RICKSHAW LAW - THE FINALE

THE FINALE: "JUSTICE FOR JIMMY"

Rickshaw Law - The Finale: Rochester Lawyers Enzo Prosciutto and H.P. Barnes are forced to take the law into their own hands to stop all this rickshaw bullsh#% once and for all.

 

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=3AJFhFOjqW0

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 (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 (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!

 


 

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (25 OF 100)

"Footloose" (1984), Dir: Herbert Ross

$8.2 million in Budget vs. $80,035,402 in Gross

Footloose is the quintessential bad movie, from plot, to story, to acting, and even to the culture status it somehow achieved. Who would have thought a little movie about the town that wouldn't allow dancing would become a joke that seemingly never gets old?

From its very literal opening, Footloose is simply laughable. The classic "Footloose" tune by Kenny Loggins starts playing to a montage of different feet dancing around while the credits roll... But really, with the title is Footloose, how literal does one have to be? Did the creative team sit around the boardroom table and agree "This movie needs to open with a bunch of feet dancing." The assumption must have been that we would see the images of the feet, hear the lyrics to the song, and magically put two and two together: "Hey! This movie's about dancing!" It's reassuring to know the good people at Paramount have that much faith in the audience's ability to interpret cinematic language... But opening with feet? If there's anything that looks worse than feet on camera, it's noses, so at least they didn't start the movie with 2 minutes and 20 seconds of noses... Ugh.

Kevin Bacon plays Ren McCormack, a teenager raised in Chicago. He's moved to a small conservative town to live with his aunt and uncle, only to realize that the one thing he loves most in the world - dancing to rock music - has been outlawed. Now, I'm not sure how the legal system in the fictional town of Beaumont works, but this always seemed a little strange to me. Yes, it's just a movie and set in a very oppressed town, but what appointed judge is really going to agree to outlaw dancing? "Your honor, the accused is charged with... dancing alone in his apartment." And, for that matter, would he actually send someone to jail for dancing? "What're you in for?" Dancing. "Hmm... See you in the shower, boy."

A fish out of water, Kevin Bacon befriends a local boy named Willard, portrayed by the late Chris Penn, who shows him around. The Baconator then meets a local religious girl named Ariel, who happens to be daughter to Reverend Shaw Moore (played by the brilliant John Lithgow) who put the ban on dancing in the first place. Now, let's get something straight: John Lithgow is fantastic in almost everything he does. In Footloose, he plays the crotchety old reverend as he should be played (and for a paycheck). However, Lithgow as an individual also has a great sense of humor. Ten years later, his character Dick Solomon unwittingly mocked The Reverend's speech from Footloose condemning rock music in 3rd Rock From The Sun. Anyone who can take their own career and parody it (that isn't Kevin Smith) deserves my respect.

That said, the biggest question that Footloose poses: Why Kevin Bacon? It's probably the role he is most recognized for, but seems completely out of place. When I was in high school, our English Media Teacher (an idiot) made us do a comparison between Footloose and Rebel Without a Cause, suggesting Kevin Bacon's character to be the modern James Dean... Now, even if this was even close to being true, does Kevin Bacon strike you as the handsome lead? I've never heard a female ever admit to be attracted to Kevin Bacon in my life and the first who does is very brave for doing so. Secondly, does Kevin Bacon strike you as a rebel? Prior to this film, the only basis of comparison would be 1982's Diner, where his character was a sh@#-disturber but not really a rebel. Thirdly, does Kevin Bacon strike you as a dancing machine? I had no idea punch-dancing was so big in Chicago. Even in the movie's most famous sequence where Bacon dances his anger away, Bacon admitted (in reality) to having two dance-doubles, a stunt-double, and a gymnastics-double, so Bacon didn't actually do any of the movie's dancing... he's just the face of it... and not exactly the prettiest either.

Finally, the silliest sequence and a direct reference to Rebel Without a Cause comes in the form of a chicken run with tractors. Comparing this (as I was forced to) with the chicken run scene in Rebel Without a Cause, the two are very similar, yes, except that a tractor is not a car. And since this race isn't toward the end of a cliff like in Rebel and instead towards each other, there isn't as much stakes. I suspect that's why they have the track "I Need a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler playing in the background the whole time, to add a little excitement to an utterly plodding chase sequence... and even then, it just looks more ridiculous than anything.

