Tag: USA

300: Rise of an Empire

  By

★★★★
“Faster than Greece-d lightning.”

300riseaI’m going out on a limb here, and predicting that Eva Green is going to be the next great action heroine. She seems very taken by strong female characters, from Morgan Le Fay in Camelot, through Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful, and we recently noted her contribution to the marketing for Sin City 2. But this was unexpected. We watched it, purely because we saw and enjoyed the original film, and didn’t expect this one to come anywhere near qualifying for the site. I mean, we were aware of Artemisia – almost a decade ago, Brian wrote a piece for the site, detailing why she’d be a good subject for a movie. However, we were expecting this to be an entirely macho film, likely bordering on the homoerotic, as mercilessly parodied in Meet the Spartans. We certainly didn’t expect her to be so pivotal to this sequel.

Well, technically, it’s neither sequel nor prequel to 300; it’s more of a companion piece, depicting events elsewhere around the same time, and focusing on the naval battle between the Persian forces, nominally under Xerxes (Santo), and the Greek ones of Themistocles (Stapleton). In an earlier encounter, Themistocles killed Darius, Xerxes’s father, which sent Xerxes off the deep end – carefully shepherded there by Artemisia (Green). She is a Greek citizen whose family was slaughtered by their soldiers when she was young, with her being subject to years of horrific abuse. Left for dead, she was rescued by Persians, switched sides and rose through the ranks, now seeing in Xerxes a chance to extract retribution on her former nation. Unlike Xerxes, who was portrayed in the original as Caligula with muscles, Artemisia is smart and resourceful, not making the mistake of under-estimating the Greeks in general, and Themistocles in particular. Indeed, as far as we are concerned, she was much more interesting than the hero, particularly in terms of back-story. She also kicks serious ass, both with a bow and her pair of swords.

As far as general film-making goes, this seems to have built on Spartacus, in much the same way that Spartacus built on the original 300. Indeed, there’s a fairly explicit nod to it, in the casting of Peter Mensah as Artemisia’s trainer, a similar role to the one he played in Spartacus. This means lots of slow-motion and buckets of digital gore, which seems to hit the camera lens more often than it hits anywhere else. It also perhaps means playing faster and looser with history: neither Darius’s death nor Artemisia’s fate are as depicted in the movie. But, hey, when facts conflict with drama, it makes cinematic sense for the former to give way. If what you have here occasionally topples over into video-game style, it rarely looks less than lovely, and if Artemisia wasn’t enough, we get a bonus action heroine at the end, as Queen Gorgo (Headey), leads the Spartan reinforcements into action. Now, will someone please give Green a full-on starring role in which she can kick butt, and tell me where I go to sign up?

Dir: Noam Murro
Star: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Rodrigo Santoro, Lena Headey

Nurse 3D

  By

★★★½
“A hot mess. And de la Huerta is not bad either.”

Nurse 3D“My name is Abigail Russell. I look like a slut, but don’t be fooled—this is merely a disguise to lure the dangerous predators who walk among us. This is their jungle, their breeding ground, and tonight I am on the hunt. These are the cheaters, the married, lying scum. They are like diseased cells cultured in alcoholic petri dishes that destroy unsuspecting families and infect millions of innocent vaginas. There is no cure for the married cock—only me, the nurse.”

Even Lionsgate didn’t know what to do with this, the film sitting on the shelf for about two years, before being quickly released without much fanfare. And, to be honest, you can see why, because it’s the kind of lurid, nonsensical trash that gives real cinema a bad name. As such, we naturally adored it. As the introductory monologue above should make clear, Abigail Russell (de la Huerta) is an angel of vengeance, who prowls the streets looking for cheating husbands, luring them in, and then wiping them out. She does so, believing she is saving their families from finding out the terrible truth. In reality, she is a nurse who is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, and when the colleague (Bowden) she is supposed to mentoring spurns Abigail’s friendship, in favour of a man, she sets out to destroy the perceived betrayer’s life.

