NINJA 3: DOMINATION

I saw NINJA 3: DOMINATION back in the day when I was a little kid and thought it was the most badass thing I had ever seen.  How could you not be amazed by a ninja that comes out of nowhere onto a golf course kung-fuing four body guards, casually murdering some guy and his girlfriend, throwing ninja stars into the faces of a hundred cops and jumping on a helicopter killing everyone on board allowing it to crash into the water.  Then after all that the little bugger kills a hundred more cops with his ninja sword while getting shot over and over again by the police before throwing smoke and burying himself into hiding.  For a kid in the eighties NINJA 3 was the hella-coolest.  Nowadays I resent the film for reminding of what a stupid kid I was in the eighties.


 Honestly though I do like this movie.  It is good silly fun from the good ol' boys at Cannon Films.  How can you hate a movie whose title can't even count?  Its like hating on some kid in a wheelchair just because he is in a wheelchair.  There is no NINJA 1 and there sure as heck ain't no NINJA 2.  I have to ask where did the '3' in NINJA 3 come from?  Sesame Street?  The big problem with NINJA 3 is that almost all the good stuff happens at the beginning of the film.  The movie decides to put on the brakes and try to form some kind of story to justify all the badass shenanigans that just happened.......It didn't do a very good job.  In fact the story went in the most wrongest direction possible.  The ninja is a bad guy that ends up dying and possessing a nearby female utility worker named Christie.  That is pretty random if you ask me.  Then the movie becomes a revenge movie of sorts where the ghost of the ninja takes control of Christie and goes around killing the last five extras playing the cops who just happened to not die from awesome ninja skills of the ninja.  Of course one of the cops falls in love with the girl and they hook up but really its all rather boring.  We want our nearly indestructible ninja back.  This guy could teach Steven Segal what "HARD TO KILL" means.

There is a weird collection of bizarre heavy special effects scenes suggesting that NINJA 3 was more inspired by movies like POLTERGEIST and THE EXORCIST rather than classic ninja or samurai films from Japan.  There is an actual exorcism that takes place that tries to out do the head spinning in THE EXORCIST with body flipping crazy Christie in a straight jacket.  Then there are the moments when Christie's apartment goes bonkers and there is all this smoke and lasers and moving appliances and floating swords and crap as the ghost of the ninja takes hold of Christie.  I guess it is suppose to be scary like POLTERGEIST but NINJA 3 can barely muster the hair raising suspense usually associated with watching The Jackson 5's TORTURE music video.

There is no doubt you will have a great time watching NINJA 3.  Don't worry though. That won't last long once you realize that all the non-ninja characters in this movie are about as exciting as burnt toast.  If I was giving advice to NINJA 3 on how to make the movie better I would say that I would like to see more ninja in my ninja movie.  Watching some woman walk around and fall in love with some dildo of a cop doesn't make the most exciting ninja film ever.  I guess if anything you could spend the run time laughing at how "Eighties" NINJA 3 is but don't be surprised if a small hint of guilt creeps up squirreling in your belly making you feel like you just got finished laughing at a kid in a wheelchair.  I did.


Jason

CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX

CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX has no nudity.  I know that is the first thing you would be wondering so I just thought I would get that little fact out of the way.  This is a video game movie that apparently is a remake of the ONECHANBARA movie.  It is not a sequel.  I guess someone saw ONECHANBARA and decided that they could make the same movie only with less story and more shots of fake cartoon blood splattering the camera lens.

Aya (Yu Tejima) is a bikini wearing, double-samurai sword wielding cowgirl that roams the zombie filled wastelands with her step-sister Saki killing the undead because they haven't got anything better to do.  This woman shows up and says her name is Misery and she can help find the evil woman, Homiko (I think that was her name) who is responsible for all the zombie nonsense going on.  Turns out Misery is actually Homiko and she needed help (supposedly) kidnapping some little girl who has special blood.  Saki betrays Aya and helps Homiko with the promise that Homiko can bring back her dead parents.

You would think that a movie about a bikini wearing, double samurai sword wielding cowgirl would be an extremely entertaining movie with extremely striking visuals.  Sadly  CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX is nothing but an eye sore.  Every aspect of this film seems like a step down from the original with the exception of Yu Tejima playing the new Aya.  Visually CHANBARA is uglier than the first.  Every set is the same as the last.  The barely there story wades through from scene to scene with little change in the scenery.  It looks like the whole movie was filmed in the same abandoned school/warehouse/apartement building.  It is all bland, bleak, boring and uninspired.  The visual effects are just a bunch of bright computer blurs and distortions that add little energy to a movie that is about two people walking from point A to point B.

