Sorry monkey...we all know that when The Asylum is involved, common sense has to die a terrible, poorly produced death.

Donkey: We all love music on some level, whether it serves as an artist prism through which we relate to the world around us or merely as a basic bass line that we use to jackhammer our crotches into the hips of a woman too busy supplementing her lack of self esteem with an metric ton of alcohol to dismiss our inane attempts at seduction. But when it comes to the various categories of music lovers, the group that I always found the most interesting was those who seemed all too happy to dismiss their favorite groups as “sell-outs” the moment someone actually cut them a cheque big enough that they as a collective could afford a whole pack of Big League Chew. When I first got into music as a teenager, I wondered if these people actually believed that musicians are only respectable artists when they’re sleeping on a friend’s couch after putting in a solid day of toiling in obscurity, but eventually I concluded that even the most pompous amongst us has to truly know in their heart of hearts (medically referred to as your chest balls) that no one could possibly be stupid enough to turn down the chance to get paid to do something they love. Besides, if you only consider something to be truly artistic when it’s yowled from the underwhelming mouth of those with an income-earning disability, then I’d gladly refer you to a few homeless people I’ve met in my time who would be more than happy to give you a mind-blowing sidewalk rendition of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy in exchange for a patient ear that will stick around afterward to listen to the long, painful story of how they lost their left shoe. When I really stopped to think about it, the answer became quite clear. These people didn’t care so much about money or the illusion of artistic integrity so much as they were simply angry that everyone else had suddenly jumped on a bandwagon that they had found first. To this day I have never once experienced that kind of jealous pouting for myself. But I will admit that recently in the arena of movies, I came close.

After having spent so much time devoted to a website dedicated to protecting the world from the horrors awaiting them should they stumble across certain movies that few had ever heard of – particularly the works of one particular production company – you can imagine my surprise when I came across a major website detailing “the most watched trailers of 2009” only to find an Asylum film prominently displayed on the list. You heard me: the most watched trailers of the goddamn year. Every other movie was a major studio release that undoubtedly served as spank material for a legion of fanboys (Avatar, Transformers: Rise Of The Fallen, Terminator Salvation) and yet there it was amongst them, standing out like a moderately attractive woman in a Warhammer shop: Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus. Garnering a huge following after its trailer was unleashed upon YouTube, people apparently flocked to it in droves because of the combination of a ridiculous name and some of the signature Asylum scenes that you and I would expect, which can only be described as a God-forsaken attack on your nervous system. But the insanity didn’t stop there. I soon discovered that with the unexpected success of that movie, The Asylum decided to release a similarly themed follow up in the form of Mega Piranha.

The hype was stunning, but all we could think was…really? This movie? Of all Asylum movies, this is the one people notice? With the incentive of having so many people know it, we knew that we’d have to address it. And since its pseudo-sequel was so closely tied in every regard, limiting our conversation to one of them simply won’t be good enough. Like tearing the Band-Aid off quickly, it just makes sense to tackle them both at once. So with well-documented history that has earned us a small measure of authority, join us as we wade through the path of destruction left in their wake as we examine these latest atrocities, deciding not only which one if the better movie but also if the victor is truly worthy of The Asylum’s lineage.

The Plot:

Spoiler Alert: Despite the misleading poster, this movie is actually about the two deadliest combatants in a regional chess championship.

Donkey: Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus begins beneath the waves of the Pacific just off the shores of Alaska while bombarding us with underwater stock footage of what is clearly not anywhere near Alaska. There we join a marine researcher named Emma who appears to be researching nothing in particular when she unexpectedly witnesses a pod of whales to freak out due to a nearby sonar test, resulting in them smashing into the massive ice wall of a nearby glacier. This causes the soon discovered icy tomb to eventually shatter and free a pair of deadly adversaries that have been frozen in time; the fabled Mega Shark and Giant Octopus. Instantly revived after countless centuries, the two beasts immediately rocket off in different directions and proceed to wreak havoc across the world in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine unless your parents had decided to potty train you as a child by punching you directly in the brain. With no one willing to listen to her recounting of the tale she had witnessed, Emma enlists the help of her old professor, Lamar, and his Japanese colleague, Shimada who joins them after an oil rig off the coast of Japan is taken down by the Giant Octopus. But it’s not long before this dream team has company in trying to Encyclopedia Brown the case, as the US Navy finally begins to recognize the peril that they’re facing when the Mega Shark sinks a fucking battleship just by ramming it with its face. Brought in to provide counsel under the watchful eye of shadowy government official, our three musketeers are charged with the task of finding a way to stop the ancient menaces. After a plan involving pheromones and what I’m guessing would have been a couple of dudes in scuba suits ready to give giant hand jobs fails miserably, the military is ready to jump straight to the nuclear option when our trio finally comes up with a plan that sends the ancient warriors back to the cold depths for all time.

Sounds pretty good, huh? Or at the very least a better way to pass 90 minutes than staring into the void of oblivion while mentally reliving all your past failures? Well, you’re half right. So the question becomes: how can you possibly follow that up? If you don’t know the answer to that, then you really haven’t been paying attention to Asylum movies.

"To save mankind"? Why would any experiment for the good of mankind involve goddamn piranhas? That would be like trying to develop a more reliable family sedan by testing on AIDS.

Enter Mega Piranha. After being awaken in his dank apartment by the Secretary of State via a video phone that doesn’t actually exist, Jason Fitch – Special Forces – is sent to Venezuela to investigate the mysterious death of a US ambassador who was killed on a river cruise. But Fitch can’t possibly be ready for what awaits him as he arrives in the country just to be accosted at the airport by Sarah Monroe, a genetics professor from UCLA whose research is directly responsible for the events leading up to his assignment. It is explained that Fitch has actually arrived to face a catastrophic danger about to engulf all of humanity in the form an escaped strain of killer piranha that are expanding exponentially in size after being developed in her lab. Until now, Sarah’s pleas for help have been ignored by Colonel Diaz, a military junta commander, but all that changes when Fitch confirms her story by traveling to the local river, engaging in an underwater knife fight with a school of the killer fish, and capturing a specimen that jumps out onto the riverbank after him. He delivers the obviously rubber corpse to Sarah’s team and the news of his discovery to Diaz. Forced into action, Diaz finally does his part by firing blindly into the river from a few helicopters, managing to accomplish nothing more than freeing the menace even further by breaking the only natural dam in their path. Then just to be a dick, he arrests Monroe and her team, blaming them for the crisis and calling the fish a CIA plot, which is probably the only rational explanation of why you’d be bio-genetically enhancing piranhas, if you think about it. But their incarceration is short-lived as Fitch springs them in a daringly uneventful rescue just before the full horror of the evil piranha is revealed in an attack on the city by the now-giant fish for no reason I could possibly comprehend. In the face of the expanding danger, Fitch and the gang plan an attack where the local river meets the ocean, hoping that the piranha will stop there since they are fresh water fish. But the massive US battleship that Fitch calls in to lead the river mouth assault fails as miserably as Diaz’s helicopter attack did, establishing for a second time how fucking dumb the idea of blind gunfire into a river in the hopes of hitting fish truly is. With nothing left to stop them, the piranhas not only successfully migrate into the ocean, but they also manage to destroy the fucking battleship along the way.

Staring multiple failures in the face at this point, Fitch and the team manage to escape in a helicopter to regroup with the Secretary of State at a floating fortress where they discover that the US military has come up with a plan to – well who would have guessed it? – nuke the fuckers. But unlike Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, in this movie they actually go through with it and to no one’s surprise, it doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, all it does is piss off the fish enough that they attack the nuclear submarine that fired upon them and cause it to fucking explode after less than a dozen bites. How? Don’t ask, because the answer would be the logical equivalent of a fart directly into your mouth. But just as the military masterminds come up with a new plan to hit the marine-based scourge with an even bigger nuclear attack, Fitch proposes a slightly different idea. Leading a team of commandos packing guns that couldn’t look any less realistic if they were Laser Cats, Fitch dives into the fucking ocean and tries unsuccessfully to take them out in hand-to-gills combat. So after taking a break from the deep sea battle just long enough to jump back up into a helicopter unknowingly piloted by Diaz and his henchmen only to kill them using a flare gun and a piranha-attracting remote, Fitch jumps back into the ocean and finally manages to turn the tide and defeat the horde. But of course by this time the piranhas have already attacked the Florida Keys, resulting in immeasurable destruction and countless shots of innocent civilians getting hilariously devoured.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: Now that we know the basics, let’s cut to the chase and put these two titans of bullshit in their head-to-head match up of destiny. But first let me just go on record right now to say that no matter what happens, the real winner won’t be rational comprehension.

Star Power: Washed Up 80’s Pop Starlets? Check!

Her follow up to the smash hit Electric Youth might not catch on quite as well: Middle Aged Mediocrity.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: When it comes to casting, this movie doesn’t fuck around, attacking with a three point combination strike of deadly mediocrity. The opening punch lands softly enough in the form of background players who leave us awash in a sea of familiar faces not seen since another true Asylum classic, Death Racers. But that’s just warming up for the throat jab to come, as the film’s true star power shines its blazing dullness when we discover that the lead role of Emma belongs to the indispensable Deborah Gibson. Yes, THE Deborah Gibson of Electric Youth fame. If your heart just fluttered upon hearing that news, chances are that you’re either a soccer mom or just about ready to snuggle up and watch Queer As Folk with your life-partner. Seeing as I’m neither, I couldn’t give much of a shit beyond being stunned that anyone actually bothered to cast her. And after being left reeling from that remarkable obscurity, the death strike comes soon after as the role of the shadowy government agent tasking Debbie with saving the world is performed by the über-douche, Lorenzo Lamas. If you don’t know much about this bowl of cocksnot, I recommend looking up him and his laser pointer antics on the mercifully short-lived reality show Are You Hot?, where he and his in-no-way-ridiculous looking ponytail had the audacity to serve as a judge whose sole purpose was to break down and criticize people on their physical appearance. Granted that while anyone who appeared on the show was likely narcissistic enough to deserve it, this shining example of truly noteworthy idiocy has nevertheless earned him a permanent place in the Despicable Douche Hall of Premature Ejaculation and Mustard-Stained Tank Top Fame. Seriously, the fact that he didn’t end every one of his critiques with, “…but what the fuck do I know? I’m Lorenzo-goddamn-Lamas! My opinion is only worth its weight in drunken broom handle sodomy!” is astounding to me.

Somewhere in this distance you can hear, "What you gotta do is you gotta make the battleship go faster! Take corners tighter!"

Mega Piranha: No slouch in its own right, the spiritual sequel puts up some tough competition in this category. You want Asylum alumni? Well, no one really does, but regardless it’s got an all-time favorite in Johnny Johnny Johnny from Street Racer, who makes an all-too-short appearance as the captain of the US battleship that fails to stop the piranhas only to be ultimately destroyed in the river attack. You want mildly inappropriate but exceptionally obscure actors with questionable audience appeal? See how you like the busboy from the classic episode of Seinfeld filling in as Colonel Diaz, or the timeless Greg Brady himself, Barry Williams, playing the Secretary of State for a whole 7 minutes of screen time. But the true genius comes when the movie matches Debbie Gibson’s obscure 80’s starlet power with another teenage sensation who was equally brief in relevance; Tiffany of I Think We’re Alone Now fame. I’d be proud to say that I knew very little about her, but alas Weird Al’s cover of her biggest hit made sure that she was at least on my radar enough as a child to know that she apparently spent her own childhood performing in malls, making her something that even now I would go as far out of my way to avoid as an Abercrombie & Fitch.

In a surprisingly blunt moment of honestly, Tiffany explains just how far "up to here" America had it with her by 1988.

Winner: Mega Piranha. While Lorenzo Lamas makes a strong case, attempting to douche his way to a victory for his cast, this battle was never that close. Johnny Johnny Johnny is a force that’s matched by few among the Asylum regulars. And while Debbie Gibson’s acting can only be described as “pretty bad”, that’s actually a step up from her music (I’ve never actually heard the sound of an asthmatic goat bleating for its life while being fed into a wood chipper, but I’m still pretty sure I’d rather listen to that). Tiffany, on the other hand, delivers a truly stunning performance that couldn’t have seemed more uncomfortable and unsettling if she were reading her lines off a ransom note telling her that her children being held by the local chapter of NAMBLA.

Love Scenes: Unmotivated And Mildly Creepy? Check!

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: After the three Heroes of Science and Might are enlisted by the US Army to stop the titular beasts, the team jumps into action via a random montage of clearly unrelated beaker-based “research” which I’m pretty sure is nothing more than my first year university chemistry lab on titration. But while this is obviously not at all helping the problem at hand, it turns out that it is serving a far more insidious purpose: love. For some reason all this pointless busywork on needless experiments gets Debbie Gibson and Shimada, the Japanese scientist, into the mood for some sweaty junk fondling in a nearby broom closet. The kind of discomfort that is shared between both the actors performing this and we the audience while try to watch it is usually reserved for finding your grandma’s “personal massaging device” and slowly realizing why it was in a drawer that reeks of AstroGlide, Rub-A535 cream, and ribbon candy. Seriously, the only way it could be more fucked up is if Debbie’s elderly father was there coaching Shimada along on his quest to find her G-spot.

You know what else drips like this, science boy? Let's just say your doctor will tell you in a few days. Now shut up and kiss me!

Mega Piranha: This movie takes a far different approach from its predecessor, delivering attempts at romance that are even more half-hearted than my attempts to watch them, most of which are limited to Tiffany sharing a few awkward moments and long stares with Fitch in the last 15 minutes of the movie with no conceivable tension up to that point which would justify it. But what it lacks in heart, it attempts to make up for in unmotivated titty shots at the start of the film, just before those titties are promptly plucked off of a boat and devoured by fish.

At least this random hooker can meet her death with the satisfaction that the silicone is going to kill every fish that was dumb enough to eat her.

Winner: Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus. Watching topless chicks get devoured is something no one can be ready for, but barring an unruly outbreak of lip fungus mashing into a terminal case of gingivitis, it takes a lot for me to see two people start making out and utter the phrase, “ewwwwww” aloud. Nice work, Debbie.

Special Effects: Worthy Of Special Ed? Check!

This film actually deserves a lot of credit for creating CG generated piranhas that somehow manage to look like rubber.

Truly equal in every way, both movies thrill us with signature scenes developed by Tiny Juggernaut, the special effects wizard(s) behind The Asylum’s long-standing legacy of visual splendor, if splendor happens to be a synonym for eyeball rape. Beyond countless little things, both movies wield the best CG that a fistful of “30 cents off Shake N’ Bake” coupons can buy, creating titular animals that look and move like they’re being controlled by a puppet master fighting the onset of psoriatic arthritis with mind-altering hallucinogens, and an endless parade of explosions that you couldn’t look any dumber if they were caused by lighting a fart on fire. And the real icing on the cake is not just that the very expected Asylum policy of allowing the same shots to be used over and over again in each movie is in place. No, it’s that there are a few shots that are used over and over again in both movies. This is the kind of recycling that even Ed Bagley Jr would give you the finger for.

Winner: Ironic comedy. Seriously, that’s about all. Everyone else loses.

Animal Attacks: Hilariously Unmotivated Or Flat-Out Insane? Check!

Like so many boogie boarders can tell you, this bridge's mistake was managing to somehow look like a sea turtle.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: When your movie is so goddamn about the epic battle between two non-existent titans that you can’t be bothered to think of a title that doesn’t sound like it was made up on a dare, you know that your movie is going to involve a lot of crazy shit. But while the battle between the enemy combatants is exceptionally pedestrian at best, it’s their attacks on the human populace that truly make the movie. They trade scenes of modest hilarity when Giant Octopus rises out of the ocean to take down an entire oil rig, Mega Shark leaps out of the San Francisco bay to take a massive bit out of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Giant Octopus swats a low-flying fighter jet out of the air with a single swipe of its tentacle. But the modest chuckles these exploits deliver pale in comparison to the movie’s single greatest moment of epic hilarity. Allow me to paint the scene:

High in the clouds somewhere over the deep blue of the ocean, we catch up with a commercial passenger jet as a stewardess walks down its aisle asking for people to remain in their seats. As she draws closer to a young couple, the dude stands up just in time to be jostled by a pocket of turbulence, forcing the flight attendant repeats herself for the 90th time and insist that he sit back down. Somewhat shaken and apparently a 5th degree moron, the kid’s retort is to slowly return to his seat while blurting out that he and his girlfriend are “getting married in two days,” like that statement should somehow magically enable the stewardess to mentally manipulate air streams and smooth out the ride just for him. But as he settles back into his seat, the kid suddenly lurches forward towards the camera and cries, “HOLY SHIT!” Equally startled to attention, we watch as the camera turns to show what the kid sees at that very moment, but just like him, we can’t possibly believe it: the fucking Mega Shark has jumped out of the ocean only to take down the fucking jet with a single chomp of its jaws. That’s right, the fucking shark jumped high enough out of the ocean to take out a passenger jet, which could only be equaled by how far the Dr Pepper shot out of my nose upon witnessing this spectacle.

Sit back and shut up, Frank. No one wants to hear your "there's something on the wing" Shatner impersonation.

Gotta get to that shoe sale!

Mega Piranha: Lesser in scope but not in epic hilarity, this film makes up for its singular source of menacing doom with the sheer volume of stupidity that it invokes. Like our good friend Mega Shark, the killer fish manage to destroy large-scale war vessels, causing battleships to sink and nuclear submarines to explode all through the power of biting. Yes, biting. But it doesn’t stop there. Next the expanding piranhas set their sites on whole cities, attacking Venezuela and then eventually the Florida Keys with the brilliant strategy of leaping out of the water and crashing into random buildings, which somehow causes massive explosions that seem to suggest that the entire infrastructure of these towns was based on gasoline and fireworks depots. And why the fuck any species of fish would be motivated to jump to their own deaths just for shits and giggles, I’ll never know. Of course once the hoard begins its march towards idiocy, the human death toll begins to mount and there are countless shots of people being hilariously crushed or swallowed whole. But like Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, this movie also has one particular assault that stands out above all the others.

As the killer piranhas carry out their first attack on the Venezuelan city, Fitch runs down to the river to investigate when he notices a random girl dying on the beach. But as he goes to comfort her (read: feel her boob) while she slips into the comfort of oblivion, Fitch becomes the next target of the fishes’ random attack. A piranha jumps out of the nearby river, knocking Fitch to his back as he parries it away. And in that moment of vulnerability as Fitch lies prone, the floodgates open, allowing the movie to truly shatter the notion of awesome itself. Hoping for a mouthful of douche-sandwich, a steady stream of piranha flies out of the river with their sights set directly on our hero. So with no time to get to his feet, Fitch fights off the assault of nearly a dozen flying fish, one immediately after another, by kicking them away in a steady stream of bicycle kicks. Yes, bicycle kicks. Think Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat without the sweet chicken sound or career potential. And the imagery of this conceptually retarded moment is only enhanced by how indescribably poorly it’s executed. Fitch looks like he’s pretending to ride an invisible exercise bike more than actually kicking, and the piranhas being kicked away aren’t actually lined up properly with his kicks.

Damn it. Now my boots are going to smell like fish taint.

Winner: Mega Piranha. A shark jumping high enough to take down a jumbo jet is the very definition of rad and easily makes the movie worthwhile, but there simply aren’t enough of these attacks peppered throughout Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus. On the other hand, Mega Piranha is brimming with idiocy, which Fitch’s foot-work caps off unspeakably well.

Character Development: Heroes Of Mind And Colon Bending Might? Check!

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: Not in this case, actually. The main characters in this movie couldn’t be much less interesting if they were solving the movie’s crisis while putting on an insurance seminar, stopping only long enough to recite whole pages of the dictionary.

BBOOOORRRRIIINNNNGGGG!!!!!!!!!!

Stealth tactics this terrible are usually reserved for delivering delicious hash browns to unsuspecting victims in Sneak King.

Mega Piranha: On the other hand, one of the true gems of this movie is the main character and professional turd wrangler, Jason Fitch. I have no idea who this actor is and suspect I never will (mostly from not caring enough to find out), but the only way this Jason Bourne wannabe could have been matched was if the Matt Damon puppet from Team America: World Police played the part while screaming that one famous line, “MATT DAMON!” Seriously, this guy’s exploits are the stuff of legend. But how badass is he, you ask? Well how does being stealthy as a fucking ninja strike you? When he first arrives in Venezuela to begin his investigation, the Colonel insists that he stay at the base as an honored guest whose honor it is to be locked under watching eyes. But undeterred in his quest for answers, Fitch merely breaks out of the colonel’s military compound by employing camouflage techniques not seen since a toddler covered his eyes and declared “you can’t see me”, allowing him to go unnoticed by guards while he clings to a fence a mere 3 feet above them in plain sight.

The movie actually would have made just as much sense if the dialogue for the last 30 minutes had been "mmmpphhh mpphh mmphh mmmppphhh!"

Still not impressed? How about the ability to bend physics to your mere whim sound, Jack? Apparently our hero’s complete lack of charisma and screen presence is a result of being traded away for immeasurable power over the very laws of the universe. We first witness this splendor when he’s escaping from Venezuela with Sarah’s team onboard a helicopter with a severed fuel line. A normal man would panic once he realized that he was mere seconds away from an inevitable crash into the ocean, but Fitch instead insists they MacGyver that shit in a way simply unheard of by man, prompting Sarah’s team to hook up an oxygen tank that not only fuels them but somehow gives the helicopter a fucking nitro boost. Impressed yet? Well that’s not all. The second farting in the face of the impossible comes later in the film when Fitch is leading the underwater assault against the giant piranhas. Throughout the duration of the entire battle, Fitch is communicating with his team and the army back at headquarters by talking in a regular speaking voice over his radio connection. That sounds pretty easy, right? The problem is that a fucking breathing apparatus is stuffed into his mouth the entire time, which would make this feat as impressive as singing your way through The Phantom Of The Opera while carrying a batch of newborn kittens in your pie hole.

Winner: Mega Piranha. Hmmm…a man who boot-fucks a school of fish while looking like he’s Sweating To The Oldies, or three lab rats whose greatest accomplishment is to successfully give a prehistoric fish a boner? Tough choice.

The Movie’s Ending:Blatantly Illogical? Check!

So epic that you can barely see what's going on.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: At the very least, the ending of this movie is somewhere in the same ballpark as making sense. Sure it’s busy rubbing out a batch of baby-sauce in right field instead of paying attention to the game, but at least it’s close. The punch line ends up being that after repeated failed attempts to destroy the two giants using conventional weapons that should have by all rights torn them to pieces, Debbie Gibson and her crew come up with the brilliant idea of luring the two combatants to the same location in hopes that they will fight each other to the death, eliminating both problems in one fell swoop. So that, go figure, is exactly what happens. After the same scene of Giant Octopus wrapping its tentacles around Mega Shark only to have one of them bitten off is played multiple times, as once again The Asylum blatantly pads its movie while assuming that the audience won’t notice that we’re stuck in a shitty Groundhog Day-esque loop, the two creatures finally sink into the blackness of their watery grave. The only major flaw with this little pearl of storytelling is that if we are to suppose that their hatred for one another was so strong that they are compelled to fight one another to the death upon seeing one another, then why didn’t the ancient enemies do exactly that at the beginning of the movie when they were freed from their ice tombs while quite literally facing one another in mid-battle? Get back to me on that while I’m busy not giving a shit.

So epic that being able to see what's going on actually makes the ending MORE confusing.

Mega Piranha: By contrast, this movie’s ending is a glorious monument to making no sense whatsoever. After taking a break from his underwater battle to dispose of Diaz in his helicopter, Fitch rejoins the fight just in time to go head to head with the same giant piranha that has just finished plucking Diaz’s helicopter out of the air. And with the helicopter still in its jaws, that fish follows Fitch into a coral patch where it gets stuck, leaving it open to attack. Using his last functioning brain cell, Fitch turns and fires, hitting what I assume is the helicopter’s fuel tank which in turn causes an underwater explosion that takes the piranhas entire face off. Now, I know what you’re thinking: didn’t I explain earlier that the piranhas were attacking whole cities by jumping out of the water and landing on buildings, meaning that there are actually lots of these huge fish? You bet. So what should the death of one of them result in? That’s right; absolutely nothing. And yet, this one fish bleeding in the water causes all the others to come and cannibalize it. Seems odd, but why not? The problem is, once all the fish start feeding….that’s it. The conflict is declared over. The problem is apparently solved and it took us a few minutes to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Somehow this movie is suggesting that just because the fish decided to eat one of their own, that somehow stopped every single one of them, even though this is the same hoard of fish that had stopped to feed on one of its own earlier in the movie. This isn’t even trying to make any goddamn sense and is quite possibly one of the laziest fucking endings in cinematic history. It honestly could have cut from the underwater fight directly to a shot of Abraham Lincoln giving a pepperoni pizza a high five then back to Fitch laughing and playing Marco Polo with the piranhas and it wouldn’t be any less intelligible.

Winner: Mega Piranha. This one’s not even close. The ending of Mega Piranha is one of the most spectacular failures The Asylum has produced to date, and as we all know by now, that’s saying something. Something that smells like taint.

The Verdict:

Donkey: The results speak for themselves. Even by its own rights, Mega Piranha is probably the greatest modern Asylum movie that we’ve seen in quite some time, hearkening back to the glory days of Universal Soldiers and Alien Vs Hunter. I give it four and a half bicycle kicks out of five horribly devoured civilians. But given its competition, it looks even better as Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, on the other hand is an exceptionally average entry into our catalog that once again proves that hype rarely lives up to its own billing. The single outstanding moment of the shark taking down the airplane is worth the awkward romance and remarkable lack of further redeemable scenes, but not by much. Trust me when I say that the glory is all in the name. There’s little else past that. I give this turd a very charitable three washed up starlets out of five hilarious airline accidents. Stick with the pseudo-sequel if you want some real laughs.

What We Learned:

Donkey: Ending a movie properly is overrated. Hell, it downright unnecessary. And that’s the kind of indisputable fact that can be translated to everything else in life, like writing. That’s why I have weighed the options and decided…

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Our greatest single review to date as we tackle more movies at once than man was meant to ponder in….THE COMIC BOOK CARTOON MOVIE PARADE OF PAIN.

Back To The Main Page.

I just can't stop laughing whenever I see this poster. Seriously, I defy you to find a picture of a man happier to be disarming and likely dismembering more dudes at once.

Donkey: It’s funny where you end up finding inspiration. The ravenous pack of regular visitors to this site – which has recently exploded from 2 or 3 all the way up to about 7 or 8, officially making us the Internet’s biggest sensation, at least until someone posts a new video of a kitten or dude getting hit in the balls on YouTube – will notice that it’s been a while since I’ve managed to share a new story of brain-raping splendor. I’m afraid that maintaining the aggressive writing schedule required by this site has become more and more of a challenge over time, especially as my attempts to avoid getting repetitive have started to make the once bountiful well of dick and fart jokes seem to dry up more and more each day. But just when I wondered if I could possibly go on, inspiration arrived in the form of a stern rebuke. I recently discovered that this site has been banned by a certain Christian web filtering application. And while some might consider falling into the cross-hairs of the Jesus Brigade to be detrimental to their continued work, I don’t think I could possibly find this fact any funnier. Someone actually thinking enough of this site to ban it is a real feather in my cap. Of course, some of you who are new to our exploits might be asking what I could have done to deserve this cybercock-blocking, and I have to say that I’m not entirely sure. Could it be that my infectious prose have caused hapless victims to be drawn to their computer at the expense of family, friends, and basic bodily functions? Possibly. Could it be because my promotion of the dong-punching glory that is JCVD could technically be considered a method of birth control that would offend Catholic sensibilities? Maybe. Or could it be because I’ve referred to all organized religions as nothing more than an Amway scheme with a far more obnoxious sales force? Probably. But regardless, thank you Christian blocking software; you’ve made my day.

So with the topic of inspiration in mind, let’s travel back once again to our favorite cinematic decade, to a time when action movies knew that awesomeness didn’t require things like a viable plot or even the slightest basis in reality, and witness the journey of a man who found the inspiration required to overcome his handicap to arbitrarily achieve true semi-greatness.

The Plot:

Donkey: Have you ever wondered what a movie would be like if it starred the butt-baby spawned from a torrid love affair between The Hulk and Daredevil as he teamed up with a kid whose antics haven’t been fresh since Problem Child while concurrently battling a villain so remarkably non-threatening that you could just as easily picture him selling you life insurance or a 1995 Chrysler Dynasty? Yeah, me neither. But feel free to read on and discover the magic that absolutely no one asked for.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Sharp Killing Instruments – Basic Vision Or Language Skills = Negative Fun!

Just pray that this is the only time that the villagers are going to want to play "Smell My Snake", Rutger.

Donkey: Like so many of the stories that your grandfather spouts out to support his endless case that you’re a soft-lipped pussy just because you’ve never been face down in thick jungle brush, ducking below an intense firefight between Charlie and Uncle Sam while grunting your way through the intense firefight of syphilis in your trousers resulting from standing fourth in line for a three dollar hooker, this week’s tale begins in the magical place we call ‘Nam. That’s right, it’s time once again to visit the even lighter side of a national tragedy where we pass through a haze of wonder, dreams, and needless human suffering to meet the film’s hero played by the illustrious Rutger Hauer. As a US soldier whom is unknowingly taking his first steps onto the path of an epic journey, Rutger enters the movie crawling away from the smoking rubble of a fierce battle where he was struck blind. Frightened, alone, and undoubtedly farming a particularly potent swamp-water dong-fungus, his darkest day imaginable – pun intended – suddenly gets much worse when he’s caught in a net Chewbacca-style and taken to a nearby village of what I have to assume are blood-thirsty local peasants. However, instead of taking this foreign enemy hostage to create a rudimentary sperm bank in his lower colon or possibly serve his internal organs on a bed of rice pilaf, these simple villagers instead decide to act as angels of mercy. So with absolutely no explanation as to why they would bother, the movie jumps straight into one of sweet, buttery Jesus’ greatest gifts to humankind: the montage. And we’re not talking some syrupy bullshit trying to touch our hearts and our bathing suit areas with random images of Rutger’s plucky resilience and indomitable spirit in learning to live with his new handicap. No, Rutger’s even more ridiculous recovery includes learning the magical art of Jit-Kun-I’m-Going-To-Stab-You-In-The-Face-With-My-Sword-Do. But how exactly does a newly stricken blind man without the Vietnamese language skills necessary to process the most basic instructions manage to train with a fucking sword, you ask? It’s quite simple, actually. He achieves this feat merely by hugging a little old man while that dude practices a few solitary katas. Yep, it’s just that easy.

Whoa! Hey dude, that's not what I meant when I said, "put the sword in its sheath"!

So in the time it takes him to grow a glorious ponytail, Rutger learns to master blind sword work, developing skills so sophisticated that he can slice through coconuts being thrown past his face. Fuck, we’re off to a good start. I can’t wait until he decides to go out for his fighter pilot’s license after spending a couple of hours dry humping an 8 year old kid playing After Burner.

Exhibit B: Take My Wife Please! Oh Wait…She’s Dead.

So tell me...are you ever going to split kings again, motherfucker? Didn't think so.

With our hero’s vague introduction complete, the film says fuck it and decides to get right to brass tacks by jumping ahead 20 years, completely ignoring the question of how a blind American would manage to survive the last two decades tripping around a Vietnamese jungle after practicing little more than a complicated regiment of coconut slashing/dude fondling. Instead we rejoin Rutger on his path of glory just in time to discover that he has returned home to the United States. Naturally we began to speculate that he’s been drawn back to the land of Big Macs and even bigger asses to witness all the miraculous fads that the 80′s has to offer: the timeless musical juggernaut that is Wang Chung, the taste bud molestation of New Coke, or even the elusive “computer” fad undoubtedly destined to fade into nerd obscurity next to Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. But instead we eventually discover that he’s actually returned to find an old war buddy named Frank Devereaux. Little does our hero know, however, that Frank is actually in Reno at the time, being hung off the roof of a casino. But before you wonder if he’s turned his post-war-stress disorder into a shitty David Blaine performance art, I should specify that he’s not there by choice. Frank’s being hung over the side by the casino’s owner, whom we’ll call Hamshank MacCready, and a cadre of hired thugs led by Randall Tex Cobb, otherwise known as the biker from Raising Arizona whose performance achieved a 9.5 on the “Mickey Rourke Scale of Greasy Douche Bags”. Apparently Frank is a chemist with a gambling problem, and rather than have his legs broken or even his feelings hurt through a series of stinging personal observations, Hamshank MacCready has instead decided to call in Frank’s debts by forcing him to become the chemist solely responsible for his designer drug-manufacturing/amateur horse-porn web hosting business.

Careful, Rutger. She's totally fucked over He-Man and Rowdy Roddy Piper. You don't stand a chance.

Blind to the fate of his sought after friend, not to mention oncoming traffic and the sacred art of mime, Rutger begins his journey strolling along the side of a Florida highway where he’s forced to overcome obstacles that are both increasingly dangerous and exponentially asstastic enough in nature to fittingly represent a state with the collective intellectual capacity to be thoroughly crushed and defeated by the veritable minefield of human comprehension that is voting: a discarded Coke can, a pile of dog shit, a live goddamn alligator, and finally a group of local punks in a bar who perform a duet of offenses in harassing a young girl and gleefully spiking Rutger’s burrito with a metric ton of hot sauce. And while litter, deadly free roaming wildlife, and pestering the handicapped are all things that Rutger can apparently abide, playing keep away with a young girl’s purse apparently earns you a first class ticket on the Beating Express. While inexplicably taking the time to make it look accidental, Rutger uses his trusty Cane-Sword (which is infinitely less fuck-headed than Final Fantasy VIII’s Gunblade, just for the record) to teach the punks a lesson in manners that concludes in a final exam involving unconsciousness. But once these minor annoyances are behind him, Rutger finally arrives at his destination, the Devereaux household, where he ascertains that Frank is divorced and has long since moved to Reno, abandoning his wife played by – well goddamn it – Evil Lyn from Masters of the Universe. Jesus, between that and They Live, we can’t get away from this woman lately.

Sorry about the cigar ma'am, but it's the only thing that can cover the smell of flame-broiled garbage.

But just before Rutger can seize the opportunity to see if he can smooth talk his way into a fabled “soccer mom blowjob”, two cops show up at the front door a few minutes behind him accompanied by our old pal Randall Tex Cobb, asking to see Frank and Evil Lyn’s son, Billy. Tex claims to be some kind of inspector, which is goddamn retarded because even if we hadn’t already seen that he’s actually a goon working for MacCready, this guise still wouldn’t be remotely believable to anyone unless he was a water inspector sent to preach the virtues of conservation via skipping all forms of bathing. Seriously, this guy posing as a cop would still be insulting to officers working undercover at a fucking sewage treatment plant. Having obviously been sent to kidnap Billy and ensure Frank’s continued cooperation, the thugs immediately drop their pleasant facade the moment that Billy steps into the room, opting in favor of the more elegant tactic of grabbing the kid while blowing Evil Lyn away with a shotgun. Things look grim for our blind hero, but thankfully two decades of training have elevated his level of lethality to a few steps above the average housewife, so Rutger doesn’t go down quite as easily. With only a few deft movements of his Cane-Sword, Rutger relieves one cop of the burden of having a right hand and splits the other straight down the sternum, leaving Tex to wisely haul ass straight through the living room window in a desperate panic to get away. With the danger seemingly gone, Evil Lyn uses her dying breaths to demand that Rutger – a complete stranger – swear that he’ll look after Billy. I realize that she’s dying and all, but this seems a little quick to be that trusting. He could be a blood thirsty pedophile for all she knows. Maybe just ask him to look after the kid until the real cops show up? Regardless, Rutger agrees to her plea and after waiting for the life to seep out of her, he takes a moment to close her eyes by brushing his hand over her face lightly, even though we can clearly see that she closed her eyes before his fingers crossed over her eyes.

Unless your hand smelling like ball-sweat magically causes eyes to close, that's not even close.

Exhibit C: Need A Cure For Those Blues, Kid? How About Some Depressingly Bad Comedy?

Next up on our hero’s journey is a cross-country bus ride to Reno with his new dependent in tow, and as we all know from watching Over The Top, any time a burly hero and brat kid whose shrill voice is practically begging for a brick to the face get together for a long road trip, wacky hi-jinx coupled with shallow attempts to be more touching than a drunken uncle are assured. The first part of that equation comes when the bus stops to gas up at some shithole in the middle of nowhere, giving our heroes the chance to stretch their legs and comedic chops simultaneously. First they exchange heartfelt mocking laughter at each others’ expense after taking turns slipping and wiping out in the mud. But the fun doesn’t stop there as soon after Billy hands Rutger a rock in the guise of candy. Candy that has a both that taste and nutritional value of a hobo’s asshole, I’m guessing. But our blind hero happily plays along, biting down and making an exaggeratedly pained face before spitting the rock out and nailing the kid right in the forehead. If you’re not laughing by now, take heart: that just means that you’ve managed to avoid the fiery depths of comedy hell. This schtick is so goddamn old that a pie fight or series of banana peel related mishaps honestly wouldn’t seem the slightest bit out of place.

Alright, I'll begrudgingly admit that the only way to make a spit-take funny is by ending it with a kid getting nailed in the head.

But with that crushing hilarity threatening to kill us all, the movie then grants a small reprieve by switching to tender mode. After the pair returns to their bus, Billy’s snooping through Rutger’s wallet yields a picture of him and Frank together in ‘Nam prompting Rutger to regale the boy with the story of how he lost of sight. Through a quick flashback, Rutger reveals that he and Frank were the best of friends back in their war days, but that all changed one night when their base got hit with a mortar attack. Sent out to crawl through the jungle brush and flank their attackers while the rest of the platoon tried to defend their post, he and Frank managed to successfully locate the enemy, only for Frank to run like a pussy the moment they were met with resistance. Left behind to be hit by an explosion, Rutger was left blind while Frank managed to get away completely unaffected, save the terminal damage inflicted upon their torrid bromance. What a great story. Basically your dad’s a treacherous coward that left me scarred for life, kid. Suck on that.

Am I the only one who questions the authenticity of any photo supposedly taken in Vietnam where people have smiles that fucking big?

The bus continues its apparent tour of unremarkable hellholes, stopping at another shithole in the middle of nowhere where emotions continue to flow like bad mayonnaise out of an explosive colon. Billy tries to make a collect call home to his mother, only to have Rutger hang up the phone and finally explain that his mom didn’t stay behind because she was too busy plotting new methods of retrieving the Cosmic Key from He-Man, but that she actually bit the big one. At least that’s what I presume that’s what he’s telling Billy, as this is performed in a pull away shot for dramatic effect while all dialogue is drowned out by music so sappy that I could smother my waffles in it, but for all we know Rutger just told him that his mother is busy starring in a German fetish porn film featuring 3 midgets and a particularly determined dog. And midget-themed beastiality might actually be closer to the truth than I would have guessed judging by Billy’s reaction, as he freaks out at the news he’s given and runs across the highway into a corn field. But it’s not only Rutger that chases after him, as we see that a truck of fully armed hillbillies are quickly following behind. And things just go from bad to worse when Billy runs headlong into the familiar face of our old comrade, Tex. Of course, blocking the kid’s flight that quickly means that Tex either watched where Billy entered the corn field and moved at superhuman speeds to get around him because he is, in fact, the Flash, or he was already in the goddamn field just hanging out. Both explanations are equally ass-hatted, and yet somehow equally appropriate.