de la Huerta is perfect, combining a body to die for, with a face best described, with my usual literary eloquence as “kinda weird.” Imagine an alien imitating a human being and you’ll be in the right area; that apples to the way she speaks too, which seems – and I’m fairly sure this is entirely deliberate – as if heavily drugged. Combine this off-kilter central performance with some of the ripest dialogue spat out by a character since Joe Eszterhas was in his prime, plus stylistic comic-book depiction by the second-unit director of Resident Evil: Extinction, and you’ll be in the right area as far as knowing what to expect. But it goes above and beyond in just about every area, although this is something of a mixed blessing: the most interesting stuff is Abigail’s predatory lifestyle, which is genuinely unusual and disturbing (for any male, at least; Chris spent much of this section nodding her head in approval!). When it turns into a remake of Single White Female for the middle portion, things becomes over-familiar, and de la Huerta just doesn’t have the same acting chops as Jennifer Jason Leigh. [Not that many actresses do]

Things perk up nicely for a grand guignol finale, which sees Abigail roaming the corridors of the hospital, dispatching anyone who gets in her way, and even some who don’t, with manic abandon. Naturally, as with all good horror, it ends with a set-up for a potential sequel, and it’s one we wouldn’t mind seeing. In a genre where all the icons are male, e.g. Freddy, Jason, Pinhead, etc. Nurse Abigail Russell is potentially the most interesting female candidate for some time. And while I can certainly see why this isn’t for all tastes – indeed, “taste” is about the least applicable word for this – we appreciated its clearly satirical intent and were happy to go along for the ride.

Dir: Doug Aarniokoski
Star: Paz de la Huerta, Katrina Bowden, Corbin Bleu, Boris Kodjoe

"My name is Abigail Russell. I look like a slut, but don't be fooled—this is merely a disguise to lure the dangerous predators who walk among us. "
nurse3dc
nurse3dd
nurse3de
nurse3df
nurse3dg
nurse3dh
nurse3di
nurse3dj
nurse3dk

Checkmate

  By

★
“Obscure, and justifiably so.”

checkmateYou know a film is rare when the IMDB is using a photo from a completely different movie with the same name to illustrate it – at least, unless Cynthia Rothrock has had a sex-change, got a tan and changed her name to Lawrence Fishburne. I’ve gone for the Netherlands title here, because most of the copies floating around the usual sources seem to be from that. It reminds me a little bit of First Shot, which was also about psycho militia leader, Dutch Leonard (Nichols). seeking revenge on a federal agent, Kate Mason (Rothrock), whom he blames for the death of his brother. It’s FBI rather than Secret Service, and for obvious reasons, Rothrock is a good deal more hands-on than Hemingway. But that’s about the only advantage this offers, as it’s yet more evidence for the increasingly inalienable rule concerning Cynthia Rothrock films: the American ones suck. The fact that this one is not more easily available is perfectly understandable, because if I owned a distribution company, I wouldn’t release it if they were giving the rights away.

The main problem here is Nichols, who looks a bit like a low-rent version of Roddy Piper, and whose performance is so cringe-inducingly bad, you’ll be left yearning for Piper’s subtle, underplayed dramatic style. And I don’t even mean yearning for Piper in the classic They Live, but for the Piper who cut promos for the WWF, when his performance basically consisted of yelling a lot. On the plus side, Nichols does at least make an impression, and you will remember him, even if the impression is mostly, “Christ, this is terrible.” The rest of the film is almost completely forgettable: Cynthia does deliver her usual competence in the fight scenes, but there aren’t enough of them, and the garbage which flows between them is more than enough to drown out any positives. The problems start early, with the fake situation Leonard initially uses to draw out his target. Despite hostages and a large quantity of automatic weapons, the poverty-row budget means the federal presence at the siege reaches single figures. And this is after Ruby Ridge; we know this, because it’s explicitly referenced more than once. I’m guessing it inspired the whole “white rights’ militia” villain.

