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The Warrior and the Sorceress

July 18th, 2011 | by Dave Reynolds
Posted In: News

I’ve never been a huge fantasy fan. I mean, sure I seen the Conan movies when I was younger, but the whole swords & sorcery genre never appealed to me all that much, as I was more of a science fiction nerd. And I mean no disrespect to the lovers of the genre. It’s just never been my bag. I mean, I liked to the Lord of the Rings movies, but I just never felt the love for the genre that I know others have, even though technically speaking, most of my favorite franchises would indeed fall under the fantasy categorization. (I mean, seriously Star Wars is more fantasy than it’s Science Fiction. And Star Trek is a communist fantasy.) I can appreciate it, but it was just something that never held my interests as a child. But that doesn’t mean I never liked watching a halfway decent barbarian film, because I did. And mainly because there was a better than average chance, you were gonna see boobies. A couple of friends I’ve been hanging out with lately are big fantasy buffs, and they’ve sorta helped rekindle an interest in the genre for me. I mean, it’s still nowhere near my love for Cybertronians, but I have developed an appreciation for it. And recently, I stumbled across a movie two-pack containing the movies ‘The Warrior and the Sorceress’ and ‘Barbarian Queen’. Now my friends think that Barbarian Queen was a better movie, because it has a better narrative and the story flows better, and they’re probably right. But I prefer the former more, because of just how weird it is.

‘The Warrior and the Sorceress’ is an Argentine fantasy movie made in the early 80’s, during the wake of the Conan the Barbarian movies. It’s essentially a sword and sorcery version of a ‘Fistful of Dollars’ or ‘Yojimbo’, or whatever you prefer. Essentially on a desert planet with two suns, that’s not Tantooine, David Carradine plays a wandering former holy warrior named Kane. (That’s a stretch, right?) Two parties are fighting for control of the only well of water in the region, and he plays each other against one another for gold. Kane looks nothing like he does on the box art above. Where there, he looks like a strapping muscular hero who would be a real challenge to Thundarr the Barbarian, in the movie, he’s clad in a black cloak that covers his small frame… And he looks bored the entire time. Even when he’s in the midst of a battle, he’s going through the motions like he just doesn’t care.

Somehow... I feel like I censored the wrong part of the picture.

One of the bad guys reminds me of the human version of Jabba the Hutt. (Pre-Return of the Jedi version) complete with a laughing muppet-like sidekick and slave girls. Seriously, all he needed was a creepy looking Twi’lek looking guy to whisper in his ear. There’s an evil slaver (as opposed to a ‘good slaver’ I suppose) who looks like he was inspired by Humungus from the Road Warrior. But the thing that stood out to me as a laugh fest… And sorry ladies. This is where I turn into a total guy here… Is the titular sorceress, who’s name, much like everyone else in this movie, is not important… Other than the fact that, and I kid you not, she spends the entire movie topless. And in the few scenes that she’s got some kind of top on, she either loses it, very quickly… Or she gets a suit of armor that covers her top, except her boobs. It’s like designing armor for Final Fantasy characters. It’s seems that functionality was second in conceptualization. I mean, it’s not even teasing or sensual… It’s just so casually done, it’s almost comical. I mean, later in the movie, she’s reunited with her father. Does her father cover her up with his robes? No. She keeps running around topless. You might say “well, it’s just that planet’s culture.” Yeah, except that some of the other women in the movie are wearing tops. And then we much bring up… The “other woman” in the movie. And if you’ve seen the movie, you know who I’m talking about. If not… You see the box art up there with the lady in it? Yeah. Except her hair is goofier looking. Yeah, I know. Four breasts and I’m talking about hairstyles. Go figure. I mean, both girls are pretty, and I’m not complaining. It’s just… Somewhere it stopped being awesome, and just turned weird. But not weird in a bad way. Just… Weird. (Like Quentin Tarantino’s foot fetishes.)

Insert obligatory "Kill Bill" joke here.

Okay, ‘nuff about the boobs, let’s get back to the actual movie. Bad guy #2 wants the sorceress, because she has the ability to forge a mystic sword. (Maybe it’ll grant him access to Castle Grayskull.) Kane, being a former holy warrior, manages to free the sorceress in the world’s most uninspired escape scene. (Which involved climbing a wall and climbing back down it. And she promptly gets recaptured again.) There’s a lot of double crossing, and a spider-octopus monster, that’s not as cool as it sounds. In the end, she makes the sword for Kane to use against the bad guys, and stuff happens and then it ends. Yeeeeah… The thing is, it’s not the greatest sword and fantasy movie ever made. Hell, it’s not even in the second tier. (Maybe not even the third!) But I cannot say it’s not watchable. For all it’s stupidity, it’s a highly entertaining piece of crap. (Especially if you got some friends around.) There’s lots of weird stuff going on, and despite the constant nudity going on… Other than a drowning scene, which was just thrown in there to show how evil bad guy #2 is, it’s actually a quite harmless, like the Deathstalker movies. They’re silly and only offensive to people with a stick up their bum.