If this is the face of your enemy, you don't need to be a martial artist to survive. Hell, you barely need to be a sandwich artist.

Regardless, Tex is well aware that Rutger is following along behind and is prepared for his blind nemesis this time. He locks Billy in an abandoned shack in the middle of the field and sits waiting on its roof with a rifle. But at the same time Rutger begins to realize the danger he’s in, sensing the gaggle of rednecks slowly surrounding him. In response he switches to stealth mode and slowly begins to stalk his way through the thick natural cover to take out the well-armed hillbillies one by one. It sounds straight forward enough, but just to give you an idea of the stupidity we’re dealing with, this pack includes a dude named Popcorn who, get this, is eating popcorn at the time. Genius, I know. That kind of brilliance just earned this movie a scratch-n-sniff sticker simply called “Dick Cheese”. And after killing them all one by one, Rutger has only one nemesis left to dispense, so he brings the ordeal to a close by distracting Tex with a scarecrow while he runs up and – no shit – brings the entire goddamn shed collapsing down underneath the greasy thug with a single slice of his sword to the only support post in sight. Of course, I hate to be a killjoy here but beyond the amazingly idiotic suggestion that anyone would build a four-walled structure that’s held up by a single support beam, the movie seems to be forgetting that Billy’s still inside the goddamn thing. No worries though, as after giving Tex a good slice across the chest, Rutger extracts Billy from the rubble, completely unharmed, and flees the scene as fast as possible. And just to make the whole thing that much more pointless, our villainous oil slick wakes up after they’ve left to reveal that he has survived via a Kevlar vest under his shirt, all while giggling his ass off in as evil a voice as one can muster after being spanked twice by a blind man who bested your gun with a fucking sword. Kudos, dicktip.

Billy would go on to explain this experience later in life to be "kind of like the crushing disappointment of discovering there is no Santa Clause...only with more broken bones involved."

Exhibit D: You Could Find Better Villains At A Kitten Lovers Convention

Taking a brief interlude from the thrills of child neglecting action, our attention is turned a back to Reno for a very modest amount of plot development. Our evil antagonist Hamshank MacCready reveals the motivations behind his villainy, whining to his casino manager and right hand man, Ed, that the bank is going to foreclose on him unless he can come up with a large sum of money in two days, forcing him to turn to illegal narcotics manufacturing. Are you fucking kidding me? He owns a goddamn casino, which last I checked, is one of the few businesses that almost never has a cash-flow problem. He’s not the Assistant Night Shift Manager of a fucking Taco Bell, struggling to find a way to pay off a debt while making $6.50 an hour. Ed assures MacCready that their plans are in motion, but having apparently gotten word of Tex’s repeated failures, stipulates that “the blind man is complicating things”. Clearly a master of shrewd and cunning calculation, MacCready immediately demands that Ed do whatever he has to, including procuring the services of Bruce Lee. When Ed quietly explains that Bruce Lee is dead, MacCready rants on undeterred, demanding that if that’s the case then Ed should instead find Bruce Lee’s brother. So just when we thought that the movie couldn’t lose any more of it’s momentum, it becomes clear that its primary villain is not only motivated by the same kind of dilemna that a blue-collar factory worker would face, but that he’s also brain dead enough to be comprehensively demolished by a paint-by-numbers exercise. Did Bruce Lee even have a brother? And if he did, why the fuck would that mean that he knows anything about martial arts? After all, I’m no J.D. Salinger over here, but one of my brothers is barely literate enough to write any more than his name on a cocktail napkin while the other is more likely to eat that same napkin while shitting his pants.

Exhibit E: At This Point I’d Rather Be On A Roadtrip With Fran Drescher, Rosie Perez, And The Rotting Corpse Of Mickey Rooney

Shitty character development isn’t limited to the criminally stupid, however, as we return to our heroes as they hunker down by their campfire for a night of sharing, feelings, and possible casserole recipes or some other equivalently fruity bullshit. And much like an evening with a Viagra-chugging elderly man, the disgusting attempts at intimacy can’t end fast enough when Billy begins to blubber about his father not really wanting him (what gave you the first fucking clue kid…the fact that he moved across the country or the fact that you haven’t heard from him since?). Rutger tries to reassure the boy that he’s not a complete pussy by dropping a small but important fact about himself, saying that he wishes that he could join in for a good cry but that the same accident that robbed him of his sight also took his ability to cry. Of course that’s just a cover story, since any real man knows that crying is simply unacceptable unless you pass out just moments before the threesome was about to start or you’re watching Artex sink into the Swamp of Sadness in The Neverending Story. That’s right, ladies. We’re not made of stone. But anyways, Rutger concludes that he would be proud to have a son like Billy himself, which both gets the kid to stop acting like such a goddamn skirt while also showing how low Rutger’s standards apparently are. The next morning they wake up and hitchhike to Reno where their journey finally comes to an end in the only way we could possibly imagine…catastrophic failure. They manage to meet with Annie, Frank’s cocktail waitress girlfriend. But just before Billy can create a truly awkward moment by claiming that his mother was still breastfeeding him at 10 and demand that Annie step up to the plate if she’s going to be his new mommy, the heroes are ambushed by a pair of brothers belonging to Tex’s hillbilly goon militia.

If Rutger could see that dude wearing a sleaveless cowboy shirt, he'd agree that sometimes it's better to be blind.

Things might seem grim for Rutger and Billy as they are tossed into the back of a panel van for express delivery to MacCready after mandatory banjo solos and oral molestation, natch. But as we’ve seen time and time again, if there’s one opponent that can be easily disposed of by a blind man, it’s fucking chowderheads, and luckily this movie has them in spades. So while the Dim-witted Duo manage to burn their way through their bonds by means of a lighter that Billy finds after fumbling through Rutger’s pocket along side an accidental hand-job, their captors manage to miss this slow and remarkably obvious Houdini routine by occupying themselves within preschool shenanigans. But their uncontrollable giggling soon ends when one brother manages to cut himself on Rutger’s Cane-Sword by running his finger over the blade, apparently having been too busy corn-holing his brother – whom I’m fairly certain from the looks of it might also be his father – to learn that swords are sharp, and after tossing the weapon out the van’s window just to show that inanimate object who’s the boss (NOTE: it’s Tony Danza), it’s right about then that the hillbillies finally notice that there’s a fire raging behind them. Basic logic dictates that the best course of action would be to get out and wait for the world’s worst tag team duo to either burn to death inside or pop their heads out just in time to be served a 22 caliber sandwich, but instead the rednecks decide to pull over and investigate face-first. So naturally they open the back doors with the kind of hushed anticipation you rarely see outside of a 16 year old about to lose his virginity, only to get similarly fucked by Rutger’s flying fists. Wasting no time our heroes join Annie in the front of the van (which happens to not be on fire at this point for reasons I’ll never know) and take off back in the direction from which they came, stopping along the way to find Rutger’s discarded Cane-Sword which they locate using a ridiculous counting method that both is both poorly executed and exceptionally ineffectual. And they find it with not a moment to lose, as the two tenacious hillbillies brothers show up just then in carjacked vehicle of their own, looking for gingivitis-fueled revenge. This, however, is where things go from dumb to Fox News commentator shit-headed. As they scramble to jump back in the van and take off again, Annie’s glasses end up being trampled. So in a stroke of genius, rather than electing to have the person who’s almost blind drive, the team instead elects to have the person who is actually blind do the driving. Because that makes fucking sense. Goddamn it man, I can’t land this plane with my arm broken like this! Quick, strap the corpse into my seat and let’s see what it can do! Then in what may be one of the most ridiculous chase scenes ever unleashed upon humankind, Rutger pilots the van through downtown traffic using navigational directions that Billy screams out with such stunning clarity that he might as well be reciting the digits in Pi with a mouthful of howler monkeys, all while the gunfire of the pursuing hillbillies is drowned out by the sound of Rutger giggling like a madman. This is equal parts preposterous and absolute tedium until finally the madness comes to an end when the pursuing goons end up flipping their car and our heroes come to a screeching stop within mere inches of a brick wall.

I couldn't sum up this scene better than by simply pointing out that not one of them is actually looking where they're going.

Exhibit F: Loose Slots, Bad Craps, Glorious Mullets…The Recipe Ultimate Recipe For Cinematic Glory Or An 80′s Fetish Porn

Fair warning, ladies: the mere sight of these sweet Kentucky Waterfalls is responsible for more wet panties than a bladder control problem.

After finally making it to a safehouse, or a safetrailer such as it is, Rutger leaves Billy in the hands of Annie and another completely unknown woman while he commences Operation: Rescue-Frank-From-Drug-Casino-Go-Kicky-Fast-POW! The mission, of course, will require the right combination of idiotic decisions and inexplicably stupid events to be executed up to this movie’s standards, and things start off nicely when Rutger arrives in the casino to find MacCready wandering around the gaming floor, talking to his mini-boss Ed about Frank and their need to get their hands on his kid. I would point out how stunningly dick-faced it is to talk about your evil plans while wandering through the general public in your own establishment, but when you’re a “villain” motivated by nothing more than a questionable credit history, this is probably about what we should expect and just be thankful that he’s not shitting his pants as he’s talking. Hamshank conveniently goes on to explain that he figures that Frank will have made enough of the drugs by the end of the night that they can sell the product, get the money that the bank needs, and find a new chemist that is more cooperative, thus making Frank completely disposable. And once they’ve given Rutger nearly all the information he needs, the two men conveniently retire behind the protection of two body guards both sporting incredibly glorious mullets that I’m beginning to believe people in the 80′s thought had a direct link with how much ass you could kick.

Dude with a sword? Whatever. A casino is stacking the odds against me? Fuck, it's go time.

With almost all the information he needs and almost no time to lose, Rutger makes his way over to the roulette wheel to create the mandatory diversion required to cover his assault. After a few minutes of ridiculously successful play, Rutger amasses a large stack of chips for reasons that I would love to have explained to me before, prompting the casino staff to finally take notice of his hot streak and decide to make a change. And they don’t fuck around, as a new dealer comes out with the two glorious “business in the front, party in the back” bodyguards and switches the roulette ball for one that we can see is secretly radio controlled. After the new dealer gives the wheel a spin, he quite obviously uses his radio control to make the ball move at the last second, resulting in a loss of all Rutger’s winnings. But since the radio signal was easily picked up by his inexplicably superhuman hearing, Rutger knows immediately that he’s been cheated and jumps into action, slicing open the dealer’s vest pocket and flipping the roulette wheel with his Cane-Sword, revealing the corresponding radio devices in both. Here’s where the sheer genius of the scene comes, though: instead of being the slightest bit bothered or distracted by the fact that some strange dude just finished wildly swinging a fucking sword in a casino, the other customers surrounding them instead realize that the house is cheating and almost instantaneously start a fucking riot. This of course gives Rutger the chance he needs to sneak away to executive elevator that MacCready and Ed used earlier, getting on board just as the mullet-glad guards and freshly arrived hillbilly brothers finally make their way through the crowd and move to stop him. When his musak-fueled ride to the top finishes, Rutger easily disposes of two more huge black bodyguards with Uzis, and then stalls the impending reinforcements by cutting the panel off of the elevator call button panel and ramming his sword into it, which shorts out the system miraculously without causing him to be electrocuted.

Having successfully made it past a crack security squad that would keep all but the cleverest of preschoolers out, Rutger storms into Ed’s office for a deadly confrontation. But when his presence is greeted with a simple “fuck off”, Rutger realizes that he has to kick it up a notch. With only a single backhanded swing of his Cane-Sword, he takes the eyebrows right off his opponent’s face. And yet unlike us, who burst out into laughter at how clearly far away the sword swing was from his target’s face, Ed is actually scared shitless by Rutger’s physically impossible attack, prompting him to reveal that Frank is in a room across the hall while handing over the room key. After issuing the universally accepted action hero method of showing appreciation, wherein Rutger knocks Ed the fuck out, he makes his way across the hall and has an awkward, pseudo-emotional reunion with his old war buddy. At long last we’re finally ready to move on to the final step in Operation: Rescue-Frank-From-Drug-Casino-Go-Kicky-Fast-POW!, which is quite simply to run like hell. But before they go, Frank decides to create a distraction of his own after he grabs the bright blue drugs that he has just created, or what I think are supposed to be drugs – either that or Fun Dip – by setting the lab on fire. The veterans then escape down a stairwell just after the mullet/hillbilly combination arrives on the scene, with Rutger covering their tracks by cutting off the stairwell’s doorknob with a crushingly awkward swing.

This horizontal backslash has about the same likelihood of successfully trimming his eyebrows as a drunken amputee with a weed whacker.

Exhibit G: The Ultimate Battle For The Prize No One Wanted

Once the newly reunited war buddies arrive back at the safetrailer, having likely spent a long cab ride tip-toeing around whether or not to that night of daiquiris and rim-jobs lo those many years ago, they discover that things haven’t quite gone as planned. After finding the random chick who owned the trailer dead, they get a timely call from MacCready himself, informing Frank that he’s holding Billy and Annie up at his ski lodge. MacCready warns that he had better come meet him there with “the stuff” by dawn or he might lost both his casual girlfriend and the dependent that he really didn’t seem to want in the first place in one fell swoop. Does no one else see the problem with this? Seriously?

This couldn't be a more obvious time to hit them if Rutger was hanging out the windows screaming about the last time he banged the hillbillies' moms.

So, as predictable as the rampant ass-widening, childhood diabetes that KFC’s Double Down sandwich is sure to deliver, we arrive at the typical action movie “final battle”. And as much as we might be hoping that they instead say fuck it and head to a titty bar, the Super Friends rise to the challenge and journey to the ski lodge of doom to meet their fate. Of course that titty bar starts to look a like a significantly less idiotic option when compared to their actual approach: the path up to the lodge consists of a very long and exceptionally vulnerable ride on a gondola. But all is not lost, considering their rivals in this picture were drawn from a genetic wading pool. As such, MacCready’s hillbilly brigade is naturally ready and waiting to strike, but instead of hitting their prey while they’re dangling precariously above a fucking mountain, they choose to wait for the war buddies finish their slow moving ride, conveniently allowing Frank to pass the time by preparing for the coming battle by mixing some homemade explosives. Once the gondola finally arrives in the ski lodge’s station, Tex and his gaggle of well-armed thugs finally open fire, blasting the shit out of the car as it comes to a rest. But of course when they go inside to collect what they presume are going to be two corpses/tomorrow night’s dinner, they instead find that the car is empty as a result of the Super Friends managing to sneak out of a hatch in the floor. It’s nice to see that this battle has just begun and it’s already goddamn tiresome.

Now that they’ve successfully slipped into the impenetrable fortress of death and family leisure, Frank and Rutger begin running through darkened hallways with no discernible plan whatsoever until they eventually run into familiar foes in the form of the two hillbilly brothers. But with no sodolicioius panel vans to be seen, the brothers find themselves at a disadvantage. Rutger gets the drop on one of them and puts his sword across the brother’s mouth, using him as a human shield while the other one begins to go right ahead and fire anyways. As you can imagine, this idiocy inevitably leads to the one brother shooting his human pinata kin in the chest. Go fucking figure. But not to be outdone, the newly perforated sibling looks back indignantly before pulling out a gun of his own and returning the favor, shooting the other brother. So yeah, they’re both dead. Thank God. But the fighting for our heroes has just begun as the rest of Tex’s horde catches up to the Super Friends moments later and attempts to give them a led-flavored greeting. Together under fire once again all these years later, Frank finally comes face to face with an opportunity to redeem himself…only to once again show his true colors by running like a bitch and leaving Rutger to die alone. But after suffering through a series of painful flashbacks, Rutger manages to pull himself together enough to escape out of the hallway and scramble into a large theater room. The reprieve is short lived, though, as within moments the hillbilly pose floods in behind him and surrounds Rutger. And with their prey finally at their mercy, after having him hand their asses to them repeatedly up to this point, the gang of thugs naturally decides that the best course of action is to stop and take 20 fucking minutes to cock and prep their guns for what they’re assuming is the inevitable execution. But at the last moment, Frank reappears and finally redeems himself by…shutting off the rooms’ lights. Hmmm…leaving him to die twice VS flicking off a goddamn light switch? Yep, consider that debt repaid in full. Realizing that the ring of morons surrounding him with guns has been suddenly cast into darkness, Rutger makes probably the most intelligent decision in the movie thus far and simply ducks, leaving the retarded bumpkins to fire on each other, killing several of their companions before finally stopping. Confused and terrified in the darkness, the supposedly hardcore thugs stand around more stunned than a teenage girl at Justin Timberlake concert, just pointing their guns at nothing and waiting for the inevitable. And of course, Rutger calmly obliges them, weaving his way through the darkness and cutting them down with ease. The best part of this scene is that the hillbillies are acting like the room is pitch black, and yet there is very clearly a significant amount of light pouring in from doorways around the room’s perimeter. I know that filming in absolute darkness can’t be easy, but really? This is supposed to be pitch black and we can’t do any better than sexy mood lighting?

Holy shit...it's so dark that I totally can't see the things that are clearly illuminated around me.

After killing idiot rednecks in the not-quite-darkness, the final confrontation continues when Rutger and Frank finally make it up to the pinnacle of the lodge where they find a highly irritable MacCready and his hostages. After storming in and going through the obligatory exercise of surrendering their guns and the load of stolen drugs, the main event finally begins. Seeing as this is an 80′s action movie, you don’t need me to reassure you that this clash will be truly epic, but I don’t think anyone could possibly be prepared for the moment that a random Asian dude walks into the room with a sword to face off against Rutger. You heard me. Apparently when MacCready demanded Bruce Lee’s brother, he wasn’t fucking around. So I’m not sure if this is supposed to actually be the long lost brother or just some random Asian guy that MacCready snagged from a neighborhood mall after assuming that he knew martial arts solely because he was Asian, but we’ll assume the former and just call this dude Chad Lee. Rutger obliges his challenge of course, and a sweet sword fight ensues which is in no way completely deflated by the obvious method of speeding up the film to make it look more intense. Eventually Rutger and Chad Lee end up fighting on the edge of a hot tub that has a random severed electrical floating around in it. Figuring that it might somehow make for the most ultimate attack of awesomeness ever to blow its load into human eyes, Chad Lee decides that it would be sheer brilliance to combine swinging on a rope trapeze contraption that just happens to be hanging over the hot tub for no conceivable reason with his final slashing sword attack. And as anyone with more brain functionality than a particularly dim-witted carrot might assume, Rutger’s response is to merely duck and cut the rope, dropping Chad Lee into the electrocuting hot tub. No shit.

This is totally the best idea I've ever had...whoa...SHIT!

But just when we think this grand struggle can’t get any better, it ushers in one the dumbest fucking endings you can imagine, short of involving a boxing kangaroo with a foot fetish. After Rutger finishes reliving the glory of his ‘Nam days by killing an Asian for the first time in 20 years, Tex walks in and wastes another clear shot at Rutger by hitting him square in the arm. To his credit, Rutger manages to keep his head and issues a swift response in the form of a thrown sword directly into his opponent’s gut. With a grimace of pain, Tex rips out and discards the sword before falling to the ground and crawling for the gun that he had carelessly dropped. And with this brief pause in the action, Billy leaps on the chance to make a dash for the Cane-Sword, heroically tossing it to Rutger only to watch him bobble the catch and send the weapon plummeting into the electrocuting hot tub of death. This was so careless that you’d almost think he was – oh I don’t know – a fucking blind man. But as Tex continues crawling towards the gun slowly, Rutger comes up with Plan B and grabs Chad Lee’s sword instead. With one last dramatic slow motion shot, Rutger runs up just as Tex reaches his gun and hits him with a massive slash before he can get a shot off. And while that sounds great, it gets even better when the greasy turd rockets backward out of a window only to fall down a massive fucking cliff, splitting in half as he falls and making him look a lot like Darth fucking Maul if the Sith lord happened to have an aversion to bathing. Just as a side note, while all this is going on, Frank wrestles with MacCready for control of a gun, but that struggle is never actually resolved on camera. So we don’t see Frank actually disarm and subdue MacCready, so who knows what the fuck happens there. I guess it doesn’t matter at this point.

I can hear Schwarzenegger shouting in the distance: "Hey Tex, time to split!"

Exhibit H: Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Wanna Settle Down

Now that our improbable journey has come to an end, it’s time to match its meandering, arbitrary splendor with an equally mind-numbing epilogue, and it just kind of writes itself when you stop to think about it. With an absentee father, his trashy girlfriend, an obnoxious kid, and a blind lethal weapon left to their own devices, they naturally decide to pile onto a bus and start a new life in San Fransisco, on the verge of possibly creating one of the dumbest fucking sit-coms the world has seen since Full House. But at the last moment, Rutger manages to muster a shred of common sense and tosses away his bus ticket. And while his new parents board the bus just ahead of him, Billy takes notice of Rutger’s swift escape, chasing after him while crying about how much he needs either him or possibly the smell of soiled panties to get him going in the morning. I’m not really sure as we stopped paying attention about 20 minutes ago. Giving the little ankle biter one last hug, Rutger tells Billy that he’s quite fond of his asinine existence but that he must go back to his father. To then punctuate exactly how much he doesn’t want to be around the kid anymore, Rutger gets up and wanders through traffic before eventually disappearing behind a passing bus. Yet again, that’s pretty goddamn impressive for a blind man. Not ready to give up, Billy starts running like a lunatic in the direction that he guesses that Rutger went, screaming for the blind man to come back while his his newly adopted parents prove exactly how much they love him by not bothering to even get off the bus to see where the hell he is. Eventually Billy stops at a bridge where he cries out to Rutger, exclaiming that he hates him. But just as Billy stands blubbering, his bus suddenly pulls up and Franks jumps out to retrieve him, begging the question how did this fucking bus know where to go to find him and why did the driver agree to go chasing after him in the first place? But even more importantly, can we possibly top this bullshit? Yes. Yes we can.

It's a common misconception to think that he's crying over Billy, but it's actually over the fashion catastrophe that is those goddamn glasses.

The final groan worthy moment of excellence comes as Rutger walks out from under the bridge where Billy gave his emotional farewell, very obviously crying. This suggests that either he was lying to Billy earlier when he said that he couldn’t cry or the love of an exceptionally annoying child suddenly managed to fix an actual medical problem. Either way is equally idiotic, so who gives a shit. But with that, the movie finally ends with Rutger hitchhiking as he wanders away down a highway, beginning what is assured to be yet another epic journey. Is this the setup for a sequel? Will he see our wandering hero once again slashing his way through both the criminal underworld and the everyday obstacles that a handicapped man must face?

Don’t bet on it.

The Verdict:

Donkey: This movie is classic. It’s premise is idiotic and disgustingly stereotypical of an 80′s action film, featuring a hero that’s conceptually ridiculous while still managing to be skillfully executed by a very credible thespian in Rutger Hauer. The villains run the gamut of stupidity, ranging from amusingly ineffectual to shockingly ball-faced. It’s only major weak point comes in the form of Billy the kid, and much like the legendary western bandit of the same name, I’d pretty much beg to have this particular one hung by the scrotum. Seriously, much like a healthy sex life, kids almost always ruin a movie and this one is no exception. But still, there are enough laughs here to make it worth a watch. I give Blind Fury four dry-humping-filled training montages out of five cases of jungle crotch rot.

What We Learned:

Donkey: If your brother dies under mysterious circumstances, the only way that you can possibly top him is to die under absolutely ludicrous circumstances. Preferably involving a hot tub.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a double feature like you couldn’t possibly imagine as we dissect two of The Asylum’s newest and most awesomely named films in…”MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS” VS “MEGA PIRANHA” VS COMMON SENSE.

Back To The Main Page.

Look out, Dolph! He's trying to inject you with some personality!

Donkey: Mothers, teachers, and a disembodied hand preparing a delicious looking fried egg have been begging or flat out threatening us for years in an attempt to keep us away from the evil clutches of drugs, lest our brains become an essential part of a wholesome and balanced breakfast. And for years growing up, I actually believed the hype, thinking that anyone who so much as uttered the word “weed” when describing their garden was probably a foaming-at-the-mouth junkie filled with the HIV, whose sole purpose in life was tricking me into joining a secret cult dedicated to chasing dragons straight off a fucking high rise and plunging to a euphoric death faster than you can say “Sponge Bob’s heroin-filled Square Pants”. Those were much simpler times. But as I grew up and began to question pretty much everything around me, I came to realize that while drugs are still an enterprise every bit as perilous as investing your retirement savings into a pension fund run by Gary Busey and MC Hammer, the subject isn’t quite as black and white as they would have you believe. Just like almost everything in life, the subject breaks down into many different shades of gray. Drinking beer is supposed to be an ice-cold filtered road to pure refreshment, even though drunks are some of the most violent people I’ve ever met in life. And yet at the same time, pot is supposed to be the inevitable first step to a lifetime of crime, desperation, and societal destruction, even though the potheads that I’ve met in my life usually aren’t prone to do anything worse than eating all my Cheetos at any exceptionally slow pace while giggling their asses off at classic episodes of Dr. Who. As for coke heads, well once you get into the professional world, you find yourself working for most of them. But still the stereotypes will never go away, so for every Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle that promotes the wacky hi-jinx of hang gliding and overcoming racial stereotypes all while being more baked than a hot apple pie, there’s an I Come In Peace waiting to hold you down and violate you with a bong shaped like your uncle’s mustache. Try enjoying a Phish concert after that, you dirty hippie.

But just for the record, this movie is awesome to watch while totally high.

The Plot:

Donkey: After punishing my brain with what was literally seconds of retrospect, the best way that I can describe I Come In Peace is kind of like a low rent version of Predator 2. The differences being that instead of Danny Glover’s battle with drug dealers being interrupted by the appearance of an alien who has come to Earth in search of ultimate sport hunting, the story in this case centers around Dolph Lundgren battling shitty drug dealers only to be interrupted by the appearance of an alien who has come to the Earth searching for the ultimate high. Oh yeah, and instead of Bill Paxton, the role of the quirky sidekick is played by a dude that you’ve probably never heard of. Granted this is a rather simplified analysis of course, but seeing as I’m not exactly getting paid to bring any true insight to the subject and I have no real journalistic integrity to speak of, that’s about as good as it gets. But for anyone not satisfied with that, I’ll take my description even further into shallow waters: watching I Come In Peace is comparable to being crazy drunk and watching your friend reenact the story of Predator 2 using sock puppets, provided that those sock aren’t as much puppets as just filthy socks that you stole off a hobo while stumbling home from the bar. Don’t think I can get any lazier than that? Watch me, asshole: I Come In Peace is like watching Predator 2 through a nasty case of pink eye caused by Dolph Lundgren dropping trough and farting in your face for the duration of the film.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Lions And Tigers And Societal Decay Caused By Hardcore Street Drugs…Oh My!

Donkey: As this is our second dance with the master of swagger, brawn, and wooden acting known as Dolph Lundgren, we find ourselves clenching both our tasty beverages and our bowels just a little bit harder than normal, preparing for the spectacle that is about to unfold. To quote Forest Gump, having a man of Dolph’s caliber attached to your film is “like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get…until he pops out of that box of chocolates and smashes your fucking face through your colon”. Or something like that. But when casting Dolph, the very least of what you’re going to need is an exceptionally terrible threat for him to overcome. After all, playing referee to a high stakes game of octogenarian Shuffleboard, battling a rival gang of kindergarten girls to determine who draws the fluffiest kittens, or any other frilly bullshit that the prettier Hollywood elite might be called in to handle just isn’t going to get the job done in this case. Short of the dong-punching glory of JCVD or possibly an elephant with a steroid problem, very little could stand as proper opposition to Dolph. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the only way to make this movie last longer than 3 minutes and 2 clown-shattering roundhouse kicks is to immediately introduce an antagonist from the depths of the cosmos.

My friend, I've traveled across the known universe to make America skinny again, one slap at a time.

Since our villain will need to have the power of a thousand exploding suns, there’s no better way to establish him as an alien bad ass than pitting him against the most horrifyingly evil threat of the 80′s: a stereotypical middle-aged business executive. So we begin on a dark and fateful night where said victim is driving along while cursing about the sweet but severely malfunctioning stock CD player that came in what he exclaims is his $70,000 car. Keep in mind that when you see the exterior of the car, this seems like a credible claim as it appears to be some kind of Mercedes or other luxury vehicle. But when they show the craptastic CD player, which looks more like a fucking ham radio, you can’t help but notice the surrounding dashboard in all its wood paneled glory, which makes me think that this can’t be the same car on the inside as it is on the outside. And if that’s the case, then I hate to bust it to this guy, but the pine condom clad Chrysler Le Baron that he’s rolling in wouldn’t be worth $70,000 if it had a stripper dispenser in the trunk. But before the idiocy of his own words can sink into that tiny brain, he becomes so engulfed in his own shenanigans that he loses control of the car and crashes into what looks like a Christmas tree sales yard, ensuring that anyone who happened to be picking one out at the time was about to have a pretty shitty holiday season. And just when you wonder what the fuck the point of this scene is, he climbs out of his 3-horse-powered pussy magnet just before it’s demolished by a sudden explosion caused by an object falling from the sky. As the man stands in bewilderment wondering if there will be any way to get his 2 Live Crew CD back, from out of the wreckage floats a massive blond dude who states in an ominous monotone voice, “I come in peace”. Based on his method of terror that we’ll cover later and the fact that I can’t be bothered to remember whatever shitty name they actually gave him, we’ll just go ahead and call this extraterrestrial Professor Moneyshot. And upon the professor uttering that always awesome title shout out, the film cuts immediately away from the scene, leaving us wondering if this alien was about to offer the random yuppie information on an exciting new career in TV/VCR repair or possibly try to sell him a Slapchop.

But again, when dealing with Dolph Lundgren, one villain just won’t be enough for your movie. So after being introduced to the movie’s primary source of unstoppable terror, the flamboyance level is dialed way up as our attention is then turned to its secondary, entirely stoppable terror in the form of a local crime ring known as “The White Boys”. This supposed “gang” consists of upper class, white collar executives who peddle drugs while carrying out business like they’re running a Fortune 500 company. This bullshit is something that you could only pull off in the 80’s. To understand just how retarded this entire concept is, picture the seminal Michael J. Fox film The Secret Of My Success. Got it? Good. Now imagine that the commodities that his company is trading in are cocaine and heroin, and then picture the hostile takeover scene at the end being carried out with Uzis. Not since James Bond has there been a more ridiculous idea that serves no other practical purpose than to give a hard on to middle-aged men going through a midlife crisis looking to live vicariously through the silver screen. But regardless, the gang officially enters the movie when a few of their more ruthless members manage to perform the daring feat of infiltrating a police station and blowing it straight to hell in an attempt to cover their tracks after they steal an entire shipment of dope from their evidence room.

Exhibit B: He-Man And The Masters Of The Action Movie Clichés

Despite popular belief, it wasn't breaking up with Elaine that made him drop all the weight. It was the copious amounts of coke.

That’s right about the point where we finally catch up with Dolph, our film’s super cop forged in the same hellfires as all the other classic action movie super cops of his time. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: He’s a take-no-prisoners-or-showers bad ass who smashes skulls while dropping deuces on the rule book and giving the general public the finger. Seriously, he’s such an unoriginal caricature that he might as well be wearing a clown wig, dancing around maniacally with children, and trying to sell me colon cancer in the form of a Big Mac. But regardless, our hero enters the film sitting in his car and listening through an ear piece, undoubtedly while stroking the barrel of his gun like it’s about to burst forth a piping hot bowl of his man-chowder, as his undercover partner works in a nearby empty nightclub attempting to complete a drug deal with the head of the White Boys. The gang’s leader, Victor Manning, whom the astute observer will recognize as Roy from the Junior Mint episode of Seinfeld (and that’s about all), drones on about the importance of a higher education, wasting time until members of his crew show up with the heroin freshly stolen from the police evidence room. But just as it appears that the deal is about to go through successfully, allowing the gang to celebrate in the traditional White Boy fashion of singing a rousing rendition of The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats, Junior Mint Manning reveals to Dolph’s partner that the gang is quite aware that he’s actually a cop. Things are looking grim, but as we all know, nothing bad can happen when you’re partnered with a super cop. Right?

"Sweet God, helt me?" What does "helt me" mean? Fuck it, I'm staying here.

Not so much. It turns out that Dolph’s partner is facing two fatal problems at this point. First, this drug bust consists of one asshole dumb enough to sit alone across from a group of men who are armed with more than just bad jokes and worse stock tips, and another asshole sitting in a car, waiting for the right time to rush in and tweak the balls of the criminal underworld. If Tango & Cash taught us nothing else, it really illuminated how much trying to carry out any kind of bust with only one or two guys is going to turn out much like deciding to pull your car and its empty fuel tank to the nearest gas station using your scrotum: it might be hilarious to watch, but it’s destined to end in nothing but pain. That fundamental issue is bad enough, but on top of that, while this whole thing is going on, his partner’s fate is ultimately sealed when Dolph notices that two crazed junkies have run into a nearby convenience store and are attempting to rob it. Figuring that his partner is fine on his own while literally in the middle of the goddamn drug deal, Dolph leaves his post to go smash those junkies’ pie holes like they just accused him of being an avid fan of the WNBA. So of course while he’s skull fucking his victims, the White Boys predictably execute his partner. Or as a gaggle of yuppies pretending to be bad asses might say, they liquidated his assets all over the fucking wall.

The astute observer might think that Dolph is pulling up his leg for a blistering roundhouse, but he's actually pulling his cheeks apart slightly to add the follow up fart to his signature attack.

Watch out! It's hearing track 1, Courtesy Of The Red, White, And Blue that actually kills its victims. The slashed throat is just the cherry on top.

With the now dead cop’s only backup keeping himself busy making sure that the local slush machine will be safe for either generations or at least days to come, the execution goes uncontested, leaving both the stolen drugs and a lot of police money are left in the well-moisturized hands of the White Boys. Quite pleased with himself, Junior Mint Manning takes the cash and leaves his goons to take care of the body and collect the dope. But as soon as he leaves, things go straight to hell. As the white-collar criminals mill around the room aimlessly, Professor Moneyshot appears on the scene, repeating his introductory line of, “I come in peace”. Then before anyone can react, he fires what appears to be a Super CD of Death out of a wrist holster which proceeds to fly around and slash the throat of every motherfucker in sight. Since it proves to be so lethal to so many people with such efficiency, I think it’s fair to assume that this particular CD was Toby Keith’s Unleashed. And just as the last goon meets his honky tonk doom while being knocked through a plate glass window to the street outside, our hero Dolph finally remembers that he’s not just in the neighborhood to buy Fun Dip and Garbage Pail Kids collector cards from the corner store, so he runs into the nightclub to investigate. But by the time he makes it inside, the after-party is already long since finished. Professor Moneyshot has split with the drugs in tow, leaving only a pile of well-dressed dead bodies in his wake. When Dolph eventually spots the body of his partner among them, he gathers all the talent he can muster and attempts to show what could either be described as remorse or extreme post-taco-binge gas pain. Either way, watching his facial contortions is kind of making me want to poop.

This picture might as well be on a milk carton, because after this movie, you won't see it again for a long, long time.

Fast forward to a short time later and that same nightclub is swarming with cops and reporters, either because they discovered the evening’s carnage or because David Lee Roth paused from his nightly ritual of snorting coke of a hooker’s ass and surrendering to male pattern baldness long enough to make a public appearance in disturbingly tight pants. Sadly it’s the former, so we join the fray just in time to see Dolph get chewed out by his captain for allowing his partner’s chest to be ventilated by a semi-automatic. But just as he’s thrown off the case and put on vacation, he’s taken right back off of it when he learns that the FBI has taken over the investigation and wants his help. So with that it’s officially time to beat another movie stereotype to death when the movie transitions into a buddy cop film the next day. Dolph is introduced to his new FBI partner played by Brian Benben, whom a small handful of unfortunate souls will likely recognize him as the former star of an old, terrible cable show called Dream On. I only happen to remember this because the show was played on SuperChannel and had an adult rating due to possible nudity, and unlike today’s youth who can see the most hardcore acts of sexual depravity by simply Googling the phrase “Papa Smurf”, when I was 12, I had to sit through the dumbest shit imaginable just for the possibility of nudity. I would describe the B-Cube as a straight-laced, by the book perfectionist who touches himself at night while reciting the Boy Scout pledge, but that’s almost as predictable and redundant at this point as describing Ann Coulter as an insane pile of racist diapers filled with baboon shit. It just goes without saying at this point.

Jesus...did they send this guy to kill his prey with a massive dose of fucking ugly?

Reinforcements for the side of justice and bad hair don’t stop there, though, as a few minutes later we’re introduced to the Kyle Reese of the movie in the form of a second dark-haired alien who shows up in a rundown apartment building. This ugly motherfucker, whom we’ll call Kyle Grease out of sheer laziness, is a space cop sent through the depths of the universe to not only to stop Professor Moneyshot and his expedition of destruction, but also to learn the true meaning of Christmas from the love of a crippled boy with a plucky spirit that’s at constant odds with his fantastically crippled body. Or at least that’s what I’m going to claim, since that’s about the only way that his entire role in this film could find purpose.

Exhibit C: Hello, And Welcome To The Middle Of The Film

Now that our players are all introduced and the stage is set, the meat of the movie plays out while clinging to a standard formula so tenaciously that you’d think unoriginality was going to cure the director’s testicular cancer. It begins with…

Step 1: Show the villain killing people. A lot of people. We start by establishing the blonde menace that is Professor Moneyshot as he runs through the streets, reaping havoc amongst the populace like a case of radioactive genital crabs. His calling card consists of uttering the phrase “I come in peace” just before knocking his victim to the ground and shooting a small hose into their chest. After then pumping in a milky white fluid into his victims, he then blasts a second hose directly into their forehead and sucks a different set of fluids back out, making this whole process look an awful lot like P-Money’s squirting a tepid load of his baby batter into his victim before harvesting the orgasmic delight of the experience for future resale. But instead, it turns out that he’s actually injecting his victims with the stolen heroin that he took from the drug deal at the beginning of the film, then extracting the endorphins that the human brain releases, which are produced more and more as the victim overdoses, creating a perfect and harmless drug. As much as I hate to admit it, this is actually a mildly clever idea. Too bad they couldn’t build a movie around it that didn’t smell like hobo taint.

High five? Ha! Just kidding! No, you're actually dead.