There’s a whole subsequent subplot involving a local judge, who is in cahoots with Dutch, and using the profits of their gun-running business to fund his gubernatorial campaign. It’s no more interesting than the main storyline, and every moment spent there is a moment wasted, since it could be used for better things, such as Cynthia Rothrock kicking some additional ass. Or simply removing it entirely and shorten the film, which would probably be even more welcome.

Dir: Nicholas Celozzi
Star: Cynthia Rothrock, Stephen Nichols, Patrick Wayne, Alex Hyde-White
a.k.a. Deep Cover

Monika: A Wrong Way to Die

  By

★★½
“She spits on your grave.”

monikaI’m still in two minds as to whether the ending here is utter genius, or the worst cop-out since the entire seventh series of Dallas turned out to be a dream. You could argue a case for either, and I could see your point. On the one hand, there’s a case it renders the previous 80 minutes irrelevant. On the other, it’s also a mindbending twist, which deserves points for sheer audacity, and going to that well, not once but twice. However, the main problem is a central character who is a good deal less interesting than the femme fatale after whom the film is named.

Reagan (Wiles) heads to Vegas after his pal Double (C. Thomas Howell) sends him a pic of the titular hot chick, and tells him she is keen to hook up. On arrival, Reagan doesn’t find his friend; however, he does find Monika (Vincent), and a night of drinking, dancing and making the double-backed armadillo follows. The next morning, she’s gone, and when Reagan meets Double, he’s in for a shock, because he learns that Monika had, apparently, been gunned down the night before. She was the victim of Terry Joe (Branson), a local drug dealer from whom she had stolen a large sum of money, putting him in deep trouble with his boss, Eli (Howard). So, what the hell is going on here? We know that Reagan claims to have “visions,” which sometimes can be premonitions of future events? Is that what he’s seeing? Or is there an alternative explanation, which may or may not be more prosaic?

This isn’t Monroe’s first stab at the action heroine genre. He also gave us It Waits, which I summed up with the pithy, “It sucks.” This isn’t as bad, so I guess he has made some progress over the intervening seven years. There are some interesting aspects to be found and appreciated here, even things which don’t have any significant impact on the plot. For instance, Eli is actually English, but puts on a faux American accent some of the time. Why? It’s never explained, and that’s half the joy. Monika herself is also a fine creation, battling her way through Terry Joe and his minions , with an eye for style and no real regard for her own personal safety. Either of these would have made for a better focus than Reagan, who is very much reactive, rather than pro-active. By which I mean, he responds to the narrative as it unfolds, rather than driving it, and thus makes for an unsatisfying central character. Reagan seems to exist solely to execute the final twists, serving little or no other purpose, and I also have to agree with other reviewers, who have criticized the dialogue as clumsy and poorly-written. Overall, it just about passes muster as a way to occupy the time, providing you’re in an undemanding mood. But I can’t guarantee you’ll be as tolerant of the ending as I was.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Star: Jason Wiles, Cerina Vincent, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard
a.k.a. MoniKa

Lady Street Fighter

  By

½
“Legitimately terrible, among the worst films I’ve ever seen.”

lady_street_fighterLet me start off by repeating myself, in case you missed it, because I want to be absolutely clear on these points. This is legitimately terrible. This is among the worst films I’ve ever seen. And I speak as someone with over 25 years of watching really bad films. That half-star is solely for amusement to be gathered from how bad this is, because there are basically no redeeming features here at all, and I speak as someone who will tolerate almost any pile of shit with an action heroine in it. This movie is largely responsible for the addition of the word “almost” to the previous sentence, despite being mercifully brief at a mere 72 minutes in length. The half-star is simply because I did reach the end without gnawing a limb off to escape. I think I deserve some kind of Internet prize for that.

