Here’s another Al Adamson flick I already reviewed eons ago. I think this one was a bit rougher on me than the first time I watched it. (I had to tap out about halfway through and finish it the next day.) As with all these critical reassessments, my original review can be found immediately following this new write-up:
Again, we see there is no trend that Al Adamson was not willing to ride. Bill Osco’s XXX fairy tale musical Alice in Wonderland was a hit, so Adamson made his own singing storybook skin flick. Flesh Gordon was also a big moneymaker at the time, so he added a sci-fi slant by adding a futuristic setting where sex is outlawed. The two ideas never full gel, and the musical numbers are mostly a washout, but it has its moments.
The biggest drawback is the length. Did a forgettable, cheesy sci-fi fairy tale softcore musical really need to be 103 goddamned minutes? Even if you pulled an I’ll Do Anything on it and cut out all the musical numbers, it probably still would’ve been too damned long.
Like most of Adamson’s work, he seems to be wedging two separate ideas or narratives into one movie in order to get the finished product to a certain running time. The scenes of robots enforcing the futuristic “No Sex” laws probably work better than Cinderella shit, if we’re being honest. I’m not saying we needed a softcore version of Brave New World or anything, but it is (marginally) more successful.
The music is also a big bust. The only remotely memorable number is the one where the annoying robot sings a love song and then does a choreographed dance routine with a bunch of back-up dancers in futuristic garb. Other than that, you could probably get up and make a sandwich, fold clothes, or take a shit while the songs are playing, and you wouldn’t miss much.
The best scene of the movie doesn’t
even have anything to do with the rest of the plot. Of course, I’m referring to the Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs gangbang. Even
then, Adamson kind of holds back, but when the rest of the film is so spotty, sloppy,
and slipshod, I guess you can forgive it if this scene (no pun intended) comes
up a little bit short.
ARCHIVE REVIEW: CINDERELLA 2000 (1977) * ½ (ORIGINALLY POSTED: FEBRUARY 20TH, 2008)
Al (Nurse Sherri) Adamson was responsible for this softcore sex/comedy/sci-fi/musical (very) loosely based on the timeless fairy tale.
In the future, sex is forbidden. (If you fuck, an annoying robot barges into your bedroom and shouts “Fornication!”) Violators get bubble wrapped and turned into Barbie dolls.
A cute girl named Cindy (Catherine Erhardt) is forced to be a slave for her overbearing stepmother and her two irritating stepsisters. On a rare day off, Cindy heads out into the woods and sings a song wishing she was like Cinderella and wouldn’t ya know it, her “fairy” (get it?) godfather beams down to help her out. He shows her what “love” is by turning two rabbits into people in bunny costumes who dry hump each other.
Meanwhile Tom “Prince” (get it?) the most virile man in the galaxy wants to step down as the planetary stud, so the dictator decides to throw a masquerade “Ball” (get it?) for him to find a perfect mate. Predictably, the fairy godfather makes Cindy look beautiful and after her and Tom fuck they bring sexual freedom to the galaxy.
This movie is a fucking mess.
Even though the movie is ostensibly a sci-fi sex version of Cinderella, the main thrust (no pun intended) of the story revolves around robots arresting people for having sex. All the Cinderella stuff seems like a mere afterthought. The idea of a sexy futuristic Cinderella isn’t necessarily a bad one, but Adamson handles most of Cindy’s scenes incompetently. (Even by Adamson’s usually low standards.) In fact, Cindy herself is largely absent for most of the movie. The problem is that the scenes of sexual outlaws boning on Star Trek inspired sets getting interrupted by robots are a lot funnier than anything remotely associated with the more “traditional” fairy tale aspects of the movie. I know this was made on the quick to cash in on the softcore hit Alice in Wonderland, but had Adamson dropped the whole storybook subplot and focused solely on the sex starved denizens of the future, this movie might have worked.
There IS one priceless scene where Snow White gets gangbanged by the seven dwarfs (one of whom is Angelo Rossitto) but it has NOTHING to do with the rest of the movie.
The musical numbers are surprisingly not bad and the swinging title theme is pretty great. Erhardt is quite fetching in the title role, but unfortunately, she isn’t given a whole lot to do and her character is strangely MIA for most of the movie. There’s lots of softcore '70s sex (including the obligatory lesbian scene) and what they lack in titillation, they make up for in sheer volume. The “intentional” attempts at humor aren’t very funny, but some laughs can be had from the awful costumes and silly looking robots.
The movie is a confounding as all get out and isn’t erotic in the least, but then again, if you ever wanted to see a robot sing a country and western song, this movie is for you.
A wicked stepsister gets the best line when she says, “Christ, I gotta douche!”
AKA: Future Sex.
No comments:
Post a Comment