Modesty Blaze (1966) – Review

In the 1960s United Artists was making truckloads of money with their James Bond films so every other studio worth its salt were looking for their own secret agent to milk the spy craze with, which led to such offerings as Dean Martin’s Matt Helm and James Coburn’s Derek Flint, but today we will be looking at a somewhat forgotten entry in the spy genre, a little film called Modesty Blaise.

Based on a popular comic strip by Peter O’Donnell, the film follows the adventures of Modesty Blaise (Monica Vitti), a beautiful and world-renowned master thief who is called out of retirement by Sir Gerald Tarrant (Harry Andrews) of the British government and is tasked with the safeguarding a shipment of diamonds that are en route to Abu Tahir (Clive Revill), the Sheikh of a small Middle Eastern kingdom. The main threat comes from another criminal mastermind, Gabriel (Dirk Bogarde), who many consider to be Modesty’s equal, but I’d say that their only area of equality is in their love of mod architecture.  His criminal organization is staffed with your typical Bond-like characters who our heroine will encounter at her leisure.

 

“I heard both Odd Job and Jaws refused to work with Gabriel.”

In her travels, Modesty is aided by her loyal Cockney sidekick Willie Gavin (Terrence Stamp) and their “will they or won’t they” relationship and friendly banter is a highlight of the film – seeing Terrence Stamp in such a fun and goofy role will be a bit of a shock to those who mostly know him as General Zod from the Christopher Reeve Superman movies – but it’s not all fun quips and double entendres as Modesty quickly finds herself entangled in numerous assassination attempts and is forced to cross paths with former lovers and allies of even more dubious nature.

The most notable attribute of Modesty Blaise would be in its stylish visuals, especially if you are a fan of the 1960s aesthetic, but when it comes to proper filmic storytelling it falls rather short of its potential. The plot is convoluted and confusing at times, and the dialogue is often overly theatrical and melodramatic, and while that does have some charm it is made all the worse by the film trying to be both a comedy and a thriller, struggling to strike the right balance between the two genres and failing.

 

The Spies Who Loved Each Other.

Stray Observations:

• Actors Terence Stamp and Harry Andrews would later appear in another comic book adaptation as residents of the doomed planet Krypton in Superman: The Movie.
• A year after this film was released, cinematographer Jack Hildyard would take on another spy spoof in the lampoonist Casino Royale.
• This film’s cool 60s spy aesthetic makes it a nice double bill with Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik as they both have such great designs concerning the hero/heroin’s lairs.
• Gabriel has a mime killed because the man betrayed him, but as I’m pretty sure killing a mime is legal in several countries this really shouldn’t be held against him.
• After dictating a terse telegram to a minion, Gabriel states, “He’ll understand, he reads the comic strip” which is a nice meta-reference to the source material.

 

I hope fans of the original strip got a chuckle out of that.

Monica Vitti gives a strong performance as Modesty Blaise but the character is let down by a script that fails to fully flesh out her motivations and backstory.  And while I’m sure if I was well versed in the original comic strip this may not have been as big an issue but where the film really fails in the over-complicated plot and the script’s insistence at tossing in so many weird and eccentric characters that you almost need playbill handy just to keep track of who is who. Dirk Bogarde, who plays the villainous Gabriel, delivers a suitably campy performance that is entertaining to watch but even fun characters like him and his psychopathic assassin/bodyguard Mrs. Fothergill (Rossella Falk), seems to kill more out of a sense of boredom than anything else.  There is a desperate need of a story with some forward momentum and that is where Modesty Blaise fails miserably with each scene lumbering into the next with no sense of urgency or connectivity, so when we do finally reach the film’s epic climax it’s hard to care what happens, no matter how cool or stylish it is presented.

 

Mind you, it does look really cool.

Despite these defects, Modesty Blaise is not without its charms, Vitti just oozes sexual charisma and the film is a visually stunning piece of work with its vivid colours, striking set designs and stylish costumes. The action sequences were also well-choreographed and exciting, replete with all the spy gadgets a fan of James Bond could want, making Modesty Blaise a flawed but enjoyable film, one that is worth watching for its unique style and Monica Vitti’s captivating performance. It may not be a classic of the spy thriller genre but it is a fun and entertaining romp that is sure to please fans of 1960s cinema.

