looking into those.

I've always loved Marc Singer from his Beastmaster days-- especially his guest spots on the syndicated TV show-- so I was excited to see him here, and for the most part he delivered. Except for his sex scene that is. You tell me (if you can make out that image below) does that look like a guy in a love scene? Looks more like a guy passing a kidney stone. There were points too where he's like attacking his partner, former Miss Canada Kiara Hunter. Maybe he was channeling his former Beastmaster self, and trying to have sex like cats do.



There were so many things I could look at for the seventh paragraph. You had Wayne Crawford (the hero from Snake Island-- I can't imagine anyone remembers me reviewing that one!), who looks more like a deli owner than a crooked cop. Then there's Kiara Hunter in the first scene we see her in, at the cop party, wearing a vinyl halter-top and a rubber skirt (it looked rubber, it might have been something else though)-- and the skirt is knee-length. Really, you're going for a little modesty in your outfit, and you decide it's your skirt length that's the issue? Even better was a scene where Singer and his partner go to a XXX theater to bust a drug dealer, and the theater is showing Flesh Gordon. I guess the message is "see, there are good movies like that, and then there's the one you're watching, which isn't."

This movie is available on DVD from Netflix, but I'm not so sure it matters-- in a way, it's kind of annoying, because there are so many great films that have gone out of print that we can't get so easily, but this is there for the taking. Total Hopper bait-and-switch, and while Madsen and Singer were good, they couldn't save this from it's senseless plot.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250485/

Space Truckers (1996)

I'd heard a lot about this one for a long time, and I'd just never gotten around to it. With the Dennis Hopper Tribute Week, though, I had a reason, so I went for it. The idea of Stuart Gordon, director of both Re-Animator and Fortress, at the helm for this space adventure, intrigued me-- because the former was awesome, and the latter, well, the less said about the latter the better.

Space Truckers has Dennis Hopper as a blue-collar outer-space truck driver, similar to a truck driver on the roads in our present (and believe me, from the interviews in the making of featurette to the Netflix description, they want to remind you that he's a "blue-collar worker", not an astronaut). He gets into it with George Wendt, cantankerous and unethical manager of a space pig slaughtering and packaging plant, or something. Anyway, Wendt dies in a diner brawl, and Hopper needs a job quick so he can get off the space station, and that job comes in the form of shipping black market sex toys to Earth. Along with him he has Debi Mazar, a girl he knows who needs a ride back to Earth, and who said she'd marry him if he takes her; and Stephen Dorff, and young trucker who loses his Wendt load after the Hopper debacle. Turns out the load isn't sex toys, but 5,000 killer robots that are supposed to be unleashed on Earth for a hostile takeover by the businessman who owns them. After a detour with some pirates, they get to Earth, and have to figure out a way to destroy the things and save the planet.



This thing looked nice, it had some really cool ideas, but in the end, I was bored by it. You can only string something like this out so long before it becomes tedious; and though the film looked nice, without any substance behind it, that's all it is, nice. Hopper was funny and charming, and I think he was excited to play a hero after being a baddie in Waterworld-- which this was better than, but is that saying much? I mean, it had it's moments, but by the time we hit the end, I'm like "can we wrap this up please?", and they're like that guest who won't leave, and stands in the doorway, and you've got to take a leak, and you know they're talking so loud that the neighbors will get pissed, so you try to drop hints, but it's not working, and... anyway, you see what I mean.

What can you say about Hopper, he was great. This might be a fun double feature with either Waterworld or Super Mario Bros., though I'd go with the former if I had to pick between those two. Hopper has an interesting sixth sense when he's in any film, this innate ability to play the part the way it was meant to be played, to get the tone and tenor of a movie, and hit all the right notes at all the right tempos. In some ways, it made him uniquely suited to the B-movie, because it's those kinds of pictures that lack Oscar nominated scripts, direction, etc., and need the actor to pick up more of the slack.



Speaking of the director, one Mr. Stuart Gordon. I loved Re-Animator, it's like one of my all-time faves. You can read what I thought of Fortress-- love isn't a word I'd used to describe it. This one fell somewhere in between, but it was definitely a much bigger production than either of those were. I think he did a great job, I just think the story-- which he co-wrote-- didn't have enough to sustain 90-100 minutes, which is what they were asking it to do. I guess it could've been worse, it could've been Waterworld.

