Galaxy Warriors (2022)

Back when I was doing my look at the MCU on my DTVC Extra podcasts--which you can find in the archives of the main podcast feed--I considered doing some low-budget comic book movies for the site, and that's when I found filmmaker Brett Kelly. He looked like a low-budget auteur I could get into, and this is his most recent film, so I figured I'd give it a look in our Indie Spotlight for April.

Galaxy Warriors is about intergalactic bounty hunter Demeter (Christine Emes), who, with her partner Vesta (Alianne Rozon), need to rescue Demeter's sister Artemis (Abbey Flockton) from a prison planet. To infiltrate it, they get themselves arrested and sent there, which seems like a great idea in theory, but the situation's a bit tougher, First, fellow inmate Circe (Christa Cullain) has a bone to pick with Demeter; then, once she's won Circe over, warden Enyo (Ellen Mildred) has been running a dark kumite of sorts, a la Ben Franklin in Bloodsport IV, and she's forcing the women to fight in it. Has Demeter bitten off more than she can chew, or will she be able to find her sister and get the hell out of there?

"You're close." This was Andrew Zimmern said on his show after he tried the plant-based scrambled eggs a vegan food start-up was working on, and this film, in its attempt to be an exploitation film without the actual exploitation, was also close. It's a futuristic women in prison film, with no nudity, no bondage--hell, they even went with gaiters on the prison outfits instead of go-go boots. The problem is, without nudity, bondage, the occasional girl-on-girl hook up--or even go-go boots--everything around it needs to be spot-on. You can have people doing plot exposition conversations in an Andy Sidaris film if the payoff is topless hot tub scenes and exploding helicopters, but without that it hurts the quality that much more. The other thing is I think there could be goofy send-ups to some of those hallmarks of the exploitation film, like maybe oversized chains that have no restraining effect to mimic the bondage elements that are often in these women in prison films, but they didn't do any of that. This does have a lot going for it though. Despite the missing exploitation, it's still fun; and there was an earnestness and heart in putting it all together that I had to respect, especially in this current ecosystem of assemblyline DTV films. I think they're on the right track, and the same way I like an Impossible Whopper, I like the idea of exploitation-less exploitation. They're close.

I'm not a full-on vegetarian, but if a place I'm eating at has vegetarian options, I tend to go with that. The key is, when I'm eating an Impossible Whopper, I know it's not real meat, but I like that it does a good job imitating it, without the inhumane factory farming and damage to the environment that comes with the real thing. Furthering the metaphor, what's interesting is, the fake version costs more to make than the real one--which seems ridiculous considering the latter involves taking a life, but that's factory farming for you--and I think the same idea applies with exploitation films. The exploitative elements cover up the films flaws--or they're more likely forgiven--so doing fake exploitation takes more to pull it off. One of the best examples of this is early on when Demeter and Vesta are chasing a guy in their space ship, and after some back and forth where he shoots at them and they have to dodge it, Demeter decides "let's just teleport him onto our ship." Wait what? Why didn't you do this right away? Again, if there's the pay off of exploitative elements, a flawed story element like that is forgiven; but here it stuck out that much more.

The closest comp to this movie is The Adventures of Taura: Prison Ship Star Slammer, or simply Star Slammer, a Fred Olen Ray film about a futuristic prison ship. That one does have the bondage, the nudity, the girl-on-girl, etc., but it also felt stronger overall. The jokes landed better for me, the story had fewer of the holes this one had, yet Ray was also forced to work on a microbudget. The other thing is it had more memorable characters. Ross Hagen as a baddie is hard to top, plus Dukey Flyswatter with his changing hairdos was fantastic; but even the warden played by Marya Grant and Mike played by Suzy Stokey had more fun material to work with than their counterparts in this, let alone our hero played by Sandy Brooke. Yes, the exploitation elements were there, but everything around it was still pretty strong, and I think for a Galaxy Warriors to get there without those exploitation elements, it'll need to approach what Ray and co. were able to do with Star Slammer in all the other aspects that much more.

A couple Earth-bound equivalents are the Roger Corman-produced Pam Grier classics Black Mama White Mama and The Arena, again both full of exploitation elements, but also stronger all around. Pam Grier talked about how she welcomed the nudity scenes because she wanted to represent that a black woman could be naked onscreen as much as a white woman. In that sense, the nudity isn't just exploitative, it's also empowering, which I think shows that these things we label as exploitation aren't always black and white. I still like the idea of an exploitation sans exploitation--an Impossible Burger kind of exploitation if you will--or even if you won't--but I think there's also a place for exploitation, especially when it's done as well as the Pam Grier films were. She's the inspiration not only for a film like this one, but all of the female-led action we've seen, especially lately. 

Finally, this film was made in Canada. Fun fact about me: I grew up in Maine, but have never been to Canada before. I've had a couple different trips planned, but things like snowstorms came in and changed those plans. I feel like I need to get there at some point, even if I live much further away now in Philadelphia. I mean, at the very least, I need to get to Toronto to see a Blue Jays game, as big a baseball fan as I am. After I moved down here, my friends in Maine started doing day trips to New Brunswick--I think it's about 4 hours one way, but the idea sounds so fantastic. Just watching this film, it seems like there's a lot of fun stuff going on up there, between Blue Jays games, making Impossible Burger exploitation flicks, and bands like Glass Tiger and Loverboy, how can you go wrong?

The answer is you can't. And I think overall you can't go wrong with this, just know going in it's packaged as exploitation, but it is sans exploitation--and like I said, they're close to pulling it off. It has it's fun moments, and appears to be made with a lot of heart and earnestness, which is always a good thing.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12788862

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

One Ranger (2023)

Back in January on episode 143 of the podcast, Ty from Comeuppance and I looked at this as part of our "Malki on the Skids" John Malkovich double-feature. The fact that it also had Thomas Jane and was directed by Jesse V. Johnson, it was a no-brainer. In addition to us, Bulletproof has covered this as well.