The problems start with the lead actress, Harmon, who is barely intelligible in English, to the extent that in her conversations, you largely have to listen to whoever she’s speaking to, and try to figure out what she said from their responses. Her acting talents are almost non-existent. but are probably better than her martial arts skills, which… just aren’t. Gives mean celery fellatio, however. Trust me, you don’t want to know. She plays Linda Allen, flies into the movie to investigate the death of her sister, apparently killed by the villains because she had a stuffed toy containing incriminating information. Ok, let’s pause here for a disclaimer. Please take the word “apparently” as read for the rest of the review, because this film does such a godawful job of explaining things, I’m not prepared to vouch for the accuracy of any plot point. I’m not even sure from which decade this dates. The IMDb says 1985, but the fashions are pure seventies, and judging by the near-sampling, the soundtrack was written when The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was still in theaters.

Allen is in trouble almost as soon as she arrives, with someone trying to stop her, though their efforts to silence her are woefully inept. There’s FBI agent Rick Pollard (McCrea), who may be undercover, may be crooked, and has thing for our heroine; John Verdes, who runs an escort agency; and Max Diamond, who is into drugs as well as “harder things,” (specifically, has an assassin for hire business), and has a foot fetish which would make Quentin Tarantino snort derisively. He holds parties which are the height of 60’s/70’s/80’s/whatever decadence – except for the guys incessantly chanting “Toga! Toga! Toga!”, who appeared to be on loan from Delta Tau Chi. It’s kinda hypnotic, in a “passing a multiple pile-up” kinda way; you find yourself guiltily wondering what horrors will be present around the next bend. The same goes for most of the film as it evolves, and Linda makes her way up the chain to find the truth about her sister’s death, with the help or otherwise of Pollard – it appears she particularly needs help, when clambering over any barrier above knee-high.

Awful on every conceivable level, I was unsurprised to discover the director was also responsible for one of the worst horror movies of all time, Don’t Go in the Woods and also, The Executioner Part II, which likely rivals this one for title of worst action film of all time. Such a broad scope of diverse talent can only be admired. If you can admire it from a distance, without actually having to watch any of his work, so much the better.

Dir: James Bryan
Star: Renee Harmon, Joel D. McCrea

Joan Of Arc (1948)

  By

★★
“Joan of Talk”

joanofarcingridThis film’s origins as a stage play are painfully apparent, and you can also see why the distributor’s felt it needed to have 45 minutes cut out before it could be released, as frankly, it’s a bit of a bore. The battle to recapture Orleans is the only action of note here, even though that represented the start of the Maid’s campaign to restore France to its proper ruler (Ferrer), rather than the end. After that, this more or less skips forward to his coronation, then Joan’s capture, spending the rest of the movie – and there’s a lot of it – going through the trial, and the railroading of the heroine into, first throwing herself on the church’s mercy, then recanting her recantation and returning to wearing men’s clothes, thereby sealing her fate. There’s not much here which you won’t have seen before, if you’ve seen any of the other versions of the story, touching the usual bases from Joan’s revelations that she’s going to be the saviour of France, through her trip to see the Dauphin, and so on. It does downplay the “voices” aspect, especially early on, perhaps a wise move since it’s difficult to depict, without making her seem like a religious fruitcake.

The other problem I find is Bergman. It’s not so much her performance here, which is actually very good, and help hold the film up when things get particularly static: she hits her emotional marks well, and the Oscar nomination she received was not undeserved. However, she was solidly into her thirties by this point, probably close to twice the age of the actual Miss of Arc [hat-tip to Bill and Ted!]; there’s only so far make-up can go in taking years off someone. It does seem to have been a character to whom she related: she’s play the role again later, for Roberto Rossellini in Joan at the Stake, when she was nearly forty. The other problem is Bergman’s Scandinavian origins, which poke through her dialogue persistently, also damaging the illusion; it might have been fine in forties Hollywood, where one European accent was considered much the same as another, but now, it sounds too much Joan was a Swedish exchange student or au-pair – especially when she’s wearing her headsquare, and looks ready for a spot of light dusting.

