Troll 2 (1990)

I have been meaning to get to this one for a long time, and I knew my buddy had it on VHS, but it was in storage or something, and I just forgot about it. Then I found out it was on Watch Instantly, but I realized that I was nearing my 600th post, and figured this would be perfect for it. Troll 2 is a camp horror classic, at least in my eyes, in the same sentence as Bad Taste or Street Trash-- maybe just a notch below Evil Dead 2. Absolutely great stuff, and it's a travesty that it's taken me until post 600 to make it happen, but as we in The Biz say, "better late than never!" Also, Mr. Gable's Reality did a great post on this recently which you should definitely check out. He included video clips of some of the more memorable scenes.

Troll 2 is actually not about trolls, but goblins. It centers around Joshua, a young boy whose dead grandfather reads to him about the creepy creatures. The kid's inept father signs the family up for some country bumpkin exchange program, where his family lets a farm family live in their house, while they live out on the farm. The farm is located in the small village of Nilbog... duh duh daaaah! As Joshua's dead grandfather comes back from the grave to try and warn Joshua of the impending doom his father is sending them to, Joshua has to convince his family that he's not crazy, before the goblins turn them into plants and eat them.



This is one the best bad movie night films ever. This is what you came for: bad acting, script that wasn't proofread, hilarious villains, it's all there. Load up the beer or soft drinks and other assorted junk foods, and have at it. I mean, I don't know where to begin with how awesome this is. Let's start with the name: Troll 2-- only there aren't any trolls, they're goblins! Then you have this kid's dad, who is either whining or aggressively overbearing, yet always poorly acted; or the grandfather, who also whines, kind of looks like Ernest Hemingway, and has all sorts of weird powers, the least of which is coming back from the dead. There's also the popcorn sex scene, the girl who decks her boyfriend because he hangs out with his friends too much, the mom who often has zero expression and seems hellbent on becoming goblin food, or the Elvira wannabe who is all hopped up on overacting pills. That doesn't even touch the people who turn into trees, or the line "you don't piss on hospitality". No sir, you do not.

This film celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, and it's only gotten better with age. You can keep your Saw 33 1/3 or Hostel Part Deux, but I like my horror campy and gory. I mean, I've seen those other movies, and they're just as dumb, if not dumber, and what's worse, they take themselves so much more seriously than the awesomeness that we have here. Hey, if people like that other kind of brutal horror, by all means, take it, and put it in 3-D for all I care, I'll stick with my Troll 2.



According to imdb, this is number 62 on their Bottom 100. I believe that makes the sixth film on that list that we've covered, the others being Pocket Ninjas (8), Simon Sez (80), Battlefield Earth (84), American Ninja V (88), and Alien From L.A. (97) (as an aside, Fat Slags is also in there, a Dolph Lundgren film from England that we haven't done...). It seems like we should've done more of those here at the DTVC, doesn't it?

There really is nothing like watching a film with a script that wasn't proofread. Sometimes words and terms are repeated in the same sentence, sometimes words are used that are so unnatural-- "what if my dad discovers you up here?"--, and then there's my personal favorite, when items are referenced incorrectly. In this you had two kids running from the goblins, and they come across a church, which in the original script was just a house, and they didn't change it after they scouted the location, so the kids say "let's hide in this house." Later, in an even funnier attempt to rectify this error, one of the townsfolk refers to it as "the old church that's now a house." Just more of why I think this movie is so awesome.



Troll 2 is chock full of product placement. As a sports geek, I love all the vintage pennants and posters on the kid's wall, especially the Daryl Strawberry one. No Boston teams though, which was a bit of a downer. Also, the kid rocks a G.I. Joe shirt, while his sister has a Garfield zodiac night shirt, Aries, with Garfield sporting a couple horns. There's also a too sweet Batman poster, from the Tim Burton movie, in the kid's room. My personal fave was this Johnny Depp poster his sister had. There was also a Tom Cruise one. It was a reminder to us that there are real actors out there, just not in this movie.