The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) – Review

“A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver! The Lone Ranger!” and it was with these thrilling words that millions of children became riveted to their television sets each and every week to follow the adventures of The Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick Tonto.  Needless to say, Hollywood decided to give this popular property the big screen treatment, and is often the case, it didn’t go well.

It should be noted that it takes director William A. Fraker a long time to get around to introducing us to his version of the “Lone Ranger” as we must suffer through a prologue dealing with a young John Reid (Klinton Spilsbury) becoming a poor orphaned boy and living with a tribe of Native Americans, where he hangs out with a young Tonto (Michael Horse) until his older brother Dan (John Bennett Perry) eventually shows up and ships him back East to be educated and where he’ll eventually earn a law degree. The film then jumps ahead a few years where we have grown-up Reid returning to help bring law to the lawlessness, unfortunately, this leads to a skirmish with notorious bad guy Butch Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd) and results in all the Texas Rangers being killed and Reid left for dead. Cue the return of Tonto, who nurses our hero back to life and helps set him on his path of bringing justice to the West as a masked avenger.

Note: Making us wait 58 minutes for the Lone Ranger to finally put on his mask was not a good idea, especially when you consider the fact that the film was only 98 minutes long.

One major issue is Klinton Spilsbury’s performance as the Lone Ranger, which is wooden and lacks the charisma and charm that this character was known for, was the actor’s inability to convey even the most basic emotion and this bland performance was painful to watch as Spilsbury completely failed to capture the essence of the character, which shouldn’t be a big surprise considering the fact that he was dubbed over in post-production due to his inexperience with acting. The movie also introduces a love interest in the form of the daughter of a local newsman, named Amy Striker (Juanin Clay), but the fact that the two have zero chemistry should not concern anyone as her character barely functions as a plot device. But what is the plot you ask? It seems that Butch Cavendish wants to kidnap President Ulysses S. Grant (Jason Robards) so he can force the government to allow Texas to secede from the Union and become its own independent country, with him as ruler.

“Mister President, maybe we should just let Texas secede.”

Stray Observations:

• The movie opens with our heroes as kids which left me thinking they probably should have leaned into that concept and made The Young Adventures of the Lone Ranger and Tonto instead of this mess.
• Merle Haggard singing the movie’s title song “The Man in the Mask” sounds like someone trying to drown a drunken raccoon.
• The overdubbing of Spilsbury by actor James Keach is terrible but as the bulk of the actors in this film provide terrible performances it’s hard to single out that one particular turd element as a movie killer.
• John Reid gets the name “Lone Ranger” because he was the lone survivor of the massacre, but Cavendish left the Ranger who betrayed our heroes alive, just giving him a flesh wound to allay suspicion.  So technically, Reid wasn’t the “lone ranger” of that situation.
• Tonto provides Reid with silver bullets claiming they are more accurate, which is not true, silver bullets are not only less accurate than lead bullets but also slightly slower.
• Actors Christopher Lloyd and Matt Clark, who plays a crooked sheriff in this film, would later appear together in the Western-themed Back to the Future Part III nine years later.

This train will need to reach 88 miles per hour.

The film boasts an impressive supporting cast, with the likes of Christopher Lloyd and Jason Robards trying their best to make the material they are given to sound at least a little bit convincing, but what they manage to bring to the production barely moves the metre away from the overall drudgery of the film.  Even the rousing strains of “William Tell Overture” or the well-executed cinematography of László Kovács, with its sweeping landscapes, weren’t enough to make the proceedings here anything other than a complete bore to watch. I will say this, the scenery is nice to look at and fans can have some fun spotting classic locations such as Monument Valley, Bronson Canyon and Vasquez Rocks.

It’s a shame that the Lone Ranger didn’t get a chance to fight the Gorn.

