Tag: SF

Nemesis 4

  By

★★★
“Bizarre, ultra-cheap, post-apocalypse fetish film for body-building fans.”

Though the lead actress, body-builder Sue Price, looks nothing like the cover pic (right), credit is due for choosing someone who defies conventional standards of female beauty. However, take all the points away, and then some, for pretending she does; having her spend half the film naked is something both Chris and I could very easily have lived without. She is, frankly, scary. That’s a shame, as while the budget here was obviously tiny, it’s put (mostly) to good use, with an interesting script.

The year is 2080, and Alex (Price) is a cyborg assassin on the verge of burn-out. When she kills the son of a mob boss on her final mission, she becomes the target – knowing escape is futile, she waits, tormented by visions of the Angel of Death. It’s all very talky, but is brisk enough to keep you occupied, and the location (my guess is somewhere in Slovakia) is great, a bombed-out, deserted city that’s very eerie. Also impressive is the freaky cyborg-sex, all orifices and mechanical devices, as if David Cronenberg was assistant director.

However, there’s no justification for Alex taking her clothes off every five minutes, except perhaps the nasty spikes that come out of her chest, which is slim excuse indeed. There’s also the lamest helicopter explosion I’ve seen, and huge amounts of irrelevant footage from (presumably) Nemesis 3, to get the running time up to 80 minutes. Still, this could have been a small gem, if only Price had stayed dressed – the cheapness often works for it. Just expect no action extravaganza, more a philosophical rumination on life and death. Albeit with lumpy breasts.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star:

Sue Price, Blanka Copikova, Andrew Divoff, Michal Gucík

Aeon Flux (animation)

  By

★★★★
“State of flux”

Difficult though it may be to credit, especially for younger readers, there was a time when watching MTV could actually be interesting occasionally, back in the days when the station had its own animation division. The best-known product to seep out was Beavis and Butthead, but more interesting was Aeon Flux, perhaps the most dense and impenetrable animated series to reach a wide audience – even if the general reaction was “Eh?”

It debuted as part of Liquid Television, and right from the start, makes an impression with its lack of dialogue, weird design and astonishingly high body-count. The first series of mini-eps depicted the mission of an apparent secret agent, Aeon Flux, who comes within moments of solving the case of a mysterious epidemic, only to meet an untimely death. Undaunted, the second series had a variety of cases, whose only real linking theme was the repeated untimely death of Aeon.

aeonanThen MTV commissioned some 25-minute episodes, and things inevitably started to mutate. The characters started to speak (gasp!), but anyone who thought this meant it would become easy to understand was in for a shock – if anything, it added an extra new dimension of complexity. More of the setting was exposed: two countries, Monica and Bregna, of opposite character and once united, but now in perpetual tension. Extra characters were added, most notably Trevor Goodchild, the Breen leader, whose relationship with Aeon (a Monican “agent”?) is perhaps the central focus of the series.

“What I was trying to go for was a kind of ambivalence.” So said creator Peter Chung, and as ambivalence goes, there’s little doubt he succeeded – rarely has a show hidden its light quite as effectively. Very little is laid out for easy consumption, and each episode repays, and indeed demands, repeat viewings. Every action and line of dialogue sometimes seems to have multiple meanings.

If it has a weakness, it is perhaps too obscurist, and you wonder whether the show is quite as deep as it wants you to think. In addition, there are parts which, however stylish, just don’t seem to make sense. But Aeon is a fabulous character, who in the words of Chung, “is not someone who reacts to things. She makes things happen…she’s a force for change as opposed to the status quo”, and the combination of intelligence and malevolent brute force is immensely appealing. Chung again: “I think it’s undeniable that there’s a certain glamour or a certain seductive power of violence on film. Her whole design and the way she looks, the way she moves is engineered purely to evoke that attraction.”

A feature version of Aeon Flux has occasionally been hinted at (Liz Hurley would seem a leading candidate for any live-action version!), but at the moment seems somewhat unlikely, especially with MTV having now folded their Animation Division. Chung has moved on too, first to work on Phantom 2040, whose characters are clearly cut from the same cloth, in their spidery style, and then off to the Far East, for an animated series based on the life of, I kid you not, Alexander the Great. Whether anything created in his future will be as memorable, intense and downright impenetrable as Aeon Flux is surely in doubt.

