Directed by Russell Mulcahy

Written by Gregory Widen

Run Time: 109 minutes

A guest review by Karl Hoegle

	Connor Macleod (Christopher Lambert) He must have really needed the money, or failed to read the script before agreeing to this turkey. Hmmm… Was there a script?
	Juan Sánchez Ramírez (Sean Connery) 3.5 million for 9 days work! I guess that even a screen legend can’t pick all winners. His bio-rhythm must have been low that day.
	Louise Marcus (Virginia Madsen) I hope she fired her agent after this debacle. I sure would have.
	General Katana (Michael Ironside) I hope he looks upon this movie and says “I was soooo drunk when I agreed to do that”

He must have seen the budget for this turkey!

Please allow me the indulgence to start this review off with a disclaimer; I loved the original “Highlander” movie, along with the entire concept of one man from each country fighting each other until the end for the amusement of the Gods, etc. This piece of tripe not only soured my fond memory of the first movie, but has stolen some of my ability to give any sequel an unbiased view. This movie is the only one so bad that I went to the theater manager and demanded a refund. Not asked for, but demanded. (I was able to score free tickets to a different movie, so I was only partially successful, I guess.) Be warned, this one is pretty awful.

The first “Highlander” movie started much like this one; we see a crowd of people watching some form of entertainment and we zoom in to see the Highlander in all his brooding glory. No one broods like Christopher Lambert, nobody. We meet Connor as an 80 year old duffer, barely able to stay awake long enough to hear the not-so-fat lady singing opera in a venue clearly marked “Opera”.

It ain’t the body, it’s the mileage

On the same block you might be able to go to “Bar” and get “Drink”. Connor sees the Wagnerian opera and it reminds him that he was not born of this Earth (Clearly an error, as he had relatives in the first movie that remember him as a child) and that he, Ramirez, and a host of nobodies were rebels on the planet Zeist in the distant past. They were exiled to Earth from this dying, desert like planet because they were fomenting sedition. General Katana (Michael Ironside) chews so much scenery with his “I am not a bad guy, I am THE bad guy” hammy-ness that you just feel sorry for the guy. He has his soldiers who are clearly armed with projectile firearms, lasers, and artillery eschew said weaponry for swords, just so there would be more screen time eaten up with actors jumping about and getting stabbed, chopped, and blown up. Katana, upon capturing Ramirez and Macleod, takes them to his masters instead of killing them there in the desert. His masters ban the two of them to future Earth, where they will be immortal and can fight for the prize; a return ticket home.

Planet Zeist sucks!

Let me get this straight; I try to overthrow the government of my home desert planet, I screw up and they catch me red handed. But instead of making an example of me by putting me in a huge blender, they send me away to a distant planet in my future that is green, rich and verdant. There, I can fight the other immortals for the prize of returning to Zeist in the past and becoming mortal again, hopefully magically cured of my need to overthrow the current regime. Or, I can choose not to fight and live on lush green Earth forever. Who thought this crap up? Did Brian Clemens even watch the first (and in my opinion, the ONLY) “Highlander” film?

This review can’t even begin to touch on the thousands of errors, lousy special effects, goofiness, or general disdain for the intelligence of the viewer, so I will condense into small chunks for brevity’s sake.

The Earth’s Ozone layer is almost gone; Connor and Alan Neyman build a shield above the ozone layer to protect the fragile eco-system below. Yay. No one questions the scientific prowess of an ex-antiques dealer from Hudson Street. The Shield Corporation that they formed makes a fortune by charging everyone for protection. If you miss a payment, what can they do? Make tiny holes in the shield to fry you and only you? Stupid…

This shield makes it always rain, always hot and humid, and all sunlight is gone. Plants somehow adapt. Somehow. Question: Without sunlight, wouldn’t it get cold pretty quickly?

Rebels led by Louise Marcus break into the local shield generator station, run a test, and see the results plainly state that the radiation above the shield is normal. Why this is news to them baffles me, as it is the ozone layer that is gone, and it protects us from normal radiation levels. So the test proves nothing.

Katana has his handy Earth-O-Vision TV set glued to Connor Macleod, and since he has nothing better to do, he calls his two stupidest soldiers in to travel to Earth and kill Connor. The brighter of the two (and that is saying something, his I.Q. must be in the low 40’s) asks why not just let Connor die naturally, he is barely walking by himself now, and having trouble finding nurses willing to change his Depends® undergarments. Katana slaps the impudent fool and tells him to get on with it and just kill him.

Louise Marcus easily finds Macleod and asks him why he built the shield. He looks at her with the patience of someone talking to an addled insanity victim and gently tells her it was “to save everyone”. She avers that the “Ozone layer has healed itself, and the radiation levels from the Sun are normal”. How could she know this? The test she ran showed that the solar radiation levels above the shield are normal, which has no bearing on whether or not the ozone has replenished itself. Connor points out that it would take more energy than the entire Earth has to shut down the shield. (!) This new science continues to puzzle me here, as it takes energy to keep something powered on, and loss of power tends to shut said unit down. Oh, well. Louise still wants to take her chances. If she is wrong, she is murdering every living being on the planet. Talk about guilt!

The Shield generator!

While Connor chews this over, the two goons attack, one on a hover board and one with small wings, and the flying is about as believable as a politicians’ promise. Wires shine briefly, speed and conservation of momentum are ignored, etc. Sigh. Connor eventually kills these two clowns and becomes immortal again, after feasting on their life energy. The only good scene in the entire movie is where a suddenly young Connor walks out of some flames and broods. No one broods like Christopher Lambe… Oh, wait, I already said that. Sorry. At this point, I said loudly and clearly in the theater “This movie had better get real good, real quick”. Sadly, it never did.

The finest assassins Zeist has to offer!

Katana gets the belated news from his Earth-O-Vision that his goons hath snuffed it, and decides to do it himself. He materializes on Earth in a subway train and kills a few innocent people, asks a young boy if he ever wanted to “drive” one of these. I guess they have trains on his desert home planet of Zeist and even evil Generals aren’t allowed to drive the trains no way, no how. He eventually gets it up to 670 KPH which equates to 416 miles per hour. Riiight. Faster than a speeding bullet!

Meanwhile, Louise finally convinces Connor that she is right; they decide that they need help. Connor screams “Ramirez!” for no reason and unbeknownst to the two of them a lightning bolt reconstitutes Ramirez in modern day Scotland, where he appears in the middle of a Shakespeare play of “Macbeth”. He innately knows where Connor is, (Remember he died long before America was discovered in the first movie) and scurries off to meet his second destiny. I know if I was resurrected I would be more than a little amazed at that. The last thing I’d want to do is anything even remotely dangerous!

They meet up, and after some half-hearted swordplay to pad the run time they decide to blow up the shield, but only after Connor and Louise check out the ozone level by climbing up a 12 to 19 miles long ladder inside a mountain and seeing for themselves. They have no trouble breathing in the stratosphere, the near absolute zero cold and scant oxygen doesn’t bother either of them in the slightest, and they view actual sunlight in all its glory, Louise for the first time. Riiight! If I climbed a 12 to 19 mile long ladder, my forearms would make Popeye’s look small in comparison. That Louise is one tough broad!

Above the ozone layer. Seriously.

They climb down the 12 to 19 mile long tube and meet up with Ramirez. They easily break into the compound by driving in and allowing themselves to be shot with over 100 bullets each. The car’s trunk, which holds Louise in it, must be armored as she suffers not a scratch. Connor and Ramirez wake up in the infirmary where the doc is putting the moves on Louise, and they overpower him and head to the final scene. They get caught in a trap, a huge spinning fan blade in a tube relentlessly advances, and Ramirez pulls a magic hand gesture, slowing the fan blade. He states that “We each have a full measure of life. If we summon it all up in one try, we can do something magic” and somehow opens the locked door, allowing Connor and Louise to escape. He then ran off the set and cashed his paycheck which was over 10% of the total film budget and got the hell out of there. I can’t blame him.

This movie has dozens of fans! [Dennis: ha ha]

Katana catches up to the duo in the generator room, Connor fights him, and ends up killing him. The power of the Quickening enables Connor to safely step into the power beam that dissolves most matter on contact and disrupt it, destroying the shield and returning Earth to its former sun drenched glory. I’ll bet sunglass vendors made a pretty penny that day. The plants were pleasantly surprised as well.

The movie ends, Connor and Louise walk into an improbably starry night with Ramirez babbling in the distance, probably laughing on his way to the bank. We are left with a nagging thought that we could have watched paint dry and been much, much more entertained.

Planet Zeist Bro-mance! Get a room, you two!

Karl Hoegle (Feb 2012)

Read more about Highlander 2 at

Directed by Bitto Albertini (as Ben Norman)

Written by John Thomas (who?!)

Run Time: 87 minutes

	Belle Star (Sherry Buchanan) Ahhh…Belle Star. My cosmic princess. Before appearing in this epic movie, Ms. Buchanan had parts in Tentacles (1977) and, one of my personal favorites, Zombie Holocaust (1980). Unfortunately for us cheesy-movie lovers, she fell off the radar and hasn’t been seen on the silver screen since 1987.
	Lithan (Fausto Di Bella) The effervescent Lithan never gives up, no matter how horrible the special effects become. Throughout his 16-year film career, Mr. Di Bella appeared in various movies and Italian TV shows but has been inactive since last appearing in Computron 22 back in 1988. God speed, Lithan, wherever you may be.
	Oraclon (Don Powell) The best dressed evil overlord in the galaxy. Don Powell has appeared in a smattering of flicks throughout the decades, including several ‘Emanuelle’ films. (Kids, go ask your parents.)

Other Titles: Star Crash 2

"Prepare the uranium vapor rockets!"

- Oraclon

After receiving the acclaimed "Sci-Fi Invasion" box set from our highly esteemed Monster Shack regular Guts3d (thanks again!), I quickly browsed through the movie descriptions to begin my quest for a new review. With a title of "Escape From Galaxy 3", well, I had to look no further. And then, lo! it was the sequel to Star Crash…Huzzah! How could I resist! [NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Boy, I wish I would have called it quits after Star Crash...]

Open with standard titles over a multi-colored starry background. Hey, those stars look familiar…Actually, after a few minutes, I quickly realized that the makers of "Escape From Galaxy 3" not only reused special effects from Star Crash, they also unabashedly inserted entire scenes from the previous movie. Ahhh…the joys of an extremely low-budget film. Where would the Monster Shack be without them?

Sure enough, after the credits are over we cut to a fly-by scene across the huge "hand ship" lifted from the first movie. On the other hand, an advantage to cheap movies like this is that they don’t waste any time on useless things, like a plot. Cutting right to the chase, we jump cut to the bridge of a spaceship and see princess Belle Star reporting to her father, King Zenor, that the "cosmic radar" has picked up an unidentified ship that "doesn’t belong in this galaxy." (How did she know that? And what does that even mean?) King Zenor quickly realizes that Oraclon, "The King of the Night", is behind the latest attacks. (How is there "night" in space? Oh, never mind.)

The resident hot-shot pilot, Lithan, informs Zenor that they can hold off Oraclon if they use, wait for it…Plan Epsilon!

Cut to Oraclon’s ship: the big "hand ship" from the first movie. I guess there’s more than one "hand ship" out there since the first one blew up in the previous film. It must be like in Star Wars when the Empire built a new Death Star. Yeah, right.

Anyway, we catch our first glimpse of the mighty Oraclon, shockingly sporting a salmon and teal colored frock, azure hoodie, and an immense winged collar with silver sparkles in his beard for good measure.

When Oraclon learns that King Zenor’s ship is disabled, he calls up King Zenor and demands his surrender.

Naturally, King Zenor refuses (otherwise the film would be over), so Oraclon retaliates by launching an awesome attack comprising of 5, count ‘em, 5 space fighters.

"Turn on the laser barrier…course four-zero-thirteen, fifteenth dimension!" Lithan shouts from his battle station. (Fifteenth dimension?)

"Prepare the uranium vapor rockets!" Oraclon yells to some poor guy standing immediately beside him (who must be deaf in his left ear by now from all the shouting).

"Right on target," Oraclon laughs, even though the footage we see shows every single laser shot missing completely and shooting off into the void, so I don’t know what movie he’s watching.

"The central computer received a direct hit," Lithan informs the King. With this unfortunate turn of events, the King has "no other option" than to send Lithan and Belle Star on a diplomatic mission to the planet Anteres to plead for help. (I thought that Repairing the Computer might qualify as an option, but oh well.)

Ok, let’s see now. After flying through a laser storm of cheesy effects, Lithan and Belle Star approach…something. It’s a big red dot, so I think it’s supposed to be a planet. Damned cheap effects. Regardless, it’s a big red dot on the screen so let’s just say it’s Anteres and get on with it.

"Use the hyper-solo missile systems!" bellows Oraclon. Wow. Not just ‘solo’, but hyper solo! (Just how this scene is tied into the previous shot is unclear. In a movie like "Escape From Galaxy 3" things just sort of…happen, if you know what I mean.)

"The hydrogen booster units are already at six thousand mega-degrees!" Lithan reports as they take off from the ship. (I’m guessing that’s a bad thing?) And now I’m really confused because I thought they had already left the space station. Boy, is this a great movie.

In a fit of pique, Oraclon blows up Anteres. I think. It’s a big red dot, so yeah, I’m pretty sure that was Anteres.

Sooooo….after vaporizing Anteres, Oraclon shoots laser beams from his ship and hits King Zenor standing on the ship’s bridge (!). Man, he is good!

"You galactic idiots!" he shouts to nobody in particular when he realizes that Belle Star and Lithan have escaped. Another space battle commences with the same damned footage from before. Man, I’m really getting tired of this. "Mega-metric-teleprobe and scan the whole galaxy!..including the equi-distant cosmic tangents!" Oraclon roars after losing his prey in the chaos of battle.

By the way, Oraclon likes to shout…a lot.

With his ship disabled in the battle, Lithan is forced to make a landing on a nearby "asteroid", which is the same red-planet special effect that was just blown up. A FX penny saved is a FX penny earned, I suppose. And you’d think that Lithan, a inter-galactic star pilot would know the difference between a planet and an asteroid, but there you have it.

Upon landing on the planet’s surface, Lithan and Belle Star (still wearing her crown!) kill some run time by traipsing through a forest, over a field, through some more forest, ad nauseam, all the while amazed at such unusual things as "trees", "grass", and the sun! Some local natives, which look suspiciously like Italian movie extras, jump out from nowhere and start throwing rocks at them. Lithan takes aim with his magic finger laser ring and scares them away by firing cartoon warning shot at feet. Never having seen a curly-haired skinny dude in a blue rubber suit before, the natives flee back into the wilderness as Lithan and Belle discover a nearby village.

Meanwhile, the locals have gathered at Ye Olde Meeting Place, and are telling their leader about the "flying monster" that recently landed. I’m actually surprised the writers had the self-control to not call it a "big fire bird from the sky".

As the villager warriors sneak into position to capture them, Belle Star stands by a stream and exclaims, "It’s water! I once saw it in my father’s collection of intergalactic minerals."

"What do you use it for?" Lithan asks.

Yes, advanced alien beings that don’t know what water is. I’m also wondering about this guy’s hygiene a bit: Lithan travels through intergalactic space wearing a blue rubber suit for who-only-knows how many "cosmic years" and he doesn’t even know what water is? Poor Belle Star! Hope they had decent ventilation on the ship.

Our heroes stroll around some more learning about the planet, i.e., booooooring!, when suddenly they are captured by leather-clad, spear wielding natives. Instead of wasting money filming a trial, the movie makers simply cut to the chase and have the village elders sentence them to death, i.e., "Consumed by the flames!" After Belle Star and Lithan are led to a quarry for execution (What’s with cheap Italian flicks and quarries?) the crowd jostles for position at the top of a steep cliff. During all the shoving back and forth, a small child slips from the edge and "dangles" for dear life while his mother screams for help.

Lithan, being from another galaxy and all, somehow possesses a super-jumping ability which he employs to hop up and save the kid. After jumping back down to the ground (via the magic of playing the exact same scene in reverse) Lithan shoots a smug smile to Belle Star and murmurs, "Apparently they don’t know about psycho-kinectic energy." Realizing that Lithan is actually a pretty cool dude, what with jumping 500 feet into the air to save the kid, the village elders pardon them both and welcome them into the fold by providing them with leather clothes.