DTVC favorite Vernon Wells has a small part as a space pirate. It just speaks to the genius that was Commando that they didn't give Wells a bit part, they made him Bennett, and Arnold told him to let off some steam. I realize I haven't tagged him yet, and it's time to change that. I think it was one of those things where I kept saying I was going to do it, and I kept forgetting. Well, I'll be forgetting no more. Also, Barbara Crampton, another Gordon mainstay, has a quick scene at the end of this, playing Debi Mazar's mother.



At the beginning of Space Truckers, a scene takes place on the Neptune moon of Triton. According to the Wikipedia article on it, the landscape was pretty accurate-- rocky and icy with big mountains. I've always been fascinated by things like that. For instance, Triton is the only moon that big with a retrograde orbit. The diner that Hopper gets into it with Wendt at is in a space station orbiting Jupiter. That looked kind of cool too, only they didn't quite have the scope of Jupiter's size down-- based on the scale they were using, the space station would have been bigger than the Earth, as would have Hopper's space truck. People who make sci-fi movies don't like to use planets that big for precisely that reason I assume.

I'm totally digressing here (and I digressed even worse on Wikipedia looking at the pages on the planets and their moons while writing this post). You can get this on Netflix, which makes it a pretty decent deal if you were going to have a Hopper double feature and wanted to spotlight two wild adventure films that really missed their marks, but in which Hopper was great as both the baddie and then the hero. Otherwise, I'd skip it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120199/

Luck of the Draw (2000)

I actually came across this film when looking for more Sasha Mitchell films-- of which there aren't many that we haven't already done. I had it my queue for a while, while other films jumped it in priority; but now it's at the top, as the second film of our Dennis Hopper tribute week.

Luck of the Draw has the star of Gladiator (the underrated boxing movie with Cuba Gooding Jr., not the Ridley Scott blockbuster), as a dude looking for a job after spending a few years in the clink for breaking and entering. After being turned down at a bank, he's in the right place at the right time as a bunch of Dennis Hopper's men hit a limo carrying extremely high quality counterfeit plates. Government agent William Forsythe appears at the hit as well, and a three-way shootout ensues, with the dude carrying the plates falling in front of our hero. Now he sees an opportunity, and he tries to sell the plates through his old partner, Michael Madsen. The thing is, Dennis Hopper doesn't suffer losing his property lightly, and he'll do whatever it takes to get it back.



This wasn't too bad. It was a classic Tarentino-esque heist caper style deal where the violence is more out of fun than any seriousness. The problem is, they betray that lightheartedness when they kill the hero's love interest's dad, played by Frank Gorshin. In a way it's germane to the plot, but it was weird and took the whole thing in a direction it didn't need to go. Also, the whole love interest thing was quick and forced anyway, and I was surprised they didn't do like most heist films do and have her have ulterior motives, i.e. the fact that she even falls for him in the first place is because she sees him take the plates or something. Anyway, that this worked at all was due to the great performances of the large and deep supporting cast, from Hoppper as the main baddie, to Eric Roberts as his right hand man and Sasha Mitchell as his grunt; to Forsythe as the fed; to Frank Gorshin as the father; to Ice-T as the rival crime lord; to Madsen as the hero's friend; all the way to the Patrick Kilpatrick in one of his best roles ever as the Irish hitman. It was those performances among a pretty run-of-the-mill premise that sold it for me.

In my Circle of Pain review, I made fun of the script, saying the writers' go to verb was "fucking". It just sounded ignorant, as swearing can sometimes do. But guys like Dennis Hopper throw rules like that out the window. He makes swearing awesome. In one scene where he's on the phone, he calls a French guy a "fucking French frog fuck!" He has a way of taking material like this, that is pretty basic, and making it something more. He's not the only one though, everyone else I mentioned above did the same thing. I mean, how easy would it be for Hopper to mail it in and just be the guy from Speed every time he's cast as a baddie in a DTV movie, but he doesn't do that, he brings it each time, and I think that's why we love seeing him in movies so much.



