COP CAR (2015) **

I was a huge fan of Jon Watts' Clown and Spider-Man:  Homecoming.  Because of that, I was excited to see this flick, which he made sandwiched in between the two.  Even with the presence of the always entertaining Kevin Bacon at the wheel (so to speak), Cop Car left me cold.  It's not bad or anything, it's just that there’s not a whole lot to it.

Two runaway kids (James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford) stumble upon an abandoned cop car and decide to take it for a joyride.  Minutes later, its owner, a dirty cop (played by Bacon) comes back and finds it missing.  He then takes off in hot pursuit of the kids. 

Part of the problem is that the kids aren't that likeable.  When we first meet them, they are literally trying to say every curse word they can think of, which doesn’t quite endear them to the audience.  It also doesn’t help that neither Freedson-Jackson nor Wellford are strong enough performers to really get you to care about them.  A lot of that has to do with the script, which doesn’t do a whole lot to flesh their characters out.

Bacon is incapable of giving a bad performance, but he never ratchets up the menace.  Like the kids, his character is underwritten, and he seems more like a plot device than a flesh and blood human being.  Perhaps if he tweaked his persona a bit more and made the cop truly scuzzy, it would've upped the suspense.

Another problem is the story itself is pretty flimsy.  It almost feels like a short film that’s been indifferently padded out to get to an eighty-seven-minute running time.  Even with a relatively short length, it feels much longer.  

If I had to pick a section that worked the best, it would be the middle sequence where Bacon discovers the car has been stolen.  Once the kids find what's inside the trunk, the movie sort of flatlined for me.  The finale is lackluster too.  Ultimately, Cop Car spins its wheels for far too long before finally running out of gas. 

SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU (1978) ***

Bruce Li stops some goons from beating up a black coworker.  He kicks their ass in short order, but he winds up losing his job as a consequence.  Bruce then tries his hand at prize fighting as he strives to be the next Bruce Lee.  The goons then kill his girlfriend and beat him within an inch of his life.  Bruce bounces back and perfects an "Iron Finger" technique to take them down.

Soul Brothers of Kung Fu (there’s only one soul brother, but never mind) is a fast moving and action-packed slice of chopsocky.  It’s anchored by a strong performance by Li, who carries the movie effortlessly, often beating the crap out of somebody without even cracking a sweat.  The endless array of fight scenes come at you fast and furious as Bruce mops the floor with someone every five minutes or so.  Because of that, it’s highly entertaining.

Like Li’s best stuff, there's some oddball moments along the way that help separate Soul Brothers of Kung Fu from your typical Kung Fu flick.  The funniest part is the training sequence where Bruce uses a state-of-the-art mannequin as a punching bag.  This punching bag is something else.  It comes complete with a set of glowing balls when Bruce hits it below the belt!  Even with the hilarious moments peppered throughout the film, the finale, where Bruce finds out his “soul brother” has been killed, is oddly affecting.

It’s a hooker though who gets the best line when she tells the villain, "Your bedroom Kung Fu is better than [Bruce’s]."

AKA:  Kung Fu Avengers.  AKA:  The Last Strike.  AKA:  Going the Distance.

PLASTIC GALAXY: THE STORY OF STAR WARS TOYS (2014) ***

My family and I have been eating up The Toys That Made Us on Netflix.  After watching the entire first season, we’ve been jonesing for more documentaries about toys from the ‘70s and ‘80s.  Plastic Galaxy:  The Story of Star Wars Toys helped to scratch that itch for a little more than an hour or so.

If you’ve seen the episode of The Toys That Made Us on Star Wars toys, a lot of the information will be familiar to you.  It follows the rise of Kenner, a small toy company in Ohio that became an overnight sensation when they created toys for Star Wars.  Since they didn’t have the toys ready for Christmas (the deal wasn’t inked until two months before the movie came out), they had to gamble on an “Early Bird” special, which essentially sold consumers an empty box, along with the promise of actual toys in the months to come.  Well, the gamble paid off and Kenner became a powerhouse in the industry for the next decade.

Even though the episode of The Toys That Made Us was shorter than this, it feels like they did a better job at telling the ins and outs of the company, the various production lines, and how the toys continued to evolve to this day.  That might be because of Plastic Galaxy’s tendency to feature fans who are only too eager to show off their toy collection.  As a collector myself, I enjoyed seeing all the cool toys (especially the old displays from the toy stores), but they ultimately get in the way of Kenner’s narrative.

That’s a minor qualm, really.  There’s still plenty of cool figures and neat info here, even if a lot of it was regurgitated on The Toys That Made Us.  The sixty-seven-minute running time flies by, and the short and sweet approach is appreciated in the long run.  Any Star Wars collector worth their salt will want to check it out.

FLESH AND BULLETS (1985) ***

Flesh and Bullets was made by former pornographers and it shows.  The production is often cheap looking, the performances are uneven, and the music is funky.  That is to say, I had a pretty good time with it.

It’s basically Strangers on a Train, with healthy doses of sex.  Two divorced men meet in a casino bar (maybe it should’ve been called Strangers in a Casino) and commiserate with their shared experiences of being constantly hassled by their ex-wives for alimony.  They decide they should kill each other’s wife, that way there will be no suspicion cast upon them.  Complications ensue when they wind up hopping into bed (and consequentially falling in love) with the other man’s wife.

The set-up is briskly handled, and the unorthodox method of having multiple narrators, constant flashbacks, and unusual subplots (like the bank robbery opening) prevent things from becoming dull.  Of course, you could always call the narrative “clumsy” and/or “slipshod”, but when it winds up working despite itself, I like to call it “unorthodox”.  