After some extremely blatant padding showing Belle Star and Lithan learning the ways of the tribe (including having sex with a few of them along the way), Oraclon enters Earth orbit. Sensing that maaaaaybe they should get the hell out of there, Lithan and Belle Star run back to their ship but can’t start it because the navigation system isn’t repaired yet. (Maybe he should have been fixing it instead of sleeping with the local folk? Just a thought.) Oh, it turns out things aren’t so bad after all:"There! That should do it,"says Lithan with a smile after repairing the ship by, literally, flipping 2 switches on the console.

"It’s the planet Earth" Oraclon says upon detecting high-levels of radiation in the atmosphere. "They destroyed themselves in an atomic war." (Actually, things look pretty nice on the planet, but whatever.)

After a brief discussion Lithan realizes that Oraclon will detect the radioactive exhaust if they start the ship’s motors so…they head back to the village! And now there’s a freakin’ communal dance! Wow, this is some serious padding here, I tell ya.

Ahhh, but we get to see some ladies teach Lithan how to eat a chicken wing. Boy, is this a compelling scene.

Now begins a few boring minutes of lifeless dancing. Joy. After the spectacle a men-only contest commences and whoever wins gets to sleep with the woman of his choice. You know, that reminds me of something I saw on the Discovery channel last week, but I can’t put my finger on it. Anyway, the village women don’t have much say as to their role in the contest, but they do keep busy by running wildly, er, I mean ‘dancing’, with torches as the men engage in this bizarre ritual. You’d think that winning your choice of sex partner would involve a pretty difficult challenge, but the test here consists merely of climbing a ladder, walking out onto a log, and jumping into the middle of a ring of fire, which puts it on par with pretty much anything you’d see on American Gladiators. Wow…Earth girls are easy.

Of course, in a bid to generate some suspense, a few guys fail miserably at this relatively simple "challenge", until finally some local yokel wins by being the first guy to jump into the flames without setting his butt on fire. I’m not kidding. It’s that stupid. Obviously, the lucky winner chooses Belle Star as his prize while Lithan watches helplessly from the sidelines burning with jealousy. In a truly corny bit, we see Belle Star and Lithan thinking of each other while they try make love to their respective local sex partner. All together now: Awwwwwwww….isn’t that sweet? In fact, their mutual attraction is so great that they break off their amorous activities and return to each other in common area for a quick round of smooching.

The tepid kissing scene is rudely interrupted when Oraclon flies overhead out of nowhere and starts zapping people from his space ship. "Enough playing around, blow up the entire planet!" he orders after vaporizing a few unfortunate villagers. Boy, jumping from killing single villagers to destroying the entire planet; this guy runs pretty hot.

"We had only one Force-Ten mega ray, and we used it," Oraclon’s assistant meekly informs him. Furious at himself for not buying more Force-10 Mega Rays at the store while he had the chance (I assume), Oraclon decides to pad the movie some more and returns to space to wait for Belle Star and Lithan to leave the planet’s surface…because he can track their exhaust or something. Whatever.

After Oraclon returns to space, the villagers turn hostile and (rightfully) blame Belle Star and Lithan for the recent deaths. The village elders order Lithan to leave the planet but he tries to explain that they must remain because of the whole exhaust-tracking-thingee. At this point I was hoping that the locals would kill Lithan and Belle Star and thus put this movie out of its misery. Unfortunately for the viewer, Lithan shoots a few cartoon laser beams into the ground to scare everybody thereby giving them a chance to skedaddle back to their ship. Once safely inside, they engage the ship’s engines and return to their own galaxy. Call me crazy, but didn’t Lithan say something about Oraclon being able to track them? Wow, this is a really tight plot.

To pass the time (and kill run time), Lithan and Belle Star engage in some kissing and light petting to test out the new sexual awareness they picked up after their lengthy stay of 1 night on Earth.

"After thousands of years our sexual powers have come back to life," says Belle Star, "we’ve acquired a powerful new dimension!"

Does that mean the only way Belle Star and Lithan can defeat Oraclon is by banging each other? Damn, Lithan, why didn’t you think of that? Hell, why didn’t I think of something like that back in high school?

Anyway, Belle Star realizes that she needs to be in the throne room itself so she can get close enough to Oraclon to kill him. Or something. Remembering that Oraclon is an idiot, Belle Star feigns surrender and asks him to teleport herself and Lithan directly into his ship in order to formalize their surrender; Oraclon the Cosmic Moron eagerly complies while never suspecting a trap in the least.

"You will live as my slave," Oraclon chortles after escorting Belle Star to the aforementioned throne room. Lithan, meanwhile, is condemned to forced labor for the rest of his "cosmic life." (I just love how they try to make things sound "spacey" by adding "cosmic" in front of random nouns.)

Naturally, Oraclon can’t resist performing the Evil Overlord’s Self-Defeating Gloat and brings in a forlorn group of "Kings and Emperors of the Galaxy" so he can crow over his latest victory. Sensing that the time is ripe for ending this silly movie, Belle Star kisses Lithan "goodbye" and then in a totally weird moment even for this movie, Belle Star kisses Oraclon while Lithan shoots lasers from his eyes that strike Oraclon and blow him up. (Reread that last sentence again and try to picture how bizarre that all was.)

With Oraclon turned into cosmic space dust, Lithan and Belle Star decide to return to Earth since "We have nowhere to go in this galaxy." Well, that’s as good enough reason as any I suppose. Oh, but they’ll lose their immortality if they go back to Earth. Oh? They were immortal? Gee, thanks for letting me know. Furthermore, if they were immortal then why were they afraid of Oraclon killing them?

As Belle Star and Lithan return to Earth, they set Oraclon’s ship to self-destruct which it promptly does via even more recycled "Star Crash" footage. (By the way, maybe the Cosmic Police will arrest Lithan for manslaughter since he abandoned all of the "Kings and Emperors of the Galaxy" on the doomed ship when he left. What a nice guy.)

Soooooo, after passing through "three galaxies and endless solar systems," Lithan finally spots Earth floating in the void. What are the odds, eh? Actually, the odds are freaking infinitesimal but don’t tell Lithan that. After landing, the villagers greet them with great fanfare. I guess the writers forgot that the villagers wanted to kill them when they left Earth the last time. Strange. Then again, I doubt even the writers cared at this point.

With cheering natives applauding their return, Lithan and Belle Star stroll off to a beach and start making out and…cue closing credits. Really, that’s it.

Ack, enough already. I gotta go work on my uranium vapor rockets.

fini

Dennis Grisbeck (January 2012)

So, you still want to watch the whole movie? Here you go!

Read more about Escape from Galaxy 3 at

From the Better Late Than Never Department:

The Monster Shack takes great pride in trashing the (gag) “Syfy” channel, but I was recently shocked, yes shocked!, to find it presenting something genuinely good. Thrilling even! And that thing is…..drum-roll….. The Mercury Men. It is, to quote it’s very cool retro poster, “The return of the classic cliffhanger serial!”

Cut to the City Building, Pittsburgh, 1975. In black and white. Where bored, peevish office drone Edward Borman sits watching the clock. Bang on 7:00 PM he is ready to go, ignoring the pleas of a young woman who simply has to have her documents stamped. But his passive-aggressive satisfaction is arrested when he hears a scream just before entering the elevator. Where did that young woman go? Returning, almost against his will, to investigate he sees an eerie light moving through the empty offices, and is soon running for his life from strange glowing figures who can kill with lightning. Fortunately for Edward these intruders are not the only visitors that night, and his life is saved by Jack Yaeger, a “daring aerospace engineer” and member of something called “The League.” For now all I can tell you is that it is led by one “Captain Tomorrow.” And that devise the glowing beings are assembling in the parking garage? It’s a “gravity engine!” Can Jack and Edward destroy it before the minions of the Chief Designer use it to accomplish his fiendish plan? Tune in tomorrow!

Sean Ledden (December 2011)

Read more about Mercury Men at

Written and Directed by Cullen Blaine

Run Time: 90 minutes

Tagline: Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

Few movies cry out to be reviewed as much as R.O.T.O.R. This 80′s sci-fi cheap-o movie has absolutely everything that makes a bad movie good:

• Goofy character names
• Embarrassing racial stereotypes
• Odious comic relief
• Continuity errors galore
• Plot holes a’plenty
• Horrible synthesizer music
• Confused time lines

and the list goes on and on. How could I resist taking a closer look at this one? Obviously I couldn’t.

I would like to note that throughout this review I refer to the ROTOR robot as a "he" and not an "it" because it feels more natural since it’s formed as a male police officer.

Oh, here’s the trailer to get you started…you decide whether or not you want to continue after this:

Still want to continue? Ok…

Open with crawling text which hasn’t been a good sign since, oh, "Star Wars". The fun part is that the scrawl rolls up the screen over what is supposed to be a super-high tech metal chassis of a robot; much like the burned-up metal skeleton from the end of "Terminator". Unlike in "Terminator" where millions were used on special effects, this robot seems to have been made out of scraps of Plexiglas topped by a plastic halloween skull wearing red sunglasses.

Today’s Headlines

Murder, Rape, Robber, and Arson.

Tomorrow’s Solution…

R.O.T.O.R.

Robotic

Officer

Tactical

Operational

Research

Our objective was to build the perfect cop of the future…a machine programmed to overcome any obstacle, to combat the crimes and corruption which threaten the very existence of our society…but, something went terribly wrong.

It always does, brother, it always does…

Friday 4:55 P.M.

Cut to stock footage of normal downtown traffic while an "Eye in the Sky" helicopter traffic-jockey explains how incredibly busy the traffic is. Note that this traffic report in no way resembles the scene shown in the movie. In fact, the 12 lane highway seems to be at around 20% capacity while the reporter goes on and on about how everything is "jammed up".

Wow, now that’s some killer traffic!

Meanwhile, a couple is out driving around in the dark. "I’m leaving all my troubles at the office; no phone, no work, just a quiet peaceful weekend at the lake," says the guy. Yeah, we all know what happens when people explain how much they’re looking forward to a quiet weekend…mwu-ha-ha!

Suddenly an explosion occurs! Well, the sound of an explosion is foleyed onto the sound track; we don’t actually see anything blow up. The car pulls up into a cloud of smoke which is most likely from an off screen bonfire fanned by stage hands meant to represent the aftermath of the gigantic explosion. "What the hell?" exclaims the driver upon seeing a battered, bloody man leaning over an unconscious woman. For some reason it’s completely dark out but when they parked the car it was still dusk…maybe it took the driver a few hours to get his door open.

"Call the police!" gasps the bloody man kneeling in the road. The driver rushes back to the car to call 911, but I thought he just said he left his phone at work, so I’m already confused.

Friday 7:30 P.M.

A helpful time stamp informs us that it’s 7:30 P.M. But, is it really pitch dark in Texas at 7:30 in the summer? I guess it as. A policeman cuffs the still-unnamed, bloodied man for his transport to Division. "Buckle up for safety, sir" says one of the detectives. I’m not sure how he’s going to do that since they’ve hand-cuffed him, but it’s the thought that counts.

Another voiceover introduces us to the man in the back seat, our hero, Captain Coldyron (pronounced "cold iron")…"Two days ago I was considered a leader in the field of police robotics; today I’m thought of as a modern day Frankenstein." Yes, we all remember back in the 80′s when police robotics was in its heyday…ahhh, good times. Well, maybe he meant police robot movies since Robocop was released a year before this one and Terminator just a few years before that. Now, I’m not implying that those other movies "inspired" this one in anyway…but hey, you do the math.

Anyway, Coldyron continues his voiceover as we continue our Dallas stock-footage flyover. You see, Coldyron was working on an army of police robots to fight crime and take humans out of danger…"But how do you stop a machine that’s gone berserk with only a ‘Go’ button and no compassion?" Good question. Thankfully my DVD player has a "STOP" button when I need to take a break from this movie.

Division Headquarters 10:00 P.M.

We finally arrive at HQ where a pair of underpaid film extras, sorry, I mean Detectives, question Coldyron about his involvement with the dead motorcycle officer. Not wanting to incriminate himself, Coldyron refuses to discuss his robotics research which presumably led to the incident.

Female Detective tries to play it nice, but I think she sort of screws up her lines here,"You know that this is an official debriefing…officially not an arrest questioning…then please state so on the record, doctor,…unofficially."

"Officially!" the other Detective shouts.

Female Detective agrees, "Officially."

I hope all that made sense to you.

Anyway, throughout the questioning Coldyron keeps fiddling with a golden key-shaped object (Plot Point!) as we begin our Official Film Flashback:

"Last Thursday my life was a lot easier…," Coldyron begins.

Thursday 5:00 A.M.

Cut to Coldyron’s ranch which provides us with gratuitous padding lasting nearly 3 minutes. You’d think I’d be used to this kind of run-time filler after all the crappy movies I’ve seen but it’s just as boring as the first time. We get to see pretty much every tiny, dull detail of Coldyron’s morning routine: waking up, eating breakfast (coffee for the horse, the carrot for him…Humor!), etc. etc. After a while we see Coldyron riding around on his horse testing a new type of explosive detonation cord. Well, it’s not super exciting, but at least something is happening. Oh, and remember this cord, it’s going to show up later.

Tactical Operations Lab 9:00 A.M.

Now driving to work…wait…Coldyron did all that stuff in the previous scene before even leaving for work!? Good grief, I guess you can safely say he’s a morning person. Inside the research lab we catch a glimpse of odious 80′s hip-hop dude named Shoe Boogie (!) who starts hip-hop dancing with Willie the Obnoxious Comedy Robot. If I remember correctly, there was a mandate back in the 80′s that required all films to have at least 1 moon-walking scene. Yeah, that has to be it.

Meet Shoe Boogie and Willard. No. That’s not a typo.

Coldyron heads upstairs where he’s to present the latest developments of the "IA1138 chassis" to a team of developers from Dallas’s sister research unit. "We scientists are like the science fiction writers…prognosticators of the future." Isn’t that sort of redundant? Anyway, Coldyron fires up a handy film projector which treats us to a lovely view of R.O.T.O.R…the prize result of nearly 4 years of research.

"Is this what your research has lead up to?" asks a nearby Wisenheimer, "a tin marionette?"

"Not exactly," says Coldyron. (I’m surprised he didn’t punch him in the face.) You see, a certain Dr. Steele has developed the chassis from "an unknown alloy…simply given an obscure number." (What exactly is an obscure number?) As Coldyron continues his explanations, the crowd watches the movie screen in rapt attention as the camera pans up and down this awesome technological marvel known as R.O.T.O.R. (Thanks to my modern day technological marvel known as a "Pause Button", this shot also reveals the screws holding the tiny robot model together.)

Now that’s convincing.

A Dr. Carl speaks up next, "What’s your [take] on this unknown alloy? Is there some sort of good vibration to its molecular tonality?"

"Exactly! Watch," says Coldyron as they watch ROTOR begin a sequence of goofy movements that looks like a really bad dancer performing, well, a really bad dance.

"The chassis: how can it animate without gears or motors?" asks another who apparently didn’t see all the, er, gears and motors in the chassis close ups.

"Are you saying this thing can do anything from aerobics to Tai Chi?"

"Right! It can do karate to full-field combat," Coldyron says as we see ROTOR performing some enthusiastic karate chops. This is actually pretty funny; not only because of the rudimentary animation meant to represent state of the art robotics, but because Coldyron’s presentation is a reel-to-reel film which perfectly coincides with whatever the visiting scientists happen to ask about.

Hiiiii-keeba!!!

"God only knows this is spectacular," remarks another scientist, and I was sure he was going to start laughing, "but what exactly are we dealing with here?"

"Molecular memory and learning. All it needs is a spark: a current of electricity as a catalyst."

(So, you mean just plug it in?)

"The meta itself can learn, and teach itself." Oh, yeah. Sure.

Anyway, Coldyron goofily answers more goofy questions and his presentation finally comes to an end. After the briefing, Division Commander Buglar calls Coldyron up to his office to give him some bad news. "Let’s dispense with the social amenities and just say we did," Buglar grumbles. Uh oh. This can’t be good. Not with dialog like that. Apparently the local cash cow Senator wants a progress report and wants a progress report…pronto! Feeling the heat from, Buglar, without consulting Coldyron first!, promises the Senator that ROTOR will be ready for production in 60 days.

Coldyron insists that this schedule is utterly impossible, and refuses to be bullied despite Buglar threatening to pull him off the project:"You fire me and I’ll make more noise than two skeletons making love in a tin coffin!" After some more back-and-forth with Buglar, Coldyron resigns from the ROTOR project and hands over the reins to his assistant, Dr. Houghtaling. After stomping out of HQ, Coldyron calls his girlfriend, Penny, for lunch to discuss this recent downturn in his fortunes. The lunch scene, purely designed to eat up run time, naturally includes a horrible song called "Hideaway", which is an odd choice of music since they’re eating in a huge hotel restaurant in the middle of town.