At times the fight scenes begin to muster some enthusiasm for the film.  Aya kicking zombie butt is a blast at first but they keep throwing blood at the screen over and over again to the point that you never ever want to see another movie that does that particular gag ever again.  The end fight between Aya and Homiko is repetitious  at best and doesn't seem to want to ever end.  The fight scenes never quite hit the hyper kinetic energy you get from a really good Japanese action film.  A few good examples of one that succeed in that are VERSUS, DEATH TRANCE and the HARD REVENGE MILLY movies.

CHANBARA BEAUTY WHATEVER is at best a forgettable film.  How ironic.  I don't believe the choices made on every level of production were correct.  It would be nice if they had a solid interesting story that had some heart to it.  At least the original made you care for the characters which is a strange thing to say about a movie with an obviously silly premise.  There is this really hot gun toting woman who you would think would help Aya like she did in the first one but instead the choice was made to make this annoying guy who does nothing but annoy and not get killed (when clearly he did get eaten by a bunch of zombies but he shows up and acts like it is no big deal) be Aya's tag along.  He is the film's Jar-Jar.

I think the guys who made this movie didn't care about anything except the attractiveness of the lead character.  Everything else production-wise was added in as an after thought.  If you have a fetish for Japanese women in bikinis and cowboy hats fighting zombies with their double samurai swords then this is the movie for you.  But I will assure you that after watching CHANBARA BEAUTY: THE MOVIE-VORTEX you will have that fetish no longer.  Though not the worst or the most tasteless this movie should have been at least memorable.  Maybe the next remake will be better.  Hope for a remake, folks because a sequel to this movie would be a flashy, fake blood on the screen with a giant glowing "X" across the screen soul sucking blandfest.

Jason

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION is NERD-A-ROONY!

I know G.I. JOE: RETALIATION might be one of those movies I had low expectations for and when it exceeded those expectations I found myself giving it a possibly unearned good review.  Perhaps after a second viewing I will see the film's flaws and decide that the whole movie is sucktastic.  I don't think so though.  I think RETALIATION did some things right.  Things I didn't quite expect in this day and age where everything in movies has to be bigger and more explody than the last big movie.  There really isn't much for me to complain about.  I had a fun time watching the latest in the G.I. JOE franchise.  There is a good mix of live action realism with impossible over the top visuals expected from a cartoon.  It is better than what you would expect.  At least that is how it was for me.

PLOT:  G.I. JOE goes BOOM!  COBRA tries to take over the world.  DONE!

RETALIATION has the luxury of not being hampered of going through the predictable motions of being an origin story.  We can move on and get into the movieverse where G.I. JOE is battling COBRA, a terrorist organization determined to rule the world if you didn't know.  I think the only bad thing about part 2 is that they give us a story that probably should have taken place in either the inevitable part 3 THE REVENGE OF COBRA or part 4 THE RETIREMENT OF COBRA.  It is too early to start our story by killing off all but four Joes.  Too soon I say.  Killing Duke off was a major mistake too but I will get to that later.  We never really get to know any of these characters and not too many of them return from part 1.  Where did they all go?  To the mall to buy shoes?  I guess the only good thing about their absence  is we don't have real life Jar-Jar Binks himself Marlon Wayans returning playing the ancestor of the thief character he played in the poopular DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS.  Maybe it would be worth it if he showed up and got all blowed up. Nah!

Part 2 visually is a lot smaller in scope compared to most of the recent blockbusters in the last ten years.  RETALIATION keeps the visuals in control to aide the story and not just blow a bunch of crap up because producers think that audiences are still impressed by explosions that destroy half the world.  There is a scene where they blow up a whole city but the film isn't constantly trying to out do other films in the giant spectacle of stuff being destroyed category.  What this means is that there is more focus on smaller details.  Smaller moments have greater impact.  Even though the whole movie moves through it's story faster than an actual episode of the classic cartoon series it does take time to focus on the smaller badass moments.  There is a great moment of Cobra Commander simply walking looking like a total imposing badass.  He is someone to fear and he almost gets the world to bend to his will and you are impressed by it.  You are given a chance to see great costume and vehicle designs as well.  Characters have more of a solid presence.  They aren't as forgettable as they are in the first one.  I didn't even realize that Channing Tatum was Duke in the first one.  The only time the film wavers a bit is in the mediocre PG-13 style action scenes.  There are some good humorous moments as well that were a little unexpected.  The movie almost feels like a sequel to 21 JUMP STREET at one point.