Creator: Peter Chung
Star: (voice) Denise Poirier, John Rafter Lee

Barb Wire

  By

barb1★★★★
“Play it again, Pam…”

When I picked up this DVD, I could hear Chris rolling her eyes at me. And during the first five minutes of the movie – which consists of virtually nothing but Pam on a swing, getting sprayed with a fire-hose, silicone on display – this eye-rolling escalated to the point where I swear I could hear them whirring like the reels on a slot-machine. But by the end, even she had to admit that being a titty-fest – and there’s hardly a scene here without cleavage – doesn’t necessarily make this a bad movie…

For this is nowhere near as bad as its Gigli-like reputation would have you believe. Okay, for $18m, you might expect a bit more than a post-Mad Max setting, and you would certainly expect more from your screenwriter than a blatant steal from Casablanca – Ilene Chaiken should be drummed out of the WGA for claiming a story credit here. But this is an adaptation of a comic-book, starring Pamela Anderson (Lee, as she was then known): what do you expect? I venture to suggest that, if I was 15, this would probably be the greatest story ever told.

Barb Wire runs a club called the Hammerhead in Steel Harbour, one of the last bastions of freedom in 2017 America, where a civil war is ongoing. She funds the club by catching bail-jumpers and rescuing kidnap victims (inevitably, posing as a stripper or hooker), and has to deal with all sides to keep the venue open. But when her former lover Axel (Morrison) turns up, with his new wife, who desperately needs out, her position on the fence suddenly becomes untenable, and she has to choose which side she’s really on.

For those who know Casablanca, almost every element appears in that Bogart classic:

Element Casablanca Barb Wire
Setting Casablanca Steel Harbor
Era World War Two Second American Civil War
Enemy Nazis Congressional Directorate
Hero Rick Blaine Barb Wire
[A cynical expatriate who owns a bar and plays both sides]
Former lover Ilsa Axel
Now wedded to Victor Laszlo Cora D
Who needs… Exit visas Contact lenses
[Which let the bearer escape to safety]
Location Rick’s Bar The Hammerhead
Head Waiter Carl Curly
Chief Villain Major Strasser Colonel Pryzer
Top Cop Louis Renault Alexander Willis
Slimy dealer Guillermo Ugarte Schmitz
Mr. Big Signor Ferrari Big Fatso

About the only new facet is Barb’s blind brother (Noseworthy) – it’s a shame he doesn’t play the piano, though he does act as Barb’s conscience. This concept, turning one of the most beloved Hollywood films of all time into a post-apocalyptic cheesecake-fest, is worth the price of admission alone, simply for its surrealness and sheer audacity. What next? Britney Spears as the lead in a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life?

While one might question Pam’s acting talents, she is backed by a sterling cast of character actors: Steve Railsback, Xander Berkeley, Clint Howard, Udo Kier and Temuera Morrison. Each one hits the mark in their role, delivering lines with the correct level of enthusiasm. Kier, as usual, steals the show (his presence definitely helped soothe Chris’s eye-rolling), though Berkeley’s sleazy cop is perhaps the biggest surprise, especially if you’re only familiar with him as Jack Bauer’s boss in the first two seasons of 24.

Credit should also go to Debbie Evans, Anderson’s stunt double, since it’s fairly obvious that Anderson, while having an undeniable presence (albeit a presence severely diluted whenever she opens her mouth for more than a one-liner – not that this ever stopped Van Damme, Stallone, or even Governor Arnie), is not doing her own stunts. Despite this, the action in the movie is well above-average, with some really cool explosions and fights, notably Axel’s battle a long way off the ground.

Certainly, Barb’s psychotic opposition to being called “babe” seems somewhat hypocritical given how she dresses. And really, despite the, ahem, “inspiration”, the plotting is a lot less fluid than you’d hope, with scenes that come out of and/or go nowhere. Just keep an eye on the contact lenses – alternatively, a familiarity with Casablanca will help you keep things straight and ignore the irrelevant threads.