The film also suffers from a lack of character development, particularly with regards to Tonto who is reduced to a one-dimensional sidekick rather than being fully realized, instead of noble partner to our hero he is nothing more that a caricature of Native Americans that Hollywood has being perpetrating for ages. Additionally, the plot is very predictable with a script that is chock full of poorly written dialogue that fails to engage the audience and a story that feels both rushed and plodding at the same time, with scenes that seem to be thrown together haphazardly making the whole thing seem rather disjointed and nonsensical – when the Lone Ranger leans that President Grant is arriving in town he immediately deduces that Cavendish will be after him, despite there being no evidence to support this conclusion – so it’s no surprise that there were five men listed as having worked on the screenplay.

“Kemosabe, let’s forget this mess and ride off into the sunset.”

William A. Fraker’s The Legend of the Lone Ranger was a misfire of epic proportions as not only did it fail to kick off an expected franchise for the studio but there wasn’t enough on screen for fans of the characters or of Westerns in general to get behind. While the action scenes were well-choreographed and the stunts decently executed the film never quite captured the spirit of the original radio and television series that inspired it, in fact, the only real positive thing I can say about this movie is it’s not as offensively bad as the Disney version starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.

Angel (1984) – Review

“High School honour student by day. Hollywood hooker by Night” One has to admit that is a great tagline and not only did this film offer audiences a salacious premise it also hinted at a darker tone than what was offered from the popular teen comedies of the time, and that tagline belongs to Angel a true outlier of the genre.

The 1980s saw the release of a lot of sexploitation films and the marketing of Angel by New World Pictures certainly promised audiences a sleazy movie about a teenage prostitute double life, but the screenplay by Joseph Michael Cala and Robert Vincent O’Neil was far from your standard cheap sex flick as to took the time to properly dive in the underbelly of the city and gave its cast of characters more than just two-dimensional caricatures and this allowed the viewer time to sympathize and understand the kind of world these people inhabited without being exploitative or condescending.

 

It reflected a grim reality many people were not aware of.

The movie follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old honour student Molly Stewart (Donna Wilkes) who attends a private Los Angeles prep school by day but transforms herself into “Angel” a high-heeled street teenage prostitute by night as she works the hard streets of Hollywood Boulevard so that she can pay for tuition. Unfortunately, rough trade and angry pimps are the least of the dangers in this movie as a psycho-necrophiliac serial killer (John Diehl) has begun to stalk and murder prostitutes, many of which are Angel’s close friends. Angel does have some support in the form of a “street family” made up of aging movie cowboy Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun), street performer Yoyo Charlie (Steven M. Porter) and drag queen Mae (Dick Shawn).  While this group is helpful the key to her survival will be Lt. Andrews (Cliff Gorman) who has been tasked with tracking down the killer.

 

“We think the killer could be a member of the Royal Family.”

Stray Observations:

• In the opening scene, a woman cleaning the sidewalk addresses her as “Angel” while she is attired in her prep school wardrobe, which has me wondering how she’s managed to keep her dual identity a secret for so long.
• Rory Calhoun plays a former star of B-Westerns, which was not much of a stretch for an actor who had starred in countless low-budget Western movies and television shows throughout the 50s and 60s.
• Angel stops pulling tricks at midnight and while this would allow her the proper amount of sleep to remain a straight “A” student it would also cut down on how much money she could make as a prostitute.
• One of her Johns says, “You better be fourteen or I’ll throw back for being too old” and that line makes me weep for humanity.
• It’s never explained how the killer found out Angel/Molly was the person who fingered him to the police, or how he tracked down her address. Which results in the death of Mae.

 

Did her landlord place an ad stating where Angel lived?

The clear standout performance in the film comes from Donna Wilkes who brings depth and complexity to the character of Molly/Angel as she deftly portrays the character’s vulnerability and strength. The film also perfectly captures the spirit of the early 80s with its synth-heavy soundtrack and neon-coloured cinematography, however, despite its seemingly lurid premise, Angel is surprisingly tender and heartfelt with Wilkes delivering an outstanding performance as the titular character, bringing depth and complexity to a character that could have easily been one-dimensional. Molly’s journey is both heartbreaking and inspiring, as she struggles to balance her dual identities and ultimately finds the courage to take control of her life and this is something any viewer can get behind. As for the movie’s killer, well, as necrophiliac psychos go John Diehl gives a truly chilling performance and properly raises the film’s stakes.