I also got a kick out of seeing the guest stars Yvonne DeCarlo, Caesar Romero, Aldo Ray, and Cornel Wilde looking totally out of place.  I bet they filmed their scenes while on a coffee break from another movie.  DeCarlo and Romero are literally in it for a minute and I swear they shared the same costume.  (They both play judges.)  Ray and Wilde are in just two scenes, but their characters have no bearing on the plot, so it feels like they were only there for marquee value and to pad out the running time.

Robert Z’Dar shows up late in the game as a jealous boyfriend of one of the ex-wives.  It’s far and away the best performance of the movie.  You can also have fun spotting porn stars Sharon Kelly, Mai Lin (as a hooker who is so horny she gives it away for free), and William Margold turning up in small roles. 

AKA:  The Wife Contract.

HUNT FOR THE GOLDEN SCORPION (1991) * ½

An explorer (David Brandon) is almost assassinated in the Amazon jungle while looking for a valuable golden scorpion.  He gets word to his sister Mary (Christine Leigh) that he’s alright, and she heads on over to the jungle to find him.  Naturally, the bad guys immediately come after her, hoping she’ll lead them right to her brother.  She teams up with a rugged adventurer (Andy J. Forest) who agrees to help find her brother.

Hunt for the Golden Scorpion was director Umberto (Nightmare City) Lenzi’s next-to-last movie.  It’s a dull and lifeless jungle adventure that features none of the hallmarks of Lenzi’s best stuff.  A lot of the problem has to do with his listless handling of the dialogue scenes, all of which seem to drone on endlessly.  As you can probably imagine, all of this is about as much fun as an actual trek through the Amazon jungle. 

Halfway though, the film takes an odd turn and goes from being a jungle film to an all-out low-rent Exploding Hut action flick.  Lots of stuff goes boom in this section of the movie (which prevents it from being a total waste of time), but none of it is choreographed very well.  (At least the sound of gunfire and explosions will keep you from falling asleep.)  Had Lenzi upped the sleaze quotient a bit in this sequence, all of this might’ve been tolerable.  

Another debit is the cast of non-stars.  While they hit their marks and recite their lines without stumbling over them, none of them exude an iota of screen presence, chemistry, or charm.  Leigh is cute and all, but she’s no Bo Derek or anything.  

Some of the inane dialogue is good for a laugh.  I admit I chuckled when a reporter asked a noted explorer, “Do you do the Lambada?”, a reference that was already dated by the time this was released.  The best line of the movie comes when the base is under siege.  The villain calls the guard station and asks what’s going on.  Forest answers, “Nothing sir.  The men are just watching Rambo 3!"

WAR GODS OF BABYLON (1962) ***

King Sardanapalo (Howard Duff) conquers the city of Babylon and puts his baby-faced kid brother Shammash (Luciano Marin) in charge.  Mirra (Jocelyn Lane), a beautiful survivor of a nearby raid, is chosen to be Sammash’s servant girl and he falls madly in love with her.  However, she has eyes for his brother, which sparks a feud between them.

Jocelyn Lane is great in this movie.  With her long flowing crimson hair and pouty lips, she is reminiscent of Bardot, but has her own unique brand of sex appeal about her.  If it wasn’t for her beauty (not to mention her solid performance), the tension between the brothers would’ve been kind of blah.  Because she’s so gorgeous, you can see why two guys (brothers at that) would go to war over her.  The love triangle is surprisingly effective (each of her suitors are equally worthy of her affections), which gives the film a dramatic center that most Italian peplum lack.

Likewise, the crisp direction by Silvio (Amuck) Amadio helps prevent War Gods of Babylon from becoming a standard-issue sword and sandal flick.  The scale is larger than your average Hercules movie and the sets and costumes look great.  Amadio does an especially good job on the finale when Duff draws the wrath of the gods, who flood the city.  The effects in this sequence are better than expected.  Sometimes the scale of the water crashing down on the walls of the castle is a little off, but the shots of people drowning in their own beds are startlingly effective. 

The most memorable scene though is when the two brothers go on a lion hunt.  The part where the lion attacks them is hilarious.  It’s obviously just a guy in a dime store lion suit.  Later, when they bring the carcass home, it’s the same suit, just with no one in it.

Silly lion effects aside, the severed heads are well done (for the time, that is).  We also get an arrow to the eye and a gnarly death involving some spikes.  These little bits of gruesome business weren’t necessary, but they help make War Gods of Babylon a better than average toga-fest.

AKA:  Apocalypse Over Babylon.  AKA:  7th Thunderbolt.

ENTER THE PANTHER (1982) **

A drunk strikes it rich when he discovers gold in his mine.  Some evildoers get wind of this and murder him.  Then, they try to trick his daughter into signing over the deed to the mine.  Luckily for her, Bruce Li is there to fight off the bad guys and protect her family’s share of the gold.

Enter the Panther is your typical chopsocky affair for the most part.  The dubbing, cropping, and sound effects are all out of whack, although not to the point where it becomes humorous (which is a shame).  Bruce does what he can, but he’s stuck playing a cookie-cutter hero type role in a thoroughly ho-hum actioner.  There’s a subplot where he is tempted by the charms of the slutty bad girl who is in cahoots with the villain, but he of course leaves her in favor of the old drunk’s virginal daughter.  Had Li fallen for the charms of the trollop, it would’ve at least made for an interesting dynamic. 

The ending is novel though.  During the finale, Li must fight off the bad guy’s henchman in a cemetery to buy time for the town officials to exhume the body of the old drunk.  While he’s keeping them busy, the doctor performs an autopsy on the body to confirm if he was poisoned or not.  You certainly don't see that every day.  However, the action itself is nothing to write home about, and the rest of the film is sorely lacking the energy of the final reel.

AKA:  Conspiracy.