Avengers, The
Steed [Ralph Feinnes - Schindler's List] and Mrs Peel [
Uma Thurman
] spring into action against the villainous Sean Connery
who controls the weather and holds the UK to ransom.
Eddie Izzard pops up as one of the villain's henchmen. His role in
Mystery Men
is far more entertaining.
The SPFX are incredible, as is the sight of Ms Thurman in the catsuit. But the script is lacklustre and untimately disappointing.
The only one of the original Avengers to contribute a cameo is Patrick McNee, who provides the voice-over of an invisible filing clerk.
Island City
We open on a small Western farmstead. A young woman is attacked by - red indians? No, mutants - or at least extras in Incredible Hulk make-up. Fear not, here comes the cavalry [in armoured people-carriers]. The troopers inside wear urban camouflage and cheapo versions of the Universal Soldier headset.Yes, this is a pilot episode to a never-made TV series. We get a voice-over which explains the concept - genetic engineering gone wrong, Earth ruled by mutants, the only civilisation an isolated mega-city. Sounds a bit like the pilot episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century , to tell you the truth. Our heroes, the cavalry, are a pack of unknowns headed by Kevin Conroy. The only surprise [and promise of something better] is the revelation that it was written by Jonathan Glassner [ Stargate SG-1 ].
The script gives exposition when a woman shows her sister around the city, and we get some conflict when a mutant joins the squad.
Nightmare on Elm Street
Teenagers hanging out and having sex get stalked and murdered
by a brutal killer.
But this time the killer is a ghost who exists oly in their dreams ...
Heather Langenkamp is the heroine, Nancy. When her best friend is murdered the girl's boyfriend [Johnny Depp - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas] is the suspect. But all the teenagers have been having nightmares about a disfigured murder with a razor-fingered glove.
John Saxon [Way of the Dragon] is Nancy's father, the Chief of Police. Robert Englund [ V ] is Freddy Kreuger ...
Wes Craven delivers an above-average horror film. It secured his reputation [he was previously best known for the terrible Swamp Thing ] and spawned half a dozen sequels. A pity that neither Craven nor Kreuger ever had any finer works - in fact, from here it was downhill for both.
Slaughter of the Innocents
FBI Special Agent Scott Glenn leads the hunt for a serial killer.
Sound familiar? That's right, it was the plot for
Silence of the Lambs
. Of course, in that movie all the work was done by
Jodie Foster
. Here, the one who really solves the case [and out-detectives Glenn at every
stage] is the FBI Agent's ten-year-old son!
All the ingredients are here - Glenn's babelicious partner, the crazy killer [all bushy beard and unkempt hair], the trigger-happy SWAT team who evoke a homage to Clint Eastwood's film The Gauntlet. With a handful of rounds they make a Neo-Nazi's log cabin collapse - but since he had his swastika the wrong way round he probably messed up the construction of the hut as well.
While the plot is boring and predictable, there are a couple of things to watch out for. There is the climax, which is formulaic but actually quite exciting. If you like that kind of thing, that is. There are also brief appearances by a couple of actors who later became big in television shows - Kevin Sorbo [ Hercules, Andromeda and Armin Shimmerman [ Star Trek: DS9, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ].
2010
Nine years after the events of
2001: A Space Odyssey
, a new mission is sent to Jupiter.
This time it is a USSR spaceship - yes, in 1984 when this was made nobody
foresaw the overthrow of the Soviet government.
NASA manages to send 3 men along - Roy Scheider [Jaws], John Lithgow [ 3rd Rock From The Sun ] and Bob Balaban [ Face of Fear ]. The most outstanding of the Russians is Helen Mirren - as ever the USA gets a Brit to play any non-yank character.
Peter Hyams direction mimics the first film, and produces something almost worthy of Stanley Kubrick himself. The producers must have hired him due to his handling of Outland , which has a similar feel ...
While the first film had a sparcity of plot to emphasise the vast emptiness of space, this film has two main plot threads. As the teams investigate strange happenings on Europa, the moon of Jupiter, political events on Earth take a turn for the worse.
Balaban uncovers the reason HAL turned psychotic. As the film develops, the crew realise that they will have to trust HAL with their lives ...
Soylent Green
Charlton Heston stars in this futuristic detective story
adapted from the novel Make Room, Make Room by
Harry Harrison
. Because the film was made a decade before
Blade Runner
, it feaatures a very different kind of disutopia.
The 1980s film is typical cyberpunk, all computers and neon,
while this is bleak and utilitarian - more like
Farenheit 451
. Due to food shortages half the world lives on a processed substance known
as Soylent Green.