Professor Moneyshot’s scourge of terror begins at a random shitty motel, where after being provoked by the horrors of a power outage and a barking dog, the resident owner freaks out and fires a shotgun at Pro-Mo immediately upon seeing him, even though for all intents and purposes he looks human and doesn’t make so much as a single threatening move. For all this guy knows, Professor Moneyshot is just a husband and father of 3 who is trying to get his family a room for the night at this dump. Of course, the shotgun greeting does seem more appropriate moments later when he’s on the business end of P-Money’s pleasure pump system, but that’s beside the point. The next target is a young black dude working in a parking garage, but this time the proceedings end with Kyle Grease showing up and trying to stop Professor Moneyshot. For the record, “trying to stop him” in this case means “shooting every car in the garage while completely missing his target, only to cause a series of ridiculous explosions that don’t stop Professor Moneyshot from getting away”. And the final victim in the string of attacks is a female mechanic working on cars alone in a dark shop while listening to sweet 80′s hair rock on a ghetto blaster. Normally I don’t encourage the depiction of violence against women, but let’s face it; people who listen to Winger get what they deserve.

While all of this is going on, the Dolph-Benben duo work diligently (and by diligently I mean barely) to sort out the situation at hand. Naturally, since their entire relationship consists of what could be described as one long, drawn out naked towel snapping fight in a locker room, they manage to accomplish very little beyond bickering and pointing out one another’s flaws like an old couple who have been happily married for 35 years. But despite this they still manage tread down the well worn path of the gritty movie cop by falling ass backwards into the answers that they seek, leading us to…

Step 2: Good old fashioned half-assed detective work. After returning to the scene of the crime and finding little more than an opportunity to squabble with one another over procedure and technique, our heroes embark on a field trip to a nearby strip club to gather information from a contact, which of course is nothing more than a convenient excuse to give us an obligatory and highly unnecessary titty shot. Through the dense fog of boobage, Dolph surveys the tittiscape until he finds his contact, Owen from Tango & Cash, playing pool at a nearby table. Who the fuck goes to a strip bar and plays pool? I have never once seen or heard of a man who has passes up seeing a naked woman to practice his bank shot. But after questioning Owen about the whereabouts of Junior Mint Manning and the stolen drugs, Dolph learns that the White Boys are under the impression that the cops are the ones responsible for the carnage that took place after the failed bust that night. While processing this information at a one word per every 12 minutes rate, Dolph plays idly with balls at the pool table until finally being struck by an idea that leads them back to the scene of the crime. Once there he tests a new theory which he formulated using very little facts and knowledge that he just pulls out of his ass, stating that the weapon that killed all those yuppies was a projectile which must have bounced around like a cue ball. Dolph then re-enacts the movements of his theorized weapon to the point of finally managing to find the deadly copy of Unleashed lodged in a speaker. Having never seen an atrocity like this album before, since it’s obvious that he is more of a smooth jazz kind of guy, B-B-Ben tries to simply grab the disk, which only manages to cut his fingers on its razor sharp edge in the process. Undaunted, he tries again and eventually manages to dislodge it, causing the album of unspeakable suffering to fly around the room, randomly smashing shit before coming to rest in a speaker again. Having seen enough, Dolph decides that the better tactic is to take the whole damn speaker with him with the disk still attached.

Step 3: Love. Having already proved that Dolph is a man who can shatter a dude’s skull from 50 feet with a mere glance while simultaneously being intellectually defeated by a MadLibs puzzle or pack of Double Mint gum, the film now pulls out the other essential skill in the action hero’s toolbox and displays Dolph’s innate talent for delivering a woman to orgasmic ecstasy after a mere 50 to 60 hours of painstakingly arduous effort. So after his evening of intense investigation comes to a close with very little result, Dolph decides to keep that kind of winning streak alive by showing up at the front door of Diane, his coroner girlfriend, whom is about as happy to see him as an outbreak of the herpes. But despite knowing that a hot bath and a washing machine set on the spin cycle would probably make for a more satisfying evening, she eventually allows him in. Naturally as soon as he gets in the door, Diane succumbs to his considerable charms so completely that she only slugs him 3 times in the face before finally pausing long enough to allow him to kiss her. It’s an awkward love scene as at first she seems like she’d be having a better time trying to play tonsil hockey with a spitting cobra with advanced gum disease, but eventually Diane submits to what is likely a night of awkward fumbling and disappointment. This takes us to…

If someone gave me this glorious femullet, I'd be pissed off too.

Step 4: Have other people solve the mystery for you. The next morning Dolph arrives home to find his front door kicked open and his apartment tossed. He creeps through the place, looking for intruders with gun in hand, which of course allows for a classic situation to unfold where he and Brian 2-The-Ben each sneak up on opposite sides of the same corner at the same time, both thinking that the other side of the wall is either going to reveal the perpetrator or the multiple face kicks of Ferris Bueller’s sister. Actually, as stupid as that might sound, Dolph comes up with something even better as just before reaching around and grabbing what he soon discovers is his partner, he mutters, “either you’re Santa Clause or you’re dead, pal”. I’m not really sure what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but what I take away from this is that if I ever wanted to toss Dolph Lundgren’s house and get away with it, I just have to take a dump in a sock and hang it over his chimney while wearing a rented Santa suit. Once our heroes realize that the two of them are alone in the apartment, B3 informs Dolph that there were more killings last night before demanding to know where the lethal album of despair is. Happy to oblige, Dolph leads them to where only the best cops leave an essential piece of evidence: in the hands of a random and completely inappropriate friend.

Dolph’s friend in this case is supposed to be a man of science. Granted that he has no credentials or traits to prove this other than a lab coat and being hopped up on caffeine to the point of absurdity, but sure, I guess that’s what a scientist is. How absurd is this scene, you ask? Well, let’s just say it’s crazy enough that I was hoping this prick would eventually just die in a tragic rectal thermometer accident, as once the Super Squad begins a conversation with him, he screams for absolutely no reason before laying up on a table and bringing his feet up over his head in an apparent attempt to sniff his own balls. Yeah, I get it: you’re trying to show me that he’s quirky. But now you’re just pissing in my face and calling it Liquid Golden Grahams. But once his entirely unnecessary eccentricities are put aside, he finally shares the secret of the Super CD of Doom. With absolutely no explanation as to how he could have possibly decoded the mystery in one night, he explains that it’s a weapon that is controlled by magnetic force which it uses as a means of propulsion, including the electrical charge in a human body. Our dynamic duo decides to leave the Killer Album from Hell with this lab rat after a prerequisite amount of bitching from the B-Cube, and move on.

The visit takes an awkward turn when Dolph's friend stops to try to blow himself.

The next stop is the CSI lab where Dolph’s girlfriend Diane gives them an up close tour of one of Professor Moneyshot’s victims, pointing out all the gaping and bloody attractions before finally explaining the way in which he was killed. Since she concludes that the sizable holes in the victim’s head and chest weren’t lovingly hand crafted by bullets, they had to be caused by something else entirely. Since testing shows that the victim was full of morphine but showed no signs of being a user, she decides that whoever stole the heroin must be using it to overdose people with, but hasn’t yet figured out why. Thoroughly confused, Dolph and the Ben-Squared are about to leave the police station when someone hands Dolph a package that had been dropped off by courier only moment ago, which turns out to be an autographed picture of Junior Mint Manning complete with a note declaring that his partner, Warren J. Cocksnot, will be paying Dolph a visit soon.

Some would take this thinly veiled threat as a hint to lay low for a while, but not our hero. But never one to shy away from an opportunity to head butt a man square in the testicles, Dolph instead decides to walk straight into the belly of the beast and after a remarkably uninspired car chase scene with two members of the White Boys along the way, he shows up at the White Boys’ corporate offices with Ben-Square in tow. Naturally the B-Cube starts bitching about the prospect of barging in without a warrant, so he elects to prove his real value by staying behind in the car while Dolph heads upstairs to smash testicles alone. Disregarding all thoughts of subtlety, Dolph slaps the few random guards that greet him around like red-headed step children before finally bursting into the gang’s boardroom, interrupting their discussion on quarterly reports and the need to always staple the new cover sheets on TPS reports. Faced with Warren J. Cocksnot and a 20 other dudes whom are all well armed, Dolph defies basic logic and summons the nerve to demand that they all throw down their guns, which they in turn are retarded enough to actually do. Quite happy with himself, Dolph then sits down at one end of the boardroom table with Vice President Cocksnot facing him from the opposite side, and discusses who’s really responsible for the grizzly demise of the White Boy gang members after the botched drug bust the other night. They confirm their belief that the bloodbath was the work of the cops and that they don’t have the drugs. But just as the relatively courteous visit is about to come to a close, random goons trot Brian “Bam Bam” Benben into the room and demand that Dolph throws down his gun. Once he complies, VP Cocksnot laughs and exclaims that while his partner, Junior Mint Manning, wants the two of them dead, he’s got a better idea. I’m not entirely sure, but I’m predicting a prolonged gang rape scene in our future.

Quick, someone draft up a memo demanding that everyone pick up their goddamn weapons and shoot this fucker.

Exhibit D: Cold And Emotionless VS Wooden And Detached…The Epic Battle Begins!

Why is his role in the film less than 5 minutes in length? Too busy killing the Chang Sings.

Apparently I’m wrong. Rather than allowing his men to have their way with Dolph’s sweet ruby starfish, Warren J. Cocksnot instead sends him and the DoubleBen out to perform a drug deal that none of his men particularly feel like doing. And just as we’re questioning what kind of goddamn criminal organization allows its members to pick and choose what orders they want to follow, we soon discover reason for the yuppies’ fear: the exchange is with Al Leong, one of the baddest Chinese dudes of 80′s cinema. Most people will remember as Endo from Lethal Weapon, but I will always remember as Random Member of the Wing Kong in Big Trouble In Little China. As one might expect when trying to deal with a man carrying a fourth degree black belt in Iron-Lotus-Total-Explosion-Of-The-Fucking-Head karate, the deal goes horribly wrong. But fortunately none of that matters a few moments later when Professor Moneyshot swoops down onto the scene to steal the drugs being exchanged, disposing of Al Leong and exposing himself to Dolph for the first time. Luckily for our heroes, who stand unknowingly in the face a sweet grunge rock death, Kyle Grease also shows up and tries to take out P-Money, possibly for a nice seafood dinner. A brief firefight ensues which ends with both aliens gone and the humans left wondering what the fuck just happened, but at least this creates a big enough distraction that Dolph and BenBen are able to slip away from their White Boy escorts.

It was horrible...so horrible...I'm going to have a headache for the next 3 hours at least.

Now that our heroes have finally seen the haggard face of the enemy, they head back to the police station to collect their thoughts and most likely a change of underwear. Once they have a fresh pair of Hanes-Her-Way’s strapped around their dainty undercarriages, it’s time to jump to some pretty drastic conclusions that happen to be correct while being based on very little actual evidence. But at this point, who gives a shit because everyone involved in both making and watching this movie obviously just wants it to wrap up. They might as well have an orchestra start playing this movie off the stage like it’s a goddamn Oscar speech. Anyways, in his infinite wisdom, Dolph concludes that Professor Moneyshot is obviously an alien and his rival, Kyle Grease, is obviously another alien who happens to be on their side. Of course, from how little they know, it’s actually just as likely that they’re rival slave traders who are fighting over the opportunity to use the Earth to restock his respective harem, but hey, why worry about little things like major plot holes? But even though our heroes are quick to arm themselves with only a flimsy theory, they at least have the basic sense to know that they’re going to need significant proof before they dare utter it to anyone else, so they travel back to Dolph’s scientist friend to retrieve the deadly copy of Unleashed. Once they arrive at his lab, however, they find that he’s been on the receiving end of a remarkably gentle ass-kicking and that the disk is nowhere to be seen. Judging from this dude’s appearance, the weapon of unspeakable musical terror has apparently been recaptured by a band of Wiffle bat wielding Muppets from Fraggle Rock.

And while our heroes scramble to prove that their theory is only slightly above batshit insane, Professor Moneyshot and Kyle Grease have one last battle at a downtown convenience store. Needless to say, P-Money escapes unharmed again, but his greasy nemesis cannot say the same, as he stumbles away from the scene with a mortal wound only to hide in a nearby alley. Realizing that he is going to soon expire, Kyle Grease searches for one last desperate way to stop his prey before he succumbs to the sweet release of death. Moments later he finds what he’s looking for, as our heroes converge to investigate the latest incident only to find that the entire location has already been locked down by the FBI. Dolph and the Ben-Deuce plead with their respective superiors to be allowed access, but they end up being turned away empty handed after being assured that all is being taken care of, that it’s not their problem anymore. Just as the case seems closed for our heroes, however, Dolph hits the mother load moments later when he climbs into his car and discovers Kyle Grease sitting in his back seat. How the fuck the K-man got the impression that Dolph was not only a cop but the best cop to approach for help after having only seen him once is beyond comprehension, which is apparently why the movie doesn’t bother to explain it. But regardless, he’s joined by Man-E-Bens a moment later before driving to a secluded spot where they can talk to Kyle, and possibly proposition him for some rusty trombone action, with a little more privacy.

Fortunately for all involved, it very conveniently turns out that Mr. Grease can speak perfect English and does so while he identifying himself as a cop who may or may not be part of Tek Jansen’s Alpha Squad 7. He goes on to plead with the Dolph-Benben duo to stop Professor Moneyshot at all costs lest more aliens come to harvest their drug from the human populace, resulting in a wholesale slaughter the likes of which only an Ashley and Jessica Simpson duet could replicate. After receiving their word that they’ll stop P-Money, Kyle slumps back in the seat and lets out his death rattle, leaving us to wonder why the hell someone would send such an ineffectual cop across time and space. But just as the Ben2Ben begins to celebrate the fact that they have the actual body of an actual alien to prove their theory, Kyle Grease begins to glow brighter and brighter. At this point of the movie, I turned to Milobar (since he had already seen this cinematic travesty, whereas I had not) and said, “This motherfucker’s not going to explode is he?” Well my friends, that’s exactly what he did, all to the soundtrack of me bursting out laughing and choking on my Dr. Pepper. Seriously, what kind of sick practical joke is that? If Special K here knew that he was dying and was so concerned that the humans manage to stop his prey, why the fuck would he not mention that his corpse was about to go thermonuclear?

Now I'm just going to lay back and glow for a bit (giggle). Think nothing of it (giggle). And whatever you do, stay in the car (giggle).

But even with the destruction of the alien corpse and, by extension, their police-issued shaggin’ wagon, all is not lost. Just before scrambling safely away from the inferno, Brian was able to pull KG’s gun out of the car, leaving them with at least one piece of evidence that he ever existed. This of course leads to an argument between him and Dolph over whose captain to take the evidence to before the conversation is finally brought to an end with a pistol pointed squarely at Dolph’s face. Apologizing with so much sincerity that he might as well have demanded that Dolph get down to chew the lint out of his soiled ass crack, Benben runs a few blocks and finds his FBI director. After recounting his tale and presenting the evidence, the director assures Brian that the gun will be used for national interests as the military is going to make contact with the alien. And just to show his appreciation for what a fine job that the B-Cube did, the director pulls out a gun of his own and tries to shoot him dead in an attempt to take the weapon and destroy anyone with any knowledge of it. But just as we begin to cheer for his swift and brutal success, Dolph shows up just in time to find a convenient reason to kill an FBI director, an event which will undoubtedly be replaying over and over again in his mind later when he’s choking the one-eyed trouser snake, before collecting the alien weapon and his partner.

Exhibit E: No More Mr. Passively Disinterested Guy

With surprisingly few loose ends tied up at this point, it’s time for the film to reach its stunning climax in the form of a two part battle of glory and monotony. Equipped with Kyle Grease’s alien blast ray of death, our heroes go on the offensive and pursue Professor Moneyshot to a city park in the middle of the night. Searching through the darkness, they stumble upon P-Money’s drug stash just before he arrives on the scene to deliver a world class beat-down, casually tossing Dolph aside while the B-Cube stands uselessly struggling with the realization that perhaps it might have been a good idea to stop before they got there to figure out how the hell the gun actually works. To end this display of awkward fumbling so uncomfortable that it reminds me of every time I try to get a bra off, Professor Moneyshot fires another CD of Black Death (this time I’m guessing it’s the seminal 2 Unlimited album, Get Ready For This) which for some reason only manages to only knick Benben in the shoulder. And it’s a good thing that he managed to survive this attack for no apparent reason, because just as it seems like he and his partner are destined to succumb to a gruesome astro-death at P-Money’s hands, the Ben2Ben finally manages to fire off a few rounds out of the alien pistol, hitting his target square in the chest several times. End of story, right? The professor is totally dead, right? WRONG. Even though this is a fucking alien gun carried by the alien cop who was trying so desperately to stop his alien prey, these shots are about as effectual of a series of spitballs, as Professor Moneyshot is simply knocked to the ground briefly, looking more like he’s been stricken by the onset of rheumatoid arthritis than an actual weapon. But this still gives our heroes enough time to collect themselves and attempt to figure out some way to administer a death blow. But in that brief moment of looking away, the Professor disappears into the night, accidentally leaving behind his vials of endorphins.

Little known fact about extraterrestrials: they have outstanding parallel parking skills.

With those drugs that were discarded in hand, for some reason our dynamic duo decides that the situation calls for a coffee break at Dolph’s place. And why not, really? Once they’ve finished a plate of three day old Chinese take out and a few rounds of Super Mario Kart, they meet up with Diane and decide to get back to the business of saving the world, only to find two members of the White Boys waiting to be their waiters in restaurant Holy Fuck I’m Dead. They duck behind a nearby car to avoid the hale of yuppie gunfire, seemingly unable to escape the barrage, when Professor Moneyshot just happens to show up looking for his confiscated drug stash. And as he busies himself with killing the corporate dogs merely for getting in his way, our heroes take the chance to escape in a car, getting a brief head start before P-Money steals a sweet ride of his own and follows behind them. Beyond the ridiculous revelation that the Professor apparently knows how to drive a fucking Earth car, I can’t help but take that thought further and wonder if alien spacecrafts also have a stick shift.

So an explosive weapon does little more than knock him to the ground, but a blunt fucking pipe that wouldn't pierce skin unless you fell on it from a rooftop kills him? Sounds about right.

After this movie delivers yet another stunningly uninteresting chase scene to the Shitty Movie Night experience, the B-Dog finally manages to fire off a shot and hit the cop car that P-Money’s driving, causing it to go up in a massive explosion. However, as our heroes stop to jump out of the car and sniff their own farts in self-satisfaction, the Professor stuns them by walking right out of the inferno with no injuries to speak of to both his body and, amazingly, his clothes. After we share a collective groan with the small band of heroes, both realizing that this movie is going to have to go on even further, they get back in their car and take off again, stopping at some kind of abandoned industrial facility. Looking quickly at his surroundings, Dolph then leads his team up to a spot where Brian can set up to get the one clear shot that he’s aching for. They stand waiting for the alien to show up and moments later are obliged. But when the Gentle Benben takes aim and fires, he discovers that the space gun is out of ammo. Well ain’t that a bitch? With that window of opportunity slammed shut, Professor Moneyshot jumps up to greet them. Dolph attempts to stop him with both a shotgun and an explosive trap, both of which do absolutely nothing. So our heroes again turn to flight, running until P-Money eventually catches up and jumps down in ambush, knocking Brian away and grabbing Diane as a hostage. Realizing what he wants, Dolph starts to provoke the professor by smashing vials of his carefully collected drug, prompting P-Money to throw Diane away in anger. As the tables turn and Dolph holds the drugs hostage, he convinces Professor Moneyshot to put his gun down and fight him like a fellow non-emoting man. After the alien complies, Dolph carefully puts the drugs down, only to have P-Money fire a deadly CD of Death at him. But after bouncing around the room several times, it stops in what appears to be a fucking stereo speaker that Dolph produced from out of goddamn nowhere. Seriously, this is getting fucking ridiculous. But the mono-e-mono battle then finally begins in full, coming to a glorious climax when Dolph fights off Professor Moneyshot’s drug injector just long enough to eventually stab him in the neck with it, which appears to pump P-Money full of his own semen. As he stands there dazed and rapidly impregnating himself, Dolph seizes the opportunity to land a solid jump kick that sends the professor into an errant protruding pipe, impaling him through the gut. With his opponent screaming in pain, Dolph then casually grabs Professor Moneyshot’s gun and somehow manages to figure out how to turn it to full power, just in time to deliver one last exchange:

Professor Moneyshot: “I come in peace…”

Dolph: “And you go in pieces, asshole.”

That’s fucking awesome. I swear they must have only had that line in this movie just for that goddamn sweet set up. And with that utterance of cinematic splendor, Dolph fires on Professor Moneyshot and causes him to fucking explode. It’s goddamn amazing how much damage that caused, considering not long ago a direct hit to the sternum was causing less pain than a game of touch football.

With their foe vanquished and the world safe again, or heroes lock arms like old pals and walk away for about 1o seconds before the credits suddenly roll, bringing our story to an end. So yeah…um…I guess that’s it.

The Verdict:

Donkey: In the end, this movie turned out to be about as ridiculous as one would expect. A somewhat clever idea for the elusive perfect drug is ultimately washed out by tired action, an even more tired plot, and downright exhausted acting. It ends with a line of epic proportions and features a hilarious and unnecessarily explosive death scene, but doesn’t quite deliver as many laughs as some of our more classic entries. That being said, I Come In Peace does feature Dolph Lundgren battling a blonde mullet-sporting alien who emotes less than petrified wood that suffered severe childhood trauma, so it’s kind of like matching Dolph against his portrayal of He-Man from Masters Of The Universe. That has to be worth something. I give this movie four Bens out of five yuppie strokefests.

What We Learned:

Donkey: This movie should be called Predator 3: Dude, Where’s My Dolph?

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Rutger Hauer proves to be an even more frightening force of vengeance for the visually impaired than a seeing eye dog with rabies in…BLIND FURY.

Back To The Main Page.

If they had only cast Corey Hart, the ad campaign for this movie would have written itself.

Donkey: As anyone who has ever sat and listened to drawn out stoned conversations that’s nowhere near as intelligent as its participants seem to think can tell you, the subject of aliens can make a fantastic barometer of the human imagination. With no hard evidence of their existence to speak of, any discussion on the subject comes down to theory and conjecture. And while common sense coupled with an educational background only slightly more impressive than that of an irregular can of tomato soup dictates that with a universe anywhere near the size we believe it to be, life almost certainly exists somewhere else other than Earth in one form or another, what that life looks like is where things start to get interesting. If you subscribe to Star Trek’s remarkably uninspired view of reality, then all forms of extraterrestrial existence basically boil down to humankind, separated only by the severity of chemical fire that took place on the given species’ forehead. But if that’s not to your fancy, there’s always the E.T. outlook on the cosmos, where aliens are freaky phallic-shaped turd piles who have been sent across space and time to revitalize our love of peanut-based snack foods while simultaneously annihilating the integrity of our video game industry. But no matter what face and subsequent forehead you choose to apply to the unknown, one area where little imagination is used is the issue of their intent, as with very few exceptions the prevailing belief is that alien visitors would have their way with us like we were Jodie Foster on a pinball machine. There are two reasons for this indisputable logic. First, any alien race that visits Earth will quite simply be better than us, making it impossible to believe that we would be anything but completely at their mercy. After all, they will have managed to travel millions of miles and faced countless untold logistical perils to be here, whereas we’re fascinated when someone slaps a fucking paper towel on a stick and calls it a Swiffer. Seriously, anyone who has ever watched The Housewives Of Screeching Cunt County knows that we’re a species begging to be subjugated. And secondly, you know that if our positions were reversed, complete and total domination is exactly what we would deliver to them. As evolved as we may think we are, man’s first instinct when he sees something new usually tends to eventually break down to one eternal question: “I wonder if I could eat or fuck that thing?” So needless to say, alien interaction will likely be painful for us all. And if you happen to disagree, go right ahead and find yourself a Native American and ask him how exciting and prosperous it is to meet new friends from faraway places.

The Plot:

Donkey: Imagine one day that you wake up and realize that the world around you isn’t what it seems. You discover that you’ve been living a lie your entire life, and that your very reality has been controlled and manipulated by another race of beings for reasons you don’t understand. Then imagine that while you think you’re completely alone in this cold new reality, you soon discover that you have a capable, bald black dude for a sidekick and a small group of freedom fighters who see the truth and are willing to fight along side you. If you happened to be picturing yourself stuck in The Matrix and reciting your favorite lines from Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey, you’re not alone. But as it turns out, in this case you’re not actually being controlled by machines within virtual reality, but instead you’re being blinded by aliens whom are living among us. They barrage us with subliminal and hidden messages all for the purpose of…um…well that’s not quite clear. But obviously their motives aren’t exactly going to stand up and cook me a delicious ham dinner, so whatever they are, they can’t be good. Yes, They Live is kind of like The Matrix if you take out the action, the special effects, the story, the point and replace it with 1987′s second or third hottest wrestling sensation. Sound exciting yet? Count me in!

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: In A World Where Hulkamania Has Run Wild, Who Will Prevent Hulkamania From Running Over You?

All these job postings and not a single one calling for a guy who can pile drive a midget. What are the odds?!

Donkey: As so many of the finest tales are ought to do, our film this week begins with a lone figure making his way into a city, strolling casually down a set of train tracks. We don’t know who his is or where he came from, but the music playing during the scene coupled with the pack over his shoulders tells us that he’s down on his luck, which therefore naturally means that it’s a safe bet that this unassuming drifter is going to be some manner of champion who eventually saves us all. So who is he? Richard Kimball? Bill Bixby? The Littlest Hobo? Nay: Rowdy Roddy Piper. Yes, to fill the role of the average man turned reluctant hero, John Carpenter chose a walking bicep who rose to fame by performing in a glorified soap opera about choreographed hugging between sweaty, shouting, mostly-naked men. Ah yes…that old tale. If that’s not a story that all of us common men share, I don’t know what is. After a few opening shots of him strolling along a highway, which is an accomplishment in and of itself since he’s wearing jeans so goddamn tight that I’m pretty sure I could give him an official sperm count just watching the film, Roddy finally makes his way into the city. With no time to lose, he heads straight to an unemployment office to look for a job, only to be turned away by an old bureaucrat that couldn’t have seemed less sympathetic to his plight if he had shown up to register an official complaint that his sweet mullet was getting him entirely too much poon. Undeterred, The Rowdy One wanders back out into the streets again and takes matters into his own meaty, corned beef scented paws. After a night spent next to a flaming barrel, watching through a window as some chick on a television practically masturbates while extolling how great life is when you’re famous, we reach the next day where the Hot Rod wanders up to a construction site and asks the foreman if they happen to be interested in employing a man who undoubtedly smells like cheese and flaming garbage to help lay concrete, do some spot welding, or put unsuspecting victims into a figure four leg lock. Obviously unable to resist a sweet offer like that, the foreman hires Rowdy and moments later he ends up shirtless, doing some random digging that, like Arnie in Total Recall or almost any movie that shows construction for that matter, appears to be little more than pointless busy work.

After a hard day of back-breaking and exceptionally inefficient labor, The Rodster once again faces the dilemma of where he’ll find a man’s most basic needs that night: hot food, a hot shower, and a Hot Carl. As he ponders his options, his foreman tells him to fuck off, making it clear that there’s no sleeping on the site allowed So things once again seem bleak for our hero. But just then a random black coworker named Frank offers to take him over to a nearby shanty town where he explains that there are showers and hot food for all. Sadly, no mention of Hot Carls, though. Still, two out of three ain’t bad, so after needlessly responding like a dick and basically pissing in the man’s face for being polite, Rowdy Roddy nevertheless ends up following his new found companion to the shelter where they bond over the finest hobo dinner that pity can buy. They share some obligatory small talk about his wife and kids back in Detroit before Frank lets loose on the crazy and begins to rant on about corporate tycoons and how unfair life is. Ever the optimist, Roddy declines to join in and states that he believes in America. He works hard and follows the rules and because of that, he knows that everything will come to him in time. And just then, somewhere, somehow, Uncle Sam stopped curb stomping brown people long enough to blow it in his pants.

I think I'm ready to take the blue pill now.

Exhibit B: Weird Shit Happens When The Homeless Gather – Who Would Have Guessed?

Oh, I can feel it coming in the air tonight...hold on...

As the day turns to evening once again, The Piperman begins to notice a series of strange things happening all around him. And we’re not talking things that can be just casually dismissed on account of it being the 80′s, like acid wash jeans, New Coke, or the general public still being quite aware of whom Mark Linn-Baker is, but some genuinely freaky shit. Our hero soon learns that there really is no such thing as a free lunch, even if that lunch happens to be a gruel made mostly from creamed corn and horse testicles. While people are sitting around in the middle of the shanty town, watching a TV perched on a crate outside that’s forcing me to wonder where the fuck they’re getting a cable feed from, a pirate signal hacks into the regular programming. Suddenly the homeless audience is faced with a random bearded dude who begins warning everyone that they’re all being oppressed. According to this dude, whom in no way seems like someone’s insane reclusive uncle who has been trading rimjobs for spare electronic parts down at the local Radio Shack, “They” are safe as long as they are not discovered. To maintain their secrecy, “They” keep us asleep, selfish, and sedated. Then just as the pirate signal cuts out and the regular cable signal returns, Rowdy notices a black street preacher and one of the key organizers in the camp, whom we’ll refer to as Gamey Phillips because I can’t be bothered to remember what his real name is, rush across the street into a small church. Roddy finds Gamey the next morning and asks what he and the preacher were he doing over there until four in the morning the previous night, catching the man off guard and causing Gamey to have to dance around his question with the grace of a club footed wino in an industrial wind tunnel. But his attempts to allay any lingering doubts that Roddy might have prove spectacularly futile seconds later, as the pirate broadcast once again hacks into a nearby TV for only a few moments, allowing the same voice of doom to plead that “the signal must be shut off at the source”, before cutting out again a moment later and causing Gamey Phillips to once again run off to the church as Roddy watches. Anyone with at least one functioning eye that wasn’t crusted shut by dried monkey semen could see that something fucked up is going on at this point, so Roddy follows across the street to with the mostly finely tuned sleuthing skills this side of a Junior Detective Set or a Bazooka Joe Decoder Ring. He’s greeted with the sound of a gospel choir singing as he approaches, but once inside the church he discovers that that he’s hearing a recording. The place is empty. Wondering what the hell he’s stumbled onto, the Pipemaster continues to investigate until he finds a secret door, on the other side of which he can hear Gamey Phillips and a group of men discussing their pirate TV signal. But before he can hear too many details of their conversation, the Hot Rod gets busted by the blind preacher who promptly finger-rapes his face with such ferocity that even I feel like having a cigarette once he’s done. Rowdy hastily retreats from the handicapped molesting, then returns to share his discovery and curiosity of what’s really going on with his pal Frank, who tells him resolutely that this situation is a lot like a hooker that uses her own puss as lubricant: it’s just best to just walk away and leave it alone.

What are we doing over there?! Well...um...I...uh....(fart)

It turns out that the circle jerk in the nearby church has attracted more than one wrestler’s attention. As night closes once again, Roddy maintains his surveillance from across the street when he suddenly spots a helicopter looming just above them. And he’s not the only aware of its presence, as a group of people come running out of the church and immediately take off in their cars just before the blind preacher, the creepy uncle pirate broadcaster, and Gamey Phillips wander out as well. They make it across the street and into the hobo camp just before cops begin to swarm. But as the shanty residents watch from across the street with mild curiosity as the church is ransacked, riot cops show up and turn on them with night sticks, shotguns, and a bulldozer, carrying out a swift demolition of the hobo tent city and mercilessly beating anyone that they come across. Roddy and Frank wander around observing it all with what almost seems like detached amusement before eventually joining the rest of the vagrants fleeing into the night.

They may take our lives, but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM...to poop in a garbage can.

Exhibit C: Close Encounters Of The Turd Kind

Roddy hesitates as even he knows that black just doesn't go with flannel and filth.

We return again the next morning as the Rowdy One and a few others wander around the rubble of the demolished hobo village, scrounging for any items that are merely shit stained rather than destroyed beyond repair. Unable to suppress his curiosity, Roddy wanders over to the church across the street only to find it empty once again. After kicking in the same secret door that he found on his previous visit, he makes a very simple discovery that will change his life forever in the form of a nondescript cardboard box. Figuring that it’s either housing something of monumental importance or possibly a stack of hidden nudie mags, he grabs it and runs like hell until stumbling into an alley a safe distance away. While mentally prepping himself to give birth to a steaming batch of knuckle babies, he rips the box open to discover that it’s full of sunglasses and stylish ones at that. These are the best dollar store black plastic sun glasses that food stamps can buy. Still, free shit is free shit so he keeps a pair for himself before deciding to hide the box out of sight. With the exact level of intelligence that you would expect from a man who has gotten into headbutting contests with the canvas countless times, he decides that the best place to stash the box is in a garbage can under a wad of trash. Apparently the possibility that either this trash will be emptied at some point, or very likely rummaged through seeing as it’s about 30 feet from a flock of homeless people, doesn’t quite register as a concern. So with that, he dons his new set of sweet shades, strolls out of the alley, and discovers a whole new world.

Microsoft's new ad campaign is rather aggressive, but somewhat appropriate.

As Rowdy Roddy Pooper makes his way down a sidewalk, the first thing he notices is that when he looks through this middle finger to fashion that he has strapped to his face, his vision shifts entirely to grayscale. Alarming sure, but this could be a blessing in disguise. I remember the neon colors of the 80′s and, in retrospect, would welcome anything that spared my optic sensors from their resulting retinal-incinerating. But that’s just the beginning of the weird shit that he finds himself treading in, as he also begins to see things that aren’t there when he takes the glasses off, beginning with a nearby billboard. When he looks at it using only his own eyes, he sees just another advertisement for a home computer system so powerful that it could probably be eclipsed by a calculator watch. But through the lenses of his new shades, he sees that same billboard actually displays the single word, “OBEY”. Looking further down the road, he sees another billboard that, through his new found sunglasses, says MARRY AND REPRODUCE. That’s not really indicative of anything, though, as that could be a either subliminal message or an advertisement paid for by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. But it’s at this point that he notices that these supposedly hidden messages are everywhere, forming a barrage of subliminal commands. This isn’t restricted only to signs either, as he wanders up to a newsstand to find that even magazines consist merely of page after page of commands. My personal favorite of his discoveries comes when he looks down at his money to find that the bills are just slips of paper which says THIS IS YOUR GOD. I haven’t heard a more profound truth in an 80′s movie since “Sloth love Chunk!”

This isn't actually a magazine of subliminal messages, but the official Republican National Party news flier.

Is it wrong that I think the skeleton with a fine head of hair is more attractive?

The strange messages embedded around him are startling enough, but when Roddy finally looks up at a nearby stranger through his black plastic goggles of awesomeness, the point of the film is finally revealed. Although the naked eye shows him to be a homely, unremarkable yuppie with the best haircut that a Weed Whacker and a quart of malt liquor can provide, peering at the man through Roddy’s mystic glasses of fortune reveals the man to be an alien. Well, more specifically he’s a walking skeleton with googly eyeballs and a complexion that could be best described as “not quite Oxy-clean”. It’s pretty fucked up, and at first the King of the Ring doesn’t know what to make of it. But after standing in stunned disbelief for a few moments, he looks around and sees that things are far more bizarre than he was could have possibly imagined as almost half the people around him appear to be the same Halloween rejects. Like a recurring Lou Dobbs nightmare, there are literally aliens everywhere. Wandering around in complete bewilderment, Roddy ends up in a convenience store where he stops to watch an alien disguised as a politician giving a speech on television when he gets bumped into by a nearby old woman. As she says, “excuse me”, he sees that she is another of the many aliens around him, so at this point, he does what every rational person would do in his situation and goes completely goddamn insane. He begins by telling this old lady that she looks like her “head fell on the cheese dip back in 1957″, which couldn’t make less goddamn sense if he ended the sentence by barfing up nearly solved Rubik’s Cube, before turning to another woman in exasperation. He declares her to be okay, but motioning back to the alien, says, “this one…she’s real fucking ugly.” Everyone around him recoils from this random outburst in shock, but Rod has only begun his ranting, as he continues on about how he can see this woman differently with his sunglasses on. Finally, the old broad realizes what he’s saying and begins speaking into a wrist communicator, saying that she’s got “one that can see”. Suddenly Rowdy Roddy Pimpstick realizes that all the aliens around him in the store have turned and are walking towards him, leaving him no choice but to just get the fuck out of there.

He's 5 foot 8...blonde hair...smells like rancid chicken in a used diaper.

As soon as he emerges back out onto the street, Roddy is pushed directly into an alley by two cops who are, of course, aliens. They try to take him away quietly by assuring him that what he’s seeing is no big deal, that they can work all of this out. But of course, Rowdy Roddy Piper wasn’t exactly cast because of his pacifism, so he leaps into action and delivers a beat-down of epic proportions that looks like it should involve King Kong Bundy. Honestly, up until this point if I didn’t actually know who Roddy Piper was already, I wouldn’t’ have necessarily guessed that he was a wrestling sensation. But as soon as this scene rears its head, there can be no doubts. And to really give the final fuck you to any possibility of going back to a normal life after this point, Roddy finishes his tirade by blowing both cops away with one of their own guns. That’s right bitches, as the Queen Mother is oft to say, it is so fucking on. Roddy prepares himself by grabbing a shotgun and a night stick out of the cops’ car and tries to dash away, but ends up having to duck into a bank. Of course, as all the patrons of that bank begin to notice a man walk in who looks like he’s armed well enough to carry out a South American presidential coup standing in the doorway, they freeze and begin murmuring amongst themselves. When it dawns on the Rod of Destiny a few seconds later that they all believe he’s robbing the bank, he straightens himself and, for no apparent reason, delivers one of the greatest lines in cinematic history marking what is easily the most famous moment from this film:

No, seriously, who has gum? I just ate garbage for lunch.

Piper: “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubble gum.”

Brilliant. But as goddamn epic as that is, I have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about. And like Woody Allen at a Neo Nazi rally, clarity won’t be showing its face any time soon as things explode at that point when a security guard takes a shot at him, only to have Roddy turn and casually blow him the fuck away. But he doesn’t stop there; no, the Rodded Wonder then starts shooting at random, killing any civilian alien that is within view, and with very little regard to the innocent humans that happen to be in the way. So even though this scene ends with Roddy fleeing the bank after the revelation that the aliens have teleportation devices in their wristwatches and flying robot sentries patrolling the streets, those issues pale in the face of his blossoming erection for violence. Within 5 minutes, he literally goes from down on his luck every man to cold blooded executioner who would rather give you a 12 gauge skull fucking than a smile.

This chick's voice is so gravely that she must have started smoking an entire Phillip Morris tobacco processing facility per day when she was 3.