Not to be misinterpreted, these are all reasons you should see Footloose. The Baconator has gone on to be a respectable actor in my opinion, but his humble beginnings with Footloose shall remain his humble beginnings. He can laugh at it, so we should as well.

And for your viewing displeasure, Footloose's cringe-worthy climax.

 

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (21 OF 100)

"Super Mario Bros." (1993), Dir: Annabel Jankel
& Rocky Morton

 

$48 million in Budget vs. $20,915,465 in Gross

I'm sure you all remember the evolution of Nintendo. Oh, yes. From the dusty, old, 8-bit original Nintendo to the game-changing Super Nintendo  in all it's color and 16-bit glory. But the kids buying these technical marvels had no interest in the technology involved. Our understanding of Nintendo came through the ever-changing, ever-evolving spokes-character Super Mario and his brother Luigi. Then it was announced that a Super Mario Bros film was being made. Suddenly, every kid who saw The Wizard was ecstatic with anticipation. When it was finally released, millions of young video gamers went to the theaters, started watching, and quickly asked themselves, "What the f&$# is this?" The answer to that question is simple: the most expensive betrayal of our childhood prior to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace rearing its ugly head.

I watched this movie recently, trying to figure out what the thinking behind this big-budget disaster was. Now that I am much older and have more of an education than when I was ten, I have a couple theories. Picture yourself as the guy in charge of making The Super Mario Bros. movie. It's a tough gig. You're in charge of one of the biggest non-film franchises in history and are obligated to a planet of children to not disappoint them. That being said, what is your most rational course of thinking?

Well, firstly, when there is kids involved, so the safest bet is an animated movie (like we've seen with the recent Lego movie coming out.) Makes sense. Cartoons are cheaper. Cartoons are less risk. Cartoons need less explaining. Parents are likely to bring kids to a cartoon because they're generally harmless. (It should be noted that the most recent Super Smash Brothers game for the Nintendo Wii had an animated story involving the entire Nintendo universe and accomplished that without using any dialogue.) But no, the overlords at Nintendo just put down $2 million dollars to give the rights of the character (temporarily) to a film studio. Back then, $2 million clams would have been the entire budget for an animated film, so, needless to say, they expected something a little more substantial.

So the more logical cartoon idea is out. Okay. Next question: How do you bring Mario to the real world? How do you explain the warp whistle, the pipes, the mushrooms, the Goombas, the turtles with wings, any of that to an audience paying money to see this? What possible logical connection can one make for any of these elements to co-exist in the same world together?

Wait! I know! Dinosaurs! Yes, there is a running theme of prehistoric-like creatures in the Mario Games. Koopa is kind of a dinosaur, though most dinosaurs never breathed fire. Yoshi is definitely a dinosaur, so that idea works. The Goombas? Yeah, sure, whatever. Make them dinosaurs too. Rolling with this concept, writers Parker Bennett, Terry Runté, and Ed Solomon thought the most sensible thing to do would be to set the Mario Bro's world in another dimension where dinosaurs evolved to make technology and civilizations of their own... And it's not that bad of an idea, really. In fact, it's kinda cool. Question is, how does this reflect the video game and how will children understand this? Answer is simple: they didn't.
 

 
Next, who does one cast to play these characters? Well, Bob Hoskins is a rounded, portly fella. Kids already know him from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (or if you were a kid like me, The Long Good Friday), so he would make a great Mario. And for Luigi, well, who other than Fox's soon-to-be House of Buggin's host, John Leguizamo? Hmm. Well, he kinda looks Italian (but is actually Colombian) and comes across pretty dopey. Definitely not the worst casting choice in the world. But then there's the challenge: who do you cast for King Koopa, a giant, fire-breathing monster that lives in a flying castle? Oh, that's easy! Dennis Hopper of course! That's right! Star of Blue Velvet, and also one of the most notorious coke-heads in all of Hollywood. What kid wouldn't recognize "The Hop" and love seeing him King Koopa, even though the filmmakers made no effort to make the two look alike at all?