But there’s no denying it looks the part, with production value seeping out of every frame – the Oscars this actually won, for cinematography and costume design, are hard to argue. However, there’s only so far this can take a film, along with Bergman glowing her way through her scenes, in such a way you could probably read a newspaper by her incandescence. That distance is considerably less than 145 minutes, and by the time this is over, you might find yourself guiltily cheering for her arrival at the stake, knowing this means the end is nigh.

Dir: Victor Fleming
Star: Ingrid Bergman, Francis L. Sullivan, José Ferrer, J. Carrol Naish

In the Blood

  By

★★★
“Definitely not produced in association with the Dominican Republic Tourist Board.”

inthebloodWhat? Gina Carano in another action flick? Why was I not informed of this? After all, Haywire was an undeniably impressive entry in the genre, featuring some of the crunchiest mayhem seen in a while. Throw in that this was directed by Stockwell, who directed the hidden gem, Cat Run, and my interest was thoroughly piqued. Sadly, this isn’t up to the level of either, though certainly has its moments. Carano plays Ava Grant, an ex-junkie who met her other half, Derek (Gigandet) at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, but whose murky past is clearly far beyond that of her husband. Ava’s father brought her up tough, and able to protect herself, basing her life on mantras such as, “Survivors have scars. Losers have funerals.” We see, in flashback, that she was an apt student.

Meanwhile, in the present day, she and Derek marry, despite the qualms of his father, who thinks she’s only after money, and honeymoon in the Dominican Republic [played by Puerto Rico, which one imagines was happy to portray a rival tourist destination as a crime-infested hellhole], where they’re befriended by a local, Manny (Cordova). He talks them into a zip-lining expedition, despite after a nasty encounter at a nightclub with local gangster, Big Biz (Danny Trejo). An accident results in Derek being whizzed off to hospital, but when Ava gets there, she finds no trace of him can be found, and the local police chief (Guzman) is less than enthusiastic about investigating. What’s a girl to do? Well, if you’re an expertly-trained fighter with a hair-trigger temper and a grudge, you start off at the zip-line facility, and work your way, methodically and with malice aforethought, up the chain from there, until you find the people responsible.

It works, much as Haywire did, because Carano is entirely convincing as someone who could kick your ass, and is just choosing not to. Indeed, the version here is scarier, in that she has less restraint, but shares the same terse effectiveness; the ass-kicking will be swift, merciless, and to the point. The problem here is the script, which has huge gaps in logic. For instance, at one point Ava is in what’s supposed to be an utterly lawless barrio. But five seconds after firing her gun, sirens sound, and she just sits there. A little later, she shows up in the house of the police chief; how does she know where he lives? It just seems very sloppily plotted, and that’s before we get to the reason for the abduction, which severely strains credulity [though won’t be much of a surprise, if you’ve seen another Stockwell film, Turistas, which painted a similarly unflattering portrait of Brazil] It’s still worth seeing, purely for Carano’s magnificent intensity – but almost purely for that. And Danny Trejo, of course!

Dir: John Stockwell
Star: Gina Carano, Cam Gigandet, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Luis Guzman

Switchblade Sisters

  By

★★★★
“S’funny, no-one ever calls them Switchblade Sisters.”

switchbladeThe briskly-moving piece of seventies trash is much beloved by Quentin Tarantino, and I have to agree with him about its merits. While some elements haven’t stood the test of time well, in other ways, it’s well ahead of its era, and there is, literally, never a dull moment here. Initially, the teenage girl gang are the Dagger Debs, a somewhat subservient bunch to their male counterparts, the Silver Daggers, and their leader, Dominic (Brauner). He’s paired up with the Debs’ #1, Lace (Lee), but has eyes for new girl Maggie (Nail), who is soon impressing Lace with her street smarts and toughness.