Now that Roddy has gone He-man on our asses, it’s only appropriate that the final main character that the movie introduces us to at this point is Meg Foster, whom the astute reader would undoubtedly recognize as Evil Lyn from Masters Of The Universe. She enters the film walking to her parked car after work when she is suddenly car jacked by Rowdy Roddy, who is desperately trying to escape the police. With the very little choice that comes when staring down the business end of a gun, she obeys his commands and drives him back to her apartment, giving him a quiet place to regroup and plan his next move. Once there he tries explaining the lunacy of his glasses and the world they have revealed to him, but she’ll have none of it, as listening to his story would entail taking even a single moment away from dropping very obvious hints that he can feel free to rape her any time. Eventually she introduces herself as Holly Thompson, an executive at a local TV station. Seeing this as an amazing coincidence, the Rodmaster gets excited and tries to explain something about a hypnotic signal over the television feed. But his attempts to persuade her to listen to his ramblings are met with a very well-argued bottle to the back of the head, launching him out of a window where he falls about 3 stories to the ground below. As she calls the cops, he stumbles away, leaving his glasses behind with what is most likely a large percentage of his intestinal tract.

Exhibit D: When Shit Goes Down, It’s Time To Go Tag Team

After yet another night spent in an alley, assuring us that by now this guy must smell fucking terrific, Rowdy Roddy Pimpstick begins to realize that he won’t survive on his own and that there’s only one man that he can trust. So the next morning he stumbles back to the construction site and finds Frank, who is none too pleased to see him now that he’s a wanted killer. Roddy tries to tell him about the crazy shit that has happened, but Frank wants nothing to do with it. Alone, dejected and painfully aware that no one will ever believe his ranting without proof, Roddy heads back to the trash can in the alley where he had hid the box in the first place, hoping to snag another pair of the magic glasses. But once he reaches the trash can he realizes that – holy shit! – someone emptied it. Ridiculously dumb fucking luck is on his side though, as he looks up to see a garbage truck is sitting just down the alley, presumably having just collected its load. So while the garbage men argue over something retarded like who gets to eat the semi-rancid leftover Chinese food take out that they found, he jumps into the back and begins to sift around until eventually he finds the box of glasses. Before he can make his escape, however, the truck suddenly lurches into motion and dumps him along with its entire load of garbage back out onto the street before pulling away and leaving it all behind without so much as looking back, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

If these really were city workers driving this truck, there would be at least 4 more of them just standing and watching the others not working.

As Rowdy Roddy Pampers climbs out of the trash pile, box of magical sunglasses in hand, his moment of redemption is served to him on a silver platter. Despite not having any possible way of knowing that he count find Roddy there, Frank suddenly shows up in the alley with a week’s pay in hand, offering it as a sympathy parting gift. Roddy responds by of course demanding that Frank puts on the glasses and see the truth. Frank refuses, so the Rowdy One realizes that he’s going to have to make him see the truth by force, thus beginning one of the longest goddamn fight scenes known to man. It’s goddamn crazy. They two of them beat the shit out of each other for almost 15 straight minutes, featuring five straight lunging knees to Roddy’s balls and a mandatory ridiculous wrestling move, until Rodimus Prime finally forces the glasses onto Frank the Tank’s face. After a few seconds, Frank reacts to this new reality exactly as expected, prompting Roddy to utter, “Brother, life’s a bitch and she’s back in heat.” Wait…what? What the fuck does that mean? Who wrote this screenplay?

Left: Wrestling skills galore. Right: Lunging crotch slams. Not Pictured: Entertainment of any kind.

Exhibit E: We’re Not Alone. Until Everyone Gets Killed, That Is. And They Yeah, I Guess We Are Alone.

Two men check into a hotel looking like this? It's a safe bet that you can sum up their visit in two words: angry sex.

Once united not only by exposure to the secret world around them but also in appearance, as they both look like they got into a fistfight with a grizzly bear after touching its sister inappropriately, Roddy and Frank decide to lay low for a while so that they can regroup. They check into a shitty hotel and settle down for an evening of deep philosophical discussion, with topics ranging from where “They” came from, how long “They” have been there, and how “They” get that soft flowing caramel in a Caramilk bar. After exercising a level of reasoning so painfully slow that you can literally hear the gerbils turning the wheels in their head, the two men decide that they can’t be the only ones who know about their alien overlords. After all, someone had to have made these horrendous glasses. So having established nothing but the obvious, they end the night recounting heartwarming tales, such as Roddy talking about his abusive father almost killing him, which prompts him to concluding that “there’s going to be hell to pay” because he “ain’t daddy’s little boy no more”. Ominous. Vague and more than slightly off topic, but ominous nonetheless.

Feel free to grab a gun, an alien wristwatch, and sign up for our beer league softball team.

The next day, as Frank returns from running to the grocery store to refuel on Frankenberry, light beer, and soiled preteen panties, our old friend Gamey Phillips, the organizer of the hobo village, shows up on their doorstep. Knowing that they’ve been enlightened to the truth, he invites them to a meeting that night hoping that they’ll join either join a resistance movement or at least stick around to hear his speech on how fun it can be to peddle exciting new Amway products. Seduced by the thought of no longer having to hide in the shadows and pass the time giving one another rusty trombones, the pair agrees and shows up at the designated site to join the small group of about 50 people. As the meeting begins, they’re all given new fancy contact lenses in place of the sunglasses, making their vision of truth slightly more subtle and significantly less of an assault on fashion. As Franky and the Rod try to slap these things onto their eyeballs like they’re pounding out stale pizza dough, it becomes quite obvious that they both have about as much experience with contacts as they do with surgically separating Siamese twins. The fabulous prizes don’t end there, though, as moments later they’re issued guns and the stolen alien wristwatches when they’re asked to help lead an assault team. The meeting then takes off into an argument about the methods that they should employ to face the alien horde and free the world. But just as it seems like the movie is about to devolve into a city council subcommittee meeting, Evil Lyn strides into frame and declares that the TV station that she works for is clear, that the alien signal must be coming from somewhere else. She and Roddy exchange a look before he walks over to greet her and undoubtedly thank her for dropping him several stories out a window when she begins to apologize profusely. But just as this awkward reunion seems to be reaching full climax and threatens to spray love pudding all over their stomachs, the wall behind them suddenly explodes and cops begin to pour in, guns blazing.

Ha ha! I've clearly never shot a gun before! Woo!

While their new found companions fall dead around them, Roddy, Frank, and Evil Lyn manage to make it out alive only to find themselves in the middle of a gun battle in the streets. Roddy leads Frank into a nearby alley while fighting off the alien police with reckless abandon, firing an assault rifle using only one arm like a complete jackass. Eventually they realize that the inherent downside to their strategy is that they’re fucking cornered, they desperately search for another way out as cops slowly start to move in. But just when it looks like our adventure will come to a startlingly realistic end, Frank manages to somehow fiddle with his alien wristwatch in a way that causes it to open a mystery portal in the ground. Not bothering to question their luck, despite not having a clue as to where they’re going, that jump down through the opening just before it closes behind them only to find themselves in a tunnel system beneath the city.

Blindly praying that each corner they round won’t bring them face to face with their ultimate doom but rather reinforcements in the form of Corey Feldman in a green rubber suit, Frank and Rowdy Roddy Penis Pump run through the underground tunnel system until they find something far more retarded than anyone could have imagined. Without any warning, they stumble into a fancy dinner party. Yes, that’s right: a formal affair with full catering…underground. Unnoticed, because apparently this secret alien meeting with the rich human conspirators who facilitate their existence has security that rivals the board game section of your local Toys R Us, our heroes wander right in and stop to calmly listen to the extraterrestrial agenda. But after a few moments, they’re finally greeted by what is apparently an old friend. I quite literally had to go back over this movie 3 times to see who the hell he is, but it turns out this guy, whom we’ll call Hot Chili Peterson was a resident hobo in their long lost hobo village whom had maybe one fucking line before this point. But regardless, he has apparently cleaned up and bought in with the enemy, unaware that no matter who you swear allegiance to, it will take months of bathing to rid himself of that compost and ass smell that we like to call “hobo fresh”. Thinking that Frank and Roddy have similarly betrayed humanity, he treats them like new recruits and shows them around the underground complex.

Wow. The Ninja Turtles have done a lot of renovating.

Remember me? How about now? No? Yeah, me neither.

There are two main points of interest in their tour, the first of which is a transport station that the aliens use to rocket through the cosmos between the Earth and their home planet. This chamber has a direct view into outer space, showing a distant planet, which is awesome when you stop to consider that a moment ago they were supposed to be in an underground complex. The second stop is the control room for the alien signal that they broadcast over the airwaves, which comes complete with a news studio. Suddenly Fox News makes a whole lot more sense. And this last discovery is just too good to hide the erections that it’s giving them, which of course reveals them to be insurgents much to the protests of Hot Chili Peterson, who tries to convince them just to play along and join him in living the good life. But before the dynamic duo can give him their response in the form of a led powered lobotomy, a guard wanders into the room an interrupts them, giving HCP a chance to use his alien wristwatch to escape. That’s the least of their concerns at the moment, though. In the belly of the beast and apparently alone in their quest to save the world, our two heroes decide to go ape shit, running around from room to room blasting any alien they come across. Working their way through what now appears to be a regular office building, they deduce that the signal must be pumped out on the roof, so they decide to head in that direction. As luck would have it, on their way up they run into Holly. But as Roddy runs ahead in renewed excitement, Holly puts a gun to Frank’s head and kills him. Meanwhile Roddy finally makes it to the roof where he finds the transmitter, only to turn and find Holly holding him at gunpoint. She calmly states that he can’t win, and Roddy’s response once again comes in the response of a semi-automatic scalp massage. Once he’s disposed of his last obstacle, he turns to blast the transmitter just as an alien security force flies onto the scene in a helicopter and begins firing. But just before Roddy is struck by their gunfire, the transmitter goes up in a spectacular explosion. In his moment of ultimate triumph, Rowdy Roddy Pant Stain does what all of us would do and gives the explosion the finger. Their facade ruined, as apparently this signal is what was keeping every single alien and subliminal message hidden, the movie then closes with everyone finally seeing the aliens for what they are. And as any good action movie would do, the film ends on a titty shot where some chick is slowly riding a dude, just to look down and see that it’s an alien. Enjoy the space herpes, lady.

There's not enough penicillin and crab shampoo in the world after seeing this.

The Verdict:

Donkey: I actually like John Carpenter movies. The Thing, Prince Of Darkness, Big Trouble In Little China, In The Mouth Of Madness…all quality films. But on this movie I’m truly torn. On the one hand it’s not nearly as good as his others, but on the other hand its not a terrible movie either. So like many before it, this movie just can’t deliver the comic genius of epic failure that goes hand in hand with so many true Shitty Movie Night classics. On the plus side, Roddy Piper turned out to be a surprisingly decent action star who delivered some incredible lines that wouldn’t make less sense if they were scrolled in dookie on a toilet stall wall. But even this can’t save a movie featuring aliens that seem much less threatening than the corporate entities that actually do control our lives. I give this three stories of plummeting hilarity out of five sticks of violence preventing bubble gum.

What We Learned:

Donkey: Seriously, sunglasses are bad ass. Whether it’s revealing the cold, hard truths of the universe or tapping into the ultimate fighting power, ala DOA: Dead Or Alive, they are easily the most powerful accessory available to humankind. Well, except for maybe the ascot.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a whimsical look at what is quite literally an explosive combination of aliens and drug dealers, all under the unblinking, unfeeling, unemotive eye of Dolph Lundgren in…I COME IN PEACE.

Back To The Main Page.

Prepare for a 90 minute penis measuring contest.

Donkey: There are few relationships that are more interesting than that of the coworker. Much like family, whom you have no choice but to allow a certain level of access into your life merely because somewhere along the line two people shot out of the same woman’s crotch, coworkers are usually uninvited participants in your life that, more often than not, simply don’t deserve the amount of company that you are forced to keep with them. In those very rare best cases they can turn out to be lifelong friends, while in the worst cases, sworn enemies with whom you’ll battle until the end of time. But most of them fall in that broad category of mildly irritating people that you would simply never choose to purposely spend 40 hours of your life with each week. When looking back on their quirks and exploits with the safety of hindsight, they can be a truly hilarious. I’ve met some real classics in my time, like the fellow cook whom on my last day on the job before returning to university thought that the best way to send me off was to try to convince me to go behind the restaurant’s dumpster and smoke crack with him (an interesting side note: I went on to get a degree and last I checked, he’s still actually in that dumpster). But during the time when you’re actually spending all your days with these people, they can make you so blisteringly angry that you strongly consider the merits of a forced sterilization program to be carried out with a dull butter knife strapped to a malfunctioning Weed Whacker. And we’ve all had them, whether it’s that middle aged guy that calls endless meetings that seem to have no other purpose than to show off the fact that he knows how to use PowerPoint, the cocky young fuck who insists on using buzz terms like “leverage”, “synergy”, and “ruptured hemorrhoids”, or that older woman who forgoes any semblance of showering in favor of apparently swimming laps in a pool of perfume every day, making her smell like an outhouse threw up while going down on a fucking garbage truck, giving you the added bonus of making sure that her stench will linger long after she’s actually left the building.

So as we sit back and enjoy Tango & Cash, a tale of two disgruntled coworkers, won’t you join me in recalling all those people that you’ve worked with over the many years with fond regard and just take comfort in one small comfort: Thank God I never had a gun.

The Plot:

Donkey: Despite sounding like a cleverly disguised brothel or possibly the next televised dancing competition serving as an intravenous lifeline to briefly sustain the inevitably terminal social relevance of some obscure celebrities or disgraced Texas Congressmen (CAUTION: Modern science has proven that watching the eye-raping hip gyrations of Tom DeLay for 30 seconds will cause complete testicular ascension and/or nuclear taint explosion. We cannot endorse witnessing this event under any circumstances.), Tango & Cash is actually one of the critical pioneers of yet another action movie cliché of the 80’s: the buddy-cop film. But unlike its more notable forbearers such as Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, or possibly Cops & Robbersons, this film has the courage to dismiss the successful formula of pairing two completely different character types together that answers the age old question of “what would The Odd Couple be like if they were heavily armed?”. Instead the studio executives involved in this film apparently held a marathon 30 second brainstorming session where they concluded, “Hey, you know what would go with kick ass? An equal or greater amount of kick ass! BRILLIANT!”

Enter Sylvester “Tango” Stallone and Kurt “Cash” Russell. One is a take-no-prisoners cop who breaks all the rules in search of justice, discount sporting goods, and 45 caliber boners, while the other is…um…yeah pretty much the exact same thing. So what is the difference between the two, you ask? The answer is simple: Personal grooming. Stallone is the prissy button-down, banker-looking, possibly gay cop from the rich part of town, while Russell is the blue collar, mullet-sporting, possibly gay cop from the city’s mean streets. But working separately for years, they each become prominent enough to earn not only their own personal pride parade floats, but also the attention of Jack Palance, the haggard figurehead of the LA crime scene. In an attempt to neutralize them, as they’re apparently the only two productive cops in the entire city of LA, our heroes and are set up for a crime that they didn’t commit. Locked in a viper pit of convicts that they themselves arrested in the first place, our heroes become unwilling partners as they must join forces to break out of prison and wreak their unholy vengeance upon those that set them up. It’s all perfectly bad ass as long as you happen to forget that killing people by the boatload when you’re escaped felons isn’t exactly legal.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: Unlike most of our adventures into the land of pain and despair captured on film, this entry is polite enough to prepare us for the ordeal ahead by beginning with an ominous warning. Just as the Warner Brothers logo fades away from the screen, the disembodied voice of Sylvester Stallone mutters, “Okay, let’s do it” while in no way sounding like he has a mouthful of goat semen. This might as well have been followed by the sound of rubber gloves snapping onto his hands while he asks me to touch my ankles, because at this point it seems pretty clear to me that I’m going to feel like a finger has been up my ass by the time this movie is done.

Exhibit A: The Good, The Bad, & Unnecessary Self-Promotion

Sure it may seem like he's putting himself in mortal danger, but every truck driver knows that even a rig is no match for the sheer girth of the 1989 Chrysler Le Baron.

As one may expect from any hero-based story, our festivities begin with an introduction to our main characters. And as anyone who has followed along through our exploits thus far would expect, those introductions are goddamn ridiculous. Thus we begin with Stallone, playing the part of Ray Tango. We see him for the first time as he’s chasing a runaway rig down a long desert highway, just as he dismisses his police helicopter backup in favor of a much better tactic: engaging the rig in a high impact game of chicken using goddamn face. Yes, he speeds off past the truck and into the distance before slamming his car to a halt, getting out, and standing in the middle of the damn road. At that point, with either too much courage or too little brain function to acknowledge that he is likely about to become a steroid-filled red blotch to be casually removed by windshield wipers, he calmly pulls his gun and faces the rig as it slowly bears down on him. He fires a few shots into the windshield and front tires as it gets closer, prompting the criminals inside the truck’s cab to declare that “this guy’s crazy!” But instead of putting their heads down, hitting the accelerator, and giving Tango a 90 MPH makeover, the thugs instead decide that the smartest thing to do in this situation is to slam on the breaks, bringing the rig skidding to a halt conveniently within 10 feet of their target. Then after a few awkward seconds, the two thugs suddenly come crashing through the windshield of the truck and land at Tango’s feet, almost making it seem like they didn’t fly out as a result of their sudden stop so much as a sincere and overwhelming desire to hump Stallone’s leg. This, of course, sets him up for his first epic line of the movie:

Stallone: “Glad you could drop in.”

Man, I'm glad we actually came to a stop. That was rough. Say, do you want to go get a coffee? No? Well how about....WAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Once the rest of the police force, including his captain (played by a familiar face that just happens to belong to the dude who was Frank in Double Impact) finally arrives on the scene, they all demand to know what’s going on, claiming that they can’t find anything illegal on the truck. When Tango explains that this truck is running coke, the other cops scoff, dismissing him as “a city guy” and demanding to know who he thinks he is. A “city guy”? How fucking far did he chase this truck? Do cops in the furthest suburbs of LA think their days of ticketing soccer moms give them some kind of hardcore street cred over the downtown forces, or did he actually chase these assholes all the way to Alabama? But before he can respond, another cop chimes in, setting up Stallone’s second epic line and what might be the single greatest moment in the movie:

Random Sans-Mustache-Ergo-He’s-Not-Bad-Ass Cop: “He thinks he’s Rambo.”

Stallone: “Rambo is a pussy.”

But wait…that’s him! Stallone just essentially called himself a pussy! HA! That’s so goddamn meta that it feels like Sly completely broke through the fourth wall just so that he could stab me in the eye with his junk! I haven’t seen that kind of completely unnecessary self promotion since Julia Roberts played Julia Roberts in Ocean’s Twelve, which may be the single biggest moment of ego masturbation in cinematic history. And with everyone standing in stunned silence, Tango pulls out his gun and fires on the truck’s cargo tank, gambling that it’s not actually filled with a flammable substance whose eruption would destroy them all (even though he was told that it was only seconds earlier). But of course, it begins to spout a stream of coke. Take that, other cops! Today we spell redemption T…A…No, seriously, did he just reference his own character from another movie?! Fuck me.

A mullet AND aviators? Goddamn. This guy couldn't be any more 80's cop if his life were soundtracked by Banarama.

While that extreme cornholing of our collective psyches would suffice for most other movies, this film then has the balls to go back for some psychological sloppy seconds, courtesy of Kurt Russell, playing the part of Gabriel Cash. He rolls into the film on his way home from work, accompanied by some surprisingly and rather inappropriately whimsical music. Seriously, the score for this scene sounds like it should be the theme song for a dancing purple dinosaur with questionable motives rather than for a relentless killing machine whose sole function in life is to perform involuntary steel-toed boot lobotomies. After walking into his apartment, looking forward to a quiet evening of red wine, bubble baths, and Brazilian Fart porn, he stands reading the paper in his kitchen when someone bursts out of a closet and shoots him in the chest a couple of times. It seems like it may be the shortest role in action movie history as Kurt is blasted out a window and onto his fire escape, but mere bullets are no match for his glorious mullet powers. Cash quickly fires a gun strapped to his boot, causing his Asian assailant to flee. And since this movie is basically dares you to find any common sense in it, the assailant forgoes the easy route of, say, the front fucking door and instead jumps out a second story window where he bounces of a car, landing with such ease as to suggest that the feat were less physically taxing than an underwater jazzercise session at your local seniors’ home, before hauling ass down the street. In hot pursuit, Cash ends up engaging this Asian bloke in a tired and predictable chase scene, somewhat reminiscent of Big Trouble In Little China, where the two of them run into a parking garage only to have the assailant steal a truck and attempt to hit Cash with it. But after jumping out of the way, rather than just declaring that the son of a bitch must pay, Kurt instead commandeers a vehicle of his own and begins a vehicular game of tag. After a few moments of sheer boredom, the movie tries to get our attention by showing that the chase is causing enough commotion for two people to stop fucking in the back seat of a car long enough to sit up and see what’s going on, giving us a completely unnecessary titty shot. Moments later, the scene finally comes to an end when the Asian aggressor crashes his truck long enough that Cash has the chance to pounce and be arrest him.

Just to prove that our heroes don’t corner the market on abject stupidity, the introduction to the film’s third pivotal player, an aging crime lord played by Mr. Napier himself, Jack Palance, also stumbles onto the screen with all the grace of a three-legged hippopotamus with an inner ear infection. Back on the highway where Tango had brought the rig full of coke to a hilariously retarded stop, we see a limousine pass by the crime scene that police are frantically establishing around the truck. That limousine is hauling Captain Wheezy and his mini-boss subordinates, the heads of two local crime families, James Hong (the Chinese guy who has literally played every Asian guy in every movie made since 1964) and some random dude that is destined to have a bright career in hemorrhoid infomercials. Palance looks out the window at his confiscated shipment of coke and curses the names of Tango and Cash, declaring them the proverbial crotch fungus that itches his balls, and vows to his delegates that he will do something to fix the problem. If you guessed that this is foreshadowing to him finding a way to give them herpes, you’re incorrect, but award yourself 100 bonus points for coming up with a scheme no more fucktarded than his turns out to be.

They say crime never sleeps and that may be true, but judging by these villains, at the very least it takes a break to hit the Early Bird special at the Country Kitchen Buffet.

Exhibit B: Who Could Have Guessed That Being Reckless Dicks Would One Day Backfire?

So young, so naive...before she was raped by the unstoppable handsome of Dean Cain. Damn you, Dean.

With our introductions complete, both cops return to their respective offices, too busy basking in the glow of their own self-satisfaction to notice they’ve becoming entangled in the first threads of a web of deception. It begins at the Beverly Hills office, where Tango takes a break from lecturing his stock broker and then his younger sister (played by Teri Hatcher before anyone knew, forgot, and then remembered who Teri Hatcher was) to quickly chat with his captain. After being asked why a rich wanker who dresses like a banker would bother working as a cop, Tango delivers a single word response: “Action”. Seriously? That might be recorded history’s fourth worst reason to be a cop, falling just behind “free handjobs from hookers”, “penance for all those children buried in my backyard”, and “I’m Batman”. Are there honestly no flags that go up in anyone’s mind when someone in the LAPD says they’re just in it to shoot people? That whole Rodney King thing makes a whole lot more sense every day. But instead of being horrified, Tango’s captain simply shakes his head and tells him about a drug deal that in supposedly going down that night. Tango, mentally cancelling his plans to dress up like Dame Edna, put on some Joan Jett, and dry hump his favorite Popple, declares that he’ll be there. Meanwhile, across town in the slums, Cash arrives back in his police station to a heroes welcome, which when you’re a bad ass from the mean streets means that you’ve earned a reception somewhere between passive indifference and flat out mockery. After acknowledging his greatness by mentally smelling his own armpits while remembering all the times he gave nerds a swirly in a high school toilet, he jumps straight into investigating the case of “who made the reservations for me at Chateau Dirt Nap?” He begins by bursting into the station’s washroom where he finds his Asian attacker is being carefully guarded while taking a piss. Despite being warned that this guy doesn’t speak English, Cash dismisses the other cops for some private time so that he can lay the Asian dude out on the floor and put a chair across his throat, demanding to know who is trying to kill him. But the answers that he gets are in the form of details of a drug deal, which just so happens to be the same drug deal that Tango will be showing up for that night. Call Admiral Akbar and check for an Adam’s apple because I smell a trap!

Had this dude not relented, Cash was prepared to deploy the harshest of interrogation techniques: the Hot Carl.

That fateful night begins at the industrial meat locker/failed discount electronics retail outlet that serves as Jack Palance’s hidden base, where he meets with his two associates to reveal his master plan just before its to be put into motion. He explains that merely killing Tango and Cash would not only be the quick and easy thing to do, but it would be the only solution that actually makes any goddamn sense if you don’t end all your sentences with an ampersand and long, sardine-flavored belch. So naturally, he’s not going to do that. Instead Jack declares that their revenge should be much more diabolically dim-witted. He pulls out two mice to convey his point, stuffing them into a large glass maze while describing his plan as holding “a game that only we can win” before yammering on about a massive shipment of drugs and guns. At this point the details really aren’t that important, as any man that constructs a giant maze for two mice just to explain a very basic plan to two of his subordinates is obviously a few Fruit Rollups short of a molester van.

He's either supposed to have an English or an Australian accent in this movie. It doesn't really matter though, since he just ends up sounding like he's gargling balls the whole time.

With that completely redundant moment of grandiose illustration at an end, the movie then turns to a dark building where we watch the master plan unfold. Tango and Cash arrive on the scene separately, each thinking that they’ll be wading into the darkness to bust up a major drug deal. At this point it’s entirely necessary to point out that apparently neither of them has the common sense of even the most mentally challenged of police officers, who wouldn’t dream of trying to break up so much as a Magic: The Gathering card exchange between two high school students without a full SWAT backup. I mean, there’s being brave and then there’s just being Darwin-award winning stupid. At best – AT BEST – if that drug deal only consisted of two men exchanging two briefcases, they’re still both likely to be armed, which still means that they outnumber and outgun one damn cop. So really, at this point they both deserve to die. Regardless, after catching sight of Jack Palance’s head goon, a man that we’ll simply call Dr. Flint GiggleTrousers, played by the dude from Blade Runner who joined Rutger Hauer on a quest to ask his creator about incept dates and why the hell he was designed without a chin, our heroes begin running around the dark building in futile pursuit. Eventually, after sneaking around just long enough to suck all entertainment value out of the scene, our heroes finally meet face to face with one another. But rather than being happy that they’re not about to meet certain death alone, they immediately start a pissing contest before running off and storming into the room that they suspect the deal is going down in. But rather than the deal, they instead walk in to find a lone dude who happens to be wearing a wire slumped over dead in a chair. And before the two champions of steel can figure out what the hell is going on, cops suddenly flood into the room around them, led by an FBI agent. After establishing that they’re all cops, one of the officers notices a gun on the floor behind our two heroes. When he picks it up, Cash identifies it as his gun, which had been stolen from his locker. This is another one of those situations where actually following the correct procedure and filling out the paperwork saying that your gun was stolen might have actually really helped, rather than just doing the equivalent of screaming “WHO STOLE MY GUN?” at a ham sandwich.

That's right, now you show us yours. Um...yeah...badge. That's what we meant. Badge. Totally. No one said penis.

As Tango and Cash are swiftly arrested on suspicion of murder, their fate is sealed when a doctored audio tape is delivered to the cops by the evil Dr. Flint GiggleTrousers. On it, a fake conversation between Tango, Cash, and the dead dude that was found in the chair details a situation where our heroes were attempting to sell confiscated drugs when they decided to execute the dude instead and, one can only presume, snort about 17 pounds of coke between them. With this damning evidence coming to the light of day, our boys are quickly taken to trial where a lineup of people come out of the woodwork to testify against them, including an audio expert who verifies the authenticity of the tape. With no chance to clear their name in sight, Tango and Cash enter a plea of guilty, hoping to get as little as 18 months in a minimum security prison. But of course, Jack Palance has other plans for them…

Exhibit C: Stop! Or My Ass Will Chafe!

After pleading guilty and bringing their trial to a shocking end, when Cash eloquently says that the entire proceeding fucking sucks, our heroes of glory and ball sweat are sentenced to serve time in their sought after minimum security facility. But of course, this wouldn’t be much of a movie if they spent 18 months sipping 20 year old Scotch while playing croquet with CEO’s caught misappropriating funds, so instead they soon find themselves being unloaded at a maximum security prison. And as their respective captains receive word that they didn’t arrive at the facility they were expected at and begin to search for their whereabouts, Tango and Cash do what all of us would naturally do upon we realizing that we’ve been mistakenly thrown into a cutthroat den of sodomy, and jump straight into the shower. If nothing else this gives us a completely unnecessary ass shot of the two of them, presuming that someone actually wants to see that, before they stand around arguing about who it was that has managed to frame them so successfully. And once they’re finished polishing up their sweet ruby starfishes and spent an unnecessarily long period of time pointing out how small each other’s dicks are, Tango and Cash are finally marched into their cells in general population where they are greeted with a hale of litter and flaming shit. Things don’t get much better once they are finally stuffed into their cells either, as Cash quickly discovers that he is bunking up with a huge black guy who looks like he could forcefully remove a pair of pants from an unwilling victim using no more effort than it would take to crack open a box of Shreddies, while Tango finds himself staring down the face of pure evil in his new cellmate…Clint Howard? What the fuck?

Since jumping directly into the shower was already stupid enough, the boys figure they might as well practice their rendition of Guys And Dolls.

What mousse do you use, because I just can't seem to get that kind of bounce.

Undoubtedly wondering if their days of actually making noise when they fart will soon be coming to an end, T&C settle down for their first night in prison. But the inevitable soon rears its ugly head when they’re both dragged from their cells and tossed down a laundry chute together. They slide down what one has to imagine is at least a couple of stories before finally landing hard, head first, on a cement floor with miraculously few adverse affects only to find themselves surrounded by a room full of thugs. At this point it definitely seems like they are not going to be the only things forcibly thrust into a chute tonight. But just as they try to formulate a futile strategy that they can only hope might result in them being raped the least, Jack Palance calls out from the shadows, unable to resist gloating over the hell that he is subjecting his enemies to while still remaining safely anonymous. Instead they end up facing his henchman, Dr. Flint GiggleTrousers, as he steps in front of Tango and Cash just long enough to wave a straight razor around their throats before setting the pack of drooling sodomites on them. Undaunted, Dance Slippers and Hard Currency start kicking as much ass as they can manage until they’re finally overrun. Hung up with heavy industrial chains over a couple of tubs of water, our heroes are then threatened with electrocution, as an electrical line is waved causally around the water at their feet. But before the villains can finish the job, prison guards suddenly bring the festivities to a halt. And before we can ask why the hell the guards, who were clearly bought off for this trap to have been set up in the first place, would bother to break things up, we learn that the assistant warden is an old friend of Cash.

After their narrow escape from death by severe rectal bleeding, Ballroom and Loose Change meet with their assistant warden ally only to be warned that they have no choice but to escape, as he won’t be able to save their puckered virgin asses for much longer. He ends up showing them blueprints for the prison ventilation system, outlining the one shaft that they could use for their getaway. He promises to leave all the supplies they’ll need just outside its entrance while having the giant fans blocking their path shut down at a certain time, giving them a small window for victory. With those plans in place, Cash visits Tango’s cell just before their scheduled moment of destiny, asking him to come along for garbage detail…wink, wink. But with their freedom almost within their grasps, Tango refuses to go, concluding that this whole scheme is obviously going to be a trap. Being a consummate team player, Cash simply deems Tango to be an idiot and leaves him behind.

Oh hey, shit, there's Waldo!

Quite used to going it alone, like a middle-aged Kinkos night manager with a Babylon 5 t-shirt collection and a waistline expanding faster than a muskrat trying to birth a Buick, Cash attempts to carry on with the slapdash escape plan only to discover that – hey, guess what? – It really is a goddamn trap. He busts into the ventilation system to find the giant fans turned off and the supplies left for him as expected, but with one added surprise: the assistant warden with a throat so sore, courtesy of a hunting knife, that even Robitussin would fail to provide any relief. Or as Cash describes it to Tango, “they cut his throat from ear to ear. Know what I mean?” No, actually, I don’t. What you just said leaves so much room for interpretation. Could you describe that a little less literally, perhaps in the form of a sonnet? And just as guards and prisoners alike come in to spring the trap, the giant fans behind Cash are powered back on, ensuring that there is no escape. But moments later, after nearly falling into the spinning blades of death and being copped into a mullet-sporting pile of coleslaw that would likely have been sprayed all over his fellow inmates, one of the fans suddenly grinds to a stop. Cash looks up in amazement to find Tango on the other side waiting for him. If you, like us, are wondering how the fuck Tango managed to get on the other side of that fan, then be prepared to be screaming at your TV in futility because there’s no answer coming. He just did, motherfuckers, and that’s all you need to know.

In the dark AND the rain? Pfffttt...maybe if you're a pussy. Real men would make this jump while on fire.

The two heroes make their way down the proscribed escape route with guards on their tails, until they finally arrive on a rooftop after scrambling through a random and unnecessary tube and weaving through a small power station that’s spitting sparks in their faces as rain falls around them. Faced with one last obstacle while their freedom stares back at them, Cash gets the most brilliant idea born unto humankind since someone thought to add bacon flavoring to mayonnaise: he runs and leaps off the roof, loops his belt over a power line that’s hanging just far enough away that while physically possible to make the jump, their odds of successfully probably wouldn’t be much worse if they just waited for Falkor the Luck Dragon to swoop down and carry them to safety, and zip lines his way over the prison’s gates where he falls to safety. After watching Cash go first and contemplating whether or not to follow his path of stupidity, Tango is just about to make the leap for himself when an old friend – the driver of the rig that he stopped at the beginning of the movie – pop’s up and stops him. They grapple for a while, fighting both each other and the utter pointlessness of the scene until Tango finally tosses him back into the power station to meet a shocking end, quite literally. With nothing left to stop him, Tango finally takes the Slip-And-Slide routeto safety, joining Cash just beyond the prison walls.

Exhibit D: Wonder Twin Power Activate! Form Of…Tranny!

After successfully pulling off the nearly unheard of feat of breaking out of a maximum security prison using nothing but an intense love of urban gardening and the power of teamwork, our dashing heroes of strength and genital warts do what is obviously the most appropriate course of action and decide to immediately go their separate ways. But before we think that they might die alone, leading hollow and closeted lives while lamenting that they had taken the time to learn how to quit the other, Tango explains that if Cash wants to find him, he just needs to look up his sister, who will in turn lead Cash to him. Meanwhile, back at Chez Palance, Sergent Bronchitis meets with his subordinates via shitty 80′s video conference, assuring them that everything is under control. And…that’s it. But this scene, which takes about 20 seconds, is quite indicative of every damn scene in this movie involving Jack Palance. With very few exceptions, he basically shows up just long enough to rub his nipples in delight over his own genius in front of his two pet crime family bosses while assuring them that everything is going according to plan. They could have shot his entire roll in this movie within a day, which is coincidentally about how long it takes to forget that he was ever in it.

Meeting adjourned, gentlemen. The doors are opening in a few minutes and I have to sell some of these TVs today or this Circuit City will close in a month.

Now that our unbridled heroes are back on the street, they waste no time in beginning the process of cracking skulls while undoubtedly engaging in some inappropriate fondling in search of those that set them up. First Tango visits the FBI agent who led that raiding party that arrested them on that fateful night, whom in turn admits that he was bought off to set them up rather easily before trying to escape, only to climb into the car in his garage and be blown to Receding Hairline Hell by a car bomb. Meanwhile, after visiting Owen, a friend in the crime lab, and loading up with guns, Cash visits the voice analysis expert that testified as to the authenticity of the forged tape that served as damning evidence against them. Within seconds he too admits ridiculously easily that he was paid off and offers a recording of the conversation he had when receiving instructions on how to frame them.

Now before you see some tits, who wants to hear me play Tom Sawyer?

With that incredibly minor amount of detective work done, Cash decides that it’s time to reunite with his begrudging partner in crime, so he journeys to the dance club that Tango’s sister works at. Of course, it turns out that she’s a stripper, so we get to watch Teri Hatcher dance. Or at least I think that’s dancing. Either that or this club has hired Teri Hatcher to do a performance piece on the dangers of epilepsy. Or perhaps she believes that she can fight off HIV with spastic contortions. Who knows? All I know is these Corn Chips are delicious. But just as Cash and Teri make their first eye contact and share a spark that could be due to attractive, recognition, or severe gastrointestinal pain, which is just before she starts playing random giant drums (what kind of fucking strip show is this?!), cops arrive on the scene. Not ready to return to prison and be forced to eat more luke warm cream corn or undercooked mashed potatoes, Cash dodges them by making his way backstage where Teri meets him and introduces herself. Looking for a way to sneak him past the converging cops and get him the hell out of that, she takes him into the stripper change room, giving us gratuitous titty shot numero dos. Moments later, the two of them strolls out of a back door and past a group of officers with Cash dressed in drag and following behind Teri Hatcher, looking less like a woman than George Burns in a cocktail dress. As the two of them climb onto a motorcycle, one of the randoms cops suggests that they have themselves a freaky three way. After getting two cigarettes flipped at him as a response, the cops shakes his head and concludes quite loudly that since these two women didn’t immediately jump at the chance to be disappointed by all two of the weapons in his sexual arsenal, they must be a couple of “dykes on bikes”. Awesome.

All I can think of right now is the female Gremlin from Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

After their successful getaway, Cash and Teri Hatcher end up back at her place where she gives him a back massage. And of course, just as she really gets him moaning in delight, Tango slides in through the front door and immediately thinks that Cash is plowing his sister. But as he sits back and contemplates the moral implications of making a Chinese finger trap out of a family member, he sees the shadow of someone hanging around on the patio. And unlike fucking his sister, loitering is something that he just cannot abide. Swiftly jumping into action, Tango dives through the patio door only to find that it’s Mr. Lahey, his own captain. As Cash and Teri Hatcher come out to see what the hell is going on, the predictable “I can’t believe you’re banging my sister” argument begins on the lawn, only to be interrupted moments later when Tango’s captain informs them that they’ve only got another 24 hours before the whole department is going to be on their ass as the feds have taken over the case of finding them. Realizing that it’s time to get down to business, Cash hands over the tape that he got from the voice analyst, and in return the captain gives them the address of a one Dr. Flint GiggleTrousers. That’s right. Strap in. It’s on now, bitches.

Exhibit E: The Best Revenge Is Living Well. Oh, Except For Maybe Killing Everyone. That’s Kind Of Better. But After That, It’s Living Well.

After a painfully unnecessary and awkward attempt at a bonding moment between brother and sister, Cha Cha and Coin Purse finally get down to the business of exacting their brutal revenge. They arrive on the scene of Dr. Flint GiggleTrousers’ apartment, where Cash bursts in to catch his prey off guard, preferably half way through dropping a deuce. Instead he finds the evil henchmen ready with an ambush of his own and ends up looking down the business end of a gun barrel. But just as all seems lost, Tango pulls the old double whammy and pops up just behind the villain, putting a gun to his head. From there they take the goon up to the roof for interrogation time, hanging Dr. GiggleTrousers over the side of the building by his feet. But when he still refuses to divulge either the identity of Jack Palance, the man who has set them up, or the recipe for his signature spinach dip, our heroes change tactics and instead opt to tie Flint up and strap a grenade to his face while playing the world’s most transparent game of good cop/bad cop. But of course something this simple is enough to make the supposedly hardened criminal not only break, but also piss himself as he finally relents and gives them Palance’s name.