Tactical Operations Computer Center 1:30 P.M.

Back at the (cough) Computer Center, Houghtaling struggles to figure out how in the hell he’s going to have ROTOR ready in 60 days while Obnoxious Comedy Robot, Willard, stands by making wise cracks. "Punch in all the impulse codes," Houghtaling orders before heading down to the tank to "trace the circuits by hand." Sure, I guess that sounds scientific enough for me. And get this, Willard hesitates to help because he’s afraid of electricity…but he’s a robot, get it? ha ha

Dr. Houghtaling: The new head of the world’s most advanced robotic lab.

Meanwhile in another lab, a young female researcher is minding her business while Shoe Boogie moonwalks across the lab in an painfully awkward attempt to woo her. Frustrated by her continued reluctance to share her phone number with him, Shoe Boogie removes his Walkman headphones and casually tosses them onto some nearby electrical equipment so he can get a little closer to his prey. The woman eventually leaves in disgust after having endured Shoe Boogie’s futile attempts to pick her up.

The first thing I agree with in this movie

After shooting off a lame parting jibe in her direction, Shoe Boogie shrugs (I’m guessing rejection by the fairer sex is a large part of his life) and picks up the headphones with his switchblade comb causing an electric spark and…I think you can see what this is all going to lead to.

Safety protocols? We don’t need no stinking safety protocols!

Later that day we see Coldyron sitting in his truck outside a convenience store. Maybe he’s considering applying for a job now that his career in advanced robotics research has been shot to hell. After a moment or 2 some hoods pile out of a car and saunter into the store. Coldyron, sensing trouble, approaches their car and asks the driver to give him change for a dollar. I’m not sure what all this is about, but Coldyron points out that it would give him extra time to get away if he did because, ugh. Whatever. Hilariously, Coldyron goes over to a newspaper machine and purchases a paper with a handful of coins…but the bad guy didn’t give him any change! OK, now I get it: Coldyron bought the paper so he could conceal his gigantic pistol from the bad guys when he is inevitably forced to confront them. Seeing a guy looking suspiciously watching him from a payphone, Coldyron walks over and promptly begins whooping his ass! Lucky for Coldyron this was the robbers’ look out; what if it actually was some poor dude on the phone? Well, the robbers pour out of the store with a female hostage and a Mexican stand-off ensues. "Easy, Greasy…" Coldyron says to the Latino guy holding a gun to the woman’s head, convincing me that Coldyron should stick to robotics and not hostage negotiation

After some "tense" banter, Coldyron yanks out his enormous silver spray-painted toy pistol from the newspaper and blows the guy’s head off. In the commotion the woman hostage breaks free and proceeds to kick her captor’s ass with a few well placed pseudo-fu strikes. Coldyron doesn’t bother breaking up the fight between the woman and her assailant; he just watches with a look of professional admiration and remarks "Hey, lady, good job!" when she finally chokes him out. It must be a Texas thing.

Thursday 8:00 P.M.

As we see from the time stamp, it’s now 8 P.M. which means Coldyron has been waiting for the cops to show up for the last 4 hours. I guess crime really is bad in that area.

"Next time, don’t use this," says the local investigator handing back Coldyron his pistol, "the ambulance guys don’t like picking up body pieces with a pooper-scooper." (Wow, he’s so jaded!) "I don’t like it even more," cracks Coldyron in an odd line. The other cop suggests that Coldyron return to the relative safety of the research lab and not hang out in the streets with the "real" cops. To be honest, I found this criticism a bit odd since Coldyron handled himself pretty well in the situation.

Back in the lab Houghtaling and Willard are puzzled by the fact that all the batteries in the lab are drained of charge. (Uh oh…)

"You don’t think…" Houghtaling ominously says while tilting his head in ROTOR’s direction.

"He looks OK to me," Willard reassures him after a thorough 1 second peek into the tank.

Right after the 2 idiots leave the lab we see ROTOR reach up from his "suspension vault" and remove the flimsy plastic tank top. Using a POV shot with a strange pink tint, ROTOR stumbles around in the conveniently empty police station where he quickly finds the locker room and retrieves his uniform from his locker. (!) I guess the Dallas Police Department thought it would be prudent to make available a locker and uniform even though it’s going to be 4 years before the first prototype is ready. We wouldn’t want ROTOR running around nude in the off-chance of accidental activation, now would we?

Give him a locker…who cares if he won’t be ready for another 4 years.

With his custom-fitted leather uniform, ROTOR leaves the lab and heads down to the motor pool. For some reason there are rows and rows of plastic chairs set up…why? Who knows. I guess it was to show us how awesomely determined ROTOR is as he pushes his way through the sea of chairs. What’s wonderfully amusing about this shot is that it was obviously much more difficult for the actor to push his way through the chairs than they’d expected as you can plainly see him struggling several times to untangle his feet from the chair legs and continue through the ever growing mass of tangled furniture accumulating in front of him.

(Damn!…this was harder than I thought…)

Now we see what ROTOR struggled so hard to reach: his very own super-duper motorcycle standing on display (cordoned off in the middle the garage with little velvety ropes no less). Yep, even though he wasn’t scheduled for over 4 years, ROTOR’s motorcycle is gassed up and has the key in the ignition. A quick rev of the throttle and ROTOR roars out of the completely unguarded motor pool and into the night.

Friday 1:56 A.M.

Cut to a dark highway where a young couple are driving along discussing marriage and such…you know: character development. The young woman in the passenger’s seat, Sony, wants to get a career after her marriage to Soon To Be Dead Guy and blah blah blah. Thankfully, the dialog is interrupted when ROTOR pulls them over for speeding. (You know the dialog is bad when you’re happy to see ROTOR!)

ROTOR dismounts his motorcycle, which must be equipped with side-mounted spot lights given his insane silhouette in the darkness, and calmly struts over to the car. The driver gets out and awkwardly attempts to bribe him. Well, ROTOR quickly judges him guilty for speeding and puts a bullet through his head! Wow! For speeding? Who programmed this thing? Anyway, Sony leans over in her seat and very awkwardly "accidentally" pushes horn which deafens ROTOR and paralyzes him with pain! Let me get this straight: an amazingly advanced robot that is defeated by honking your car horn? Whatever.

With ROTOR holding his head in agony, Sony backs up the car and screeches away, but after a couple of minutes she decides to pull to the side and "talk this over". Yeah, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason that the cop killed your fiance for speeding. When ROTOR eventually catches up, he thrusts his arm through the window and tries to grab Sony. (I guess Coldyron didn’t get around to finishing the "Just Open The Door" part of ROTOR’s programming.) Sensing that rational conversation isn’t one of ROTOR’s strong points, Sony speeds off.

Friday 3:00 A.M.

Cut to see the local cops investigating the crime scene. One of the investigators opens the dead man’s hand and removes a police name tag embossed with the name "ROTOR". So the Dallas police actually made ROTOR a nametag? Well, wasn’t that considerate, trying to make him feel like one of the guys.

Later that day Coldyron receives a call from Sergeant Mango (!) who tells him about ROTOR’s recent mayhem. Coldyron instructs Mango to keep quiet about the whole ‘crazed murderous robot cop on the loose’ problem. Yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to mention that to anybody. Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, Coldyron heads back to the lab to figure out how to reel in his rogue creation.

Meanwhile, Sony is still calmly driving around even though it’s been over 2 hours since her fiance was blown away. I’ll give her this much, she sure has her emotions under control. Sony eventually stops at a convenience store which is, duh, closed. Is it just me or is ROTOR still trying to catch up to her? Keep up the good work, ROTOR! Anyway, Sony calls the police and reports what’s happened (Good thing she drove around for a few hours first.) The 911 operator tells her to stay put because they can’t send any help to her since the murder took place in Dallas’s jurisdiction. (WHAT?) Wisely realizing that if she does as she’s told and stays put ROTOR will (eventually) catch up to her, Sony drives off.

Hey! What do you know: just as she pulls out, ROTOR arrives and scans the area with his, and I kid you not, "Sensor Recall" which allows him to see what has happened…in the past!!!! I couldn’t help but note that ROTOR has to take off his sunglasses for this feature to work. Must be something in the tinting.

Back at the lab Coldyron types madly at an old CRT terminal and asks the department’s mainframe about ROTOR’s status. To his dismay, the computer can’t find any information on ROTOR. (Strangely, in the beginning of the film, the last 2 words in the ROTOR acronym were "Operational Research" and have now been changed to "Operations Reserve". Ooops.)

After some more mad keystrokes, Coldyron discovers that ROTOR is no longer in his "suspension tank" and is "fully activated". With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Coldyron asks the computer one final question: "What is Rotor’s duty?" (Doesn’t Coldyron know? Isn’t he the lead programmer?) The computer responds with the words we all dread: "To Judge and Execute"…"Oh…God!" Coldyron murmurs upon reading this. But why is he shocked? The words "To Judge and Execute" are stenciled on his motorcycle for cripes sake!

Oh…So that’s his Prime Directive.

With a quick call to Willard, Coldyron confirms that there was a screw up in the lab last night but nobody thought to actually look in the tank and ensure ROTOR was still there. (Actually, Willard says that they did look in the tank but not the "suspension readout"…whatever. I sense a serious breach of protocol here…) With Willard hemming-and-hawing on the line, Coldyron hangs up and places a priority call to Mango. (Mango, really guys?) Mango informs Coldyron that ROTOR has gone nuts and is chasing a woman (i.e., Sony) all over hell and high water. Furthermore, they’ve told her to keep moving until the police get to her. (Why don’t the police just go to her? Better yet, why doesn’t she just drive to the police station?)

"Good. Nobody move until you hear from me," Coldyron instructs, which to me seems counter-productive to the whole "let’s get to her" plan.

Feeling chatty, Coldyron next places a call back to Commander Buglar to tell him, basically: nyah nyah nyah…I told you so.

"It would walk through a bus full of nuns to get to a jaywalker! ROTOR wasn’t ready..its brain functions are incomplete!" Coldyron tells Buglar, insisting that the Senator be informed of the day’s events. Buglar suggests instead that Coldyron take back control of the project and hunt down ROTOR personally.

"OK," Coldyron agrees, "and when I bring him back, I’ll ram him right down City Hall’s throat!" (Ok. But what did City Hall have to do with any of this?)

While Coldyron begins the hunt, Sony parks behind an all night cafe, sneaks in through the back door, finds a table and orders a cup of coffee. (I’m not sure how this could be considered "keeping on the move", but we have to give hapless ROTOR a chance to catch up with her.) In a strange line, the waitress apologized to Sony for having the TV on but they have to keep it turned on until the homecoming parade is over…even though it’s pitch black outside! ROTOR also manages to find the cafe…how? Who knows. Stopping in back, he pulls off his sunglasses and turns on his "Sensor Recall" ability which allows him to see Sony running inside a few minutes ago (you know what I mean). ROTOR busts into the kitchen and is immediately attacked by the fry cook. (If you think about it, the cook doesn’t know that ROTOR is a rogue robot cop; On the contrary, to him it’s just a cop coming in through the back door…and he attacks him with a knife?!) ROTOR dispatches the cook by shoving his face on the grill and I guess somebody thought it was funny to have the guy wear a pair of huge fake front teeth.

As ROTOR leaves the kitchen and struts into the dining area all the patrons flee in terror. (Why? To them it’s just a cop walking in.) Sony, of course, cowers in a booth because the script requires a slight struggle before she runs out the front door. Oh boy, here we go again: in comes a trio of rednecks who immediately attack what to them is just an ordinary police officer! After some lazy fighting, ROTOR beats the hell out of the guys, walks out front and looks inside Sony’s car. Hey, wasn’t her car parked in back? Strange. Maybe she moved it out front to at least give ROTOR a fighting chance…

Oh wait, Sony runs out to the adjoining gas station where the night clerk hides her in his kiosk. I’m not sure why he’s helping her since he hasn’t even seen ROTOR, so Sony must appear to him as a crazed woman running around in the middle of the night. Then again, maybe he’s just thankful for a little excitement with such a lousy job. Anyway, ROTOR uses his awesome rose-tinted "Sensor Recall" which promptly reveals Sony’s true location.

After ROTOR saunters over to the kiosk, he employs his usual method of apprehending people: stretching his arm out as far as he can and trying to grab them. Sony skillfully evades capture by simply staying out of his reach and crawls out the back door where she runs to a nearby semi-trailer truck. The truck driver, seeing a damsel in distress, hides her in the cab and confronts ROTOR with his pistol. Not to beat a dead horse, but again, to the truck driver this is just a normal cop chasing a perpetrator. Whatever. ROTOR shoots him and he shoots ROTOR back. Exciting. When ROTOR drags himself back to his feet, Sony easily paralyzes ROTOR by honking the truck’s horn. (OK, I’m thinking a serious re-design is needed here.)

But, heck, it’s all good because Coldyron drives up (how did he know she was there?) and exchanges a few punches with ROTOR. Obviously ROTOR can’t be beaten hand-to-hand (but a horn, yes) and quickly knocks Coldyron on his ass before attempting to get Sony by, yes, reaching through the window as far as he can. Using the always successful tactic of simply backing up out of ROTOR’s reach, Sony slips out the other door and runs away. Coldyron tries to buy her some time by shooting/punching ROTOR a bit more, but to not much good. Just as ROTOR is about to slam the crap out of him yet again, Coldyron produces a golden metal thingee which cause ROTOR to stop and pull back. Why…what could this thing be? I hope we find out later…

Keeping in line with the film’s modus operandi:

• ROTOR tries to grab Sony
• Arm not long enough
• Sony’s runs away
• ROTOR gives chase

ROTOR hops onto his motorcycle and pursues Sony into the darkness. Back at the service station, Coldyron crawls into his truck and raises Sony on his CB radio. (Sony has a CB radio in her car? Turned on and tuned to the same channel Coldyron just happens to be using? Wow.) "The cop’s name is ROTOR…he’s gone renegade," Coldyron gasps, "Just keep moving!" Without much choice (and nothing else in the script for her to do), Sony agrees to just drive around…and around…and around until Coldyron returns with help. After a short discussion of where to meet, they agree to hook up at 4 P.M. at Cain’s Fishing Lodge. Rather unbelievable Sony is familiar with the lodge’s location. I guess it’s because she’s such the outdoorsy type.

Anyway, with Sony driving around as bait, Coldyron places a call to "Houston…Texas". Boy, that was nice of Coldyron to clarify which Houston he was trying to call…and sure enough, we get another time stamp:

Houston, Texas Friday 5:45 A.M.

Welcome to the residence of Dr. Steele. An extremelybuff woman who is, as you recall (or not), the creator of ROTOR’s ultra-secret chassis. (The one made of the "obscure numbered" alloy.) It looks like Steele has just returned from working out at the gym before a putting in a hard days robotic chassis design and it’s only a quarter to six. Tough broad. Steele happens to catch the last bit of Coldyron’s message on the answering machine explaining that ROTOR is out and on the loose and, boy, could he use her help.

Hey it’s another time stamp:

Friday 8:30 A.M.

Cut to a mechanic’s garage where ROTOR is fixing up his motorcycle and treating himself to a little juice from a car-battery charger. Since electricity is ‘cool’, the scene goes all ‘negative’ when ROTOR charges himself up. The local grease monkey sees all this and finds it so terrifying that he flees the scene hollering "Feet don’t fail me now!" and jumps into the back of a random passing pick-up truck. I guess that was supposed to be funny in a Good-Old-Boy sort of way. Ugh…but hey: This was the first random civilian that didn’t immediately attack a police officer.

After picking up Steele at the airport, Coldyron drives her to a local hotel. This gives the viewer pleeeeenty of time to hear some more back story.

"I feel like old friends. You know, we got to know each other’s papers and mathematics pretty well," says Steele.

Not to be outdone in the flattery department, Coldyron responds in kind, "Your designs on the combat chassis are the most brilliant I’ve ever seen."

"It was nothing without your own brain matrix."

Man, I just love realistic scientific jargon, don’t you?

After some more blabbing, Steele admits that it’s impossible to bring ROTOR in. (So why did you fly all the way to Dallas at the drop of a hat then?!) Coldyron disagrees, and shows her the golden de-activation key. So…maybe they have a chance after all. Regardless, they better speed things up because there’s only 15 minutes left in the movie and I’m getting tired.

Hot hotel check-in action!

When Steele and Coldyron check into the hotel, they discover that their room is #222. "Great…that’s his badge number," Coldyron wryly notes.

