SHOOTING FROM THE HIP: "THE HAMMERER"

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP - EPISODE 2

A famous scene from the low-budget, cult hit "The Hammerer."

http://youtu.be/zkEji6UCheU

Check out our first episode, "Smackin' Cheese!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkEji6UCheU

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (30 OF 100)

"Boa vs. Python" (2004), Dir: David Flores

$1.2 Million in Budget vs. Direct to Video

The "Enlarged Animal Film" (I guess that's what we'll call it) has evolved into, well, quite a mess in the last decade or so. What started with the success of Jaws in the 70s, Roger Corman turned into an industry on its own. Shark films have become their own genre, followed by any other large animal that could eat humans. This is one of those others movies. Probably as other as it gets. I chose this film particularly because it melds two of those different genres together: Snake Films (an endless string of films that ripped off Anaconda) and the Versus Movies (which have been around since Godzilla's universe/franchise expanded). This particular movie combines two near-identical movies with near identical monsters to come together and brawl it out... Oh, boy. Hold onto your hats, folks!

The movie opens with a truck transporting what is presumably one of the giant snakes as it inter-cuts with a professional wrestling match, where some sleazy casino-owner named Broddrick is in attendance. He receives a phone call telling him "his package" is on the way. But shortly after making that call, the convoy stops. The package has woken and it's angry. The convoy readies the tranquilizer gun to put the big snake down, but the snake (Boa or Python?) gets loose, killing them all. As this carnage happens, the movie cuts back as Broddick watches as two Luchador wrestlers - one named Boa and the other named Python (wink, wink) - enter the arena. Now that, folks, is what I call symbolism!

Broddrick and his sexy girlfriend get on a plane and high-tail it out of there. The scene offers us some obligatory nudity while plot as well, but also features one of Broddick's pet snakes (a clearly rubber one) getting loose in the bathroom. This particular snake yelps like a puppy when picked up or tossed around.

Before Broddrick and his girlfriend indulge in high-altitude sin, Broddrick unravels his plot to organize a big-game hunting expedition for the wealthy and use the giant python as their target. Then, he conveniently turns on the TV and discovers through the news that his convoy carrying the giant snake has been destroyed, meaning the snake is loose. Looks like the hunt's on early.

Meanwhile, the FBI apparently saw Python, so are already aware of the giant snake. They recruit a Playboy Playmate named Jaime Bergman, who pretends to be a marine biologist. How do we know she's a marine biologist? Because the movie introduces her in the middle of a contest where she and some fat dude are trying to see who can hold their breath under water the longest. She flashe him a bewb (which we do not see, considering she's a f&$@ing playmate) and ends up winning the contest. Now that's science, baby!

Now, apparently the marine biologist (Monica) has developed camera headgear designed to track dolphins, however, turns out the headgear can also be applied to dry-land animals. Hm... So, pretty much she developed headgear that any animal can wear and be tracked with. What's to say only animals can use it? What about humans?

Hmm. So, really, she developed some headgear that a human or animal can wear and the FBI can track them with it... You'd think the FBI would already have something like that. But for some reason they need to go consult this ridiculously hot scientist, who is pretty much the worst casting choice for a scientist since Denise Richards in that James Bond movie. Poor girl. She is beautiful, yes, but can't act in the slightest. Even in her reaction shots, it just doesn't look like she is thinking about anything... at all.

Anyways, the FBI wants Monica's device so they can send dolphins after the giant snake. Just kidding. But really, their plan is only slightly less preposterous. The FBI man and Monica seek out Dr. Emmett (underrated Canadian actor David Hewlett of Treed Murray) who has raised a genetically-enhanced boa named Betty. The plan is to attach the headgear to Betty in hopes that Betty will find the other large snake and kill it. Impressed by Betty, the FBI Man (whoever he is) comments, "This is big and big is nice." You bet it is, FBI Man.

Meanwhile, Broddick forms a group of all American badass hunters to go after the giant snake. It's a motley crew of rejects from the Fast And Furious movies and the father-son team from Honey I Shrunk The Kids. Their story is boring and pointless. Meanwhile, as this is happening, Monica and Dr. Emmett need more convincing to work together in a scene that literally functions just to repeat the plot again, three times over in a row...

FBI MAN: "With your expertise, equipment, and boa, I think we can successfully locate and eliminate that python."

MONICA: "Using my implants, we can track the boa track the python and see every move she makes?" 