Not wanting to say anything to ruin the tension, Cash suddenly remembered that this was actually his grenade filled with Reese's Pieces.

With the identity of their enemy finally known to them, Macarena and Small Bills decide that it’s time to suit up and kick some ancient, wrinkly, and most likely soiled ass. But before they can do that, they know that for an idiotic job, they’re going to need some idiotic equipment. So with an ideal friend to turn to, they once again visit Owen in the crime lab, cementing his role as this movie’s Down syndrome version of Q from the 007 series. He begrudgingly issues our boys a shitty SUV equipped with ridiculous guns plastered all over it and an onboard computer that would rival the finest Collecovision that you could find in your local flea market. Looking at this monstrosity, one has to hope that Chez Palance is within a 1o mile radius, or these assholes are going to have to gas up about 4 or 5 times. Seriously, that thing looks like it gets about 3 feet to the gallon.

The only way that this truck could possibly make them look like bigger douches: a bumper sticker saying "Honk If You're Horny".

After presumably making those dozen refueling/Skittles and Big Gulp refill stops, Tango and Cash soon find themselves overlooking the Palanace compound, surveying the dangers that lay ahead. With their moment of destiny finally facing them, the boys mount up and launch their assault, thus beginning the epic final battle. After bursting through the front gates and racing around with no discernable pattern or strategy, they end up being chased by random trucks and dune buggies (wait…dune buggies?…yes, dune buggies) in a scene that basically consists of a shitty demolition derby highlighted by an absolutely ridiculous amount of arbitrary explosions. The climax finally comes when our champions eventually come face to face with a goddamn Bigfoot truck, which is just indescribably stupid. Who the fuck actually owns a goddamn Bigfoot truck? And why is that in a crime lord’s compound? Do they actually think that fucking thing is practical, or is Palance just making sure that he’s prepared in the off chance that he has to entertain an arena full of rednecks? At this point Cash reveals that they’re almost out of gas, which makes sense considering that they have been driving around for about 4 minutes. So either my predictions on their fuel economy is dead right, or they were too fucking stupid to actually fill up before arriving on the scene. Regardless, they continue to take out everything around them in a escalating series of giant explosions until they’re suddenly sandwiched on either side by the next entries in the series of fucking ridiculous vehicles that Palance has on his lot, two huge industrial mining trucks. Faced with this opponent, they finally manage to fire off enough brain synaptics to realize that having a Hemi isn’t going to save them, so the dynamic duo bail out the windows of their own truck and instead fight their way into the cabs of the industrials ones. Once at the helm, they finally bring the scene to a close by ramming directly into the largest building on the compound.

Climbing out of the wreckage that they created only to find themselves surrounded by guns and drugs, Achey Breakey and Chedda spring into action, standing back to back so that they can Uzi the shit out of any guards, random goons, hapless janitors, or visiting relatives that manage to wander onto the scene. After finishing with the pawns, they then make their way up to Palance’s office just as we see him start the building’s automated self-destruct countdown sequence, basically ruining any feeble attempts at suspense that may have built around the climax of the film. Not only do we know that Palance plans on dying at this point, but he’s also given us a convenient timeframe in which he plans on doing it. When Tango and Cash finally burst into the room, they end up killing James Hong and the head of the Random Ass Pain family, Palance’s two mini-crime bosses, before coming face to face with the one and only Dr. Flint GiggleTrousers as he holds a knife to Terri Hatcher’s throat. They stand in awkward tension just long enough for another dude to walk into the room, then break off to fight individual battles, at the end of which Tango knocks the random dude out and Cash finally delivers on the promise they made on the rooftop, throwing Dr. GiggleTrousers down a flight of stairs while cuddling an active grenade.

Stop right there boys! Let me tell you about the complete history of the mirror! It all began back in ancient times when...

With all obstacles finally cleared out of the way, Mambo and Bad Cheques make their way into the final room where this time it is now Jack Palance’s turn to hold a gun to Teri Hatcher’s throat while standing in a room of mirrors. So just to interject for a moment to review, this asshole built his an evil fortress equipped with a miniature maze for mice, a self-destruct system, and a room of goddamn mirrors. Fuck, I wish they had fought on further and inevitably found the ball pit room, just past the hallway of compactors and random acid pits, and to the right of the bathroom filled with spitting cobras. Making his last stand against the only two men who would dare to stand in his way, Palance drones on and on about something that nobody gives a shit about while both his opponents sit back, figure out which mirror he’s actually standing behind, and simply shoot him directly in the goddamn forehead. Problem solved! But they’re not quite out of the woods yet, so they grab Terri and run, making it out of the building just in time to give us a diving-away-from-the-explosion shot. Not bothering to ponder how incredibly lucky they are that the timer on the self-destruct sequence wasn’t so much as 30 seconds shorter, the three of them sit in the dirt where Tango and Cash bicker about which one of them is the better cop like two teenagers desperately wanting to ask the other to make out before finally ending the movie with one of the single greatest images you could possible go to credits on: a high five of glory that slowly morphs into a front-page newspaper high five of redemption! FUCK YEAH!

Like any good porn knows, you always end on the money shot.

The Verdict:

Donkey: While stacked with random moments of shitty magnificence, this movie surrounds those gems with deliberate attempts at comedy that fall flat on their ass, stereotypical action that is less exciting to watch than an Alzheimer’s patient repeatedly check his mail for Christmas cards in July, and two main characters lashing at each other with barbed tongues so much that you could easily mistake them for two cats cleaning each other’s assholes, which would be less homoerotic than their relationship, by the way. Seeing as this movie begins by showing us the downfall and resurrection of two supposed Super Cops rather than telling the story of what they actually did to earn those reputations, you can’t help but come away from this movie feeling like you missed the best part of it – a part that isn’t there in the first place. Instead you have two action heroes who are happy to wander around in the shower, bare-assed and quite content to tell you that they know that you like it. I give this movie four one-armed pushups at the Oscars out of five “Hey, I played Rambo!”s.

What We Learned:

Donkey: You know how when some of your favorite bands split up, start mingling, and form so called “Super Groups” that are never as good as their original bands were in the first place? Well that’s not limited to music, my friends.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a classic treat as we wrestle with classic dialogue and Rowdy Roddy Piper in…THEY LIVE.

Back To The Main Page.

Make this year's holidays a time of laughter, joy, and constant dong punches.

Donkey: Like a creepy uncle with a mustache and a seemingly infinite supply of stained jogging pants, the holiday season is once again waiting just around the corner, ready to pounce on the innocent and unsuspecting. But as we come face to face with usual plethora of questions that accompany this time of merriment, like who’s going to make an ass of themselves at the office Christmas party and am I really going to allow my child to sit on the all too eager lap of a man who is likely homeless 11 months of the year, there is one quandary that demands a much higher level of urgency. Call it capitalism gone wild or even the genital warts infecting the undercarriage of generosity, but there is nothing as important during this time of good will towards men as what we intend on buying for others. After all, the consequences of a poorly chosen gift can be disastrous. Sure, it’s been reported that feelings of loneliness and isolation run rampant during the holidays, but the real secret is that poorly chosen gifts are the cause of the season’s astronomically high suicide rate. Hell, Big Mouth Billy Bass has killed more people through the annals of history than polio. So to help you avoid wiping out your entire family with a 10 ton blast of unfortunate judgment, we here at ShittyMovieNight.com have compiled the following guide to help you choose the right gift for everyone on your list. Whether they’re naughty or nice or dried wads of bleeding ass drool, we’ve got you covered. You’re welcome.

For the One You Love

If you're looking for a man to kick the faces of ninjas while performing the perfect dismount, look no further.

We Recommend: Gymkata

When it comes to that special someone in your life, the person with whom you want to share your laughter and your pain, the good times and the bad, and your rather massive collection of Robotech porn in hopes that they won’t laugh you right back into your parents’ basement, nothing but the best will do. Sure you could just play it safe and buy him another gas-powered pube trimmer/deli meat slicer, or her another Martin Mull Signature Mustache Waxing Kit, but perhaps this is the year to truly complete their lives in a way that even you never could, with the single greatest adventure involving a tiny gymnast riding a pommel horse of glory ever told. Featuring Kurt Thomas, the world’s third least likely action hero, in line just behind Phyllis Diller and the frozen corpse of Ted Williams, it’s the story of how diminutive stature, a series of completely unnecessary flips, and a total lack of any killing prowess are the only tools necessary to conquer a contest of strength that no one has survived in over 500 years, all while earning the love of a woman whose standards for men are obviously set so low that she’d probably still fuck a man in the composting stage of leprosy. The showpiece of any DVD collection, this film will provide repeated hours of pulse-pounding entertainment to get your significant other through the long, cold winter ahead, provided that the exposed ass of a random priest doesn’t cause their brain to shit out into their skulls. But trust me when I say that’s a risk worth taking.

But Also Consider: Troll 2, Double Team

If the single greatest gift known to man isn’t enough…well, you’re just being an asshole at this point. That’s like winning the lottery and immediately trying to double it by betting it all on a single hand of Blackjack. That being said, if you’re going to insist on being a reckless turd burglar, there are options that can push any mere mortal to the very brink of sensory overload. But be warned: I’m quite serious when I say that giving a gift that includes any combination of Gymkata, Troll 2, and/or Double Team, creates a force so powerful that it would take the power of 1,000 exploding suns to defeat it. So unless you’re giving the gift to Aquaman, or possibly rock legend Steve Perry, you might want to reconsider.

For the One You Hate

His tender virgin ears won't be ready for this screaming load of premium manseed.

We Recommend: Universal Soldiers

Is there someone in your life that you loathe beyond all comparison, so much so that even the sound of their voice is like nails on a chalkboard, provided that chalkboard is lodged somewhere in your lower colon, between a can of spray cheese and the 1984 Farmers Almanac? Then I beg of you to put down that nail gun, cancel all plans involving a wheat thresher, and consider a far more sinister alternative. Instead of exacting your unholy revenge with savage violence, this yearconsider something more subtly diabolical and give them the gift that keeps on giving. Giving what, you ask? A third degree migraine and seriously depleted faith in humankind for starters. Featuring horrible dialogue spat through the screaming lips of exceptionally untalented faces, a plot that could only be equaled by a Bounty paper towel marketing team given 15 seconds to ramble out a script while their wives are being raped by clowns that are laughing hysterically, and special effects on par with the visual imagery created by your slow cousin having sex with an Etch-A-Sketch, this film will spend what even Timedrax, the Master of Time and Dimension, would call the longest 80 minutes of anyone’s life pissing in the ears of your nemesis with all the unchecked aggression and light asparagus smell that you wish you had the freedom to unleash yourself.

But Also Consider: The American Ninja Quintology, Alien Apocalypse

While Universal Soldiers will leave them permanently crippled, both mentally and emotionally, if you want to truly destroy the mind of that asshole that kicked sand on you at the beach, then don’t bother with any of that Charles Atlas body building bullshit. Instead consider a second gift to pull off the brutal finishing move of your choice: The American Ninja Quintology, which could cause semi-permanent case of face explosion once its blatant inconsistency causes your expressions to contortion more violently than if you shit a live zebra, or Alien Apocalypse, which will pull the warm blanket of a coma over your enemy as he or she basks in its total lack of remarkable qualities.

For the One You’re Trying To Show Your Penis To

The Sears catalogue of the cinematic porn world.

We Recommend: Hard Ticket To Hawaii

Unless your name happens to be Scott Baio, John Stamos, or Lou Gossett Jr, getting laid is never easy. To make matters worse, the odds are pretty high that you’re hung like a squirrel in an ice bath, you’ve got a face that only a mother could love since the alternative would be the realization that she tore herself a ragged vaganus to unleash little more than a walking Chia Pet upon the world, and your skills at pleasuring a lady are about as finely tuned as Helen Keller’s banjo. But that’s not going to stop you, you smooth son of a bitch, because there’s a set of breasts out there with a woman attached to them that’s just begging to be motorboated. So if standing a short distance away, hoping that she’ll notice you posing in a way that makes you look like you’re either flexing or passing a small kidney stone hasn’t worked, you’re going to need all the help you can get to have your all day pass stamped at the gates of the Pleasure Dome, deep in the heart of Flavor Country. To pique the ladies’ interest, go with Hard Ticket To Hawaii, a long series of slow grinding, feathered-hair titty shots featuring starlets barely clinging to the same remote semblance of fame that could only be earned through horse porn, all while tugging off men that wouldn’t meet the IQ prerequisite to work as an underwear mannequin in a Sears display window. She’ll be too busy laughing at the indestructible cancer snake lurking in unsuspecting toilets and the skateboarding hitmen to notice you putting your junk on her thigh.

But Also Consider: Ice Pirates, Cool As Ice

By this point her panties will likely be more flooded than a post-Katrina New Orleans, but if you want to rocket them right off the target of your sweaty lust, you need to seal the deal by showing her how much worse things could get than you. You could either let her bask in the glory of Robert Urich just long enough to realize that while you’re not half the man he is, at least you don’t have space herpes, or you could show her the single biggest failure in personal marketing since Donald Trump unveiled the Donald Trump Kitten Strangler, Cool As Ice. I’m not sure why Vanilla Ice thought that his career could be advanced by forcing us to watch him in a series of dance videos, dance-filled live shows, and public service announcements on the dangers of inappropriate dancing in public streets, all loosely associated to one another with a series of scenes that feature him frozen in a puckered, shit-eating expression that leads one to believe that he’s attempting to suck out a bowel obstruction from the wrong end, but this movie is an immortal testament to how wrong he was.

For the Armchair Quarterback

Domo arigato, Mr Roboto, for wasting 2 hours of my life.

We Recommend: Robot Jox

We all have one of those friends: The kind that screams at UFC matches like they could knock George St. Pierre out cold with a single thrust of their hips, bleat at football games like they have more Superbowl rings than fingers, and yammer on about soccer like they could pull off a top corner strike via bicycle kick on command. And yet, miraculously, most of these men couldn’t kick a Cheetos habit without needing a triple bypass, let alone a game winning field goal. And for those champions by proxy, whose asses are expanding inversely to their ability to actually perform any physical activity outside of pouring melted cheese on their nachos, we heartily recommend Robot Jox. This is a film dedicated to praising men whom train tirelessly to accomplish a task that could probably be performed just as easily by an elderly dementia patient or a particularly clever house cat. They are genetically engineered to be the best of the best at strapping themselves into a giant robot and executing such monumental tasks as firing a gun, walking slowly, and falling over backwards. Finally, a sport that fat guys who would be rendered breathless from simply cramming their heads into a large helmet can compete in!

But Also Consider: Best Of The Best, Over The Top

Though it will satisfy most, this might not be enough in certain cases. Sometimes just the hint of physical activity, even one simple enough to be mastered by an epileptic toddler watching back to back episodes of Pokemon, is enough for our couch jockeys to dismiss it faster than veggie platter. For those people, there’s Best Of The Best and Over The Top. The former will teach you that if the moderately untalented amongst us does enough jumping jacks, they too can lose at an international karate tournament just as fast as a Hollywood superstar like Eric Roberts, while the latter will show that everything in life, whether it’s fame, money, a rig, or the love of your only child, can be won through the majesty of arm wrestling.

For the Video Game Aficionado

For you, the day you watched Street Fighter: The Movie was the worst day of your life. For us...it was Thursday.

We Recommend: Street Fighter: The Movie

Since more and more people are playing video games these days, bringing what was once a shameful hobby enjoyed only by social outcasts to the forefront of popular culture, the odds are pretty good that you know someone whom has traded away their dignity for chance to taunt and tea bag 12-year-olds after cutting them down online with an Energy Sword. In most cases, the safe anonymity of playing with strangers across the world on the Internet brings out the inner douchewelder in most of these people, but since you can’t wrap up a punch in the fucking face and give it as a gift, you might as well choose a metaphorical kick to the balls in the form of a movie based on a video game. There is no shortage of testicle smashing selections in this category, but one of the single greatest examples has to be Street Fighter: The Movie, an unsung hero in the cinematic category of “Completely Missed The Goddamn Point”. The game on which it was based, Street Fighter II, was a global competition of fighting mastery to determine the world’s greatest warrior. The movie, on the other hand, is the light-hearted tale of JCVD defending the world from the whimsical musings and underwhelming demands of a brilliantly comedic dictator. It’s just the size 13’s in the nads that you’re looking for.

But Also Consider: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, DOA: Dead Or Alive

While Street Fighter: The Movie is the most direct slap to the penis on the market, these two films spread the icing on the Fuck You cake, delivering a follow up flick to the testicles while the recipient is already distracted by extreme dong pain. Witnessing a supposed Chinese god, played by someone who is of course not Chinese, getting a goddamn haircut or basking in the fighting majesty of Eric Roberts when wearing his ultimate weapon of a pair of sunglasses should be enough to make even the most hardened gamer sob like an infant.

For the Fan of Truly Unbridled Awesomeness

JCVD kicks a fucking tiger. Seriously. Do you need any other reason to watch?

We Recommend: Double Team

I like things that are awesome. You like things that are awesome. Apart from fundamentalist Christians and our future Morlock overlords, who doesn’t love things that are awesome? So consider this: Awesome begins with Van Damme and ends with a punch square to the balls while doing the splits. This is simple, irrefutable fact. The challenge therefore, is not finding a gift that will blow someone’s goddamn mind, but one that will maximize that cranial inferno, killing everyone within a 35 mile radius. For this we have to turn to Double Team. When the bathtub-molesting exercise routine and underwater plastic bag strangling majesty of JCVD is combined with not only the unnecessary and inappropriate basketball references of Denis Rodman, but also the apparently limitless invincibility of a Coke machine, the result is a whirlwind of mind-fucking furry that not even a greasy bandit like Mickey Rourke can withstand. This movie will change the way you look at the world.

But Also Consider: Timecop, Double Impact

Trying to pick the highest peek in the mountain range of awesomeness that is the JCVD library can be daunting, so take heart in the fact that you can’t really go wrong. That being said, our alternate suggestions would be the adventures of JCVD rocketing through time, wherein he saves the day just to end up in the private hell of ending up in an alternate reality to find that he has a 10 year old son that he’s supposed to have been around but has never actually met, or the adventures of JCVD through the land of incredibly bad editing, where he and a shadowy double of himself argue over which one of them is gay while secretly wondering and graphically picturing which one of them could sex up a woman better.

For the Office Party Where You Have To Buy Some Goddamn “Secret Santa” Bullshit Gift

Hilarity wears Depends.

We Recommend: The Golden Girls: Season 4

Trying to buy a gift for a coworker you can barely stand is kind of like trying to unblock a septic tank with a grapefruit spoon and the raw suction power of your own lips: it’s likely going to be a painful experience and no matter how well it turns out, you’re going to walk away with a shitty taste in your mouth. To guarantee all the hilarity that a modest budget and minimal effort can buy, I recommend you scrounge through your nearest Wal-Mart discount DVD bin for The Golden Girl: Season 4. With such timeless classics as the episode where Dorothy finally reveals that she’s a tranny, the moment that Sophia gets confused enough to shit in a potted plant, and the one where Blanche discovers that you’re never too old to get HIV, this comedic powerhouse will have something for everyone…

But Also Consider: Doing a lot of drinking.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a much, much needed holiday break. But we’ll return in the new year, recharged and ready for more pain and suffering.

Back To The Main Page.

This poster actually captures the reaction that I have the moment I see a picture of Eric Roberts, particularly with an open shirt: HIGH FIVE, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Donkey: High school is a confusing time for most of us. Between involuntary erections, gym teachers that are far too enthusiastic about watching you shower, and a social structure that looks like it had a paranoid schizophrenic in the dementia stage of syphilis as an architect, the whole ordeal can be about as fun playing table tennis with a paddle made of gorgonzola cheese. And while I’m sure that most of the trials that I experienced were pretty standard fare, the one source of infinite confusion in my life that few others were forced to deal with was directly related to this week’s film.

As I sat in my law class for an hour each day of the final semester of grade 12, I found myself glancing back at the rear wall of the classroom every so often with a furrowed brow at the spectacle that awaited me. That particular teacher, for reasons I’ll never know, decided to decorate the back wall of his classroom not with educational material or faux-inspirational pictures that made you want to stab the person sitting next to you in the jaw with your pencil, but with movie posters. And while I, of all people, can appreciate a good movie poster, these weren’t posters of movies that either had anything to do with law or were even landmark films in some way. No, these were obscure, low budget affairs like Kickboxer 6: King Of The Taco Bell Drive Thru, that quite frankly I’m shocked even warranted a poster of any kind, let alone the conscious decision to purchase one. But the one that really drew my eye was the poster that you see above, advertising the adventure of unbridled failure known as Best Of The Best. At the time, I had no idea what this movie was about, and that poster really doesn’t help: a small picture of Eric Roberts, slapped over the image of two people giving an epic high five, finished off with a title so obscure that it might as well be called Movie: The Movie. What the fuck is that? I couldn’t imagine what the hell Eric Roberts was supposed to be the best of, but he seemed pretty happy about it. Eventually as high school itself began to fade into the rearview mirror of my distant memories, this movie went with it. But as the assault known as Shitty Movie Night continued on our fragile collective grip on reality, this film was once again dredged to the surface, mocking me with its promise of obscurity and the sheer mantastic aura that is Eric Roberts. A more fitting film for our enjoyment I couldn’t imagine.

The Plot:

Donkey: Much like searching for dignity at a Cosplay convention, the plot of Best Of The Best is as short as it is pointless. Eric Roberts, Chris Penn, and several other actors that have absolutely no business pretending to be sandwich artists let alone martial artists, team up with one token Asian guy that actually has an air of legitimacy, forming the US National Karate Team. Guided by the vast karate knowledge of Darth Vader himself, they must navigate their way through countless hours of non-karate related training montages in order to prepare for the ultimate sort-of-karate related tournament that no one has ever heard of, all the while entirely unprepared for the true prize that awaits them: the power of love.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: So here we are, finding ourselves once again treading into familiar territory by wrapping ourselves in the warm, ass-kicking comfort blanket of an 80’s martial arts extravaganza. And we’re not dicking around either; we’ve set our sights on the film that quite literally promises to be the best goddamn movie in existence. Not only the best, but the Best Of The Best, such as it were. So forget your Police Academy XII: Mahoney Vs Dragon Ninja, The Ninja Babysitters Club, Surf Ninjas Get Crabs, or any of those other useless imitators spawned in that decade, and strap in for a guided tour of awesome featuring THE Eric Roberts, star of film, stage, and my pants.

Exhibit A: The Unlikables

The movie starts off with a scene that anyone who was able to stomach their way through the American Ninja Quintilogy with us will recognize as mandatory for all 80’s martial arts movies: a large group of people practicing a painfully basic kata simultaneously with all the speed and grace of a kindergarten class doing their post-nap time stretches. This is our first introduction to the killing machine that is the South Korea karate program. From this exceptionally unimpressive display, they choose five of their best fighters, one of whom wears an eye patch, clearly marking him as the most dangerous man alive due to his obviously being a hybrid pirate-ninja. Once their team is chosen, a blood-chilling chant of “Korea” begins, complying with the government regulated cheer and merriment levels.

While our evil (re: not white) combatants gather on one end of the Earth, we’re slowly introduced to the heroes on the other, beginning with the two main characters of the film:

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that someone was trying to make the case that the wrong Roberts was cast as the Pretty Woman.

Eric Roberts: Working an automotive assembly line by day and teaching his son to ride a bike by night while crying like a school girl and wearing a V neck sweater so goddamn inappropriately low cut that you’d think he was applying for the head waitress job at Hooters, Eric Roberts is an aging contender whose bum shoulder is the only thing standing between us and the destruction that his flowing mane would unleash upon the world. After receiving a letter inviting him to try out for the US National Karate Team, the fires of competition deep within his loins begin to rage anew, surpassing the existing fires of Chlamydia. Ready to spray his burning passion all over his opponents’ faces, he gives his mother a heartfelt speech about his need to compete before getting a little tender and turning to the real man of the house. Pouring on sentiment, Eric asks his son for his official permission to try out for the team after warming him up by reading him a bedtime story titled Faded Glory: Your Father’s Only Three Steps Away From A Serious Alcohol Problem.

I may have already won a million dollars?! HELL YEAH!

Tommy Lee: Fresh from hitting the skins for Motley Crüe’s Dr. Feelgood video, our next hero also decides that it’s time to return to the passion of competition, challenging Vince Neil to see who can contract Hepatitis C after plowing through a gaggle of shady groupies the fastest (hint: As Pamela Anderson can tell you, Tommy ends up winning). Oh, wait…wrong Tommy Lee. In this film, he’s a random Asian dude who’s teaching valuable life lessons to a class of very small children in his dojo of smiles and sunshine when he’s delivered the same message asking him to try out for the US National Karate Team. It’s right about at this point, with all this warm and fuzzy bullshit that we really began to reminisce for the days of invitations being delivered in near-fatal shuriken form.

With those initial introductions finished, the movie wastes no time in getting down to business and taking us to the Qualifying Tournament of Fate and Pop Tarts, where we’re introduced to what will become the rest of the US team:

He couldn't look any less like a martial artist if he was wearing a Donald Duck costume.

Chris Penn: Not seen since his quite literally mind-expanding role in Fist Of The North Star, the late Chris Penn makes his triumphant return to Shitty Movie Night playing the role of the unlikely martial artist and fifth degree douche bag. Strolling into the tournament sporting a cowboy hat, a blaring Boombox, and a shit-eating grin, Chris not only looks like the absolute last guy that would take up the discipline of martial arts – or anything that required discipline of any kind, really – but he proudly flaunts a personality that would get him kicked out of any respectable karate club faster than David Duke at the Apollo Theater. In this tournament alone his conduct ranges from blatantly disrespectful to bordering on psychotic, as his most brazen acts include getting in the face of a ref and verbally molesting him after losing a match, then kicking another opponent in the face while he’s bowing to him. Obviously they’re building him up to be the bad-ass rogue fighter, but this is fucking ridiculous. He’d be kicked out of any respectable tournament so fast that he might as well go for the gusto and end every fight by dropping a steaming pile of victory in the middle of the ring before drop kicking a baby.

The Others: The final two characters rounding out the American team are Sonny and Virgil, an Italian and a Buddhist, respectively. They’re such under-developed characters that those single word descriptions quite literally carry them throughout the duration of the film. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t make either character even slightest bit less interesting if they had been substituted with goddamn houseplants.

Virgil and Sonny. Who? Yep, exactly.

Don't make me Force Choke you, bitches.

The tournament itself, as one would expect, consists of one glorious montage, treating us to the spectacle of our five main characters awkwardly slapping at faceless opponents in a manner that’s supposed to be impressive, provided that your experience witnessing a fight scene of any kind has been limited to watching your kid brother smacking his He-Man dolls into one another for 30 minutes before shitting his pants and breaking down into tears, all set to the greatest 80’s power ballads that K-Tel has to offer. Once the whole thing comes to a disappointing end, the coach of the US Karate Team, played by James Earl Jones, makes his final picks. That’s right: the coach of the national karate team is Darth Vader. While I can appreciate the gravitas that an actor of that caliber brings to your movie, who the fuck honestly thinks that he could be a karate coach? I love the man, but who the hell is he going to teach to fight when his mouth appears to be losing an epic battle to a box of doughnuts at least twice a week? Regardless, he’s visited by an old white man named Jenner, the financial backer of the team to whom he reveals his picks. But when Jenner voices doubts, Darth Cookie Dough assures him that while Jenner’s expertise is business, his is in choosing and training champions. Looking at our main characters, however, I’ve got to call bullshit. Picking Eric Roberts with his gimp shoulder is one thing, but who the fuck would pick Chris Penn for any task more complicated than human speed bump? Jim-E-J describes Chris as being a complete asshole that just happens to be undeniably powerful, which means that sure, he’s your man if you happen to be fighting in a back alley. But in a tournament that’s point-based, where you earn points just from one clean hit regardless of the damage it causes, raw power doesn’t really account for fuck all. So until these assholes are about to take part in Bloodsport, his ability to eat large quantities of soup has about as much relevance.

Little did the contestants know that they were actually kept in the dark to hide the fact that the judging panel consisted of Falco, that kid who played Urkle, a pack of chewing gum, and appropriately enough, Judge Reinhold.

It then comes time to make those selections official, as it cuts back to a ceremony where they announce the names of the five competitors who made the illustrious US National Karate Team, or as I like to call it, Team Rusty Trombone. To no one’s surprise, the five main characters introduced so far are the ones chosen, but what does catch us off guard is the fact that, for reasons I can’t possibly imagine, the ceremony consists of all the competitors sitting in the dark, facing away from the stage. Unless everyone that didn’t make the team is going to be given the consolation prize of a bullet to the back of the head or the celebration following the ceremony is going to involve a lot of KY lube, this seems exceptionally unnecessary. Of course, they attempt to build tension by leaving the announcement of Eric Roberts’ name until the end, and again, I’m not really sure why. As hilariously satisfying as I think it would have been to have followed the trials and tribulations of Eric Roberts thus far just to have him come up short and not end up being picked, only to finish the rest of the movie without him, I don’t’ think anyone would have the balls to attempt that kind of comedy.

After the selections are made, the five champions of might and magic head back to a locker room where after many a high five they get an introductory lecture from the Master of the Dark Side himself, who lays down what I believe are the traditional rules of the Sith: never be late and always function as a team. That only makes sense, as even more than his dual Lightsaber and striking facial tattoos, Darth Maul was famous for his punctuality. James Earl continues his lecture by concluding that “the only objective is to win”. That statement would probably mean a lot more to all of us if he specified winning…what exactly? This isn’t an Olympic team, so it’s entirely unclear as to what exactly they’re competing for, except for perhaps lunch money. But before they sign over their lives to the iron fist of his rule, he tells them that his assistant will be taking them out to a local bar for their last night of fun, encouraging them all to get laid and immediately turning the forecast from stern over to bizarre with a 70 percent chance of creepy. But after leaving his men to undoubtedly lose themselves in another flood of high fives, Jimmy Earl learns of one last addition to his team when he’s met by Old Man Jenner in the hallway. OMJ declares that he’s met someone that he wants the J-Dog to hire onto his team as extra help, describing this person as “a real sensei”. In turn, J.E. Jo’ exclaims that they don’t need any damned sensei, leading me to believe that no one in this movie actually knows what a sensei is. Seriously, this film is portraying a goddamn hot dog eating contest as accurately as any martial art. After all, if the coach of a goddamn karate team isn’t a sensei himself, what exactly does he think he is? A towel boy? A concerned well-wisher?

After further cementing his reputation of being a douche bag by spitting an uncalled for and spectacularly racist impression of an Asian man at Tommy Lee, Chris Penn and the rest of Team Rusty Trombone pair off and check into their assigned dorm rooms to get ready for their night of awkward attempts at debauchery. It begins with Eric Roberts and Tommy Lee as they share a touching conversation about Eric’s kid and totally dead wife before moving on to Sonny and the assistant regaling each other with their respective obsessions, which in the assistant’s case consists of a collection results of every major tournament in the last 5 years as well as statistics on every major fighter in the world, all conveniently stored on about a dozen floppy disks. Wow. With that kind of storage space, I’m going to go ahead and guess that his data on the world’s fighters consists solely of their name and the title of whatever Abba song that they remind him the most of. This grade school slumber party bullshit finally ends with Chris Penn, decked out in his finest ball-clenching cowboy gear, seducing Virgil to give up his meditation and join them at the bar with the promise of sweet poon. Once Virgil agrees, they finally all go out for the evening, ready to paint the town gay. Of course, when you put a gaggle of 80′s martial artists in a room with a bunch of drunken yahoos, particularly when one of them is as big of a taint stain as Chris Penn is in this movie, I don’t think it’s any surprise as to what happens. While the assistant sits at a table, playing on a computer that looks like a TRS-80 without using a monitor of any kind and Eric Roberts makes a call home to talk to his son, Chris Penn starts to dance with a drunken hillbilly’s girlfriend, pawing at her ass like it’s hiding the antidote. Just as Lord Vader himself walks in to witness the scene, the hillbilly defends his honor and throws a punch at Chris, which is easily dodged just in time for it to impact his own girlfriend square in the face. At that point, a full on bar fight naturally ensues, creating a convenient excuse for our heroes to wade through a mass of simpletons, beating them to death with wild abandon while Jimmy Earl watches with a grin. The best part of this scene comes about halfway through when Eric Roberts finally notices the fight and gets off the phone to join in on the badly choreographed action, walking out into the brawl and just nailing the first dude that he comes across right in the face without any kind of provocation or the slightest indication that this guy even wanted to fight in the first place. For all he knew, this poor guy just wanted to get the hell out of there, and now he’s got a shattered jaw to show for it. But once they finally kill or at least mildly inconvenience almost the entire bar, the pudgy Sith Master declares the battle to be over and tells his boys that it’s time to go.

Exhibit B: They Key To Perfecting The Deadly Art Of Karate Lies Somewhere Between Running Laps And Jazz Hands

Had they probed deeper they would have found out that she had only worked as a geisha for the last 12 years, which still would have made her the most qualified martial artist on the coaching staff.

The last character of our dream team is finally introduced back at the training gym the next day when Wade shows up and turns out to be Katherine Wade, one of those funny people that sports a vagina, much to everyone’s horror. After J.E. Jo’ explains that he’s quite reluctant to accept her help, she gives her extensive karate and Eastern philosophy focused background before declaring that without her help, “all his fancy high tech equipment won’t mean shit.” Of course, that sounds like a great argument until you actually watch the rest of the movie and realize that this team uses about as much high tech equipment as the Amish. Sure, they’ve got one punching bag that has a sensor detecting the speed of the appendage impacting it, but that’s about it. The Professor on Gilligan’s Island had more elaborate equipment than these cock swizzles. But of course, Darth Chocoholic relents and bows to her expertise, waiting until the team finishes their first training routines – running laps and doing punching sit ups – to introduce her as the new trainer on the team.

Right about now, it’s time for a set of dueling montages. So while the Americans refine their deadly track running skills, we turn back to the land of evil back rubs to find the Koreans ball-deep in a training routine of their own. They begin on the grounds of an ancient temple, doing such incredible things as switching between basic stances and knuckle push-ups while getting hacked at with a bamboo katana, before kicking it up a notch and running out aimlessly through snow before stopping to karate chop trees with their bare hands while standing shirtless in a blizzard. Not to be outdone, we cut back to the Americans as they practice punches with the refined technique of a drunken frat boy, then jump some rope, and finally top is all off with some yoga. Goddamn it, this is getting to be too much.

What appears to be a very traditional training exercise is actually the Korean team lost in the woods, desperately needing to obtain firewood.

Sure it looks like a display of sheer physical power, but she actually nagged these bricks into finally breaking on their own.

But just as it all comes to a head, the Americans decide it’s time to do some good old fashioned brick breaking, after it’s explained that their upcoming tournament with the Koreans will involve Eastern rules, wherein a tie is settled with a competition of strength and focus, or punching a stack of bricks to be more specific. And as Wade gets up to demonstrate how even a middle aged blonde woman who’s energy is already being sapped by a losing battle with menopause can successfully smash a stack of Styrofoam bricks like a true champion, all I can do is think about what bullshit this is. Only a goddamn American film could suggest that traditional Eastern tournaments are going to involve breaking competitions as an afterthought. That’s so American that they might as well suggest that ancient tradition calls for a tie to be broken by seeing who can chug a dozen Bud Lights before rubbing one out to a Victoria’s Secret catalog the fastest.

To serve as a brief reprieve from the extensive aerobic fat-burning plan that involves just about everything BUT practice their actual fighting techniques, we are forced to sit through another completely unmotivated and entirely useless scene where Chris Penn attacks Tommy Lee’s ethnicity over a shared team meal. So that means we’re about two thirds of the way through the movie now and Chris Penn has still proven to be nothing but an asshole. Why would I be cheering for this guy in the tournament exactly? And from there, we move to a classroom where the gang sits and watches footage of the Korean team in action. As they profile each of the five fighters on the opposing team, they announce which American will be matched against them, imploring them to study their nemesis and prepare to face them. The punch line to this nonsense comes in the fact that Tommy Lee is assigned the task of taking on Dae Han, the leader of the Korean squad and international eye patch model. From his wincing reaction, it’s clear that this news has either affected Tommy deeply, or possibly that he spent the morning slamming fistfuls of expired mayonnaise down his throat, but we’re not exactly sure why. The answer comes later that night as Tommy’s dreams transport him back into the past, returning him to the death of his older brother whom, you guessed it, was fighting Dae Han in a tournament just like he wil soon being doing himself. And while we’re supposed to be digesting the dramatic implications of this obvious plot twist, I can’t help but notice that in his flashback, Tommy’s brother is wearing enough padding while fighting that he could have easily paused from the action and played the back catcher position for the 1975 New York Mets, so it’s actually kind of an amazing feat that he managed to find a way to drop dead in spite of that.

The astute viewer will notice the two guys in the back, whom are never introduced or seen again in this movie. But only the truly elite will understand that they're there solely to infuse the team with unstoppable mustache power.

The next day we get back to the action and are forced to sit through, yep, more goddamn training. After showing the Koreans jogging in slow motion, we’re treated to the film’s title track practically belched out by a faceless 80′s hair band while another American training montage kicks into high gear, this time focusing on weight lifting. Yep, weight lifting. Eventually I think they’re just going to run out of ideas and we’ll see a montage where Chris Penn makes a sandwich. But then for just a brief moment, the movie actually shows something remotely relevant as we find Tommy sparring with Chris Penn, and of course, beating him pretty badly. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to make you hate him even more, Chris Penn graciously accepts defeat by screaming that Tommy’s a chickenshit for not finishing him off. I’m not really sure what kind of a finish he expected when you’re practicing with your own teammates, but I guess that’s proof that even he would rather die than continue on with this monotonous Body Break with Hal Johnson and Joanna McCloud. After being asked what’s wrong by Darth Deepfry, Tommy sulks off and hits a punching bag to the point of exhaustion until we leave this moment of clarity and return to the dense fog of more goddamn training. This time the montage alternates between the Americans taking on the most fearsome opponents they can handle in the form of punching bags while the Koreans shadow box, and then moves on to the boys once again meditating in a field before showing the Koreans praying while standing topless underneath a giant waterfall. And just when I think we can’t possibly take anymore, it ends with a long shot of the Americans jogging down a beach together. In slow motion. FUCK.

Exhibit C: Oh Right, I Guess We Need A Plot, Huh?

His begging was somewhat undermined by Eric's spicy bean burrito-fueled belching.

