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thestarkfist
Reviews
Captain America (1944)
Things I learned from this serial...
1. Regular furniture makes a surprisingly good bullet stop!
2. Assistant District Attorneys are very poor and can only afford one dress.
3. People can be brought back from the dead with the right combination of drugs and electricity.
4. There's no need to notify the police after you've shot a thug. Run after his partner instead. No doubt someone will find the body eventually.
5. Whatever city this flick plays out in can only afford one cop and his name is "Clancey".
6. District Attorneys always pack heat and always try to stop a crime all by themselves.
7. Punching a guy in the head three times in rapid succession will not knock them unconscious.
8. Railroad magnates are great at deciphering Mayan tablets.
9. if your speeding automobile is about to plunge over a cliff simply spring from the car and roll on the ground. You don't get so much as a scratch.
10. A vicious whipping from a leather cat-o-nine-tails will force you to "talk" without so much as wrinkling your shirt.
11. People in the 1940's would watch anything.
This cheesy Republic serial is so boring and repetitive that if you binge watch every episode back to back it can put you in a trance. There a a few unintentional laughs but, for the most part, it's just the same old serial nonsense you've seen a dozen times before.
Crash! Che botte... strippo strappo stroppio (1973)
If you thought Santa Conquers The Martians was bad
Personally I think that making a quality film in any genre is a daunting task, but I think it is especially difficult to seamlessly blend humor in to create a mixed-genre affair. I submit, as my Exhibit A, this aborted pile of cinematic junk. it wants to be an action adventure kung-fu flick with a big, gooey side helping of knee-slapping comedy. It fails to deliver either. The dialogue is idiotic and so is what passes for a plot. Acting? Don't ask. They couldn't afford it. What they could afford is a 4th rate Italian Harpo Marx whose slapstick antics deliver not guffaws, but jaw-dropping amazement at how badly he sucks. He makes Droppo look like Jim Carey. There's also a jerk playing the American ambassador who tries so hard to be funny but hams it soooo much that he misses the mark by more than a country mile. The rest of the cast bring nothing of note as well. I rated it one star because you at least get to seed some pretty shots of Thailand before they concentrate on the less than spectacular kung-fu.
The Lost Missile (1958)
Classic? Underrated? Good Sci-fi??
What movie did you guys watch? Quick rule of thumb, if the movie starts out with a deadly serious-voiced narrator and he continues to appear throughout the flick in order to tell the audience what's going on because there's no way in hell that they'd be able to follow it without him....you're not watching a classic, unless what you're talking about is a classic piece of crap! Another clue that a movie is a big waste of time and money is if it requires tons of stock footage just to drag the time out so it can qualify as a feature length presentation. The only padding trick this pile of dreck lacks is a visit to a nightclub where an attractive lady eats up another 5 minutes belting out a peppy show tune. Dreadfully under-budgeted and saddled with lackluster direction, the movie features brief clips of some poorly conceived and executed "special" effects sandwiched between long, drawn-out episodes of "drama" that would have been laughably bad on a daytime soap opera. The acting comes in two flavors: deadpan and overblown. Maybe the reason that all the sci-fi geeks like this flick is because it features an appearance of that beloved science fiction stereotype; the scientist that wants the deaths to continue in the vain hope that they can communicate with the alien menace!! What fun! Near as I can figure the moral of this movie is that all the selfish women out there should stop bitching that their scientist husbands and boyfriends are too busy working 7 days a week building lots of nukes to be by their side for the birth of their child or marry them! C'mon ladies! The ending is unintentionally hilarious as our scientist hero drives a rod of deadly plutonium through the panicked streets of New York City in order to deliver it in time to their new super duper Job rocket, the only rocket able to get close enough to the alien missle to blow it up. One would get the impression that the transportation of dangerous radioactive material through am major metropolitan area is routine. Believe me, it's not. It has never been allowed, ever. Now, mind you, they have already established that helicopters are transporting all the eggheads out of NYC in order to protect their brilliant skulls, but nobody thinks to fly the plutonium to its destination. Ludicrous. So, wouldn't you know that while our hero speeds along the highway with his deadly cargo he runs smack dab into that other beloved stereotype of 50's movies; the gang of hot rod delinquents, complete with greased back hair and switch blade knives. The gang steals the jeep and the box containing the deadly rod. When the hero catches up with the jeep the box is open and the gang has vanished. Exposing himself to lethal doses of radiation our hero drives to his destination and manages to arm the Job just before he gives up the ghost. I was wishing that everybody involved with this bore-fest could have been stuffed into the jeep with him! Avoid this one unless you need a cure for insomnia.
Krampus (2015)
Silent Night Deadly Night
Synopsis: A severely dysfunctional family learns the true meaning of Christmas when the Krampus and his dark horde of malevolent toys and treats turn their holiday into a holocaust of horror.
As it turns out Krampus is a figure out of Germanic folklore that was said to travel with St. Nick to dole out the punishment to the children who had not been good during the year. In the legend he uses a switch on the kids, however. In the movie Krampus lays waste to entire villages by committing mass murder upon those who do not have the Christmas spirit. Seems a little over the top, if you ask me.
And over the top is exactly what this is. The ultimate Christmas story; Dickens's Christmas Carol, can be said to contain an element of horror in the guise of Jacob Marley, Scrooge's deceased partner, who visits him on Christmas Eve bound in the "chains he forged in life" and wailing in bitter agony over the terrible fate that his callousness and greed has delivered him into. Ghostly visitations aren't enough for this flick. When Krampus first appears he cuts the power to the town, plunging it into darkness. He causes a terrible blizzard to engulf it, cutting them off from the outside world and making escape impossible. Most of the townsfolk disappear, leaving behind only the signs of violent struggles. Soon the family is being picked off one by one, only to have their body turn up outside the house encased in a snowman. One child is devoured by a particularly disturbing looking toy in the attic. You might not want to let your 7 year old view this if they are particularly impressionable due to the violence against children.
The movie is competently made. The performances are all good. There is humor and pathos mixed in to cut the tension. I was disappointed with the ending. You might find this enjoyable if not twisted holiday fare if you choose to watch it. Ultimately this movie subverts itself with its opening sequence which features a scene torn from every Black Friday news story of late. Shoppers are shown being trampled, punched in the face and tazered by security guards. Toys and clothing are ripped apart by frantic shoppers struggling to wrest it from the hands of another person. Who needs a Krampus to make Christmas a horror when we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves?