DR. EMMETT: "Let me get this straight. You want to attach that thing to my boa and use it to hunt down the python?"

Wow. Now that's some phenomenal dialogue! But where the f@$& are the snakes? Oh, wait. There's one. And it's on screen for, like, 40 seconds... Now, as most typically horror movies go, there's a Teen Sex/Impending Death scene. This time, it happens in the middle of a fellatio party with the guy being eaten, miraculously replaced by the giant python, and the girl simply not noticing. From there, they both get devoured... Yep. There's the snake... and they went there.

As far as the rest goes, the two teams of characters (the military and the hunters) demonstrate some utter incompetency in their fields, especially when coming together to kill the giant snakes and accidentally killing each other instead. But overall, neither team really poses much threat to either giant snake. They're more of just a nuance to us and we want giant snake. There is one scene where the snake the military is rooting for (Betty) ends up killing a lot of their own people, but it's only 30 seconds. I wanted the damn snake to kill all the characters so there would be more snake.

And then, when the two snakes finally encounter one another, you'd expect this fight to finally get going... But no, it doesn't. Upon discovering each other, the two snakes start having Giant C.G.I. Snake Sex... I mean, I suppose it's a pretty special moment for the two, realizing they're not the only giant C.G.I. snake in  the world. However, this is supposed to be a Versus Movie, so shouldn't we get to some goddamn snake-fighting already?! I mean, if this was Freddy vs. Jason and instead of fighting Freddy and Jason just started banging -- Aaahhhh! Dear God!

Like Hard Ticket to Hawaii, this movie contains a lot of myths about snakes one would think the filmmakers would want to avoid... but didn't. So here we go:

(1) When snakes eat people, they rip them limb from limb. Not true. They usually eat you whole. 
(2) Snakes never stop eating. Not true. If a snake managed to eat an entire human (or in this movie's case, several), it probably wouldn't need to eat again for a long, long time.
(3) Snakes can whip people with their tails. Not true.
(4) Snakes are bulletproof. Definitely not true. My girlfriend can attest to that. These snakes should've died.
(5) Snakes are inherently evil. True, but I've have been told by others that's it not true. Agree to disagree.

For a movie featuring two giant C.G.I. snakes, it seems they could only afford an accumulated 7 to 10 minutes of C.G.I. in the whole film. The rest is just people talking about the snakes, running around aimlessly, flaunting their bewbs (male and female), torching sh@$ with flame throwers, and blowing stuff up. What little snake the movie offers makes it kinda funny, but you still want more snake.

It's worth seeing probably because it's probably the best of the Enlarged C.G.I. Animal vs. Enlarged C.G.I. Animal films. I'm going to wager it has more Enlarged C.G.I. Animal in it than most of these films. It probably can sum up the whole market for you in one film. But give it ten years. This will be considered the Citizen Kane of Enlarged C.G.I. Animal films because they aren't getting any better. 

And for your viewing displeasure, the Teen Sex/Impending Death scene...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (29 OF 100)

"Last Action Hero" (1993), Dir: John McTiernan

$70,000,000 in Budget vs. $49,946,994 in Gross

I used to watch this movie all the time. Re-watching it, I can't remember why. When the original writers of Last Action Hero couldn't properly imitate Shane Black's witty writing style, what started out as a spoof of Shane Black action movies (Lethal Weapon & The Last Boyscout) actually became a Shane Black action movie. That and Shane Black and John McTiernan (Die Hard & Predator) were in need of work, so why not spoof the genre they made famous? And make it for kids!

The movie opens as your typical 80s Schwarzenegger film. There's a hostage situation with children in the hands of an axe-wielding psychopath. (That's how they all were, right?) Suddenly, the scene goes completely out of focus and turns out to be a being played in a rundown, near-empty movie theater.....Stealing the plot-line from The NeverEnding Story, Last Action Hero is about an inner city kid who through f@$%ing magic gets sucked into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie. Its an appealing idea, but much darker than expected for a kids' movie.

Its first ten minutes takes place in the bleak reality of Danny's world where he spends most of his days in a dingy movie theater. Danny has no friends, no father, and is a constant disappointment to his overworked mother. And to emphasize how crappy Danny's life is, they even have a scene where he gets robbed at knife-point. The robber handcuffs Danny to the toilet and forces him to go fishing for the key... Now, how is this a kid's movie? The first fifteen minutes is the stuff of urban nightmares: psychotic murderers, crime-ridden neighborhoods, heart-wrenching poverty... Sweet Jesus. Is Danny addicted to heroine too?