To finally bring some manner of actual story back into the glorified cardio workout video that we’ve been watching for the last 30 minutes, the movie decides that now’s the time to inject some pointless and shallow drama. It all begins when Eric Roberts gets a phone call that every grown man dreads. No, not the one telling him that he’s HIV positive. And no, not the one telling him that his girlfriend has missed her period. I’m talking about a call informing his that his son has had a terrible accident. Horribly shaken, he approaches Coach Vader to explain that his son has been hit by a car and been hurt quite badly. Pleading to be allowed to go back to stay by his son’s side, he’s resolutely denied by Jimmy Earl, who declares that if Eric leaves, he will never be allowed to return. But as hilariously and unrealistically strict as this seems, Eric naturally ignores him and goes home anyways, saying that he doesn’t have a choice. He ends up staying in the hospital with his son that night, until the kid finally comes out of his coma the next morning. After a weeping bedside scene, Eric Roberts leaves his son in the hands of the professionals and sulks back to Team Rusty Trombone where he begs to be taken back, having been gone for what appears to be a whole day. But showing all the flexibility and compassion of Strom Thurman in a meat locker, JEJ stands his ground, apparently deciding that missing what was probably morning of jumping jacks is unacceptable and reaffirming that Eric is still kicked off the team. But no sooner has he stormed out in anger and disappointment than Eric’s melodrama is immediately upstaged by an even more innocuous conflict. After staring down the business end of a Dark Sith spaz attack for pulling his punches, Tommy responds by letting loose a full power kick which not only destroys their impact detecting pad, but also briefly knocks Virgil, the poor bastard holding it at the time, out cold for a short time. So like Bruce Banner after reverting back to find himself clad only in torn but oddly in tact pants, Tommy flees in the face of his hidden explosive power, leaving them all behind with mouths agape.

As the scene moves outside, Eric catches up with Tommy for some reason, just as he’s getting on his bike, ready to quit Team Rusty Trombone forever. When Eric asks what the hell he’s doing, Tommy cries out that he can’t fight Dae Han, finally sharing pain of the fate that his older brother suffered while doing the exact same thing that he is now faced with. But after incredibly standard advice about not bottling up his issues and living for himself rather than his dead brother, which is so incredibly generic that Eric might as well have just rolled out a TV with Dr. Phil on it and let it do the talking for him, Tommy remains resolute and takes off on his motorcycle. And as he drives off into the distance to do some heavy thinking, everyone who suffered through Cool As Ice with us knows what’s coming: a long montage of random bike riding on a highway to nowhere. While all this is going on, Wade finds convenient plot-moving information and confronts Coach Vader on it, demanding to know how he could send Tommy to fight Dae Han knowing that his brother was killed in the exact same circumstance. In response, Darth Potpie explodes into a lecture about giving your all, saying that Tommy Lee’s brother didn’t take the situation seriously enough and died as a result of it. As he was the coach at the time, Jimmy Earl takes personal responsibility for that failing and declares that he’ll never let it happen again. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t really answer why he chose Tommy Lee to fight Dae Han specifically, as there are four other men who could have done so just as easily. So yeah, I guess the answer to that question is hhhunnggghhh (POOP)!

I'm so out of here! But before I go, can you tell me if I've got something stuck in my teeth?

Um, coach...seeing as we're just two random dudes and the guy from Footloose, you might want to reconsider taking back the movie's stars.

With their two greatest fighters gone, leaving only the sociopath and the random fodder to carry the team’s load, the remaining three members of Team Rusty Trombone approach Coach Vader, asking if he would please change his mind about Alex, because they clearly need both him and Tommy Lee to win. Well, technically they need those two to even qualify to compete, but why nitpick? Conceding the point and somehow taking that very basic logic as a sign that his men have come together as a team, J.E. Jo’ tracks down Eric back at the dorm. Apparently he agrees to come back onboard, as the movie then skips to the next day where the team is at the airport, ready to depart when Alex walks in to much ovation and half mast Johnsons. Conveniently right around that time, Tommy Lee also has an epiphany at a gas station while taking a break from what is turning out to be a ridiculously long bike trip. He watches an older brother give his ice cream cone to his younger sibling who dropped his own and is so touched by that moment that he races back just in time to catch the team at the airport. Of course, knowing what brothers are like, if he had stuck around for another 30 seconds he probably would have witnessed the older brother changing his mind, punching the younger one in the face, and taking back the ice cream, so we’ll just be thankful that he left when he did. Finally reunited and ready to experience an colossal failure, the great Team Rusty Trombone shares hugs and reach-arounds before getting on the plane and flying to meet their destiny.

Exhibit D: Failure Has Never Tasted So Arbitrary

This is Scott Parkerson reporting to you live from Seoul, South Korea. I have no idea why the fuck I'm here. Back to you, Chuck.

As the movie arrives in Korea, we travel directly to the tournament, where the boys suit up in a locker room while a black announcer sets the stage by narrating the introduction to the tournament, expounding on how Tae Kwan Do is as important to the Koreans as baseball is to Americans before going on even further to explain that this is a tournament that involves a combination of Karate, Kickboxing, Judo, and Tae Kwan Do. What?! This is supposed to be a fucking karate tournament. It doesn’t take a goddamn PhD to realize that those are all completely different martial arts, and as we’ve been told multiple times up to this point, they are the US National Karate team, not the US Every Martial Art You Can Think Of team. Shit, these fuckbuckets can barely learn one martial art, let alone four. But after one final inspirational speech that ends with Darth Tub of Ice Cream telling his men that if they give everything they have in their heart, they can be the best of the best (fuck, I love it when they state the name of the movie in the actual movie itself), the competitors come filing into the arena to face one another in the long, long, long awaited battle.

The tournament officially begins with Sonny, the greasy Italian, facing his chosen opponent. As you’d imagine, he fights with all the grace of a one-legged dog coughing out its death rattle and ends up losing, giving the Korean team an 11 to 7 lead in points after the first match. Next up is Virgil the Buddhist, and he doesn’t fare much better, eventually crawling out of the ring after handing Korean a 20 to 9 lead. And of course, the last of our less than important competitors is Chris Penn, who after all the goddamn training that we had to sit through still fights like he’s quarreling with cousin Jed over the last bar stool. But despite this, he actually manages to become the most successful American to this point, battling his opponent to a tie. And so we move to the previously mentioned brick smashing tie breaker. Mustering all of his racism-fueled might, Chris breaks around 8 Styrofoam bricks, while the much smaller and theoretically weaker Korean dude breaks 9, proving in spades that the supposed raw power that Chris was recruited for came in about as useful as a passionate love for bee keeping. So just to recap, that’s 3 losses out of 5 fights so far and only one of them was even close. I’m not sure who the fuck it is they were referring to when they named this movie Best Of The Best, but it’s extremely apparent that it wasn’t any one of these assclowns. Maybe it was the catering staff…

What makes Chris Penn's loss in this contest even more humiliating is that the other guy used his penis to smash his bricks.

Only seconds before the fist smashed his nose across his face, Eric Roberts finally realizes that he's not auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance Korea.

With the lesser peons quickly out of the way, the movie finally picks up as Eric Roberts makes his way into the ring, even going so far as to show us a random bar in the US where a throng of drunken onlookers are cheering and drinking, proving this to be a monumental occasion for at least a couple of dozen people. It might even be important enough to rival the viewership of last year’s lumberjack championship. Just before the match finally starts, Eric declares that he’s going to kick his opponent’s ass. Really, Eric? I thought you were there to crochet him an ill-fitting sweater out of wool and an undeserved sense of self satisfaction. Once the fight actually begins, Eric starts to close the gap between the teams’ points fairly quickly before things start to even out in the second round. It continues to flow along fairly evenly until Eric gets knocked down and takes an axe kick to the back. It appears to be a fairly unremarkable moment until he crawls back to his corner and reveals that he’s injured that bum shoulder that everyone was warned about. But being a man of steel, brawn, and high fiber content, ignores the calls for him to quit, telling him that it’s over. He knows, just as the announce tells us, that the rules state that if he cannot continue, all the points that he had gained are forfeit, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense, but whatever. Instead Eric begs for someone to pop his shoulder back into place until someone finally does. But it’s not exactly like he’s back to peak physical condition at that point, so rather than letting it hang uselessly at his side, he demands that someone “tape it up” while literally screaming like a girl. They do exactly that, taping his arm to his chest before he heads out for the last 30 seconds of the fight with the use of only one arm. And not only does he manage to survive that time, but he actually manages to fight better than he did with two hands, capping it off by kicking his opponent out of the fucking ring. As his bout comes to an end, we see that the score has narrowed to a mere 29 to 22.

Much to my chagrin, the final match of the tournament is not between a back massager and 1975 Buick Skylark, but is instead, of course, between Tommy Lee and De Han. Tommy is tentative at first, so in return Dae Han starts kicking his ass, scoring three unanswered points before his opponent finally decides to wake up. Fulfilling yet another 80′s martial arts movie stereotype, once the fight actually begins to climax it consists of little more than a lot of needless jumping around and horribly telegraphed kicks. But Tommy Lee finally starts to kick some ass, ending the first round down a measly 6 points instead of a whopping 7. If that’s not fucking progress, I don’t know what is. Just before the second round starts, Darth Pudding reminds Tommy that they need to either make up those points or score a knock out. Alright, at this point this whole plot is pretty blatantly not making any goddamn sense. If he knocks out his opponent, why would that arbitrarily make up the point difference between the two teams? Even if you disregarded points and decided that specific match was a total victory, the Koreans have still won more matches than they have. Honestly, at this point I’m surprised it isn’t stated that they only way the Americans can win is if Tommy Lee performs the infamous Triple Lindy. But the second round starts with a little more spice, as Tommy Lee takes two illegal hits, first to the balls and then to an eye. But that only spurs him on further, as Tommy continues to make up ground closing the gap by hitting Dae Han with a flurry of 5 punches and/or kicks that for some reason only count as 1 point. But after his flurry of pain reduces the point difference to one and leaves Dae Han standing dazed, just begging to be hit with one final killing blow, Tommy has a flashback of his brother’s death and begins to let his anger boil to the surface. Spotting the signs of his coming eruption, Eric and Jimmy Earl start yelling “no” from the sidelines, knowing that Tommy not only intends on murdering his opponent, but also actually believing that he somehow can do just that with a single strike. But rather than somehow proving the incredibly unlikely, Tommy manages to maintain enough control to resist the urge and simply stand there, letting the time run out. When the buzzer finally sounds to bring an end to the match, the Korean team scurries out to drag De Han back to his corner, while a somber Tommy walks back to Captain J.E. Jo’, who tells him that despite standing back and allowing his team to lose by a single point, he actually won that match. So yeah, all that and they lost. Wow. What a massive waste of time this entire ordeal has been.

Don't worry, dude. That asshole would never let me play with his Legos, so we're cool.

The tournament then comes to a glorious close with the traditional medal ceremony, where the two teams stand lined up and facing one another as the Americans are forced to watch the gold medals get hung around the Korean team’s necks. But while his teammates begin to celebrate their victory, De Han limps over to Tommy Lee. Barely containing his sobs, Dae Han tells him that to save a life in defeat is to earn a victory in honor, which we’ll just go ahead and translate into “thanks for not destroying my ass”, before declaring that his brother was a great fighter. He continues to say that he deeply regrets Tommy’s loss, and offers himself as Tommy’s brother, which, again, I’ll just go ahead and translate into “want to build a fort out of some couch cushions?”. In a move of ultimate humble respect, Dae Han then puts his medal around Tommy’s neck while they both bawl like kids flocking out of Transformers: The Movie after watching Optimus Prime die. Finding the ability to forgive somewhere just below his ability to make a delicious quiche, Tommy embraces Dae Han and all is right in the world again. Much like the audience in that stadium, I find this so touching that I’m pretty sure this movie just molested me. The Korean dude that Eric Roberts fought is inspired to honor his lesser opponent as well, walking up to him and saying that he knows everything about him before also putting his medal around his neck. Eric Roberts replies by saying that he knows all he ever wants to know about his opponent, which I think is supposed to be a compliment even though it seems like a really shitty thing to say. The last three Koreans then follow suit as well, only much more quickly and with less fanfare since no one gives a shit before the movie draws to a close with them all stand together, holding each others arms up in the air just before the credits roll. So I guess when you’re not actually the best of the best, you can always hope for sympathy.

That's right folks...in the Special Olympics, everyone's a winner.

The Verdict:

Donkey: Best Of The Best has the truly great quality of not falling completely flat on its face because of a lack of budget or talent, but entirely because of the very premise on which it builds. Eric Roberts is the somewhat leader of the US National Karate team which spends almost no time actually practicing anything that is even close to actual karate while under the watchful eye of a man whom clearly doesn’t even know how to spell karate, before heading over to Korea to fight in a tournament that they never actually explain the point of, where they face off against only one other team and manage to lose quite badly by any reasonable measure. Fuck. This movie really did push me to the very edge of literary skills, as it’s hard to write any kind of coherent exposition on it when the only thought running through my rather stunned mind for an hour and a half was, “BULLSHIT!” But while I applaud it’s aggressively insane plot, the problem is that watching a movie that consists just as much of random exercise montages as anything else gets painfully boring. I have to give this movie three and a half inappropriately low cut sweaters out of five confusingly dead brothers.

What We Learned:

Donkey: People in the 80′s apparently thought you could basically become a full fledged ninja after doing little more than panting your way through the Sweating To The Oldies series.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a break from the pain, as we approach the end of the year in reflection of what we have endured and assist you with the approaching holiday season by delivering…A SHITTY MOVIE BUYER’S GUIDE OF BALL DRAINING GLORY.

Back To The Main Page.

When you're this bad-ass, you're not only surrounded by blondes, but you can shoot a man dead while wiping your brow. Take that, Chuck Norris.

Donkey: There can be no doubt that the single greatest invention in the latter half of the twentieth century, which radically altered the face of human existence forever, was the keytar. Part synthesizer, part guitar, but all rock, that baby demanded that you surrendered to the infectious power of dance while belting out the dopest beats that the human body could endure before knocking the Magnum PI mustache clean off your face. But that being said, until my petition entitled “The Final Countdown To Keytar Armageddon: Funk Me In The Ass” officially changes all records of human history, others will disagree with me and claim that a far bigger revolution has come from the rise in prominence of the Internet. Among many other things, it has changed the way that we socialize, communicate, and digest our news. Hell, without the Internet I’d just be some asshole on a street corner, shouting to anyone who would listen about the soul-saving powers of JCVD’s ball cleavage.

One of the biggest changes that the Internet has facilitated has to do with the availability of porn. I know that the youth of today won’t be able to relate, what with being able to type “gardening tips” into Google Images only to be assaulted with an endless parade of pictures of vagina, but back in my day things were much different. The first time I ever saw a naked woman was in the pages of a ripped up Playboy that had been discarded in a vacant lot just a few blocks from my elementary school. And while we’re on that subject, why was there always at least one porno mag in a field by a school? I’ve asked all kinds of friends around my age who come from all kinds of different cities, and we’ve all had the same experience. Who the fuck was distributing these magazines like some weird Johnny BonerSeed? Well whoever you were, I salute you, you magnificent bastard! And the only other reliable avenue of nudity available for someone too young to actually buy porn was the Friday night skin flick on the movie channel. Every Friday night at 1:00 AM they aired a film that’s plot revolved around little more than finding reasons for random dudes to dry hump topless chicks with a passion that will burn through the ages. And it’s one of those movies that we’re going to examine this week. So come with me, if you will, as we journey back to bygone era of repressed sexual confusion.

The Plot:

Donkey: I have no idea. There’s something about diamonds, deadly snakes, and sex-doll equipped assassins in here, but quite frankly, even after having seen this movie several times, I’m not really sure what it’s actually about. The best way for me to sum it up would be with a single word: tits! Of course, if that’s not enough detail for you, I could go into a little more detail and describe it using two words, which would be: BLLLAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH TITS!!! Just don’t ask me to up the ante to three words please, or the last one will involve me shitting my pants.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Is Andy Sidaris Gonna Have To Choke A Bitch?

Only contestants on Fear Factor, laying in a box of bugs while grinning like idiots in the hopes of earning a couple of bucks could possibly understand how she feels.

Donkey: Our escapades this week begin with a surprise bonus, rewarded to us as a result of watching Hard Ticket To Hawaii: SPECIAL EDITION! I know what you’re thinking: “Most ‘special editions’ consists of little more than charging me 10 extra dollars for the feature film and an image gallery of the director eating a sandwich, so what’s so special about this one?” Well it’s pretty much like that, but in this case the sandwich tastes an awful lot like herpes, as the movie starts with a brief introductory retrospective hosted by Andy Sidaris, the producer/director/writer/ball-fondler of this film and Julie Strain, some random porn star that agreed to sit and absorb his mildly creepy attention and horribly patronizing compliments – I’m shitting you negative, he actually compliments her for being able to read and, amazingly, her response isn’t to tell him to go play a round of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself. With all the magic of a prostitute/john relationship, together the two of them reveal that this is the second movie in a 12 part series that Sidaris had produced before giving us the incredible in-depth insight of staring at the movie’s poster while Sidaris points out how much he’d like to awkwardly fondle the people pictured there. I’m not sure who thought that what basically amounts to sitting and listening to your grandfather talk about the people he’d put on the business end of his Viagra-fueled hard-on would be a good idea, but if there’s any justice in this world, they’re strapped to a dentist chair right now having cat piss poured in their eyes while listening to Katrina and The Waves’ Walking On Sunshine on repeat.

Exhibit B: Hello. Have You Seen My Tits Yet?

This is also how she gets out of traffic tickets, buys groceries, and makes collect calls.

With that extra special bonus fart soufflé coming to an end, the movie itself begins with a two part prologue, opening on a yacht called the Malibu Express. Two of our main characters, Dona and Rowdy arbitrarily make out after Rowdy tries to convince Dona to turn down her reassignment to Molokai and instead stay with him on Malibu. Her thoughtful counterargument to his plea is to suddenly rip off her towel, revealing herself in what is the first of many unnecessary titty shots to come and establishing the level of intelligence that we’re going to be dealing with. And once the sounds of hot monkey love subside into the night, the film skips to the second act of our prologue on Molokai where two law enforcement officials walk onto the private property of a family infamous for growing pot, preparing to issue them their annual nominal fine to server as a gentle slap on the wrist before turning a blind eye to their operation. But when they get there, they find a whole new operation set up, run by dudes packing Uzis, the premier weapon of all villains in the 1980’s. Understandably weary, the cops decide to get the hell out of there only to be snagged and pulled up into a tree by a snare, proving this gang of criminals to have all the technological advancements of fucking Ewoks. Left hanging to be discovered like a couple of Wookies in short shorts, they’re shot dead without being asked so much as a single question. As important as all this sounds, the greatest aspect of this scene is that it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Nothing. Killing these cops has no consequence, and while the crime is briefly mentioned later, it has no direct effect on any single event in this film. So in other words, this film blatantly wasted 5 minutes of our lives. If only this was the only time we could make this claim…

That's right kids: if you have an ink jet printer, a few crates, and a lot of women willing to sell their dignity for coke money, you too can make a film!

Next the movie travels to a small airport hangar run by Molokai Cargo, filled with the finest mustache-sporting laborers that 1987 has to offer as they move around crates that have the opening credits printed on the side of them. Well, to be more specific, they have brown paper printouts of the credits taped onto the side of them. It’s a somewhat clever idea fairly poorly done, which still makes it the most brilliant aspect of this movie by a score of 184 to hotdog. But as that concludes, we bare witness to a forklift driver accidentally severing the metal straps that hold a “contaminated” sign on a very special crate. But just as our imaginations start to get the better of us and we begin shouting out our guesses as to what contaminated material lies within that crate – weapons grade plutonium? The frozen head of Walt Disney? The premier film copy of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot? – the terrible secret is revealed: it’s a snake. But not just any snake. No, this snake is a deadly, bloodthirsty dispenser of…cancer. Yep, you read that correctly. It will later be revealed that this novelty store, rubber toy of a snake is dangerous because it’s contaminated with cancer. There just isn’t enough deodorant in this world for my taint to handle this.

We're only a backrub away from a much, much better movie.

After being introduced to one venomous reptile, we move on to another as Dona pulls up to a beachfront property to pick up her blonde partner, Taryn. And seeing as this movie is aimed squarely men who are either physically or mentally young enough to still consider the peek of pleasure to be rubbing the sharp cheddar factories that they call their crotch against their Thundercats bedspread, Taryn obviously stops as she runs up from the beach, arbitrarily taking off her bikini top to rinse off underneath an outdoor, tree-mounted showerhead right in front of Dona. At this rate I’m surprised that everyone in this movie doesn’t simply greet one another through an elaborate series of blowjobs. Once Taryn’s dressed, the two of them finally load into the Jeep and head off to work after yammering on about how “The Agency” wants them to be in shape at all times and giving one of history’s most awkward high fives. I have no idea what “The Agency” they’re referring to is, but from what I’ve seen so far, I think it’s fair to assume that they’re talking about an escort agency. Eventually they arrive at the Molokai Cargo hangar where their boss, a slimy middle-aged man named Dixon, assigns them the task of transporting a honeymooning couple and the crated snake via small aircraft. They load up and take off, giving us a series of long flying scenery shots while a horrible Firehouse cover band plays the Hard Ticket To Hawaii theme song. Although from what I’ve seen so far, instead of sharing the move’s title, the song should be called Dripping In My Pants (You Might Want To Get Checked): The Reprise. Eventually the plane lands in what looks to be someone’s back yard before our two blonde heroines guide their passengers down to a beach, telling the couple that they’ll be back to get them tomorrow.

While we try to figure out why in Brian Denehy’s hell a honeymooning couple would hire a cargo company to drop them off in the middle of nowhere, our attention switches to yet another yacht a short distance away, where we’re introduced very momentarily to an organized crime boss named Mr. Chang. Of course, the astute person watching this movie will notice that this man named Chang is actually a blonde white dude, so allow me to explain: he took that name after strangling his first Asian prostitute, giving him both untraceable anonymity and a moniker slightly more suited to organized crime than Chauncey Featherbottom. He stands looking like he’s about to turn on the proverbial chili tap in his tighty whities while an assist begins to fly a small toy helicopter towards the shore, officially beginning either some ill-conceived diabolical plan or the first game of Evil Fun Time.

Next up, carrier pidgeons.

Sometimes it's easy to see the motivation behind someone being a villain. After all, these two look like the get about as much play as a Streisand album at a KKK rally.

Once the small craft actually reaches the island, it ventures into the path of our two blonde heroines, who follow it until it finally lands. Upon further inspection, they find that it is carrying two small packages inside. But before they can open them to discover their contents, two goons appear on the scene. The first is a remarkably fat dude whom we’ll refer to as the Hamsteak Philosopher, while the second is a short, mustache-emblazoned blonde runt in Bermuda shorts that we will hereby dub as the Sodomy Assassin. They burst onto the scene, raising their guns and demanding that the women freeze before just opening fire on them anyways. But our blonde heroines aren’t just wearing their Batman-like utility belts to keep their short-shorts riding so high that the home audience can easily perform a pap smear, so they respond with deadly force of their own. Taryn pulls out a set of nunchuks and throws them at the Sodomy Assassin, which is far enough away from the intended use for nunchuks that she might as well have held up an overripe banana and just wished for her assailant to die from the sheer power of love, while Dona weakly tosses a ninja star that lodges in the chest of the Hamsteak Philosopher, not quite embedding it deeply enough to puncture an artery and cause an eruption of beef gravy. So I guess these chicks are ninjas, huh? The world’s all-time shittiest ninjas, appearing just beneath Mel “The Velvet Fog” Torme on that list, but ninjas nonetheless. In all the commotion, Taryn manages to slip one of the packages into her bra, while the second one drops unnoticed in the grass just before the women flee the scene. They jump back into their plane and take off insanely quickly, apparently content to leave the young honeymooners that they dropped off within walking distance of two cranky thugs without so much as a word of warning. And as those thugs stand helplessly watching the packages they were supposed to receive fly away packed in silicone, they lament the fact that they will soon have to face their boss, Seth, empty handed. On the upside, even a merciless boss has to concede that telling any story that ends with a throwing star in your neck adds instant hilarity, making you the life of any party and giving you charisma that no diamonds could buy.

Exhibit C: Intrigue! Quick, Let’s Pull Out Our Tits!

OOOOHHHHH SHINY!

We catch up with our heroines again moments later, as they once again land their plane in what appears to be someone’s backyard before pulling it into a Denny’s parking lot. Struggling to come to grips with what the hell just happened to them, the duo decide that their best course of action is dump their snake cargo into a nearby hangar before going to the place where they do their deepest contemplating: their Jacuzzi. This is so deeply offensive to women that I’m surprised one of them didn’t remark that she can’t think straight without an anonymous penis shooting brain juice down her throat. But frankly, the entire scene only gets worse as they get into a hot tub completely topless for yet another unnecessary titty shot. Eventually they open the package that they recovered from the toy plane and discover that it contains diamonds. Realizing they’re easily identifiable, being the only women flying around the island, Dona declares that they’re in trouble and need to report to Rowdy, causing them to spring into action and jump right back out of the tub. So just to put that into context, this scene, which lasted all of 20 seconds, consisted of them jumping into a tub for the sole purpose of showing their tits, declaring that they need a man to come save them, and then jump right back out again. You’re welcome, feminists.

While the blonde tragedies tackle the hardest thinking they’ve had to do since their last encounter with a revolving door, the plot begins to thicken at a bar called Edy’s, the local spot where everyone gets together to share Pin Coladas and Valtrex prescriptions. After the brief distraction of Andy Sedaris himself trying to assure some random chick that would never actually sleep with him how much she means to him despite the fact that he tried to rape her last night, the movie finally settles its attention on a vaguely Spanish man whom we discover is the crime boss Seth Romero. When he spots his two henchmen, the Hamsteak Philosopher and the Sodomy Assassin, wandering up to the bar from the beach while looking rather dejected, he demands to know what happened. Upon hearing the story, Seth displays super-human power by somehow managing to resist the urge to laugh hysterically at the entire situation and instead quickly surmises that their skirmish was the two blonde yeast factories from Molokai Cargo. But seeing as these two have proven to be rather useless, he decides to instead send two new assassins to take care of the job.

Douches.

Since our female leads have already declared themselves incapable of handling a dark Hawaiian underworld so vicious that it was turned away by throwing a set of nunchuks at it, it’s time to meet the men of steel that will save them from despair. These two monuments to penile dominance also belong to the ’87 All-Star line-up of the Shitty Character Name League as we begin with Rowdy, whom we met briefly in the prologue, before meeting a dude named Jade who happens to sport one of the greatest ponytails that an 8 year old girl could hope to have. They practice their martial arts on the deck of the Malibu Express, and by ‘practice’ I mean speaking in the most offensive Asian accent that I could possibly imagine while squawking like freshly raped chickens and spouting parodied Confucius sayings that pose as big of a threat to the realm of comedy as a nuclear bomb of Jewish jokes at a Schindler’s List retrospective, proving that obviously neither of them actually know a thing about any martial art. But while they bask in the tepid glow of accomplishing nothing, some dude rolls up the pier on a motorized bike, delivering a sandwich with a note inside. After reading it and declaring that they’ve got trouble in paradise, Rowdy carefully folds the note back up, puts about a quarter of the way back in the sandwich and then light it on fire. The note burns instantly, hurting neither the sandwich or container in the slightest, begging the question of why the fuck they bothered to put it back rather than just burning the note on its own.

Exhibit D: Don’t Ask Me, I’m Just A Girl

Now that's a description of Rowdy's junk that I can believe.

Before our iron giants of masculinity can arrive to save the helpless vixens, however, Seth Romero’s deadly plan begins to take shape. As Taryn shows off her collection of spy movie posters to Dona (fuck, only a man could possibly think that women would be that into spy movies), she points out her newest additions, including the poster for Malibu Express, the previous movie in this very series of Andy Sidaris films. I’ll say that again to really be clear about this; the film contains the movie poster of its prequel directly in the damn film, and it’s not a joke. I’m not quite sure what kind of bizarre meta statement this scene’s trying to achieve, but I’m quite certain it’s far too intellectual for anyone who worked on this movie unless it can be explained via pop-up book. And turning from one ridiculous concept to another, Taryn then asks Dona what Rowdy is like…you know…wink, wink. Psstt…I’m not sure, but I think she’s referring to his raisin scone baking skills. Dona replies by shrugging and saying that he’s only four inches…FROM THE GROUND! Hahaha – that’s not physically possible unless he doesn’t happen to have any fucking legs. But just as they begin to retire for the night, both fully aware that Dona’s blatant exaggeration is obviously covering for a 2 inch MacTavish, assailants cut the home’s phone line and jump each woman, demanding that they hand over the diamonds. This male and female combination is the other duo of Seth goons, whom we’ll refer to as the Nocturnal Emissions of Death, or NEDs. After luring her opposing NED out to the hangar for a brief grappling match that results in nothing more than the deadly cancer snake being freed from its cage while Taryn is held captive by the she-NED putting nunchuks to her throat like they’re a goddamn knife, the two blondes and the NEDs end up back in the house where Taryn ends up finally handing over the diamonds. The goons demand the second box, but before they can discover that the blondes don’t have it, they’re interrupted by the girlish screams of Seth, who happens to be waiting outside when he spots the snake slithering around in the distance. Warning that they’ll be back, the NEDs flee to make sure that their prepubescent boss hasn’t stressed his way into inducing his first period while Dona grabs a gun, runs out after them and fires a single shot, hitting Seth right in the fucking face as they all try to pile into a car. But while that ordeal comes to a hilarious end, our heroines get even more bad news when they head back into the hangar and discover that the snake is gone just moments before getting a call from Dixon, whom explains that they were mistakenly given the one infected with cancer.

Once again deciding that anything beyond baking a batch of delicious cookies or faking enthusiasm while touching their ankles to their ears is too much for them to handle on their own, Dona and Taryn decide to seek help at Edy’s, arriving there and being directed to her private corner booth. Of course, they end up sitting down in front of her at a table in the middle of the goddamn floor, which is neither a corner nor a booth, but whatever. I guess it could have been worse and had they went out and met her in her car. After ordering drinks and inquiring about any information that Edy may have in regards to diamonds or Seth, they head back to her private office together to make a phone call when the scene takes a brief detour through the ghettos of CrazyFuckTown, USA. We head over to another area of the bar where we’re introduced to Jimmy John Jackson, or the J-Cube, a sports caster who sits down with two random football players. After giving them an insanely long speech about random vitamins and their benefits, he crams a fistful of them down his throat and chugs some water while one football player then comments that he loves soul food while the other heartily agrees, even though they aren’t sitting in front of food of any kind. And that’s it. That’s the scene. The icing on the goddamn cake is that if you look in the credits, the name of both these football characters is actually “Soul Food Lover”. That’s just goddamn outstanding.

The dialogue in this movie is so stupid that Michelle didn't notice that instead of the phone she was actually tapping into the weather channel for 45 minutes.

Back in the bar’s office, the three women call Rowdy and Jade, updating them on the situation and getting their assurance that they’ll be there to handle the situation as only manly men of manliness can do, just before we discover two important things. First, a random chick working at the bar named Michelle taps the phone line and listens in on their conversation before calling back to Seth to report her findings, revealing that there’s a hole in the exceptionally tight security of a fucking bar. And secondly, this movie will stop at nothing to manufacture reasons to show you tits. As the three women emerge from the office and go their separate ways, we discover that Taryn either knows the J-Cube or she really is a whore, as she walks over to flirt with him for a moment when it suddenly cuts to the two of them on a beach, drinking champagne before she strips down to only her panties while they make out. What the fuck is going on? That was ridiculously fast. It’s almost like all she had to do was say magic words like, “They’re going into remission”. Of course, since this is soft-core, they two of them don’t actually have sex as much as they just make out for 4 hours topless while dry humping each others’ thighs. What a magical scene. But just when you think that was so completely random that it might as well have been narrated by Brutus The Barber Beefcakes, the end of the scene cuts to a shot of the snake going through random grass for no particular reason before getting back to the two lovebirds, cleaning up after what was assuredly a four hour exercise in disappointment.

Hello, miss, pleased to meet...whoa, hey!

Exhibit E: The Age Old Battle Of Goons VS Useless Bags Of Cocksnot Rages On

The movie returns the next day, where we begin what may be one of the greatest scenes in shitty movie history. Our two soldiers of destiny, Rowdy and Jade, finally arrive on the island, where they load their shit into a Jeep that Edy left for them and drive into the Molokai Wildlife Park for reasons I couldn’t begin to tell you. But as they casually cruise up the desolate road, they suddenly see a dude coming towards them on a skateboard while doing a handstand. They watch him pass, joining the rest of the world in wondering what the fuck that’s all about, until the dude disappears from their sight. And as that dude comes to a stop down the road somewhere behind them, we see it’s actually the Sodomy Assassin, one of Seth’s men from the beginning of the movie. He meets his cohort, the Hamsteak Philosopher, who’s sitting on the side of the road in a small truck. After he jumps in the back, the two of them take off, turning around and eventually speeding past our two heroes who still have no idea what the fuck is going on. Then once they get far enough ahead, the thugs pull over once again, and the Hamsteak Philosopher hands the Sodomy Assassin a rifle and a fucking blow-up sex doll, telling him to go get them. So as it cuts back to our two heroes still driving casually in their Jeep, they once again notice this dude coming at them, this time holding a rifle and a fucking blow up doll. As he gradually gets close, the Sodomy Assassin fires, hitting the Jeep’s tire which somehow causes shrapnel to fly up and hit Jade in the chest, right where his fucking heart would be were he human, rather than a cyborg from the future manufactured out of synthesized awesome. Rowdy asks how bad it is as Jade clutches the instantly bleeding would, to which Jade replies that he’s been better, but he’ll live. Now that would have been insane enough, punching our face right in the vagina with unabashed random hilarity, but it only gets better. Finally annoyed enough to act, our heroes decide to “get that turkey” by backing up their Jeep right into the Sodomy Assassin, who is just spinning in circles on his skateboard a few feet behind them for reasons that are giving me colon cancer just contemplating. And as he flies into the air from the impact of being hit by a Jeep after 6 feet of acceleration, Rowdy somehow has the time to pull out a goddamn rocket launcher and fire, hitting the still hanging Sodomy Assassin in midair and blowing him up in a massive fireball. But as if that level of insanity wasn’t enough, Rowdy then turns and also fires at the blow up doll, which is also flying through the open sky, destroying it with yet another massive explosion and officially raping our throats with the chorus of gut wrenching laughter. When Jade asks why the hell he used a rocket launcher, Rowdy replies that it’s the only gun he can hit a moving target with. Really? The only one? That makes you an exceptionally useless action hero, doesn’t it?

The only way to truly describe the awesome of this scene is in a language that no one but Van Damme can hear.

Taking a break from the journey of random insanity that our heroes find themselves on, the movie checks in with the honeymooning couple left on the island, since any viewer would have forgotten about these entirely pointless characters by now unless they were writing a thesis on this film to get their doctorate in Refined Shit Tasting. As the groom takes Polaroids of his bride in a bikini on the beach, he moves around to get a better angle only to have the snake lunge at him. He screams, realizing his cancerous doom is at hand as the scene cuts away, once again leaving us in amazement that they’d even bother with any of this bullshit.

If you're asking yourself why they bothered to have a tranny in this movie and not just a regular woman spying on them, you're already 50 IQ points ahead and 345 paint chips behind the target audience.

After getting Jade patched up at a nearby doctor’s office, he and Rowdy call back to Edy’s, explaining the ridiculous events they had endured while Michelle once again listens in. Deciding to pick them up herself, Edy emerges from her office and tells Michelle that she’ll be gone for a while before going into the back and getting out of her dress, changing into another outfit and giving us probably the most blatantly unnecessary titty shot yet. Of course, after she leaves Michelle calls back to report to Seth and makes arrangements to follow her, before heading into the back herself and running into a completely random chick that is, of course, topless. But that’s not even as fucking weird as things get, as once that chick leaves Michelle pulls off her wig to reveal that she’s actually a dude named Michael, and an exceptionally balding one at that. Once he’s changed into his dude clothes, Michael runs out front of the bar to meet the previously introduced NEDs in a van. Together they try to cut her off, failing to do so pretty miserably before eventually catching up to her running Edy off the road. Like strangers with candy, they grab her and toss her into the back of their van.

Holy shit. That's a camera? Really? I thought she was packing around a goddamn VCR.

While other members of their team are being attacked by sex doll equipped punks or molested by NEDs in a van, Dona and Taryn take a more low key approach and begin their reconnaissance of Seth Romero’s compound. Hiding a safe distance down the beach, they use binoculars and the shitty Sony Walkman equivalent of a video camera to watch as some random chick runs up to a guard posted on the beach of Seth’s place and begins tossing a Frisbee around with this dude, who doesn’t even bother taking off the machine gun strapped to him for the game. Just to be clear, this random girl isn’t any kind of secret agent, undercover police officer, or animatronic vagina designed by Seth as a way of maintaining goon job satisfaction. This is just a random chick who doesn’t find it the least bit strange to run up and play Frisbee with a guy holding a fucking Uzi. Eventually their attention turns as they notice a chopper landing in Seth’s yard and watch as Seth gets out of it just in time to address Edy, whom is dragged up by his fearsome NEDs and then taken to the house. Dona and Taryn then take off, declaring that they need to find Rowdy and Jade fast. Of course. God forbid you do anything yourselves. After pulling over to use a payphone, Dona reveals to Taryn that not only has she left a message for the boys, but she’s also recognized Michelle as the tranny that she is after seeing spotting him holding Edy back at Seth’s place, explaining that she recognized his cigarette and pinkie ring. From a distance. Through a video camera. Fuck off. After deciding that must be why Edy’s surveillance of Seth wasn’t working, the two girls make one last stop on their way home, driving back to pick up the honeymooners. But as they approach the scene, they make a grisly discovery that, surprisingly, doesn’t prompt them to show off their tits. Seeing the bride’s corpse first, they proceed to find the groom’s body in a patch of long grass along with his camera. Finding a Polaroid stuck inside, they pull it out to discover that it’s a perfectly framed shot of the snake lunging in attack.

Mock all you want, but this glam shot got the snake a three picture deal.

The only way to truly follow up on the unnecessary is with the completely arbitrary, so the movie once again returns to Edy’s bar where Rowdy and Jade receive Dona’s message and head straight to her house after borrowing a car. But seeing as that could have been shot in approximately 7 seconds, the rest of the scene is fleshed out by another appearance by the J-Cube. For some reason he’s doing an interview from a goddamn bar, going live on national TV to once again speak with two other football players. I don’t know what the fuck football has to do with any of this, or why all these goddamn football players are even on the Hawaiian Islands considering they don’t have a football team, but whatever. He asks the two chaps about a certain play, laying it out in a huge, detailed description before trying to penetrate the intellect of the elite jockaucracy by asking what was said to the rest of the team in the huddle before that moment. Their response?

Football Douche Numero Uno: “Well Jimmy John, all I said was niggers go deep and whites keep them out if you can on two.”

Football Douche Numbero Dos: “Jimmy, motherfucker’s crazy but he sure can throw.”