"Superstitious?," Steele jokes as she asks for another room just as well, "There’s no sense in tempting reality too darn much." (huh?)

"Were we playing God, breathing life into our artificial Adam?" Coldyron waxes poetic before going on to quote a few portentous lines from Milton!.

"Let’s go get ‘im!" Steele chimes in. Yeah, let’s cut the crap and get to some more goofy action scenes.

Back outside and driving around, and boy, do I love driving scenes, Coldyron explains to Steele that ROTOR is programming himself as he goes.

"Oh God! The brain matrix is modeled after your own lower brain functions!" Steele realizes, "To combat pure will, you’ll have to use pure illogic!" …and I must admit that she’s smarter than I am because I have no clue what she’s talking about.

"What do you mean?" Coldyron asks.

"You’ll have to allow yourself to fail: use your failure against him."

(Whadda whadda?!)

"Great, but I don’t know what any of that means," Coldyron admits.

"Let’s hope you never have to find out."

So…..huh?! It doesn’t matter whether Coldyron understands how to defeat ROTOR or not? What? Oh…forget it.

Friday 2:30 P.M.

Cut back to see Sony driving under a highway underpass that, surprise surprise, ROTOR just happens to be waiting on. As you can see by the timestamp, it’s now 2:30 P.M., which means that Sony’s been on the run nonstop for the last 12 hours since her fiance was shot. Yeah. That’s believable. ROTOR guns his motorcycle engine and gives chase.

Back with the others, we hear that Steele has come up with a ‘theory’: "What if I force his substructure plates apart?"

"If you got that close you could use the key," Coldyron reminds her.

"If I got that close, finding the keyhole would be the last thing on my mind…"

So, let me get this straight…you need to physically insert a key into ROTOR to deactivate him?! You don’t have a radio-controlled device for this? If I remember correctly, Americans did possess that sort of technology in 1988. (Garage door openers, anybody?) Oh, and Steele doesn’t know where the hole is…and she designed him! Sheesh!

Look! ROTOR has managed to catch up with Sony…again. (How? Ohhh…Recall Sensor; how could I ever forget?) For once Sony actually does something intelligent and runs him off a cliff destroying his motorcycle in the process. (As suggested by the small pile of burning twigs a stagehand places a safe distance from the bike.) For some reason Sony decides that it would be better to set off on foot into the wilderness instead of driving away, because, hey, how else is ROTOR going to manage to catch up with her by the end of the movie?

Muh bike! They busted muh bike!

Soooo…Sony runs around killing time waiting for Coldyron. A cut-away shot of her wrist watch reveals that it’s 4:10, which means that she’s been on the go for over 14 hours. Man, I bet she’s getting tired by now. (And she hasn’t even taken a single piss break!)

In the mean time, Coldyron and Steele have tracked ROTOR’s position by charting his "power surges" (just go with it). Coldyron pulls off to the side of the road and decides to hunt him down on foot.

"You don’t happen to know any Indian trackers, do you?" Steele asks in a cringe inducing moment.

"I used to spend every summer on the Indian reservation." says Coldyron says, "Will I do?"

"Ha! I’m like a cemetery: I’ll take anybody," Steele jests in a moment of levity. (Get it? "Any body". Yeah, I thought it was funny too. )

After a few seconds of looking at the ground, Coldyron finds a footprint. "Is it his?" Steele asks. "Well, it sure aint Pee-Wee Herman’s." (Man, talk about a movie dating itself.)

Meanwhile Sony finds a small boat and tries to float out into the middle of the lake without a paddle. And I mean that literally: she just kicks off from the beach and floats about 4 feet. It wouldn’t have made any difference even if she had a paddle because ROTOR shows up and drags her back to land by pulling on the rope Sony still has tied to the boat. Egads, m’Lady…use your brain, eh?

Fortunately for Sony, Steele also magically appears and blasts ROTOR in the back. Instead of continuing to blast him until he’s a pile of scrap metal, she tosses down the gun and starts pummeling on him. (You’d think that, being the actual designer of ROTOR’s substructure, Steele would know just how useless it is to punch on him.) In an odd bit of framing, Steele and ROTOR battle it out in the background while Coldyron helps Sony up to the truck (which is now magically parked at the lake!). Their struggles seem almost slow motion, as if they’re blocking out the fight for the next scene but didn’t realize they were in the shot and the director just decided to keep it.

Running out of options, Coldyron attempts to place ROTOR in a "stand down" mode by tricking him into thinking that all this was just a drill. I guess since ROTOR has "re-programmed" himself, he simply ignores his creator’s orders and shoves his gun in Coldyron’s face. Proving once again that he’s not quite ready for prime time, ROTOR’s crappy reflexes allow Coldyron to duck away and run off before he can even fire his gun. Man, I’d love to see ROTOR go up against the Terminator. That would be fun.

Oh, and again, Steele seems to materialize out of the ether and blasts ROTOR in the back with her shotgun. And again, she immediately tosses her weapon to the ground and starts punching the killer robot instead of blowing him to smithereens. As I expected, this proves to be a Bad Idea as ROTOR easily grabs Steele and commences to squeeze her to death, but before she dies she does get a chance to rip open ROTOR’s chest with makes the scene go all "negative-y" again for some reason. (I guess this was Steele’s "separate his substructure plates" plan that she mentioned in the truck. Wow. Good plan.)

Anyhoo, with Steele keeping ROTOR busy by letting him squeeze her to death, Coldyron produces his ultimate weapon: experimental detonation cord. (Remember that little shot from the beginning of the movie that just screamed PLOT POINT?) Sony quickly ties one end of the cord to the truck (won’t this destroy the truck when it goes off?) while Coldyron constructs a snare on the ground directly in front of ROTOR. The fact that even ROTOR manages to notice the snare speaks volumes about how lame this particular trap was.

Horns…a very serious design flaw.

Sony quickly realizes that Coldyron’s Amazing Det-Cord Snare Plan needs a little help and brings into play ROTOR’s greatest weakness: honking car horns. Blind with pain, ROTOR steps into the snare and Coldyron tightens the loop with a quick jerk on the cord. Defying all known laws of topology, Coldyron quickly fashions 3 new lassoes from the single length of cord (magic!) and promptly ropes ROTOR’s arms and neck, forcing him into a helpless ‘spread eagle’ position. Never mind that the lassoes are tossed from completely different directions than the one Coldyron is standing, but I’m wondering just what the ropes are attached to since a couple of them were tossed from the direction of the lake…

Anyway, just as ROTOR begins tearing himself loose his "electric discharge" ignites the detonation cords (I sense another design flaw here…) and BOOM…no more ROTOR. It’s unclear why the detonation cord didn’t destroy Coldyron’s truck as well since one end of it is anchored to the frame, but let’s not drag this out any longer than necessary.

Cut back to "now", i.e., the debriefing room where Coldyron has been retelling this entire story to the investigators. "I’m going to leave my report in my office," Coldyron concludes. "After that, I got a ranch. I got a horse. I got a pretty girl." Wow, is this guy romantic or what?

With his tale at an end, Coldyron struts from the interrogation room and out into the parking lot. To everybody’s great shock, Commander Buglar walks up behind him and blows him away with a shotgun! (I wasn’t expecting that, actually.) Standing over the body, Buglar stares into the camera and in his best Dirty Harry imitation grimly says, "Justice served…C.O.D." ( I have no idea what the whole "C.O.D." thing has to do with anything. Maybe it sounded "street tough" to one of the writers.)

Oh, and third, why kill Coldyron in the first place? If this supposed to be some sort of cover up, what about the years of robotics research, all of Steele’s work, the thousands of others that have worked on this project? Maybe he just had a personal grudge against Coldyron, ok fine, but then if you’re going to murder somebody, maybe you shouldn’t do it 5 feet from the entrance of the Dallas Police Headquarters. Just sayin’.

Fade to, (cough,cough), Oxford University where we see that Coldyron’s nephew, Brett, has received news of his uncle’s death via a letter from Commander Buglar. Corrupt to the very end, Buglar writes that he too grieves at the loss of Captain Coldyron, and that he was a brave man who died in the line of duty and blah blah. There just aint no justice in this world, is there?

As we proceed into the credits (happily), Brett engages in his own voice over explaining how, over time, he studied his uncle’s research papers and gleaned enough to create his own ROTOR…this time a "ROTOR II" in the form of Steele. So this movie ends on yet another bizarre note: how the hell did Brett know what Steele looked like so he could base his robot’s appearance on her? I thought maybe Uncle Coldyron might have had some pictures stashed away in his research, but if I remember correctly they met for the first time on the day of the final ROTOR battle, didn’t they? Ahhh, maybe this will all be clear when ROTOR 2 arrives; but I doubt it.

My work here is done.

The End.

Dennis Grisbeck (December 2011)

You made it this far? Really? Congratulations: You can watch the entire movie HERE

Read more about R.O.T.O.R. at

Written and Directed by Jack Perez

Run Time: 90 minutes

Tagline: Winner…Eats…All!

Yes! Get ready for the movie that went straight to video in 2009, the movie that will have you pulling your hair out, the movie that will have you spewing beer out of your mouth in laughter, the movie that features your favorite giant cephalopod battling the eeeeeeevil Mega Shark for dominion of the world’s seas! YES! It’s Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus!

After the opening title sequence, we hop to the Alaskan coast where a military helicopter is performing some sort of super-duper top-secret sonar testing. This can’t be good. Why not? Because it’s the military. Meanwhile a nearby oceanic research sub, piloted by our heroine Emma (Deborah Gibson…yes, that Debbie Gibson from the 80′s pop music scene.), is almost mashed by a gigantic chunk of ice that cracks off of a glacier.

"Half the continental shelf just fell off!" shouts navigator Vince.

"Hey, why so nervous?" asks Emma . (I’m guessing he’s nervous because half the continental shelf fell off 20-feet from the sub.)

(Cracking glaciers in a monster movie are never a good sign…)

The tension builds…

If that wasn’t enough excitement for you, we now watch a gigantic swarm of hammerhead sharks swim around the sub.

No, wait. Actually stock-footage of hammerhead sharks swarm the sub, since the Alaskan waters are way, way too cold for sharks. But whatever. More footage of warm-water sea life fills the screen (including coral reefs!) as Emma stares out the windows of the sub in awe of Nature’s beauty. (Again, wasn’t this supposed to be Alaska?!)

Emma finally spots what she’s been searching for: a whale. ("It’s enormous," Vince notes – Uh, yeah Vince, it’s a whale.) So….with a bunch of submarine mumbo-jumbo ("Down bubble 20!", etc. etc.), she sets the sub in motion and tails the pod of whales. Unbeknownst to Emma, the naval helicopter’s sonar device has spooked the sea creatures and screwed up their navigation abilities. (Bad, military! Bad!) The confused whales blindly crash into the aforementioned glacier causing a massive "ice quake". (Inexplicably, the helicopter pilot suddenly loses control and, with a half-hearted shout of "Holy crap!" smashes into the glacier and dies. How in the world could any of this have affected a helicopter?)

Struggling for control of the submarine, Emma stares in disbelief (me too) when the cracked ice reveals…Bum! Bum! Bum!…Mega Shark and Giant Octopus frozen together in solid ice. (How in the world did that happen? Talk about a cold snap.) Well, the ice shatters further and the titular monsters swim off to wreak havoc. Let the games begin.

Why, if I ever get out of here…oh! I’ll show you, I will!

First stop: a drilling platform off the coast of Japan where Giant Octopus immediately gets busy by plucking off a few hapless workers from the decks before tearing down the entire structure. (A cut scene shows Octopus blinking its eyes and balefully staring at the workers before consuming them. I didn’t think octopi had eyelids, but I’m too lazy to Google it and find out. I don’t think they do. I also didn’t think that octopi attacked oil rigs, and that one I’m not going to even bother checking out.)

Oil rig! nom nom nom!

Cut to a beach in California where Emma and Dick, her boss and head of the NorCal Oceanic Institute, are escorted by FBI agents (!) to a washed up whale carcass covered with suspicious wounds. (Mwu-ha-ha!!!!) After Dick chews her ass for "borrowing" the mini-sub without permission, Emma explains that she just had to take the sub and study the whales because they had been acting "nuts". (Oh, Emma, would you please stop using such arcane scientific jargon?) When Dick takes his leave to chat with the agents, Emma takes a quick peek at the carcass and spots what looks like a gigantic tooth in the wound. To everybody’s surprise (cue evil Government Cover-Up laughter), Dick orders a halt to the examination and unconvincingly declares that the wounds were caused by a oil tanker propeller. Case closed.

Damned boat propellers!

Later that evening, a frustrated Emma and Vince stand on the beach discussing the day’s freaky events while drinking beer from paper bags. (Classy, Emma, real classy! Ha!) Realizing that she’ll probably lose her job tomorrow after Dick’s hastily summoned review board (because she "stole" the mini-sub, blah blah blah), Emma decides to sneak back to the whale carcass that night and remove whatever it was she saw in the wound. Soooooo….yep, later that night, she talks her way past a most incompetent security guard and pulls out a gigantic tooth from the wound. A-ha! The plot thickens. Then again, since the title of the movie really doesn’t leave too much to the imagination, it’s hard to understand why the movie makers decided to waste time on a "mystery". (It reminds me a bit of the "mystery" in the beginning of The Giant Gila Monster…I mean, if the answer to the mystery is in the title of the movie, what’s the point?)

Bag O’ Beer

Meanwhile, back at the Tokyo Detention Center, the sole survivor from the doomed oil rig, some poor film extra named Takeo, sits under armed guard and is forced to recount what he saw while Dr. Shimada, the friendly scientist, takes notes. (For some completely unexplained reason, Takeo speaks with a heavy Australian accent. I can only hope that this was meant as a joke.) Takeo, still in shock, is given a piece of paper to sketch what he saw. Just as he begins…we cut to the next scene. Seriously, was this meant to be suspenseful? We know what he saw because we saw it too! So why bother with the build up?! Sheesh!

Like I said, just as we were about to see what Takeo sketches (let me guess, it was a giant octopus), we cut away to a passenger airplane flying high over the clouds. Do you see where this is going? Do you? In a truly hilarious shot, a shocked passenger shouts "HOLY SHIT!" when he sees Mega Shark leaping up from the sea to eat the plane!

Things that make you say “Holy Shit!”

Yes, Mega Shark managed to snatch a jet at cruising altitude out of mid air. It doesn’t get much better than this…"better" in the Monster Shack meaning of the word, of course. In fact, it’s so good, I’m going to let you watch it for yourself:

Special Monster Shack Extra: Check out the graphic at the end of this review for an in depth study of the physics involved behind this leap!

Sure enough, the next day Emma gets fired from the Institute as Dick gives her some pithy words of advice on the way out, "Don’t love the ocean too much…it doesn’t love you back." (And this guy runs an ocean research center?) With no job and still intrigued over the gigantic 2 foot tooth she pulled from the dead whale, Emma heads over to her old friend and mentor Professor Sanders (Sean Lawlor), who also Just Happens to be an ex-Naval Paleontologist. (How convenient. We later learn that Sanders was drummed out of the Navy for grounding a nuclear sub in order to avoid hitting a dolphin!)

After Emma explains to Sanders what has happened, they set up an ersatz lab at his house using equipment Emma stole from the Institute when she got canned. (Nice work ethic, Emma.) Following a long boring montage of "research" shots, i.e., fingers tapping keyboards, people staring into test tubes full of blue liquids, bunsen burners, etc., Sanders positively identifies the object that Emma found in the dead whale.

"A tooth!?" Emma gasps in amazement upon discovering that the long, sharp, white, bony relic found in a gaping bite wound was a tooth.

Without further ado, Sanders flips through a book and says that the tooth came from an ancient species of shark: Megalodon. (Hey! That sounds like a great name for a movie! Oh. Too late.) Just as the scene starts running out of steam (you can quote megalodon Wikipedia facts for only so long before the audience gets bored…trust me), the phone rings and Sanders is happy to hear that his Japanese college, Dr. Shimada. (Remember…he was interviewing the Australian-speaking Japanese survivor earlier in the film? Never mind.) will be arriving shortly in San Francisco to meet with him regarding the oil rig disaster.

After Sanders and Emma meet Shimada at the airport, brief introductions are made ("I heard about your wild diving-bell experiments," says Sanders as Shimada coyly smiles. No comment.) And yes, yes, sparks fly as Emma and Shimada shake hands. Blah blah blah. In case your wondering why Shimada has traveled to the States at all, well, he suspects his government is covering up the cause of the oil rig disaster so the only logical thing for him to do was meet up with Sanders and try to figure all this out. (Yes, I know, it makes no sense.)