So after a visit to the police station, Danny neglects the detective's advise to go straight home and wait for his mother, and goes to the theater instead to see the new Jack Slater movie (Arnie's character). There, he is bestowed by Nick, the old projectionist, with a magic ticket... Now, let's discuss the magic ticket for a second. Danny is regaled with the story of how Houdini gave Nick this ticket back when Nick was a child, and Houdini claimed to get it from "the best magician in India, and [that] he got it from the best magician in Tibet."

Harry Houdini was an active magician between the years 1891 - 1926. The first ever Indian film released was Shree pundalik, a silent film made in 1912. But, prior to forming The Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee in 1927, the few Indian production companies there were only produced on average ten films a year (and most weren't over 30 minutes long). So Indian film probably wasn't recognized internationally yet. Also, there is no mention of Harry Houdini having traveled to India when he was actively performing magic. This doesn't disprove that an Indian Magician gave Harry Houdini the ticket, just that it could not have been a ticket for an Indian film being as their industry was barely in existence yet. Also, Harry Houdini would have already been dead by a year by 1927.

So the ticket must be for an American movie. The first public exhibition of a moving photographic image was at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City in April in 1896, meaning movies were playing by time Harry Houdini was actively performing magic and prior to his death. So it's plausible that Harry Houdini might have seen a movie or several movies in his time, but due to the inherent racism of the era, I doubt any Indian Magicians would have been in an American theater with him. Also, Harry Houdini was a Jew, so his chances of seeing a matinee weren't so great either. But hypothetically, say that this Indian Magician and Harry Houdini got turned away at the door for the same movie. That might prompt the Indian Magician to give Harry Houdini his unused ticket... But to what purpose I am not sure...

Then there's this so-called Tibetan Magician. As far as the Tibetan Film Industry goes, try looking it up on wikipedia. You'll come up with nothing. The ticket would not have been for a Tibetan movie because there are and never have been any theaters in Tibet. And the Tibetan Magician probably would never have seen a movie theater before in his life, so would he even know what it is?

Then, of course, the Tibetan Magician would have to buy a ticket, not use it, then give it to the Indian Magician, who would not use it, then give it Harry Houdini, who would also not use it... You know what? I don't think Shane Black did any research into this claim. I think he just said "Hey, Houdini did magic and India sounds magical. How about we just put those two together? Then audiences will buy it! And for good measure, throw some Tibet in there too. It's mysterious." As Chief Wiggum said, "Magic Ticket my ass." Magic Ticket my ass indeed, Shane. Shoulda stopped at "I got the ticket from Harry Houdini. That's it."

Anyways, in the film's film-within-a-film, Jack Slater is caught in the middle of two powerful mobsters joining forces. First thing they do is kill Jack's favorite second-cousin Larry. Then a hit squad comes for Jack, throwing dynamite from a moving car. One of the TNT bundles comes straight off the screen and rolls down the theater aisle towards Danny. Questioning his reality, Danny runs for it - KA-BOOM!

 Suddenly, Danny finds himself smack in the middle of the Jack Slater movie, experiencing all the action and AC/DC soundtrack close-up. (Click here for another gem with an AC/DC soundtrack.) But, from Jack's perspective, Danny has unexplainable knowledge about his world and personal life and becomes an asset to Jack and his current situation. Well, that settles it then. Jack's angry police makes Danny Jack's partner... Yep. That's realistic. It worked in Dick Tracy.

The intentions with this movie are very clear, just misguided. The producers wanted to tap the Arnold Schwarzenegger who had made audiences laugh with the hit comedy Twins, but thought it would be funny to spoof the hard-nosed action career that made him famous. Unfortunately, they didn't realize comedy wasn't a natural thing for Arnold. When Arnold killed somebody, slipped in a one-liner, and managed to get some laughs, was it because the audience actually thought he was funny? What was funny about Arnold's one-off's was how wrong they were. Murdering someone and making a joke about it is funny, but not for a kids movie. Imagine if PeeWee's Big Adventure suddenly turned into Natural Born Killers... Actually, that would be pretty great. 