One Ranger has Thomas Jane affecting a Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade accent while rocking a mustache and cowboy hat as a Texas Ranger. When he runs afoul of Irish criminal mastermind Dean Jagger, he's called in by a British secret service to hop across the pond to help take him down. Now he's working with Agent Smith (Dominique Tipper), with Malkovich as his boss, in this foreign territory, hoping to make it work and take this baddie down. Even though the title is "One Ranger," in fact he'll need some help if he wants to get this done and go back to Texas alive.

And that's the thing, the film is called "One Ranger" based off the idea that there was a riot in Texas, and only one Ranger was sent to quell it. When the Ranger was asked if more were coming, he said "one riot, one Ranger." That would have you believe that Jane and his fellow Rangers are badass Spartan warriors that get shit done on their own. It doesn't work out that way though. First, Jane and a fellow Ranger are transporting baddie Dean Jagger, when they're ambushed, and the fellow Ranger is killed and Jane seriously wounded. You'd think if it's "one riot, one Ranger," two Rangers would be even more unstoppable--except they aren't? And then in the UK, on a couple occasions Jane gets saved by Tipper. One in particular, he's at the desk of a hotel talking to a clerk, when Tipper catches someone before they could shoot Jane from behind. So it's "one Irish terrorist baddie, one Ranger and one UK secret service agent?" If he's such a badass lone warrior type, how is he letting someone get the drop on him so easily? Beyond all that, this is a fun time, and Jane's accent is even more fun. Also, with Jesse V. Johnson, you know there's a floor to his work that means it'll at least have a certain level of quality, and that was the case here. For a free streamer on Tubi this does the trick--I just wish it had a more accurate title.

This is now 12 director credits for Jesse V. Johnson, putting him in a five-way tie for third all-time, which is 31 behind Albert Pyun for top honors, and 3 behind Fred Olen Ray for second-most. While I would've said I don't see him catching Pyun, the speed with which he's making these movies does possibly put it in play. At this point I see 11 of his that I still have to review, and then if he keeps doing two films a year--okay, actually it's not that in play, unless I do this for another ten years, which isn't outside the realm of possibility! What I have to respect with Johnson, even with a film like this that I felt had its flaws, is he always turns out a competent, solid, professional product, which is no small feat in the current DTV action climate of churn and burn. If I'm spending my 90 minutes on a Johnson film, I have a good feeling it won't be wasted, and it wasn't here.

This is now five films for Thomas Jane, but I have a feeling that number will keep growing, because he's been working more in the DTV space recently--er, rather the last 10 years or so! I think his last theatrical film was 2018's The Predator. I liked what he did with this character here, even if the accent was a bit silly, and would like to see Jesse V. Johnson use him again. Maybe not in the UK, but what about LA or New York? Those could almost be unique countries to Texas. Also Vancouver or Toronto. And Johnson was worked in Thailand before too, so maybe we could stick the character there. The other thing is, with Disney bringing back the Jon Bernthal Punisher, it would be nice to see Jane's get some films again. Maybe a direct-to-Disney+ kind of thing, 90 minutes on a short budget, add in some other Marvel characters--like Scott Adkins as Daredevil?--and I think it would be a hit. Hell, Johnson could even direct. Give me a call Kevin Feige, I'm full of ideas.

In the podcast episode, Ty and I joked about Malkovich looking at the projects his agent was giving him, and then looking at the home improvement projects his wife was asking for for their house, and marrying the two. "Oh, this movie will cover the new kitchen island" or "this is perfect to pay for the outdoor pizza oven." Viewed from that lens, it makes sense why Malkovich would make these films--and to be honest, a low-budget Jesse V. Johnson film isn't the same as a Randall Emmett thing, but he's been doing his share of that level of quality stuff too. Also, I couldn't tell if his scenes with Jane and Tipper were shot together, or if he even made the trip to Ipswich where the UK scenes were filmed, which is the kind fun element of these low-budget actioners that I always enjoy. This is only his second film on the site, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing him more, as he has more home improvement projects that need funding.

Finally, we have an appearance by Mark Griffin in this. Who's that you ask? He played a higher up in the film I Am Vengeance: Retaliation, where he had one of the best lines of all time. He was asking some fellow soldiers if they wanted to go in and help the hero, and in asking he said "fancy it?" How do you say no to that? In American English, if you used "fancy" in that context, people would think you were trying to affect a UK way of speaking, so we really can't use it like that. Another I think is "cheeky." Some, on the other hand, we've been allowed to co-opt, like "baddie," or "on the tin" for "on the [DVD] cover"--though I think the latter might be pushing it a bit. Some uses would be confusing, like "chips" for fries, though we do use it in the name of the UK dish "fish and chips" instead of calling it "fish and fries"--I think in that case, "fish and fries" sounds too pedestrian to have on a menu. In Maine where haddock is really good, they use that instead of cod for that dish, so if you're ever there and see "fish and chips" on the menu, it's worth trying--I fancy having some myself when I visit my family up there again soon.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Do I fancy One Ranger? I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's solid enough to get you to the church on time. I just wish it had a more accurate title, like "One Ranger... Plus One British Agent." Either way, you can check out for free on Tubi here in the States, which is a great way to go. And for the podcast episode, check out number 143 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23037488

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Paradise City (2022)

Back on episode 128 of the podcast Ty and I covered this in our continuing effort to watch all of Bruce Willis's 2020s and late 2010s DTV films, and I'm finally getting around reviewing it. I'm not really sure why that is, because as far as I know it's been on Hulu this whole time. Anyway, we're getting after it now.