I, the Jury (1953)
Oh Mike! How could you!
My wife and I have been binge watching the old Charlie Chan films from the '30s and '40s. They are charmingly corny and seem to have laid the groundwork for every Scooby Doo story line that they ever did. There's been a murder in the Wax Museum and we're going to have to creep around in there at night searching for clues!! Scaaaarrryyy! As you might imagine a steady diet of this sort of film starts to leave you hungering for something a little more gritty and down-to-earth. At least that was the case with me. So I decided to watch "I, The Jury", just for kicks, baby. Now I have been aware of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer for some time, although I have never read a single novel nor watched a Mike Hammer flick before, so I was a little curious to see what a Mike Hammer movie was like. I did a little research on the film before I downloaded it and read that it was the first attempt to bring the two-fisted Hammer to the silver screen. Great, I thought. Usually Hollywood's first attempts are always closest to the source material. I was somewhat familiar with who the character was supposed to be; a hard-boiled loner who'd been around the track more than a couple of times and seen plenty. I was picturing him as being portrayed by a middle-aged actor with a few lines in his face, maybe a scar on his cheek, y'know, having a face that would speak of tough choices and brutal encounters. The IMDb write up listed the actor who plays Mike in this flick as being one Biff Elliot. Never heard of him and who would take a Batman sound effect as his stage name anyway? When the movie started I couldn't have been more surprised. Biff looks like a baby, all smooth faced and cherubic. He looked like he should have been appearing next to Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in some wacky high school musical! I'll give Biff credit; he tries with all his might to fill the character's shoes but, in the end, he is this movie's biggest flaw. And what a character Mike Hammer is! He's a slightly psychotic rogue with a hair-triggered temper. We're made aware of this fact in the opening scene where a reporter makes a flip remark to Mike as he's leaving the scene of the crime and he smashes him into the china cabinet. Here's the setup: it's Christmas time in the Big Apple and Mike's best friend catches a couple of slugs from a 45 as he's making out his Christmas cards. Mike shows up a short while later, having been summoned by the cops, and has a melt-down over the murder. The victim was a one-armed, former policeman who served with Hammer in WWII. He took the bayonet that was meant for Mike in the arm, which is why he only had one left. Anyway, Mike is furious and announces to the head detective that he's going to find his buddy's killer and put a 45 round in his rotten stinkin guts! Gee, Mike, maybe announcing to the police that you intend to commit murder isn't the best way to start a case! Knee jerk violence isn't Hammer's only character trait. Seems the dames can't resist him. Every babe in this flick, and there a plenty, wants Mike like your dog wants that Slim Jim that's slipped behind the couch pillows. There's Mike's smokin' hot secretary. There's a twisted couple of blonde twins who throw themselves at Mike whenever he shows up to ask them a few questions. And then there's the lady psychiatrist, who seems to have been treating every one of the suspects, as well as Mike's pal, for various complaints that are never elaborated on. She's the most smokin' and sultry of them all. Naturally Mike falls for her in a big way! As the movie rolls along Hammer gets to suck plenty of face but they never seem to take it any farther. This is 1957, after all, and there's not so much as a smidgen of bared flesh to be seen. There's a scene where Hammer is awoken from his bed by urgent knocking at his apartment door. He rises still wearing a shirt and tie! Whatta classy guy! As the story unfolds we are treated to quite a lurid tale indeed. The numbers racket, drug addiction and prostitution all figure prominently in the scheme of things. Mike gets to beat some guys up and takes a couple of beatings himself. (The next day there's nary a scratch on his baby face, natch!) In the end Hammer pumps that slug into the gut of the rotten stinkin' murderer, just like he said he would. The movie ends with Mike calling the police to report his act of murder while you run to the shower to wash this movie off of you! Charlie Chan and Mike Hammer inhabit two separate universes. In Charlie's world most people are basically honest and decent while Charlie himself is a tower of virtue. In Charlie's world criminals are and aberration. In Hammer's world most people are treacherous scoundrels and Hammer is none too clean and pure himself. In Hammer's world good guys, like his murdered buddy, who spent his days trying to help others, get gunned down in cold blood by the scum that they're forced to share the planet with. Both universes are laughable cartoons of reality, but that's where the fun comes from.
Riders to the Stars (1954)
The Scientist As Hero
A curious thing happened to Hollywood way back on October 4, 1957. Those wily Soviets launched the very first orbiting satellite; Sputnik. This touched off a fresh panic in America! The Russians were ahead of us in the conquest of space! The government assured us that the Russians were out to control all of space and then we would all surely die. The Space Race was born and Hollywood had a special role to play in that race. Y'see, up until that time science and math were kind of secondary studies, behind English and history in the American schools. Suddenly Washington needed top science talent and pronto! English was given the back seat and math and science came to to forefront for the first time ever! It wasn't enough just to emphasize the rational studies in the schools or to instill the fear of imminent peril in the minds of the American populace. No. We needed to make America's youth actually want to become scientists. Scientists needed to be cool! Enter Hollywood.
Before the Sputnik scare the studios tended to portray scientists as either cold unemotional nerds or madmen with thick foreign accents bent on some crazy scheme that unleashes an unholy terror upon innocent people. Glamorous they weren't. But now, with Washington imploring them to help brainwash the kids into science careers, Hollywood unleashed a torrent of Grade B flicks that featured rugged, good lookin', two-fisted, square jawed scientists as the dashing hero. Movies like "This Island Earth" and "Riders To the Stars" are just two of the many films that featured this new kind of celluloid hero; The Brainy Stud.
Having established the historical context for this movie I have to admit that "Riders To The Stars" is a pretty lame piece of work. Yes, the modern scientist of the 50's was smart and handsome, but I doubt that when you're working at Carnegie-Mellon you get a lot of chances to meet, much less date, a fashion model. This movie assures us that this is just what's happening to Dr. Lockwood. In fact, he desperately wants to marry her. She, on the other hand, isn't so sure she wants to marry him. Then there's Dr. Stanton, the toughest and studliest scientist of them all! He falls for sexy Dr. Flynn at Space Travel Boot Camp. Basically this movie is a thin attempt to build some suspense around a manned mission to capture a meteor, because they stay crunchy in milk or something. In order to pad the film you get the soap opera schmaltz I described earlier. There are 3 macho brainiacs who are put thru rigorous training for their outer space adventure and the bulk of the film's run time is spent showing the preparations, either live action or endless stock footage of rocket assembly. Finally the big day comes and it is announced by Dr. Daddy Flynn that the meteor shower is just minutes away! The 3 valiant eggheads strap in for God and country and blast off into the unknown!! Will they be successful? Will they all survive?? Will we ever really care??? This movie is way overrated on this site. Goofy enough to be some fun if you're in the mood but there are much better examples of the genre out there.