Heston plays a detective assigned to investigate a murder. As Heston investigates the case he discovers that the the victim was one of the Directors of the Soylent Corporation. It looks more and more like he was assassinated, perhaps to keep his mouth shut ... The real question is not, who is the killer, but rather What is the secret of Soylent Green?
Edward G. Robinson [originally cast as Dr Zaius in Planet of the Apes ] is Heston's researcher. Chuck Connors is the victim's bodyguard, while Leigh Taylor-Young is the victim's woman ...
Man Who Would Not Die, The
This is an offering from Vancouver. It has a made-for-TV budget, and might possibly have been a pilot for a TV show. There was a similar show that starred Edward Woodward ...Roger Moore stars as a journalist who was once a highly successful crime novelist. The character who made his career, a Moriarty-like villain, was based on a real criminal [Malcolm McDowell - Clockwork Orange ].
Moore's only help comes from a waitress/struggling artist [ Nancy Allen ], who gets psychic flashes of the crimes McDowell commits. Yes, the writers spiced up their story by ripping off The Eyes of Laura Mars.
Moore is excellent. He is far more convincing as a retired writer, or even as the detective with a Northern England accent in the tongue-in-cheek black and white segments, than he ever was as James Bond. His age certainly works for him. McDowell is as OTT and boo-able as ever.
Eagle-eyed Stargate SG-1 fans will spot Teryl Rothery .
Assassin
This is a mid-eighties low-budget effort inspired by the far superior Terminator .A CIA Agent named Robert Gollem starts to wipe out a bunch of Washington bureaucrats. Robert Conrad, a CIA hitman who retired in shady circumstances, is called in to erase his replacement. However, the renegade assassin turns out to be a robot ...
Johnathan Banks plays a villainous CIA agent, which is pretty much the kind of role he always gets.
Nightbreed
Craig Sheffer dreams of Midian, a town of monsters.
Canadian movie director
David Cronenberg
is Sheffer's shrink, a creepy individual who fills his patient with
lithium [actually LSD] and the idea that Sheffer is a serial killer ...
Sheffer goes on the run, pursued by a detective [Hugh Quarshie -
Highlander, Baby, Phantom Menace
] and Cronenberg, the real killer.
This was written and directed by British horror writer Clive Barker . The film starts with a remoteness reminiscent of Exorcist 3 , but Barker loves his monsters. Once we get to Midian he bombards us with pseudo-Cenobites, including one played by, you guessed it, Doug Bradley himself. Surprise surprise.
When this film was first released in 1990 it was seen by many reviewers as the end of the Horror genre itself. What is truly surprising is that the next year the genre was reborn with Silence of the Lambs , which shares a main plot point: a psychiatrist who is also a serial killer. This does illustrate, however, that the make-up and monsters were completely outmoded ...
A Kid In King Arthur's Court
Yes,
Mark Twain
's tale gets the Disney treatment.
Haven't there been enough [crap] versions of it yet?
A young Merkin brat [Thomas Ian Nicholas] is transported through time by Merlin and ends up in the time of King Arthur [Joss Ackland]. He plays some music to them on his portable CD player, and instead of burning him at the stake they call it a miracle.
Guinivere is long dead, and there is no Mordred [or Lancelot or Round Table] in sight. Instead, Arthur has two teenage daughters. The younger, who becomes the Merkin's luurve interest, is Paoma Boeza . If the elder sister looks a bit like Kate Winslet it's because it really is her - the movie was released in 1995.
The villain is played by Art Malik [!!!], Arthur's vizier who wants to marry Ms Winslett and inherit Camelot. He tries this through various underhand means, but eventually has to fight in a tournament. Will he win, fair and square, or can the so-called good guys cheat him out of his winnings?
Instead of trying to actually learn something, the Merkin kid introduces his 1990s cultural affectations. He hates boar-snout and haggis, but cooks up beefburgers. Ugh - processed meat? He has a blacksmith build roller-blades and a mountain bike [albeit with stabilisers]. The most irritating thing, however, is the incessant valley-speak.
Mr Murder
Stephen Baldwin [Usual Suspects]
plays a successful mystery novelist.
He is unknowingly cloned on behalf of bigwigs
James Coburn and Scott Glenn, who use the clone as their personal assassin.
The clone is emotionally unstable. He has the memories of the original, and decides that he wants to take over his original's family. He thinks that the original is a copy ...
While this may seem like a straight-to-video version of 6th Day , it's merely a mediocre thriller. Dean R. Koontz has never had much luck with movie adaptions of his books, and this is no different.