I admit, you could argue the entire story is irrelevant, and this is nothing more than an indefensible cocktail of eroticized violence. But those who live in such a moral vacuum as to require Hollywood to fill in the gaps, have got much bigger problems than Pamela Anderson’s breasts. If you can get past the first five minutes (which even I will say seem a lot longer), there’s no denying the effort expended here – albeit mostly on sex and violence, aimed at the lizard section of the viewer’s brain.

Yet curiously, actual sex doesn’t seem to take place in this universe at all, having apparently been replaced by tight-fitting costumes: claiming it’s a comment on life in a post-AIDS world is likely more credit than it deserves. Still, probably not a date movie (except in our house!), for this is trash, with hardly a thought in its vapid little head or 17-inch waist, and no agenda worth mentioning. Film doesn’t always need to be great art, any more than music; reprising the Britney motif, Barb Wire is equivalent to something like Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Perhaps the best comment comes from the Screen It website of parental reviews: “Topics to talk about – none”. There are times when this is a glowing recommendation for a movie, and at those times (probably a late weekend night, with a well-stocked fridge), Barb Wire fits the bill admirably.

Dir: David Hogan
Star: Pamela Anderson, Steve Railsback, Temuera Morrison, Jack Noseworthy

The Powerpuff Girls

  By

★★★★½
“Pre-school superheroines kick serious tongue-in-cheek butt.”

This sprang virtually fully-formed from the twisted mind of McCracken back in 1992, as a student film: even then, he intended it as a series, with most the characters, both heroines and villains, already present. The main change was to the title, the Cartoon Network balking at presenting a show called The Whoop-Ass Girls, and so the “can of whoop-ass” which was originally part of their make-up, was replaced by Chemical X.

The heroines number three: Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, attendees at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten who just happen to have amazing superpowers – flying, laser-eye beams, incredible strength, you know the sort of thing. Each episode sees them take on a monster which threatens to destroy their home city of Townsville, or a diabolical plot by the likes of Mojo Jojo, super-intelligent simian who is perhaps their most common foe. There’s never any doubt over the outcome; the PPGs will win, and (no matter what the title says) there will be large quantities of animated whoop-ass.

Yet despite this predictability in the plot, the series continues to amaze and delight, with great characters on both sides of the law, fantastic imagination, and fabulous lines like, “The Bubbles you know is dead – I’m HARDCORE now…”. Plus there’s a whole series of riffs on pop-culture – what cartoon show would do a shot-for-shot remake of a scene from The Big Lebowski…just because? It also manages to be moral without being overly preachy, and has retained its sense of the absurd throughout. If there’s a weakness, it’s the same as any episodic show: some eps work better than others, and there are certainly dull moments. But when on-form – which is more often than not – there isn’t a more enjoyable 22 minutes of television to be seen.

Creator: Craig McCracken
Star: Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong, E.G.Daily, Roger L. Jackson

Convict 762

  By

★½
“In space, no-one can hear you dream…”

A good idea – even if one borrowed about equally from Pitch Black and Aliens – gets sucked into the void and drained of all life, thanks to some of the most turgid direction imaginable. A ship with an all-female crew has to land on a prison planet for fuel, but finds only two people left. Which is the mass murderer? Can they find out before they get picked off, one by one…?

It’s a premise with promise, but all the opportunities for tension get thrown away so badly, that the end result is simply dull and plodding. One example will suffice – when they’re exploring the planet, the guard left on board is attacked. Rather than rush to her rescue, in a thrilling race against time, the rest of the crew stroll back at a leisurely pace, all but pausing to admire the scenery. I fell asleep: not once, but three times…

On the plus side – and I confess to struggling here – it’s nice how the fully female crew is not deemed worthy of comment, nor is it exploited in obvious fashion. The actors do what they can, but Drago is such a scenery-chewing psycho, he’s either the world’s most obvious murderer, or the world’s most obvious red herring, and neither would come as any surprise. Let’s lay the blame for this one firmly at the door of Bercovici and sell the tape quickly on Ebay, before anyone sees this review.