The love interest was a total hottie, Wendy Benson (since Wendy Benson-Landes). Her character was an unfortunate cross between the main character's redemption, and hottie window dressing, only having a moment of true assertiveness grafted on at the end. I was surprised, because had they used her character better, I think it might have made for a more intriguing movie. I mean, why would a woman as hot as her pick up a guy who looks like Corey Hart off the street and take him to meet her father (which is essentially what happened)? She wouldn't, that's why. What she would do is see our hero outside of the bank, see him pick up the briefcase with the plates in it, and find out where he lives from her boss's paperwork that had the guy's work application with his address on it. Maybe she falls in love with our hero in the process, maybe she tries to use him and leave him-- whatever, it just would have been that little bit that would have made this thing really work.

The hero's name in real life is James Marshall. You may remember him from A Few Good Men, but he's really great in Gladiator, as was Cuba Gooding Jr. (our good buddy whom we haven't seen in a while. I wonder what he's up to...). Here, with his poofy hair, he looked like a Corey Hart impersonator, which is cool, don't get me wrong, but in the context of this film looks kind of silly. I think his character was supposed to be a reformed bad boy trying to make a new life for himself, but he ended up just looking like a boy-- even if he was 33 at the time. If you haven't seen it, go out and rent Gladiator. That'll give you a new appreciation for how good both Marshall, and Gooding Jr. are.



DTVC favorite Sasha Mitchell is in this as a partner for Eric Roberts, the man doing Hopper's dirty work. The only martial arts he even remotely does comes when he beats up Frank Gorshin because he's into Hopper for some gambling debts. I was half-expecting big graphics with words like "Bam!" and "Pow!" to pop up on the screen each time Gorshin was hit, and I could tell as he fake took each punch, he was drawing from his old Batman days for inspiration. Anyway, Mitchell did look like he'd put on some pounds, so perhaps that's why we've seen so little of him over the past few years. That's too bad, though, because the guy is only in his early 40s, and he had the stuff back in the 90s to lead action films, so he'd make a great candidate to carry the torch as the current crop of DTV actions stars get even longer in the tooth.

This is fun for the actors, but not so much for everything else, so you need to ask yourself how much you like these guys. The film is available on Netflix, so that's a bonus. What you're looking at is a classic Tarentino-esque heist film, pretty pedestrian at best, but the performances from all the stars were anything but, and so that made it for me, but it might not for you.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207036/

Sunset Heat (1992)

I saw Sunset Heat about five years ago on EncoreAction. It not only had DTVC Hall of Famer Dennis Hopper, but also Michael Paré, Adam Ant, Little Richard, and a musical score done by the legendary Jan Hammer (as an aside, Michael Talbott, Switek from Miami Vice, is also in this for two scenes as a bartender). The problem was, when I started the DTVC a couple years later, I couldn't find it. It took me a while before I finally tracked it down, but here it is, kicking off our Dennis Hopper tribute week.

Sunset Heat has Michael Paré as Eric Wright (not to be confused with Easy-E), a photographer with a past who returns home to LA from New York to see his buddy, Adam Ant. Turns out Ant's get rich quick scheme involves robbing some dudes involved in a drug transaction, and when the Candyman (the guy who played him I mean) recognizes his accent, and then his (Ant's) bumbling partner (Joe Lara in a tiny role) gives away that the Candyman is right, all hell breaks loose,a nd Ant runs off with the cash. Turns out the drugs were Hopper's, and he and Paré used to be partners in crime, before Paré went straight. Well, Hopper wants his cash back, and he has some leverage on Paré to get him to retrieve it.



I really enjoyed this movie. It isn't so much an action film as much as a sexy Film Noir thriller, with sex scenes that are more at home in a Skin-a-max flick. Paré and Hopper are at perfect in their Film Noir roles, definite throwbacks to their 1940s counterparts; but the film itself is definitely a product of its time, from the music to the clothes. The Jan Hammer music was great, but a little sparse, and that might be my only complaint. Throw in a bunch of great cameos, including Little Richard, and you have a winner.

It's great to be able to say this for the first time, but as always, we start with the film's Hall of Famer, which was Dennis Hopper. He always makes a great baddie, and Sunset Heat was no exception. You could tell that he understood the type of movie this was trying to be, and he really sold it. There's one great scene near the end, where he's in a limo with Paré's girlfriend-- who was Hopper's girlfriend, but before that, she was Paré's, it makes more sense when you watch the movie-- and I don't know if he forgot his lines, or the script called for him to improvise, but he seems to be looking for anything to say, and is going for anything he can find to prompt him. I think he said like five times "we're going to see your boyfriend!", and then he grabs her hands, which are bound in front of her, and he's like "and your hands are tied!" For me, that's part of what made Hopper great, that he could roll with punches like that in these lower-budget movies.