Back at Sanders’s house, Shimada insists that what attacked the oil rig was definitelynot a megalodon while revealing Takeo’s sketches.

Research!

"This is is definitely not the eye of a shark," Sanders agrees. (It’s not the eye of an octopus either, but oh well.)

Um, an octopus has eyebrows?

At that moment the doorbell rings: it’s a special delivery for Emma. Inside the package is a boot-leg copy of the submarine’s camera footage from the beginning of the film. ("Vince must have dropped it off," Emma says in a throwaway line. Yeah. I guess he did, but didn’t bother to come in and talk to anybody? It doesn’t matter. His character is never seen again.) As the trio watch the grainy footage on the TV, they quickly realize what they’re up against. (And in case you haven’t figure out what that is, please review the title of this movie.)

Meanwhile, Mega Shark has definitely not been resting on his laurels after his recent attack. Cut to a US Naval vessel somewhere in the middle of the ocean scanning the depths for the beasts. "You give the President my personal word," snarls the ship’s Captain into the radio, "when we find the beast…we’ll send it to Hell!" Unfortunately , the Captain’s premature bravado is rudely interrupted as Mega Shark shows up out of nowhere and starts swimming like mad towards the destroyer.

"Execute Plan Delta! Execute Plan Delta!" shouts the Captain. (So, plan Delta is the Megalodon Defense Maneuver?)

Despite being bombarded by the ship’s main guns, Mega Shark manages to avoid major injury and smashes its head into the destroyer a few times before sending it to the bottom of the ocean. (I was greatly disappointed that there wasn’t a shot of the shark with the ship in its mouth…damn, that would have been funny! [NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: We get to see it eat another boat, so relax.])

Back at the Sanders’s residence, things get tense for our friends when the FBI (or somebody…they’re all generic black-suited goons) scoops them up and takes them to a secret Naval headquarters where a sleaze-bag government agent, Allan Baxter (played by the ubiquitous Lorenzo Lamas), tries to convince them to help the US of A in destroying the monsters since they threaten our national security. Of course, there’s the perennial conflict between Military and Science: Baxter wants the creatures destroyed, Emma wants them contained for study. (Just how they would ‘contain’ a shark capable of leaping into the stratosphere and eating airplanes is not explained.) Shimada suggests capturing them in shallow waters, such as, oh, San Francisco Bay and Tokyo Bay. "Think of it as a kind of corral," Sanders explains. (Sure.) Baxter agrees to give it a shot and charges the trio with finding a way to independently lure each of the monsters to the appropriate bay for capture.

Science!

After some more test-tube excitement and perfunctory flirting between Emma and Shimada (which leads to them having sex in a broom closet…yech), a solution is found: pheromones. Shimada heads back to Japan to set up the trap in Tokyo Bay while Sanders and Emma stay in San Fran to prepare their end of things. (Wouldn’t it be funny if each team accidentally took the wrong set of pheromones with them?)

Oh, I guess it’s time for some more excitement. A scout plane reports seeing "something" in the waters off San Francisco.

"Shark or octopus?" Baxter asks.

"Hard to say," says Sanders.

Hard to say?! Yeah, sure, I can see how you could confuse an octopus with a shark. They both look so much alike. There’s even a sonar image of a big "something" with 8 freakin’ arms!!! I hope you get eaten, you idiot. (Psssst: he does.)

“Shark or Octopus?”…You make the call!

Baxter orders the plane to descend to 100 feet so the pilot can get a better look. Bad idea. Giant Octopus, not to be outdone by all the attention Mega Shark has gotten recently, extends a monstrous tentacle into the air and swats the plane into the sea. (A fun scene to be sure, but still not nearly as funny as the shark eating the other airplane.) Anyway, the octopus swims away to eat again another day, while Emma and Sanders volunteer to pilot a sub into the murky waters of SF Bay to emplace the pheromone trap. (Again, how do they know which pheromone to spread in the water? Shark or octopus? Could they be mixed to ensure that at least one of them is trapped?)

Smack down!

Before beginning her Oh So Dangerous mission, Emma takes a few minutes to stare out over the ocean and reflect on the goofiness of this movie. Sanders breaks the silence and informs her that Shimada has called to tell them that the octopus is heading for Tokyo, while "our" shark is coming to San Francisco. (Just how in the hell Shimada determined this is beyond me.)

Always eager to state the obvious, Sanders somberly says, "We have to be very careful out there, lassie."

"I’ve always thought of myself as a scientist, not a soldier," says Emma.

"Every scientist faces something like this sooner or later," Sanders reminds her. (They do!?!?)

Emma, nodding in quiet agreement, continues, "I can’t help thinking of Einstein and Oppenheimer…" (WHAT?!…Einstein?)

Later that day, Emma and Sanders pilot the sub down into the bay and try to set out the shark pheromone lure…but the robotic arm gets stuck. (Face palm.)

Baxter warns them over the radio that Mega Shark has been spotted and is heading towards them at 500 knots. (!)

More Mega Shark tension!

Anyway, after getting the arm "unstuck" (by banging the sub against a rock..smart), the trap is set, so Emma skidaddles out of the area. For some reason, Baxter decides to renege on his deal to capture the monsters and orders a nearby ship to open fire Mega Shark with depth charges. When the shark disappears from the radar the ship’s Captain declares "target destroyed." (Uh oh…)

"Who wants sharkskin boots!" Baxter shouts in a (premature) fit of jubilation as the shark reappears (how does it avoid sonar at will?) and bites the destroyer in half!

To rub salt in the wound, Mega Shark shoots up San Francisco Bay and tears down the Golden Gate Bridge in gloriously cheesy CGI! Mega Shark, you’re awesome!

Damn he’s good!

With things not going exactly as planned, a crestfallen Sanders drops Shimada a line to discuss the latest events. An equally somber Shimada takes the line and says, "The military has only succeeded in angering it…like an cornered dog." (Strange analogy for a giant octopus, but whatever.) With all their plans shot to hell, Emma has a brain storm: "We’ll get them to kill each other!" (ho boy)

"What makes you so sure they’ll duke it out?" Baxter wonders.

"They’re natural enemies [they are?]…the fact that they were frozen in mid-combat confirms it." [It does?]

Emma then goes on to explain that during the last ice age all the animals "ran for their lives" while Mega Shark and Giant Octopus decided to stay and fight it out. (I’m not sure how an octopus, or shark for that matter, could "run" for its life even if it wanted to, but let’s not be overly pendantic.)

To make a long story short, Mega Shark and Giant Octopus are lured into the middle of the ocean where they can "duke it out" and hopefully destroy each other. (And hopefully end this movie.) A few false scares later, i.e.,

• oh gee, I wonder if Mega Shark will eat Emma’s sub or not…Hey! She got away, (but only after engaging the sub’s "emergency turbos", oh brother….)
• Hey! A "navigate the sub through a tight, twisty underwater canyon" scene..who would have thought?
• oh gee, the sub’s navigator cracks under the pressure and mutinies…will he kill Emma and the others?

our two antagonists finally meet in the aquatic squared circle and start pounding the crap out of each other.

C’mere you…why I outta…oh, you….

In the middle of the chaos, Mega Shark disappears from the radar and then reappears out of nowhere (how does he do that?) to grab Emma’s sub in its toothy maw. Instead of immediately crushing the sub, Mega Shark toys with it awhile giving Emma and Sanders time to escape in the mini-sub while the doomed sub’s commander sacrifices himself (and crew…maybe they could have at least voted on this?) by shooting missiles at point blank range. Although the missiles do no harm, the explosions stun Mega Shark and give Emma time to sneak away. But wait! Shimada’s sub gets grabbed by Giant Octopus while Emma watches in horror! (What the hell is going on here? This is really hard to follow. EVERYBODY is in a different freakin’ sub and all the subs use the same movie set…)

Submarines! nom nom nom!

OK, they fight some more (I couldn’t help but notice that Giant Octopus’s tentacles are all back in place now despite having 3 of them bitten off in the previous battle scene…oops!). I will admit that the filmmakers deserve credit for showing a lot of cool footage of them fighting, so kudos guys.

Anyhoo, after biting and squeezing each other for a while (what else can a shark and an octopus really do?), the 2 combatants presumably die and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Or do they…

The End.

Dennis Grisbeck (July 2011)

PS: Shimada is magically OK after all. (I guess his sub survived being squished by a 2000 foot long octopus…go figure.) As you would expect, Shimada and Emma hit it off and decide to team up with Sanders to continue exploring the oceans and blah blah blah.

Kudos to Stephan Taubman for this awesome graphic!

Read more about Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus at

Directed by Kevin Reynolds

Writer by Peter Rader and David Twohy

Run Time: 135 minutes

A guest review by Karl Hoegle.

	Mariner (Kevin Kostner) So many fish jokes and puns that I could use here, but I will refrain.
	Deacon (Dennis Hopper) So over the top, I wonder if he read the script or just improvised as he went.
	Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) Whew! Easy on the eyes…at least until she gets an impromptu haircut.
	Enola (Tina Majorino) Enola gets a haircut too; making her more of a moppet than anything else.

I must admit that at the beginning of this stinker I was impressed; the Universal globe that denotes the studio that foisted this gem on us slowly filled with water and the land masses eventually disappeared. Kudos to the marketing genius that thought that one up. It is, unfortunately, the best part of the entire 2:15 minute snooze-fest. No clouds; I guess the entire Earth had great weather that day. (I presume the Picture was taken from surface of the Moon.)

THE FUTURE!!!

“THE FUTURE!!!” booms a loud, authoritative voice that informs us redundantly that the polar ice caps have melted (no reason why is ever given or even wondered about). “…Covering the Earth with water”… No! I thought that if the polar ice caps melted we would all be covered in green cheese. Sigh. I hesitate to point this out, as there would be no movie otherwise, but all of my research gives a top limit of 200 feet of additional water above sea level if all of the polar ice melted, including the bulk of the ice that lies unseen under water. Ice takes up more space than water, so melted ice would actually tend to even out, if not lower the average sea level. Also, the ice there can’t melt, as the average temperatures in the Antarctic are around NEGATIVE 31 Fahrenheit in the summer.

Sooo…I guess that in the “FUTURE” water has become fluffier and takes up much, much more space than is physically possible now. I’ll suspend my disbelief for Kevin this one time, I guess. We get our first bit of action as we see some feet, hear some odd sounds, and a stream of urine fills a container. Lovely. Talk about setting the tone for the movie. The protagonist (Let’s call him the Mariner, since they don’t let us in on his name) pours this vile fluid into a Rube Goldberg device, pumps a handle a few times, and voila! fresh, drinkable water pours out the other end, although it must still be pretty damn warm… Yuck! He greedily downs this fluid, and rinses his mouth out with a bit and spits it into his lime plant, that I will call “Fred” from now on since it never gets named either. Ugh, this movie already has me gagging.

Question: If all the Mariner needs is fluid that can be filtered and drunk, why not use some of the FREAKING ocean that is all around? All that has to be done is the salt filtered out to make it potable. Urine has myriad poisons, acids, and whatnot. Sigh. There is a throwaway line in a deleted scene that has Helen ask why not use hydro, but the Mariner tells her that the seawater clogs the filters. Since the line was cut, I feel it not germane to the argument.

Anyhoo, our fish-man with no name sets his anchor and dives for the bottom, looking to loot some treasure from the watery grave of our technological society. While he is doing this, a bandit sneaks up, steals lots of his stuff including Fred’s fruit .He is about to escape when the Mariner comes up for air and eyes his unwanted guest with suspicion. They talk a bit, and just when the Mariner finds out that he has been boarded, the new guy points out that there are 2 “Smokers” on the horizon. Smokers are the nominal “bad” guys, still using eeeevil fossil fuels and mechanical conveyances whilst the “good” guys are using politically correct wind power to get around. I’d like to point out that everyone wears “Mad Max” type clothing, and is oddly filthy dirty for being on a world where you can literally take a bath by stepping wrong. The Smokers give chase, Mariner hits a cleverly placed lever, and his boat hoists sail and runs like a bat out of hell. He drives over the thief’s boat, disabling it and making him easy pickings for the Smokers who let the Mariner go.

Meet the Smokers

The Mariner sails for a bit, and then finds a floating metal island and decides to trade with them. They let him in only when they see that he has a huge jar full of dirt. They stare in awe of this bounty, and allow him entrance. Question 2; if anyone wants dirt, all that they would have to do is to put a bucket on a rope and drag it behind them. Sigh. One would think that fruit and vegetable seeds would be more valuable than mere dirt. Question 3: wouldn’t said dirt be rendered useless from residual salinity?

He trades for a bunch of items and the prize he was after; a tomato plant (complete with a pound of … you guessed it… DIRT!!!) I guess no one thought that was odd when they wrote the script, he pays for a bunch of items including a plant with a pound of dirt in it with… a pound of dirt! As he is leaving, the villagers ask him to impregnate a local girl before he goes, to help keep their gene “pool” clean- ha ha. He declines, and instead of allowing him to leave, they look behind his ears and see the reason he can stay underwater for hours at a time… gills!! This is a capitol offense, and he is tossed in a metal cage above the sewage pool they apparently keep for just such occasions. The locals wanted to kill him outright, but the local cop saves him.

We are introduced to the other main characters, the barmaid Helen and her adopted daughter Enola (Alone, spelled backwards) who, coincidentally, has a map to mythical dry land tattooed on her back. Ouch! They try to escape in a makeshift balloon with her gran-pappy, but he bungles it and flies away without them. She shifts instantly to plan B, namely seducing the Mariner (who she knows is a mutant) and use him to escape the nameless atoll with her adopted daughter. He tells her to bugger off at first, but as they are lowering him into the cess pool, he has an amazing sudden change of heart and agrees. A “pack” of Smokers attack, (sorry!) perfect bad timing for all as the barmaid easily breaks the lock with a big knife. The Mariner then gets free, grabs a machete and promptly tosses the weapon 50 yards into a bad guy about to kill the cop who tried saving his sorry ass earlier on. Debt paid in Waterworld.

The Mariner and the girls escape the atoll, and run into Dennis Hopper slumming as the main baddie named Deacon, who is so over the top with overacting that I just know he saw the script and thought “ What the hell, one last paycheck…”. After a lot of bad shooting and some really excellent music, they escape again and find open water. I really don’t see how, with a clear day and a visible horizon they should be easily spotted until they pass 4 miles or so away. The Mariner wants to toss Enola to the sharks, as she is excess baggage. Nice guy, our hero! Helen refuses to let him and offers herself to him in exchange. He declines sex for some strange reason ( second time in 1 day! ) but agrees to let Enola stay. He vacillates quite a bit in the movie, I think he may have borderline schizophrenia.

Deacon then returns to his main ship, the Exxon Valdez, complete with a picture on the wall of Cap’n Joe Hazelwood. After some more patented overacting that would frankly make Shatner jealous, they set a trap for the Mariner and his crew at a floating repair shop. Question; during the day with no stars at all to navigate, how would anyone find anything? A compass shows only magnetic north, it can’t help you find a nameless atoll or a floating repair shop, much less a non-anchored, free wheeling boat under sail. Yet the Smokers find anything and everything they want with amazing regularity. Anyhoo, Deacon surprises our stalwart group with the trap, and shoddy henchmanship allows Enola, Helen and the Mariner to escape yet again. Deacon gets upset.

In an unbelievable scene, the Mariner inflates a see through dome he must have made for this purpose and uses it to allow Helen to go underwater with him and see the sunken cities, with (I must admit) amazing special effects. I saw a nuclear sub rusting away on the sea bottom, which would tend to lend credence to a war being the cause of the ice-melt. This explains how he can get so much dirt and the odds and ends that he has festooned about his boat. When they re-emerge, (ignoring the bends as the dissolved nitrogen in their bloodstreams doesn’t kill or cripple in Waterworld) they find that Smokers have Enola in their possession, kidnapping no longer a serious offense. We now also find out how the Smokers find everyone; a pair of bloodhound sharks, trained to go after scents. Riiiiight! I wonder who trained them… Roy Scheider would be proud.

The Smokers torch the Mariner’s boat and leave, having little Enola squirming and screaming in their grasp. Mariner and Helen find what is left of the original atoll that Helen and Enola came from, and restock there. They grab weapons, provisions, and even the grand prize of a stolen smoker Jet-ski.I am sure that the good citizens of … (Well, I’ll call it Atoll-Town since it is never named) would give up all this booty just to hopefully get a bit of revenge on the Smokers. The Mariner takes the stolen Jet-ski and tracks down the Exxon Valdez by following empty plastic containers floating in the water. Did those Smokers have tapeworms to leave a trail as easy to follow as that?