Let's talk about the nerdy aspect to G.I. JOE part 2.  Snakes-Eyes is to G.I. Joe as Wolverine is to THE X-MEN.  The nerdos love him so they got to make a large part of the story involve Snake-Eyes doing stuff that makes him look all badass doing his twirly sword thingy.  Oh, and Storm Shadow is back doing just fine after being killed in the first one.  Only in the movies, folks.  You can tell that whoever wrote part 2 had a thing for the ninja aspect of G.I. JOE.  All the ninjas from the cartoon show are in this movie even the ninja that isn't a ninja but looks like one so when you were a kid you pretended he was one just so he would fit in, Firefly,  Its raining ninjas in G.I. JOE: RETALIATION.  In fact if you didn't look like a ninja they killed you off.  Sorry, Duke.  I know you were like the main character and the guy who played you was an emerging Hollywood star with a string of majorly successful films under his belt but you didn't wear pajamas that covered you head to toe and you don't know nothin about nun-chucks.  Every nerd in the world that has katanas or samurai swords hanging proudly on their wall should adore and make sweet but unwelcomed love to this movie.

Where the TRANSFORMERS movies failed the G.I. JOE ones succeed.  RETALIATION isn't about a couple of kids that find some device which find themselves being pursued by COBRA and eventually G.I. JOE showing up and saving the day towards the end of the film.  G.I. JOE movies are about the G.I. Joes.  I don't know why these movies based on toys have to focus so much on characters that have nothing to do with the figures we played with.  MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE did the exact same thing. 

G.I. JOE:  RETALIATION does a great job incorporating the cartoon aspect into live action.  It is kind of cool seeing Cobra Commander retreat like he did in the cartoon.  Remember when we were kids and we called "B.S." on guys ejecting from their vehicles just as they were about to explode?  It is nice to see that that doesn't happen in the live action movies.  I am sure in the next one if they can afford it they will bring back Tatum to play Duke again.  If Storm Shadow can survive a major impalement issue right before being dropped in arctic freezing water then I am sure Duke can come back after being blown up and left for dead by his friends who didn't even check his pulse.  Oh, I bet Duke comes back pissed.

Jason

SAMURAI AVENGER: THE BLIND WOLF

I do believe if you took the top row of my DVD collection and smashed them together to form one ultimate movie the result would be SAMURAI AVENGER. Prominently displayed on my top shelf are all my Samurai, Kung-fu, and Italian Westerns DVDs. These films are all very violent, very colorful and very fun. They appeal to my more adolescent side wanting nothing more to see than bloody revenge carried out on wave after wave of well deserving bad guys. Though they come from different countries with different visual styles these films all tap into the same themes. Most of the time they are stories of a stranger showing up somewhere who is highly proficient when it comes to killing. They usually have the fastest draw with the gun or the sword and always have the right thing to say at any given situation. These are the heroes. Usually they are drifters out to to seek revenge. Like KILL BILL, SAMURAI AVENGER is a celebration of these films blending swords and guns together perfectly but with a much lower budget. The film makers call it a "Sushi Western".

SAMURAI AVENGER pretends to be a lost exploitation grindhouse film from the seventies that has been restored with scratches left in the film that were unavoidable. At the beginning of the film an up tight narrator explains that this is a directors cut and when possible the excessively violent scenes have been restored using the best source material available and that we should excuse the poor quality of certain shots in the film. If you ever watched DJANGO on DVD they have a similar notification at the beginning of the movie minus the narrator. So what we have here is a GRINDHOUSE clone but with Samurai/Italian Westerns instead of horror movies. Hey, at least they don't do that whole "missing reel" thing that other wannabe directors do.  That only worked in GRINDHOUSE.  Dear young film makers of today, please stop making GRINDHOUSE inspired rip-offs.  We get it.  We all love Tarantino.  You don't need to make movies that do nothing more than copy his style to show your love.  Thank you.  SAMURAI AVENGER is an exception.