Boggy Creek (2010)
Pointless and Dull
In 1972 an advertising salesman from Texarkana borrowed $100,000 and made an indie picture entitled "The Legend Of Boggy Creek". His name was Charles B. Pierce. The film was released on the drive-in circuit and earned an astounding $20 million. Bigfoot was just emerging into the public consciousness at that time and we all wanted to know more about the elusive and frightening creature. Charlie's film was a "docudrama", containing re-enactments of alleged encounters between the residents of Boggy Creek and the mysterious monster. Many of the locals actually portrayed themselves in the film.
That was the humble origin of the Sasquatch film. Over the years many others have tried to emulate the success of that picture. Some have retained the documentary format while others have woven fictitious tales of men and women being menaced by the beast. Mr. Pierce himself tried to follow his initial success with a Boggy Creek II, which mixed new re-enactments with a fictitious story about a college professor and a few students trying to find the legendary critter.
Although this movie bears the name of Boggy Creek it does not follow the original's documentary format, preferring instead to offer up a fictional narrative concerning a troubled young lady and some friends attempting to stay a week in her recently departed father's cabin in Boggy Creek, Texas. The filmmakers should have stuck with the re-enactment format, then they would have actually had a story to tell. Instead we get this plodding, deadly dull pile of Squatch poop.
The movie runs 1 hour and 27 minutes. That first hour is pretty much filled with nothing but padding. Jennifer, the troubled young woman, loved her father and hates her mom, who left daddy when she was still a child. The fact that Jennifer's loss has come as a crippling psychological blow to her is established by long, lingering shots of her staring off into the swamp, shots that seem to go on forever. Friends and their boyfriends show up to help Jenny get over it. They are all trite and stereotypical. There is a brooding redneck with a shotgun, who lives next door and warns them that there is something evil in the woods and that they should leave. Guess what? They don't. Instead they decide to follow through with camping in the woods. The two young men are brutally dispatched by a Sasquatch in short order. The women run for their lives, but to no avail. The final scene shows poor, pathetic Jennifer surrounded by Bigfeet, her fate all but sealed.
The original Boggy Creek was an amateurish affair, to be sure. Mr. Pierce had never directed a feature film before, and it showed. (He actually did go on to make a couple of very fine films and is credited with coming up with the line "Do you feel lucky, punk?" for Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry.) Amateurish though it was it still managed to deliver a few chills to that 1972 audience. This movie delivers nothing. There is no plot, no suspense, no insightful or witty characterizations, no drama, and no horror. The highlight of the film is when they all take a boat ride and you get to see footage of the lake. It appears to be a very lovely place. I wish they'd showed us more of it!
So this is the fate of the Boggy Creek franchise, if it can be honestly labeled that. From an inauspicious but promising beginning it has quickly devolved into a cheap vehicle for stock characters and clichéd situations and, of course, lots and lots of padding. Do yourself a favor and seek out the original, if you're determined to see a Boggy Creek movie. The rest of them are just a waste of time.
The Creation of the Humanoids (1962)
Wants to make you think....
.....but only succeeds in making you sleep. I really can't believe all the good reviews for this. Creation of the Humanoids is a pretentious, plodding dud of a flick. It aims to strike the viewer as profound science fiction but, ultimately, it has a 10th grader's idea of what that looks like. Admittedly the production is hampered by a low budget, but that doesn't mean that the movie has to be stripped down to nothing more than an attempt to talk you to death. It could really stand a few human touches. How about a little comedy? Why not show one or two of those 1.4 children they keep on mentioning? And, fer Gawd's sake, how about some suspense? Hell, at least a car chase! The only scene that approaches exciting territory is a brief fist fight that occurs near the beginning of the film. If you choose to watch this turkey you'll want to cherish that scene because it's all slow going after that. This movie reminds me of all those old 60's soap operas that used to air on weekday afternoons. There was always plenty of tense talk between two or more characters but precious little ever happened and, if it did, it was almost always happening off camera and simply alluded to in one of the many endless stretches of dialogue that filled another wasted half hour of television time. In short, this movie is a bore. The ending, which is supposed to provide the only surprise twist to a barely existent plot, is so obvious that you guess it right after the rugged guy and attractive gal first meet. View this only if you enjoy watching other people chatter at each other.
The Wild Man of the Navidad (2008)
A Family Friendly Funfest (Not!)
3 stars for this turgid little poop of a movie because it is competently photographed and edited. Really, I'd like to rate it higher but it's hard for me to recommend a horror film where the people are more terrifying than the creature. The setting for this exercise in revulsion is a little redneck town in Texas. The director quickly makes you aware of the fact that all the crackers in the town are drunken bums and louts and it's all downhill from there because the drunken bums are going to be the focus of the flick. The creature actually gets very little screen time. Instead we're treated to a redneck daddy who takes his young 8 year old hunting. As he's making the kid drag out the carcass of a boar they had just shot he stops and slices a cactus in two with his hunting knife. He then has his son stick his little finger in the slit between the cactus pulp and tells him "That's what pu**y feels like"! What a charmer! There's also the sheriff who's in cahoots with the local moonshiner and the main character who knowingly sends the cracker men and gals to their deaths by allowing them to hunt on his bottom lands, the very place where the horrible creature lurks! But topping all of the disgusting excuses for humanity that populate this cinematic dung heap is our hero's Hispanic ranch hand. When we first meet this boil he is in the owner's bedroom with his pants around his ankles sniffing the wife's panties! The wife is paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak so, naturally, the farm hand molests her when the boss man isn't looking. As you might expect by now the director doesn't choose to simply imply that something disgusting is going on between them. No, he's gonna show us some of the sick action, probably because that's all he's really got. The monster isn't much when you finally see it and the quickness and ease with which the townspeople dispatch it once they set their minds to it simply makes you wonder why they didn't decide to do it decades ago and spare them all the loss of a few good drinking buddies and us this movie. There's zero suspense to be had because all of the townsfolk are so completely unlikeable that you're glad when they get killed. Minus any suspense the only possible use you could have for this movie is as a way to make yourself feel better about your life! You might have problems but at least you're not an ignorant drunken inbred loser like the folks in this flick. If this sounds like your kind of fare then Bon Appetit! Everyone else should just avoid.
