“Unmasking the Idol”

Posted on June 6, 2016 by splintchesthair

Unmasking-the-Idol-copy “Unmasking the Idol” isn’t just an action movie, it’s an action-figure movie. For all its attempts to crib its formula from the James Bond series, playboy-ninja-secret agent Duncan Jax, his friends, and his enemies all feel like they were plucked off the shelves at Toys R Us, complete with hot-air balloon accessories and secret throne room playset. It’s a movie pitched at the level of a Saturday-morning cartoon and proudly wears its stupidity on its sleeve. If kung-fu baboons, piranha pits, and submarine explosions sound like a good time to you, “Unmasking the Idol” is where you need to be.

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“MegaForce”

Posted on June 12, 2015 by splintchesthair

Above the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines is an elite military force charged with defending global freedom against terrorist threats from a secret headquarters. Equipped with the most advanced technology available, these colorful commandos hurl themselves headlong into the breach with a devil-may-care attitude. Any child of the 1980s should be able to guess that I’m talking about G.I. Joe, “America’s daring, highly trained special missions unit.” A much, much smaller segment of my generation, however, might eventually get around to guessing that I was talking about MegaForce – after they guessed G.I. Joe, the Bionic Six, the Centurions, M.A.S.K., Chuck Norris’ Karate Kommadoes and the Defenders of the Earth.

In just about every way, 1982’s MegaForce seems to contain all the same elements as G.I. Joe, but in live action and splashed across the big screen. Why, then, is G.I. Joe still fondly remembered by those of us with arrested development but MegaForce lives on only in a few scattered YouTube links? Why did the formula that worked so well in one instance fail so miserably in another? Why is there no special edition blu-ray of MegaForce from Shout Factory? The answer is that MegaForce manages the incredible feat of making the idea of an elite paramilitary strike force with sci-fi weapons as dull as bowling on TV.

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“Titanic II”

Posted on July 16, 2014 by splintchesthair

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that we’ve somehow clicked on “Titanic II” believing that it’s the official sequel to James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster. It’s possible that someone could have made a sequel to one of the highest-grossing movies ever made without us hearing about it – we’re busy people, after all. It’s also possible that we could have missed the movie’s original theatrical run and any of the marketing blitz that surely would have preceded it completely. Again, we have better things to do than keep tabs on every movie Hollywood has in the hopper. However, I can’t imagine that there’s anyone out there with so much free time that they would choose to watch more than a few minutes of “Titanic II,” aside from myself, of course. Continue reading →

Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em RoboCops

Posted on March 13, 2014 by splintchesthair

The original “RoboCop” is one of my favorite movies of all time – let’s get that out of the way first. Still, when I saw the remake (Or is it a reboot? Reimagining? Regurgitation?) a little while ago, I was excited to see how the story had been changed for an audience living in the actual 21^st century. People were saying positive things about director Jose Padilha, and apparently the project was strong enough to get Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman to join Sam Jackson, who is just as welcome but not picky. Even if it was terrible despite all the talent involved, it’s not like the original would disappear from history because the remake existed. Sometimes it feels like geeks are so used to comic book characters having their histories “retconned” that we’re afraid it can happen in real life, too.

I went into the theater ready to accept a new “RoboCop,” and when it was over that’s pretty much where I left it. The new “RoboCop” exists, and that’s fine. I’m sure the producers didn’t set out with the explicit goal of making the Second-Best Movie Called “RoboCop” Ever, but in truth that’s probably all it was ever going to be. And again, that’s fine. Continue reading →

“Hercules (1983)”

Posted on January 10, 2014 by splintchesthair

There’s a new Hercules movie coming out this weekend, and it looks really bad. What’s worse, it looks like it’s going to be really bad in the same way a lot of bad fantasy/sci-fi movies are these days, where they take themselves so seriously that even the color has been washed out of the film. It’s a moody teenager’s conception of myth, where the heroes are constantly scowling and it’s always raining because being happy is lame and for lame babies. So surely, a movie that takes the opposite approach and goes wall-to-wall goofy with everything should be 100 percent better, right? Not really, and that’s why I’m talking about the 1983 Golan-Globus version of “Hercules” starring the only non-CGI Incredible Hulk.

“Hercules” is what happens when you try to make a movie without any faith in your own concept. Rather than taking a look at what has made Hercules one of the most enduring myths of the western world and the subject of dozens of movies already, the filmmakers looked at the box office receipts of the previous summers and asked, “How can we make this more like those?” Continue reading →

“2012: Zombie Apocalypse”

Posted on October 8, 2013 by splintchesthair

The problem with zombies, according to zombie movies, is that there are far too many of them and it’s far too easy to make more of them. The same could be said for zombie movies themselves, unfortunately. Since the zombie movie became a genre unto itself, most zombie movies have taken on the characteristics of their stars – shambling, predictable, brainless and indistinguishable from each other.

Lurching alongside the rest of the pack is “2012: Zombie Apocalypse,” which couldn’t be more generic if it came in a brown paper wrapper. Even the title suggests that you won’t find anything in it that can’t be found in dozens of other movies. It’s actually surprising to me that this is a SyFy Original movie, because SyFy has shown at least enough creativity to smash two toothy animals together into one CGI beast to chase Debby Gibson or Jimmy Walker. Continue reading →

“Mutant Hunt”

Posted on September 18, 2013 by splintchesthair

If there’s anything I respect and appreciate as much as a good movie, it’s a terrible movie. From time to time, I’ll be posting a review of a terrible movie I found either on Netflix or elsewhere. I think it’s important to highlight that these things exist, and that someone somewhere thought they were good ideas.

If there’s a cardinal rule of filmmaking, it would have to be this: Never be boring. This goes double for B movies, because without the budget to fill the screen with eye-catching explosions or famous stars, you have to do all the work of maintaining the audience’s interest yourself. “Mutant Hunt” offers a variation on this rule: Never propose something significantly more interesting than you’re prepared to show the audience. “Mutant Hunt” fails this rule early on, as the heroes discuss the plight of a captive scientist. Apparently, the bad guy can detain this scientist legally for 72 hours because of some law passed in response to “the space shuttle sex murders.” Continue reading →

Cyborg City 3000

Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law.

Category Archives: Bad Movie Reviews