Kurando Mitsutake plays the Blind Wolf who is on a journey to kill the man responsible for murdering his wife and daughter and forcing him to poke out his own eyes with a stick.  What a bastard.  But he must kill the seven assasins that stand in his way.  A mysterious drifter shows up and helps him on his journey.  Kurando Mitsutake does a fantastic job playing the playing the Blind Wolf which was heavily inspired by the Katsu Shintaro version of Zatoichi.  He has Katsu's facial mannerism down perfectly.  Kurando really does look like Zatoichi.  The Drifter isn't too bad but nothing too special.  Played by Jeffery James Lippold I think his character is suppose to represent the Clint Eastwood mysterious stranger from Leone's "Man with no name" trilogy.  He looks more like an underwear model......Acts like one too.  The main bad guy played by Domiziano Arcangeli is way over the top but in a good way.  He kind of looks like the demon offspring of Klaus Kinski and the Devil assuming that the Devil is really a woman.  He is intense and all over the place with his performance savoring every vile and deplorable act.  He bites the ear off of Wolf's wife for crying out loud!......Really good stuff.  A couple of times they film him with a "fish" lens to distort and widen his psychotic looking grin.  I didn't think this was necessary since the actor does a better job of looking crazy without gimmicky camera tricks which do nothing more than distract from his performance.  I really liked him a lot.

The film itself is full of cheesy highly exaggerated gore effects.  Like the LONE WOLF & CUB movies and other Japanese samurai films from the seventies there is blood spray everywhere.  Every wound is a fountain of red stuff.  Don't be surprised to see exposed intestines, decapitations, severed limbs, and major impalement issues galore.  This film has it all even though some of those shots are made to look damaged to make the film look old and poorly restored.  The fights are kind of non-existent with the good guys merely swinging their sword once then cutting to the bad guy spraying blood everywhere.  Quick sword fights aren't really a bad thing since in LONE WOLF & CUB Ogami Itto takes down his enemies usually in one or two moves but at least those scenes were better filmed.

The greatest enjoyment I got from the film is recognizing all the nods and homages to the old classics I love so much.  You can tell that Kurando who not only starred but directed and partially wrote SAMURAI AVENGER truly loves these movies too.  This film is a love letter to them.  There is a great scene between Wolf and the Drifter where they get into an argument about killing a witch that is also pregnant.  Not caring about losing his honor by killing an evil woman who is the expectant mother of an innocent Wolf wants to kill her right away.  The Drifter stops him causing a little bit of conflict between the two.  With the swing of the sword the Drifter slashes open the witch's stomach allowing the baby (played by a painfully obvious gore covered plastic doll) to fall into Wolf's arms.  A little bit later Amanda Plummer shows up in a van and the Drifter gives her the baby.  I guess that is the homage to Tarantino since she was in PULP FICTION.  Hurray?  Anyhoo Wolf thanks Drifter and tells him that he was right for not allowing him to kill the child and that revenge isn't the only thing left in this world.  It's a really great character developing moment that strengthens the friendship of these two master swordsmen and sets up for some greater drama in the last act.  Good stuff.

But......SAMURAI AVENGER has some problems.

The writing is probably the weakest aspect of the film with most of the best lines lifted from other movies as homages.  While the film gives us unique scenarios and scenes it tries too hard to make our hero sound like a badass.  Sometimes a hero should be seen and not heard especially when the hero's wit isn't as sharp as his sword.  The film falls a little short when it comes to the Wolf trying to sound tough.  He doesn't sound too intimidating when he says things like "Tell me something I don't already know" or "I don't even fear bullets."  For a mysterious stranger he sure does like to talk a lot.  Kurando should have relied more on his own strong presence in the film and the actions his character takes to emphasise how badass his character is.  Remember a badass doesn't have to prove himself to anyone and he sure as heck doesn't have to explain with words how badass he really is.  Bad guys should learn how badass a hero is by getting themselves dead by his actions not by being bored to death by bragging.

SAMURAI AVENGER kind of falls into nerdy HIGHLANDER territory focusing too much time on simply sliding a sword into it's sheathe.  It doesn't happen throughout the film but it does happen enough for me to complain about it.  When a bad guy is dispatched the film just stops to show a slow motion Wolf or Drifter sliding their dang Samurai sword into it's sheathe.  It's like sword porn for Nerdos that watch too much Anime.  It makes me think the film believes a hero is only as badass as the sword he carries.  Just because you are holding a sword in a mean pose does not make you a tough guy.  It makes you look like a nerd especially when you are practising your "sword techniques" in the backyard.  The only thing you are going to scare off are the ladies.