Paradise City has a guy named Ryan Swan (Blake Jenner, no relation to the Jenner family) who is in Hawai'i to find out how his father (Bruce Willis) died. Signs point to John Travolta, who is sponsoring senate candidate Branscombe Richmond, but just has the vibe of a creepy bad guy. First Swan enlists the help of his father's old partner (Stephen Dorff), and then when he goes missing, he teams up with a local police detective (Praya Lundberg). After she dons a bikini to find Blake's father's phone in a lagoon, she then takes Blake to Paradise City, this community hidden from away from the White Man, which Travolta wants to get his grubby hands on so he can ruin it. Is Blake able to find what he's looking for at Paradise City?

 
This is about what you'd expect from one of these films, but the names help, especially Travolta, who gives us a bit of his Battlefield Earth baddie in his performance. There's also a lot of goofiness, like when Stephen Dorff is captured by Travolta's baddies, first he and Travolta have a funny back and forth, and then when his goons beat up Dorff, they're like straight-punching him from off screen. It's hilarious, and does what you need. Another was when Travolta threw a village elder from a helicopter into an active volcano. Still, Blake Jenner, as your young man doing the heavy lifting, doesn't quite bring it the way a Johnny Drama would've done, and I think our lead needed that kind of energy. I think they also tried to prop up the scenes between Jenner and Lundberg by having her in skimpy outfits like a bikini, as a way to hide the fact that they didn't have great chemistry, and the scenes themselves looked like they were one take and done. This is also the first time Travolta and Willis were in a film together since Pulp Fiction, so for people my age, that was a fun element of this that pushed it above your usual 2020s DTV Willis fare. Oh, and as an aside, this film has nothing to do with the Guns N' Roses hit.

We're now at 15 for Willis on the site, and with the number of films I've covered on the podcast with Ty, I think we have another 10 ready to review. He's not horrible here, but he's not in this much either, which is par for the course with these later Willis films--Paradise City was 4th from the last for him. Seeing him with Travolta was a reminder of how far we were from the days of Pulp Fiction, and how amazing they both were in it--"Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead." This October will be 30 years since Pulp Fiction came out, and Ty made the point that this film in 1997 would've been huge. Stephen Dorff would've had to have been the Blake Jenner part, and we also would've gotten more Willis. The one point I made though is that in a 1997 version, they may not have given the role of the senate candidate to Branscombe Richmond, which would've been too bad.

Travolta on the other hand is just moving into the DTV world. While this is his fourth tag on the site, it's only his second DTV film, after The Killing Season--the other two were Wild Card posts for The Punisher and Battlefield Earth. And speaking of Battlefield Earth, there was a bit of the old "Man Animal" in his performance as a baddie here, which really stole the show. In looking at his bio, he's had quite a few DTV flicks, or ones that did like in the tens of thousands in the theater, that we could cover here--not to the level of Willis, but he's had about ten years since The Killing Season, and it looks like he's made 14 DTV flicks in that time, which is still pretty prolific. Based on how much fun this performance this was here, I think it'll be worth checking some of these other ones out in the near future.

In addition to Willis and Travolta, we had a bunch of other names. Like Willis, this is Branscombe Richmond's 15th film on the site. We're used to seeing him in small parts in 90s DTV actioners, so to see him here was a lot of fun. Speaking of fun, Eva from Hot Seat was back in this one. If you listen to the episode Ty and I did on Hot Seat, 118, we extolled the virtues of Eva, played by Kate Katzman, who's in this as a madame--at least I think she was a madame--maybe strip club owner? I mentioned Stephen Dorff above, who we could've used more of, but he's great in any case. We also had a small cameo from DTV character actor mainstay, Noel Gugliemi, who played another gangster looking to make a deal with Travolta. Finally, you may have noticed Johnny Messner was tagged. That's because he was a producer on this, but he's not in the film at all as an actor.

Finally, as I mentioned in the podcast episode, at the end of the film when our heroes infiltrate Travolta's big dinner, Jenner's character goes disguised as Gavin DeGraw while acting as the chauffeur driving the women there. Every time I see this I hear I'm in looove with a giiirl... or IIIIII don't wannbe... What amazed me was how far we were from when Gavin DeGraw was making Mom Rock hits that were used for the theme songs to CW teen dramas, that the character could go into Travolta's compound dressed like DeGraw, and no one would say "hey, aren't you the guy that did that 'I Don't Wannabe' song?" "Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about." "No way, you're him! This is so cool!" "I mean it man, I'm really not him, I'm just a chauffeur." "What kind of chauffeur dresses like Gavin DeGraw? Fine man, you wanna be like that, whatever. I didn't like your music anyway." God, brings you back to the late 2000s though, doesn't it?

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this on Hulu, which I think isn't a bad bet. The names are what sell it, and Travolta in particular does a great job, which makes this worth a look. On the other hand as a warning, it was still made on the cheap, and all the names are supporting characters, so more of the film centers on Jenner and Lundberg. And if you haven't yet, you can check out episode 128 in the podcast archives for the conversation Ty and I had on this.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14656632

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

The Fantastic Four (1994)

This is one I'd been meaning to do for a long time, and once I saw it was on YouTube, I bumped it up in my queue. Then for the DTVC Extra I was looking at MCU Phase 2, and thought I'd watch the 2015 Fantastic Four debacle, and decided I finally needed to watch this as well for comparison's sake; and then for the review, I put it here, one day after producer Roger Corman's birthday.