Dir: Luca Bercovici
Star: Shannon Sturges, Billy Drago, Frank Zagorino

Alien Blood

  By

★★
“Aliens? Vampires? Scenery? Horrible start wrecks this strange genre hybrid.”

After thirty minutes, I was toying with the idea of giving this the first ever 0 star rating. On that basis, eventually creeping up to two counts as something of a miraculous recovery. The heroine is an alien, transporting her child across the English countryside, while being pursued by white-masked hunters. There is almost no dialogue, which is so obviously a penny-pinching device it hurts – the video stock and woeful “martial arts” don’t help.

She takes refuge in a house, and that’s where things start to perk up, as it’s occupied by a group of vampires – albeit really wimpy ones with no apparent powers, even “Dracula”, who’s there too. A siege then begins, with vampires and alien teaming up against the human attackers, before…well, let’s just say you can tell from the finale that the director’s background is in FX. There’s some effective gore, and the vampire girls (rapidly abandoned by their malefolk) strip to their lingerie for no readily apparent reason, save to fire off automatic weapons. Though must say that the cast is perhaps the ugliest ever assembled for a motion picture.

It’s a nice idea, which could have been so much better. Imagine the humans’ shock, if they found out who they’re facing. Maybe the vampires were aliens too, just from a different planet. The unexplored possibilities are almost endless, and speculating on them will provide a good chunk of the entertainment value to be found here.

Dir: Jon Sorenson
Star: Francesca Manning, Glyn Whiteside, Vanessa Stevens, Catherine Whitaker

Bubblegum Crisis

  By

★★★
“Hardsuits, rogue mecha and day jobs.”

Worthy of note as one of the first pieces of anime made available to an English-speaking audience, (not long after its original 1985 Japanese release), BGC is set in 2032, when Tokyo has been rebuilt, post-earthquake. The Genom corporation are fiddling with Boomers, biomechanical robots of immense strength but with a nasty tendency to run amok. Standing guard are a mysterious team, the Knight Sabers, with their own technological strengths, who alternate between merc work and more altruistic concerns.

Any similarity to Blade Runner is entirely deliberate; the heroine is called Priss, and sings with a band called The Replicants. She, and her three colleagues (Nene, Linna, and Sylia) moonlight from their various day-jobs as the Knight Sabers, each with their own special abilities. The eight episodes in the series combine multiple plot arcs and standalone stories, with mixed effectiveness, though the later ones tend to work better. There’s not much background on the characters, save Sylia, and a tendency to gallop through towards the final fight in a number of the OAVs. There’s a lot of emphasis on the music, but I’m no J-Pop fan, so they needn’t have bothered.

The animation looks a little creaky now, as you’d expect from a show of its age, but also seems to improve as the series progresses – the artists learn what works and what doesn’t. I confess to preferring secondary characters such as Nene, to supposed heroine Priss; when we get to see their lives (as in #8, which has Nene acting as “babysitter” to a teenage girl on a quest to photograph the Sabers), it’s a more fully satisfying experience. Followed by two sequels, Bubblegum Crash and Bubblegum Crisis 2040.

Dir: Various
Star (voice): Kinuko Ohmori, Akiko Hiramatsu, Michie Tomizawa

Steel and Lace

  By

★★★
“Rape, revenge and robots, cheap and cheerful.”

Inside ten minutes, we’ve had heroine Gaily Morton (Wren) raped and her attackers acquitted in court, not to mention her subsequent leap off a roof-top to her death – this isn’t a film which hangs around, boys and girls. Luckily, her brother is a NASA boffin (Davison – you might recognise him as the Senator from X-Men), who builds a robot in her image, in order to wreak gory revenge on the perpetrators five years later. Cleaning up behind are a cop (Naughton) and his ex-girlfriend, a courtroom artist (Haiduk) who joins the dots.