The narrator's voice could put a meth addict to sleep.  From time to time throughout the movie he stops the film to explain what is going on.  It is a good addition to the film especially since there is a lot of cultural stuff that needs explained but I do wish the narrator was a little more energetic.  The voice itself has a tendency to kill the momentum of the film.

ZATOICIHI, LONE WOLF & CUB, THE WILD BUNCH, DJANGO, THE OUTFIT and one of my favorites THE GREAT SILENCE are all referenced in SAMURAI AVENGER along with many other films I can't recall or just never seen.  There are zombies (Luci Fulci?) too with a small touch of science fiction added in at the ending.  Stay past the credits is all I can say.  Some of the sets are cheap looking but I think that isn't really a negative.  I think it adds to the fantastical artistic side of the film.  SAMURAI AVENGER isn't meant to be a realistic movie.  It is a post-modern film about the many different genres of films.  I know there are a lot of films you need to see first before you can fully appreciate SAMURAI AVENGER.  If you really really liked KILL BILL then give this one a chance.  You won't be disappointed...............probably.


Jason

CONAN THE BARBARIAN 3D IS A STUPID POO-POO PANTS OF A MOVIE!

CONAN THE BARBARIAN 3D is not a remake of the original CONAN film.  CONAN 3D is a comic book movie.  With that said I would also like to say that this is a terrible comic book movie that rips off PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, PRINCE OF PERSIA, LORD OF THE RINGS,  THE NEW CLASH OF THE TITANS and some other crap I suppose.  CONAN 3D tries to be epic with elaborate sets and well detailed costumes but everything comes across as flat and uninteresting.  The story is sloppy and rushed.  The characters are small and insignificant taking a back seat to all the violence and buckets of blood.  The movie borrows liberally from other films big time pretending we the audience have never been to a Hollywood blockbuster before.  We are not that stupid......Well I am.  I bought this movie on blu-ray.  Whoops.

CONAN 3D starts off with this LORD OF THE RINGS story about a powerful wizard that had a crown made of the skulls of kings.  Then all these barbarians fought back and destroyed the crown and divided the pieces throughout the world.  So just replace the word "ring" with the word "crown".  One crown to rule them all blah-blah-crap.  Then we have a scene where Conan is born on the battlefield.  It is an embarrassing scene that tries to stress how badass Conan is.  Of course being born in battle means he will be the ultimate badass just like Leatherface from TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING will be a chainsaw maniac obsessed with cutting things up because he was born in a slaughter house.  Bravo.  What brilliant imagination.  (hurl)  At this point in the movie I couldn't help but think I was watching something directed by Uwe Boll.  It just has that awkward misses the point feel to it.  The acting is bad. The story is lifted straight off of better movies.  You can tell that the film is hiding the weak script behind the the curtains of blood that flows about from the never ending supply of bad guys.  Conan's father is killed by Stephen Lang who seeks the pieces of the crown.  Then Conan spends his life living like a pirate until he decides to go and kill the dude who killed his father.  Oh, and there is a love story about a virgin who has the power in her blood to resurrect Stephen Lang's dead wife.  Or something like that.

Overall the film is a rush job with no time spent to develop the characters.  Conan the character is a made for t.v. personality not straying too far from a Duncan McCleod blandness.  Sure Conan looks big and mean and does the twirly sword nerdery that the nerds love but when he speaks he comes off more like a football linebacker who somehow went back in time to the dark ages and not being smart enough to do anything else is forced to live his life like a barbarian which suits him just fine.  This Conan dumb jock but good with the ladies personality doesn't fit into the dark violent world the movie takes place in.  He is almost too politically correct.  He frees a bunch of slaves saying "No man should live in chains" but why would he think that.  He is a barbarian/pirate type person.  Last time I checked they didn't give a crapola about anybody.  Why would Conan?  Oh, I guess because the writers said so.  The original Conan didn't speak much but we learn a lot about his character based on his actions.  Often the secondary characters would explain Conan's actions because Conan would not.  That fits his character.  There was thought put into the original Conan.  Not every action has to be fully explained by the main character. Its called good writing. 