Mr. Kenner at Movies in the Attic has been wanting me to get more Paré up here for some time now, and I couldn't agree with him more, but every time I make an effort, something else always comes up and he gets pushed to the back. Watching him here, though, made me realize how bad that is of me, and that I need to make him a priority again. Yes, you get to see a lot of his bare buttocks, so depending on whom you're attracted to, that could be a plus or a minus. (There is plenty of hot chick nude action as well, so there's enough for everybody.) In Sunset Heat, he had a great combination of 1990s cool, with a throwback to 1940s Film Noir leading man aesthetic. His Brooklyn accent definitely helped, but just the way he carried himself, I can't think of any actor currently in the Hall of Fame that could've pulled his role off the way he did.

This film had a great supporting cast, as I alluded to above. You had Adam Ant, the Candyman, Little Richard, John Talbott, and Joe Lara. There was also Diagnosis Murder's Charlie Schlatter, and Daphne Ashbrook, who was in the Olivier Gruner film Automatic. This is one of the funnest things about watching DTV movies, seeing how many people I recognize in them. Sometimes it's like "oh, it's That Guy, who is that?", while others I'm like "holy shit, Little Richard! Yes, that's so awesome!" More DTV movies should recognize this and load up on as many recognizable names as possible, even if they're only in the film for a scene or two.



Speaking of which, do you recognize the woman above? If you do, you're better at this game than I am, because I didn't know who she was until I saw the name in the credits-- I didn't even think it was an actor worth knowing, I thought it was just an extra. Well, I was wrong, it's Julie Strain. What do you know, huh? This is it, her only scene. She plays a human statue, and hands this character actor in the picture with her a plate of strawberries or something. Can you imagine how much that catering company must cost? Hey, it was Hopper's party, he can afford it.

As far as I can tell, here in the States, this only available on VHS. Total shame, because it's really great, and worth checking out. I'd keep an eye out in bargain bins for it, or if you have digital cable, you may see it on one of the Encore channels sometime in the future.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103006/

Rescue Me (1992)

This Michael Dudikoff gem comes to us courtesy of Mr. Kenner over at Movies in the Attic. It's a very interesting film, because it was made in 1992, towards the end of Cannon's run as a great DTV movie house; but also because as a premise itself, it feels like it came about five years too late-- it belongs in the mid-to-late 80s. It's like we're watching a movie paradigm that's battling the calendar, while at the same time Cannon and Golan-Globus had already felt their own wave break and recede on them.

Rescue Me starts in a small Nebraska town, where Stephen Dorff is a high school senior, relegated to the geek crowd, but longing for something more. That more is especially embodied in the person of a hot high school cheerleader, and while he's out stalking her and her boyfriend near a secluded lake, he witnesses a botched black market deal between Michael Dudikoff and a couple bad dudes, which is interrupted by the arrival of the cheerleader and her boyfriend. The boyfriend runs away, and the girl is taken captive by the bad dudes. Dorff wants to rescue her, so he enlists Dudikoff's help, using the pictures he took of him making the illegal deal as leverage. What ensues is a coming of age road trip to LA, with all the bonding and adventure and sex with hookers one could imagine.



This is pretty good. It dragged in some parts, which is more noticeable in a film like this than say in a big time actioner, and that hurt it a bit. Though this has action elements, it's more of a comedy and coming of age tale in the mold of License to Drive, which is great if you love that kind of thing, but if you're looking for ass kicking Dudikoff action, maybe not your best bet. I had fun with it. Other than the dragging, it hit all the right spots, and made for a really good time.

I don't quite put this with Bloody Birthday as a Dudikoff acting against type, because he still plays something of an action hero, this just isn't an action film. That being said, Dudikoff is excellent, and handles this part really well. I think lost in the quality of his action films is the actual quality he has as an actor, and he really shows us that here. He's at his best when he's playing a really good guy. I don't know, there's something about him that just exudes really good guy. Like I feel like if I tripped and fell in front of Dudikoff, he'd be genuinely concerned about whether or not I was okay.