I watched this for the review on Netflix Watch Instantly, but they don't have it available on DVD to rent. Also, Amazon has it every way imaginable to buy, from VHS all the way to Blu-Ray. I know there's a trend in the low-budget movie watching community to get gems like these on VHS, as a form of nostalgia, and I can't think of a better movie to do that with than this one. Get the crew together, load up on the booze and junk food, and let 'er rip. Troll 2 is the reason why you have bad movie night.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105643/

Ring of Fire III: Lion Strike (1995)

After Ring of Fire, which was a pretty rough customer, then the sequel, Ring of Fire II, which wasn't so bad, I was hoping the trend would hold, and part 3 here would be pretty sweet. I noticed Maria Ford was swapped out in favor of Bobbie Phillips, and a lot of the other familiar names from the first two were missing. Let's cross our fingers.

Ring of Fire III: Lion Strike picks up about five years after part 2 left off. Don "The Dragon" Wilson is back as Dr. Johnny Wu, raising his son alone after Ford died in a car accident sometime since we last left them (the old widower routine, classic 1960s sitcom move). Anyway, after what seems like his third or fourth fight against four or fives guys that day, he comes to the aid of Marcus Aurelius, who, unbeknownst to Wilson, has just stolen some shit from the mob, including a floppy containing info for selling Russian nukes to Third World Countries. Long story short, their bags get switched, Marx Bros. style, and after Wilson takes his son to the mountains, the mob goes up there after him. Some shooting, martial arts, and explosions ensue, and then Wilson, his son, and park ranger/ex-military Bobbie Phillips live happily ever after.



See that old man wielding an Uzi in a helicopter? Yeah, he's shooting that at Wilson, and Wilson is about to fire back, while hanging from one hand off the edge of a building, and blow the helicopter up with some pistol bullets. And that's the first ten minutes! From there it's a series of fights, car chases, explosions, more fights, more explosions-- it just doesn't stop. This is vintage PM Entertainment, with cars flying through trailers, helicopters blowing up because they can, and Wilson finding fights everywhere he goes. I had one major issue with Wilson running away from the main baddie's hatchet man, but that came in the last 20 minutes, and I can't let it completely kill what was an otherwise kickass time.

This was some sweet Wilson. It's a simple formula: limit his dramatic acting and let his fighting to the talking. Funny, though, that so few films that cast him use that formula. Wilson had a part in writing this script, along with Art Camacho, so maybe that's why it was so action packed. He was like "people aren't renting this to see me recite Shakespeare, they want to see some roundhouses." Well, we got plenty of roundhouses, so we got what we came to see. At this point, we're about seven films away from having all of Wilson's up here. It may take a little longer than I thought, because I'm having trouble finding some, but we'll make it happen. By the way, this is the second film to feature Wilson taking down a helicopter with a hand gun, the other being Virtual Combat.



I should probably make a list of the rules all action films should follow, like keep a high action/lull time quotient, or be careful when including politics-- you know, all the things I'm constantly saying ruin most potentially great action films. One of the big ones would be "never have the hero run away." The two exceptions would be "if he's being chased by the cops, and doesn't want to hurt innocent people who are just doing their jobs" or "if it's at the very beginning, and is followed by a heavy training montage led by a veteran character actor." This film broke that rule and neither exception was in sight, when Wilson and Phillips ran away from the main baddie's hatchet man. Here we have Wilson and Phillips, out in the woods, turning the tables on the people hunting them, picking them off left and right, and then all that energy dissipates as we watch them run after Wilson couldn't beat the guy in a fight. On some levels they made up for it with a good end fight between the two, but it was still a very bad look.

Michael Jai White has a small cameo in this as part of Marcus Aurelius's gang. He never gets to use his martial arts, and he looks a lot smaller. If you see his name on imdb linked with this, just know that it isn't the Blood and Bone Michael Jai White coming in to throw down with Wilson.