Bigfoot (1970)
The Start Of A Cheesy Genre
Don't let all the naysayers sway you. This is a little gem of a bad movie. By the best guess of many this is probably the very first flick to deal with the notion that the American wilderness was home to a large, unknown primate species. Back in the primitive '70's the legend was just starting to get noticed and there was not a lot of information around concerning the supposed nature and habits of the creature. This left writer-director Robert Slatzer plenty of room to let his imagination run wild, and run wild it did. In his vision, Sasquatch is not merely a wild animal afoot in the pacific Northwest, it is a full blown cave man! According to him they have a language, make stone tools, know how to tie knots and bury their dead. Naturally they are also completely beguiled by sexy white women in the best King Kong tradition, which leads them to kidnap several young ladies, one from the ranks of a biker gang. This sets the plot into motion as a group of unlikely allies sets out to locate the ladies and rescue them from the lecherous monsters.
That preceding description might have you thinking that it might not be a half bad flick. Don't get carried away. Slatzer may have a wild imagination but he's also completely clueless on how to tell a story cinematically. Suspense, pacing, believable dialogue, etc. are all well beyond his feeble abilities. There is a hilarious scene where the two beauties are bound to poles and at the mercy of the bigfeet. you might imagine that the ladies would be scared out of their wits at this point, but no. Slatzer has them calmly discuss the morphology of their captors. One girl even surmises that the child- like creature in the group is a Sasquatch-human hybrid! Ridiculous!
John Carradine and John Mitchum are completely wasted in their roles as the avaricious traveling salesmen who hope to capture one of the critters and make a fortune. Location footage is mixed with cheesy sets that are easily distinguished from the real thing. No doubt Slatzer hoped nobody would be able to tell the difference. I had hoped that the climax of the film was going to be an unintentionally hilarious rumble between the bikers and the Bigfeet, but no such luck. That would have probably taken days to film and Slatzer couldn't afford to rent the camera that long. Instead one of the creatures flees into a cave and a biker tosses in a bundle of dynamite. There is a lame excuse for an explosion and we are assured that we have just seen the end of the naughty Bigfoot, but then a cryptic message appears on the screen: "Or Is It??" As it turns out, yes it is. If Slatzer was planning a sequel it does not seem to have materialized and the world was able to get on with the understandable task of ignoring this guy's movies.
Nightbeast (1982)
"B" Movie Where the B stands for BAD
NightBeast holds the distinction of being possibly the worst movie I have ever endured, and yes, I've seen both Manos and most of Ed Wood's movies. Seriously, I've seen High School theatrical productions that were better than this. All of the essentials for even a standard movie are either missing or ineptly executed. Plot: non-existent. Pacing: don't make me laugh. Characterization: What's that? Special effects: bargain basement awful. Apparently director, Don Dohler thought that the best way to make up for his movie's long list of deficiencies was to toss in some gratuitous nudity and sex. Unfortunately his cast is uniformly unattractive and unappealing (not to mention completely untalented). Yes, you'll see several pairs of young lady's breasts during this flick, but they are as unspectacular as the actresses they are attached to. Special mention must go to Tom Griffith, whose clownish, gray afro, sunken chest, budding beer belly and wooden delivery make him the most laughably awful leading man in movie history. And he's supposed to be a no nonsense tough-as-nails sheriff, no less. Yes, there are a few unintentional laughs to be had in this cow-flop of a film, but they are not numerous enough to make sitting through this thing worth your time.
Il gigante di Metropolis (1961)
They Blinded Me With Science
Wow! Here's a movie that really really breaks the goofy meter! This Italian epic chronicles the madcap antics of Yotar, king of fabled Atlantis and power-mad science maven. Thru the misapplied use of the advanced Atlantean technology Yotar is able to control the wills of almost everybody on the continent. At one point in the movie it is claimed that Yotar rules the entire planet! Amazing that he would still have time to make babies what with all the responsibilities that running the world must incur, but apparently that is the case because Yotar has a young son that he is determined to make immortal, no matter what the cost. Yotar future is looking so bright he has to wear shades at the beginning of the flick, but things are about to drastically change, for journeying across the vast wasteland that is Atlantis is steroid-popping Obro and his family, who are on their way to Metropolis, the capital city, to warn Yotar that his egregious scientific folly will bring down horrible destruction on them all!
You can read more about the plot in the other reviews of this bizarre little cowflop of a film. I'll just offer a few observations. First, Atlantean science. These guys are so far advanced that they are able to generate a magnetic death ray that strips the flesh from the bones of men, and yet gunpowder seems to have eluded them. Once inside the walls of Metropolis the palace guards have to wield absurd looking spears and daggers with many twisted looking blades. Not a Colt 45 or hand grenade in sight! Kinda silly, eh wot?
Second, the production design. Some of the other reviewers have praised the sets, etc. in this spunky little number, but here again, silly rules the day. The interiors of the city are little more than long hallways dotted with many pointy arches. There are no windows of any kind except in the room where the king keeps his young son prisoner, so most of the movie features these dark and airless interiors that are so depressing that it's surprising that most of Atlantis hasn't committed suicide long before Obro's arrival! The costumes are even more of a hoot. Obro, of course, is clad in a tight miniskirt with a thick belt, as befits any third rate Hercules clone. The Atlantean nobility wear these bizarre quilted fashions that are bunched and gathered in absurd places. They look both uncomfortable and impractical are sure to raise at least a snicker if you watch this thing. Yotar sports not a crown but a skull cap that bulges out from the back of his head enough to make you think that he might be a human-alien hybrid. I suspect that many of the initial designs for this production were rejected because they just weren't goofy enough.
Thirdly, Gordon Mitchell. Apparently some of the other reviewers are familiar with the man and his cinematic efforts. This was my first experience with one of his movies. His physique speaks of many long and strenuous hours in the gym, as well as many painful shots in the buttocks. His face, on the other hand, tells a different story. He looks a lot like Eric Roberts after an all night bender. He spends a lot of time grimacing in this movie. He manages to look either pained or exhausted most of the time. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not that's enough to constitute "acting" or not. He never manages to achieve even a fraction of Steve Reeve's on- screen charisma.