 

Even Jack the Ripper was never this creepy.

While the film is undoubtedly a product of its time it’s refreshing to see a movie that doesn’t shy away from exploring themes such as sexual empowerment and female agency. It also that treats its subject matter with respect and it never feels exploitative. The film’s supporting cast is also notable, with standout performances from Dick Shawn Molly’s eccentric and protective friend, and Rory Calhoun as a washed-up Hollywood actor who becomes Molly’s unlikely ally, and it’s this collection of well-rounded and authentic characters that makes this film stand apart from its contemporaries.

 

“Have you seen Angels with Dirty Faces?”

It should be noted that Angel may not be for everyone due to subject matter, it is a well-crafted film that effectively captures the seedy underbelly of Hollywood in the early 1980s and its exploration of themes such as poverty, addiction, and sexual exploitation may be difficult to watch at times, but ultimately it is a powerful and thought-provoking film that leaves a lasting impact on the viewer. Overall, Angel is a compelling film that offers a unique perspective on the coming-of-age genre, one that is not afraid to tackle such a tough subject matter, and it does so with a good degree of sensitivity and compassion. It’s a touching and thought-provoking film that will leave a lasting impression on those who watch it and its timeless quality has allowed it to remain a cult classic to this day.

Steel and Lace (1991) – Review

Revenge movies have been a staple of horror films since almost the beginning of the genre itself, one could even say James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein had an element of revenge to its story, and today we will be looking at another type of “Frankenstein Monster” revenge tale, and this one that takes the premise of “What would happen if you crossed the movie Spit on Your Grave with The Terminator?”

The movie is set in the near future where a pioneer in the field of robotics, Albert Morton (Bruce Davison), takes time off from his career playing with robots to stand by his sister Gaily (Clare Wren) who had been raped and needs his emotional support during the trail.  As one expects in this kind of film, the accused rapist Daniel Emerson (Michael Cerveris), who is a successful and clearly evil businessman, is found “not guilty” and this results in a horrified Gaily committing suicide by jumping off the courthouse roof. So yeah, this one gets off to a very dark start. The movie then jumps ahead five years where we find Emerson and his goons forcing old people out of their homes through murder and intimidation, just so he can build a new min-mall on the vacated properties. In case you weren’t paying attention, this guy is evil!

 

“Hurry up, old man, I have puppies to drown.”

Unfortunately for Emerson, during those five years Albert Morton was not sitting idle as he spent that time resurrecting his dear sibling as a killer cyborg, as one would expect a robotics expert to do.  Once completed he sends her out into the world to get revenge on Emerson and the men who lied to protect him. The concept of an android seeking revenge for its creator is not new but the movie takes it to a whole new level by adding the gore and violence that you’d find in your typical 80s slasher film. What makes this entry standout is that the android is not only programmed to seek revenge, which it is very good at, but it also seems to feel reluctant and conflicted about the killings and this aspect is definitely not part of the programming, making it a complex character, one that the audience can actually empathize with.

 

This doesn’t stop her kills from being particularly gruesome.

Sadly, the movie gets a little too bogged down with a subplot dealing with police Detective Dunn (David Naughton) and former Courtroom sketch artist Alison (Stacy Haiduk) who are on the trail of the killer cyborg for their own reasons.  Dunn is tasked by the District Attorney’s office to keep a lid on the killings while they build a case against Emerson, meanwhile, Alison’s agent wants her to make a retrospective art book based on her old court drawings – don’t ask me if that is even a viable product – and while these two have some nice attempts at Tracy and Hepburn banter I’d say more time spent with Davison’s grief-stricken scientist would have benefited the script greatly.

 

“Are we even relevant to the plot?”

Stray Observations:

• Daniel Emerson’s alibi for the time of the rape is provided by four of his friends, who also participated in the assault, so I’m not sure how that would work.
• Bruce Davison is no stranger to revenge tales as he got payback on those who wronged him in the movie Willard, via a horde of trained rats. I’ll say this, robots are definitely less on the “ick factor” than rats.
• Albert leaves his distraught sister alone in the courthouse stairwell while he goes to confront the press, which was not the best move and puts part of the blame for her death on him.
• The logo of Emerson’s real estate company is a giant hand clutching the Earth, which seems a little on the nose and is more fitting for someone like Blofeld or Doctor Evil.
• The idea of resurrecting someone as a cyborg had already been addressed in Wes Craven’s Deadly Friend, though in that case, the revenge motive wasn’t as cut and dry.