The Fantastic Four is based off the Marvel comic of the same name. In this iteration, Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White) is in college with Ben Grimm (Michael Baily Smith) and Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp), when some intergalactic phenomenon is happening and Richards and Doom invent a device to tap into it. Things go wrong, and we think Doom dies. Years later, Richards thinks he has it right, so he and Bailey plan to go into space this time, and they decide to take Sue and Johnny Storm (Rebecca Staab and Jay Underwood) with them, despite them having no training or experience. It's okay though, no training would prepare them for what happened: they all get special powers! Turned out Doom didn't die though, and he wants their powers so he can use them for his evil ends. Will he succeed?

I didn't hate this. It had some flaws--like making Sue and Johnny Storm much younger, and then still having them fly on the ship; or the whole thing with the Jeweler kidnapping Alicia Masters, which felt rough considering she's blind--and was funny because they did a POV shot from her POV when she's blind!--but beyond those flaws, this is closest to the source material--and they wanted to be closer, because they wanted the Jeweler to be Mole Man, but they weren't allowed to use him--and the 90s TV movie feel took me back to movies like Trial of the Hulk, which was fun from a comfort food standpoint. As far as casting, I liked everyone they had, and other than Ioan Gruffudd, who I feel is the perfect Mr. Fantastic, I don't think anyone cast in these parts since have been better (which isn't to say I didn't like Alex Hyde-Smith here in that part, I definitely did). For someone who grew up in the modern world of comic book movies, this might hurt your sensibilities, and I get that; but that 2015 one had a $120 million budget, and it's an objectively inferior movie to this. Which means as you're watching this, you can't help but wonder how this would've been with a bigger budget. Could it have been an all-time great? Maybe not a top 10, but maybe one that gets onto those click-bait-y "Most Underrated Comic Book Movies" articles or "Top Non-MCU Marvel movies."

Thinking of my own experience with the Fantastic Four, my earliest memories are one of the cartoons, either the '67 one or the '78 one, and I feel like it was mixed in with things like Space Ghost, Birdman, and Thundarr the Barbarian on a Hanna-Barbera morning cartoon show--and when I say morning, I mean like really early, like 6:30a before my mom took us to nursery school. From there you'd see the Fantastic Four everywhere. Human Torch hung out with Spider-Man. Any kind of Marvel product, like a lunch box, would have them included. When I started collecting comics myself in the late 80s, Fantastic Four wasn't one I bought, but it was understood as one of the major cornerstone ones for Marvel, the one that started the modern age of comics at that time. From there though, Fox bought the rights to Fantastic Four and X-Men, and then Disney bought Marvel, and the focus became the MCU, of which Fantastic Four, because it was owned by Fox, wasn't a part of. Watching this movie from 1994 reminded me of how big a deal they were, and how much of a shame it is that they haven't been around for the growth of the MCU. The biggest omission has been Dr. Doom, who is Marvel's best baddie. We know now that there's an MCU adaptation in the works, so we'll see how it does, but at this stage, between the MCU's growth from 2009 and 2019, the only Fantastic Four we got was the sauteed in wrong sauce 2015 reboot; and now as things have waned a bit, they might be looking at the new Fantastic Four to be one of the ones to bring them back. Is it too late though? We'll see in 2025.

Out of everyone, I think Rebecca Staab was the most like her comic book character. It was weird that her character was a high schooler at the beginning--played by a younger actor--because I think if she'd been in college with Reed, Grimm, and Doom, it would've made more sense. When she brings out the iconic Fantastic Four uniforms, and she's already in hers, it was the big reveal moment we didn't get in the others because they weren't the same iconic ones we grew up with. It was interesting that Staab was the one wearing hers for most of the time, the idea almost like "young men watching this aren't watching it to see Jay Underwood or Alex Hyde-White in spandex," but it was also a reminder that she was one of the bigger female comic book heroes, and has been left on the shelf for a long time. In 1994 she would've been one of the first on the big screen, after Supergirl, as we were one year before Tank Girl, two before Barb Wire, and Batgirl doesn't appear in the Batman films until 1997's Batman and Robin--so on top of predating everyone but Supergirl, she also would've been the only one who's superhero moniker was "woman" instead of "girl." Instead, this was shelved, so Staab and her portrayal of Sue Storm/Invisible Woman didn't get to have that part in history. Another reason why Disney should clean this up and put it on Disney+.

Our film's one Hall of Famer is the great Roger Corman, whose production company Concorde-New Horizons has produced some of the greats from the late 80s/early 90s that we love, in particular the Bloodfist films. He was also instrumental in molding the action genre with his 70s exploitation films, especially the ones starring Pam Grier. One thing that's interesting when you look at the documentary on this film, Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's the Fantastic Four, which we've reviewed on the site, is Lloyd Kaufman said he was approached to make this film too, and turned it down because he wanted Troma to focus on their own characters. Corman on the other hand went for it. He swears that this was supposed to be released until Marvel killed it, which sounds closer to right when you watch the movie, but what it did was allow the rights holders to renew their option so they could work with Fox to make the bigger budget one ten years later and make more money. The comp is probably Cannon with Captain America and Superman IV, and what Corman did that they didn't, was he didn't pump too much money into this. He easily could've gambled, thinking this was his big opportunity, and put more money of his own upfront, which he would've lost and probably would've ended his production career. But that's why he's been in the business so long, he doesn't take gambles like that. This is only his 32nd tag on the site, but sometimes I find a film he produced that I forgot to tag, plus he has so much out there that we could review, that 40 and 50 Club and beyond isn't out of the question, it's just a matter of if I can review them all. Happy Birthday Mr. Corman, you truly are one of the best to ever do it.