CONAN 3D has a lot of scenes all of which fly by so fast that you never really know what is going on.  They almost all end with some bad guys showing up and getting stabbed, sliced and made not alive anymore.  The end fight with Stephen Lang is particularly epic in it's stupidity.  Conan and he are doing a high wire act standing on a wheel balancing over deep drop into lava or something.  They fight for like twenty minutes through Stephen's evil temple.  Suddenly for no reason the temple starts to collapse.  I don't think the movie explains why the temple decides to fall apart.  I think the writer thought that the temple falling on top of them would make the action more exciting.  Spoiler alert!  It doesn't.  Not every final battle has to take place in a place where a bunch of crazy crap happening all over the place.

It is sad at this day and age with the tools we have to make the greatest looking movies ever yet we still have junk like CONAN 3D.  It looks like a big Hollywood movie with a bunch of B-Movie actors.  What it doesn't look like is the story of a young boy who grows up in a violent world as a barbarian to one day become king.  The worst thing about this movie is how boring it was.  Not once did I find myself getting involved with the story.  It was just a bunch of stuff that happened and who cared.  The music wasn't even memorable.  Remember the original Conan?  The large, loud and triumphant orchestra boomed during the battles and set the epic mood of the film.  It was music that stayed with you and brought an adrenaline rush to the movie.  Its a smarter more detailed film than people give it credit for.  Heck, even the nudity in CONAN 3D is boring.  It's there but you have to look really hard to see it.  You shouldn't have to do that.

Maybe if you are like fifteen and haven't watched a lot of movies and you think the STAR WARS PREQUELS are better than the originals then you might actually like CONAN 3D.  Its got blood and swords and armor and medieval times stuff and big special effects.  It is all familiar and it shouldn't challenge your young mushy minds.  If you like boring and stupid and HIGHLANDER movies then I recommend.  Otherwise stick to the original.


Jason

ALIEN VS. NINJA.........and SEA MONKEYS!

This is the prequel to the original ALIEN that the Internet has been buzzing about recently.  The film, set in feudal Japan, explores the origins of the Yutani side of the Weyland/Yutani Corporation and their interests in the alien and space exploration.  You see Yutani is actually the name of a school that teaches the deadly arts of ninjitsu.  Yutani is an old teacher and founder of the school who discovers a crashed U.F.O. out in the woods somewhere.  After boarding the abandoned ship he quickly learns how to pilot the vessel and immediately takes it out into space where he befriends those elephant looking aliens we see dead and fossilized in ALIEN.  They tell him he needs to start building more spaceships and....Nah, I am just messin with ya.

ALIEN VS. NINJA is exactly what the title says only to be accurate it should say ALIENS VS. NINJAS VS. ZOMBIES CONTROLLED BY SEA MONKEYS.  I swear this is the first movie ever that you see actual sea monkeys.  Those little guys are bastards.  There are these ninjas who are sent out to investigate a crashed meteor and low and behold we spend the rest of the movie fighting aliens.  Its pretty cool overall.  The fights are mostly impressive if a bit over the top.  Plus as an added bonus there is some ALIEN VS NINJA SEXUAL INNUENDO.  Lets not go there shall we?

The beginning of the movie has a shot of a tall palace and these cartoon ninjas start jumping out of it.  At first I thought this was just a production company banner appearing to let us know which company financed the film, but no, this is the actual movie.  So it starts off immediately on the wrong foot.  Soon after that all these ninjas are fighting our hero ninja and he kicks all their butts in awesome C.G.I. badassness.  Yea, there is a lot of C.G.I. in this film and it is of the SYFY original movie quality.  The movie itself looks a bit flat almost like it was shot on home video only in digital.  You kind of get this feeling like you are watching a bloody version of POWER RANGERS.  When they don't look like sea monkeys the aliens are of the fake rubbery-man-in-a-costume variety.  They look like they should be duking it out with Godzilla in a burned down city made of cardboard.  I don't like their design.  They need to be big kick-ass scary, not a bunch of Pokemons.

There really isn't much to say about this one.  It was a fun watch.  It's not as great as the Internet led me to believe but I am proud to add this to my blu-ray collection.  You will see a lot of crap you haven't seen before mixed in with a lot of crap you have seen before but overall it will be an enjoyable experience.

Oh, yea before I go.  If you are making a movie and at the end you have a final battle with some kind of pop song sung in Japanese playing over the action, please don't have the subtitles translate the song.  Its very distracting and really weird.  I missed most of the end fight because I was reading the song subtitles and wondering why all these Japanese songs mention flower petals and wind.  I don't need every single thing translated, thank you.  I may have a blog but I am not that big of a nerd.

