Monday, July 9, 2018

TRANCERS 5: SUDDEN DETH (1994) **


If you don’t count the long-winded recap of Trancers 4, or the opening and end credits, Trancers 5:  Sudden Deth only clocks in at about hour.  It feels much longer though.  There’s nothing sudden about this Deth.

Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is still trapped in another dimension, one that resembles our Medieval times.  This time out, he must go and retrieve the magical “Tiamond” the only thing that has the power to send him back to his own time.  Naturally, he must go to the “Castle of Unrelenting Terror” to find it.

The opening prologue is dull and gets the movie off to a rocky start.  It’s also plagued with wonky plot devices (the bad guy is resurrected out of a painting), cheap effects, and too many supporting characters that get in the way of Tim Thomerson doing his thing.  The Army of Darkness influence, which was hinted at in Part 4, is really prevalent in this installment.  Jack goes on a quest to find the only thing that can bring him back home, speaks present-day (or in his case, futuristic) slang to tell off an adversary, and faces off against an evil version of himself.  Thomerson does what he can, but other than seeing Deth ride a horse, there’s not a whole lot new for him to do.  

I know this was filmed back-to-back with 4, but there was barely enough worthwhile material here for one movie, let alone two.  Like all the films in the series, Trancers 5 has its moments (as when Deth inexplicably finds himself surrounded by beautiful women).  These fleeting bits of amusement aside, it’s definitely on the lower end of the Trancers scale.  

AKA:  Future Cop 5:  Sudden Deth.

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