The baddies think that the Mariner is one of their henchmen limping back home and allow him entrance, and he promptly kills everyone. Enola tells Deacon that the Mariner has no name so that death cannot find him. ( Note to self, in ten or so years, change name and move!). In the final showdown, ( thank goodness!) The Mariner drops a road flare that he didn’t have down a pipe and ignites the oil. There is an old man in a rowboat floating on the oils surface, and when he sees the flare (and his imminent doom) he says quietly “Oh, thank God” and everything explodes. I must admit, this scene tugged at my heartstrings for some reason. Not the explosion, that was the usual ho-hum Hollywood fare, I meant the old man. In just one line, he stole the show. I guess the fumes from that particular fuel oil aren’t toxic.

The Mariner grabs Enola and escapes, Deacon jumps in the plane that somehow survived the destruction of the world, and gives chase. Then the impossible happens, the old man (Helen’s dad from the beginning) swoops in and saves everyone in the balloon that barely was big enough in the beginning of the film for three and is now large and very roomy. Deacon crashes his Jet-ski into two others all gunning for Enola at top speed, with the moppet treading water ( Earlier we found out that she can’t swim, but the Mariner taught her ). Last question: Why does Deacon still need her? He made a copy of the map, and has it in his possession. Sigh. The Mariner rescues Enola with a bungee jump rope, and they float off, using Enola’s back map as a guide to find dry land. If this is the only dry land available, so one would assume it is Mount Everest. Our intrepid explorers find Enola’s parents dead in a Gilligan’s island type cottage and all present tell her how much her parents must have loved her, as they presumably suddenly developed mental powers.

The Mariner has to leave, dry land just isn’t for him. He makes a replacement catamaran and goes, the music swells, and we realize that this movie is in reality nothing more than an elaborate 2 hours and 15 minute chase scene. I want my 2 hours and 15 minutes back.

Things I have learned from this movie:

1.) In the future, water is much fluffier and takes up more volume.

2.) If you use tracking sharks, you can find anyone on the ocean.

3.) If there was no land masses, the wind on our world would gale at near hurricane speeds pretty much constantly. Not on Waterworld.

4.) Waterworld has zero cloud cover and little shade, but no one tans.

5.) This movie is referred to as “Fishtar” or “Kevin’s Gate” for a reason.

Karl Hoegle (June 2011)

Read more about Waterworld at

Directed by David Kramarsky

Screenplay by Tom Flier

Effects by Paul Blaisdell

Run Time: 78 minutes

The Monster Shack happily presents a guest review by Randy Landers.

Summary: In an inhospitable wasteland far from civilization, a powerful alien touches down and begins tampering with nature, turning calm animals like birds and chickens into violently aggressive bears that attack members of a dysfunctional family.

It had been years since I’d last seen this movie, and after seeing it again, I remember why.

Opening narration is almost always a bad thing. “I need this world,” begins the alien conqueror. It goes on to explain the entire plot of the movie, how it will come to Earth and take over the minds of animals and watch everything that we will do. “You will come to know me as the beast with a million eyes!” Okay, so we now know the plot, so we can get started, right?

Nope.

One opening narration is almost always a bad thing, but two opening narrations? We’re in deep trouble now. Paul Birch now takes the time to explain how miserable their lives are on the date ranch. His farm is going under; his wife hates him for it and hates their daughter because she’s going off to college. So we meet the family:

Alan (played by Paul Birch) is a reasonable man if a touch fatalistic. He’s a war veteran who doesn’t talk about the war.

Carol (played by Lorna Thayer) is the mom. And man, can she not cook. She must ruin practically every meal she tries to bake. She keeps burning the cake she’s trying to make for Sandy’s birthday, and to top it off, she’s just really a self-centered bitch until she has a change of heart.

Sandy (played by Dona Cole) is the movie’s teenager (well, she’s supposed to be a teenager—she actually looks like the younger sister of Lorna Thayer, who plays her mom). She’s actually probably the most interesting of the family, swimming in the watering hole in her one piece definitely caught my interest, but that voice of hers is much like June Foray’s from Bullwinkle. I’m not sure if I could sit through a date with her if she talked much during dinner.

Deputy Larry Brewster (played by Dick Sargent—yes, the second “Darren” from Bewitched) is Sandy’s love interest. We don’t know much about him, but he’s there, and appears to be a complete afterthought to the movie.

Him (played by Leonard Tarver) is a mute who works on the date ranch. “We don’t know his name, so we call him ‘Him,’” explains Sandy. Right… So Him stays in a shack on the ranch, its interior walks decorated with G-rated pinups. (We learn at the end his name is Carl, but since no one calls him that, we’ll just call him Him.)

Duke is the family German shepherd. He’s a good dog until he goes bad.

Old Ben is a local dairyman with one cow, one murderous cow. Ol’ Duke and Ol’ Ben are pretty much of equal importance to the story.

The title character is just, well, let’s just say he’s not worth mentioning.

Okay, so let’s start the story.

After the two useless narrations and a cursory introduction to the family, Mom is cooking in the kitchen, Alan’s out and about, and Sandy is swimming when they hear this high pitched whine. “Must be one of those new fangled jets,” says Ben. The noise breaks all the glassware and china in Carol’s house (it’s not like they’re going to be used for fine dining anyways). Sandy actually is sorry for her mom about the destruction. “It’s all you have left,” she tells her. Yeah, she doesn’t have a husband or a daughter. All she had was her china. Geez…

Our friend the deputy shows up to investigate the broken glassware and china (Carol called the police), and immediately goes for a walk with Sandy. After explaining who Him is, Sandy and the deputy return to the farmhouse where he claims, “It’s hard to believe a jet did this!” looking at all the broken glassware. Soon everyone leaves Carol behind going on various places that allow the next dramatic sequence to take place. Duke had been in the desert when he came across what looked to be a small satellite sitting in a gully. The dog returns to the farm, and promptly attacks Carol. We’re not sure if he’s put her out of her misery or not.

Him wanders off into the desert, drawn to whatever drew Duke out there.

Sandy and Alan return from their shopping trip to find the lights off, and we’re supposed to be relieved that when the lights are turned back on, Carol’s still alive. Duke is dead, and Carol explains that she had to defend herself from the dog. Sandy is angry that her dog has been killed and storms off, leaving Carol and Alan to reconcile. The incident has changed Carol’s personality; she’s now a loving person again. Not sure if why killing the dog with an axe would have this affect on a person, but hey, I didn’t write it.

Sandy storms off into the desert and meets Him in the desert. They look at something, and Sandy says, “It’s pretty, isn’t it? I wonder what it’s doing way out here.” Oddly enough, we don’t get to see it, and it’s unclear as to why. We’ve already seen the spacecraft (the dog had seen it), so why they didn’t think to show it again strikes me as very odd. They return to the farmhouse, and Sandy tells her dad that she’d found herself in the desert, as though she’d been sleepwalking. They go inside, and Sandy reconciles with her mom.

After dinner, Alan and Carol discuss whatever force drew them out into the desert, and we learn that Sandy and Him together were more powerful than that force. (Now, this is one of those scenes that you’re supposed to remember later.)

The next morning, Old Ben gets trampled to death by his milking cow, Sally. Carol gets attacked by flying chickens in their coop, and Alan saves her from being pecked to death with a blowtorch. It’s not like we see the chickens burned. We just see Alan waving it about. We don’t really see the chickens attack her. They head back inside for more talking (we see Alan writing a letter to the Veterans Administration—jinkers, it’s a clue!), and Sandy and Carol have more reconciliation, especially after Sandy shows her mom how to bake.

Alan and Him drive to the date grove while Carol and Sandy have some mother-daughter moments. Alan drops Him off, and leaves Him with an axe. What an axe is used for date farming, I’ll never know. But as soon as he pounds a stake into the ground next to a date tree, Him heads off to see the satellite. Alan visits Ben since the family didn’t get their milk delivery, and finds Ben’s been killed. “We thought it was all over; it’s just beginning,” Alan surmises. Not quite sure why he thought “it was over.”

Meanwhile, the killer moo cow shows up at the date ranch and supposedly nearly tramples Carol to death, but Alan returns in time to shoot Sally. Not that we see it. We see the cow. We see Carol falling on the ground screaming. We hear the gunfire. We don’t see the cow get killed. We don’t even hear the cow fall onto the ground. Maybe the rifle was set to disintegrate… Alan tries to call Deputy Larry, and doesn’t get through. Why he doesn’t ask for the sheriff, I don’t know, but he tells the girls to go for help and to bring back Larry and a couple of men.

Alan discovers he didn’t get through because blackbirds have struck the power transformer. Why that affects the phone lines, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just overthinking this a bit. Those birds…they keep showing up in the story, striking car windows whenever Alan’s driving, causing mayhem.

Anyways, the family drives to the date grove to check on Him. Alan goes a lookin’, and the ladies basically reiterate Alan’s lines for those of you who were too busy doing Sudoku to actually pay attention to them. He dispatches them to drive to town, and he’s attacked by birds. Shooting at them with the rifle does no good, but waving it around like a magic wand makes the birds go away. He walks back home to find Carol and Sandy are at home instead of rounding up the deputy and his men. “I was depending on you!” Alan hollers. Carol leads him out to the car which is riddled with birds. Alan says, “Birds can’t think….There’s something guiding these birds. Suppose that plane wasn’t a plane.” And he basically repeats the alien’s plan from the narration. I guess the beast with a million eyes doesn’t like to be talked about, because the birds attack again.

Him returns to the ranch as well and lets the air out of the tires on their car, and heads down the road. Meanwhile, Deputy Larry determines that the family is in trouble and heads out to the ranch. Him is waiting for the deputy, and after hitching a ride with Larry, bonks him on the head, causing an accident. Him then heads out to the desert, followed by Larry. They fight alongside the crater where the disco satellite of love is flashing lights at them. Larry knocks Him out, and heads back to the ranch.

At the ranch, Sandy tells her mom the cake is beautiful, and Carol says, “It wouldn’t have been a cake if you hadn’t remembered to take it out of the oven.” (See, even Carol knows she can’t cook.) And Carol and Alan talk some more. “Together. That’s our strength, Alan. Together we are stronger.” (Just like that conversation I told you to remember earlier.) They decide to try the car, and discover the tires are flat. Meanwhile, Sandy is really upset about her crappy birthday, and heads out the window .

There’s the wonderful scene where Larry and Sandy are wandering in the grove. Sandy is calling for Larry (goodness only knows why—it’s not that they’re expecting him). Him grabs Sandy and forces her out into the desert. Larry shows up at the house, and the door opens as he hears a scream behind him. Now, most lawmen I know would’ve gone to investigate, but Larry goes in looking for Sandy. (Guess he doesn’t know what she sounds like when she’s screaming.) Larry and Alan head out to the desert on foot as Him delivers Sandy to the spacecraft. “Do you hear what I hear?” asks Larry and they get behind some rocks (they’re hearing birds and the high pitched whine of the alien ship), but see Him and Sandy.

Finally, at the crater’s edge, Alan calls to Him, “Carl, give her to me.” And after a lengthy internal debate, Him gives Sandy to Larry before collapsing. They meet up with Carol at the remains of an old water tower, and Larry heads back to town for some help. Sandy recovers, and Alan tells her, “Together, we can defeat it. If we fight it together, we’ll win.” Sandy passes out, and Alan knows that’s the secret. He restates the premise told to us by the alien narrator, who apparently is happy. “Very well, Earth man. I have some secrets, too,” says the alien dude who announces he will trade Alan and Carol’s lives for Sandy’s.

“I and my kind have no material body of our own. We feed on brains.” And using the James Bond villain technique, again tells us of his plans for worldwide conquest. “But instead of weakening, you’ve grown stronger.” The alien wants to Sandy back to his world, and Alan and Carol realize that love is their strength. They refuse, but head to the crater with the rifle. “We’re not afraid of you.”

The door to the ship opens up, and we seen an eyeball superimposed over a Blaisdell puppet alien. Wait a minute! The creature says they have no body, but we’re watching one right now? “We can defeat it,” Alan says, and they look at it meaningfully, and it falls over dead. Then the ship takes off, somehow its exhaust not burning Alan to death.

Even the writers knew that the puppet thing didn’t jibe with the “we have no bodies” thing since they added some dialogue saying that it must’ve been using that body to pilot the spaceship. Then bizarrely, they postulate that the alien has moved on to another form, and they see a rat. Suddenly, a hawk swoops down and eats the rat.

Larry’s suddenly there (wasn’t he supposed to be heading for town to round up a posse?), and together, he and Sandy walk off as Alan and Carol watch them.

Oh, boy…

Now that’s what I call a bad movie.

Randy Landers (May 2011)

Read more about The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes! at

Directed by Christopher Ray

Screenplay by: Naomi Selfman

Tagline: Whoever wins…we lose!

Run Time: 88 minutes

A guest review by Sean Ledden

Our story begins in an African diamond mine where a white trash guard insists the impoverished black workers stay on the job even when a tremor threatens to bring down the roof. (Booo!) Then another tremor comes and we hear the growl of some great beast. Suddenly the white trash guard isn’t so scary, and the workers drop their tools and run. Most of them are able to flee to safety before a giant “Crocosaurus” lunges out of the mine, eating the guard (yea!) and stepping on a worker (pathos!) And we get a nice daytime look at the beast. Sure, it’s medium to low quality digital animation, but at least it’s big enough to swallow a car. (I don’t judge a monster to be “giant” unless it can eat and/or crush the celebrated products of our vaunted technology.)

Before we, or a surviving miner, have a chance to catch our breath, we’re whisked off to the mid-Atlantic where a World War II era battleship is on patrol! And why not, they still look neat. On the bridge an authentic looking captain (I. e. crabby, rumpled and donut-fed) starts yelling for “the shark guy.” (One Lt. McCormick, played by Jaleel White) Being an enthusiastic science geek, he’s down in the well equipped lab/fish tank he shares with a great white shark. And he hasn’t heard the captain yelling for him because he’s testing ways to repel sharks by using sound. (Ha ha!) It takes his ensign girlfriend to get his attention away from the shark, and him up onto the bridge. Once there the captain consults him on some strange heat signals coming from somewhere out in the water. Whales? No, McCormick knows they are too large. But our standard issue jerk of a captain insists that’s just what they are. So he screamed for his expert’s advise only to disregard it….probably the movie is being depressingly realistic on this point. By the way, what is McCormick’s field of expertise? Audio Oceanic Wildlife Profiler? Sounds cool! (Get it? Audio – sounds….oh, never mind.)

Back to the bridge, where McCormick tries to convince the captain the mysterious heat signals are coming from the giant Mega-Shark. Naturally, this enrages the grumpy captain even further. Because, that’s how standard issue jerk authority figures behave, darnit! Up on deck Ensign Girlfriend tries to calm down McCormick, whose steamed the captain won’t listen to him. “It will be OK.” She assures him. Yes Ensign Girlfriend, it will be OK. Because pretty soon a huge prehistoric shark and a huge prehistoric crocodile will start devastating the area! (For those of you who are starting to worry about me, let me assure you I am getting professional help….By watching movies like this…After all, it was made by professionals.)

Here I’d like to pull back a bit, and say that the next scene, though cheaply done, is well mounted. What happens? Well, let’s just say that it’s a good thing McCormick had time to put on his scuba suite.

Back to Africa, where a bargain-basement Indiana Jones (played by Gary Stretch ) hacks through the underbrush, gazes up at napping fruit bats, and beans a wild pig on the head. (?!?) Later he enters a native hut/neighborhood bar and tells the owner his pig will come to in 3 days. “Three days?” asks the bartender. Yes, three days. And things get even more surreal when we learn that this is apparently not the first time he‘s beaned the bartender‘s pig on the head. Does our hero have it out for the pig? Does he hate him – love him? We don’t find out. Because Indiana Jones (To avoid copyright infringement, I’ll call him Indiana James from now on.) has turned all bitter and cynical and is trying to get drunk. Until he’s accosted by a slightly goofy babe in a black cocktail dress and Clark Kent glasses.

Things are moving along nicely, but I can’t get that unprovoked pig attack out of my mind. Oh well, back to the main story. Our babe works for the mining company, and she wants to hire Indiana James to hunt down and kill whatever it is that popped out of the mine and scared all the workers away. She tells him it has already killed 34 men – impressive! But Indiana James isn’t interested – until she promises to pay triple if he captures the thing.