That doesn’t sit well with Lace’s lieutenant, Patch (Gayle), so named because she lost an eye in an earlier incident. However, Maggie might just provide the opportunity for which Patch has been waiting. The Daggers have their own issues, having to deal with a new gang muscling in on their turf. An attempted ambush at the roller-rink goes badly wrong, with their intended targets aware of the plans, and the resulting carnage leaves a power vacuum, into which Maggie steps. She expels the men, changes the gang’s name to the Jezebels, and teams up with a revolutionary group, who can provide the weaponry she needs for revenge. Patch, however, tries to convince the gang that it was Maggie who betrayed them, having shot the leader of the enemy gang, the only other person who knows the real identity of the traitor.

Phew. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff going on here, and in comparison to the basic plotting of many of its exploitation brethren, that’s one of the joys here. It’s also full of memorable characters, with even the minor members of the girl gang given little quirks and foibles, which help turn them from caricatures into people. In many ways, it feels like an American take on the pinky violence movies that Japan was also making in the mid-seventies, but Hill – who deserves a place in action heroine history, for his part in turning Pam Grier into a star – really amps up the female empowerment here. That’s especially true in the second half, after the Debs declare their emancipation: it’s a communal arc of independence, as they discover what they can do, culminating in a running gun-battle through the streets against their enemy. Can’t put it any better than Maggie does at the end, as she’s being led away, drenched in someone else’s blood, by the police [not much of a spoiler: crime never pays in this kind of film, fun though it might certainly be!].

“Let me give you some advice, cop. You can beat us, chain us, lock us up. But we’re gonna be back, understand? And when we do, cop, you better keep your ass off our turf, or we’ll blow it off! Ya dig? We’re Jezebels, cop – remember that name. We’ll be back!”

If that gets your juices flowing, and leaves you keen to slash the seats at the local drive-in [probably not a good idea, since it’s your own car you’ll be carving up], then this slice of prime cheese will be ripe for your platter.

Dir: Jack Hill
Star: Joanne Nail, Robbie Lee, Monica Gayle, Asher Brauner

Breathless

  By

★★½
“Don’t mess with Texans…”

breathlessThere’s something almost theatrical about this, because virtually the entire film takes place in a single location, the downscale home of Lorna (Gershon), who has just knocked her husband Dale (Kilmer) out with a frying-pan, after discovering he was apparently involved in a bank robbery which netted $100,000. She has now called over her best friend, local barmaid Tiny (Giddish), to try and decide what to do next, with the first step being to find the loot, which Lorna is convinced Dale has hidden somewhere in their home. However, the local sheriff (Liotta) is also sniffing around, being fully aware of Dale’s fondness for armed robbery in his younger days. It’s not long before the dead bodies are piling up, requiring alternative uses to be found for the turkey carver and industrial-strength blender. And that’s just the start of the unpleasantness.

This felt like a chattier version of 2LDK, both in the restricted setting, and its focus on the friendship between two women, which disintegrates over the course of proceedings. There’s also more than a whiff of the Coen Brothers to be found here, in particular Raising Arizona with its dimwitted criminal staggering from one calamity into another. And the opening sequence is shamelessly cribbed from Dexter, cutting together breakfast preparation, in a way that foreshadows the carnage to come. It’s kinda hard to say what Baget is bringing of himself to proceedings. However, Gershon is her usual, impressive self, infusing her character with unspoken backstory, It’s clear the ill-gotten gains represent her last chance to escape the rural hellhole down which her life has spun, and she’ll go to any lengths to make sure she gets her hands on them. Discovering what that means, is the engine that keeps the film going, driven by her performance far more than a script which seems content to shuffle over-familiar elements around, and hope we won’t notice.

With the self-imposed limitations, the movie paints itself into a corner with regard to where it can go. And the result is, when the inevitable twists come along – and, inevitable they are, in the kind of film this sets out to be – they generate not much more than a shrug of indifference. Probably remains worth watching for Gershon’s performance, and some other powerhouses of 90’s cinema trying to recapture their glory days, but only if you can handle a tired and worn-out plot.

Dir: Jesse Baget
Star: Gina Gershon, Kelli Giddish, Val Kilmer, Ray Liotta

Cleopatra 2525: season one

  By

cleopatra2525a★★★
“After the apocalypse, crop tops will fortunately not be in short supply.”