Probably.


Jason

HIGHLANDER! BLANDLANDER!

What can be said that hasn't already been said about this 1986 classic?  HIGHLANDER spawned four sequels, a couple of spin-off t.v. shows, a cartoon series and a video game and probably a whole bunch of other stuff I don't know about.  The problem is that none of the other movies lived up to the "greatness" of the original.  Time after time fans flocked to the cinemas to see the next installment of the HIGHLANDER series only to find a confusing boggled mess of storytelling and bad acting.  Nobody seems to know why.  Well that is why I am here, folks.  I will answer the question that hundreds quested to find only to never be seen from again.  Do you want to know the answer?  Trust me you won't like it but if it will save a life I will tell you.  The reason that the sequels suck so bad is because the original is a stale, embarrassingly bad piece of wannabe badassness.  Search your feelings.  You know this to be true.

I would be lying to you if I said that HIGHLANDER is the story of an immortal (Christopher Lambert) who is trained by a large talking peacock (Sean Connery) to help fight and prevent an evil immortal called the Kurgan (that guy from SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) from being the last immortal and claiming the "prize".  Nope, that is not what this movie is about.  HIGHLANDER is about swords.  This movie is hugely popular in the nerd community and nerds love swords.  CLING-CLANG CLASH SPARKS!  COOL!  Look at all those cool swords.  COOL! Look at the Kurgan's cool broadsword.  COOL!  Wouldn't that be cool hanging on my wall?  COOL!  Oh, my gosh!  Sean Connery's sword is a samurai sword.  COOL!  I want it in my mouth!.............Cool?  In fact the only way to kill an immortal is by cutting his head off.  That's convenient.  The swords themselves seem to have all the power.  They slice through steel and concrete causing major sparkage like maybe the immortals have super strength.  But this super strength is never demonstrated unless they are fighting with their damn swords.  It just makes me wonder is all.

I find it strange that so many regard this film as a classic but crap all over the sequels.  HIGHLANDER is just as bad as HIGHLANDER 2,3,4, and 5.  There really isn't that much difference in quality.  They are all hokey with weak protagonists and convoluted stories that are filled with plot holes galore.  If anything HIGHLANDER is the grand daddy of poor storytelling.  It laid the foundation of stupidity that the rest merely followed up on.  I do like the Kurgan though.  Maybe that is just because I like to say the word "Kurgan".  He is totally badass at the beginning with his huge sword and skull helmet.  But even his lovable evil antics get WAAAY over the top by the end.  You can tell he was a huge influence on the creation of the Guardian character in HIGHLANDER part 5:  THE SOURCE.

The story for the first HIGHLANDER fails to explain where immortals came from.  They are born like everyone else.  Wouldn't that mean immortals can be born at anytime creating an unlimited supply of immortals?  Why wouldn't more immortals be born throughout time?  How does Sean Connery know so much about the "gathering"?  How does the Kurgan know that Conner Macleod is an immortal?  Remember when Conner is trying to fight in the big battle in the highlands and none of the bad guys would fight him.  Why didn't they fight him?  Because they knew he was immortal but when he is stabbed and is walking around perfectly fine the next day his own people kick him out and even try to burn him alive.  How come they didn't know?  You can see how the writer had two neat scenarios for Conner to demonstrate the drama of being immortal but they rub against each other the wrong way.  They contradict each other.  Its called bad writing, folks.............Yeah, I know I am guilty of that too. 

A lady forensics officer shows up to investigate Conner's kill in the parking lot of  a wrestling stadium.  Those were weird looking wrestlers by the way.  Conner sees that she has discovered a piece of his sword that was stuck in a concrete pillar.  At this time Conner is the main suspect of the murder.  Her part in the story would have stopped right there with her investigation coming to a dead end.  It would be impossible to connect that piece of sword (that should not exsist by the way according to history) to Conner.  Instead Conner tries to hit on her in a bar which makes her follow him and see him fight the Kurgan.  She isn't even interested in finding the killer she just wants to see the sword that the piece of metal belongs to.  Conner grabs the girl to protect her from the Kurgan who he senses is nearby.  Suddenly the Kurgan just stands up right next to them like he was sitting there the whole time in plain sight!  Does that make sense to you?  How could you miss that guy?  He's ten feet tall!  I like how the two immortals are fighting and then this random police helicopter shows up to interrupt things and everyone just kind of walks away and the police don't even bother to follow.  Kind of lame if you ask me.