The fight scenes, and there are many, never rise above embarrassingly lame. I suspect that they were choreographed by William Shatner. In the last third of the movie the filmmakers decided to shroud the pointy hallways of Atlantis in a low-lying mist. Too bad. If they hadn't squandered so much of their budget on dry ice they might have been able to afford a decent model of a continent to blow-up when the destruction of Atlantis occurs.
I can't finish my review without mentioning that, at the end of the film, Obro begins to wax philosophical about the divine spirit that his people worship and obey. According to him Yotar's allegiance to science has blinded him to the truth of the great guy in the sky and that is why the continent must be destroyed. I'm sure if he'd had a little more time he might have launched into a dissertation on Creation Science, but alas, the movie has to save time for endless shots of people drowning and being crushed, etc. etc. Take that, Richard Dawkins!
Le gladiatrici (1963)
Public Domain for Good Reason
This movie is confused and misleading. At the very beginning you are treated to a little ditty about "the God of Thunder, Mighty Thor"! The song was actually Thor's theme song in an early attempt to animate the old Marvel comic book characters. They were shown on TV after school back in the '60's! How it wound up attached to this mess is beyond me, but it does illustrate how misleading the movie is. The Thor in this picture is NOT the God of Thunder. He's just some steroid junkie with blonde hair and the name. At no point during this flick is any attempt made to connect him to the old Norse legends. He's just a strong guy. A strong, mostly incompetent guy.
Now, seeing as the title of the movie has Thor in it, you might expect that the story would be about him, but you'd be wrong! As has been pointed out in some of the other reviews, Thor actually has little screen time. The film is mostly concerned with the trials and tribulations of Tamar, who has been captured by the Amazons and will soon have to fight for her life in the arena. So, right from the outset, this movie misleads you twice. I doubt this was an accident.
What to say about this flick? considering that the Italians invented this film genre you would expect it to be much better than it is. The men are portrayed as buffoons while the women are basically ruthless and brutal. There's really not much of a storyline and so, in order to pad out the film to its 84 minute length, the director treats us to lots of clumsily staged battles- to-the- death between the slave women. There is a lot of killing in this movie. Some of the slave girls choose to disembowel themselves rather than slay one of their comrades. At one point we're shown a shot of a pile of dead slave girls, all of whom were slain in the arena in one afternoon of sport!
As you might surmise, this movie is actually kind of dark for a 60's sword and sandal flick, which makes the scenes with Thor and his African companion all the more incongruous. Many of their scenes are played for laughs in a broad slapstick manner. One minute a slave girl is running herself through with a sword, and the next Thor and Ramalamatutu, or whatever his name is, are doing schtick! I was wondering if they were going to break into "Who's On First" sometimes.
The movie delivers all of the girl fights you could possibly desire, but if you're looking for the ultra-buff hero to pull down a temple or toss giant statues around like they were made of cardboard, you're going to be very disappointed. The only feat of strength that Thor pulls off in the whole film is beating 101 Amazons in a game of tug-of-war. Somehow this is all that is required to bring the Amazon Empire crashing down. Oh brother!
I downloaded this movie off of one of the free public domain movie websites. As I state in the title of this review, there's a reason why nobody has held on to the rights to this flick. By today's standards it has the potential to be seen as extremely offensive. Thor's black chum spends most of his time addressing him as "master". I'm surprised he doesn't play the banjo too. The worst offense, however, is contained in the working premise of the story. you see, The Amazons are bad because they want to subjugate men. Tamar and the good women in the film all realize that women are supposed to be subservient to men. As Tamar herself explains, that's how Nature wants it to be. Given how goofy the men act in this little cowpile of a film it's kind of surprising that she didn't go over to the Amazon queen's way of thinking.
Anno zero - Guerra nello spazio (1977)
War?? What War??
First off, what war? Filming a war costs big bucks, (much like the real thing!). This mess barely had enough money to cover the paper mache for the sets. They shouldn't promise a war in the title if they couldn't deliver it. Rather the film should have been titled "Minor Disagreement Of The Planets" or "Trivial Skirmish Of The Planets". A war just ain't happening with this pile of film doo.
And doo doo it truly is. It struck me as I was watching this thing that bad science fiction films seem to have an extra layer of crap slathered over them that one just doesn't experience in your run-of- the-mill bad biker flick. Maybe it's because the folks behind it are often bound and determined to make their entertainment "profound". This piece of tripe can certainly plead Mea Culpa to that, although it misses its mark by a thousand light years at least.
To get to the heart of the matter, this movie displays incompetence in every frame. The writing, acting, directing, editing, scoring, etc. areall absolutely abysmal. To be sure it wears its influences on its sleeve like a badge of honor. As others have noted, the "2001", "Space 1999" and "Star Trek" references abound, but are all introduced to little affect. The editing jumps from one scene to another with little narrative sense, making the story almost impossible to follow. So many elements are introduced only to be just left hanging by the script that it is difficult to distinguish a plot point from yet another pointless scene. With confusion served up in super sized proportions a coherent sound track might have at least helped us to know exactly how the director intended us to respond to what we're being shown. Unfortunately the score is as inept as the rest of the movie. It jumps from classical elements (a nod to Kuberick, I think) to synthesized bleeps and squawks with no apparent relation to what is being shown on the screen. At one point we are treated to an exterior shot of the space ship and a pop song about being in space starts up only to be mercifully cut short after only a few seconds by the editor.
Thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000 the title of worst movie has been taken from "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and bestowed upon "Manos, the Hands of Fate". But at least Manos actually manages to tell a comprehensible story, albeit not very well. This hairball of a movie can't even manage that. They must have changed the script every day on this thing. That is the only explanation I can come up with for it being so confused, garbled and nonsensical. See it if you must but don't expect anything like real entertainment.
Daikyojû Gappa (1967)
This Was A Satire???