How's that Stephen Dorff treating you? He's playing the Corey Haim role of the supposed geek that actually is good looking. If you look at it from that standpoint, he does pretty well. We know him now as an actor with a much harder edge, taking on darker roles, like a head vampire in Blade, so seeing him here is a trip. My favorite Dorff moment was on an episode of Punk'd, where he was the victim. They had some dude pretend to be a big fan of his, and send tons of expensive beverages over to his table. Then, when the guy leaves, the waiter brings the bill over to Dorff, and it's like $4000. Dorff's like "that guy ordered it for me, I didn't ask for it!" I'm staying away from the joke that Dorff should have smelled something fishy when a guy said he was a big fan of his.

Every film like this has to have two bad guys: the smart older one, and the dumb younger one, and William Lucking and Peter Deluise play those roles perfectly, especially Deluise. There was an episode of Highlander: The Series where Deluise played a bouncer and body guard to a mafia dude. Duncan McLeod kicked the crap out of him, of course.



One moment in the film really hit home for me. Dorff's character sees the beach and the ocean for the first time, and he cries. I grew up about three miles from the ocean, and a little further from the beach, and I've always taken both for granted. I never will again, though, because there are a lot of kids in Nebraska growing up that may never get to see either, and if they do, it might be a life-altering experience. Here's to you, Nebraska. if I could let you all see the ocean just once, I would.

This is only available on VHS, which makes it a bit of a tough get. I'm not so sure you need to go crazy trying to track it down, but if you see it in a bargain bin or something, go for it. It's a fun 80s-style road trip coming of age film, with Michael Dudikoff as one of the stars. Pretty sweet.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107949/

Cold Harvest (1999)

This is a bad boy I've been looking to get on here for a while. DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, Bryan Genesse, and directed by Isaac Florentine. Can this possibly be bad?

Cold Harvest takes place in the future, where a plague threatens humanity. Daniels is Roland, a dude who works as a bounty hunter in the lawless land that exists in the infected area. He also plays Oliver, his mild-mannered twin who has the gene that, when infected with low levels of the plague, generates anti-bodies. As he and his wife, Barbara Crampton are headed to the Free Zone with other humans holding antibodies, their convoy is attacked by Bryan Genesse (character name Little Ray), and everyone is killed, except for Crampton, who escapes. Turns out she's carrying a child with the antibodies as well, and when she runs into her brother in-law, he's able to protect her, get her to the Free Zone, and take out Genesse, all at the same time.



This is really awesome. It's like a western, set in the future, with some really cool Hong Kong style fights. Daniels is sick, Genesse brings it, and Isaac Florentine shows us why he's one of the best in the DTV business at directing action and martial arts. I loved the aesthetics-- the mix of modern with Wild West-- I loved how he mixed western style shootouts with Hong Kong style fight choreography. This whole thing just worked.

This is up there for me with Bloodmoon and Rage as Daniels's best. Florentine really allows him to get after it with the martial arts scenes, and Daniels embraces the western aspects. When I see how skilled Daniels is in these fights, I'm angered a bit by all the films where he's not used to his full potential. We might have to start a new chant here at the DTVC: "Let Daniels Get After It!" He has a ton of stuff on the horizon, and we can only hope it's as good as this one.



How do you not love Bryan Genesse? And why is this guy not in more stuff? What is always interesting for me, is seeing him as a baddie, when I'm so used to him being a good guy on Street Justice. And when I say good guy, that's kind of an understatement-- he was a really really good guy on that show. He has a sort of Evil Corey Haim style to him as a baddie, though, which is really fun. And, oh yeah, he can really kick ass. His final fight with Daniels is up there with some of the best DTV work of the decade, which is a bold statement, considering we're talking about the 90s here.

We love Isaac Florentine here at the DTVC, but it's become apparent that we're not the only people that need to learn to love the awesomeness that Ike Flo brings to the table. That's right, I'm looking at you Punchfighting Movie directors. Watch Cold Harvest or Undisputed II or Undisputed III. See how fight scenes should be shot. See what makes them look good. Cold Harvest should be a clinic on how to do DTV action, and how to do it well.