Speaking of random.  Everyone makes a big deal about the planet Ziegst (or whatever its called) but I don't hear any complaints about the crazy marine character.  For a brief moment the movie kind of turns into TAXI DRIVER or something when this crazed ex-marine loads up his car with guns and starts driving around looking for something crazy to shoot at, I guess.  Boy, does he find it.  He just so happens to find two immortals stabbing it out in some alley somewhere and he decides to investigate things with his machine gun.  He sees the Kurgan kill one of the last immortals.  The crazy ex-marine's response is to shoot the Kurgan.  Of course nothing happens and the Kurgan impales the marine with his sword and hoists him into the air.  Then he is flung off the sword like poo from a stick and lives.  The crazy ex-marine ends up in a hospital to give the cops a description of his assailant.  The guy had a broadsword in his guts!  This character serves no purpose except to see one of the last immortals die.  Surely there is a better way to show that there are only two immortals left.

That is my biggest problem with HIGHLANDER.  The story needed to be focused on the immortals and their unique relationship with each other.  The immortals can get along with each other and be good friends but they all know that eventually they are bound by the rules to fight each other to the death until there is only one.  What a great premise for a story but instead the script follows more of a classic cop movie formula in part with too many scenes involving police and interrogations and questioning eyewitnesses which all of this adds up to nothing.  Only once when Conner and (Sean Connery's character's name goes here) are sparring does this dilemma come up.  Conner asks what would happen if they were the last two and for a moment Conner has the upper hand to kill his friend right then and there.  He doesn't of course and the issue is never brought up again.  You get the sense that the movie is about to get interesting but then it just goes poop.  Wouldn't it be more interesting if Conner and the talking peacock had to fight it out at the end?  It would be hard to predict that fight.  It could be that the main antagonist of the film is the rules of being a immortal themselves.  They could come to an agreement to not kill each other and leave the "prize" a mystery.  Then if you wanted to make a sequel you could say that because they stopped seeking the "prize" that more immortals came into existence over time drawn to the "prize".  Shoot! I should have written HIGHLANDER.

So let me get this straight.  The "prize" is to gain ultimate knowledge and the ability to die.  Does that make sense to you?  How is being able to die a prize?  Being able to die is only a prize if you work in retail.  If you are immortal that is the last thing you want.  It kind of defeats the purpose of preventing the Kurgan from getting the "prize".  In fact if I was the second to last immortal I would let him cut off my head.  Then I would haunt him as a ghost and be like "Ha-Ha, sucker!  The prize makes you dead too."  If I can't turn into a ghost then I would say it very loudly so he can hear me from Hell.

HIGHLANDER had great promise of being a truly great classic.  The story of immortals forced by the unknown to kill each other makes for great drama.  Unfortunately the movie stays away from such interesting concepts.  Why is Christopher Lambert in this movie?  He talks funny and looks like a neanderthal.  The movie strives to make him badass and a little humorous but he can't pull it off.  He's no Clint Eastwood is all I am saying.  They should have casted somebody better.  In fact before the writer ever wrote a single word down for the script he should have watched a ton of westerns with John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson to know what it takes to make a badass hero.  It takes more than a weapon to have a stoic presence in a film.  And don't think having Sean Connery makes the movie watchable!  Lets not forget Sean was the main star of the artsy-fartsy-wtf movie ZARDOZ.  What the hell was going on in that movie?  I don't know.  I kind of get this weird "STAR TREKIAN" feel to HIGHLANDER.  Its hard to explain.  If you like STAR TREK then you have to like HIGHLANDER.  Its in the nerd guide lines or something.  Conner himself is kind of stiff like every single character in STAR TREK.  The badassness of Conner is defined by his samurai sword like a nerd would define Klingons as great warriors because they got those stupid moon shaped swords.  What is so great about Klingons anyway? 

Hey, while we are on the subject of STAR TREK! Wouldn't it be cool if a Highlander, uh, I mean immortal lived so long that he made it to the future and joined the crew of the Enterprise and went with them on their many adventures into space and fought Klingons and crap!?!

The answer to that is "No."  No, it would not.  The end.

Jason