This was a notch or two better than I expected, with Wren managing to bring a surprising degree of emotion to her role as the robo-revenger. Despite obviously not being a large budget movie, most of the deaths are impressive (one meriting a spontaneous round of applause from the GWG viewing panel) and the android effects are decently realised. The plot holds few surprises – actually, the count probably falls short of two; while that one certainly nailed me, Chris did spot it – though the whole brother/sister thing had a nice, creepy and unhealthy edge.

If the main plot works, the cop/courtroom artist thing doesn’t, and the two characters are largely superfluous. There’s no chemistry to speak of, and their sole purpose appears to be occupying screen time between the killings. When they’re on screen, the movie dies – yet much like the heroine, it keeps coming back, until the perfectly executed ending which is sudden, memorable and fitting.

Dir: Ernest Farino
Star: Clare Wren, Bruce Davison, David Naughton, Stacy Haiduk

Avalon

  By

★★★
“Infuriatingly uneven cyberworld pic: looks great, but loses its way far too often.”

While this is live-action, Oshii is best known for his anime work, such as Ghost in the Shell. That also had an action heroine, great visual style and lost its way in philosophical navel-gazing. There, it was the nature of self – here, it’s the nature of reality. Set in Poland, which may be a first for a Japanese film, the heroine, Ash (Foremniak), is addicted to an illegal computer game called Avalon. When she hears about the existence of a special level in it, she’ll stop at nothing to find the entrance. But, for her, the line between life and pastime is becoming more and more blurred…

It’s a fabulous concept, and the virtual world is realised beautifully, with CGI that are carefully made to look like CGI. There are any number of cool touches, such as how the only people in Ash’s “real life” who move are animals and other players – everyone else is frozen in place. But the tedium of her real life is hammered home to such an extent that it becomes every bit as dull to the viewer, as it is to her. Worse still, the final confrontation is interrupted by lengthy, pointless shots of an orchestra playing portentous classical music; what could, and should, be a gripping climax is brought to a grinding halt.

Still not quite convinced it completely makes sense, with a lot of unanswered questions at the end, some of them significant: suspect David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ covered similar ground with much more confidence. However, even if Oshii needs to exercise tighter control on scripting, this is probably still worth a look, purely for the eye-candy of the game sequences.

Dir: Mamoru Oshii
Star: Malgorzata Foremniak, Wladyslaw Kowalski, Jerzy Gudejko, Dariusz Biskupski

Fatal Conflict

  By

★★★
“Die Hard in space – no ifs or ands, though plenty of butts…”

Wuhrer plays Sasha, a space pilot coerced into attempting to stop a rocket, hijacked by evil emerald dealer Conrad Nash (Rossi) and his creepily incestuous sister Carla (Rubin), from ploughing into LA. The proper pilot (O’Keefe) provides assistance, with much running around corridors and plunging into a glycerine tank. Yes, glycerine: a feeble excuse to give our heroine the wettest T-shirt of all time. Between this and the “ass panning” (as Chris described Simandl’s fondness for shooting at waist level), it seems disturbingly fetishistic, though a large chunk is due to footage spliced in from another movie – see Jolly Roper’s review for full details. Hack out all that stuff, and you’ve got a serviceable little movie in the Die Hard vein, with the cast doing surprisingly well. Wuhrer, Rossi and Rubin are all interesting to watch, and are entirely responsible for this being half-decent.

Well, I thought it wasn’t bad – Chris, in her regular role as voice of sanity, pointed out several gaping plot holes. Not least, when Sasha gets the drop on the villain, she doesn’t simply kill him, but embarks on a convoluted plot to con him into believing she’s an escaped prisoner. This was perhaps to justify earlier jail footage, large chunks of which also look suspiciously like they came from somewhere else. If I’d watched these other movies, I’d probably feel significantly more cheated – as is, it gets the benefit of first sight and so proves an acceptable time passer. If all else fails, start the drinking game where you take a swig for every gratuitous buttock shot. Unconsciousness will soon be upon you.

Dir: Lloyd Simandl
Star: Kari Wuhrer, Leo Rossi, Miles O’Keefe, Jennifer Rubin