Puppet
Master: Axis Termination is the eleventh
entry in the long-running franchise and the final installment in the “Axis Trilogy". Our heroes from Axis Rising
show up once again, only to be immediately killed off one minute into the
movie. An American soldier (Paul Logan,
a veteran of many Jim Wynorski films) just happens along long enough to take
ownership of the puppets. He later is teamed
up with a dwarf scientist (George Appleby) to use the puppets as part of a
magic squad to fight the Nazis.
Naturally, the Nazis have their own puppets who are now in the care of a
sexy scientist (Tanya Kay) who controls them using mental telepathy.
Axis
Termination is once again directed by Charles Band. Even though it’s pretty much a stinker
through and through, I have to give him credit for trying to give this one a
unique look. He does overboard with the
multi-colored gels though. The emphasis
on psychics, telekinesis, telepathy, and “sexual magic” gives it a different
flavor than the last few entries too.
I’m not saying it’s in any way remotely successful or anything (the
magic power battles are goofy), but at least this wasn’t a case of churning out
the same old shit.
There’s
also more gore than the previous installments, although some of the CGI blood
is painfully phony looking. We also get
a cool character who ripped her gimmick off from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. The problem is that the pacing is almost
non-existent. The scenes of people
sitting around talking endlessly about making plans instead of you know,
following through with them go on and on without mercy. In fact, any scene without the puppets is extremely
slow-going, which is to say, it’s just like any other Puppet Master movie.
The
puppets themselves are a bit livelier this time out as they are sometimes
portrayed by actors performing in front of a greenscreen. However, there isn’t nearly enough puppet
action in this one to make it worthwhile, and the action we do get is mostly
reserved for the last ten minutes of the movie.
I can’t guarantee you’ll stick around that long.
David
DeCoteau, who directed the third, sixth, seventh, and ninth installments in the
franchise, appears briefly as a “Flamboyant Nazi”.
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