Cut to a helicopter racing over the jungle, and Ms. Clark Kent trying to pry some information out of Indiana James. She wants to know who long he’s been searching for ghosts and monsters, which I suppose means he’s a crypto zoologist. OK! Not that he tells her anything, because he doesn’t like the company she works for. So he’s a sleaze with a heart of gold.

Down on the jungle floor Indie James leads the way in his sweaty safari gear and Ms. Kent follows in her black cocktail dress, heels, a briefcase, and a cell phone. It’s something of a shock to meet up with successful intentional comedy in a movie like this, but there you go. But don’t get too complacent, because once Ms. Kent gets off her phone she gets the shock of her life, and you will too!, when Indie James points out she’s standing inside a giant footprint. (Bum-bum-bummmm!) Next we see the gory remains of an eaten man, and Ms. Kent skitters near to some marshy water. Then trips into the water (oh boy), and guess what happens. The crocosaurus appears! And what I didn’t see coming is that he eats Ms. Kent. Ouch! And nearly gets Indie James, who manages to inject some sort of tranquilizer into the monster’s mouth. Wasting no time on implausible and expensive plot mechanics, Indie James has the crocosaurus delivered to a slightly sleazy boat captain via diesel truck.

Special delivery! (This could almost be an ad for Fed Ex.)

Meanwhile, in an interrogation room somewhere in L.A., Lt. McCormick is in the grips of a major guilt trip as he stammers on about how he might have provoked the attack that killed everyone else on his ship. Then in strides a bad-ass babe (Sarah Lieving) who represents a corps of elite soldiers who are setting off on a shark hunt. Seeing the guilt wracked man before her she clinches her jaw and orders, “You’re no good to me if you are emotionally compromised. Go rest.” But our Lt. disobeys, because he needs to be part of the team that destroys the giant shark. …Annnnd then it’s back to our slightly sleazy captain, captured croc, and Angry African Guide (a.k.a Indiana James). They are now off the coast of Florida, and an unwashed Indie James is still in his stained safari gear. “Are you sure that thing isn’t going to wake up?” asks the slightly sleazy captain. Oh boy! And here we learn they also have a clutch of giant crocosaurus eggs. “That’s all she was doing,” muses an empathetic if soiled Indie, “protecting her eggs.” “From what?” retorts the captain. And right on cue a gigantic shark fin appears off the port bow and all hell breaks loose! Suffice it say nearly everyone, including the croc, ends up in the water.

But before we learn how things resolve, we cut to an aircraft carrier where another Grumpy Navy Officer is browbeating an underling. (It’s called “leadership!”) In comes Lt. McCormick, and we learn something I’ve wanted to know very much. McCormick is an “aqua-acoustical engineer” and sharks are his focus. (I think I came pretty close with audio oceanic wildlife profiler!) And by the way, Grump Number Two is an admiral and is played by Robert Picardo, who won our hearts as the holographic doctor in Star Trek Voyager.

“Did I make a mistake in taking this role?”

Well, we ping pong between a beached Indie-James (he survived!) and a guilt-ridden McCormick until the Power Babe brings the two together in a hunt for the giant croc eggs. The two guys seem to have history, and don’t like one another, which is kind of cute, only I don’t think it will lead to any romance. And indeed there is no time for that as very soon they are gazing in horror at a huge clutch of giant crocodile eggs. The power babe ignores Indie James’ protest and calls in a missile strike – which comes just after the shark arrives.

Ever heard of a movie or TV show “jumping the shark?” That‘s nothing compared to having the shark jump a navy destroyer!

You won’t be surprised to learn that both shark and croc survive the missile strike, and the movie revs up as an angry mama-croc heads up the coast towards Miami. General panic ensues and even a little destruction as the 1500 foot croc (according to Indie James, and remember, he should know, as he put it on a diesel truck and shipped it to the African coast!) hit’s the big city. Not to be outdone the shark, now off the coast, grabs hold of a live torpedo and disposes of it by executing one of his signature high jumps. (Readers of this review may already have heard of his legendary take down of a 747 in a previous movie.) Back on land McCormick comes up with a crazy idea to deal with the croc. A crazy idea that’s so crazy it just might work. And everyone scrambles to harness the power of a nearby nuclear power plant in order to create an “arc flash” to hit Orlando. (Ouch!) This is done, by the way, on the sole authority of a Navy admiral. No civilian authorities are consulted. (!) As we wait for the arch flash to commence we get a hilariously gratuitous bit of carnage as the giant croc interrupts a show at sea world and eats Shamu before the horrified eyes of the audience. (I suspect the disturbed individuals who made this movie were having a bit of fun here.) “Three, two, one.” and a sweaty engineer pushes a big red button – arc flash! Lighting flashes from the nuclear cooling towers, onto the power lines, and then, somehow, at the crocodile. Which angrily smashes a tank, and then lumbers back into the sea. Phew!

In a lab aboard the submarine Exeter, a babe-scientist is studying one of the surviving croc eggs when we hear some cracking sounds. But before the baby croc has a chance to hatch and eat the babe-scientist the mega-shark shows up and destroys the submarine – with another one of his signature aerial moves! “Dam the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” this movie seems to shout.

McCormick is also shouting, at Indie James, who has just come up with a crazy idea to deal with the croc. A crazy idea that’s so crazy it just might work! It is to use any surviving croc eggs to lure mama into a lock of the Panama Canal, and then boom! Faced with McCormick’s angry criticism that they have no croc eggs, The grumpy admiral gets off a truly great line, “Then I suggest you bring your hydro-sonic balls with you.” Because the hydro-sonic balls can give off sounds just like the eggs …The decision made, Grumpy observes he must now “tell the President we are about the blow up international waters.” … Dam the torpedoes, oh never mind.

Well, sorry McComick, but more croc eggs are found, and so he doesn’t get to use his hydro-balls after all. And it’s that kind of setback that can make a guy feel inadequate. (I’m such a sophisticated wit!) Anyways, once at the canal it’s only a matter of moments before both of our stars show up, and finally we get a Big Time Wrestling style smack down between the two. As they heroically chew on each other out at sea, our human heroes are horrified to find that hundreds of additional croc eggs are strewn all over the place. After providing some goofy justification for this impossible degree of fertility, a justification I really didn’t need, the eggs start to hatch and we get another great line.

“Sir, we’ve discovered reports that smaller crocodiles are attacking the Santa Monica pier!” Getting to say lines like that must be one reason a person would become an actor…right?

Alas, we never see this attack. But we do have an amusing underwater shot of the crocodile pursued by the shark pursued by a nuclear sub. Clearly, the movie-makers have seen some classic Warner Brothers cartoons. And the tension mounts as all three head towards a “seismically active” area into which the Navy cannot pursue them. (?) What to do? Putting on their best caveman thinking caps, the Navy decides to nuke’um, before they reach Hawaii!

OK, so the human race is back in the driver’s seat, but trust worrywart McCormick to bring everyone down by notifying the military that if a nuclear torpedo (?!?) misses the monsters it could hit an undersea volcano. Which would blow up Hawaii. Oops. That doesn’t happen, but the shark DOES swallow the submarine! Yes, it’s that big. And 5 minutes later the entire cast of characters are halfway across the Pacific in beautiful Hawaii where McComick comes up with a crazy idea that’s so crazy it just might work. He holds up one of his “hydro-sonic balls,” which is about a foot and half across, and declares he’ll set off one of the undersea volcanoes with it, creating an explosion big enough to kill shark, croc, and croc children. Yes, but wasn’t he just warning the military against setting a volcano off? Oh, never mind. So, off Indie James and McCormick race, in a small pontoon boat, braving shark and croc infested water, to set off a volcanic eruption with a battery-powered hydro-sonic ball.

Does it work? Would an exploding volcano providing a satisfying climax? Is the Pope German?

All it takes to defeat a mega-shark and a crocosaurus is one earnest scientist, one semi-sleazy game hunter, and a hydro-sonic ball.

Sean Ledden (May 2011)

Special Monster Shack update: A new great graphic from Stephan Taubman! Clink on the picture below for a full-size view if you can’t read the text.

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Read more about Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus at

Written and Directed by James Nguyen

Run Time: 90 minutes

	Rod (Allen Bagh) Salesman, eco-warrior, and fisherman. Rod manages to survive the “birdemic” mostly by luck rather than smarts, and certainly not by acting.
	Nathalie (Whitney Moore) Mandatory love interest and hot-chick. Fair enough.
	Rick (Colton Osborne) Rick the sexaholic, annoying guy. Will the birds kill him?…tough question.

Summary: Global warming leads to exploding, acid-spitting birds.

How is it possible? Was this movie meant to be a cruel joke? What twisted mind can have even conceived of a production as horrid as Birdemic? Sure, we could place the blame solely on writer/director and self-proclaimed "Master of Romantic Thrillers" James Nguyen; and granted it is his name that graces this cover. Yet to believe that any single human being could be responsible for this catastrophe without direct aide from the deeper rings of Hell would be naive.

Open with a long sequence of highway shots, and random cars driving around. Oh, I guess that’s our hero, Rod, in the blue sports car. At least that’s what I’m guessing since the camera lingers on it from time to time.

And…he’s driving to work. Yep. Still driving. Just to make sure you realize he’s driving, we cut to a hand-cam POV shot of him driving. (Manos could only dream of having as much driving as this movie!)

Boy, this is one well-established driving scene. What’s it been now? 4 minutes!! I hate this movie already.

This is insane! We’re still in a POV driving shot!

Oh. Wait. Cut to some dumb city and…whoa! He’s parking! Heart…be still! Rod climbs out of his car and struts into a nearby diner where he spots a beautiful girl, Nathalie.

By the way, I’m just going to mention it now: the editing in this movie is absolutely terrible. No. Let’s add a capital "T" to that: it’s Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Jump cuts abound where scenes should have been extended, scenes drag on forever where they should have been cut, people are cut off in mid-sentence, the camera focuses on people who aren’t talking while other characters talk off screen, which might be useful to show the actor’s emotions to what is being said to them, but since there is no acting in this film, it’s just like watching a still picture with an audio track. Oh, and since the movie was shot on a budget of $10,000, the entire sound track was recording using the camera’s mic, making for some very strange audio effects. It’s like something Ed Wood would have made if he’d had a tighter budget.

Back with Rod and Nathalie. After finishing her food, Nathalie abruptly leaves while Rod quickly follows her outside. After a short interval, Rod finally catches up to her and introduces himself. During their short, dull conversation they discover that they both attended the same school and blah blah blah. Even more incredibly stilted small talk ensues and I’m really becoming nervous at this point because I’m already getting a headache. Anyhoo, Rod says that he’ll get in touch with her later as Nathalie mentions that she has a modeling audition to get to and takes her leave.

Meet-cute complete. Now where are the freakin’ birds?

Jump cut to Rod eating breakfast and watching TV. (Huh?! Is this the next day? What?) A news report informs us that some "crows and seagulls" have been found dead on a highway. Boy, that’s a breaking news story, all right. The TV anchorwoman immediately segues into a story about the dwindling polar bear population (what is this? The All Nature News Network?) due to global warming. So, yeah, we get it, global warming is now officially Birdemic’s Message To Humanity…we better all watch out and cut our carbon footprint or else we’re going to be attacked by crows.

After breakfast, Rod ambles outside, gets in his car and…aiiiiyeeeeeee! more driving! NOOOOOO! why? Why?! WHY?! There’s even a cut scene of him pumping gas! What does it mean? What have I done to deserve this? Hoo boy! You thought POV driving scenes were exciting? Well…feast your eyes on a POV traffic jam! YEEEEAAAH BABY! I love this movie. We can only bow our heads in collective reverence at the film maker’s courage to include a traffic jam scene. It’s pure genius!

Yes, the excitement of a POV traffic jam.

Now let’s join Rod at work, shall we? You see Rod is a extremely talented salesman for Generic Co., or Conglom Corp. or something, as can be seen by watching Rod make a huge sale from his draconian cubical.

"What does it take to make the sale?", Rod says into the phone.

After a moment’s pause he responds with a killer offer:"OK, I’ll give you that and fifty percent off!"

This amazing bartering session closes the deal and Rod celebrates with an apathetic "woo-hoo!"

Hearing the commotion from down the hall, Rod’s friend, Rick, pops in to see what’s going on. Rod explains that he just closed a $1,000,000 deal, "The biggest sale of my career!" But since he just gave them 50% off, didn’t he actually just lose a million dollars? Sure, whatever, and seriously, somebody put this guy is in charge of multi-million dollar clients? Give me a break.

Rod celebrates losing his company a million dollars.

Moving on to Nathalie’s photo shoot at the luxurious "My Studio – 1 Hour Photo"…yeah, the one next to the mini-mart with the "ICE COLD BEER" sign in the window. (Hey, Nathalie, you might want to switch agencies…)

Nathalie’s career is definitely on the up and up.

I have to admit, I was hoping to see a little skin during the photo shoot, but it’s unfortunately boring and way too tame: mostly bizarre green kimonos and such. (Even the Casio-keyboard cover version of "Photograph" by Flock of Seagulls couldn’t save this scene. Actually the music during the photo shoot is an ever-so-slightly modified version of that song, probably to avoid having to pay copyright fees.)

I heard that green kimonos are in this year.

Cut to the "Dream Models" agency where Natalie’s agent struggles to type on a Dell laptop. (I assume Dell is suing the producers for sullying their brand name in this movie.)

But wait! Good news for Nathalie! Her agent calls her up and informs her that she’s been chosen for a Victoria’s Secret contract. Despite the shock of this abrupt ascension from "My Studio – 1 Hour Photo" to Victoria’s Secret, Nathalie keeps her cool, "Thanks for getting me the gig," she says before hanging up.

Meanwhile, on a whim, Rod calls Nathalie to see how she’s doing. When she tells him about her new Victoria’s Secret "gig", smooth-talker Rod can’t help but shout "Wow! I think you’d look great in those lingerie!" To celebrate Nathalie’s new contract, Rod invites her to dinner at "that delicious Vietnamese restaurant", to which she happily agrees. (you know…that restaurant.)

Cut to see Rod and Rick playing some hoops, but they have to call it quits because it’s so unusually hot. Rod wonders if it’s all because of global warming. (Gee, Rod, could it be that warm because you live in Southern California? Idiots.)

While taking a break in a nearby shady spot, Rod tells Rick all about his new found friend, Nathalie.

"I hope you score with her, man," says Rick with an oily grin. (Yeah, ok, boys will be boys, but man…take it easy, Rick.)

Trying to change the subject, Rod, apparently unaware of SEC American Insider Trading laws, casually informs Rick that their company is about to be bought out by Oracle. (Huh?! Would Oracle ever have anything to do with these 2 clowns?)

"Then we’ll all be…millionaires!" chortles Rick with a pathetic white-guy fist pump.

Rick emotes.

Later that day, Rod gets a visit from a solar panel salesman. After a little haggling the deal is closed.

Now, you may be asking yourself the same question I’m asking myself:

What’s the freakin’ point of all this!?

Is it that Rod is an eco-friendly "green" kind of guy? Well if he’s so environmentally conscious, then why the hell does he drive a 5.0 liter Mustang instead of taking the bus? (Not to mention the motor boat sitting in his driveway…yeah, real eco-friendly, Rod.)

Later that weekend, Nathalie meets Rod at the aforementioned "delicious Vietnamese restaurant" where they engage in some tedious small talk. After a bit of mandatory, bile-inducing flirting, Nathalie and Rod have officially Hit It Off and decide to take a walk in the park. After strolling across the screen (since there’s no budget for a camera dolly…), the amorous pair stop to admire a trio of atrociously rendered CGI parrots flapping motionless in the air like oversized hummingbirds. (I tried to get a decent screen shot of them, but was unable to. Never fear…there are plenty of screen shots to come (evil laughter).) I’m not sure if this was meant to be portentous, but it’s pretty damned funny.

And…the movie grinds on and still no killer birds yet. Nathalie tells her mom that she met a swell guy with a lot of money. ("You go, girl!", mom erupts.) Oh, and Nathalie sets up a double date with her girlfriend, Mai who just so happens to be Rick’s girlfriend. What are the odds, eh? (If you didn’t follow that, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter.)

The next day, Rod and Rick learn that their company has in fact been bought out by Oracle for a billion dollars. (A billion!!!???) So now they’re rich. Hooray.

This is really a strange movie in a way. (OK, in a lot of ways.) There is a lot of focus on money, cash, stock options, etc, as well as the whole global warming angle. It’s a weird combination that really doesn’t make much sense, i.e., what is the theme here? Global warming is dangerous or cash is king?