But it all just raises the question again of who this movie is really for? When you got a kids going to see a self-referential Arnie movie, in which Arnold kills lots of people, in a cartoonish PG fashion, and you got a whole lot of cameos (Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Pam Anderson, Odd Job, Jim Belushi, MC Hammer, Little Richard, JCVD, Tom Noonan) for movies that were rated R, and that kids couldn't even get into the theater to see, who is this movie really for? I've deduced that it's a film for kids who managed to watch movies they shouldn't have seen. We all were those kids, but Last Action Hero waters down the violence and grit to the point of losing the guilty pleasure action movies give the audience. And just because you add an animated cat in the movie voiced by Danny Devito in the mix doesn't make it a kids movie. Cool World had animated characters too.

That all said, some of the adult humor is quite funny. The most clever scene in the movie takes place in a Blockbuster Video where Danny questions the logic of movie phone numbers and how they all seem to start with 555. "How can everyone have a phone number with 555 in it?" Arnie brings up the crippling point, "That's why we have area codes." That was pretty funny, but kids won't get that. Neither will they get the joke when the real Arnie is at the Jack Slater premiere and his former wife Maria Shriver tells him not to plug his restaurant. That was pretty funny too, but I actually went to Planet Hollywood and that was no joke.

With a running time of over two hours, this movie is far too long, definitely losing steam by time the villains enter the real world and Danny and Jack go after them. Why the villains would even want to leave their fantastical movie world for a bleak, depressing reality I'm not sure. The villain Benedict says that he could open gates for other movie villains to enter the real world, but wouldn't he have already done that by now? 

The movie was nominated for several Razzie Awards, but won none of them. It's not terrible. It kind of just falls into that era of Family Friend Arnold Schwarzenegger followed by Junior and Jingle All The Way. Of all those movies, this is probably the best one or maybe the least embarrassing. For those reasons, it's worth watching.  

For your viewing displeasure, Danny's entrance into Jack Slater's world...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (28 OF 100)

"Gorgo" (1961), Dir: Eugene Lourie

$$$ Unknown in Budget vs. Unknown in Gross $$$

Studio's have been trying to make a successful western-version of Godzilla for decades. In the late 90s, they attempted this feat with that giant pile of dung Godzilla, where the trademark monster went to New York and looked nothing like it did before. In 2008, Cloverfield was made, featuring a lanky-armed beast that the studios hoped would've filled the big guy's shoes, but hasn't reared his ugly head since. And most recently, a trailer for the new Godzilla was just posted today. However, in this ongoing search for the next Godzilla, the Americans should have learned from the British who attempted it back in the 1960s. Their Godzilla was named Gorgo and he unfortunately fell under the radar in terms of classic movie monsters...

Most people have little patience for monster movies. They want monsters, destruction, and bad special effects, and if they don't get that, they lose interest. In the original Godzilla, the movie opens with what remains of Tokyo after Godzilla's warpath. We see the devastation and all the wounded people, as if a nuclear bomb just went off (wink, wink), so immediately we are interested in what's happening. In the only Gorgo, the movie starts with a thunder storm and a volcano eruption. Then, for the first ten minutes of the movie, it's mostly sailors investigating a small Irish village. Captain Joe Ryan (Bill Travers) takes an interest in the area after mounds of dead fish start appearing around the waters. Then the body of a diver appears, having died because of fright. Uh-oh! But then things still don't get started because they go talk to the villagers about it, who deny any knowledge of what is happening.

Gorgo's main problem is that its beginning is very, very boring. In keeping with the mindset of the monster movie audience, the first ten to fifteen minutes is so painfully slow that I am not surprised people stop watching before the monster even appears. (It's almost as bad as the first ten minutes of White Zombie.) When more divers go to check things out, they find the monster Gorgo at the bottom of the ocean, released by the volcanic eruption. When word gets out, poachers hunt the creature, only to get attacked by this miniature Godzilla with glowing red eyes and a nearly identical roar. That is when the movie gets started. From there, Gorgo attacks the village. But in retaliation, the villagers fight back throwing flaming torches to scare it off. Now, this was something that interested me. Never in monster movies has the monster ever really been afraid of something, as real animals would be. Godzilla never seemed afraid of anything. He was always kinda oblivious to the elements around him.

Captain Joe Ryan and his crew make a deal with the villagers, claiming that they can rid the village of the monster for a price. In their first attempt, they lower an officer in a steel pod to the sea's bottom. There, the pod finds Gorgo merrily swimming along the bottom. Gorgo sees the pod, grabs it, and nearly crushes it. I like this part too because no one ever got this close to Godzilla before, so it created some tension. Once the metal pod goads Gorgo to surface, the crew deploys the fishing nets, capturing the monster nearly as big as their own ship.