Seriously, if the studio actually intended this to be satirical then shouldn't it have been...you know.....funny? The gigantic indestructible monster flick is not a genre that lends itself to subtle humor. It demands broad ridicule because its premise is inane. Think Ghostbusters when the giant StaPuff Marshmallow Man came wading thru the city. That's how silly your monster needs to be. Not to say that the Gappa aren't silly in their own right. They're just not silly enough. In a really good Gigundo monster spoof you'd have Tokyo menaced by something like an enormous broccoli monster from outer space that had legs and tentacles and shot green laser beams out of its ass. The government would try every weapon in its vast arsenal to stop the horrifying veggie brute but only succeed in slaughtering thousands of their own citizens instead. There would be a super-annoying brat in tight little shorts who loves the monster and gets crushed under a ton of rubble just as he's about to reveal to the adults what the monster's weakness really is. Of course all of the miniature sets should be made out of cardboard and toys purchased from a nearby Walmart. They can't look cheesy enough! Now THAT movie would be fun to watch. This movie is just the same refried monster drivel you've seen dozens of times before.
Non-Stop (2014)
Fast Paced But Laughably Ludicrous
My summary pretty much says it all. "Non-stop" moves at a rapid clip once the story begins to really unfold, no doubt because, if the director lingers too long on any of the plot points, you're likely to realize just how ridiculous it all is. The movie is well made and Liam Neeson is as watchable as ever so your best bet is to not think about it much and just let the stupid wash over you. Thankfully it all gets over with quickly and the climax doesn't overstay its welcome like with so many other thrillers in the past 10 years.
In short the plot revolves around a ludicrously complicated scheme designed to allow the bad guys to either make off with a paltry $150 million dollars (hey, guys, got any idea how much the Walton family is worth?) and/or teach America that, even after 9-11, it's still not safe and secure. If they really want to steal a lot of money they should just do it the easy way and run for Congress and if they really want America to learn that it's still not safe from terrorist attacks they should continue to vote for a Republican president! It's so much simpler than all the nonsense the caper in this flick involves.
Side note to the hater reviews: If the kindly Liberals in Hollywood want to remind us that not all Muslims are fanatical terrorist murders then I think they should be applauded for doing so, not chided. After all, not all Christians are pedophiles now are they?
Wild Women (1951)
What The Heck Is A "Bowanga"??
Let's start off by admitting that the reason this picture was made was to titillate the audience with fantasies of white American males dominated by women. It wants to take the boy rape scene from Ed Wood's The Violent Years and stretch it out to a feature length film. That is its primary goal. This is not entirely a bad thing but it seems they forgot a few of the subtle details associated with making a movie, like having a writer, a story and a script. The director, Norman Dawn, introduces his ideas early on in the movie and then just lets them lay there without developing a single one. For instance, there is a scene in which the American game hunters spot one of the Ulama women walking hand-in-hand with a guy in a gorilla suit. Hmmmm. What's this about, you're likely to ask yourself. Don't bother because Mr. Dawn isn't about to elaborate on the relationship between the girl and the ape. He just knows that the film has to exceed an hour in length in order to qualify as a feature motion picture and so he just throws whatever footage is available onto the screen, almost at random in some cases. Stock scenes from some godforsaken film archive comprise the bulk of the movie. Most of them have an African setting, although Mr. Dawn is not opposed to throwing in shots of animals not indigenous to the continent. There is one brief and hilarious clip where a moose is shown.
The scenes featuring the actors all have an improvisational feel to them. The dialogue is all slapdash and does little to move the film forward. At one point the little Italian guy gets carried off by one of the wild women and you think that maybe Norman is about to take the bold step of actually having something happen in his movie, but nothing doing. That bit fizzles out like the rest of the flick.
Summing up, the movie does not even come close to achieving its goal. You will not be titillated by the proceedings in the slightest. most likely you will just be bored. This movie is for lovers of incompetent film-making only!
World War Z (2013)
World War Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Right out of the gate I'm going to admit that I really am sick of the new zombie genre. Maybe it's my age but I much prefer the old school zombie, you know, the poor unfortunate soul who is denied his eternal rest by some nefarious voodoo priest, a priest who raises him from the dead in order to execute some horribly fiendish plan. That's the zombies that I like. These new George Romero "flesh-eaters-without-a-cause" zombies bore me to tears. The whole premise is so silly. Something stupid reanimates corpses who crave human flesh because........... There's never a good reason for it. Never.
In World War Z we are told that the zombies are the result of some kind of bacterial infection. Once you're bitten you die in 10 seconds and are then completely reanimated as a corpse with only one thing on your mind; to infect the living! Huh??? They're completely stone cold dead! How can they have purpose and intention when they no longer have a mind?? A scientist explains at one point during the flick that they can't use counter-infections against the zombie hordes because there is no pulse. And yet the zombies in this movie can run a mile in less than a minute! They can leap 20 feet in the air! If they have no metabolism at all where on earth does all that energy come from?? How can they possibly still have vision when there is no brain activity whatsoever?? These are hands-down the stupidest of the Romero-inspired zombies I have ever had to sit thru. They're Super Zombies and, if you're like me you'll be praying for Brad Pitt to just get to the Kryptonite already 20 minutes into this snoozefest of a flick!
Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide (1961)
Before There Was Gay Porn There Were Hercules Flicks
Ostensibly these films provided an opportunity to fill the screen with fantastic spectacle, but still, you can't ignore the fact that most of the time you're going to be watching an incredibly buff and virile actor running around clad in next to nothing. I can't help but wonder who the intended audience was here. Anyway, Hercules and the Captive Women is a genre exercise and so, if we are to properly evaluate it, we should run it against the Hercules Movie Checklist to see just how well it delivers the mandatory elements! 1. Is the title character portrayed by an actor with an almost ridiculously huge and bloated physique? Check! 2. Does he lift large, seemingly heavy objects and chuck them around? Check! 3. Does he fight a wild animal? Check! 4. Does he fight absurd monsters or creatures from outer space? Check! 5. Does he cause a natural catastrophe (buildings toppling, mountains exploding, world economies collapsing)? Check! 6. Does he bend iron objects out of shape and then bend them back again? Check! 7. Is there an evil queen? Check! 8. Does she have the hots for Herc? Check! 9. Does she try to drug Herc with poisoned wine? Check! 10. Does she seem to really enjoy killing other people? Check! 11. Do the men wear miniskirts while the women wear diaphanous gowns? Check! 12. Are there chariots, spears, bows and arrows and soldiers wearing helmets and carrying shields? Check! 13. Are there enormous temple sets? Check! 14. Are there caves? Check! 15. Are there secret passages and trap doors? Check! 16. Is there at least one Pagan Splendor Dance Number? Check! So, to be fair, this movie does seem to touch all the Hercules bases! It loses points, however, for the inclusion of several unwanted and unwarranted elements. The first is a hopelessly convoluted and confusing plot that is so riddled with holes that it resembles a corpse at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The second is the pointless inclusion of Hylas, the son of Hercules. He seems to be in the movie to provide some kind of love interest for the Princess who is condemned to die to save the life of her mother, the evil queen. But shouldn't the Herc be her love interest? It seems to me that a love triangle between Hercules, the queen and the princess offers more plot possibilities than wedging a son into things. There is really nothing he does in the flick that couldn't have been accomplished by Daddy with a lot less plot machinations. Hylas really drags the movie down. The third is the inclusion of Timotheus, the dwarf and companion to Hylas. My guess is that he is there to provide comic relief, although the movie is already so full of unintentional laughs that Timotheus really comes off as completely unnecessary. In fact, he is just plain annoying. There are some folks in Hollywood who think that dwarfs are completely adorable and endlessly entertaining. Those folks are wrong!