Barbara Crampton plays Daniels's sister in-law. Her imdb lists her as having been born in two different years. Either way, she's very attractive, and works well alongside Daniels. One thing I didn't like was the forced construct of the damsel in distress that was thrust on her towards the end. Essentially, she and Daniels make it to the Free Zone, and Daniels says he needs to go back to take down Genesse. Sounds fine, right? Only thing is, the helicopter she's in is shot down by Genesse's men, somehow she survives, and she's taken captive. I mean, we've seen helicopters explode under less violent circumstances in other action films. It was just so unnecessary though. Daniels had made it clear that he was going back for Genesse anyway, Crampton being held hostage didn't add any intrigue or make thing more difficult for Daniels-- I don't know, it just felt perfunctory the way they were just tacking on this damsel in distress scenario.

But that was my only issue in an otherwise excellent flick. I believe it's out of print here in the States, but you can still get it used on DVD. I'd do it, both for the Daniels factor, and the Florentine factor. The Genesse factor doesn't hurt either.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167832/

Nemesis III: Prey Harder (1996)

I managed somehow to get my hands on Nemesis 2 and this film on VHS. These suckers are a little bit harder to come by than one might think. I have a beat on part 4, so don't worry about the end of the Albert Pyun Nemesis saga ending prematurely here. Anyway, before we get to part 4, we have a little business to attend to first with part 3.

Nemesis III takes place right where the prior installment left off-- sort of. It starts 22 hours after part 2, but then goes back in the form of flashbacks and whatnot. In the future, the cyborgs have sent a whole bunch of trackers and assassins and such into the past to get our homegirl, Alex. We find her lying in the desert with a massive head wound and amnesia. She runs across Tim Thomerson, whom she thinks is a good guy, but he just wants to scan her with his laser eyes and take her back to the future-- he's a bad cyborg named Farnsworth 2, get it, because he was Farnsworth in part 1. Anyway, a struggle ensues and she stabs his eye then her memory comes back. From here, we find out somewhat how she went from taking out the Nebula in part 2, to lying on the ground with a head wound in part 3.



And therein lies the rub, as we like to say here at the DTVC. The film starts by bombarding us with images from the previous film, which would be great if we hadn't seen it, but we have, so we're like "yes, I remember that! Give me something I haven't seen yet!" Then you get the amnesia thing, with more flashbacks, then the realization that we were watching what will now become the end. It was too awkward for me, and hurt what would have been a very fun movie-- made it more tedious than fun. It would be easy to attack the film for the low-budget special effects, but you're here at the DTVC, if you can't handle low-budget special effects, you may want to find a Tumblr account devoted to scenes from Avatar and Inception.

What I liked about this one was how it attempted to bring more in sci-fi elements, which was what part 2 lacked. I also liked that Pyun cast two of his better mainstays, Norbert Weisser and Tim Thomerson. That at least let's us know we're watching an Albert Pyun movie, and these guys seem to do Pyun films better than most actors he casts. They get what Pyun is doing, and they're good at selling it. I would have had a lot of fun with this one had it not been for the flashbacks and weird storytelling method. Simple is often the easiest way to go, and the best for us, the viewer-- and overly complicated or gimmicky often ruins what could be a potential winner.



There's one scene with Thomerson that was so awesome. He's driving around in a jeep with some grunt cyborg, and I guess the guy says something that upset him, because he hauls off on the dude, then kicks him out of the car, and shoots him. And shoots him again. And again. And again. At some point I don't know what to make of it, I'm even like "dude, just die already!", but he still gets up, and Thomerson still shoots him. It was fantastic.

I don't know what to say about the special effects. I had fun with them, but someone else might find them tawdry or crass. One thing he does is adds in lasers and green eyes on the cyborgs. Another involves this fish-eye effect that obscures these golf cart things that the cyborgs drive. I don't know what that was-- maybe some kind of hyper speed-- but obviously it was more funny than cool. You have to ask yourself on those things what you're going into a film like Nemesis III: Prey Harder for. For me, it's just that sort of thing, so I'm good there. It's the awkward nonlinear storytelling that threw me for a loop.



I decided to use this seventh paragraph to mention that there's a trailer for Albert Pyun's new film, Tales of an Ancient Empire, over at his site, pyunmovies.com. As always, for any news on Pyun's projects, you can click on the link to his site over in the "Other Great Sites" section.

As for Nemesis III, it's up to you. It is still fun, just pretty tedious due to the way the story was presented. You see the same scenes and images repeated, and the repetition becomes frustrating after a time. If you're a completist though, and can get a hold of this and it's partners cheaply, I'd say go for it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113950/