Borrowing from the plot of King Kong, Gorgo becomes the sensation of the European airwaves. There are scenes where they transport Gorgo in ships and with cranes, which are actually the best special effects in the movie. Not often do these movies show the monsters actually interacting with their environment as opposed to just destroying it. On top of this idea, the movie also calls into question things such as the logistics of capturing monster, transporting it, containing it, drugging it; whether it belongs in a lab, a zoo, its natural habitat; or whether the Irish own it because it came from their shores or the British own it because they captured it. So many ideas to be explored when most monster movies just dismiss them.

Possibly the best scene of the movie is when Gorgo is put in a giant pen and people gawk and scream at it. This movie actually gives the monster some personality, something for the audience to connect with. You feel sorry for Gorgo and despise the humans. Once Gorgo has officially become a side show attraction, its captors are summoned by the Ministry of Science to hear of a discovery that has been made. It turns out that their monster is not an adult monster but an infant, making its theoretical parent probably two-hundred feet tall and presumably looking for its lost child. Then, the very next scene, back in the Irish village, a much bigger, much angrier version of Gorgo (referred to as Orca) rises from the waters and vengefully destroys the village. Its next stop: London, England, and not for a spot of f%$@ing tea. 

Having re-watched this, I've realized it has more plot, ideas, and dramatic devices than any Godzilla movies ever did. Does this make it better? Hard to say, because I love that big lug. The sequences with Orca are pretty great, especially the one where they set fire to the whole harbor to scare the monster away, but just ends up pissing it off more. The climax of the movie is watching Orca destroy most of London, which I found more engaging than watching Godzilla destroying Tokyo because I was more familiar with the British landmarks. Seeing Orca demolish a clearly hollow Big Ben (clocks don't have insides, right?) was definitely a high-point. Despite a boring opening and a kinda cheesy ending, I'd call this movie The Thinking Man's Godzilla. Its main problem: thinking is not why you typically watch these movies.

For your viewing displeasure, a short documentary on the making of Gorgo...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (27 OF 100)

"Bad Taste" (1987), Dir: Peter Jackson

$30,000 in Budget vs. $26,000 in Gross

I remember seeing Bad Taste at a friend's house. While watching it, we're overjoyed to see the role of Derek being played by the film's director Peter Jackson. Then we were even more overjoyed to see the role of the alien menace Robert also played by Peter Jackson. Laughing our asses off, we watched as Robert actually attacks Derek, knocking him off a cliff into a pile of jagged rocks. Having just recently finished The Lord of The Rings trilogy, my friend brought up a point, "This guy just won an Academy Award, folks."

For those of you who have followed the career of Peter Jackson Pre-Lord of The Rings, you know that there are two Peter Jackson's. There is the Peter Jackson who brought us the B-movie gems Bad Taste, Meet The Feebles, and Dead Alive, later to elevate to The Frighteners and Heavenly Creatures. Then came the "New Peter Jackson" who made epic sagas like Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, King Kong, Lovely Bones, etc. And as much as I like to say that I am proud of the New Peter Jackson for rising through the ranks and showing guys like Lucas, Spielberg, and Cameron how it's done, I miss the Old Peter Jackson... but also realize that he can never go back to his old ways. That's why seeing movies like Bad Taste shows how far this director has come.

In Bad Taste, a small New Zealand Town gets taken over by aliens, who have disguised themselves in human form, leaving the audience only able to tell they are aliens because they all wear blue shirts. But as the character Derek describes, "It's like we got a visit from a planet of Charlie Mansons." However, we never witness the town being taken over by aliens or the carnage that ensued, so the film's beginning is kinda boring. We really could have used one really big massacre to get us going. But once the violence does get started, the movie becomes much more entertaining.

The human characters are from The Astro Investigation & Defense Services (or AIDS), which makes a habit of employing gun-toting metal heads and creepy psychos. At the time of the town's disappearance, AID's own Barry and Derek are on the scene and managed to capture one of the aliens (Robert, also played by Peter Jackson). When Barry is attacked by a group of aliens and forced to hide in an abandoned shed, Derek begins torturing Robert for information... Now, to the untrained eye, most probably wouldn't even realize that they are essentially watching Peter Jackson torturing Peter Jackson.