Bobbie Phillips was part Wilson's love interest, and part his asskicking sidekick. It's pretty sweet, because, based on the way the film had started, when we see her character, a park ranger, looking in the back of a flatbed truck, finding poacher's contraband, we know when those asshole poachers get outside, they're in for an assbeating. Of course, Wilson puts down his groceries and helps her, but it's a pretty even split on how many they take out. One great Phillips film I've been meaning to get to is TC 2000, starring DTVC favorite Billy Blanks. Can't wait to make that happen. As an aside, you how people always say that being a meter maid or someone who tows cars from parking lots has to be the worst job, or rather, that the people holding them must be total douchebags? Well, what about poachers? I mean, it doesn't get any more shitheel than that, does it? I mean, if you're a poacher, do you really look yourself in the mirror in the morning? Do you really think "those rangers are assholes for not letting me put my bear traps out"? Poacher: biggest douchebag job ever-- in fact, douchebag doesn't even begin to describe it.

Netflix actually has this for rent (if you go to the Wilson page on Netflix, it's a sea of green from all the films they've relegated to the "Save" pile), and I believe Amazon sells it for $6.99 new. 7 bucks is a little steep, but if it's $7 without the shipping, meaning you can find it at a local store, I'd pull the trigger. This is vintage PM Entertainment-- bad action at its best.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110358/

Night of the Warrior (1991)

This is one of the few Lorenzo Lamas joints from the late 80s early/90s that I hadn't already seen, so I was stoked to finally get a hold of it. It just sounds awesome, right? "Lorenzo Lamas in Night of the Warrior", I mean, how can you go wrong there, right? Ty at Comeuppance Reviews did this one a little while back too, if you want to see what he thought and compare with me.

Night of the Warrior has Lamas as a fighter, fighting for Luke of "Luke and Laura" fame, in order to pay off the mortgage to the exotic club he and his mom own (played by his real life mom Arlene Dahl). After the mortgage is paid off, he thinks he's done, so he goes off to win over art history major/waitress Kathleen Kinmont, who is turned on by his amateur photography/exploitation of the local homeless population that are his subjects. Anyway, Luke needs him to do one more fight, because a Korean mob boss will kill him if he doesn't, so Luke leans on him, using Lamas's mom and girlfriend for leverage.



Let's get one thing straight first, this is not an action film per se, but rather an attempt at a modern Film Noir piece. The problem is, writer Thomas Ian Griffith, though an English Lit major at Holy Cross, is no Dashiell Hammett, meaning Night of the Warrior has it's good moments and its bad, but overall doesn't quite work. The music and cinematography definitely had that Noir-ish vibe down; but then you had these attempts at action movie clichés, like the kidnapped girl; and then there were some of their Noir themes that they didn't follow through on, like Kathleen Kinmont's character, who started off very well rounded, and finished off very blah, or the introduction of Lamas being framed, which comes and goes rather quickly and effortlessly. It was like, it had too little action to be good for the action film fans, but didn't handle the Film Noir aspects well enough to be good for those fans either, so we were left with nothing. Oh, and I can't forget the bad Madonna video scene with Lamas and some other dude fighting while covered in mud at the beginning.

From the Lamas perspective, this looked pretty good at the beginning. No, he didn't do the Noir protagonist who is also a photographer as well as Michael Paré in Sunset Heat, but had the writing stayed true, based on the beginning, I think he would've still done well. But then there was this odd dramatic aspect, that wasn't written well, didn't look natural, and made Lamas look foolish. I don't know, at the beginning, when he's in the diner hitting on Kathleen Kinmont, there was a sense that he might pull this off. Who knows if, given the chance, he might have done it. As far as the action goes, he has a few good scenes, but also a couple weird ones, including a fight with his crippled friend. The less said about that the better.