Finally, for this last paragraph, I wanted to reflect on the evolution of comic book movies over the past 30 years since this was made. In 1994 we had the first two Superman movies and the first two Batman movies as the standard of quality for films, plus the '60s Batman, The Incredible Hulk, and Wonder Woman as the standard for TV shows. You could make the case that as successful as a lot of the comic book movies in the intervening 30 years have been, none of them are really better than those standards--that 30 years later they're still the standards--and I think the reason why is so many movies want to be Superman--Kevin Feige said he watches it for inspiration before starting any new MCU project--so how can you be better if you're trying to emulate it? And who wants to try being Tim Burton's Batman and take that gamble? The Joker was a gamble, and the fact that it paid off should be the thing studios are looking at, because it's not in either Donner or Burton's shadow. TV on the other hand has been a little better. While those three shows really stand up for me, you can look at Daredevil and Arrow as two that reach that standard, plus some of the Disney+ mini-series have been good too. On the other hand, have any of them really changed the zeitgeist the way those three have? If I say "you won't like me when I'm angry," or if a TV show shows a person spinning around to transform into a new outfit, or has a fight with flashes of "boom!" and "pow!" on the screen, we know instantly what that means and what it's referring to. Is there anything about Daredevil, Arrow, or those Disney+ shows that have had that kind of effect on our culture? At least the MCU films have had some of those kind of inroads--if I reference Wakanda everyone knows what I'm talking about, but even that is a remake of Superman--a fantastic one, done really well, but a kind of remake nonetheless. Deadpool is another one that hasn't exactly followed the standards, so maybe that's the one this summer that will change the game, but again, it is interesting to think that in the 30 years since this came out, Donner's Superman and Burton's Batman are still the standards. The special effects have gotten better, but the stories haven't kept pace.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently YouTube or a bootleg DVD is the best way to see this. Hopefully Disney+ will get a version on their site between now and when the 2025 MCU film is released. Yes, it has its shortcomings, but it's also the most faithful version of the comic to this point and deserves to be seen by the world--and the PR boon Disney could get by leaning into it is something the really need right now.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109770

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Seal Team (2021)

It's April Fool's Day again, and in that spirit, I'm doing a post on something outside the norm for the site as more of a joke. The thing is here, while this is a joke post, it also gets Dolph Lundgren another tag, so even when we're not serious, he adds to his record-holding number at the DTVC.

Seal Team is about some seals off the coast of South Africa--which explains why they look more like American sea lions, but anyway--who need to find some fish, but the problem is the sharks in the water are preventing that. When rogue seal Quinn strikes out on his own, his friend Benji joins him, and subsequently gets eaten by a shark--perfect for a kids movie, right? Quinn wants he and his fellow seals to get out from under the fin of these scary sea monsters, so he enlists the aid of a walrus--or maybe he's a seal with a mustache?--named Claggart (JK Simmons), who used to be a part of a military program where he, another seal, and a dolphin (Dolph Lundgren) helped find and defuse bombs. Now he's going to train Quinn and some other seals so they can fight back against these scary sharks.

While I understand that I am in no way the target demographic for this film, after watching it I couldn't figure out who was. When the friend Benji is eaten by the shark, it happens off-screen, so I thought maybe he just disappeared and he'd come back at the end. Oh no, the shark ate him. Wait what? And this is for kids? As you can see above, Dolph's character smokes a cigar, which is great for us as adults, but again, smoking cigars in a kids movie? But it's not an adult movie either, the comedy is the crazy over-the-top (Stallone-style) kind that wouldn't work for an adult; yet it also tries to have things for adults like Seal--yes, the singer, Seal--whose hits would've been before a lot of the parents of the kids watching this listened to popular music, other than maybe the song from Batman Forever, so his inclusion would be for the older uncle like me who drew babysitting duty? Same with the "jump the shark" joke they made. The other interesting thing is it was made for the big screen, and on the small screen as a streamer on Netflix, the fast moving chases scenes and other action moments didn't translate as well, and I think also would've made it tougher for younger audiences to keep up. The thing is, this isn't horrible, it's not some kind of train wreck thing, it's just that tonally I don't know if it has a proper identity or knows who the target audience is.

We got another Dolph bait-and-switch here. Not as egregious as Ambushed, but the fact that Dolph was only doing voicework does make it particularly galling. He's in at the very beginning, and at the very end, and that's it--yet that was enough for him to get his own title card before the credits? When I first got wind of this, I knew I would have to watch it because it has Dolph, and considering it was direct to Netflix here in the States, I figured I'd need to review it as well, so April Fool's Day seemed like the best place to put it; but when I actually got stuck in on it, the reality set in that I was going to be watching a 100-minute cartoon that technically was supposed to be for kids. I'm not one of those types who's like "oh yeah, Finding Nemo has a lot of stuff for adults in it too!" My Dinner with Andre that I reviewed last year for April Fools is more my speed; but we have this mission that we've been on since we started the site to get all of Dolph's direct to video films--and even some theatrical films--reviewed on here, so here we are, in the interests trying to complete this thing we've started. As an aside, I really like old Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, so it's not like I'm a total stick in the mud, but for whatever reason this new type of comedy in kids' cartoons doesn't work for me,

This was a South African production, and as such, I think there were some areas where culturally they didn't know where we are in the US in terms of certain language. The best example of this was the word "stupid." This is not only a word that's not used around kids anymore, but they're taught from a young age that it's not a nice thing to say. And this isn't a new thing, I remember when my nephew was between 3 and 5 in the late 2000s/early 2010s, he'd say "that person said the 'S' word." It doesn't mean it's censored out on popular media like say another "S" word, "shit," but no one making a movie for kids in America would use that word in their script, especially not as often as this film does. The thing is though, if you're not culturally up on that here in the States, you'd have no idea. It's another way though that this film doesn't make any sense, because I'm surprised Netflix, whose executives would be up on that, and probably are teaching their children not to call people "stupid," wouldn't have asked them to fix that if they wanted it available on their site as appropriate for kids. Maybe they didn't bother watching it first?