Live and Let Die (1973)
Live and Let Down
With the release of Diamonds Are Forever the Saltzman-Broccoli corporation indicated that they intended to take the Bond series into a more campy and comical direction. It was Connery's last time playing the superspy and he showed that, even if from this film forward all the actor playing Bond was going to have to do is walk thru the part, you could still walk the walk with style and charisma. The studio had a daunting task on their hands attempting to find an actor who could step into the role the first time Sean left so, this time, they decided to not even try. Enter Roger Moore.
Now Roger's probably a very lovely man and a credit to his profession but he has all the macho charisma of a junior accountant. Never in his many dreary appearances as Bond did I ever honestly believe he could kick anyone's ass. In this, his first stab at the role, he tries to force some information out of a double agent by pointing his gun at her head and telling her that he'll shoot her if she doesn't talk. Roger, you couldn't crush a cockroach and you sure don't convince me that you have it in you to shoot anyone. (And he doesn't either. The girl just runs away from him.) There are a lot of problems with this film. For instance it continues the unfortunate trend of the use of offensive stereotypes (the submissive sex doll Japanese girls in You Only Live Twice, the mincing gay assassins in Diamonds Are Forever) for cheap laughs. The death of Kananga is ludicrous and a very disappointing climax to the story. But by far the biggest problem with this movie is the introduction of Mr. Moore as the title character. You can see him struggling to get some kind of handle on the role in nearly every scene that he can't just simply be "The Saint" in. Near the end of his stretch as Bond (a stretch that even he admits went on for far too long) his Bond is dressed as a circus clown, big red nose, floppy shoes and all. He finally finds his handle on the role. If you enjoy Bond played for laughs then Roger's your guy. Everyone else should probably just skip ahead to Timothy Dalton's flicks.
The Alligator People (1959)
Not So Very Good At All
Suppose I started telling you a story about a newlywed couple who were riding on a train to their honeymoon destination, very happy and very much in love, when, inexplicably and without any explanation, the husband got off at a mail stop and abandons his wife. Wouldn't you be intrigued? Suppose I told you that the wife wasn't a Kardashian? You'd probably really be intrigued wouldn't you? Well that's the setup for this tawdry tale from 20th Century Fox. I wish I could tell you that they screen writer was able to actually make something extraordinary out of this unusual premise but, alas, all he could come up with was a schlocky bit of Universal-style monster hokum involving alligator secretions. In order to tell this sorry tale the writer and director attempt to frame the story in a unique way. The wife, played by Beverly Garland, is a nurse working for a psychiatrist. He's studying hypnotic regression and has discovered, while experimenting on her, that she has completely shut out the awful events of her marriage and abandonment from her conscious mind. So the story begins to unfold as a narrative being told by Bev while under hypnosis. It's very clever and it really could have saved the movie but the filmmakers choose to abandon it shortly after setting it up by showing us scenes that it would have been impossible for Beverly's character to know about. This is the biggest problem with the movie. It has some very good ideas that it just squanders with lazy writing and lackluster directing. Ultimately, in order for the premise to work and for the audience to be able to forgive the husband and his family for their unforgivable treatment of his wife, you're going to have to offer an astonishing explanation for the whole affair. In this case "I didn't want you to see me turn into an alligator" really doesn't cut it. The ending to the film completes this cinematic tribute to failed ideas. Having set up the conflict between Richard Crane and Lon Chaney Jr. in the 2nd act we are right to expect a climactic battle between the drunken rapist and the gatorman. What we get instead is Chaney electrocuting himself. Gatorguy runs off thru the swamp with Bev in hot pursuit. He wrestles a fake alligator before stepping into Hollywood quicksand and sinking out of sight. Could have been and should have been much better.
The Leech Woman (1960)
You Are The One In My Dreams Of Crap!
The Leech Woman is a depressing and turgid low budget melodrama. It reminds me of a lot of English movies in the fact that none of the characters have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Mala lures Doctor Paul and June with a sample of the precious "naipe" and fully intends to kill them after granting June one last night of beauty. Dr. Paul is a smug, callous creep who cons his aging, alcoholic and mentally unstable wife into not divorcing him so he can use her as his guinea pig. June has absolutely no moral qualms about killing men to get their even more precious pineal juice; the secret ingredient that keeps her young and desirable. Neil, their lawyer, is engaged to Sally, Dr. Paul's nurse, but he's instantly ready to dump her after getting a load of the rejuvenated June. Sally thinks that it's entirely appropriate to pull a gun on June and threaten her with her life in order to hold on to a man who apparently feels no real commitment to their looming marriage. And of course the hired African guide is all set to settle in with the restored June until she reverts to an aged nutball, upon which he flees and abandons her in the jungle. Sounds like a bunch you'd want to waste 90 minutes of your life with, eh? About the "special effects". Nifty? Not! There are puffs of dry ice smoke and Ms. Gray's old age make-up is a nylon stocking pulled over her head that creates wrinkles where it is bunched up around her neck! Estelle Hemsley as the ancient Mala looks like she's had oatmeal sprayed all over her face. Only the MST3K version is really worth a look.