Kathleen Kinmont got a bit of a raw deal in this one, because she started off strong in that Noir-ish female lead, then her character was almost written out of the film altogether, only to come back for the sole purpose of being kidnapped. It had never crossed my mind before that she'd make a great lead in a Film Noir picture, but it makes sense after seeing it, because she's smart-- which comes out on-screen when the role allows her to-- very pretty, and can wear the hell out of a short black dress. I had a feeling, though, that Thomas Ian Griffith, in writing her character, might have been over his head, because there's a scene early on where she and Lamas are in his apartment, and she tosses him a camera and tells him to take her picture. Then she asks him how to pose, and he says that's not how he works, so she starts trying to affect sexy poses for him. It was way too unnatural. The sexier thing would've been to have her not try to be sexy, but just be who her character is, and have him capture that and see her sexiness naturally. Anyway, it wasn't long after that before she was almost done completely, her character devolving into an action movie damsel in distress.

I'm not sure which is cooler, that Lamas's mom starred in this, or Luke of "Luke and Laura" fame from General Hospital. On the one hand, it's his mom, which is cool; but on the other, Lamas being a soap actor himself, to be paired with such a luminary as that is huge. The only thing cooler would've been if Rick Springfield did a movie with Lamas too. Favorite Rick Springfield song? I may have to go with "Don't Talk to Strangers", even though, like everyone else, I love "Jesse's Girl" too. Also of note, the late Bill Erwin-- who just died recently at the age of 96-- plays Kinmont's uncle. Great cameo from him.



I'm wrapping up with this seventh paragraph for all my horror readers out there. That's right, Ken Foree, from one of my all time favorite horror films, Dawn of the Dead, stars in this as Luke's hatchet man. This is actually the second Foree film we've done, the first being Dolph Lundgren's Army of One (which I should note is my most popular Dolph film on here by views, by virtue of the fact that people searching for nude pics of Kristen Alfonso are directed there. No joke). One of the best lines from a horror film ever is in Dawn of the Dead, near the beginning, when Foree and Francine are in the helicopter about to escape, and he tells her "I lost a lot of brothers." "Real brothers, or soul brothers?" "Both."

This is a bad deal. Don't be fooled by the title or the cover, there's very little action, and the Film Noir material isn't handled well either. The payoff just isn't there to warrant a recommendation. As far as availability, you can buy it new on DVD, but for some reason or other, Netflix doesn't offer it, so for the price asked, it's not worth it anyway.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102535/

Knights (1993)

This is an Albert Pyun flick that I've been meaning to get to for a while, but for one reason or another it's always been pushed back. Well, it will be pushed back no more, it's time to bake this cake. Also, our friend Mr. Kenner at Movies in the Attic reviewed this as part of his Albert Pyun Fest, if you want to check that out. (By the way man, I hotlinked your cover image. Hope you're not mad at me...)

Knights takes place in an undetermined spot in the future, after the apocalypse, in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. As humans are trying to pick up the pieces, they're having problems with some super powerful cyborgs, led by Lance Henriksen, that need their blood to sustain their systems. All hope looks to be lost, until Kris Kristofferson shows up, a cyborg created to kill these other cyborgs. On his way to exterminate them, he saves Nea, a girl squatting with one of the tribes, and he teaches her how to fight against the cyborgs. Together, they look to defeat this scourge on humanity.



I had a lot of fun with this one. Sure, there are nits to pick about it I guess, especially if one were taking it too seriously, but as far as I could tell, this was meant to be a fun ride. It had a heavy stable of actors, from DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, to major Pyun mainstays like Tim Thomerson and Vincent Klyn (though both in small parts), in addition to the stars I already mentioned. Plus, there was the gorgeous scenery of the national park, which Pyun spared no expense in delivering to us in all its glory-- essentially allowing it to be a character on its own. Maybe the fight scenes weren't what you'd want, especially because it seemed like he went more for Japanese samurai film style fight scenes over the Hong Kong actioner, which worked for me, but might not have for some others. Also, the whole deal with Kathy Long fighting with Kristofferson's torso tied to her back might have been too silly for a lot of tastes, though again, not mine. Hey, if you're in it to have fun, it doesn't get much better than Knights.