As I mentioned above, one of the seals is voiced by Seal, who performs on some kind of stage for other seals. I appreciated it as someone who likes his music, but part of me thought it was a reference that I'm not sure many people watching this would've gotten. On the other hand, parents are having kids older now, so there are more people my age that have kids in this target demo--if this is even the proper demo, because I don't know if I'd show this to a 7-year-old. To be too young to get the Seal reference would've put them as being born in the mid-to-late 80s, and I don't know how many people in that age group have kids that were born in the early 2010s. I think even some of those older Millennial parents may only remember "Kiss from a Rose" though, which was everywhere in 1995. I tried listening to it for this review, and couldn't, because I still had, as the Germans say, my nose full of it from when it was played twice an hour on every radio station almost 20 years ago. At least this movie, when it did use a Seal song, went with "Crazy," which wasn't as ubiquitous when it took off and gave me a nice sense of nostalgia.

Even as an April Fool's post, I wanted to give Dolph his second paragraph. This is now 71 films for him, which makes him 12 clear of Gary Daniels, who has the second-most films, but also, unlike Daniels, Dolph's recent output been more robust. Since 2021, Dolph has had 9 DTV flicks come out, compared to Daniels's 4, of which one, Law of Destiny, I can't find on streaming in the States. So not only will Dolph be number one all-time for the foreseeable future, but the margin between him and second place will probably grow, to the point that maybe no one catches him. On top of that, he's combining DTV efforts with big screen efforts like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Expend4bles, and his highest grossing film ever, Minions: The Rise of Gru. We could make the case that this is a cheap tag for Dolph, because he's only doing voice work, and his character is barely in it at all, but Daniels also has his share of tags for very small parts, like in Final Impact. Essentially it all works out and everyone gets the tags they should. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this on Netflix. I honestly don't know if this is good for kids. It's definitely not good for adults. That just leaves Dolph completists, and something like this would be for the highest level completists--and if you're at that level, this won't be an easy sit.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8456190

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Left for Dead (2007)

This is one I've been meaning to cover for a long time, but I had trouble finding it. It was available to rent, and I considered doing that, but then Vudu--which is now "Fandango at Home"--had it, and after them, the Roku Channel, so between the two I was able to finally make it happen.

Left for Dead is DTVC Hall of Famer Albert Pyun's mix of the Western and Horror genres. In it we have a town that was overrun by their women of the night--or "whores" as the opening backstory so lovingly calls them--who kill everyone except for the local reverend, because he makes a deal with the devil so he can finally get revenge on them. He roams the town, waiting for them to come back, and 15 years later it happens when one of the ladies' daughter is chasing down the man who may or may not have raped her and made her pregnant. At the same time, Victoria Maurette also wants that man, so they're all on a collision course to wackiness--with a murderous ghost reverend waiting for them!

This could've been one of Pyun's better films, but he relied really heavily on a freeze-frame technique that bogged things down. Here and there I think it could've worked, but the volume of it made it hard to get as stuck in as I'd have liked to. This is also darker and gorier, which, for someone like me who's on the squeamish side, was something that could be harder to watch, but I could manage that better than the constant freeze frames. The thing about the freeze frames is it betrayed how well this was shot, and the great environment they were shooting in in Argentina. The other thing is I really liked Victoria Maurette as our heroine, and Andres Bagg as the baddie, the problem was, they were adversaries more out of situation than any kind of common past--the baddie had his bone to pick with the ladies of the night that laid waste to his town and killed everyone, while Maurette had her bone to pick with the other guy that was accused of rape. I think it would've been better if she was seeking out the baddie as a source of conflict. Overall, as a Pyun fan, I liked what he was going for, and I liked a lot of what this had in it, I just wish he'd gone lighter on the freeze frames.

Our last Pyun review was August of 2022, so this is the first time we've reviewed one of his films since he's passed, which makes this one a little sad. I probably should've reviewed it sooner as a tribute to him like I've done for other legends who have left us, but this wasn't as available, and I created a Letterboxd list where I ranked his films instead, which is something that I think is a little more fitting since we've covered almost all of his films at this point. Where I'd put this one on that list is tough to say. That freeze frame thing is not just me nitpicking, it was tough for me to take. When I reviewed Bulletface I mentioned it then as well, even though it wasn't as frequent as it was in this one. One point I made was, in the age of streaming, the freeze frames feel like buffering, which makes them all the more intrusive, and Pyun actually appreciated that point, as it wasn't something he considered, but it made sense to him. What I love here though is the genre mixing and the imagery. Victoria Maurette as a gunslinger in her dirty wedding dress shooting at a reverend who's been cursed by the devil but given supernatural powers. That was delivered exactly as he wanted it to. And I think the freeze frames were his way of throwing back to the old grindhouse films, especially the old Italian Westerns, so I got why he did it, I just could've done with less of them. As I said above though, it's sad that he's passed, because it looked like he really had some ideas that he was going to bring together for us with older properties like Cyborg and Nemesis, but he never got the chance. Maybe someone will be able to finish those ones off for us at some point, but either way, he's left us with a vast catalog that we can enjoy.

Maurette was great here as the lead, but the problem was the story didn't make her lead as much of a lead as we'd have liked. She had more to do in Bulletface, but this character seemed like it could've been more compelling. The imagery alone of the gunslinger wearing her wedding dress is fantastic, and Maurette plays it as well as you'd want, it's just, again, we have a lot of other things going on between the other women, the other guy, and the baddie, that we sometimes lose her. This is the kind of thing that should be as iconic as Django dragging his coffin, it's such a perfect idea, but I think if there's a criticism of Pyun's work, it's that he has so many perfect ideas, and sometimes when they're all put together, some of each is lost and we end up with the law of diminishing returns. But it's always those things that work that keep us coming back.