 

Who hasn’t wanted their own killer robot?

The movie has some impressive special effects, especially for a low-budget 80s flick, and the scenes where the robot transforms from its various disguises into “kill mode” were well executed. The acting is also surprisingly decent for a movie of this genre, with Clare Wren giving a strong performance as this revenge-fuelled robot, and while the supporting cast does a respectable job here, with David Naughton and Stacy Haiduk doing the the best they can with parts that are more than a tad cliche and unnecessary, which adds to the movie’s flaws. The plot is fairly predictable and most of the characters are not all that well fleshed out, certainly not helped out by a script that is plagued with truly some cheesy pieces of dialogue that might make some viewers either cringe or laugh, and while Bruce Davison does his best to portray a man who will do anything to get justice, he is overshadowed by his creation.

 

A dynamic duo of science and revenge.

Steel and Lace is an entertaining science-fiction thriller that brings a surprising amount of pathos and depth that you don’t tend to find in this genre, and a special shout out to actor David Landers, known by most as Squiggy from Lavern & Shirley, as the overly enthusiastic police coroner who brings a nice amount of comedy to the proceedings. Overall, this movie may not be a masterpiece but it more than delivers on it premise, a fun revenge flick with sci-fi trappings, and this makes it an enjoyable ride for fans of the genre.

Wanted: Dead or Alive (1986) – Review

Running from the late 1950s to the early 1960s there was a Western television series called “Wanted Dead or Alive”  which was about a Confederate soldier turned bounty hunter in the Wild West of the 1870s starring Steve McQueen, flash forward to the late 1980s and we have a movie dealing with the descendant of that character, and having seen the film I can’t understand the point of that connection.

In the 1980s making a movie based on a television program was not all that common, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Twilight Zone: The Movie being two examples of this but neither were all that successful, yet in those cases the films were at least based on popular programs and not a forgotten Western television series, one that wasn’t even big in reruns at the time.  Yet for some unfathomable reason the people at New World Pictures decided to make a feature film that wasn’t so much a big screen representation of that old show as it was a half-assed filmic sequel/spin-off that was only tangentially connected to the original series. Does that make sense to anyone? The film in question is Wanted: Dead or Alive, where Los Angeles-based bounty hunter and ex-CIA Nick Randall (Rutger Hauer), who is the descendant of Steve McQueen’s Josh Randall, must track down a notorious terrorist and bring him in, dead or alive.

“Sorry fella, I’ve got a date with a member of KISS.”

The plot of this movie deals with the terrorist known as Malak Al Rahim (Gene Simmons), who after bombing a Los Angeles movie theatre informs his followers of his plan to release gas from a chemical plant similar to the Bhopal disaster, which had a death toll in the thousands. This threat brings CIA agent Philmore Walker (Robert Guillaume) to Randall’s door, interrupting our hero’s breakfaster with his girlfriend Terry (Mel Harris), to beg for his help. Needless to say, Randall isn’t all that interested “Give me a break, between the CIA the FBI and the LAPD you’ve got four thousand men on the street, why would you need me?” but Walker counters with “This is a flashpoint situation, Nick, we need the best.”

“How could I possibly argue with that kind of logic?”

Things become a little complicated when a real asshat of a CIA agent named Lipton (Jerry Hardin) decides to use Randall as bait and lets Malak’s people know where to find him, so as to hopefully draw him out, needless to say things don’t go according to plan as Malak does not fall for this obvious trap, nor does Randall succumb to the minions of Malak. Now, as this is an 80s action movie the female lead has one of two options; she can either be captured and force the hero to come and rescue her or she can be killed to motivate the hero to avenge her, unfortunately for Terry, she falls into the latter category and dies along with Randall’s best friend Sergeant Danny Quintz (William Russ), which is like a bonus death for Randall to avenge.