Gary Daniels is Lance Henriksen's right hand man. He does have some good fights, so it's not as bad as the smaller roles we've seen him in-- especially lately-- but he's by no means a main star. This is not one of those moments though where I'm going to complain about the size of his role, because I think it worked perfectly here. He wasn't going to be the main baddie over Henriksen, and Pyun's getting Kristofferson was way too big a coup not to have him as the hero. Plus, Kristoferson gave the film that Western element, that, when combined with the setting, made for a really great aesthetic. It should also be pointed out that in 1993, when this was made, Daniels didn't have many starring roles to his credit, so considering his status at the time, this was the perfect sized part for him.



Another move Pyun made in this film that really worked for me was the shifting of the protagonist, having the girl, played by kickboxer Kathy Long, take over. Again, if you're picking nits, you'd complain that it's impossible that she'd learn enough martial arts in four weeks to be able to take down all the guys and cyborgs that she does. My answer to you would be "you're okay with the cyborgs that need human blood to feed, but a girl learning martial arts in four weeks is what you're stuck on?" One of the things I've always loved about Albert Pyun's work is his consistency in trying new things and rethinking the old standards, and a big one is in casting women as heroic leads. He's doing from the director's and screenwriter's chairs what Cynthia Rothrock is doing from the actor's. His films may not always work-- and not work for myriad reasons that don't always have to do with the idea of the film itself-- but at least we know he's trying to new things, which is a lot more than we can say about a lot of other people we check out on here.

Tim Thomerson versus Lance Henriksen. I know, I've never considered it before, but this film raised the question... okay, I raised the question, after seeing the movie. Anyway, Tim Thomerson had a small part in the beginning, and then that's it for him, but it had me thinking, what if? Now, I'm not taking anything away from Lance Henriksen's performance in Knights, because he was excellent as the slightly goofy, slightly gross, yet very evil baddie, I'm just putting it out there, who makes the better baddie overall? Or rather, who makes the better DTV star? I'm calling it a tie for the sake of political correctness, but by all means, weigh in and let me know... hell, am I crazy for even asking?



I've never been to Arches National Park before. We almost went while I was out in Colorado, but we spent too much time getting to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, and it was just too far away to get there and back to where we wanted to go. As far as Knights goes, Pyun takes full advantage of this beautiful scenery. He plays with the space in a way that I was critical of him for not doing in Mean Guns with that film's prison setting. He really made it into another character, the way someone like Woody Allen makes New York City into one of his film's characters. It just added another layer of depth that made the movie that much more enjoyable-- though I'm a bit of an outdoors buff, so I might be unique in that assertion.

As far as I can tell, this movie is VHS or bust, so if you can get it, I'd go for it. Don't spend too much, but $5 is a good price. This is just a lot of fun set in a beautiful location with a lot of names you recognize. Ain't nothing to get mad at here.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107333/

Strategic Command (1997)

This is one of those ones that you know, based on the premise and who's making it and just the overall feel, that it's probably going to hurt; but then I see names like Michael Dudikoff and Richard Norton, and I think "okay, this might be sweet"... or I think "I'm the one who came up with the bright idea for me to do a blog on DTV movies, and have guys like Norton and Dudikoff in some kind of Hall of Fame, so now I need to take my medicine, get my whuppin', so to speak." There's no getting around a movie like Strategic Command, I just have to get through it quick, like I'm peeling off a Band-Aid.

Strategic Command rips off Executive Decision, only on a smaller scale, and with some minor tweaks. Michael Dudikoff is a scientist/former Marine special forces officer who designs some nasty shit called Bromax. It's the best industrial floor cleaner on the market-- er, rather, it's an agent used in chemical warfare that will kill people by violently inducing the same phenomenon in them as the kid in elementary school that we'd make laugh so he'd cough milk out of his nose. Anyway, Richard Norton steals it, then hijacks a plane chartered by the Vice President, threatening to blow it up over LA if his demands aren't met. Dudikoff wants to be a part of the rescue team, because his wife was a part of a news interview crew, lead by Bryan Cranston (yes that Bryan Cranston, Tim Whatley, Malcolm in the Middle, Breaking Bad...). Anyway, that's pretty much it.