When hearing the strange cries of Robert, the blue-shirt aliens go after Derek with mallets and sledgehammers (the best weapons earth has to offer) while Derek breaks out the uzi. "I'm a Derek and Derek's don't run." Then all hell breaks loose in one of the goriest gun battles (pre-Hobo With a Shotgun), but results in Derek falling off the cliff and splattering all over jagged rocks. (This sequence does have a hilarious dummy prat-fall.) Meanwhile, a Bible Salesman stumbles into the abandoned town, only to find himself being hunted by Robert. The Salesman takes refuge in a nearby house, finding himself smack in the home-base of the alien invasion. Led by raspy Lord Crumb, he divulges to the salesmen that humans have become the new fast food sensation of the galaxy and that they are planning to harvest all of earth for their new chain.

As this is happens, back at the bluffs, Derek suddenly sits up, somehow alive. He notices several splattered (and incredibly fake-looking) dead seagulls where he landed, but also finds pieces of his brain on the ground. Soon enough, he comes to realize that his brain is falling out of the gaping wound in his head. Derek manages to use his belt and a top-hat to keep anymore brains from falling out. But now, literally losing his mind, Derek breaks out the chainsaw he's had waiting in the back of his van and begins his deranged quest for vengeance.

What does this movie have to offer? A lot of bad Hair Metal Soundtrack. Lots of falling, fumbling, or character's losing their guns. Elongated action sequences with predictable, unsurprising consequences. Characters constantly referring to each other by their names, even though they have apparently worked together for years. This movie definitely looks like something Peter Jackson made in his backyard with his friends. The only thing that really separates it from a student film is the Tom Savini-inspired gore and the spacecraft shaped like a house that takes off in the third act.

Now, what makes this worth seeing? All the revolting things Peter Jackson subjects himself to: (1) Eats brains with a spoon. (2) Vomits an excess of green goo into a bowl. (3) Replaces part of his missing brain with an aliens. (4) Dives down an alien's throat chainsaw first and comes out his asshole, and that's just the beginning... Need I say more or show more? 

For your viewing displeasure, Peter Jackson in his very own action sequence...

 

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (26 OF 100)

"Masters of the Universe" (1987), Dir: Gary Goddard

$22 Million in Budget vs. $17,336,370 in Gross

Another from the illustrious Cannon library, Masters of The Universe is a movie based on a toy franchise from Mattel. The movie pretty much rips off Stars Wars, but oddly has polarizing evolutions from that franchise. Whereas as Star Wars was a series of movies that eventually became designed just to sell toys, Masters of the Universe started out as toys that eventually became a movie designed to sell fried chicken... I'm not kidding. Several scenes of this movie feature fried chicken.

We open with a smudgy, out-of-focus matte painting of Castle Gray Skull and a very monotone voice-over (from no character in the film) explaining the ongoing war happening in the planet of Eternia... Yeah, it's not a very good opening. Very drab, very dull-looking. Then the opening credits start rolling, which look and are scored just like the credits to Superman. Seeming like a deliberate rip-off, the better name for it would be "a deliberate recycling" since The Cannon Group became the heads of the Superman franchise and murdered it with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

Production values for this film are a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the sets are decent as far as the interior of Castle Gray Skull goes. But as soon as Skeletor (Frank Langella) appears in his cheap-looking skeleton make-up, looking nothing like the Skeletor we knew as children and more like Red Skull's gay cousin just visiting from Nazi Germany, it's laughable at best. Also, the costuming of the characters (or in the lead's case, lack-there-of) resemble either the Goodwill Donations from the Star Wars franchise or the veritable slingshot-wear from the Hercules movies.

The mullet-toting He-Man is played by good old Dolph Lundgren in probably his most off-putting role. The general public knows Dolph mainly for his role in Rocky IV as the giant Russian boxer, or better yet as The Punisher in the most terrifying performance of his career. Seeing Dolph being noble or heroic or caring all seems a bit strange, however, there's no shortage of obligatory chest-shots during his battle scenes. At one point in the film, Courtney Cox has just escaped Skeletor's Mercenaries, a very incompetent bunch with make-up effects that look like they came out of Rick Baker's stool. Courtney manages to run into He-Man, who assures her that everything will be alright and he will protect her... But from there, I actually expected Dolph to suddenly snap Courtney's neck and masturbate to her dead corpse or something. Sorry. I know it's a horrible thing to visualize, but that's just what I have come to expect of Dolph.