“First, I must brood in my cool warehouse apartment.”

Stray Observations:

• At one point, Gene Simmons is disguised as a rabbi, which is almost as off-putting as seeing him dressed as a crazed hermaphrodite in Never Too Young to Die.
• Nick Randall has a laser sight on his shotgun and I have to wonder if he understands the accuracy and targeting ability of a shotgun.
• Malak Al-Rahim blows up a theatre that is showing Rambo: First Blood Part II but it is a rated “R” movie and we see a family with a nine-year-old girl entering, was this scene an indictment of bad parenting?
• The filmmakers clearly did not understand the effects of seven sticks of dynamite, in this film our heroes survive being a mere 100 feet away when such an explosion could level a house.  Anyone within 300 feet of the detonation would have suffered serious injuries or death.
• When this movie was released it was met with a fair amount of skepticism concerning its premise of Middle Eastern terrorist group attacking soft targets within the United States, wow, to go back to those good ole days.
• That CIA agents Lipton and Walker would be running an operation in and around Los Angeles is pure fiction as it is illegal for the CIA to operate on American soil, the FBI would be the ones running this kind of operation.
• Both Randall and the C.I.A. don’t seem to have much trouble beating information out of whatever terrorist they get their hands on, so I guess none of these terrorists prized their faith over their lives.

 

“I don’t understand it, I promised them 40 virgins in the afterlife.”

As action films go, Wanted: Dead or Alive does move along at a brisk pace with nary a dull moment or wasted scene, which helps one gloss over the overall ridiculousness of the plot. The script is surprisingly well-written, with plenty of clever one-liners and memorable moments and you can’t help but smile when Rutger Hauer says, “Fuck the bonus.” However, the film is not without its flaws as the plot is fairly predictable and formulaic, and some of the supporting characters feel underdeveloped. Additionally, some viewers may find the movie’s portrayal of Middle Eastern terrorists and the use of Islamophobic imagery to be rather problematic at best.

“Let’s ship these guys over to Cameron and Schwarzenegger.”

Overall, this is a big dumb 80s action movie that delivers the thrills and excitement that fans of the genre have come to expect and Rutger Hauer is excellent as the tough and charismatic Nick Randall as he brings a lot of energy and intensity to the role. Gene Simmons is also a standout as the villainous Malak Al Rahim and cements his reputation as an actor who can create villains that are both menacing and entertaining at the same time. If you’re a fan of classic 80s action films, Wanted: Dead or Alive is definitely worth a watch.

Never to Young To Die (1986) – Review

In the 1980s it was Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone who were battling it out as to who could be the king of the action movie genre, each of them cutting a swath of destruction across cinemas worldwide, but in 1986 one young man entered the ring to challenge these two cinematic titans of testosterone and that individual was Uncle Jesse himself, John Stamos.

The plot of this film deals with a villainous hermaphrodite named Velvet Von Ragner (Gene Simmons) who is the leader of a large gang of brainwashed Road Warrior wannabees, and they are hell-bent on either anarchy or capitalism. Watching this plot unfold for the second time and I’m still not exactly sure what their end goals are but they do plan on blackmailing a city by threatening to dump some type of poison in the city’s water supply.  Unfortunately for them, they can’t pull off their plan because a special computer disc has been stolen by agent Drew Stargrove (George Lazenby) and they will do anything to get it back.  It’s when Ragner captures and kills Drew Stargrove, who refuses to surrender the disc, that we are introduced to the film’s ostensible hero, Drew’s clueless son and high school gymnast Lance Stargrove (John Stamos).  Stargrove is shocked to learn from the enigmatic Danja Deering (Vanity) that his dad was some sort of super spy but he is slowly drawn into the dangerous world of international espionage.

Gene Simmons in a role that will not surprise you.