Join me next time, as I switch the topics up a bit and talk about some anime.

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Leviathan

July 11th, 2011 | by Dave Reynolds
Posted In: News

I figured while we’re waiting for the comic to continue, I’d continue my run of “Stupid Awesome” movie reviews. Now remember… These movies are by default “stupid” but they’re watchably awesome in thier stupidity.

I’ve been critical of James Cameron in the past, to the point that I’m sure many of you probably think I hate his movies. Well, I’m not fond of a lot of them, but his undersea documentaries I think are utterly beautiful, and I consider his 1989 movie ‘The Abyss’ his best movie. I really love it. Now what’s interesting is that in ‘89, the Abyss was not the first, but the SIXTH film in a slew of movies with the premise “Help, I’m trapped underwater and there’s a monster down here with me!” Cameron’s just happens to be the best of them. The others are honestly subpar. ‘DeepStar Six’ had laughably bad special effects, I don’t even remember ‘Lords of the Deep’ and the others I had to check Wikipedia to get the names. But there’s one that stands above those others that truly earns the title… Stupid-Awesome. Ladies and Gentlemen… ‘Leviathan’!

Okay, right of the bat, this movie is one of many rip-offs of Alien. You know the set up. Future setting, seven member crew (five men, two women), a shifty doctor with a questionable past, a corporate guy who’s heart’s in the right place, big cool black guy, ect. They get a call to check out an abandoned derelict on behalf of the company, and end up bringing a monster on board, which proceeds to kill everyone, one by one, until it’s down to one or two people. The monster is a genetic alteration, which after it kills people, it absorbs their memories, so it’s kind of like ‘John Carpenter’s The Thing’ as well. It’s very formulaic in it’s construction. You know who dies and in what order they’re going to die in. It holds no real surprises. You know the alcoholic’s gonna buy it first, and then the doctor’s gonna do something that’ll make escape impossible, and the cool black guy sacrifices his life to save the others, and he’s usually near the last to die. The corporation is ‘eeeeeevil’ and wants to doom them all. By the way, as an aside, how overdone is the evil corporation shtick? How exactly do you package and market evil? “Oooooooh! Big Guns and Big Pharmaceuticals are bad, man!” Because you know, soldiers can use harsh language and antibiotics are bad for you. Just once, for a change of pace, I’d love to see the evil corporation be a major manufacturer of wind turbines or hydroponic wheatgrass. I will give this movie credit though, in that the company didn’t want to retrieve the monster for some ‘bio-weapons’ division. They just wanted it to be destroyed. (They were just willing to sacrifice the crew to do it.)

"We need Thunder Megazord power!"

But here’s the two things that makes Leviathan stand out from the others. It’s production values are pretty decent. Nothing ever really looks like a model or a cheap rubber suit. (With heavy exception of when you finally see the monster at the end. You’re kind of laughing, because you’ve seen more convincing Power Ranger monsters.) And the other is who they got to star in this movie. We have Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, Daniel Stern, Meg Foster (and her cool eyes), and Winston Zeddemore himself, Ernie Hudson! Holy crap, how have more people not heard of this movie! That’s almost a geek battalion right the hell there! We also have Amanda Pays, who played Tina McGee on the old Flash TV show. Her British accent’s so freakin’ hot, the movie could just be an hour and a half of her reading a phone book, and I’d be content. (I could go off for a long period of time about how hot she is, but this would really quickly go from being pathetic to just plain creepy.) Generally the characters are well likable enough, especially Ernie Hudson’s character. However, Meg Foster’s character, as the company spokeswoman is so obviously evil. She’s like secreting underhandedness. It’s almost on a smarmy Doctor Doom level.

"Ah, if there's a steady paycheck involved, I'll believe anything you say."

Okay granted, Leviathan is not high art. It’s formulaic. There’s built in cap to how good it can actually be. If they had actually broken away from the formula, it might have really been a good film. Simple little things, like had Meg Foster’s character not been a “heartless corporate shill” or if Ernie Hudson’s character could have survived and not die, as per the “black guy always buys it” trope. (Seriously, he’s the coolest character in this movie. But that’s probably because Ernie Hudson may be the coolest person period.) It would not have changed the context or direction of the story. In fact, it might have been somewhat revolutionary for it’s time. But unfortunately, it follows that formula to a tee, and I think it suffers for it too.

But as it is, it’s stupid but kind of fun. I don’t know if I can call it awesome, but I can’t exactly say it’s bad either. It’s a Diet Alien. It’s made with aspartame, so it’s like the original, but tastes kind of funny and not all that filling. But at like just over 90 minutes, it a decent rip-off. Which is more than I can say for the majority of the sequels to Alien. Next time, I’ll go into a wonderful piece of crap barbarian movie, starring Caine from Kung Fu, and not much else.

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