Wanna see something exciting? Watch this, I'm going to run some stock footage of a generic 747, then run some stock tension music over it. Exciting, huh? Beyond that, this was a sack of ass crack. The only potential good stuff came at the end, but they ruined the fights between Norton and Dudikoff by having them in too confined a space. I know what you're thinking, they're on a plane, it's supposed to be cramped. Yes, except they had enough space to have a more traditional fight between (this kind of movie mainstay) Larry Poindexter and Norton's girlfriend. Really, that's what you're going with? The rest was just crap about will they or won't they shoot someone, will the hostages or won't they try to take back the ship, will Dudikoff save the plane in time before the F-16s shoot, yadda yadda yadda. If I've said it once, I'll say it 100 times: planes, space ships, submarines, etc. do not make action films by themselves. Action must be pumped into them. Yes, I know I'm watching a mindless action film, but when you leave out the action part of it, I'm just left with mindless.

This is like five or six Dudikoff films that are all about the same. Crash Dive, Black Horizon, Black Thunder, Counter Measures, Ablaze, and now this all follow the same pattern. Disaster or hijacking. Call in Dudikoff. Michael Cavanaugh as a higher up. Larry Poindexter as not. May or may not contain Marcus Aurelius. The thing with these is, there's some better stuff of his sprinkled around them, like Bounty Hunters or Moving Target. It's like they're taunting us with good Dudikoff. Still, these wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so boring. Also, as I noticed in this, there can be some long moments without Dudikoff on-screen, which makes it even worse. Here's the thing, if you want to do Die Hard on a plane, do frickin' Die Hard on a plane, don't act like you're going to do it, then inundate us with the same old crap.



Speaking of Die Hard on a plane, Richard Norton's character is named Carlos Gruber. Not as cool as Hans, and there was no great scene where Dudikoff is on the walkie talkie imploring him to "back off Carlos, you've made your point" while Norton looks on, stoned face, saying "hit 'em again." This definitely could've used more of that in it. I'd even have settled for Clarence Gilyard saying "the quarterback is toast!" Anyway, to get on the plane, Norton dons this disguise that makes him look like he'd be one of my dad's friends. Not in the Huey Lewis sense, where he could be anyone's dad's friend, but specifically one of my dad's. I could see someone that looks like him in 1997, when this film was made, pulling up to my parents' place in his Ford F-150, and ask my dad if he could borrow some tools or equipment to do some job.

A quick shout out here to the late Paul Winfield. He was in many films during his long career, but my personal fave of his was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Remember, he had bugs put in his ear with Checkov. That new Star Trek movie wasn't bad (I think I reviewed it at the end of another post somewhere), but I've yet to see anything that does it for me like part II.



I'm not sure how many of my readers are also into the Golden Age of Hollywood (I hate saying "old movies" because it's so dismissive), but these movies and their usual suspects casts feels like those Warner Bros. pictures from the 30s and 40s, where after I've seen a few, I recognize a lot of the same faces in the supporting roles. Then I see them on TCM, and Robert Osbourne is telling me about this one or that one who did like 50 movies in the 30s as everything from a stable hand to a gang leader, and how this was his big break, and he was even nominated for an Oscar or something. The difference here is, all I get is a feeling, because there's no productions company, no producer, no director, nothing in common that ties all of these movies with their casts that include guys like Michael Cavanaugh and Larry Poindexter, among others, all the time. And it's always these Dudikoff disaster/political intrigue movies too.