You go, boy!

Well, the answer is seemingly "Cash is King" as we are subjected to yet another sleazy scene where Rick explains how Rod better buy a Ferrari if he ever hopes to "get in Nathalie’s pants". (You know, I think I hate Rick more than Rod. I really do.) Much to Rick’s chagrin, Rod isn’t interested in using his newfound wealth on a car. "She is my Ferrari," Rod oozes referring to Nathalie, "besides, my Mustang is a plug-in hybrid." (Oh. Sure it is, Rod. Sure it is. Then how come we never see you plug it in?)

Later that evening we see the 2 couples leaving a movie theater after seeing, yep, "An Inconvenient Truth". (Wow, Rod, nothing like showing your girlfriend an Al Gore flick to get her in the mood. Way to go, Romeo.) Yes, it appears that our ex-VP’s powers of persuasion are as strong as ever since even Rick, confirmed Ferrari fan and sexaholic, has fallen under Gore’s spell and vows to buy a hybrid car ASAP…but first he has to take Mai back to the apartment for some "sensual work". (Good grief)

The next day we watch Rod hard at work at his new green-tech company Mass Solar. In a conference room we join the excitement in progress as Rod attempts to drum up money from a room full of investors, and wow, if you thought watching somebody drive was boring, try listening to somebody sell solar panels.

More Birdemic excitement!

"Contingent on the terms in our agreement," says the lead investor at the end of Rod’s presentation, "We’re going to fund you [ten million dollars]!"

"Awesome!" Rod shouts. (Man, what a pro…)

Next day (I think, continuity is not this movie’s strong point), Rod and Nathalie spend the afternoon at the "Art and Pumpkin Festival". (…Art and what festival?), where we are forced to watch them stare at, well, art and pumpkins.

Will the excitement ever end?

Uh oh. I feel a rant coming on:

Note to future filmmakers: THIS IS NOT EXCITING! Why are there more pumpkins in this movie than birds???!!! The movie is not called Pumpkindemic! Let’s have some action already! Sheesh!!!

After the Pumpkin Festival From Hell, they decide to take a stroll on the beach. Unfortunately for the viewer, the wind was blowing so hard during filming that you can hardly hear their lines. But maybe that’s a good thing. Anyway, they come across a really bad dead CGI bird in the sand,

"STOP! Don’t touch it! It could be infectious!" Rod shouts with unwarranted alarm.

I guess this was supposed to be a "bum! Bum! Bum!" moment, but we’ll never know because we fade back to Nathalie’s mom’s house where she introduces Rod to her mother. After sitting down on the sofa, they begin talking about retirement plans!…S-N-O-R-E! Who could have possibly thought that this was interesting? What the hell?!

But, hey! They’re now on another date (i.e., jump cut) where they:

1) Order a beer.

2) Talk about dating.

3) Dance to a horrendously lip-synced song.

Rod shows Nathalie his new moves.

Finally, finally something interesting: they head to a nearby hotel where Nathalie gives Rod an impromptu peek at the

lingerie

she’ll be modeling for Victoria’s Secret. (Where’d she get her outfit from if they are at a hotel? Did she bring it with her in her purse? And why are they at a hotel if both of them have houses?)

At last.

Anyway, Rod and Nathalie plop down onto the bed and commence a revolting make-out session, but we thankfully cut to the next morning where all seems quiet…BUT WAIT! Jump cut to a massive attack consisting of screeching CGI birds which dive bomb buildings and explode on impact! (Complete with a dive-bombing airplane’s propeller drone!)

Yep, global warming leads to exploding birds.

It’s Armageddon! It’s Mother Nature taking vengeance on man! It’s…It’s…

It’s really, really bad.

Dive bombing, exploding birds?! I mean…really? This was caused by global warming?!

Meanwhile, Rod and Nathalie wake up (still fully dressed! Nothing like waking up refreshed after a long night of dry humping…) only to discover they’re trapped inside their hotel room by a group of hovering eagles!!!.

Yes, eagles can slowly flap their wings and hover in mid air. Man, that global warming sure is a bitch, aint it?

Wisely, Rod and Nathalie barricade the window with their bed. (Nathalie, still clad in here lingerie, eagerly lends a hand. Ms. Moore, the Monster Shack staff would like to thank you for the additional underwear footage.)

Eagle Attack!

Nobody seems to notice that the bed covers only the bottom half of the window, but, meh, whatever, Rod, whatever.

At least they can’t get in through the bottom half of the window.

Later that day, the birds mysteriously disappear ("Maybe they got tired," Rod proposes), so Nathalie and Rod slink to the neighboring room where they meet another young couple, Ramsey and Becky. (Boy, this hotel sure seems to have a thriving pay-by-the-hour business from the local youth.) After a round of introductions, Rod explains that he’s lost his car keys (what, during the 10-foot walk from your adjoining room?), so Ramsey offers to let them hitch a ride with them in his van. Before they head to the parking lot, Ramsey suggests that they arm themselves with coat hangers (!) from the closet. Alas, despite their precautions, a bunch of eagles swoop down and hover above their heads where they are easily swatted down by a barrage of coat hanger blows.

The classic coat hanger defense.

Once inside the van, Ramsey pulls out an M-16 from the back of the van (WHAT?!) and gives Rod a not-so-manly, but still effective, Glock. Armed to the teeth, the foursome drives off to…I don’t know…escape the birds or something.

"Hey there’s dead people on the side of the road," notes Ramsey, "let’s see if there’s any survivors." (Not to be overly pedantic here, but if they’re dead then the chances would be pretty low for finding survivors, right?) After pulling over to the side of the road, the guys hop out to investigate while Nat and Becky cover them from the van.

(It’s not helping this film’s verisimilitude by having tons of normal everyday traffic driving by in the opposite lane…sheesh!)

Let’s just pretend that traffic isn’t there.

Well I’ll be damned…there were survivors: two scratched up kids, Susan and Tony.

This movie’s enthusiasm is absolutely contagious, isn’t it?

"I’m hungry, I’ve been under the car for a long time," Susan complains without showing too much concern for her parents who were recently pecked to death by dive-bombing eagles. To alleviate the children’s hunger, Rod pulls into an abandoned convenience store where they stock up on supplies, notably candy, water, and cheese. Then, under a fierce aerial attack ("Hurry! The eagles are coming back!") they run back to the van and speed off down the highway only to…and I kid you not…stop for a picnic!!!

Let me repeat: Stop for a picnic!

There’s always time for a picnic.

After eating and taking a bathroom break (was it really necessary to film that?), Rod astutely observes "an old guy" on a nearby bridge.

After a casual walk over to said bridge, the guy orders Rod and Nathalie to keep their distance from a nearby bird corpse because they are "contaminated with Bird Flu virus." (This is so stupid I can’t even comment on it.) The old guy, Dr. Jonas, agrees to accompany Rod and Nathalie back to the picnic area to discuss the recent events. So, with a somber musical score to underscore the doc’s Heavy Message, Jonas explains how global warming is the cause of the latest viral outbreaks "such as Bird Flu, West Nile virus, and SARS"…(oh brother), but he doesn’t know why the birds are actually attacking people. (Not to mention how they can explode!!!)

"But," Jonas adds, "in prehistoric times, birds did attack cave men." (Dennis smacks palm into his forehead at this point.)

Dr. Jonas. Cave man expert.

After Jonas finishes his clumsy speech, Rod and the others take their leave and continue down the road before taking another pause so Becky can, and I quote, "take a shit."

Unfortunately for Becky, her decision to take a bowel movement proves to be fatal as an eagle swoops down out of the blue just as she squats down. Nathalie manages to kill the bird but not before it dispatches Becky with a slash to the throat.

Becky chooses a particularly bad time to take a crap.

After regaining their composer ("The fucking eagles killed Becky!" sobs Ramsey), the survivors continue onward to the next adventure. This time it’s a tour bus under attack.

Tour Bus Attack! caw! caw!

You’d think that the tour would’ve been called off because of the recent avian Armageddon, but there you have it. Ramsey and Rod pull up to rescue the trapped tourists by firing blinding at the birds which are hovering directly in front of the buses windows. Amazingly, not a single bullet misses its target or goes through a bird’s body and strikes the people trapped inside. That’s some damned good marksmanship, I tell ya.

In a truly ironic moment, assuming that this film is actually capable of irony, Ramsey drags the terrified passengers out of the relative safety of the bus and into the parking lot where they are promptly attacked by the birds! Nice rescue, Ramsey.

Just when I thought I’d seen it all, the birds spit a bunch of acid !!! on Ramsey and the tourists, temporarily blinding them and making them easy prey for their lethal beaks.

Exploding birds. Acid spitting birds. Damn! I hate global warming.

With Ramsey’s ill-fated rescue mission at an end, Rod, Nathalie and the kids do the only thing the writers could think of: drive down the highway to the next action sequence. This time, the birds attack Rod at a gas station while topping off his tank, but he manages to duck into the van and drive away before being pecked to death. Damn.

(I thought it was odd that Rod could pay for the gas with a credit card even though phone lines were down…go figure.)

As mentioned above, this movie doesn’t really know where it’s going, so the "plot" is basically driving from bird attack to bird attack. This time, they stop to help a guy stranded at the side of the road who promptly pulls a gun and steals Rod’s reserve fuel canister from the back of the van. Needless to say, a bird swoops down and kills the bad guy. Hurray. What excitement. Rod jumps back into the van and drives off...leaving the gas behind! Idiot!

Uh, Rod…you’re forgetting something…

Sooooo…after driving down the road some more, ack! Rod decides to stop by a creek and get some fresh water. (Obviously Rod has forgotten that he just bought water at the gas station in the previous scene, but hey, let’s cut Rod some slack this late in the game.)

Anyway, while filling up their water bottles, a creepy tree-hugger guy (wearing an extremely obvious fake wig) comes out of the underbrush and begins a long spiel about global warming, bark beetles, drought, etc. etc. It’s pretty bizarre, and frankly, if I were Rod I would have grabbed the kids and gotten the hell away from this dude as quickly as possible.

Note to self: People to keep far away from…

"I hear a mountain lion, you better get back to your car!" Tree Hugger advises as a foleyed lion growl fills the air. (!)

And….they run back to the car. But now there’s a forest fire!

WHAT?! I’m totally losing it now. Did the freakin’ birds start it? (The only redeeming factor in this scene is that the pathetic CGI "forest fire" animation stops slightly before the scene ends, so the fire abruptly disappears while they’re still running down the road…ha! I love it!)

The amazing disappearing forest fire.

Well, we all know what happens next. Yep. They start driving down the road and quickly come across Rick’s car pulled off to the side of the road. What a small world, eh? A quick look inside the vehicle reveals the bodies of Rick and Mai. Oh…the humanity! By the way, this scene is such a total freakin’ after thought since the writers forgot about Rod’s friends, that it makes me physically ill when I consider the gall needed to include it. Ack! Ack! Ack!

A little bit down the road Rod runs out of gas. So, hey, doofus, remember that gas can you left on the side of the road 10 minutes ago?…I bet you regret that now, don’t you?

"Maybe somebody will drive by and help us," says Rod. Well, Rod, actually people have been driving by the entire movie because the producer couldn’t afford to block off traffic during filming, but let’s pretend we didn’t notice that. When the kids start to complain that they’re hungry again (still no mention of mommy or daddy, I guess they’re still in denial), Rod is forced into action and discovers a fishing pole in the back of the van. (A "Deus Ex Deluxe" model fishing pole to be sure.)

Sooooooo….while Nathalie and the kids frolic on the beach, Rod goes a’fishing, manages to land a decent size catch, all of which results in a tasty fish-n-seaweed combo. (The kids understandably demand Happy Meals.) I guess this has something to do with the plot, but I’m just too tired right now to figure it all out.

This cozy lunch is interrupted when the eagles return; this time to surround the van and flap about while screeching like no eagles I’ve ever heard before. As Rod runs out of bullets, things look pretty bleak. (For some reason the eagles don’t just fly into the van via the open side door, but whatever.) Sensing that there is no way to resolve this mess, the writers simply have the birds call off the attack and fly out over the ocean (…to Monster Island and join Godzilla? Who the hell knows.)

Wrapping things up…Birdemic style.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Cue triumphant music as the survivors recite their inspiring closing lines:

"I wonder why the birds stopped their attack?" murmurs Nathalie as she stares into the distance.

Rod, gazing into the sky, "I don’t know."

The End (whew!)

Dennis Grisbeck (May 2011)

By the way…if you didn’t believe me when I said that this movie is bad, well, here’s some "hi-lites" for ya’:

Read more about Birdemic: Shock and Terror at

Directed by David Hogan

Written by Rachelle Howie

Run Time: 90 minutes

Guest review by Sean Ledden

The 1950’s had the drive-in theater, and today we have the “Syfy” Channel. Its motto is “imagine greater,” which is astonishing given how much the people who run the channel evidently hate and despise imagination.

But what did P. T. Barnum say? “There’s one born every minute”, and when I saw ads for a new giant monster epic called Behemoth awhile back, I couldn’t help but give it a look. And here’s the shocker, it didn’t suck that much. Oh, it had sucky elements – but it was also clear that the filmmakers tried to craft a decent giant monster movie with some classic story elements. They avoid ADD editing (I could kiss them!), and they give us some characters who are, on the whole, pretty easy to spend time with. Amazing. In the end they are defeated by their low budget, but heck, if you like giant monsters it might be worth checking out. Here’s a mini-review:

Set in the beautiful mountains of the Pacific northwest, Behemoth begins when a dormant volcano rumbles to life and kills two DOD agents who are taking mysterious readings on its slopes. Down in the valley the sleepy little town of Ascension experiences the tremors, but no one wants to believe an eruption is imminent. Except for that nice, smart, and possibly crazy William Walsh. In a nice bit of in-joke casting, he’s played by William B. Davis, who made such an impression on The X Files as The Smoking Man. Here he plays a Mulder type who’s convinced something extraordinary is about to happen, but whose going to believe an old man on medication?

Perhaps his son Thomas, played by the sexy Ed Quinn? Not at first. Until one of his co-workers dies mysteriously at a construction site close to the volcano, and a babe-seismologist (is there any other kind?) played by Pascale Hutton blows into town warning anyone who will listen that the volcano might erupt any minute. Which would be bad enough, but it might be much worse. Reports of weird seismic events leaving massive destruction start coming in from other parts of the world and another DOD agent comes to town looking for a guide to take him up to the volcano. Could it be the epicenter?

As the weirdly atypical tremors continue Thomas agrees to take the agent up to the mountain even as his father’s warnings get more urgent and crazy. He’s convinced that nature, reacting to the environmental destruction caused by human civilization, is about to unleash something that will wipe us out. But of course this doesn’t stop William’s young daughter Grace (Cindy Busby) from hiking up the mountain with her cute boyfriend Jerrod (James Kirk). Because you really need to get away from it all when your dad is going crazy. And because she doesn’t see how a man and his house near the mountain are both destroyed by a gigantic tentacle that erupts from the ground itself. (I’d like to think such an event would give her pause, but then, maybe not!)

So now, with most of our cast up on the slopes, the tremors get worse, and more of those enormous tentacles appear. Even the town of Ascension is attacked and William is trapped in a semi-buried diner. His family, meanwhile does a lot of running, screaming, tripping and falling. Which is all great fun, even if those huge tentacles seem remarkably ineffective. The old phrase “couldn’t hit the side of a barn” came to mind as I watched them flail about, although Grace’s cute boyfriend does manage to fall into the gaping maw of an unknown subterranean beast. (Yeah! – Sorry cute boyfriend.)

All of this commotion convinces Thomas that it’s time to leave the mountain, but the DOD agent stubbornly refuses to give up his quest for something his late co-workers brought with them earlier. The agent pays for his tenacity when he’s fatally injured in another giant tentacle attack. But with his dying breath he manages to gurgle an explanation to Thomas about some sort of monster-killing weapon. Eventually Thomas, his sister, and the seismologist-babe figure out that this weapon is humanity’s last hope, just as the Behemoth finally erupts from the mountaintop in all his (her?) glory.

Thankfully for the future of humanity, our party of heroes manages to find the small carrying case that houses the weapon. Thank goodness too that it can be operated by one untrained man, and fires a guided missile that automatically finds the great beast’s mouth, then travels down its curved throat so it can blow up its gigantic heart. Phew! Hugs, tears, laughter, and a renewed appreciation of family, even one plagued by dementia, follow as Thomas and the seismologist-babe get (back!) together.

Sean Ledden (April 2011)

Read more about Behemoth at