Here in the US on weekend afternoons and all day on Sunday, one of the retro channels shows TV Westerns, and considering how big they were in the 60s and 70s, they had to have been a part of Pyun's viewing experience growing up. What I love here though is he takes so much of their tropes and standards, and turns them on their head. One is the idealized version of the world they presented, as if things were somehow simpler, nicer, cleaner, and whiter back then. Pyun takes that and makes everything messy, with everyone covered in dirt throughout--which makes it closer to something like the Spaghetti Western, but this is even dirtier than those. Also those old Westerns had themes like "White Makes Right" and the "Noble Savage," none of which is present here. The other thing is, Pyun pulls Western themes in a lot of his futuristic films, like Omega Red and Nemesis, so it was cool to see him make an actual Western, and then Pyun it up so to speak to put his spin on it.

In the opening title cards that give us all the backstory, the ladies of the night are referred to as "whores," and the term is used a bunch, so much so that it hurts my 2024 sensibilities, and probably would've hurt my 2007 ones too. Also, as someone who grew up in New England, I can't help reading it with that accent, saying it like Mark Wahlberg in Fear. On top of that, the guys at "No Budget Nightmares" have ruined the term for me after they covered Las Vegas Bloodbath (which I reviewed after as well). In that movie, the killer refers to what he calls "daytime whores," which sets off his killing spree--"maybe he didn't like daytime whores!" Who even knows what that means, but maybe because it made no sense in that bonkers no-budget film, it stuck with me, and every mention of "whores" in this had me shaking my fist at the screen saying "daytime whores!"

Finally, like we do with other names who have had this kind of impact on the site, we're giving Pyun a second paragraph as we wrap this up--though this is actually an extra paragraph because I put my images in the wrong places, which caused me to miscount my paragraphs! This is Pyun's 43rd director credit on the DTVC (and 46th tag all-time, but we reviewed Mean Guns twice, and tagged him for his production work on Nemesis 5 and archived work in Dollman vs Demonic Toys), which is not only the most all time, but is 28 ahead of the second-most director tags, Fred Olen Ray. Ray definitely has a enough films to pass him, but will I do enough of them? I'd have to do 4 a year, which as a Hall of Famer he should get at least that, but even at 4 a year, he wouldn't catch Pyun until 2031! We do have a few other Pyun films on the table that we can review at some point. Cool Air is available to rent on some of the streamers; and then Interrogation of Cheryl Cooper looks like it's available to rent though Vimeo on his old streaming site. Then there's Interstellar Civil War that doesn't seem to be anywhere, but maybe it will be? Or Cyborg Nemsis: Dark Rift, that may have been fully shot and screened in a very rough version. Could it be finished by someone else and released? And finally we have listed as in production on IMDb, Cyborg: Overture aka Bad Ass Angels and Demons. It looks like some shooting has been done on that. Could it be finished? Maybe by Dustin Ferguson who did Nemesis 5--or for symmetry, Jim Wynorski, who finished Bad Bizness aka More Mercy when Pyun was let go from the project. If you consider he's at 45 overall films between directing and producing, those ones I listed get us to 50, which would put Pyun in the 50 Club.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is free to stream on The Roku Channel and Vudu aka Fandango at Home. Between the two, The Roku Channel is much better on commercials, so I'd watch it there--with Fandango at Home I was 6 minutes in--after getting a commercial before we even started!--when the film was interrupted again with another commercial, abruptly inserted in there while someone was talking. Anyway, I think this is more for Pyun completists, but in that respect it's worth it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0918645

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Phoenix (2023)

This is one Ty and I covered back in October on episode 136 of the podcast. We weren't sure what the film would be, but it wasn't anything that we ended up getting. I'll dive in on the review.

Phoenix is a Tubi Original directed by Daniel Zirilli that has Natalie Eva Marie (not "Saint") as Fiona, a soldier serving in Afghanistan who finds out from the general she's serving under (Neil McDonough) that her father (Randy Couture) has been murdered by a drug kingpin in Miami named Maxim (Oleg Prudius, not the magazine). She's granted leave and heads home to see if she can find out what happened. She dyes her hair pink so it matches her real hair color, and goes to work, leaving a path of destruction behind her, as she unlocks the mysteries of her father's death, and comes to terms with her complicated relationship with him. At the same time, Maxim won't go down without a fight, so he has a guy on his security team hire some former cops and other mercenaries to take her down. Will they succeed?

Ty and Brett always say cult classics can't be manufactured, they just happen. Samurai Cop, Miami Connection, The Room. And while I think we can say this wasn't meant to be on that level either, it also just happened, the thing is though, we have a catalog of competently created films by Daniel Zirilli that would make you think he'd be the last person to produce something that could belong in that pantheon. It was definitely produced on the quick, and that explains a lot of the line deliveries that seem off. One take and done, no matter how wooden or unnatural it sounds--though then you juxtapose it with someone like McDonough who can pull it off in one take, so his scenes with Natalie Eva Marie make her delivery seem even worse. On the other hand, as bonkers as this is, the underlying concept is a good one, a female-led John Wick, and in a production that had more time to shoot multiple takes on a bigger budget, Natalie Eva Marie would be great in that role. And in a weird way, that's what makes the whole thing work on a certain level, we have this bonkers dialog combined with a plot that's a bit all over the place, while we also have a lead that works and a basic premise that we'd want to see. Plus it's free to stream on Tubi, which always helps.