When Hercules: The Legendary Journeys ended its run in January 2000, producers Renaissance Pictures looked to replace it, but instead of going with another hour-long show to follow the hit Xena, took the unusual step of making two, 30-minute action series. This was a break from normal practice: half-hour comedies were standard, but for shows like these, it was a format which had not been seen since the seventies. The second was Jack of All Trades, starring Bruce Campbell as Jack Stiles, a wisecracking spy for the US at the turn of the 19th century. The first was radically different: a SF saga, set 500+ years into the future, when robots have driven humanity, literally, underground.

Waking up here is Cleopatra (Sky), a 21st-century exotic dancer who got frozen after a boob-job went wrong. She’s rescued by Hel (Torres, who’d go on to cult stardom in Firefly) and Sarge (Pratt), part of a team fighting the robots, which are known as ‘Baileys’, their human-imitating agents called ‘Betrayers,’ and dealing with the anarchic and dangerous life beneath the surface, guided by a voice in Hel’s head, that organizes the anti-Bailey resistance. [In the original pilot, that voice was Lucy Lawless, but she ended up being replaced by Elizabeth Hawthorne] Cleo gradually becomes part of the team, being the viewers’ voice in the dystopia of 26th-century life, while Hel and Sarge represent the brains and brawn of the team.

cleopatra2525cAll three, however, were clearly selected as much for their visual appeal, and the 25th century is not short of beautiful people – it’s also quite warm, going by the ah, flimsy clothing worn by the trio. Cleo and her former profession fit right in. But taking any of this seriously would largely be doing the show a disservice, because it’s clear it doesn’t take itself seriously. There isn’t really time for that kind of thing, with each episode barely 20 minutes, excluding opening (theme song sung by Torres, a funked-up and lyrically altered version of Zager and Evans’ one-hit wonder, In the Year 2525) and closing credits. There isn’t much time for anything, in fact: both characterization and plotting remain about as scanty as the outfits. Hel is thoughtful but can be distant; Sarge likes shooting things first and asking questions later; Cleo, to be honest, is mostly irritating, coming over as both whiny and rather vacuous.

At least in the first series, the storylines don’t focus on the Baileys as much as I remembered. The heroic trio also find themselves taking on evil clown Creegan, against whom Hel has a personal grudge (for good reason), or psychic Raina, who can not just read your mind, but implant suggestions in it. The latter was a personal favourite villainess, played by Danielle Cormack, who is a veteran from Xena, having played Amazon Ephiny there. That’s true for much of the cast: Sky read for the part of Gabrielle, but also ended up playing another character, Amarice, while Pratt was Cyanne, the Queen of the Northern Amazons. Torres was on the show too, though not as an Amazon. Perhaps more confusingly though, she played Cleopatra – the Egyptian version, not the stripper one.  There’s also a considerable overlap of directors who worked on both shows.

Cleopatra is generally more consistent in tone: that may not necessarily be a good thing, as one of the joys of Xena was seeing it swing from mass crucifixions to musical numbers. It does make Cleo less suitable for binge watching, because the episodes exhibit a certain sameness that grows somewhat repetitive after a while: three was about my personal limit, so not much more than an hour, before the titular heroine started to grate on my nerves. But in the show’s defense, it wasn’t created to be viewed like that, and in 20 minute chunks, generally manages to be energetic and action-packed entertainment. Outside of the Raina episodes mentioned earlier, I particularly enjoyed Run Cleo Run, a take on one of my most beloved films, Run Lola Run, that somehow manages to be even more hyperkinetic than the original – though with a less kick-ass soundtrack.

Star: Jennifer Sky, Gina Torres, Victoria Pratt

"In 20 minute chunks, generally manages to be energetic and action-packed entertainment."
cleopatra2525c
cleopatra2525d
cleopatra2525e
cleopatra2525f
cleopatra2525g
cleopatra2525h
cleopatra2525i
cleopatra2525a