I thought this was out of print, but it turns out it's in print, just that Netflix doesn't carry it. Still, with Amazon, the shipping alone will put this outside of what it's worth-- and to be honest, unless you're a Dudikoff completist, anything more than zero isn't worth it. For second opinions, you can check out our friends over at Explosive Action and Comeuppance Reviews.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120224/

Cyborg Cop III aka Terminal Impact (1995)

This came as a part of a one disc two-pack with Cyborg Cop II, also known as Cyborg Soldier. It's funny, because on the cover, neither film is listed by it's namesake, but instead as its aka; not only that, but they have Terminal Impact above Cyborg Soldier both on the cover, and in the DVD menu, where they go back to the Cyborg Cop titles, thus listing Cyborg Cop III above Cyborg Cop II. I guess it doesn't matter that much, considering neither film has anything to do with one another.

Cyborg Cop III-- aka Terminal Impact-- takes place in Iowa-- I guess the one similarity with part II-- where a local university is being funded by a local multi-national corporation to do experiments on students. What are these experiments? Turning dudes into deadly cyborgs, of course. Anyway, the shark expert from Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, playing a TV news reporter here, has been snooping, and she found out about this, and she's less than stoked, stealing some piece of hardware from a computer that makes the cyborgs go. Now the corporation wants it back, so they hire crack marshals/bounty hunters Bryan Genesse and Frank Zagarino to track her down. They put two-and-two together quick, and that's it, time to take down that evil corporation-- The Expendables dock style. (Though I guess that dock scene in The Expendables would've been Terminal Impact style, because it predated it.)



I don't know where to go with this one. The first 35-40 minutes are a total snoozefest, but the final 50-55 are pretty sweet, with Zagarino and Genesse really bringing it, the action fully up to par, and me forgetting those first 35-40. But I didn't forget them that much, at least not enough to not mention it here. Here's my real take on this one, though: it comes on the same disc as Cyborg Cop II-- aka Cyborg Soldier-- and that one is definitely worth it, so all you're sacrificing with part III is time. I think if you're only paying a bad 35-40 minutes to get to a pretty solid final 50-55, then it's not such a bad investment. Oh yeah, no fanny packs.

I want to start with Bryan Genesse, because, surprisingly enough, this is his first film up here that features him as a good guy. That's hard for me to believe, just because my initial look at him was as as good of a guy as you can get on Street Justice. His martial arts are pretty solid, but underused here in favor of more gunplay, which was a little disappointing, considering what he brings to the table. Also, he had a horrible Southern accent. Seriously? You're going to make a guy from Ontario affect a Southern accent? Not a good look.



This is only our third Frank Zagarino flick, which sounds surprising as well, considering his very robust bio on imdb. I think the reason for that is, a lot of his films fall in that third or fourth tier of DTV movies, and we just haven't gotten that far down yet, except for some classics featuring Hall of Famers like Lorenzo Lamas, Wings Hauser, and Miles O'Keefe [O'Keeffe]. At this point, we've been including more and more of those films, though, because, at nearly 600 posts in, we've almost exhausted those top two tiers. Expect Zagarino to get more play then-- especially since I have a few of his in my instant queue. Also, one of my favorites is another where he co-stars with Bryan Genesse, Project Shadowchaser II, which I last saw over ten years ago on TNT.

This is Jenny McShane (actually, when she made Cyborg Cop III, she was Jenny Miller). You may remember her as the shark expert in Shark Attack 3 whom John Barrowman tells "why don't you let me take you home and eat your pussy?" Before Google added the stats feature to our blogs, I was under the impression that it was my action films that had the most views, but it's actually Titanic II-- by a wide margin-- that's first all time, and after that, Shark Attack 3. In fact, 9 times out of 10, it's either a bad sci-fi monster film, or a TapOut punchfighting film that gets more overall views than the Dolph Lundgren or Steven Seagal actioner, even though it's the latter that gets more attention on the site in the form of comments.



This movie, and the one before it I guess, takes place in Iowa, a state I've never had occasion to visit. It wasn't filmed there, of course, it was filmed in South Africa. Unfortunately, the stats function I was just discussing in the above paragraph, doesn't allow me to see who is visiting the site by state, so I don't know if anyone is checking us out from Iowa. I wonder what goes on in Iowa. We all know Des Moines, or rather, of it, and I'm also familiar with their two Div-IA football programs, Iowa and Iowa State. Is there an Iowa tourism bureau? What, do you fly into O'Hare and rent a car, or can you fly into Des Moines? The whole concept is intriguing-- maybe that will be my next vacation.