This movie is one wild ride from start to finish, with Lance Stargrove navigating through dangerous situations and narrowly escaping death at every turn, with a screenplay by Steven Paul and Anton Fitz that works overtime to make any of what we see on screen make a lick of sense – I should note it rarely makes a lick of sense – and the movie also features some fairly impressive gymnastics stunts performed by Stamos himself, adding an extra layer of excitement to the film.  If only he’d put as much effort into acting lessons as he did gymnastics he may have escaped a future being stuck on Full House. The action carries us from freeway fights to tense a battle in an abandoned factory, which is your standard villainous location and its there where our hero must save the damsel in distress from the clutches of the nefarious Ragner, in this case, the damsel is badass in her own right but we have to give the male hero something to do.

“This will look great on my college applications.”

Stray Observations:

• The plot of this film is about a gymnast becoming a secret agent but we already have Gymkata, which used that premise a year earlier, and when you are ripping off that particular film you must know you’re in rough shape.
• Drew Stargrove’s involvement is uncovered because he gave his informant identifiable jewellery.  Maybe he isn’t that great of a secret agent.
• George Lazenby plays the spy dad, which is an obvious nod to his one outing as Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
• Even before taking up the mantle of super spy, we find Lance rooming with a guy who builds various types of spy gagdets and weapons, basically, he’s a low-rent “Q” from the Bond films.
• Danja goes to a rowdy biker club dressed in a sparkly evening gown, which leaves one questioning the level of spy craft in this film.  Doesn’t this spy agency of a “Q” equivalent for fashion?
• Lance Stargrove rides a dirt bike in this movie, sadly, it’s not magical and he’s no Dirt Bike Kid.
• I’m not sure why a computer disc is needed to poison a city’s water supply, wouldn’t simply dumping it in the local reservoir be effective enough? Then again, who am I to doubt either Robert Englund or Gene Simmons?

“This will cause nightmares on every street!”

Vanity, who plays Stargrove’s love interest escapes the typical portrayal of women as nothing more than eye candy for the hero and villain to fight over, she is allowed to be a competent badass in her own right, that she out acts Stamos in ever scene makes it even more apparent that she is the film’s true hero, of course, this doesn’t stop the film from throwing in some gratuitous nudity as that is an element pretty much required for action movies of the 1980s.  This results in an awkward scene where Danja shows up on the back patio with a garden hose – and yes, this is as romantic as it sounds – and while Vanity is a gorgeous woman with a spectacular body even she can’t create any sort of sexual chemistry between herself and John Stamos. I give Vanity extra credit for making her character seem remotely interested in this limp fish of a hero.

I hope this added a couple of extra zeroes to Vanity’s paycheck.

Without a doubt, the real star of the show is Gene Simmons, who delivers a delightfully campy performance as the villainous Velvet Von Ragner. He’s decked out in flamboyant costumes, sporting ridiculous hair and makeup while delivering cheesy one-liners that will have you rolling your eyes and giggling uncontrollably. John Stamos, on the other hand, looks to have wandered in from some dull beach party movie and has the screen charisma of a lemming on quaaludes. That said, the action scenes are a hoot and while Stamos doing his gymnastics moves in the middle of gunfights look a little too staged to be convincing you have to ask yourself “Who needs well-choreographed fight sequences when you have a cross-dressing villain with a love for punk rock and blowing things up.” Gene Simmons chews up the scenery like he’s in a different movie altogether, and it’s glorious.

For those of you who thought that KISS was overly theatrical.

It’s fair to say that Never Too Young to Die is no cinematic masterpiece but it’s hard to fault a film that concludes with the hero biting the bare breast of a villainous hermaphrodite, and that type of craziness as well as the over-the-top action sequences and cheesy dialogue, makes this a perfect choice for a Saturday night movie marathon with friends. So, if you’re in the mood for a campy, action-packed adventure with a touch of nostalgia, then Never Too Young to Die is one I can recommend, but having some libations handy wouldn’t hurt either.

Runaway (1984) – Review

When it comes to depicting science and technology going horribly awry no one comes close to author Michael Crichton, with such entries like Westworld and Jurassic Park becoming cornerstones of the genre, but in 1984 he helmed a little-known sci-fi flick that pitted Tom Selleck and his trademark moustache against Gene Simmons and an array of pesky robots.