With our introduction to He-Man, we also meet his friends Man-At-Arms (Jon Cypher) and Theela (Chelsea Field), also part of the battle against Skeletor. The group encounters Gwildor, a troll-like inventor who they saved from being captured by Skeletor's army... I don't know exactly why they call him "Gwildor." Might as well call him Yoda. Played by Razzie-Winner Billy Barty, Yod-- I mean, Gwildor is part of an alien race called Thenorians who look like a mix between The Leprechaun and the lady with ovaries on her face in Eraserhead. When Gwildor invites his new friends into his house, it oddly resembles Yoda's digs from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (with less snakes and more 80s futuristic technology). 
 

Anyways, Skeletor is after Gwildor for something he invented called "The Cosmic Key", a device that can open portals to other dimensions. But just as Gwildor unveils this to He-Man, Skeletor's army (The Black Storm Troopers) find their hide-out and attempt to break down the door. Our heroes escape through a portal and somehow end up in 1980s Earth -- Whoa, dude! -- pretty much spending the rest of the movie there rather than some cool alien planet that kids from the 80s hadn't seen before and didn't resemble their usual route to the local arcade.

Following her Bruce Spingsteen music video "Dancer In The Dark" (skip to 2:30), Courtney Cox plays Julie, a small town waitress at a fried chicken and ribs joint. A much younger and hotter Courtney than the one from Friends, we discover that her parents died in a plane crash and that this is her last night in town, and subsequently her last night with her boyfriend Kevin, played by Robert Duncan McNeill. And if you watch the film, no, there was no plans of making this last night special. Their plans were to meet up, eat fried chicken, go to Kevin's sound check, and then go to the airport to part ways forever... Yep. No sex. None at all. Not even a hint.

As they visit Julie's parents' grave for the last time, Kevin comes upon The Cosmic Key that somehow got lost on Hercules' -- I mean, He-Man's journey between Earth and Eternia. Kevin, being a musician, assumes it's a synthesizer. When fiddling around with it, he accidentally opens the gateway to Eternia for Skeletor's army to invade Earth. Suddenly, Julie's last night in, well, Small Town Wherever turns into a intergalactic war between good and evil... which encapsulates He-Man and Skeletor destroying a couple of barren, unpopulated urban streets and goes completely unnoticed by anyone living in that town, except the movie's principal characters.

The plot of this movie is not terrible. It probably has more thought put into it than many Adam Sandler films or even the recent Star Wars movies. But it probably would have been a much better film if it all stayed in Eternia, a much more fantastical place than 1980s middle-America. I'm assuming budgetary problems were why they had to go the Star Trek IV: A Voyage Home route, making the characters look kinda stupid running around in their Star Wars garb, stealing fried chicken and busting up music stores. But then again, being budgeted at $22 million, that was double the budget of the first Stars Wars and that movie took us all around the galaxy, not just back and forth between some small town neighborhood and the interior of Castle Gray Skull.

There are definitely things that make this movie worth seeing. The action is very reminiscent of Star Wars and fun. Dolph kicks a lot of ass, and I mean a lot of ass. His scene where he is riding around on the flying discs is pretty cool, even if the effects don't look quite so good. But for all Dolph's ass-kicking, it inevitably leads to He-Man proclaiming "I-have-the-power," which is He-Man's famous tagline, but after he says it accomplishes nothing. Seems like they just threw that one in there for the kids. One thing I couldn't help but notice was that there was an extensive amount of damage done to music equipment in the film. When Skeletor's Muppet Show Mercenaries go after Julie, they shoot up a stage and tons of amplifiers that Kevin's band would have performed on later that evening. And one of the biggest, most memorable set pieces of the film takes place in a music store where tons of musical equipment gets blown up for the sake of action... I mean, did the folks at Cannon have something against 80s music? Who didn't like Lover Boy? 

Overall, there has been a lot of Star Wars knock-offs over the years, but this one is definitely not the worst I've ever seen (I refer you to Ice Pirates). It's never not entertaining, didn't leave me quite resenting it like Super Mario Bros did, but I also never quite felt it was the Masters of The Universe film I expected having grown up with the toys and TV shows. Seemed like Cannon just took the framework and made an action film out of it... but it's still a decent action film. 

And for your viewing displeasure, Skeletor becomes an utterly fabulous God!