Daniel Zirilli is the only director who I've currently seen each of his last six films--when I finally see Dolph's Wanted Man he'll pass Zirilli on that, as I'll have seen his last 8--and none of the other five, plus two others of his I've seen from before then, Locked Down and Circle of Pain, are at this lower level of quality, so I have to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one that he had to rush it. It follows a common pattern that he's used in four of the five before this too: a lesser-experienced actor as the lead with a variety of other big names around them that he can put on the tin, and often he's taking a premise that was used in another film and putting a spin on it (Renegades is the one exception, but as a collaboration with Shogun Films it's unique in his filmography). I think with those other four, he had more time to shoot the scenes to get the dialog right, or make a call on removing dialog or a scene that didn't work; plus he had more people in those other films that could nail it on one take. But there were also story elements that were kind of wacky that didn't need to be there, like Maxim setting the mayor of Miami on fire. I guess the thing is, if you're going to have a rough outing, at least have it be interesting and a fun watch, and this one is definitely that.

Ty and I joked about Natalie Eva Marie's dialog delivery, but to be fair, she did well enough considering the circumstances. There's a scene that's a classic in the "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!" mold when Marie just starts screaming and breaking vases, and then the guy she's working with comes in and is like "is everything okay?" and she says "it's self-inflicted." If Zirilli wanted to make a movie with me in the lead I probably would've done that scene even worse, and I think if he'd had it to do over again he wouldn't have put her in that spot to do that scene, or didn't bother including it. On the other hand, she has this scene where she infiltrates Maxim's club in a long red dress, and starts taking out all of his men. It was the kind of thing that, in a better-produced project, would've been iconic, and at the very least tells us she can do this, and do it at a high level. Don "The Dragon" Wilson also had to work on the dramatic part of things when he was starting out, the key is I think as she's figuring it out, she needs parts where the film doesn't need her dramatic element as much. A great comparison we've seen recently is Most Dangerous Game, where CT from The Challenge had a similar level of experience to Marie. In that film, he was always paired with one of the experienced actors in the cast--Judd Nelson, Casper Van Dien, or Tom Berenger--plus Van Dien was such a fantastic scenery chewing baddie. One thing I didn't realize as well, is this isn't the first time we've seen her, she was also in Hard Kill, which I covered on my own "Mini Willis Fest" episode back in October of 2022, number 110 in the archives.

As we often see in a Zirilli film, there were a whole host of other names in this. Going off the Most Dangerous Game comp, Bai Ling was great as Scavenger, part of Maxim's inner circle, but she would've been better as the head baddie, and similar to how Van Dien offset CT's inexperience, if Ling was just told to crank the volume up to 11 and rip off the knob, it would've been a better counter to Marie's inexperience in delivering her lines. Ling's second in command was Phillip Tan, and he and Marie had a good fight that ends suddenly when she grabs a hammer and bashes his head in. We also had Randy Couture, who gets killed off at the beginning, and then we only see him in flashback sequences with another actress playing a younger version of Marie, so he and Marie never have any scenes together. His partner, who has even fewer scenes, is Chuck Zito, someone we see from time to time here at the DTVC. Finally, there's Neil McDonough, who we've only seen one other time on the site, in the Brian Bosworth flick One Tough Bastard aka One Man's Justice, which we covered all the way back on September 3, 2008. He seems to be in all kinds of DTV stuff now, so I imagine we'll see him again. Even in his scenes with Marie, I don't know how many they actually shot together, he just comes in, wears army fatigues, smokes a cigar, and talks about having intel on Maxim and his gang. Another thing we've seen in Zirilli films is teasing a sequel at the end, and in this case it gives us a sense that Marie becomes a part of McDonough's special forces team fighting human trafficking. What I'd like to see is this get combined with Invincible, and have Marie team up with Johnny Strong in a sequel to both films.

Finally, I've never been to Miami before--the closest I've gotten was Sunrise, which is north of it and technically part of the greater Miami metro area--but I used to listen to a sports radio show broadcast from there that's hosted by sportswriter Dan Le Batard, and on Fridays he does a segment titled "#BecauseMiami" with reporter Billy Corben that goes into all of the corruption and shady dealings that go on both behind the scenes and out in the open in Miami politics. With that in mind, the idea that this baddie Maxim needed to keep a customs inspector bound and gagged in his underwear in a shipping container to get him to play ball with all of Maxim's illicit shipments entering the Miami port, or even that he would need to burn the mayor alive to keep the mayor from taking him down, seemed unnecessary. I think both scenes could've been removed, and we would've just taken for granted "#BecauseMiami" instead of wondering how Maxim got away with everything. Miami is a fascinating city here in the States. It's a top 10 metro area, and with the climate it has and the amount of rich people living there, it should have the kind of status that a New York, Chicago, LA, or Bay Area has, but between the local corruption, and the fact that at the state level there's a fear of a metropolis like that controlling everything with its population and voting power, it has this artificial ceiling that it can't break through--and that state-level fear we see having a negative effect in other major cities' growth, like Dallas, Houston, here in Philly, and now with an emerging Atlanta. There are elements of that that could've played well in this. Instead of just burning the mayor alive, what if the mayor's looking to make Miami into something bigger, and he and Marie are uneasy allies with a common enemy in Maxim? And maybe there's a state-level actor like a gubernatorial candidate who's in cahoots with Maxim, because Maxim's criminal enterprise plays well with rural voters who fear crime in cities? In fact, outside of Marie's mention of stone crabs, there's nothing really uniquely Miami about this, which is something that I think could've been leaned into to prop the film up more.

And with that, I'll wrap this up. This is a Tubi Original, so Tubi is the way to go in the States. Unfortunately yes, it's something to include in a double-feature with a Samurai Cop or Miami Connection--the latter of which would be pretty apt since they both take place in Miami--but there were some positives to take from it as well beyond any so-bad-it's-good enjoyment.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28362655

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.