This movie takes place in the near future, and by that they mean 1991, a time and place where robots are commonly used for a variety of tasks from, household chores to industrial labour.  However, when a malfunctioning robot causes a deadly incident at a high-tech company two cops, Sergeant Ramsay (Tom Selleck) and his new partner Karen Thompson (Cynthia Rhodes), are called in to investigate and as our heroes dig deeper into this issue they learn of a new and strange integrated circuit that not only overrides a robot’s safety features but can also direct it to attack humans.  Worst of all is the fact that these circuits were not “hacked chips” but were created from a series of master templates which enables them to be mass-produced, and this leads to the big question “What kind of madman could be behind such a diabolical threat?”

Oh, right, we have Gene Simmons in our cast.

Turns out that a brilliant career criminal named Dr. Charles Luther (Gene Simmons) had developed a program that would allow a robot to thermographically identify a human from amidst cover and to even differentiate between humans and has now teamed up with a few defence contractors, but not one to share potential profits for such a weapon he uses robots altered by this new circuit to kill one of his “partners” and takes another one out with a gun that utilizes smart bullets which capable of locking onto a human target’s unique heat signature.  This is all so that Luther can go off and the sell the technology on the black market unencumbered, unfortunately for Luther, his other partner/love interest Jackie Rogers (Kirstie Alley) is caught with the stolen circuit templates and ends up becoming bait in a cat-and-mouse game between Ramsay and Luther. And if you’ve seen a movie before you can guess how well this goes.

“I’m going to be horribly murdered, aren’t I?”

Does any of this seem plausible, is the science just a little too far out? Never fear, because Selleck’s moustache is so distractingly handsome that it’s hard to focus on anything else. Seriously, that thing deserves its own credit in the movie. It’s a testament to Selleck’s charm that he can make such a ridiculous premise work, even when he’s being chased by robot spiders and dodging laser beams. Speaking of the robots, they’re not exactly the most intimidating villains in cinema history because while they do have sharp claws and can shoot lasers they also move at a snail’s pace and have a tendency to get stuck on things. Watching Tom Selleck and his team of robot-busting cops slowly chase after these clunky machines is both ridiculous and entertaining.

How can Thomas Magnum possibly beat such dangerous foes?

Stray Observations:

• Ramsay’s boss is portrayed by actor G.W. Bailey who in the very same year as this film was released would appear as Lt. Harris in Police Academy, a film with a very different view of law enforcement. Mind you, seeing Steve Gutenberg fighting robots would have also made for an entertaining movie.
• The first “runaway” robot we encounter is a malfunctioning pest control robot that has run amok in a farmer’s field, but is this something that would require the police? I can see the need for a police division to deal with murderous A.I.s and the like but a faulty farming tool, one that hasn’t so much as bruised a person, wouldn’t a call to the manufacturer be more appropriate?
• A news cameraman follows Ramsay into a house where a robot has murdered a family leaving and a ten-month-old baby trapped inside, and I have to ask, “Do the police not stop civilians from wandering into active crime scenes in this future world?”
• We learn that Ramsay used to work the streets as a regular police officer but quit due to his fear of heights, just like Jimmy Stewart’s character in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. I sure hope the final showdown between Ramsey and Luther isn’t somewhere high.

Damn, who could have seen this coming?

Michael Crichton’s Runaway is a sci-fi movie that focuses on the real-world implications of technology and its potential to go awry and the film’s themes are still relevant today, with artificial intelligence and automation becoming more prevalent in our lives  And while his predictions weren’t too far off as such things as domestic robots, video mail, social media, the Internet, voice-activated computers, bio-metric security, camera drones, tablet PCs and wireless headsets are now commonplace, unfortunately, the plot of the film’s villain is rather clichéd and the whole police robotics division wasn’t well concieved and makes very little sense in the context of the world Crichton was trying to build. And when the film reached its “exciting” climax I was left with one final question, “Why wouldn’t Luther have included a fail-safe in his little robot killers that would prevent them from attacking their own creator?”

That does seem to be a significant design flaw.

Overall, Runaway is an enjoyable and suspenseful film that offers a unique twist on the traditional sci-fi genre, with special effects that were fairly impressive for their time and a story that was engaging if not also a bit silly, and it’s certainly something fans of Tom Selleck and sci-fi thrillers should check out, if only to see that moustache in action.