Goddamn it. Why do we have to watch this? If I wanted to watch someone I don’t know fail miserably at a task that I’m not sure why they’re doing, I’d rather just turn on Pimp My Dialysis Machine.

Exhibit F: Grab A Tube Sock, Its Time For The Climax!

Apparently Seth has a penchant for female minions who secretly have testicles.

With all the pleasantries out the door, the movie finally gets down to business, alternating between the heroes and villains as they prepare for an ultimate showdown every bit as epic as a fruitiest dancing competition between the Backstreet Boys and the California Raisins. It begins at Dona’s house, where after a quick shot of the snake crawling into a random pipe in the lawn, reminding us of its continual and highly improbable threat, our heroes finally merge to dip their rancid chunks of uselessness into a giant fondue of failure. After briefly discussing the situation, Dona and Rowdy sneak off to her office so that she can show him the tape of the random girl playing Frisbee with one of Seth’s men, whom Rowdy identifies as a man named Shades. First, nice name, asshole. What kind of dicktip suggests that people call him Shades just because he sports a pair of sweet aviators? Me, actually, from now on. And secondly, why do I care what this dude’s name is in the first place? Are they going to introduce every random henchman before killing him? “This is Burt Saunders. He likes slow dancing, candlelight dinners, and strangling hookers in the park. His turn-ons are vanilla perfume and the feeling of shag carpet on his taint, while his turn-offs include heli-skiing and trigonometry. Oh…and now he’s dead.” But of course, after watching a tape of two retards tossing a Frisbee, the two lovers surrender to temptations of the flesh, making out like tweens while Jade and Taryn wait awkwardly in the living room. But while the heroes prepare, back at Seth’s house the villains continues to interrogate Edy, still searching for the lost diamonds. Suddenly it cuts to the female NED, clad in a nary but a tiny bikini and a lot of cooking oil, doing a muscle-flexing routine with a pair of nunchuks as a prop, making yet another person who is obviously unaware of how they actually work. And as Seth leaves to report back to Mr. Chang, he leaves the she-NED to beat some answers out of Edy. But while she cries out in pain, it intercuts between Edy’s cries of pain and Rowdy crying out in pleasure as Dona appears to be doing little more than leaning on his junk. When it all comes to what is probably quite literally a blistering climax, Dona and Rowdy end up cuddled together naked when she asks what he’s feeling. His epic response?

For everyone who ever wondered why JT had to bring sexy back, it's because these two beat it to death with a fucking tire iron.

Rowdy: “One man’s dream in another man’s lunch.”

Seriously, what the fuck does that even mean? With the proceeds from Rowdy’s junk squishing glee likely running down Dona’s leg, the two of them head back to the living room and join Jade and Taryn, sputtering out some horrible excuse about how they took longer than they thought because they stopped to have something to eat. Taryn jokes that next time perhaps Rowdy shouldn’t chew his food so loud, giving them all an awkward giggle that, had the scene not switched over, would have been the surefire beginning of an 80′s dry humping orgy of immeasurable proportions. But instead it travels back at Seth’s house, ending the scene with him on the phone with Mr. Chang, talking about some kind of deal that they give no details about. It could involve the diamonds, drugs, or Glo Worms. There’s no way of knowing and at this point, frankly we don’t care. Seth remarks that agents are crawling everywhere, to which Mr. Chang ends the scene by calmly advising him to kill them all.

The showdown begins the next day with the four shitheads preparing their arsenal, which includes a fucking Frisbee with razorblades stuck around its edge that looks every bit as shitty as you would imagine if I told you that an unpaid intern made it for the prop department 15 minutes before the scene was to be shot. And the movie doesn’t waste any time putting this item of madness to use as once again we see the random girl running towards Shades, Seth’s machine gun toting guard, for a game of Frisbee when Rowdy suddenly jogs up and joins her. Shades is, of course, suspicious of this random guy, but concedes and allows Rowdy to show him what he can do, because apparently tossing a fucking Frisbee around on a beach is the best street cred these assholes could think of. After tossing it back and forth for a couple of minutes, taking their casual game so seriously that you’d think they had bet the life of their first born on it, Shades decides it’s time to really get down to business and moves to take off his gun. Seeing his opportunity to unleash his dollar store version of the disks from Tron, Rowdy tells the random chick to take off, showing her a gun before tossing her Frisbee away. And just to add more evidence in the mounting case that he’s a complete jackass, he watches the chick walk away for a moment before yelling after her that she has a great ass. Once she’s gone, Rowdy and Shades start tossing a black Frisbee around before Rowdy switches it with his razorblade Frisbee of death. In extra dramatic slow motion, he tosses it at Shades’ waiting face, supposedly cutting off his fingers before slicing his throat. At least that’s what I think red food coloring flying everywhere while Shades holds the Frisbee by his neck is supposed to be. You know, this whole thing seems way too complicated. Why not just save everyone a lot of time a shoot this asshole from a distance? It’s not like there was any benefit to carrying out this farce, save sheer unadulterated comedy.

Dudes who take Frisbee this damn seriously get what they deserve.

With a ridiculous hole punched into the perimeter security of Seth’s compound, Rowdy rejoins Jade and Taryn in a Jeep as Dona sails in on a small motorized hang glider. As the Jeep charges into Seth’s courtyard, Dona drops noise grenades from above, which serves absolutely no purpose beyond announcing their arrival to everyone within a 249 mile radius. Luckily for them the three heroes jump out of the Jeep and start firing at the massive flood of ONE random thug that comes pouring out of Seth’s place, and yet it still somehow takes about a dozen shots to kill that one dude. Once he’s dead, they continue inside while Dona lands from doing nothing to step it up and do even more nothing. Jade enters the building first, carrying what appears to be another goddamn grenade launcher, which might be the least intelligent choice possible when it comes to the close quarters fighting that you’d be doing inside a home, barring some kind of goth teen suicide pact. In the first room he comes to, he’s met by a random dude that’s courteous enough to come up behind him and tell him to freeze. Yes, because criminal organizations, especially when being invaded in their own base of operations, have a habit of showing a remarkable amount of restraint. I’m surprised that this asshole didn’t serve Jade cookies at the same time. But while the two of them stand in uncomfortable confusion, Rowdy awkwardly kicks in the front door before then kicking the gun out of the random dude’s hand while he just stands there, practically begging to be disarmed. But just then Jade declares, “he’s mine”, handing the rocket launcher to Rowdy and prompting for him to continue on. And to begin this colossal battle of obscurity, Jade declares:

Jade: “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

Seriously? A completely unrelated, clichéd catch phrase? That might just be the laziest fucking writing I’ve ever seen. He might as well have said, “I hate Mondays” or “Give a hoot, don’t pollute”. And after quickly switching to the building’s exterior to show Taryn shooting Michael the Cross-dresser dead, the battle begins as Jade has somehow becomes equipped with metal claws on his hands. Apparently not only will this random thug casually stand by and let you kick the gun out of his hand, but he’ll also patiently wait as you strap on your choice instruments of death. The fight predictably lasts about 20 seconds, ending with Jade using the claws to slash his opponent’s throat just after saying, “and then you die!”, because the only thing better than saying an unrelated catch phrase is half an unrelated catch phrase. He then hurries to catch up with Rowdy, whom has made his way into the room where Edy is tied up. And just as the male-NED enters and begins firing on Rowdy with impunity, Rowdy responds with the rocket launcher. But for some reason hitting the NED from about 10 feet away doesn’t cause a massive explosion that envelopes the entire building, instead simply pushing the dude out a nearby window. After smiling like a jackass, Rowdy is joined by Jade, who finishes the immeasurably idiotic scene by moving to free Edy only after taking a moment to joke about leaving her tied up so that he can get a midget and a whip together for some kinky sex.

Notice that the thug didn't even explode when hit by a rocket. Hey might as well have been pushed through the wall by a stern look.

Back outside, our almost forgotten Hamsteak Philosopher appears on the scene with some random blonde chick that we’ve never seen up to this point, attempting to flee in a helicopter while firing on Rowdy and Dona. But as they try to lift off, Dona takes the rocket launcher from Rowdy and fires, hitting the helicopter and causing a massive explosion. So for those people keeping track, rocket + dude = nothing, but rocket + helicopter = nuclear winter-sized mushroom cloud. And even though it seems like they really haven’t done much of anything, at this point our heroes stop and cheer a job exceptionally badly done before piling into a van, leaving only Dona to head back to her place by herself for some reason. But just as they’re driving away, someone finally notice that no one saw or, more importantly, killed Seth, which means that yes, they accomplished nothing. Seeing the obvious danger to come, Rowdy suddenly bursts out the back of the van on a dirt bike, racing off to catch up with Dona.

"Ferris?"...."Bueller!"...

At this point the movie transforms from late night skin flick to more of a late night infomercial. Sure, you’ve seen what is supposed to be the climax of the film, so how much would you pay to own this cinematic kidney stone forever in Laserdisc or audio book format? How about three easy installments of $49.95 and a piece of your immortal soul! BUT WAIT! Don’t answer yet! Act now and we’ll throw in an additional scene tacked on to the end of the movie, back at Dona’s house: She walks out of her bathroom only to be grabbed by Seth, who demands to be given the diamonds while waving a switchblade around with the ferocity of a newborn puppy in a fitted rain slicker. Unsurprisingly, Dona manages to struggle free from him rather easily before turning the tables. First she blasts Seth in the chest with a harpoon gun and then proceeds to beat on him for good measure, not stopping until he seems to be kind of, sort of, but not actually dead. Then after Dona takes a break to go to the fridge – because yeah, who wouldn’t be a little peckish after having engaged in a life or death struggle only seconds ago – she somehow senses that Seth is waiting around the corner, preparing an ambush while she stands icing her nipples. So Dona engages him again, managing this time to avoid being stabbed in silicone and instead stabbing him in the gut with his own knife. Somehow thinking that a knife to the stomach is immediately fatal, she then leaves the room again, electing this time to hide in the bathroom. And that’s when things get completely insane. As she sits on the floor by the toilet, she goes to flush just as the toilet fucking EXPLODES with light and the snake rises out of it, shattering the bowl like it’s a goddamn egg shell. Screaming, Dona gets the hell out of the bathroom just as Seth gets back up again, thinking that she’s still in there. He grabs the knife out of his gut and goes to finish her off, but once he gets near the door, the snake lunges and FINALLY kills him, apparently proving that a faster method of murder than a harpoon gun, blunt force trauma, or a knife to the stomach is fucking cancer. Alone with the snake in her living room now, Dona grabs a gun and shoots it multiple times directly in the mouth, which somehow manages to do absolutely nothing to it other than perhaps chipping its dental work. But just as all seems lost, Rowdy bursts into the room, smashing through a wall on his motorbike before jumping off and firing his rocket launcher, hitting the snake in the head and blowing up it up in yet another underwhelming explosion. As they cuddle, she explains that it came from the toilet, to which he quips:

Rowdy: “Just when you thought it was safe to take a pee.”

Goddamn. However wrote this doesn’t have the imagination necessary to pump out a menu for IHOP.

Sure the rocket launcher is ridiculous, but why does she have backlighting and dry ice in her toilet?

Damn, I knew I should have paid that extra grand to build a reception area!

I know what you’re thinking. Surely all those unnecessary tits AND an additional bout of snake exploding insanity must be enough to drive the price of any other movie up to six installments of infinite gold, BUT WAIT! There’s more! Act now and Hard Ticket To Hawaii will throw in one last moment of awesomeness free of charge, as the next day our heroes are all loaded into a limo when they arrive at an office and/or apartment building. Ready for action, Rowdy and Dona head up to the penthouse of the building to confront Chang, the evil mastermind that’s so important to the film that he’s had about 28 seconds of screen time. And even though this is supposed to be the head of an organized crime gang, they manage to stroll directly into his ten feet by ten feet office, which has all the class and decorum of a toxic waste facilities broom closet. When the one fucking bodyguard gets up to stop them, Dona slips Rowdy a set of nunchuks, which he promptly uses to beat the dude to death like it’s a fucking club. Alone but not entirely helpless, Chang faces Rowdy and Dona as they whip out guns and pulls the classic “sword in the cane” trick, then takes it to a new level of shitheadedness previously unheard of by throwing it at them like a fucking dart in a Scottish pub. Naturally he misses and in response they simply shoot him in the face, sending him flying straight out the window behind him, plummeting down to the delight of the rest of our heroes waiting on the ground below. And with that, our scene ends.

And with that, our movie finally reaches its conclusion as the Super Friends end up back on the Malibu Express, sipping champagne and discussing their unfortunate moral responsibility of turning in the diamonds. But Taryn points out that unlike the rest of them, she’s technically not a federal agent, so since the owners are all dead, the diamonds belong to her. She says that she’s going to sell them and share the proceeds with her friends. And if those friends had half a brain in their head, they’d realize that the only way that she could move diamonds in that large a quantity, especially ones obtained illegally, would be to sell them exactly as Seth was planning to do, and probably even to the same people. So technically, they should probably just prevent the rise of another criminal mastermind and shoot her in the head right now. But instead, they all toast the undoubtedly illegal activity that their friend is about to engage in before the credits finally roll, or are stuck to boxes, to be accurate.

The Verdict:

Donkey: What can you say about a movie that has a cancerous snake, a skateboarding assassin with a lonely man’s mistress and a Civil War era musket, and more tits than tea time in Caligula’s palace? It’s got it all. The only thing that keeps this from being a truly epic shitty movie is the argument that, as a skin flick, it never really intended to be very good in the first place. It’s kind of like watching an actual porno and wondering why every single plot point involves someone choking on balls. And while that’s true, the undeniable hilarity of this film cannot be ignored. I give it four and a half unnecessarily exposed tits out of five I love soul food! Delicious!

What We Learned:

Donkey: Nunchuks can be used as a knife, club, boomerang, or interpretive dance prop, so long as you’re enough of an idiot to have never seen how their actually meant to be used before in your life. Oh, and BLLLLLAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH TITS!!!

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Eric Roberts makes his triumphant return in the movie that was literally name after his majesty…BEST OF THE BEST.

Back To The Main Page.

If a movie could be judged purely on its poster alone, this one would be bad-ass. Unfortunately that all changes the moment you press play.

Donkey: There are a lot of things about growing up that suck. Eating an entire meal consisting of candy is discouraged. Kicking and screaming in a department store until someone buys you a toy will earn you some strange looks, possibly even criminal charges. And in certain countries, coloring outside the lines is punishable by gang rape. But there are certain things that do get better with age, and one of those things is the ability to handle disappointment. When I was a kid, I sat in my bed one Christmas Eve and silently decided that what I wanted most in the world was a Chewbacca action figure. Of course, making that decision on the spot meant that I hadn’t shared that information with my parents, and for some reason I decided that because I had been good that year, if I didn’t get Chewbacca then Santa Clause didn’t exist. Don’t ask me why I had suddenly jogged down that path of reasoning, but nevertheless, there I was. So the next morning when I woke up and there wasn’t a Chewbacca to be found, I truly came to realize that Santa Clause didn’t exist. Of course, if I had paid closer attention, there were actually a lot more telling signs of the truth than that. Like the time that my mother told my younger brother that Santa wasn’t getting him the Play-Do Barbershop set that he wanted because, and I quote, “Santa thinks that’s stupid.” Or even more obviously, if I had bothered to look carefully enough I would have noticed that all the tags on our gifts had “From Santa” written on them in my mother’s handwriting. But regardless, the sting of disappointment is crippling when you’re young and a dream is destroyed.

That’s a sting that I felt again some years later, when I first laid eyes on this week’s movie, Darkman. Having never heard of it when it was in the theaters, which wasn’t surprising as I didn’t go to the theaters much as a child, the first time I laid eyes on it was in a video store. After being enticed by the cover, I read the synopsis on the back of the box and saw a lot of promise, deciding then and there that I had to see this movie. I mean, come on. Look up at that cover. Pretty bad ass, huh? But this was back in the day when video stores were actually really popular and didn’t carry 4,276 copies of most new movies, so getting your hands on a copy took a lot of dedication. But I stuck it out, checking weekend after weekend until I finally managed to finally grasp it in my eager paws and convince my parents to rent it. Needless to say from the tone of this diatribe thus far and the fact that it made an appearance on this site, the movie turned out to be one massive punch in the balls. And while I’ve developed a thick, cynical, yet highly exfoliated skin since that day which would allow me to handle this all too frequent stomach-churning pain, I was undeniably devastated. So before we get started, I’d just like to say from the bottom of my heart: Fuck you, Darkman.

Whew. That feels a little better. But that being said, it’s time to share my disappointment…

The Plot:

Donkey: After becoming unknowingly entangled in the dark underworld of a zoning commission bribery scandal so shocking that it wouldn’t be deemed worthy of even a three sentence blurb next to the tranny escort ad section at the back of a local newspaper, Dr. Peyton Westlake is attacked and left for dead by a gang of ruthless, bloodthirsty thugs, so common in the real estate development world. Horribly burned, mentally unbalanced, and unable to feel pain – which comes in handy not only in battling enemies but also in protecting him from the sting of his own horrible acting – Peyton is fortunate enough that he just happens to be performing research in the field of synthetic skin at the time. Morphing into the shameful lovechild of The Watchmen’s Rorschach and The Saint, Peyton is reborn as Darkman, the masked enigma out for revenge or possibly large quantities of aloe.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Evil Rides The Short Bus

I'll see your henchmen and your cars and raise you henchmen IN cars IN a box! Checkmate, motherfucker!

Donkey: The movie begins with an introduction to the story’s dim-witted face of terror, that which is supposed to stand for all things despicable and cruel. So kind of like the Rush Limbaugh of the film, if you will. And filling the role of sheer evil in this case is…the retarded guy from LA Law? I guess Jimmy Smits was too busy rolling his R’s in an attempt to remind people that he has more ethnicity than a tub of vanilla yogurt to take the part. Anyways, this dude plays a criminal mastermind named Durant. After rolling up to a warehouse meeting with what appears to be a group of evil longshoremen, he and his small gang are frisked and stripped of all their weapons, which happens to include brass knuckles and nunchuks. For those of you keeping score, yes, that means that this gang should then consist of a retard leading a 1920’s street hoodlum and a ninja, but sadly that is an image that will have to stay doodled in the notepad that I use during meetings at work as it’s not the case here. Once determined to be clean, they’re taken inside to meet the black businessman leader of the longshoremen who happens to be named – awesomely – Black. He declares that he has no intention of selling his property and kindly offers to remove the gangs’ balls for them. In response, Durant motions to one of his thugs, a man who looks kind of like Jerry Cantrell if Jerry had dedicated his life to the skin-flute rather than the guitar. Jerry in turn pulls the wooden leg off of one of the other thugs and reveals it to be a hidden gun, which he starts firing randomly. After waiting for a dozen or so of his men to be gunned down, Black yells for his crew to “take them down”. Suddenly two cars bust out of massive wooden crates that are just sitting in the middle of the warehouse and starting tearing around the place, driving with no particular purpose as more crusty dockworkers fire Uzis out their windows. So just to be clear, those were just sitting in there the whole time? “Killer and Bonecrusher, you two patrol the perimeter today. Ice and Jawbreaker, you two pull the Chevys into the crates and just…wait.” After an incredibly brief and confusing firefight, all the longshoremen, who clearly outnumbered Durant’s men by over ten times, are dead while not a single man in Durant’s gang is sporting so much as a paper cut. But to end the scene in style, Durant has Black dragged over to him where he proceeds to cut his fingers off one by one with his cigar cutter.

Exhibit B: The Recipe For A Hero, Now With 25 Percent More Ass

Who knew that the same product that you made an imprint of your penis with just to freak out your friends would actually have a scientific use one day?

From there the movie has us sit through a standard roll of introductory credits, which appear over the finest fog that a Hollywood smoke machine budget can buy while a theme song by Danny Elfman reinforces the Batman rip-off image of this film so blatantly that Darkman’s nemesis might as well have been called The Not-Joker. We’re then introduced to the title character, Peyton “Darkman” Westlake, played by Liam Neeson, who for some reason spends the entire movie trying to shed his Irish accent by coupling a ridiculous voice with acting that alternates between animated, manic cheer and spine-shattering rage, almost like Grover with a Meth addiction. He begins in his laboratory where he’s carrying out research on manufactured synthetic skin, producing it with the sweetest unrelated computer displays and holographic technology available in 1990. In other words, he’s spliced together a SNES, a modified version of Sega’s arcade game Time Traveler, and one of those shitty Pin Art toys found in novelty shops to create rubber masks. Thrilling! But his success in creating the skin is short-lived as its cells consistently rupture after 99 minutes causing them to melt like ice near the flaming wreckage of Joey Lawrence’s singing career.

But when you work hard, you’ve got to play hard, so after Peyton and his lab assistant scratch their balls in confusion for long a few moments, the movie jumps straight to that evening where he kicks back and watches a slideshow with his girlfriend Julie, played by Frances McDormand. I’m not exactly sure what would possess two people to voluntarily engage in an activity usually seen as a torture that’s inflicted by visiting relatives who want to share their horribly depressing vacation memories, but somehow it gets the two of them so turned on that they make the semi-passionate yet hip-sensitive love of a bored elderly couple watching the hours slip away in a retirement home. Tasty. But the plot wastes no time in thickening, as the next morning while they get dressed, Julie yammers to someone on the phone about a memo that she found and suspects that she wasn’t supposed to see. And just as is so obviously going to happen, she departs for work and accidentally leaves it by Peyton’s bed, laying on foreshadowing that couldn’t any thicker if the title of that memorandum had been “YOUR ASS WILL GET KILLED FOR HAVING THIS: A 30 Caliber Corporate Report On Capturing Market Share”. Following her out as she tries to catch a cab, Peyton suggests that they get married with as much romantic flare as he would probably use to suggest that they order a pizza or she gets checked for herpes. Understandably unmoved by this, Julie she says she has to think about it, leaving Peyton to continue the streak of abject failure that he’s established so far.

Hold on to your hat, baby. After this we play an erotic game of Bridge.

If being a remarkably shitty movie villain is a crime, even he knows that he should be in jail.

Our tour of Obvious Periltown, USA continues in the next scene as Julie arrives at work and practically begs to be killed by confronting her boss, a slimy little man named Strack, by saying that she had found the memo detailing bribes paid to the zoning commission. As a brief side note, that might just be evidence of the dumbest goddamn crime that I’ve ever seen someone implicated of in a movie. Seriously, I would have preferred if Strack had been a politician accused of gerrymandering, because redistricting your constituency for personal gain couldn’t possibly be any less interesting than this, plus it would give me a more credible reason to use the awesome word “gerrymandering” rather than just sneaking it into a paragraph twice with flimsy justification. Suck it, bitches! But Strack treats this matter as seriously as it deserves by immediately admitting to the crime with less guilt in his voice than if he were detailing how he had extra bacon with his breakfast that morning, asking her to understand that his dream of a massive real estate development down by the city’s old waterfront is worth facilitating with the occasional distasteful act. So in other words, he’s telling her that he’s sucked a lot of dick lately. But rather than just shutting the fuck up and letting the issue drop like any rational person would, Julie insists that doesn’t change the fact that she’s holding the evidence of a crime before going on to let him know that she left it at Peyton’s place. Trying one last time to make her see reason, Strack warns that he’s just trying to protect her from a rival named Durant, a drug dealer/real estate developer, who is competing for the riverfront property and will do anything he can to get it. Of course, if we’re to go by the precedent that Strack has set, this threat probably won’t amount to much more than a strongly worded letter or possibly a motion with City Council, but we’ll just pretend it sounds pretty menacing anyways.

Having established the extremely mild, not entirely noteworthy threat that Peyton has unwittingly stumbled onto a collision course with, the wait for the resulting flaming wreckage turns out to be a relatively brief one. Later that night a mishap with a fuse results in Peyton and his lab assistant discovering that light is the catalyst that is destroying their fake skin. But before they can celebrate their rather modest accomplishment with high fives, awkward glances, and clumsy reach-arounds, Peyton turns to answer a ringing phone and comes face to face with Durant and his gang. Surprisingly, rather than offering to resolve their differences through non-violent conflict mediation as so many villainous gangs in movies are apt to do, the gang instead decides to beat Peyton within an inch of his unremarkable life while demanding that he reveal the location of the memo. But of course, Peyton doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about since he was too busy that morning scrubbing medicated chap-stick and Ben-Gay off his junk to notice the memo that Julie left behind. Eventually they manage to find it on their own anyways, but just like strangling a hooker in the back of a cargo van, once you’ve started the job, you might as well take it all the way. So after attempting to perform a root canal on the lab assistant using a revolver, electrocuting Peyton’s hands with the most glorious claymation I’ve seen since a box of dancing raisins sang Christmas carols to me, and pushing his face into what appears to be a vat of corrosive acid that I can’t imagine any credible reason for having, the gang finally leaves Peyton broken and battered to grapple with a homemade bomb. But just to make things as unnecessarily complicated and unlikely to succeed as possible, the “bomb” in this case is a drinking bird toy that is seconds away from striking a lighter next to a spewing gas tank. As Peyton crawls towards the idiotic apparatus of doom, Julie approaches the building along the street outside, convincing herself to marry this retarded muppet just as a massive explosion rips through the lab above her. She stands in stunned silence, too busy mentally cancelling all the wedding invitations to notice the screaming, flaming form of Peyton that rockets out of the goddamn blaze and lands in the river across the street. I can’t quite describe the hilarity of this moment, but rest assured that we were forced to skip back and watch it several times while laughing our asses off while making the attempt.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

After employing the most exceptionally mediocre effects that could be found in 1990 to morph Julie from standing before the flaming building to standing in front of Peyton’s grave, the movie briefly glimpses at Peyton’s funeral that quite noticeably does not have a single person in attendance other than her, indicating that Peyton must have been a far bigger taint stain than we had suspected. I mean, shit, even a psychotic pedophile that smelled like burnt cheese is still probably going to be mourned by the guys down at the candy shop and clown costume boutique for having been their best customer. But with that peek into the distinct lack of mourning of his passing, the film turns back to the screaming rocket that was Peyton, bandaged from head to toe and strapped into a rotating bed in a hospital after having been dredged from the river. A young doctor explains to a group of students observing him that Peyton was brought in without any ID and has burns over 40 percent of his body, so to prevent him from screaming constantly or becoming enticed by the Honey Mustard barbeque smell of his own extremities, they have severed strategic sensory connections so that he can longer feel pain or smell deliciously cooked meat. But the doctor continues by discussing some of the side effects of this procedure, warning that a lack of tactile sensation causes the brain to amplify other inputs, resulting in him being susceptible to heightened rage, loneliness, and spurts of adrenaline that give him super strength. So just to be clear, they have decided to bring him back from the brink of death to carry out the rest of his very limited existence as a manic depressive flame-broiled chicken wing on steroids. What a goddamn treat! I guess the best we can hope for is that they washed the KY off their hands from butt-fucking their Hippocratic Oath before they operated on Peyton, or he might also end up with a nasty case of Pink Eye. And just to prove my point, the doctor walks away with her students in tow, joking that she’d “give him a 9 on the buzzard scale”. But that mocking stirs something deep within Peyton, whose eyes snap open to experiences a whacky series of visions, prompting him to break out of his restraints and escape out a nearby hospital window.

Darkman awoke the next morning, not understanding why he spent the entire night dreaming about pissing his pants.

Lost, confused, and doing his best impression of an Egyptian Mummy that has recently attacked a family cookout, Peyton wanders through a torrential downpour, stumbling through an alley where he finds a trench coat that most assuredly smells like a chemical toilet on Undercooked Indian Food Night before walking out onto the street where Julie is very conveniently strolling along by herself. But of course when he stumbles up and grabs her from behind, what was supposed to be a heartwarming reunion that touches our heart more profoundly than the episode of Full House where Uncle Joey teaches the girls about sharing through mullet-fueled mishaps is shattered when she cries out in terror, somehow unable to recognize him through the jacket, bandages, and 11 herbs and spices. Of course, it doesn’t really help that his speech is more slurred than a rabid bulldog with a mouthful of cottage cheese. Dejected, Peyton takes refuge in an alley that night, choosing for some reason to sleep directly beneath a downspout that’s hitting him with so much water that you’d think he was auditioning to be a mesquite scented Slip-N-Slide. I realize that he can’t feel pain, but that’s not going to stop him from choking up a deep-fried lung during a fatal bout of pneumonia.

With the full realization that life as he knew it no longer exists, it’s time for Peyton to transform from an exceptionally underdeveloped and unsympathetic character to the masked crusader of mentally challenged vengeance, Darkman. And to do that, he’ll need to follow the same basic steps that all truly great and exceptionally asstastic heroes abide:

Step 1: Set Up A Base Of Operations, Preferably Outside Of Your Mom’s Basement

After waking up and exploring the ruins of his old lab the next morning, Darkman salvages through scorched equipment that, by right, shouldn’t function in any capacity. Seriously, I’ve accidentally bumped an external hard drive off a two inch drop and had it stop working, so computer equipment that has burn holes in it should fail at every task so badly that it can’t even catch on fire again. Regardless, Darkman loads all of it into a rickety shopping cart, or the Darkmobile, if you will, and hauls it to what appears to be an abandoned industrial factory. With a nod of satisfaction, he begins the process of setting up his shitty version of the Batcave, which we would call…the Darkcave? That’s so fucking stupid that even Aquaman would be ashamed to call it home, which sounds just about right. After managing to get electricity flowing again by throwing a few switches, which is quite a feat since you’d think any power company not run by a team of chimps in business suits and Richard Greco would have stopped supplying power to an abandoned building a long time ago, he attempts to construct a mask of his own face using a damaged photograph. But in order for his machine to complete the mask using the incomplete image, he must replace the damaged section of his face by mirroring the other side, a task that would take a modern computer about two seconds. True to the reality of 1990, his machine tells him that it will take 571 hours to complete the process. Sweet. Just don’t try to check your email while it’s working or that shit will lock up for another 3 months. With nothing but time on his hands, Darkman returns to his research into maintaining the synthetic skin’s integrity in the sunlight as random objects fly around him in the background for no goddamn reason. Apparently Sam Raimi takes the concept of time flying by just a little too literally. But just when we think that life will return to normal for this loveable chemically imbalanced charcoal briquette, he has a little breakdown in the middle of his research when his hand accidentally catches on fire after coming too close to a nearby open flame that he keeps running for reasons I can’t imagine. Looking down at his flame-broiled paws, he begins to blubber about how they took his hands, crying out dramatically. Yikes. If he gets that upset when noticing that his hands have been ravaged by fire, I don’t want to be there when he looks down the front of his pants.

Step 2: REVENGE!

Untalented.

Victim 1 – Nepotism: While spying on Julie, and possibly trying to rub out a batch of baby batter, at an absolutely random formal dress party where she confesses to Strack that the bribe memo that they had discussed earlier was TOTALLY NOT SUSPICIOUSLY destroyed in the fire at Peyton’s place, Darkman notices the presence of Durant and one of his henchmen, played by Ted Raimi. I love Ted Raimi. Without appearing in his brother’s movies, Ted Raimi’s film career would be such a runaway success that he’d have to fight tooth and nail to be stocking feminine hygiene products part-time at a Wal-Mart. But upon seeing the villains again for the first time, Darkman has another brief series of flashbacks of his near death experience. Enraged, he follows as Ted wanders out into an alley alone for some reason, before grabbing him by the face and taking him down into the sewer. Unless Ted’s got a scat fetish or is in fact a Ninja Turtle, things aren’t looking good for him. But even we couldn’t have seen what was coming, as after interrogating him for all the information he can pertaining to Durant’s crew, Darkman smashes Ted’s head up through a manhole, holding his screaming face at street level until he’s eventually hit by a car. Wow. Even if you believe that Darkman could manage to muster the strength to pop off a manhole cover, the force of the impact would smash Ted Raimi’s head as flat as his acting abilities. And here I thought death by drinking bird was as turderiffic as it could possibly get.

Darkman's ultimate revenge: making them all smell his skid marks.

Victim 2 – Generic Fat Guy: Soon after his first successful hit, Darkman witnesses two other members of Durant’s gang swapping a briefcase of money with one another over lunch. It’s confusing enough that they’d be handing money to themselves, but they take it even further and prove to be criminal masterminds by not only exchanging large sums of money in a public place while seated right next to a fucking window, but also compounding their brilliance by discreetly swapping briefcases under the table on the goddamn window side, making it perfectly visible to Darkman as he takes pictures of the exchange using random camera equipment that we have no idea how he managed to get his hands on. Formulating an unnecessarily complicated plane, he focuses in on the recipient of the money specifically, a short fat Telly Savalas-looking motherfucker named Pauly, snapping off enough pictures of him for both the skin replication process and his vigilante scrapbooking seminar. After successfully creating a mask identical to Pauly’s face and sneaking into his apartment to drug him with ether while he sleeps, Darkman then stands by a mirror, taking off his bandages to reveal not only that he looks exactly like Pauly, but also what may be the single biggest flaw with this movie. Even if you overlook the fact that he somehow manages to mirror the voice of his victims perfectly, which is already bullshit on a stick, how does a guy who is 6 foot 4 inches tall put on a simple mask and suddenly have not only the identical face but also body of a fat dude just over 5 feet tall? Regardless, he returns to the same restaurant again and takes part in an identical cash exchange, with no one being the wiser as to his true identity. Naturally, Durant notices some time later that the cash has gone missing, so he breaks into Pauly’s apartment and demands to know where the money is just before finding two first class plane tickets to Rio, registered to Pauly and the already deceased Ted Raimi. Pauly, who wakes up on his bed fully clothed in a leisure suit, of course pleads ignorance before being tossed out the window and falling to his death.

Step 3: Shallow Inflection Followed By Half-Hearted Attempts At Redemption

I like to do my brooding in front of a backdrop from the Wal-Mart photography studio, too.

After an absolutely horribly blue screen shot of Darkman sitting on a rooftop between two gargoyles while reflecting on the monster that he’s becoming, because apparently a basic nighttime roof shot is too goddamn hard to film without the use of shitty special effects, Darkman returns to his lab to continue his research before spazzing at a random stray cat and dancing the most hated-filled jig that he can muster. I would describe this jaw-dropping display as ridiculous, but then I just remember Toby McGuire’s dance scene in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, which is about as painful as being attached by schizophrenic drifter wielding a rusty chainsaw laced with hepatitis C, making this look far more reasonable by comparison. But his Temper Tango does little to sate his bloodlust, so be begins smashing random shit with a pipe, all the while having more flashbacks, until finally reigning himself in long enough to notice that his super computer has finally completed the reconstruction of his own facial image. Finally able to look like himself again, at least for 99 minutes at a time, Darkman immediately seeks out Julie, finding her while she’s visiting his grave. He approaches her, revealing that he’s not dead, and after some initial hesitation, they embrace as he mumbles some incoherent nonsense about needing time. From there they end up sharing a hot cup of insanity at an outdoor café where, using all the power of terrible, terrible acting, Peyton asks what she’d do if the explosion had left him horribly scarred before ignoring the fact that she dodges the question and giggling like he’s watching Hey Vern! It’s Ernest.

If I only had a brain...

Step 4: More Fucking REVENGE!

Whoa, hey...if you're going to do a close up, shoot me from the right. That's my good side.

Victim 3 – Well, Nobody Actually: After that brief romantic interlude that makes a strong case for abstinence, Darkman returns to his quest for blood, once again using methods that really beg an explanation despite not getting one, as he taps into Durant’s home phone line to listen in on a call about collecting on a debt in Chinatown the next day. But rather than just knocking on his door right at that moment and killing Durant with insanity-fueled super strength, it’s time once again for a needlessly complicated plan as the movie cuts to a security camera in a random convenience store that captures Durant clearly identifying himself directly into the camera while robbing the clerk. Predictably, the cops show up at Durant’s door the next day and arrest him while Darkman takes his place, joining the rest of the gang as they visit a man in Chinatown who claims to be unable to pay the money he owes. And while the real Durant finally posts bail and rushes to catch up with the rest of his crew, Darkman sits and listens to this Chinese guy ramble on and on incessantly, unsure of what he should do. By the time the old man finally finishes blabbering, Darkman sits down and simply demands the money by the time he finishes a cigar, cutting it down to a mere nub before holding a the match under his hand and burning himself without flinching. Somehow this convinces the old man, who is standing with his own bodyguards, including the guy who played Professor Sub-Zero in The Running Man, to relent and agree to hand over the cash rather than simply shoot them all in the head. Moments later as the real Durant jumps out of a cab and runs into a revolving door on his way into the meeting, Darkman attempts to exit out of the door at the same time. This leads to a few seconds of comic hilarity that hasn’t been fresh since the silent movie era as the two Durants (or Durant Durant, if you will) look at one another in confused silence before jumping out of the door and grappling in a predictable and stale “don’t shoot me, shoot him” scene. But after slapping down the real Durant and reprimanding the other gang members for not shooting when told to, Darkman’s ruse comes to an end when his stopwatch strikes the 100 minute mark and face begins to melt. With no other choice, he simply runs like hell, vanishing in a crowd and leaving the gang very confused as to what the hell the point of all that was. Fucked if I know.

Worst Double Mint commercial ever.

Step 5: Don’t Forget To Try To Get Laid

How the fuck are we supposed to react to a shot this bad?

At that point the movie turns to a carnival where Darkman is showing Julie a delightful, fun-filled afternoon, provided that you would consider laughing like a lobotomy patient at nothing in particular to be fun. Realizing that the time he has left in his face skin is quickly running out, Darkman declares that he should go to. But for reasons I can’t imagine, Julie begs him to stay, pleading for them to have more time together. But before Darkman even bothers to come up with an excuse as to why he can’t stick around for much longer, he’s distracted by a freak show a short distance away. After some careful inflection, he shifts gears faster than a NASCAR driver with a cocaine addiction, deciding to win her a doll at a nearby carnie game. After knocking down the stack of bottles and asking for a pink elephant as a prize, the carnie shrugs him off, saying that he was disqualified because he wasn’t behind a line painted on the ground. At that moment the scene starts to get abruptly dramatic as Darkman begins to rage internally, like he just walked in on someone raping his mom. And yet the tension that his behavior attempts to build is completely undercut by the carnie’s ridiculously calm dismissal of him, creating this drastic juxtaposition that only highlights how irrational both characters are. But the moment comes to a head seconds later when the carnie calls Darkman a weirdo. This sets off, quite literally, an explosive response inside Darkman, who responds by grabbing the carnie’s hand and breaking his fingers. Or at least that would be what he was doing if it weren’t horribly fucking obviously a rubber hand that he’s simply bending. As he, the carnie, and Julie all scream at the completely uncalled for level of aggression, Darkman finishes his ‘roid rage by tossing the carnie through the back wall of his game shack before ramming a stuffed animal in Julie’s hands and cursing at her for good measure. But before she can react to his clear insanity, he reaches the 100 minute mark of wearing the mask and his face once again begins to melt, prompting him to run off into the crowd while screaming for her to forgive him. Apparently quite willing to enter into an abusive relationship with a smoked turkey bone, Julie chases him all the way back to his factory lair where he runs in blubbering like a school girl who just found out that unicorns aren’t real. And once she enters the building behind him, she finds his equipment and his Peyton mask, looking around desperately for him as Darkman sulks quietly behind a nearby stack of crates. Before giving up her pursuit, she yells that he should have told her, that she could have helped him. Lady, unless you’re into getting punched out by a walking corpse in a clown wig, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t help him.