See what happens when the movie has roughly 40 minutes of dead space? That's right, I go off on a tangent about Iowa. Anyway, the final verdict is as I mentioned above, that Cyborg Cop II is worth renting, and this comes on the same disc, so all you're investing here is your time, and in that sense, it's not a bad deal. Don't get it separately though.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112766/

Cyborg Cop II aka Cyborg Soldier (1994)

I imagine, if you read my review of Cyborg Cop, that you know where I'm about to go with this one, so let's not delay and cut right to the chase.

In Cyborg Cop II, our man in the black fanny pack is back. That's right, David Bradley, not even on vacation now, is rocking a fanny pack while on the job as a DEA agent. After a dude that killed his partner and was sentenced to death is broken out of prison, Bradley is suspicious. So he loads up his fanny pack with snacks and ammunition, and seeks out the truth. What he finds is his boy is now a cyborg, aptly named Spartacus, because he leads his fellow enslaved cyborgs in a revolt. Does Bradley have enough tricks in his fanny pack to defeat them?



The fanny pack thing had to be a joke, right? I mean, before he gets off his motorcycle in his first scene, I made a crack about it, only to see that he was actually wearing it! And it's not just there for show. Uh-uh, no way, he's packing heat underneath there-- whoa, hold your horses ladies (and some fellas), I'm not talking about that, I mean he's hiding a gun... well, you know what I mean... anyway, this thing is in every scene. When he's saving a kid in slow motion, there's the fanny pack. When he's having a conversation with the chief, there's the fanny pack. I imagine even his stunt doubles wore it for continuity. Overall, the action was pretty solid, so, in addition to the hilarity of the fanny pack, this is a lot of fun.

There's something about Bradley throughout this that's kind of dandy-ish, like he's Gene Kelly or something. The way he leaps around, does his roundhouse kicks, the faces he makes when he's waiting for someone to attack. On top of that, you have the fanny pack. Luckily, the film makers countered all of this by making his character kick lots of ass. I mean, in the build-up, we're told these cyborgs are pretty much indestructible, but they're no match for our be-fanny-packed hero.



This how ridiculous the whole fanny pack thing got, other people were rocking them! Here is Bradley's dead partner's widow. Inside her fanny pack is her dead husband's Zippo, which she gives Bradley, and he promptly puts it in his fanny pack, until he needs it at the end of the film. It's like his fanny pack is his utility belt or something. They should've outfitted Bradley with a cape and cowl. "Brad-Man!" "Robin, get me the Shark Repellent Brad-Spray!" "But Brad-Man, you already have it in your fanny pack!"

It looks like even Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is getting in on the act here with Bradley. I can't write a great Scottish accent, but you have to imagine this is hurting his sensibilities. "Noe David, tha' fanny pack doosen't soot ya. If yew were my player, I'd suspend ya er poot in a transfer request." (Speaking of Man U, as I write this, it's one day after Blackpool coughed up a two goal lead to them, extending their undefeated season. I'm hoping beyond hope they don't finish that thing off, because I'm a huge Arsenal fan.)



The thing that gets me most about the fanny packs in this film, is that they're all made of leather. Now, I'm no vegetarian, and I have some leather hiking boots and sneakers, so I'm not about to preach to you. All I'm saying is, a cow or bull's life is worth more than that, isn't it? I get that leather is a by-product of slaughtering the animal for meat, so technically it wasn't killed to make a fanny pack, but just the same, to use the leather to make a fanny pack, is like buying a steak just to let it rot on your shelf-- or to make a meat helmet out of it. What a waste of that animal's life on something so gaudy.

I got this from Netflix in a one disc two-pack that included part III, Terminal Impact. For this one alone it's worth it. Great action, great fanny pack...age, I guess... I should probably end this now before we get anymore phallic.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109518/