Sharknado (2013)
The Perfect Storm
When waterspouts meet sharks they form the Perfect Storm of TERROR!! Just kidding! If you're looking for terror you'll have to look someplace else. This movie is as stupid as its title implies! I don't think Syfy is even trying to make good movies anymore. This flick looks and feels like some very silly people devoted an entire weekend to producing it. It fails on almost every level possible. It's impossible to say whether the producers intended this thing to be funny or not but I guarantee that you'll find yourself laughing at what you see on the screen. The "Oh Come ON!" moments abound in this crapsterpiece! In fact, if you can lay your hands on a DVD of this thing, the last half hour is not to be missed. You literally will not believe that anyone would ever commit something this idiotic to celluloid. So, if you're looking for spine-tingling chills, then avoid this movie at all costs. If, however, MST3K-worthy crap is your cup of tea then getcha a big bowl of popcorn, settle back and enjoy!
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Flemings Dead So Who Needs Plots
It was probably inevitable that this movie would turn out to be such a dog. By the time they got around to producing this one the Bond film franchise had turned into a cultural phenomena that absolutely nobody could have seen coming. The merchandising alone must have made several large fortunes all by itself. Each successive film adaptation of Fleming's original stories had been a bigger success than its predecessor, and with each success a formula came more and more together. After Thunderball the producers wanted to film the next story in the Blofeld Trilogy; On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which Bond actually falls in love and attempts to marry. Supposedly Connery was very keen to film this one as it would give him a chance to expand the character and make him a little more human. Unfortunately mounting the production ran into unexpected difficulties and it was the decision of the producers; Broccolli and Saltzman, that they should just proceed with filming the third story; You Only Live Twice.
On the face of it this decision presents its own production problem, since Fleming's original story was the finale of the trilogy where Bond finally avenges the murder of his bride by killing Blofeld. But, by this time, a very important thing had happened to the Bond franchise. Its creator, Ian Fleming, had died. Apparently when Fleming died any intention of the producers to stay true to his stories went with him. The solution to the continuity problem was to simply drop Fleming's original story altogether and film their own Bond story in its place. Certainly Ian could not object.
And thus did the perfect storm of crap start to congeal. Big mistake number 1 was the hiring of Ronald Dahl to write the original screenplay. Although it was their intention to ignore the actual story they did intend to keep some of its elements intact. Ronald was told to set the story in Japan and there had to be a garden of death and a trap door, etc. What he came up with is so trite and silly that it wouldn't have made the cut as a story for The Man From Uncle. Ronald has no idea what espionage looks like or how wars might be fought in secret and so, when Mr. Osato tells Ms. Brandt to "Kill him" just as soon as Bond leaves his office he is met by a carload of gun-toting thugs in the parking lot of Osato's office building! Apparently they think they can just pop Bond off on Osato's doorstep and no-one will ask any questions, certainly not the police. Superagent Aki shows up out of nowhere to rescue Bond and they speed off in her sports car with the thugs in hot pursuit, machine guns blasting tons of lead into the streets of Tokyo. Now, if you're right in the middle of a secret plot to initiate World War 3 and using Osato Chemicals as a front for your dastardly plot, it seems to me that a carload trigger happy goons flying out of your parking lot might not be in your best interests. Such thoughts do not occur to Mr. Dahl. Ever. The story is full of such nonsensical falderol. If Dahl sucks as a writer of spy fiction he's certainly not a comedy writer either. Most of the humor in the movie falls to the floor with a leaden thud. The outstanding example of this is Henderson's offering Bond a martini that's stirred and not shaken. Most of the people who mention this in their reviews fail to understand that this is supposed to be a joke. This is Ronald trying to be witty. Were all supposed to laugh at how stupid Henderson is as Bond graciously accepts the offering with a slight frown.
There really is no plot to speak of, merely story devices to get Bond from one overblown set piece to the next. Characterization is nonexistent. All of the participants in Mr. Dahl's pulp fiction have the depth of cardboard cutouts and it is this fact that completely ruins any chance this movie had at being a decent Bond offering. The best of Fleming's stories always have a tragic human element to them; the horrible consequences that Dr.No's murder of her father has on Honey Ryder, the awful deaths of the Masterson sisters at the hands of Goldfinger, the corruption of Domino and the brutal murder of her brother in Thunderball. By including these details in his stories Fleming is able to pull his fiction out of the realm of superhero fantasy and add the human dimension that is an absolute necessity if you're going to build any suspense.
The awful script is culprit number one but our perfect storm would not be complete without the producer's smug assurance that it was the big budget effects and sets that made the movies huge successes. This movie is so very like so many of the modern CGI effects blockbusters where the cardboard heroes merely travel from one eye-popping effect to the next with little time or thought being given to either plot or character development. 2012 leaps readily to mind. This movie delivers spectacle but little else. More than one person has commented that it's really Ken Adam's volcano rocket pad that is the true star of the movie. They couldn't be more right.
You Only Live Twice is actually the first of many reboots for this classic film series. From here on out most of Fleming's novels would be replaced by clichéd pseudo-spy drivel, big action sequences and ever more amazing stunts. Fortunately for the producers they would eventually find the perfect ham sandwich for their crap confections in the person of Roger Moore, an actor who had perfected merely walking thru a role to an art form.
Broken Arrow (1996)
This movie breaks the implausometer!
Warning Will Robinson. Spoilers dead ahead!
Things you can learn from this film: 1) Nuclear bombs come with timing devices. 2) 6 minutes is all the time you'll need to escape a nuclear blast if you have a convenient underground river handy. 3) If you have a getaway helicopter on flatbed railway car and someone blows it up the train will be perfectly fine. It won't derail or anything. In fact you can have Christian Slater hiding directly under the thing and he'll be okay too! 4) If you steal a nuclear warhead the US government will mobilize one stupid helicopter to try and stop you. Not a battalion, not a platoon, just one helicopter and a guy with an assault rifle.
Action flicks must walk a fine line between spectacle and plausibility. If the script and the director pile up too many "oh-come-on" moments in a film they risk losing the audience. This flick has a pile of "oh-come-ons" the size of K2. On the other hand, even if the production staff has gone overboard on the nonsense a movie can still be salvaged by some engaging performances on the part of its stars. Broken Arrow fails in this department too. Christian Slater plays Christian Slater and John Travolta hams it up to the point of becoming "you want to punch him in his face" annoying. He chews the scenery so badly that he gives Jack Nicholson's Joker in Tim Burton's Batman a run for his money.
The film has the gloss and sheen that you would expect from well-budgeted Hollywood product but there is honestly nothing that goes on in it's 108 minute duration that is worth your time and effort. For Godsake, whatever you do, do not spend money on this piece of tripe. You'll just end up feeling foolish in the end.