Oh yes, right. Exactly like this.

Psssttt...I love Right Said Fred.

From there Julie heads straight back to the office where she tells Strack that she can no longer see him as Peyton is now back in her life. This of course, implies that the two of them were seeing one another up to this point, which in turn means that her moral standards were so strict that she couldn’t ignore this dude bribing a zoning commission, but she’d still fuck him despite it. That kind of hypocritical integrity makes me grow a big rubbery one. But as Strack steps away for a moment to answer a phone call, Julie snoops around his desk and finds the cursed memo. Yes, that’s right. The villain in this movie is enough of an intellectual powerhouse that he not only drafted the details or bribery that he was carrying out into memo form, but after having someone killed to retrieve it, he then just left said memo sitting around on his desk despite the fact that he knew damn well what his new girlfriend would think the moment she saw it. Trust me; try to follow the logic necessary to see his motives and you’ll end up shitting your pants while repeatedly singing the chorus of David Lee Roth’s Just A Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody. But to his credit, at least Strack as consistent in not bothering to hide the slightest detail of his scheming, as he once again openly admits to everything, explaining that he had Durant and his men kill Peyton so that word of his bribery would not leak and jeopardize his development project. And to needlessly emphasize his point, he opens a set of retractable blinds covering a huge bay window to reveal the construction of his site, with several skyscrapers almost complete. She looks out in awe like she’s never seen this before, despite the fact that you couldn’t get within several miles of the building that they’re standing in without seeing the construction of multiple skyscrapers a short distance away. With nothing left to say, Julie flees as fast as possible, leaving Strack to call Durant into the room to deliver the news that Julie has discovered their alliance and that Darkman is still alive.

Step 6: No Seriously, Even More Fucking REVENGE!

Victim 4 & 5 – The Random Leftovers: With nowhere else to turn, except for maybe to the police or pretty much anyone else would could actually help, Julie returns to Darkman’s lair, yelling up at him as he watches from a window. But just then, car loads of Durant’s men suddenly surround her as goons start firing up at him. They grab Julie and throw her in a car, taking off as Darkman runs along rooftops trying to keep up. But before he has the chance to undoubtedly fail in his pursuit, Durant shows up in a helicopter, firing a grenade launcher at Darkman, apparently not the least bit concerned that his lack of subtlety should likely draw the attention of every cop not shoving a doughnut down his throat within a 300 mile radius. After managing to outrun explosions for a rather ridiculous amount of time, Darkman finally ducks back inside his factory lair just as two of Durant’s goons come in to get him. He decides to fuck with minds a little bit, running around and laughing at them from the non-shadows that shouldn’t really be able to hide anyone since it’s the middle of the afternoon. Finally he lunges down on one of them, leaving only the Jerry Cantrell wannabe. But as Jerry stands nervously looking around, a man wearing a mask that is I guess is supposed to look like him comes running in his direction. Jerry knocks the mystery dude down and pulls off the mask to reveal what is supposed to be Peyton. But after shooting the supposed Peyton dead, Jerry realizes that this dude is wearing yet another mask. When he pulls it off, he finally sees that it was actually his fellow gang member, bound with duct tape over his mouth. As Jerry stands back up to absorb the situation, Darkman wanders up in yet another Jerry mask, smiling at the real Jerry like a child molester before finally containing him and leaving him to die in a fiery explosion.

Sweet Jesus...is my hair really that tragic?

I'd like to humbly suggest that it would be harder to judge the distance necessary to dangle him in traffic like that than it would be just to fly 10 feet lower and drag his ass along the pavement.

Victim 6 – The King Of The Special Olympics: While all this is going on inside Darkman’s lair, Durant has his pilot land the helicopter and is about to get out when Darkman starts to grapple with him. The helicopter rises back into the air just as Darkman gets kicked off, falling to his doom only to catch a random hook that the helicopter is hauling around at the end of a long cable. I’d ask why the fuck that would possibly be there, but at this point that would be like complaining that the corn inside the shit you’re eating was canned instead of frozen. Anyways, Durant spends the next 10 minutes flying all over the city, making incredibly lackluster attempts to shake Darkman off the hook or ram him into shit. This scene goes way too long and is completely unremarkable until finally they lower the helicopter low enough that Darkman is forced to run along the roof of an truck head towards him in oncoming traffic while Durant begins to fire grenades down at him. But the idiocy comes to a crashing end moments later when Darkman manages to the hook to the trailer of a random truck, just before it’s about to head into a tunnel. With no chance of escape, the helicopter smashes into the entrance of the tunnel as Durant himself meets a fiery end.

Victim 7 – The Real Estate Developer Of Madness: That night a very healthy looking Durant meets with Strack and Julie at the new construction site, heading up to a high, unfinished floor that is nothing more than a steel framework. As they all jump around on steel girders, Strack yanks the mask off of Durant to reveal Darkman before delivering a speech conforming to the exceptionally high level of ridiculousness that we’ve come to expect from the film and then revealing that he brought Darkman up there to recruit him. But of course Darkman’s response is to lunge at Strack, initiating a struggle that only last a few seconds before the one random thug that accompanied them tosses Julie off the side of the building. She falls several floors, but before she can meet her much deserved end, the ropes used to bind her hands together catch on some steel rebar, leaving her dangling like a damsel tied to a set of train tracks. Getting down to business, Darkman takes out the random goon using one of the many random hooks that happens to be hanging on ropes. But as he turns to face Strack, he discovers that Strack has managed to get his hands on a rather massive rivet gun, which he begins firing at Darkman while slowly approaching him. I have such a hard time believing that Strack could actually lift a rivet gun like that, let alone actually fire it without flying off his tenuous footing from the recoil, that he might as well have been firing guinea pigs at Darkman and I wouldn’t have found it to be any more idiotic. But finally as Strack closes the gap, he hits home, riveting one of Darkman’s hands to the Steel beam behind him. But then of course Strack makes the mistake of passing on the opportunity to put a rivet right between Darkman’s eye, opting instead to taunt him about being a freak. And since we know that basic taunting is the trigger that sends Darkman over the edge into a blind rage, he rips his hand free and begins to attack, but is forced to cut his attack short when he’s interrupted by a scream from Julie as her rope binding gives way and she begins to fall. Jumping into action far too slowly to possibly save her, Darkman swings over on another random hook rope just in time to catch her. He then swings back while Strack renews his rivet barrage and kicks Strack in the chest, flipping him backwards and catching him by the foot. As he dangles there by a single Hush Puppy, Strack tries to convince Darkman that he can’t drop him, lest that it make him as bad as he is, which is a fact that Strack doubts that he could like with. Darkman drops him, saying simply that he’s learning to live with a lot of things.

Though he had Darkman at his mercy, Strack hesitates just a moment too long when the smell of smoked meat reminds him that he skipped dinner.

Step 7: Realize That You’re Too Cool For School

Call me...fortunate to have not been in this movie.

With his quest for revenge at an end and his basic purpose on this Earth essentially nullified, Darkman and Julie then share an uncomfortable elevator ride down to the street floor, passing the time with awkward chit chat where she assures him that he’ll perfect the synthetic skin and everything will be alright. But Darkman responds that there’s more to it than that. He’s changed, become a monster. That’s a fact that he can live with, but he doesn’t think anyone else can. She gives him one last hug before he finally walks away and assures her that Peyton is gone. Still not wanting to accept the goddamn obvious, Julie chases after him only to find herself running headlong into a crowd of sidewalk commuter traffic. You know, considering it was pitch black when Darkman dropped Strack to his death, it sure got to be morning awfully fucking fast. Either that’s a much longer elevator ride than I would have ever guessed, or they stopped to play back to back games of Risk and Monopoly to pass some time before coming down. But as she tries in futility to find him in the crowd, we see that Darkman has slipped into a quite random face, looking back before fading away into the crowd. It turns out that he’s a monster alright; He’s Bruce Campbell. But as he makes his exit, Darkman gives one last narration, declaring that he’s everyone and no one, everywhere and nowhere. Call him…Darkman. Or Ash. Or a Fifth Degree DoucheKnuckle. Either way, really, since you’ll never see him again regardless.

The Verdict:

Donkey: Watching this movie again, years after the initial pain, hasn’t done much to lessen the blow. This movie is still one massive disappointment. With a concept that should have been rather interesting and a character that could have had some real depth, this movie delivered on absolutely none of its potential. The story is a Tour de Force of goddamn boring, with villains that range from completely forgettable to ridiculously inappropriate. I mean, a real estate developer? Really? I think that’s giving bloated sacks of a inadequacy like Donald Trump far too much credit. And the hero of the film vaults between completely underdeveloped and intensely dislikable. What did we even know of Peyton before his tragic turn? Was he a wife beater? A drooling child molester? An avid World Of Warcraft gold farmer? Who fucking knows. And while I’m generally a fan of Liam Neeson’s, his portrayal of this part was astounding, acting like a man who was too busy huffing laughing gas to notice that he got his dick caught in his zipper. Overall this movie isn’t good enough to actually enjoy on its own merits and isn’t bad enough to give us too many laughs. I give it two jigs of rage out of five crushed rubber carnie fingers.

What We Learned:

Donkey: Violently insane homeless people might, just might, be super heroes. Think about that the next time they ask you for change.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a week off to pack our bags in preparation for an amazing adventure the following week in a tropical paradise filled with incorrectly-used nunchuks, soft-core porn, and contaminated snakes. But get ready to pay a steep price, as admission only comes with the purchase of a…HARD TICKET TO HAWAII.

Back To The Main Page.

I can feel it, alright. Right in the scrotum.

Donkey: If the movie Twins taught us only one lesson, it’s that surly dwarves guiding over-sized man-children though the pratfalls of day to day existence under the guise of miraculously being closer in relation than an army ant and a line dancing animatronic Billy Ray Cyrus from the future can be mildly amusing. And in the land of Hollywood, that mild amusement somehow translates into consent for the these same two fellows to rape our collective brains with a movie about said over-sized man-child carrying a baby in the horribly muscle-bound death cage that he calls a womb. If it taught us two things, which is kind of a stretch by anyone’s measure, it would be that apart from thanklessly and often needlessly killing things, Arnold Schwarzenegger is only good for laughing at himself, which I have to give him credit for. After all, despite being a horrible flop at the box office, I think Last Action Hero is one of his funniest and overall best movies. But if you had to try to pull a third lesson from its near lifeless claws of comic mediocrity, you could say that it reinforced the notion that twin siblings share a special bond that can never be broken.

Like JCVD, or Jesus herpes if you will, that’s a bond that I’ll never get to experience. Being the middle child of three boys, I can certainly relate to having siblings, but neither of them are as close as a twin; quite the opposite, actually. Unbearably pompous, undeniably loathsome, and unashamed of publicly simmering in a stew of their own droopy old man balls and blatant inadequacy, I prefer to keep my brothers about as close to me a jar of hissing scorpions with AIDS-filled stingers. Can’t wait to see you at Christmas, motherfuckers! But unlike me, some tiny little detail like reality is not going to stop JCVD from unleashing double the Van Dammage upon the Earth. And while a council of top scientists has confirmed that actually having two JCVDs in the world would cause it to collapse upon itself in the inevitable black hole of awesomeness that would be created, poorly executed movie magic is perfect for simulating those disaster conditions. So with that, let’s take a closer look at Double Impact.

(Editor’s note: Since many people are about as good at spotting sarcasm as they are a Sasquatch, I’ll state for the record that everything I said about my brothers was actually a lie. We’re actually quite close. Well, except for the old man balls thing. That’s totally true.)

The Plot:

Donkey: Separated at birth after their parents are betrayed and murdered by a business associate, the twin brothers Van Damme are reunited 25 years later to exact their revenge and claim what’s rightfully theirs. But before they can take on the Hong Kong underworld, they’ll have to find a way to put aside their comically mismatched dong punching differences and collective inability to form a coherent thought to work together as a team.

So in other words, it’s kind of like a buddy-cop film with less Danny Glover and more Van Damme giving himself a high five for two straight hours. If that doesn’t tickle your sense of awesome, then you’ve clearly replaced your ball sack with a hot cheddar cheese pump. And while that might ensure that you’re a hit at the next Superbowl party you go to, eventually the nachos will run out leaving you to realize that you’ve chosen poorly.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Betrayal Is A Dish Best Served Phenomenally Confusing

Papa Van Damme (right) laments over how much more money he could have made selling giant novelty scissors for ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

Donkey: Our cinematic adventure this week begins with the motivation behind JCVD’s ball showcasing splits of glory by detailing the epic downfall of his parents. We’re introduced to them at the same time as the movie reveals the object of pure desire that they are betrayed and killed for. But in an epic journey featuring a lethal dose of sweetness such as this, what could possibly stand as a grand enough prize for those involved? A fortune of lost pirates’ gold? The world’s most priceless piece of art? A freight train full of diamonds laced with heroin? Fuck that. This movie steps it up a notch with…a tunnel. That’s right; the central conflict of this movie is going to be based around a public transportation project. Specifically it’s the new Victoria Harbor Tunnel in Hong Kong. After witnessing the ribbon cutting ceremony performed by Papa Van Damme and his business partner, Griffith, we warp to that night as the twin babies of ultimate destruction are being driven home by their parents, who send their family bodyguard, Frank, home for the night. But just after their cars part ways, Papa VD notices that they are being followed. Upon hearing the news, Frank realizes that trouble is afoot and races to catch up to them. But before he can reach them, the family pulls into the driveway of their home to find a group of men waiting for them whom quickly open fire, eventually killing the Papa VD and the Invincible Vagina (so named because popping two JCVDs out of that thing is a task no mortal vagina could handle). But before they can finish the job and assassinate the Wonder Twins in the back of the car, Frank pulls up and opens fire, holding them at bay long enough for the family’s nanny to flee with one of the kids. Grabbing the other child himself, Frank darts through nearby bushes to escape, pausing only momentarily to discover Papa VD’s business partner, Griffith, just hanging around and watching the assassination, because apparently establishing an alibi is for chumps. The prologue ends with the nanny dropping off the one child at an orphanage run by French nuns, giving us a convenient excuse for JCVD’s accent. Meanwhile, apparently uninterested in spending so much as 10 minutes looking for the other child, Frank heads back to the US to raise the one boy himself.

Exhibit B: Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? And Maybe Put Those Goddamn Balls Away?

I don't think it's possible to showcase your balls any better than that.

25 years later, we journey into the synth-pop hustle and bustle of LA in the early 90’s where we discover JCVD 1, or Chad, running a gym/martial arts dojo/gay pride parade planning facility, covering for his obviously flamboyant lifestyle by lecturing women on the importance of stretching while literally doing the splits and bouncing his balls on the floor in front of them in the expressed purpose of impressing them. But as the women drool over the image of what could be the ultimate tea bagging experience, Frank interrupts and asks him to go take care of a problem in one of their karate classes. As he gets up to assure Frank that he’s got everything under control, we get to see that JCVD’s tight pastel blue leotard is giving him fucking ball cleavage, or dude camel toe. I would try to describe to you the horror of this sight, but until human language produces a word that causes both your brain and scrotum to burst upon utterance, I’m afraid I’m destined to fail in any attempt. So instead I can only assure you that I just threw up in my mouth even in merely remembering this scene. But after going in to the karate class kick a new recruit in the face for being a douche and trying to prove how badass he is by beating on fellow class members (which would get you summarily removed from any self-respecting martial arts organization), Chad is called up to the office where Frank has just finished meeting with a private investigator who found the lost twin brother, JCVD 2. Frank then takes the opportunity to reveal that he’s not actually Chad’s uncle, and that while he was raised in France, Chad wasn’t born there (keep in mind he doesn’t give a single reason for raising him in France, other than yet another convenient reason for the accent). But as Chad reels from the information that he probably should have been given years ago, Frank asks simply that Chad trust him, and just like that, they’re off to Hong Kong.

I stand corrected.

Once they land, Frank and Chad don’t bother to fuck around and instead jump straight into a cab heading to a Mahjong Parlor run by the other Van Damme, the twin known as Alex. They arrive shortly after a scene of Chad pointing out random markets and lights that don’t mean much of anything, which you wouldn’t think would impress a guy from LA unless he’s certifiably rubberheaded, and head straight into the joint. Chad, wearing an awesome pastel green shirt and pink short shorts, is immediately mistaken for Alex by everyone around them, including Alex’s girlfriend, Danielle, who seductively invites Chad into the back office for some sweet 80’s loving – which basically means that they’re going to bury their faces in one another’s teased and Debbie Gibson’s signature perfume Electric Youth-scented pubic hair for 7 minutes before lying in bed and watching Dynasty. Complementing his new look, which means that she’s either blind or into walking punch lines, Danielle undoes his pink shorts and grabs inside at his silk underwear, going straight for the goods. He urges her on, reassuring her that he has a big surprise, nay, a huge surprise in there waiting for her. Unless it’s a vagina, I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on that one. But just as she starts to enter into a thumb wrestling contest with his little Van Dammage, Alex taps Chad on the shoulder, waits until he turns around, and knocks him out with one punch.

Hey there, sexy. Come back and show me how far those ride up.

As Chad begins to slowly regain consciousness, he can hear Alex and Danielle arguing through the haze about her indiscretion with Chad, as she naturally says that it was a harmless mistake since she no one knew Alex had a twin and he indignantly responds that they could never be mistaken for one another because Chad looks like a “faggot”. Wow. We’re not pulling any punches, huh? The only way that could have been better is if Van Damme had proclaimed that while in blackface. But as Chad sits up and remembers where his is, Frank steps in and diffuses the situation, making the highly scientific case that the two brothers are twins by insisting that they just look at each other. Once they finally settle down, he explains that he used to work for their father, whom ran into money trouble half way through building the famous Hong Kong tunnel project. To help him fund the completion of the project, he had brought in Griffith, whom in turn had got his money from the Zhang crime family. Once construction was done, Griffith and Zhang had their parents wiped out so that they could take sole possession. Sole possession…of a tunnel. Frank urges the brothers to work together, take their revenge on Griffith and the Zhang family, and claim what’s rightfully theirs – a goddamn tunnel. Unconvinced that they can accomplish that on their own, Alex offers to show them some “real action” to see what they’re made of.

You couldn't have this look any worse if one of them was bathed in sunlight.

Exhibit C: Wonder Twin Powers, Activate! Form Of…Gratuitous Ego Masturbation!

Yes Chad, you're both pirates. One of you is just a little more literal than the other.

The next day Frank and the brothers find themselves on Alex’s boat in the middle of the Hong Kong harbor, in pursuit of this so called “real action”, which turns out to be smuggling Mercedes cars with trunks full of smokes and shitty VCRs to Chinese buyers. But just as the buy is finishing, the Hong Kong marine police suddenly declare over a bullhorn that they are all under arrest, taking them all by surprise. Of course, I’m not really sure how none of them managed to see them coming a long time ago. After all, they’re in fucking boats in the open water, so it’s pretty hard to sneak up on anyone, even one of JCVD’s famous stealth boats. Accusing Alex of setting them up, the buyers turn their guns on him and the others, causing a melee to ensue. After summarily pitching the random thugs overboard with their combined powers of rad, the brothers turn their attention to fleeing from the swiftly incoming cops. But once they realize that they’re not making a fast enough getaway, Chad and Frank roll the cars off the back of the boat, landing in the water between them and the cops, before shooting in their general direction and somehow causing them to explode, creating a flaming barrier. And of course, rather than just going around them and continuing the pursuit, this rather tiny obstacle is deemed insurmountable by the cops, who simply let the twins escape. Such action! Are we the only ones looking for the socks that this movie just blew off our goddamn feet?

The film then moves to an outdoor café where we’re forced to watch a woman decapitate and gut a live frog before returning to the brothers. Thanks, Double Impact! I was totally looking for something to bum me out just to balance out the incredible high that this film has had me riding. After declaring that the incident in the harbor has established their credentials for being certified bad-asses, or possibly as dental hygienists, Frank asks the brothers what they plan to do about the tunnel. Being the only one in the group who’s not legally retarded, Danielle asks Frank if there’s any record of the twins’ parents owning the tunnel, to which Frank claims that there doesn’t need to be because he was there and has the scars to prove it. But when she naturally points out that bat-shit crazy exposition is inadmissible as evidence in a court of law, Frank gives her an angry lecture on how Zhang only understands one kind of justice, the law of the shotgun. So…he’s from Alabama? Doing what any reasonable person would do in the face of what appears to be the drunken ranting of an insane drifter, Danielle storms off, prompting Frank to ask what her problem is, like SHE’S the one being the insufferable douche bag. Alex reveals that she’s been working for Griffith for 5 years now before chasing after her, assuring her that while the old man is crazy, she should quietly check on what he’s claiming anyways.

The only justice Zhang knows is street justice! That's why we have to assemble a dance crew and make sure he gets served, bi-otch!

Here, put on a coat dear, or you'll catch a cold.

From there Chad gets into a cab alone and goes back to…God knows where, only to be grabbed by a group of mobsters who mistake him for Alex. They throw him into a waiting car with Zhang and his Mini-boss head thug, Bolo Yeung, or as most people know him, Chong Li from Bloodsport. And since this movie doesn’t bother to give him a name, that’s what I’m going to continue to call him. Oh, wait, looked it up on IMDB…his name is Moon? Right, Chong Li it is. Trying his best to look like an evil overlord, Zhang makes a pitch to recruit Chad to sell coke for him rather than smuggle cars for himself while pulling a cigar out of the wooden stogie box that Frank gave JCVD’s father as a gift on the night of his death. Of course, tying to look like an evil overlord might actually work if you had the basic cranial capacity required to remove the monogrammed initials off of the goddamn cigar box you’re carrying. And of course as they arrive at an empty shipping yard, Chad recognizes the initials on the box just before he’s pulled from the car and is given the complete details of a freighter that will be waiting there on Thursday for an impending drug deal. Zhang tells him that all Chad needs to do is pick up the boat and bring it over to his dock. Chad’s elegant response is a simple, “go fuck yourself”. And seeing as this kind of response to a crime boss usually results in someone giving a blowjob to a berretta, it’s no surprise when a crowd a Zhang’s goons gathers around Chad in anticipation, watching eagerly as Chong Li takes the honors of beating Chad into unconsciousness and throwing him into an empty shipping container. That container is then put on a truck, driven into town, and opened just long enough to throw him into the streets.

Once Chad drags his bruised and battered body clad in a ridiculous green suede jacket back into Alex’s place, Frank grills him for what little information he can about the attackers before asking the brothers if they’re finally in or what. With an awesome blue screen image that in no way looks like it was spliced together by a film school dropout using Elmer’s glue while wearing oven mitts, they both proclaim that they’re in. Fuck yeah!

As different as they may seem, ask a basic math question and they'll both give you the same expression.

Exhibit D: Revenge Takes A Back Seat To Picturing My Brother’s Ass

Ouch! Time-out, guys! I landed on my keys!

To prepare for their upcoming war with the Zhang crime family, Alex guides Chad and Frank to their new base of operations, a dilapidated and abandoned hotel on a small island. As they sail along on his garbage barge of a boat, he gets a call from Danielle. She lets him know that while she was snooping around the files in her office, she was interrupted by Griffith’s suspicious muscle-bound female bodyguard, Kara. Alex thinks little of it as he docks the boat and escorts Chad and Frank to the hotel. Later that night they take a moment to prepare their arsenal before carrying out an assault on the drug deal that Zhang had conveniently detailed to Chad. That assault, like the rest of the movie, has about as much substance as an Andy Dick doctoral thesis. The brothers sneak up to the location Metal Gear Solid style before Alex sneaks around and plants plastic explosives while Chad keeps acts as a guard. That is until Chad gets slightly impatient, wanders directly into the midst of the enemies, and kicks the first dude he sees in the face. This, of course, alerts the entire site to their presence and sparks a fire fight of epically underwhelming proportions, featuring Alex rolling around awkwardly on the floor while firing dual pistols at faceless goons while Chad manages to end up at the business end of the laser sight of a thug who literally takes far too long to decide to maybe get around to shooting before he’s taken out by Frank’s sniper rifle. Eventually Alex steals a truck and with Chad hanging off the side of it, they get out range before Frank detonates the bombs and blows the whole thing sky high.

When you had that dude from Cake Boss cater this affair, you didn't explain that's a ship full of drugs, did you?

With the first part of their ham-fisted assault complete, it’s time to go for the gold. After meeting with Danielle and finding out that Griffith will be at a nightclub called the Climax Club that evening, which just happens to be owned by Zhang, the brothers spring into action. The movie transitions to the club that night where we see Griffith and Zhang meeting with the heads of their crime family, toasting a new method of shipping drugs while sitting around what appears to be a massive cake in the shape of a freighter carrying drugs. As Alex wanders into the front door and tells the nearest mullet-sporting goon that he can find that he has the case of booze that Griffith has been asking for, Zhang and Griffith are accuse some poor bastard in their own group of sabotaging the drug deal the previous night before having Kara kill him with a single stab to the chest while flexing her ladyballs. Yeah, you just gave all the details of your drug deal to someone who then turned around and told you to go fuck yourself and it’s this guy who must have fucked you over. With deductive skills like that, I’d be surprised if these two ass clowns could manage to peddle Twinkies in a fat camp. But just after the exceptionally needless killing, Griffith and Zhang are given the case of booze that Alex delivered, prompting them to finally realize that Alex knew about the drugs and demand to have him brought to them. Of course, if they had half a goddamn brain between them, they might suspect at that point that the case of “booze” is actually “a big fucking bomb”, or at the very least think to check it out. But while Alex and Frank wait nervously, blending into the crowd in the club’s main room, Griffith and Zhang’s mullet-clad goon emerges just in time to meet Chad as he wanders in from another entrance with another case. The goon insists that Chad come to the back, but rather than following, Chad hits the deck as Frank detonates the first package, which, even though it’s sitting on a table mere feet away from Zhang and Griffith, manages to explode and not give anyone in the room so much as a splinter. But of course, this causes quite a commotion, so Chad and Alex start focusing their destructive power on a wave of random goons. Then just as they’re about to leave, Zhang and Griffith emerge from the back in time to see both brothers standing together and realize that they’re dealing with twins. As the two groups share an awkward moment, Kara notices the second case sitting on the dance floor and yells a warning, prompting them all to flee the club before it goes off in a massive explosion that’s hilariously disproportionate to the first one. Apparently one box was packed with C4 and the other was a pack of Mentos and some goddamn Diet Coke.

This might be hot if I weren't so sure her balls were bigger than mine.

Seeing as how the brothers have been caught making an attempt on Zhang and Griffith’s lives, it only makes sense that the very next day, Danielle resumes her snooping around Griffith’s records. Of course she’s once again caught by Kara, whom decides to make sure that Danielle isn’t hiding anything by frisking/molesting her. But before we can cheer on some chick rape, Danielle bolts and the scene ends. She immediately calls back to the brothers’ Hidden Fortress of Alternative Lifestyles where she reaches Chad, who’s in the kitchen making a huge batch of plain noodles while Alex and Frank are off chopping wood in the jungle. As Danielle tells him that she’s found a document to support their claim and that she’s in real trouble now, Griffith and Zhang naturally listen in on the conversation from a phone in his office. Assuring her that everything will be okay, Chad tells her to go to Alex’s Mahjong Parlor and they’ll meet her there. He runs outside looking for others, giving up after 8 seconds and taking the boat. He meets Danielle as promised, only to have Kara and a group of thugs invade the Mahjong Parlor moments later, pursuing them through the streets of Hong Kong and over a series of boats until the two heroes dive in the water and make a getaway on Alex’s garbage barge. While all this is going on, Alex somehow knows to call back to his office to talk to the duo, but ends up being hung up on when place is raided. This leads him down the path of jealous rage that is no way completely fucking psychotic.

Two things happen at this point. First, as Chad and Danielle slowly tugboat their way back to the island fortress, Kara proves to be the only person in this movie capable of forming a coherent thought as she jumps into a helicopter and follows the two of them, suspecting which island they may be going to and then having the confirmed when Frank comes wandering out of the hotel to stand like a fucking idiot and stare up at the helicopter as it flies by. And second, after a needless titty scene where Danielle gets changed into fresh clothes, the movie alternates between the Chad and Danielle sailing back in quiet sexual tension and Alex rampaging around the hotel while envisioning a low quality softcore porn scene of his brother having sex with his girlfriend. To really appreciate that, you have to stop and remind yourself that at this point JCVD is now engaging in a long dream sex involving…JCVD. I can’t help but think at this point that if Van Damme was in Burger King and really could have it his way, there wouldn’t be a woman in this scene at all…just two Van Dammes, locked in an embrace of unbridles passion and awesomeness.

Van Damme, thinking about a woman making love to Van Damme, gets so excited that the semen has to come out somewhere.

Eventually, once this ridiculously long scene of JCVD imaging his own ass pounding into his girlfriend is finished, Chad and Danielle finally make it back to the hotel to find Alex completely wasted. He accuses them of fucking, of course. But once the blonde points out that he’s drunk, he drops her with one hard slap. Awesome. So again, just to review, he are now supposed to be cheering for two brothers, one of which is a petty, vicious woman-beater who flies into a violent rage when he simply imagines his girlfriend with another dude. But anyways, Chad kicks him in the face in retaliation, much to our delight, and the single greatest fight of all time begins. It’s JCVD versus JCVD in an all out Battle Royale. But disappointingly, it only last a few moments before Frank comes in a breaks it up. But when Frank dismisses Alex being completely fucking insane as being a mere result of simply being drunk, Alex compounds his position by saying:

Alex: “Maybe I’m drunk. Tomorrow I’ll be sober. But he’ll always be a faggot.”

Wow. Seriously? I’m actually supposed to want this guy to not trip and fall penis first into a wood chipper? Anyways, the scene ends with both brothers huffing and puffing indignantly and in equally retarded fashions before going their separate ways. Alex gives a rant about no one being there for him when he was on the streets while Chad runs into the black of night, swearing that he’s going to swim back to LA.

Exhibit E: Van Dammes! Merge To Become…Useless-Tit-icon!

That's right, Mr. Lehey. Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles are running the trailer park while you're here. What do you think of that?

The next morning both brothers wake up from having slept outside at various distances away from the hotel and look over just in time to see Kara and Zhang sending a battalion of guerilla solders to storm their fortress. But before they can join in the fight, Frank and Danielle are captured and taken away in a helicopter, leaving only a handful of soldiers, or fodder if you will, behind to patrol the area. Of course Chad and Alex make short work of those poor bastards, dealing with them swiftly as the helicopter carrying their captured comrades arrives at a shipping yard. Once they eventually meet, the brothers interrogate the sole survivor of their wrath, grilling him for the location that Zhang has fled to, while Zhang and Griffiths likewise torture Frank by beating on him and blasting him with steam, more for fun than for gathering information of any kind.

With that, we’ve once again reached that very familiar part of the movie, the climactic final battle. It begins with the two JCVD’s sneaking onto the boat where Griffith and Zhang are hiding, stabbing and neck-breaking their way in. They slowly work their way down through the bowels of the freighter, eventually ending up in a firefight that alerts everyone to their presence. With the game now officially afoot, Griffith gets on an intercom and allows them to hear Frank scream like a little girl that they’re being held in the boiler room while being blasted with more steam. And just to up the ante, they go even further and fake shooting Frank over the intercom, which causes Chad to freak out, screaming like he’s just been violated by a hippopotamus before getting on an intercom himself, swearing to Griffiths that he’s dead. A series of very predictable scenes then follows, involving the brothers shooting random dudes before we finally end up with a series of mini-boss battles:

Mini-Boss 1 – Italian Karate Cowboy…Seriously: First up, Alex ends up fighting some this random Italian dude wearing a suit with spurs on his boots. They flip through semi-darkness like a couple of gymnasts on E, doing what I suppose is supposed to be some kind of fighting until finally Alex beats him to death. Short, sweet, pointless.

The not-quite-so-ultimate opponent: a greasy Italian in a cheap suit.

Chong Li's attempts at intimidation might have been taken a little more seriously had someone not told him the world's most hilarious knock knock joke only moments earlier.

Mini-Boss 2 – Bloodsport II: The second fight is a rematch of an epic battle from a previous film, as Chad fights Chong Li. If he beats him after having dust thrown in his eyes again, I might just shit my pants laughing. But instead, the fight begins with Chong Li wasting a lot of energy by throwing heavy barrels at Chad, like some kind of shitty version of Donkey Kong, until Chad finally matches the stupidity by trying to stop a barrel that’s flying at him by kicking it, rather than just stepping out of the way. Chong Li then pins Chad to the ground with a barrel and tries to squish him while smiling like a rapist. Eventually Chad escapes and they slowly make their way into another room where, after ripping Chad’s shirt off, Chong Li takes his own off before giving a dramatically goofy flex pose. They finally begin an actual martial arts battle which at best could be described as very uninspired, before Chad finally unleashes a remarkable 6 straight flying splits kicks, causing Chong Li to fly into an open electrical panel (Looks like Blombo’s been working on that site). But not only is Chong Li is electrocuted, but sparks also fly as he falls to the floor, lighting a random trail of fuel that leads back to barrels of what one has to guess is pure gasoline. Realizing that he’s standing in the middle of this field of barrels, JCVD gives us the classic run and jump slow-mo scene, diving away from the fire even though it should have still enveloped him.

Despite Chong Li trying to sell it like it has already knocked out four teeth, there's no way this kick could actually hit him. And nice junk shot, by the way.

Mini-Boss 3 – She-male Of Doom: After Chad’s explosion rips through the ship, Griffith gets a call advising that no one could have lived through that and that he should leave the ship immediately. Leaving Danielle and Frank alone with Kara and some random thug, he and Zhang do exactly that. But just as they leave, Alex wanders onto the scene, takes out the random thug, before giving his woman-beating tendencies free reign by engaging in a vicious fight against Kara. The greatest moment of the fight comes when at one point Kara, for reasons I’ll never know, grabs him by the cock. She doesn’t punch him in it, mind you. Just grabs it, which means that both female leads in this movie have been forced to touch his junk. And I have to totally believe that was JCVD’s idea when it came to the script. You can almost hear it in your head, can’t you? “Let’s have her touch my dick. No, no reason. I just want her to touch my dick. Now agree with me before I make you touch my dick. That’s what I thought. Hurray for my dick!” But anyways, eventually Alex stabs her with a knife that she produces, killing her just as Chad appears.

Final Bosses – A Battle Against Utter Disappointment: With everyone else dead, Griffith and Zhang try their best to flee the boat while the brothers take off in hot pursuit. As one would guess, since there are two brothers and two villains, they end up splitting up and each following a nemesis of their own. Alex races off after Zhang, for some reason leaving Danielle alone with Chad as they run after Griffith. When they eventually catch up to their prey, the fights involving both brothers are horribly, horribly uninteresting. First, Chad and Danielle follow Griffith into an area tightly packed shipping containers. They lose him, and eventually slowly walk into a small dead end. As they wonder what to do, Griffith fires up a forklift behind them and slowly begins to drive towards them while carrying a cargo container above their heads. With nowhere to go, all Chad can do is stuff Danielle into the one tiny hole between two of the containers that make up a side wall before running away and diving into the water behind him. Griffith then decides that the best thing to do is get down and stand by the water, firing his gun randomly into the water. But even better than this idiocy is that Chad then suddenly appears back at the controls of the forklift behind him. How the fuck he got up there, the movie doesn’t say. We’ll just say that he was picked up and flown there by a unicorn, because it makes as much sense as any other explanation. Just as Griffith turns and realizes his impending doom, Chad delivers on the anticipated disaster by dropping the container on him.

While all this is going on, Zhang and Alex end up at the top of a massive industrial crane, because yeah, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to climb up a couple of stories to an area where you can’t possibly escape when you’re being chased by someone determined to kill you? Once they both arrive at the top, Zhang blows a fire extinguisher in Alex’s face, temporarily blinding him while pulling a sword out of his cane. Remember how I said I’d laugh until I shit if Van Damme got blinded? Well, let’s just say I’ve got some laundry to do. This seems like a guaranteed death of Alex, but those of us who have seen Bloodsport know that JCVD’s no stranger to blind fighting, so no one is surprised when Alex doesn’t so much as hesitate to kick the shit out of Zhang until finally forcing his sword arm into a couple of industrial gears. And while basic brain function would dictate that his arms would be crushed flat or ripped off, this actually does little more than leave him with a bloody appendage. But regardless, it’s enough to neutralize the old man, leaving him to beg Alex to make a deal. The rebuttal, of course, comes in the form of Alex dropping Zhang over the side to his plummeting death.

I can't think of a shot to end the movie on that will haunt my dreams more.

And that, as they say, is that. With all the villains dead and everything right in the world, JCVD and JCVD meet up again, sharing a sweet face to face while forcing the blue screen budget of this movie into overdrive, before locking into a death grip hug of awesomeness that would put a grizzly to shame. Danielle and Frank both join them, of course, and as Alex embraces his girlfriend – a distant second on his romantic priority list behind fondling himself – they all share smiles. But while all this is so sickeningly sweet that it could only be reproduced with a few tons of high-fructose corn syrup, the real icing on the cake comes seconds later when Chad gives Alex the okay sign and it freezes on that to the sound of gunfire. FUCK YEAH.

Once again, I stand corrected.

The Verdict:

Donkey: The very basis for this entire film is astounding. They’re fighting to regain what was stolen from them…and it’s a goddamn tunnel? I don’t think anyone who was involved with making this movie has any idea how public utilities actually work. No private citizen or business can own a goddamn traffic tunnel in a civilized country. That’s simply not possible, or some eccentric CEO could just decide one day to cut off all access for no particular reason other than dancing in his own shit while singing Rebel Yell and proving that he’s goddamn insane. And even if you could actually own a tunnel, who the fuck would want it? Do you know how high the tolls on that motherfucker would have to be before you even made any money back? Those things aren’t exactly cheap to construct, so unless you’re charging $1,000 per car, you’re not going to see a profit for decades. I can’t wait for a sequel, where the brothers Van Damme battle an evil mastermind who has seized control of a municipal sewage processing plant. Everything about this movie is deliciously ridiculous, save the fighting itself which is rather disappointing. None of them felt epic, or able to stand up next to fighting a tiger before blocking an inferno with a Coke machine, if you will. I give this movie four cases of ball cleavage out of five silky junk grabs.

What We Learned:

Donkey: If JCVD were to be forced to imagine it, the only man that he could imagine a woman cheating on him with is him. I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s sounds just about right.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Sam Raimi’s first horrifyingly terrible contribution to the genre of superhero action movies, but certainly not the last, in…DARKMAN.

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