Finally, what kind of mood should the picture be? What would the Mario world be like if it were in our world? I know! A Blade Runner-esque wasteland with mutants and jet packs and crazed dictators. Oh yeah. Kids will love that... Well, no. No, they didn't. Not in the slightest. Of all its flaws, this is where the Super Mario Bros. movie fell flat on its face. Playing any of the Mario games, you'll clearly see that the colors are bright, the music is always jovial, the characters are dancing, even if they are your sworn enemies with them, and everyone is very happy and very contented in their little universe (minus Princess Daisy perhaps). So why when making a Super Mario Bros. movie does one stray so far from the merry little world that the two universes cannot even be compared, even slightly? And also, what's with all the f%$@ing slime everywhere? Is this Alien Resurrection or something?!

I will never forgive Hollywood or Nintendo for The Super Marios Bros. movie. I can understand the frustration in trying to find the logistics in making this movie work, but if doing so was that hard to begin with, then why make it all? Next time (and I'm sure we're due) think like Lego did and stick to cartoons.

And for your viewing pleasure, the live-action Mario TV show from the 1980s that also did not reflect the game, but at least had the jovial tone right...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (12 OF 100)

"League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003),
Dir: Stephen Norrington
 

$78,000,000 in Budget vs. $179,265,204 in Gross

 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is one of the best/worst blockbuster films ever made. Based on the comics by famed Watchmen-writer (and part-time magician) Alan Moore, the film attempts to be Jules Verne's answer to DC Comics' Justice League. And for all intensive purposes, this idea probably looked great on paper, combining all these fictional characters in a similar way to the movie Tall Tale, but already proved not to work back in good old 1995. But what makes this movie so great are all the ways it doesn't work and still remains entertaining.

Based on a comic and thus subject to fantasy, the movie claims to be set in the year 1899, so we presume that's our 1899... yet there's submarines, machine guns, automobiles, rockets, etc., so any divide between Fantasy 1899 and Reality 1899 is never made clear. Not like the opening credits to Watchmen, where the movie's different world setting is much more evident. Now, a lot of people blame the movie's poor reception on the C.G.I. and it's overuse, but they might be surprised to discover the movie has a lot less of that than some would think. For example, I always thought Mr. Hyde was a C.G. character. Turns out it's just a bad-looking latex suit as seen below. And the car chase scene through Venice (with the first automobile ever created apparently) is actually all miniatures... Hmm. Interesting. Still looks like sh&^%, though.

Special effects aside, the main problem with LXG is the poor decisions on the creative teams' part. Coming out of The Matrix craze of all early-2000s superhero movies (X-Men and Norrington's Blade included), they chose to follow this visual trend of dark costuming and bullet-time action sequences to sway audiences into believing these story-lines. But for a movie set in the Victorian era, lifting the style of a movie about cyberpunks seems like an odd choice.

Now, maybe I am just ignorant, but I had no idea who Allan Quatermain was before seeing this movie. My inability to read anything beyond the back of a shampoo bottle didn't help. But the bigger question is, what audience going to see a superhero action movie would be brushing up on their Victorian era writings first? I knew Tom Sawyer (hardly Victorian and not as some f*&%ing secret service agent), Dr. Jekyll (the original Hulk), The Invisible Man (who spends most of the movie naked apparently), Captain Nemo (but only Disney's version), and Professor James Moriarty (with no Sherlock Holmes in sight).

Allan Quatermain? No idea. Mina Harker (Dracula's wife and former protagonist of the comic books) I only knew from Wyona Ryder's soulless portrayal in Bram Stoker's Dracula, where she wasn't a vampire and had me confused. And Dorian Gray (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, an Oscar Wilde story) was definitely the most obscure. Also, the movie provides no background to these characters, so if you don't know the story of Dorian Gray, Stuart Townsend's action movie one-liner seen in this clip really makes no sense...

LXG's legacy was less so informing audiences about these classical characters and more so about killing a lot of careers. After its release, Sean Connery quit acting all together. Director Stephen Norrington has not directed a feature since this. And this mess was the last film to carry Alan Moore's name. For all its infamy, though, this movie is immensely entertaining, from its over-the-top action sequences and general lunacy. You will be laughing out loud and have a great time with it.